Dowment

Dowment denotes the wealth and property attached to a mathic lineage. In usage it refers both to the accumulated estate and, by extension, to the named site tied to a particular lineage’s holdings, as in Shuf’s Dowment.

First Appearance and Context

• Discussed in definitions of Lineages as the wealth they gathered beyond basic personal allotments (bolt, chord, and sphere), passed to a chosen heir at death. Tales of large dowments helped fuel the “Baud Iconography,” which imagines avout luxuriating on hidden riches.
• An illustrative example is the site called Shuf’s Dowment, whose substructures were expanded over generations as its lineage sought places to store valuables.

Historical Notes

• Lineages—and with them, the practice of maintaining dowments—were eliminated in reforms following the Third Sack. Surviving dowment sites may persist as ruins or repurposed spaces.

Roles, Rumors, and Present Use

• The reputation of dowments has influenced how outsiders and some avout speak about wealth, contributing to the Baudan Iconography that casts avout as well‑heeled cynics.
• At Shuf’s site, later generations left a maze of cellars associated with the lineage’s reputed hoard; in the present period, members of the Reformed Old Faanians quietly use the above‑ground structure as a retreat. Explorations of the sub‑cellars have found no treasure—only cramped, dirt‑reclaimed spaces and old graffiti.

Characteristics

• A dowment could include buildings, vaults, heirlooms, and other property beyond what avout were permitted to hold personally. Estates were transmitted within the lineage from holder to heir at the moment of death.

Current Status

• As a formal institution, dowments no longer exist. The term is mostly historical, while the names of particular sites (such as Shuf’s Dowment) persist in common reference.