avout

Definition

Avout are members of the mathic world who reside within a Math under the Cartasian Discipline. Their life centers on study, liturgy, and work inside the walls; contact with the outside is carefully bounded.

Context and Usage

• Contact cycles: Formal contact with the outside world occurs during Apert, when gates open under rules set by the Discipline. Outside authorities cannot enter the math except at this time.
• Legal status: Avout are described as existing wholly apart from the legal system of the Saecular Power. They are not recorded in that system, are outside its jurisdiction and benefits, and do not receive identity documents. As a practical consequence, crossing political frontiers that require documents can be difficult or impossible for avout.
• Travel abroad: When sanctioned, avout may go extramuros under Peregrin or as part of a formal Voco. Groups often travel together to preserve the spirit of the Discipline while outside. In speech, avout commonly address one another with honorifics such as “fraa” and “suur.”
• Collective reference and recognition: Extras use "avout" both collectively and for individuals. A magister in a Kelx service speaks of “the avout in their concents,” and a lay passenger on a coastal vessel asks whether a traveler is “one of the avout,” treating a meeting as an honor.

Related Terms

• Math; Cartasian Discipline; Apert; Saecular Power; Ita; Peregrin.

Notes

• Personal kit and property limits: Speakers describe an ancient prohibition that limits avout to owning only three personal tools—“the bolt, the chord, and the sphere.” These are used ingeniously for daily life and problem‑solving.
• Bolt and chord: Made of related fibers that can coil into springy, short forms or relax into long, inelastic strands. Avout adjust them seasonally (warmth vs. length) and employ them for rigging, binding, and mechanical advantage (named tricks include “Saunt Ablavan’s Ratchet,” “Ramgad’s Contraption,” and “the Lazy Fraa”).
• Sphere: A porous, pump‑membrane that can be compacted into a hard pill or softened and expanded like a self‑inflating balloon. In practice it can wedge in confined spaces, serve as an air‑bed, or act as a movable anchor when combined with the bolt and chord.
• Observed speech habit: One avout narrator remarks on a “compulsion to state facts,” offered as a cultural self‑observation rather than a formal rule.
• Honorifics and veneration: Common forms of address include “fraa” and “suur”; “Saunt” is used in names of revered figures and survives in the titles of well‑known tricks.
• Comfort with hypothetical reasoning: An avout narrator notes that they are used to being presented with outlandish cosmographical hypotheses and, in theorics, assume them provisionally to see where they lead.