Systems

Every entry currently tracked for this category.

Entry	Appears in	Notes
Admonitory Debrief	House of Open Wounds ch 37	a qualification and practice of Correct Speech involving interrogation and torture (needles, wires, vices); Inquirers are required to maintain currency in it
Alborandi mystery	Days of Shattered Fait ch 15	the principle that those who don the Alborandi mask are unmade; their former selves, debts, and identities are entirely erased-"Where does the knot go, when the string is pulled loose? Where the song, when the singer falls silent? Not even the ghost of it remains."
alchemy	House of Open Wounds ch 32	considered superstition and demi-magic, rejected by the Schools; Ollery's treatise made it rationally acceptable; Ollery wields it as a weapon (the poisoned dinner)
Alkhalend two-tier prisoner system	Days of Shattered Fait ch 4	lesser officials hold prisoners in private cellars pending a decision "from on high"; the seriously guilty go to the House of Hard Angles; there are no watch houses because the Tesemer guard the streets but cannot be trusted with prisoners
Alv's exercises	House of Open Wounds ch 3	small, controlled passes performed in the space of a broom closet, every muscle under strict mental control, no reliance on instinct or body memory
balance	House of Open Wounds ch 11
Basic Arcane	Pretenders to the Thro ch 11	the training course both Dantell and Quellery completed; Dantell invokes it to argue Quellery must handle artillery targeting, not just demons
baton drill	House of Open Wounds ch 36	referenced as "the proper sequence of parade-ground baton drill," part of the military discipline Lidlet likens to religious rules
baton dueling	Days of Shattered Fait ch 2	"the new way the locals like"; two people at range with levelled rods "gabbling out the command words to punch holes in one another"; considered "too civilized" by Gil
binding writ of good faith	Pretenders to the Thro ch 14	an Allorwen conjurer-tradition contract, enforceable within its stated walls by demon power; creates an "enforceable truce" for negotiation; previously used by Allorwen conjurer-lords
Charter of Correct Conduct	City of Last Chances ch 37	legal code governing parlay rules; Vorkovin cites specific paragraphs and appendix sections of it
Charter of Correct Thought	City of Last Chances ch 37	legal code the Pal officer reads from to declare the students in breach; invoked throughout the ultimatum
circle house conjuration	House of Open Wounds ch 9	Banned under Pal rationality but practised openly when expedient; the Statlos is disgusted to find Jack in a brothel associated with it
clavamachy	Lives of Bitter Rain ch 8	the men's half of Usmai's ancient duelling tradition, fought with the clavar
conditional healing	House of Open Wounds ch 18	the mechanism by which Maric Jack's healing operates: it restores health but reverses instantly if the healed person raises a hand against another; not a "curse" by Jack's insistence but "the way it is"; intent is the determining factor
conjuration	Lives of Bitter Rain ch 6; Pretenders to the Thro ch 32	the application of demons to industrial and military use; Professor-Invigilator Flockersly severed it from "superstition and ritual" and brought it into Correct Appreciation's remit
Conjuration of demons	City of Last Chances ch 9	the "vile trade" Guame practises; the Pals consider it a "primitive Allorwen" corruption; Guame calls up "beasts of alluring guise" for clients
contract-based conjuration	House of Open Wounds ch 25	the Allorwen method of binding demons through individually negotiated contracts and clauses; "conjuration is compulsion"; the contract itself is payment, giving the demon "strength" and "essential thingness" usable as infernal currency; careless drafting invites retribution or frolics
Correct Scholarship	City of Last Chances ch 5	awards and badges of rank worn on a sash by prominent members of the Occupation Perfecture.
Culvern's curse	City of Last Chances ch 40	a wasting affliction on Culvern that makes his skin corrupt, his pores ooze, and his body stink so foully that his staff's robes must be burned weekly; its origin is unknown; "cruel ideas" now arise naturally in his brain
decaning techniques	Lives of Bitter Rain ch 5	Bracite methods of producing raw magic; "Correct Erudition is still learning from" them
decanting	City of Last Chances ch 2-23; House of Open Wounds ch 7-44; Days of Shattered Fait ch 6-41; Pretenders to the Thro ch 4-7	the Palleseen practice of extracting magical power from captured magicians ("magicians ripe for interrogation or decanting")
demon contracts	City of Last Chances ch 22; Days of Shattered Fait ch 42; Pretenders to the Thro ch 24	the binding mechanism by which a demonist compels a demon; a short contract is more dangerous than a long one; the contract is "the thin end of the lash" and "the handle" is how the contract-maker holds power; a demon can write and activate a contract itself
demon-contract magic	Lives of Bitter Rain ch 4	the Allorwen practice of binding entities from the Realms Below through legal-style contracts with "eleven pages of subclauses, provisos and small print"; no blood sacrifice required; the contract alone is the binding; there are pro forma templates
Divinati balance	House of Open Wounds ch 39	Alv's cosmology: every taking of an ill or debt creates an imbalance that must be repaid; "Imbalance, that was the killer, the worst sin in the world"
Divinati magic	House of Open Wounds ch 4	a healing discipline in which the healer absorbs the patient's injury onto their own body, visibly burning and disfiguring themselves
Divinati sympathetic magic	House of Open Wounds ch 46	a discipline in which wounds are thrown via a tableth-socketed rod or self-inflicted injury; the Divinati philosophy is to be "the still centre of everything," absorbing and reflecting wounds without exporting them
final appendix paragraph nine	City of Last Chances ch 43	a clause Aullaime was taught to embed in every contract she negotiated: if a party's own agents are prevented from fulfilling their responsibilities, the negotiator may replace or vary terms at her absolute discretion
Forbiddance	City of Last Chances ch 31	a type of magic Hellgram draws as a "wire-sharp sigil" that "glimmered, silver-green"; repels Fleance temporarily; described as "not of the Wood, nor of here, nor anywhere"
Gaeledh	Pretenders to the Thro ch 9-41
ghost-chain deployment	House of Open Wounds ch 27	a military doctrine in which ghosts are sealed in copper jars, thrown by a squad-portable trebuchet-style launcher behind enemy lines, and leap host-to-host draining each living body's life essence to fuel the next leap; Prassel identifies "problem nodes" and Killingly confirms the chaining mechanic
ghost-launcher operation	House of Open Wounds ch 41	necromantic barrage of possessed ghosts; requires coppers, tablethi, protective wards; "troops held in case of need" as ammunition source
ghost-mills	Days of Shattered Fait ch 44	Drathel's speculative idea for a new Decanter direction: mass-processing ephemeral remains to harvest tiny wisps of power, which she judges "vastly inefficient"
God's healing strictures	City of Last Chances ch 19	God heals only the faithful who live by His rules: no harm, no violence, a life devoted only to peace and the betterment of others; "Rules and axioms... were what wove gods from the cosmos. Cut through them and they sprang back into nothing." Approximately thirty thousand words of theology wrap the kernel.
God's selective healing	House of Open Wounds ch 30	God heals some people (Jack, Lidlet) but explicitly refuses Banders, with no stated reason
identic bleeding	Pretenders to the Thro ch 23	the process by which centuries of storage eroded individual identities within the Dead Companies, blurring distinct names into a handful of shared labels
illegal honour duels in Usmai	Days of Shattered Fait ch 2	duels against the Alkhand's pronouncements; illegal unless explicitly permitted; first-blood or surrender conventions for Usmiat participants, but foreigners fight "to the death" because they are "truly civilized"
industrial conjuring	City of Last Chances ch 43	the mass-contracting of demon labour for mill and factory machinery, replacing the old bespoke circlecraft; the new art "knew none of the old checks and balances of Allorwen custom"
Jack's bargain	House of Open Wounds ch 44	the arrangement by which Jack's healing (or Lidlet's healing of Cosserby) binds the healed person, marking them as taken from death and making them suspect in the purge
Lensing and thaumatic landscape calculations	Pretenders to the Thro ch 19	a technical discipline Aspel studies; she carries a "good authority" on the subject as armour against local magical threats
Literate Form	City of Last Chances ch 6	a Gownhall class conducted in Pel, "worthlessly formulaic," taught by a bored lecturer enforcing "Palleseen Correctness"
Loret's storm	Days of Shattered Fait ch 22	an unnamed power in Loret; described as "the thunder," "the lash of the storm that's in her"; a Louse Monk recognizes it as "a thing beyond all the mysteries of the Louse Monks"; she cannot afterward explain what she did
Loruthi Trade Missions	House of Open Wounds ch 20	a mercantile domination system: "used the milled edges of their coins to burrow into the hierarchies of whichever kingdom or despotate they decided was profitable," producing domination without uniformed soldiers
Lycanthropists	Pretenders to the Thro ch 19-35	a military discipline from which Istreddy was discharged; he retains visible dagger-tooth scars from his service
Lycanthropy	Pretenders to the Thro ch 12	Istreddy's second trade; he transforms into a lupine beast under stress, called back by someone speaking his name.
Maserley's contracts	House of Open Wounds ch 11	binding agreements for demons; a thousand close-written pages of conditions; still insufficient for complex tasks like targeted assassination
massed possession	House of Open Wounds ch 46	a necromantic bombardment technique: ghosts are sealed in copper canisters and fired at the enemy as directed ammunition; a "spear" of loyalist spectres guides the rest
minor correction	House of Open Wounds ch 6	military punishment administered by the Butcher in three grades (four, six, twelve lashes); the exact count must be verified by the Tally Officer
Moeribandi death cult theology	Days of Shattered Fait ch 5	the afterlife of the old Empire: the Favoured pass to a sterile paradise; the un-Favoured are reborn until they qualify; a few special dead remain in their bodies to teach; the whole world will end sterile and cold
necromancy	House of Open Wounds ch 1-2
old covenant	City of Last Chances ch 47
Pal characters	House of Open Wounds ch 14	a writing system inscribed inside Sonori casings; Cosserby is "inscribing" them as part of repairs
Pal surveillance of religious dissidents	City of Last Chances ch 19	the School of Correct Speech comes "trawling for religious dissidents"; whole departments of the Palleseen Sway are devoted to monitoring public bloodshed and crowd gathering
Pal-standard lights	Days of Shattered Fait ch 35	maritime light-codes exchanged between ship and shore at Alkhalend; running them identifies a Palleseen vessel and now compels swift berthing to avoid complaints.
Palleseen demonist contract law	Days of Shattered Fait ch 38	contracts are the "long spoon" by which demonists bind demons; a demon in the chain of command has no contractual restraint on harming humans below it, only the soldier's discipline
ritual duel	Pretenders to the Thro ch 26
Schools of Correct Thought	Pretenders to the Thro ch 11-35	the collective name for the five Palleseen governing Schools, each partitioning a sphere of governance.
Sign of the Forlorn Hope	House of Open Wounds ch 1
skiamachy	Lives of Bitter Rain ch 8-10	a martial practice at the Usmiat court; the Alkhand's daughter has taken up foreign street-fighting alongside it
soldiers' tricks of the Great War	City of Last Chances ch 42	the everyday craft of Hellgram's trench warfare: conjured swords and helms, pepped-box pistols, vials of decanted sleep, soul-bonds, possession grenades; "just a regular trench-digger's artifice"
Sonoristics	House of Open Wounds ch 14	the discipline of constructing and maintaining Sonori battle constructs; described as not yet fully freed from its Jarokiri religious origins; Cosserby hopes a future symposium will produce a "fully rational plan" for Pal-built constructs
Sorthist's wasps	Days of Shattered Fait ch 13	a supernatural attack that caused Oparan's blindness but "had not been able to touch the inner eye"
soul-linking	City of Last Chances ch 42	the military practice of Hellgram's people; two soldiers "linked soul to soul, two halves together"; the war made Hellgram into "a hilt" and his wife "his blade"
spent magic	House of Open Wounds ch 47	a scavenging pretext Thurrel uses as his cover story when asked where he goes; implies a regulated economy of magical residue the army collects
sympathetic magic	House of Open Wounds ch 1-45	Alv's discipline: the healer finds the "asymmetry of flow" in a patient, draws the injury or sickness into themselves, then dissipates it through exercises; transfer to a willing, trained "receptacle of harm" is possible, but passing harm to an unwilling or untrained subject violates the balance
sympathetic transfer	House of Open Wounds ch 39	the Pallessan tactical application of Divinati sympathetic healing: moving an injury from one body to another in a chain, intended to pass harm onto the enemy; Alv insists this is not her discipline
sympathetic wound-transfer chain	House of Open Wounds ch 41	Callow's technique: injuries surgically extracted from bound Accessories, passed along a human chain, projected toward a distant target via observation tower
the Allorwen conjuration tradition	Lives of Bitter Rain ch 5	bespoke negotiation between conjurer and demon; "a precisely tailored service. A tool for all tasks, if one has the will and the wit to achieve it"; Benallers' training
the Anchorwood as a thoroughfare between worlds	City of Last Chances ch 42	the forest crosses between realities; Hellgram's people "never guessed at the existence of the Anchorwood"; its borders can be sensed ("the differential of realities")
the ancient contracts of Allorwen	Pretenders to the Thro ch 34	bespoke, personal arrangements between conjurer and demon, negotiated wit against wit; contrasted with the Palleseen preference for "faceless hosts"
The Butcher's Ladder	House of Open Wounds ch 33	classification of injuries in ascending severity, from mundane physical to unnatural contagion; eight categories
the calendar reform	City of Last Chances ch 1	imposition of a seven-day week replacing the old twelveday; using the old calendar invites fines and arrest
the Chastising Fire	House of Open Wounds ch 24	Tallifer's curse invoked: "The Chastising Fire eat you from your guts out!"
the clan election system	Pretenders to the Thro ch 9	each clan in Eres Ffenegh elects a grandee by common vote ("coloured stones in the box"); grandees must keep their people fed and entertained to retain the position; an egalitarian structure from the city's founding, though kin-succession is common in practice
The compass	House of Open Wounds ch 17	star-shaped piste combat; fighters circle and launch exchanges only when aligned with an axis of the star, ritual combat "designed to be performed in the round"; three strikes to win
the Dead Eye	House of Open Wounds ch 2	a necromantic ability to see into the interstitial space between the material world and the Eroding Abyss where ghosts are caught; unlocks under "the lidless scrutiny" of proper mental exercises
the demon's knot	Pretenders to the Thro ch 18	the binding agreement sworn before the talks, with Hell as arbitrator, which compels all present to refrain from violence; Brandery's verbal "permission to strike" releases a party from it
the Duke's curse	City of Last Chances ch 13	a wasting affliction that rots the flesh and keeps the bearer alive beyond death; passed from the Old Duke to Culvern at the moment of execution; possibly sourced from an Allorwen witch, an ended noble line, or the Anchorwood/Indwellers; immune to Palleseen medicine, Correct Thought, and reportedly to Allorwen quacksalvers and Maric healers
The Eye's ward	Pretenders to the Thro ch 27	the Lighthouse is the crux of all the city's warding, "all that twisty way the air works"; the Eye can also be turned outward as a weapon against the Pal army
the fog-paths	City of Last Chances ch 25	the Indwellers' ability to walk through the fog into "other places" - buried halls, tombs, forgotten chambers, "the ghosts of forest groves long fallen to the axe"; places that exist only because "the fog remembered" them
the God contract	Pretenders to the Thro ch 29	a rumour from the war with the Loruthi: a soldier signs a paper, and if badly wounded, God heals them at a price; the Palleseen repurposed an "ignorant superstition" into something "reliable and useful"; signed in war camps, spread to the Archipelago
the House of Hard Angles' true purpose	Days of Shattered Fait ch 44-45	the building is not merely a prison but a ghost-collecting, power-harvesting system built by the Moeribandi Empire; its architecture funnels ghosts in and drains ambient magical energy to the crypt
the Indwellers' mist	City of Last Chances ch 20	a chill, damp, autumn-scented fog that rolls from the Anchorwood's trees toward the city, through which the Indwellers walk and which renders the Palleseen soldiers irrelevant; walls become "no more substantial than flattened-out creases"
the infernal contract system	City of Last Chances ch 16	demons are bound by contracts with the Kings Below; if a demon fails within its warranty, the Infernal Realms owe a replacement with penalties; wards are physical brands and runed irons; the Kings Below "hate paying additional charges"
The last argument of Alkhands	Days of Shattered Fait ch 15	the ogrodon charge, described as an argument that "would not stop for spearpoints or arrows or the walls of forts"
The Naming Bond	Pretenders to the Thro ch 39	the "absolute and indivisible link between the label and the thing it described" between conjurer and demon; the chapter's revelation is that this connection "extended both ways," that a demon can know a conjurer through their true name just as the conjurer knows the demon. "Only when the second name was set down did it become a binding agreement."
the Occupation	City of Last Chances ch 1-27	Palleseen rule over Ilmar; three years underway; locals recruited as collaborators in pale-grey uniforms; Correct Thought ideology
the Ordnances of Correct Appreciation	City of Last Chances ch 39	legal code of Correct Appreciation; volume seven, article eight hundred and forty-two second subsection forbids a second execution after a sentence has been carried out
the Palleseen education and assignment system	Lives of Bitter Rain ch 2	a prescribed curriculum (philosophy, history, science, mathematics, approved literature) in orphanages like Thorntree House, leading to assignment to one of the Schools at sixteen, then to a career posting
the Palleseen rank and department iconography	Lives of Bitter Rain ch 2	designed to be "instantly comprehensible, for both practical and ideological reasons"; shoulder markings encode rank, office, and department
The Palleseen Sway	Pretenders to the Thro ch 2-28	the sphere of Palleseen imperial control; Usmai is to be formally absorbed into it, accepting Palleseen law
the Palleseen treatment of priests	House of Open Wounds ch 3	the chapter enumerates the options: kill them, re-educate them, tolerate them while letting them "weave enough nooses for the whole congregation," or send them to a battalion for medical experimentation
the posthumous consecration ritual	Pretenders to the Thro ch 20	a vast Moeribandi rite that crowned a dead boy as King of Death, infusing him with the essence of a thousand ghosts; the only way the title can be held
the stone	Days of Shattered Fait ch 13	a spreading petrification disease in Oparan's lungs and blood; "little shards" of stone migrate through his body and will eventually tear his heart
the Successor States' succession	Lives of Bitter Rain ch 9	when there is one throne and multiple children, the daughter is married off, the warrior prince claims the crown, and the defeated rival brother is made into a skull
the Successor-State succession cycle	Lives of Bitter Rain ch 7-8	pattern in which a strong "Big Man" gains power, has too many heirs, and the succession collapses the state
the twelveday cycle	City of Last Chances ch 3	the recurring interval at which the Game is held
The two modes of the Occupation	City of Last Chances ch 28	Orvechin's formulation: under the Pals, pressure "would only get tighter or, at best, stop getting tighter for now"
the Vulture identity drill	City of Last Chances ch 34	Carelia's ritual of naming and rejecting the Shrike, Heron, and Raven to assert Vulture supremacy; no rehearsal, Evene must prompt the responses
The wall as one-use weapon	Pretenders to the Thro ch 41	the Gaelensreach is a Gaeledh construct that can only be brought down once; its animation is the "breath of Ffen" transmuted into will; "the last argument of the Os-Fferegh, which they've never deployed before because it's a trick you can only do once"
The Warden structure	Days of Shattered Fait ch 29	the necromantic architecture of the House of Hard Angles establishes a notional "head" to keep the imprisoned ghosts in line; the Warden is either a captured necromancer or a creature from the Waygrove, bound by wards that permit entry but not exit
the wedding	Days of Shattered Fait ch 40	Orhuhst's declaration that the Fisher King and the Shark Queen are one; "the oldest of old ways and the newest of new. Experimental theology." Proclaimed after the shark consumes the faith
the Wood's gates	City of Last Chances ch 6	the Anchorwood opens and closes its passage to the outside; the Indwellers "never came to Ilmar save when the moon was right"
tradecraft	Days of Shattered Fait ch 4	the skill of espionage, concealment, and improvisation under constraint; Gil uses it to hide a blade and cut her bonds
ward-work	Pretenders to the Thro ch 33	the military magical purpose of the sigil-net; Quellery calls it "some pretty punchy ward-work" and the chapter implies it involves the dead ("He had no brief for the dead, and if they were being played foul, well, that was the world")
Wards	Pretenders to the Thro ch 5	protective conjurations; drawn in charcoal on stone, sewn into clothing (three witch-hunters'-worth in Abellaime's garments), thrown in the air as finger-figures
barricading	City of Last Chances ch 32	the practice of throwing desks, chairs, cabinets, and furniture across streets to create cover and slow a charge; students and the Siblingries begin it around Gownhall Square
conjoined camp	House of Open Wounds ch 23	the arrangement by which Forthright Battalion and Landwards Battalion share a camp with no marked boundary, justified as preventing "unhealthy rivalries"
demon nature	Pretenders to the Thro ch 1	demons from Hell do not sleep; Ghastron "consented to lie in this bed" and do "a decent impression" of sleep but it is not native to him
disciplinary tribunals	House of Open Wounds ch 18	conducted by Inquirers like Sherm; the army's mechanism for handling misdemeanours; running "dawn til dusk" due to Uncle's alcohol ban
duel of words	Pretenders to the Thro ch 37	the form of challenge the woman's demon squire issues to the Lich Queen, in place of a physical duel; "Blood and strength do not tempt her"
exorcism working	Pretenders to the Thro ch 40	Dantell's field discipline; she cast "a much broader net" than the ward placement required
feral transition	House of Open Wounds ch 27	the state a ghost enters when it goes mad or loses its coherence after a containment failure; one of the causes of the five squad losses
first wave / second wave	House of Open Wounds ch 21	the assault structure; the first wave takes the initial fire; the second wave includes stretcher bearers, intelligencers, reinforcements, and patchers
leaking god-power in the ground and air at Eres Ffenegh	Pretenders to the Thro ch 23	the "leaking power of a dead god" infuses terrain and sky, making standard artillery aim unreliable; salvos curve into the sea or return to the gun
re-education	House of Open Wounds ch 20
sun lance	House of Open Wounds ch 33	an inherited promise/boast Varinecthes made centuries ago; now partially ineffective due to smoke obscuring targets
the binding ritual	Days of Shattered Fait ch 14	a Moerend ceremony that preserves a dead person's ghost inside their own skull, so that the ghost feels it still exists and remembers who it was; described as a very close cousin to the ritual used on demons, and identical to the one used to preserve the ghosts of poets and scholars for teaching
the mechanics of magic	Pretenders to the Thro ch 1	described through Varinecthes's experience: one must "corkscrew your mind through the various contortions any individual act of magic required," find where the power is, force it into the exact right shape "through those extra spaces and directions"; described as unnatural, like "trying to nail soup to the wall"
the storm	Days of Shattered Fait ch 22
the view through the drapes	Pretenders to the Thro ch 7	looking out from the Pandaemonium's private room reveals a landscape of red light, partial flame, pale things driven over parched plains, a bronze city on distant peaks, shrieks and screams; implies a window onto the Realms Below