The-tyrant-philosophers/Allorwen circlecraft
Allorwen circlecraft is the traditional practice of binding an infernal being into marriages and coming-of-age ceremonies, a custom so fundamental to the culture of Allor that no one married or came of age without it. Far from a folk ornament or idle superstition, the rite was understood as a familial inheritance-a gift passed between generations, a blessing laid upon the recipient's road. Its presence at the most intimate junctures of personal life placed circlecraft at the centre of Allorwen civic identity, a society whose reputation and self-understanding were rooted in a longstanding culture of bargaining with the infernal.
During the events of City of Last Chances, circlecraft survives only as an illicit remnant. The advent of industrial conjuring-driven by the demand for motive power in mills and factory lines-displaced the old one-to-one bindings between individual humans and individual demons with mass-scale infernal labour, governed by contracts between the Kings Below and industrial interests rather than by communal custom. The traditional practice did not vanish but was driven underground into the circle houses and other illegal trades, its cultural space colonised by a mode of conjuring that recognised none of the old checks and balances of Allorwen custom. The result is a society in which the ceremonial form once central to personal identity persists only in secret, while the public face of Allorwen power rests on an industrial conjuring that has reshaped the Infernal Realms themselves.
The Practice
What It Is
Circlecraft binds an infernal being into the ceremonies marking a person's marriage or coming of age. The binding is understood as a familial inheritance-"the gift your family gave you, the blessing on your road"-and operates under long-standing communal norms governing individual arrangements between a single human and a single demon (City of Last Chances, ch 43). These norms, referred to as "the old checks and balances of Allorwen custom," meant the ceremony was a negotiated, reciprocal relationship embedded in a web of communal expectation rather than a unilateral summoning (ch 43). The broader civic identity in which the rite sat was rooted in relations with "that otherworld ruled by cruel princes and monstrous denizens whose services can be bargained for," making the ceremonial bond with a single infernal being one thread in a much larger cultural tapestry of infernal commerce (ch 43).
Who Holds It
The practice belonged to the people of Allor as a whole; it was transmitted within families as an inheritance and observed at the communal level, making it simultaneously a private blessing and a public civic norm (City of Last Chances, ch 43). In the book's present, its practitioners have been pushed into the circle houses and other illegal trades, meaning the knowledge persists but is no longer transmitted through open civic channels (ch 43).
How It Is Regarded
Outsiders-specifically Marics and Palleseen-regarded Allor and its infernal customs with deep suspicion; to a Maric or Palleseen of a century ago, nothing good could come from that place (City of Last Chances, ch 43). Within Allor itself, the custom's cultural space has been effectively colonised by industrial conjuring, which "knew none of the old checks and balances of Allorwen custom" and displaced the ceremonial form into criminality (ch 43). The broader civic reputation of Allor as a place of infernal commerce reinforced outsider suspicion and made the suppression of traditional circlecraft less politically costly than it might otherwise have been (ch 43).
History
City of Last Chances
Allorwen circlecraft is the traditional practice of binding an infernal being into marriages and coming-of-age ceremonies, a custom so deeply woven into the culture of Allor that "one did not marry or come of age without the otherworldly being bound into the ceremony" - ch 43. The rite was understood not as a mere formality but as a familial inheritance: "the gift your family gave you, the blessing on your road" - ch 43. Its presence in the personal lives of ordinary citizens stood within a broader civic identity rooted in relations with the infernal, "that otherworld ruled by cruel princes and monstrous denizens whose services can be bargained for," a reputation that made Allor objects of suspicion to outsiders; "to a Maric or Palleseen of a century ago, nothing good could come from that place" - ch 43.
Traditional circlecraft operated under what the source text calls "the old checks and balances of Allorwen custom," individual arrangements between a single human and a single demon governed by long-standing communal norms - ch 43. This framework was displaced by the rise of industrial conjuring, an art driven by "the need of motive power for mills and factory lines" that "knew none of the old checks and balances of Allorwen custom" - ch 43. The shift from one-to-one bindings to mass-scale infernal labour exerted pressure on the Infernal Realms themselves, producing "significant changes" and causing the Kings Below [to enter] into mass contracts for the services of their subjects - ch 43. The older, individually negotiated demon-human arrangements did not vanish but were pushed underground, "relegated to the circle houses and other illegal trades" - ch 43. Thus the ceremonial form once central to personal life in Allor survives in the book's present only as an illicit remnant, its cultural space taken over by industrial conjuring and its practitioners driven into the circle houses.
Relationships
No individual practitioner or character is named in connection with the practice in the available source material. The relationships the material describes are institutional and structural: the displacement of one-to-one ritual bindings by industrial conjuring contracts between the Kings Below and mill-owners; the relegation of practitioners to the circle houses; and the persistent distrust of Allor and its customs held by Maric and Palleseen neighbours (City of Last Chances, ch 43).
Notable Quotes
- "the gift your family gave you, the blessing on your road" - City of Last Chances, ch 43
- "to a Maric or Palleseen of a century ago, nothing good could come from that place" - City of Last Chances, ch 43
- "one did not marry or come of age without the otherworldly being bound into the ceremony" - City of Last Chances, ch 43
Tags
- ritual · #demon-binding · #marriage-ceremony · #tradition