Connects to: 13.06, 29.14.06, the Lands of the Night Cattle and the City of Shuttered Windows.
In the midst of the Keening Sea, some way distant from the City of Shuttered Windows, lies a small forested island named Dolyeades. Here there is a small monastery inhabited by an ascetic order of the Temple Indivisible. This order, the Brothers of the Grove, spend most of their time praying quietly and fishing in the nearby Alphic Current. They are also charged with the sacred duty of interpreting the will of their God Alberon, specifically with regard to the election of the Doge.
When the new Doge is chosen, at one point forty Electors must randomly be reduced to twelve. When this happens, the Electors send out a message to the Isle of Dolyeades and begin fasting as they await the reply. At the monastery, the names of the forty Electors are inscribed upon holy parchments, which are tied around the necks of forty albino cattle from the Lands of the Night Cattle. The cattle are set loose to wander the isle and graze. Meanwhile the most senior monks travel to the Sacred Grove and wait. The first twelve cattle to arrive in the Grove represent the twelve Electors who will progress to the next stage of voting, back in the Shuttered City.
This method generally works well, save for the unfortunate case several years ago when three cattle entered the Grove simultaneously, tying for twelfth place. The resulting events, which involved the legal and bodily recombination of three Electors into a single person, are still controversial to this day (see the Ettiennes).
Hooks:
- What’s the Alphic Current?
- Is it possible to fiddle this part of the selection process? Hell, is somebody fiddling it already?
