"I walked through the poor’s quarters, and my eye was not harmed. All functional, and simple, and crude, made on the whims of fate and delivered by immediate need.
I walked through the merchant’s quarters, and my eye was bored. Pretensions where nothing backed them, striving for appearance without substance, evidence of changing wealth, too much only began, too much never finished.
I walked through the place where the powerful lived, and my eye was tired. Too much of attempted beauty turned hideous, and a lack of taste was made worse by willing lackeys.
But then I’ve seen the treasure of the city. A cathedral, that was part of the sky, columns, and arches to carry the weight of the world, shapes to let your mind fly along, and ornaments to stop by. A place to ponder, to be pleased to be alive, to accept suffering, and to realize your mistakes. This is a place I could learn from."
”...but bad news sells much better than good news. And no one can deliver the bad news as we can, senator.”
Masters of the sea, men of courage and honor, these you will find here and none other.
Charity out of spite, resistance in submission. Loosing everything can produce strange associations indeed.
Men of wisdom, gathering lore of ways to heal the sick and suffering, these monks are not really different from other orders of the same religion.
Except for their thing with drug-addicts and similar hopeless existences.
“The only creature, that can be victorious on any battlefield, is the raven.”
If you are into the occult, you should also know the groups that are active in these shadowy parts of magic and reality, whether these are real or only rumours. One somewhat known group is the Cabal. Unlike other cults (if it is a cult), this sect seems to be rather benign, and actually offers useful services, for a price. Some experts mark them as occult freaks that do it only for the show and pretending, nothing more.
The members of this obscure order specialize in growing funghi. Growing, researching and studying many kinds, they even try to create new ones.
Smeer was dragging a cart full of strings. Another cart of another strings, it was heavy, but probably the best job in these works for a weak boy. He brought it to the machine that weawed the ropes; the hands of older boys powered it. They were paid a few coppers more, but could barely move after a whole day of work. Smeer hoped to get older and stronger one day, to help his family out of poverty. Pulling the cart back through the yard, he suddenly noticed something. Does not that pebble look like… a coin? A glistening silver coin?! That would help for a few days! Looking around, he carefully picked it up, and hurried to work to stay unnoticed.
But something has noticed him.
"The Commonwealth was a terrorist movement of the early 21st century. It used online organization to coordinate its actions against governmental and commercial institutions. The name is an allusion to the…"
- Wikipedia.gov