The High Abbey has announced it shall hold a Grand Jubilee in celebration of the Holy Empire’s recent successes. It is to be held all across Albioch for two straight weeks, including a special ceremonial address by The Judgement at its midpoint. Travelers descend from all across the isles to partake. Could there be a better time for some high crime and larceny?
In the five and a half years since The Crown’s embarrassing defeat at the hands of northern revolutionaries1, its rival The Holy Empire has filled the power vacuum in The West. To celebrate this novel social and economic boom, The High Abbey has announced a Grand Jubilee! It is to be held all across Albioch for two straight weeks with a special ceremony on the holy day at its midpoint. The Judgement himself is set to address the assembled crowds from Saint Hamish’s Boulder.
An Oft-Remembered Day starts in Summer 163 A.H. in the city of Albioch2, capital of the Holy Empire. The city sits resplendent, its alabaster towers decked in bunting, its spires streaming bright cloth, every streetlamp adorned in colorful papers. Supplicants fill the city’s hostels, some having travelled many miles from across the isles. Every church in the city has thrown open its doors, and are distributing bread and water to all those in attendance.
Via Abbey decree, the event is divided into two halves: the week of service and the week of celebration. The first half of the Jubilee is to be spent attending daily mass3, practicing charity and virtue, and participating in the construction of festivities around the city: “by each according to their trade, to each according to our communal charity”. On Sunday, crowds will be allowed into the All Saints Square, to see The Judgement’s special address from the dais on Saint Hamish’s Boulder4.
The latter week is set aside purely for celebration. Morning mass is still to be held (and includes breakfast), but other services are cancelled. Most businesses are encouraged to be closed, allowing the crowds to grow. Each day is assigned a saint to be celebrated. Performers come from all across the isles, and every major square in the city becomes a stage.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| Opening Ceremony | Week of Service | ✦ Judgement's Ceremony | ||||
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| Week of Celebration | Closing Ceremony | |||||
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Chronicled in The Redolence of Empire. ↩︎
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Situated roughly in the same place as real-world London. ↩︎
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Every church in the city will be offering services 3 times daily throughout the week of service. ↩︎
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Thousands of years ago a great boulder, its surface aflame and dripping molten iron, fell from the sky and destroyed much of the pre-Albioch village that once rested along these same river banks. Hamish MacIntyre, a carpenter and woodsman that survived, was instrumental in the recovery and rebuilding efforts. He strongly held (and argued for) the idea that the meteor was a misunderstood gift from the heavens. In his later years, he built the first minster upon the crater-lip, and before his death the congregation had grown to many thousands. He was posthumously canonized. ↩︎