Book of Stone Tablets

The canon known as the “Stone Tablets” is no longer stone, but the text from the original is collected in the form of sixteen scrolls that describe the faith of the Emperor of Scorn. Clerics tend to try to make their copies resemble stone, using gray parchment with large, blocky letters and print on only one side of the paper, with the whole rolled into a single thick scroll. Lay followers use conventional books with unadorned covers.

The Tablets are referred to by their numbers, from One to Sixteen, although each might take up several pages in reality. Tablets One through Twelve are meant for followers, while the last four Tablets define hierarchy and administrative demands. These Tablets differ somewhat by region and race of the owning Purgers. A different hand clearly wrote each. Scholars attribute them not to the original Stone Tablets, but to various High Purgers such as Savlan the Senior, the faith’s leader in the third century IR and builder of the current House of Scorn in Dalen.

The Tablets contain biased anecdotes that attempt to inflame passions, pseudo-science that implies that others are inferior to the reader (regardless of the reader’s race), and quotes from famous saints of several religions that, taken alone, indicate a distaste for other races. Clever wording and addressing the reader directly allows for multiple interpretations, all of them hostile. Teachings include the importance of spreading Hatemonger’s word among friends, neighbors and associates of similar background as the reader.

The Tablets cost 30 gp for the lay version with only the first dozen chapters. A full version with the clerical information costs 70 gp, while an elaborate stone rendering in the tradition of the originals might cost 250 gp. The faith allows unrestricted sale of the lay version, but it disallows open circulation of Tablets Thirteen through Sixteen.