Sigil Calendar (overdue)

"Life is a test. No cheating allowed." - Godsman maxim

Catechism
The eighth month of the year, Catechism, marks the start of the Philosophical Autumn. Most graybeards will tell you that in the natural world, autumn signifies the beginning of the end for Life; things start to decay in preparation for the death and dormancy of winter. This was the general idea beyond the Guvner's calendar - the last two triads of the year would be sponsored by those factions that are generally believed to hold a detrimental outlook. So, it caught many by surprise when the Believers of the Source volunteered to be grouped with the other "negative" factions. The faction did so as a direct result of their beliefs - they see their sponsorship of Catechism as something of a stewardship, helping to prepare the Cage for the worse times ahead.

The members of the Godsmen refer to their Factol's Day as The Smithing. And, surprising as it may seem, this is the one day that all work within the Great Foundry ceases. This is because this day is dedicated to the work done on improving one's life rather than one's goods. All Believers of the Source are expected to gather within the courtyard of the Foundry on Catechism's Factol's Day. The only exceptions made are for those Godsmen who are either vital to the maintaining of faction interests in remote locations, or else truly dead. (Since the faction revolves around overcoming challenges in one's life, no excuses for not appearing are accepted.) Once all are assembled, a three-part ceremony begins. The first part, known as The Litany of the Forge, involves each faction member standing before his fellows and describing the most recent and/or important challenges he has faced in his life (or lives) thus far. The second portion, known as The Naming of the Hammer, resembles the actions of the Fated on the Factol's Day of Tithing. During the Naming, each faction member is expected to name the next challenge in their life that they will face (and hopefully overcome). However, unlike the Fated, this task does not have to be completed within the day, or even the month. The second ritual is merely a way to ensure that the faction is continually moving towards its ultimate goal of self-improvement. Factol's Day ends with a third ritual called The Quenching - which is nothing more than a fancy name for a really big party.

Once the festivities of Factol's Day are over, work resumes in the Great Foundry. The factioneers also go to work within the rest of Sigil as well. In a manner similar to the Ciphers in The Pivot, Godsmen patrol the streets of the Cage, looking for those who are faced with a challenge (although a Godsman'd call it an opportunity). However, unlike the Transcendent Order, the tasks that the Godsmen choose to get involved with are not mundane and their aid does not take the form of a free ride. Members of the faction believe that it is the duty of every being to face the challenges in one's life and overcome them. The Believers say that it's fine to get some help, but the majority of the work should be done by one's self in order to achieve the maximum benefit. Despite what seems to be a noble goal - helping people to learn from life - many bashers have good reason to be peery during Catechism. See, the Godsmen are also on the lookout for those who, in their opinion, have had a far too easy time of life to date and seek to give some challenges to them. (Thieves who belong to the faction are often very busy this month relieving beings of their unearned gains.) And a few of the more hard- (or evil-) hearted members of the Godsmen seek out those who have seemingly blown their current chance at life and give them the opportunity to start again from scratch - by sending them to the dead-book.

During Catechism, life in the City of Doors seems to become more unfair, seeming to go out of its way to either beat a body down or else build him up. Successes and failures, while not any more frequent than in other months, are more spectacular - all the better to see how well a basher handles himself and learns his lessons. A being can almost be assured of facing one major life test during this month if he's in Sigil for any length of time. The chant is that if a body can pull himself through a rough spot in his life, he'll be rewarded soon after. Likewise, if a body lets his ego get to him after a success, a big fall will soon appear to deflate his self-worth. Essentially, one has to keep his head down and be prepared to weather the winds of fortune that shift and blow through the start of the Philosophical Autumn.

The start of Catechism also marks the beginning of what some wags mockingly refer to as "the Philosophical Wind"; this month sees a sharp increase in the number of speeches and lectures given by the Cage's pontificators and others who enjoy hearing themselves speak. Naturally, the subject of most of these presentations revolves around dealing with life's challenges. The Godsmen who take to the lectern advocate self-reliance, while the numerous priests in Sigil tell passers-by to seek solace in their respective religions. The more wild addle-coves make use of Catechism to spout their yearly "end-of-the-multiverse" speeches; even a few Anarchists come out of hiding to rail against the other factions. Despite all of this ideological noise, tasks actually get accomplished during the month. Many of the other factions take advantage of Catechism's "fortune favors the bold" attitude to lay the groundwork their next big project; and more often than not, a few faction-related projects come to fruition (for good or ill) in this month. In addition to all of this activity, there are the usual collection of religious ceremonies taking place. The powers which prefer observances in this month are those whose portfolios cover such areas as Fate, Strife, and Learning.

"Can your god make a rock so big even he can't lift it?" - (antagonistic) Defier to a (soon to be irriated) priest

Sacrilegion
Even though Sacrilegion is the middle of Autumn as defined by the Fraternity of Order, this month is the first which truly embodies the season's core nature of fading away. From this point forward in the Philosophical Year, each month is sponsored by a faction which has some element of loss or decay in their core beliefs. The sponsors of this month, the Athar, concern themselves (and as much as of the Cage as they can get away with) with the loss of Faith.

Factol's Day of Sacrilegion has, with the notable exception of Capricious', seen the most changes to its events over the long course of years. This is directly due to the influence of the Athar's factols, and how they have interpreted the faction's philosophy and goals. Activities on this day have ranged from full-scale assaults on some of Sigil's temples to unintentionally recreating the natural season of Fall by throwing thousands of anti-deity pamphlets from the rooftops so that the streets of the Cage appear to be littered with leaves. The current factol of the Athar, Terrance, has followed the examples of some of the other factions and turned his followers' attention inward on this day. He urges the members to spend the day in quiet reflection on how and why they came to realize that the powers aren't the gods they make themselves out to be. At the end of the day, the factol leads a large gathering in the central chamber of the Shattered Temple, at the base of the faction's special tree. The factioneers refer to it as a "discourse" on the existence and nature of the Great Unknown; an outsider would call it a form of worship. (Which probably explains why outsiders aren't allowed anywhere near the faction's headquarters on Factol's Day.)

For the Defiers, Sacrilegion is one of the few times they feel confident enough to be visible and proactive in their beliefs. Many factioneers take a break from their endless writing of instructional information (or "inflammatory propaganda", as the priests call it) and take to the streets to talk to people directly about the faction's ideas. Most of these "missionaries" follow the example set by Factol Terrance and are polite and respectful in their manner. They will quietly stand on street corners or sit in taverns near the temples and ask passerby for a moment of their time to discuss the nature of one's faith. Others will be a bit more active and offer to conduct public - and loud - debate on the nature of the divine. However, there is a small fraction of the Athar (the most visible portion of which is the Godslayers) which holds a more militant outlook, and tends to use tactics reminiscent of the Revolutionary League. These factioneers seek to disrupt worship services either by causing a commotion outside the sanctuary, or else sneaking into the service and asking bothersome questions of the priests. A few run a dangerous risk by holding services which are mockery of those normally held in a power's name. (More than a handful of Athar have been slain by angry proxies for such insults.) Regardless of how they choose to go about it, every member of the faction spends Sacrilegion trying to shake people's faith - if not belief - in the powers.

Although the Athar are never as successful as they would like, the nature of the Philosophical Year is such that this month still grants the faction a minor victory. The atmosphere of Sigil is filled with a subtle shade of Doubt. While the Athar would like to see a loss of religious faith, the month instead engenders an erosion of the common, everyday variety. People tend to be less accepting of others, and try to get more assurances of intentions than they normally would. Information is not accepted at face value as readily, and is often not believed unless it comes from what the listener considers a very reliable source. While this lack of trust usually leads to nothing more than flaring tempers and longer negotiations, there is a more insidious result to this increased doubt. People also tend to lack faith in themselves. This can result not only in a lack of initiative, but also an increased rate of failure. These failures could range from the rather mundane result of not completing a contract on time, to a dangerous accident involving construction or even magical research. After a few such setbacks, those who didn't have much self-esteem in the first place find it to be almost gone, and either end up in the Hive or the Mortuary through their own choosing (or lack thereof).

The most common form of public event that occurs during Sacrilegion is the debate. The general atmosphere of Doubt tends to make everyone more argumentative. Many of these debates are simply private arguments that got out of hand and grew to encompass everyone in the immediate area. Others are planned events. The Hall of Speakers sees near-constant use as merchants, philosophers, priests, and factioneers all want to talk something out in a public, yet controlled, arena. Additionally, many trouble-makers (not all of whom are Anarchists) take the opportunity to play on people's doubts and fears by speaking out against a particular group. Given this general lack of faith, it would seem that no deity would willingly have a holy day during this month. However, a very small minority of gods actually do offer celebrations at this time of the year. These powers represent either Hope (as it requires only a very small amount of Faith) or Humor (as they are best able to take the Athar in stride).