The Sanctorium in Brightstone was designed by the Immortal Emperor himself during his last visit to Doskvol, nearly five centuries ago. He was in Doskvol for a realignment, as a number of civic and religious structures had become wayward and required his personal attention to prevent a civil conflict that could have been on the scale of the recent Unification War. The death toll from the brief trials for heretics and dissidents ran up into the hundreds, and the bones of the executed were worked into the foundations of a monument erected in honor of the Immortal Emperor’s visit.
The Gates of Death, rebuilt; the Sanctorium was intended to echo the impression of the supernatural barrier that was shattered millennia ago. The Immortal Emperor tasked the founding families of the City Council with building the Sanctorium to conform to certain parameters, funded by Imperial coffers. This gift to Doskvol provided a place for its citizens to purify themselves of the traces of death that creep into life through age and impure thoughts, and to oversee the ritual destruction of rogue spirits. Catacombs below protect the remains of flesh without life, ashes of the notable contained in expensive urns, more eternal than memory.
The Founding Families have spiritual authority as well as temporal clout, because the Immortal Emperor laid upon them the mantle of policing the boundary between life and death while offering guidance and instruction to the living. They are stewards of the gates of life and death. They choose what endures and what is silenced forever. If they were merely people, like everyone else only with money, a reasonable person could conclude that their influence outstrips their authority. But if they are gatekeepers for this city’s soul-saddled flesh, we owe them everything. As I am sure you know, they seldom hesitate to collect.
From “Six Foundations for Revolt” by Concerned Citizen
Dope, as always.