Sigillant society
Sigillants (jasinam, pl. jasinamme) are magical artistic specialists who draw on the power of inscribed stone to extract Source directly from the world, rather than through the intermediary of fos. Sigillants are mostly known among the hillfolk of the Khurorgos Mountains such as the Ravre, including parts of Taizi, Khutu, and Daligash. The formal term jasinam for sigillants (Ombesh: 'stone partner') is the one used in technical volumes such as those at Nemnosti, while the term tekru (pl. tekrur), a word ultimately derived from a non-Ombesh language and without a good translation, is used by many of the craft's practitioners among themselves.
Sigillants are drawn from among the more inquisitive youth of all genders among the hillfolk. It is widely regarded that not every person is well-suited for the role and those identified as potential sigillants tend to have certain personality qualities, most notably zampa, a nebulous quality of temperament that could perhaps be translated as artistic hungering or yearning. It is a passion for creation and making a mark on the world, but not, for instance, through bravado or being recognized for one's work. It is not thought that zampa is directly inheritable although some lineages are known for producing many sigillants. Such a person might be perfectly willing to never be remembered beyond their lives, although their and works would. Those identified as potential sigillants tend to fit poorly into the social roles assigned by lineage and hometown. Some think them mad, and perhaps it is the case that more sigillants than one would expect live with mental illness. They are not antisocial, and indeed, many build powerful friendships or long-term relationships, but are apart from issues of power and influence. Rare indeed would be the sigillant who would become the hengi of a lineage.
The history of sigillants is complex and linked to the history of non-Omban peoples in marginal regions of the Empire and its successors. There are sigillant Ancestors from the very early years after the Epiphany of Zunuga, and so it is presumed that there were sigillants for centuries prior to the Corps. Many of the earliest sigillants, though, spoke Ombesh only poorly, and so understanding their training and work from those times is difficult. Most of those societies were nonliterate, and many hillfolk still are, but over time, aspects of Omban writing became incorporated into the workings of many sigillants by the latter years of the Empire. While generally remaining outside the power structure of the Empire and its successors, the idea of fos-free magic has had such appeal that certain Emperors, most notably Shan II Gandachi, took an interest in bringing them into the Imperial power structure. Such efforts have always been met with skepticism, not least by the mystics of the Academy at Dundures, who regard the practice as backward, though they do not despise sigillants as they do the wasteful and dangerous manifests. For their part, sigillants have little interest in other forms of magic except at Nemnosti, where there has been a centuries-long effort to integrate the two.
Because the villages of the Khurorgos are small, there are not very many sigillants - fewer than a thousand, certainly. The most common way to learn the craft is through dual apprenticeship, where two individuals, the Upward (jundi) and the Downward (gendi), take on the role of preparing the novice Pebble (rota) for the challenges of the craft. The Upward and Downward for any sigillant are perhaps friends or lovers to one another, but just as likely to be rivals - the only stricture is that one cannot have trained the other. Training as a sigillant involves being pushed and pulled in contradictory directions by one's teachers, with one often praising a glyph while the other detests it. One's Upward and Downward may not spend much time together with the apprentice, except at highly formal moments in the training. The goal is not to weed out the apprentice - indeed, the failure of a sigillant to complete their training is seen as a failure of the community, for having selected incorrectly.
Within their villages and lineages, sigillants are highly valued specialists - they rarely engage in much food production like herding, foraging, gardening or hunting, but are supported by those who benefit from their skills. Here there is a tension between lineage leaders, who may see the sigillant as a source of prestige or wealth, and the sigillants themselves, who resist being valorized. Despite their separateness, few sigillants are truly loners - communities can hardly afford a sigillant who removes themself from the village or the lineage.
