A book that promises to summon Celestials and delivers an unformed demon of warped white radiance — signed by a Malipiero, two years before a Malipiero became Most Holy.
The Question
Is Benedicto Malipiero connected to Baldessare Malipiero, now His Holiness Pious III? Yes — they are brothers. (S6)
What remains: who was Benedicto, what did he actually do, is he really dead, how many copies of the book are loose — and did the Order of the Owl die for holding one?
The Answer That Changes the File (S6)
Per Uncle’s Men, relayed by Ismad:
- Benedicto Malipiero is the younger brother of the current Most Holy.
- Convicted of heresy and condemned by his own family, charged with dealing with the infernal.
- About 1710 — five years before the Fifth Crusade.
- He had mastered both the divine and the logos arts — which are exactly the two flavors Ritual Magic comes in (Ismad, same session). See Magic and Casting Traditions.
- The Malipiero family is a church dynasty of centuries’ standing, comparable to House Balventia.
- Officially executed — and Uncle and Ismad doubt it. (GM)
CONFIRMED (S6): the Malipieros are the same house
The theory below is upgraded from circumstantial to established. The wiki’s counsel — “the party should not build a case on a surname” — has been overtaken; there is a genealogy now.
What the file now says
The Order of the Owl recovered, in Fall 1732, a signed demonological manual written by the brother of the man who would be elected Most Holy in Summer 1734. In Spring 1736 the Order of the Phoenix — sworn to that Most Holy’s person — dissolved the Owl and executed its members, and the record of those interrogations is in the party’s hands.
This still does not prove Pious III ordered anything, and the party should keep saying so out loud. What it does is put a second, entirely sufficient motive next to the sanctums, and make the papers the party is carrying valuable to a specific living man.
What We Know (all GM)
- Fall 1732, southern Morrschatten: Owl Knights slay an unformed demon, described as a being of warped white radiance.
- They establish that it was summoned through the use of a found tome, On the Summoning of Guardian Spirits, which purports to instruct the user in summoning Celestials.
- The signed author is Benedicto Malipiero.
- Summer 1734: Baldessare Malipiero, Archprelate of La Serenissima (Cardacci), is elected Most Holy and takes the name Pious III. He holds the office now.
- Spring 1736: the Order of the Phoenix — the order sworn to the Most Holy’s person — accuses the Order of the Owl of having fallen to the Deceiver; the Owl is dissolved and its members questioned and executed.
Why It Matters
The party’s own working cosmology now says the great enemies are angels who followed the Deceiver (The Six Voices) and that touching one marks the soul (The Curse on Titus, The Call at the Sanctum). Here is a manual, in circulation in the West, for calling something that answers to the name Celestial and arrives as warped white radiance. Compare The Abbot’s account of his own ruin: “I touched the divinity and it broke me.”
Whoever wrote this book either did not know what answers the call, or knew exactly.
Theories
Theory: The book is a trap, not an error
“Purports to instruct” is the Owl’s judgement, not the author’s claim. A working grimoire that summons demons while advertising angels is a distribution mechanism — it recruits the pious. The Owl found one copy by following the corpse of what it produced; there is no reason to think it was the only one.
CONFIRMED (S6): "The Malipieros are the same house"
They are brothers. If the Owl ever filed that book, they filed an accusation against the Holy City itself. See The Fall of the Order of the Owl.
KILLED (S6): "Coincidence"
Not a common name, not a pseudonym, not a stranger. He is the Most Holy’s younger brother, and the family disowned him publicly around 1710.
Theory: The disgrace is old news, and that's the point
The conviction was public and family-driven, twenty-four years before the election. So Owl knights finding a book signed Benedicto Malipiero in 1732 didn’t uncover a secret — they uncovered that a known, condemned heretic’s work was still in circulation and still producing demons, in the run-up to his brother’s candidacy. The scandal isn’t the name on the cover. It’s that the book still works, and somebody is still using it.
Theory: He isn't dead — and it isn't the party's theory
He was officially executed. But Uncle and Ismad themselves doubt it (GM) — the two best-informed intelligence men the party can reach have looked at a thirty-year-old official execution and decided they don’t believe it.
Something prompted that, and nobody asked what. It is the cheapest question on this page.
This campaign has form: Constanza Bethlen has been officially dead since 1720 and is at large; Madeline Foussard spent seven years in a hole.
A Route to the 1732 Party (S6)
Every approach to this book has run through men the Order of the Phoenix executed. There is now one that doesn’t.
Marin of Clan Aggadum — the dwarf squire killed at Halwa in Fall 1734 — was the younger cousin of another Aggadum dwarf who was among the group that dispatched the demon in southern Morrschatten, i.e. the Fall 1732 party that recovered this tome. (GM, via Visenne)
Nothing establishes that the cousin was an Owl knight. If they weren’t, the Spring 1736 purge had no reason to touch them — which would make them the only living person the party knows of who was in the room with this book.
- Get the cousin’s name from Visenne. She volunteered the connection; she may have the name.
- Find Clan Aggadum. Clan Zum’s yearly Meet and Dolgrim Zum-Akar are a way to ask about western clans without crossing the Circle Sea. See Dwarves.
Contradictions & Oddities
- The Owl killed demons in 1732 and again in 1735 (the Stoccarda snake demon, alongside the Order of the Gull) and was destroyed in 1736 for having fallen to the Deceiver. The Gull, who fought the same demon, was not touched.
- The tome was “found” by whoever summoned the demon in southern Morrschatten — an active war zone at the time. Found where, and who left it?
Next Steps
- Look for the book’s name or Benedicto Malipiero in the undecoded portion of The Recovered Documents — the Owl’s own file on it may be in the party’s hands already
- Ask Madeline (via Sister Alasia) whether the Phoenix knows of the tome, and whether the Malipiero name means anything to her
- Ask Ari and Master Bahadir whether Celestial-runed summoning apparatus — like the warp circle at Kraus’s Folly, whose runes are in Celestial and which Ismad calls Ritual Magic — has any bearing. Benedicto had both traditions Ritual Magic uses
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Establish who Benedicto Malipiero was, and when— done (S6): the Most Holy’s younger brother, condemned ~1710 - Ask Ismad why he and Uncle doubt the execution. The record says executed; they don’t buy it, and they didn’t say why
- Find the record of the 1710 trial — what “dealing with the infernal” meant, and whether the book was part of the charge
- Ask Madeline via Sister Alasia. Her western knowledge is stale after Spring 1732, but a 1710 heresy trial of the Most Holy’s brother is old enough that she may still be current on it
- Ask Visenne de Tarrand and Isabel d’Allais whether the name meant anything inside the Order of the Owl. The Owl held the book for four years