The nation-states of Valisthea are not simply political entities. Each is organized around an Eikon, a divine power it claims as its birthright and uses to justify its dominance over everything beneath it. When those Eikons clash, it is not gods at war. It is the logical conclusion of a political structure that made gods out of people and then told everyone else to kneel.

The trembling in this session is institutional. The kingdoms that built themselves on Dominant power are beginning to discover that the Dominants have their own agendas, their own grief, their own breaking points. Clive moves through the wreckage of other people's theology trying to find what's left when you strip away the divine justification.