codex: letterwriting

The art of letter writing might have died out, and philately become a terminal study, if it were not for the Telephonic Collapse and other related catastrophes of long-distance communication.

Suddenly letters were back in vogue. It is not often a technology is resuscitated and given a second chance to flourish. It grew accordingly ornate, taking on aesthetics from antiquity and modern bureaucracy alike.

Color of ink, the type of paper, the choice of stamp and wax, scent or no scent, all of these are carefully considered by any but the lower class, although they too have their practices, an amalgam of superstition and censor-dodging.

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Red ink is reserved for officers who have seen effective combat. A letter between an agent and their handler looks and smells very different than if they were writing a family member, and the uneducated are likely to make common mistakes like accidentally professing love with a jasmine stamp or a top-left crease, quite awkwardif both are men.

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To induce a deliberate paper cut and leave a visible stain of blood is a sign of devotion, whether to one’s handler or a prospective marriage partner. However, as with the previous example, the orientation of top, bottom, left, right is essential to communicating the exact tenor of the bloodstain, according to sex, age, relation, and geographic distance of the recipient. Blood will render a letter all the more volatile, so communicate clearly, and salt the ink.

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Postcards are incredibly popular and have a vast library of geometric symbols decipherable only by appropriate workers. “Multisending” is common with INNOCENT correspondence for the sake of efficiency, where the same postcard may contain multiple messages: The rank-and-file recipient sees only the cheerful note from family or friend, but the censor who processed it has acquired logistics data from the geometric pattern.

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A dizzying assortment of stamps are available, all of which are said to affect the outcome of the letter in different ways. Not merely whether it sways the recipient, but whether it raises the grace of the sender, and if it survives at all (Letters are mostly safe but the ink can still migrate if it spends too long inside an envelope, especially one with cheap wax. Many remember the childhood story of the slimy mailbag, the rattenkönig of letters…).

Holographic stamps are popular for reasons of beauty and security. All global stamps are encoded with prayers although it is difficult to measure whether this makes any difference.

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INNOCENT’s courier corps is the pride of the world. COURIER agents compete to deliver letters fastest by land, sea, and sometimes sky. Letters tend to arrive 99% intact, with rarely a change beyond minor worming and INNOCENT’s necessary security redactions.

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Wax from shrine candles is popular.

On color:

The deepness of the red is key. Deepest red must only be used for the gravest missives. On official documents which are nonetheless light in tone, such as correspondence between officers or information that is not likely to disturb Heaven, a lightness bordering on pink will do.

Gold is congratulations—a promotion, windfall, et cetera.

White may contain the contents of an interrogation. Or [REDACTED], if [REDACTED] [REDACTED].

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An officer of INNOCENT never goes without their signet ring. Their rings are made of low-corruption steel, all but guaranteeing an accurate message.

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The pathogentry have their own language of letters. They dictate on the skin of slaves, sealing their lips with hot wax, and branding them with a signet ring held to the fire. The message itself is a rash. Skin writing. A mast cell missive.