The Gutter Psalms

The Gutter Psalms began as an emergency food gang during the Winter of Nine Ashes. Their first great success was the Grainhouse Sunday raid, when they emptied three warehouses and humiliated a Brasterdenese magistrate by replacing the official sermon books with forged scripture praising rats and hunger. Their first setback came seven years later, when a young leader named Pel Vey betrayed the gang to the Church. Twelve members were executed, and the survivors learned to divide knowledge between cells. The watershed moment came during the Flood of Saint Orra, when a storm burst through the eastern drainage works. Sarra and Hesh could have escaped with their hidden treasury, but instead used the gang's tunnels to evacuate hundreds of tenants. The rescued residents began treating the gang as protectors rather than criminals. In the aftermath, the Gutter Psalms seized control of several ruined buildings, installed sympathetic caretakers, and demanded regular payments from landlords. This was when their criminal enterprise became a shadow government. In recent years, the gang has adopted more Mercian symbolism. Seasonal feasts, antler masks, mock sacrifices, and songs about victory, fertility, and the land now accompany robberies and punishments. Some members consider this theater. Others see it as the return of an older faith. The gang's current tension comes from the fact that both interpretations appear to work.