Tyrant's Trial

The Tyrant's Trial is an underground broadsheet, secretly written and printed by the Guildmaster's Council and their accomplices. It contains regular updates on various reconstruction projects throughout the city, information on current events in the city and around Asuria, details as to the Steward's choices for the city, and examining errors made, indicating corrective action he should take, and advocating courses of action for the common people of the city to mitigate the harm done by these decisions. Officially, nobody knows how the broadsheet is distributed, where it is printed, or who its authors are - information that the Steward would very much like to know.

Disguised Formatting

The broadsheet is actually entitled "Asurian Times," a respected and popular broadsheet printed weekly in several Asurian cities - an assumed title so that a reader may be seen reading it without instantly drawing the ire of the Steward's mercenaries. "Tyrant's Trial" comes from the title of the ever-present column about the Steward's actions. Each printing is laid out to the same standard as the genuine Asurian Times, and laid out with the same large headlines - true article headlines are printed in the body text of the article, making it very difficult to tell the two apart at a glance. This is only possible with the help of the editor of the genuine Asurian Times, who ensures that each week, the Guildmaster's Council receives an advance copy so that they can lay out their version to match.

Printing and Distribution

The Tyrant's Trial is printed using a private printing press found in the ruins under the city and accessible only through the city's sewer access tunnels, under the careful watch of the Guild of Nightsoil Collectors, one of the few guilds still permitted to operate in Caelester. Their workers also handle initial distribution, bundling stacks of papers into barrels for transport in the city (and trusting that nobody will take interest in what they might be transporting in a sealed barrel). These are delivered to a number of accomplices throughout the city, who hand out copies to friends and family. Some tavernkeepers tuck copies under tablecloths where patrons who know to look for them can surreptitiously collect them.