In the Den of the Depraved

Historical Background

Initially written by Roland Auberge as a series of reports on his investigation into a ring of Snatchers in Meridia, In the Den of the Depraved became one of the first investigative and analytical histories. As Auberge's investigation led him to House Mira, and a ring of nobles victimizing the poor, his book became an important method of exposing their crimes. While he died before he could bring them to justice, Auberge's book was crucial in reigning in the chaotic criminality in the years following The Crossing Over.

"We have been unable to interfere with trafficking between The Promenade and Mira's Eye, as many of the same officials who authorized our work have been found partaking in the ill-gotten fruits of kidnapping upon the island." - Roland Auberge, In the Den of the Depraved

Content

Beginning in the Mist District of Meridia, the start of the book is in a more fractured style. Born to illiterate parents, his father an innkeeper, Roland learned to write in the Order of Bellowing Brothers before his years as an anti-vise crusader for The Tribunal for the Upkeep of the Sacred. Thus, the start of the book sees Roland find his authorial voice through piecing together his early reports and connecting the dots to eventually find House Mira bankrolling the kidnapping rings.
The middle third of the book sees Roland sneak onto Mira's Eye and seems more like a travelogue than a report. Here, the author documents the physical evidence of the decline of House Mira, as seen through the crumbling structures of their island. Roland engages in an analyses of the elements leading to the house's fall, as well as the psychological makeup of their rulers and traditions. 

"While I had successfully evaded detection upon the island for days, I knew that if I was discovered my story would come to an end in the Agistment, hunted and hounded by my fellow man." - Roland Auberge, In the Den of the Depraved

The last third is the most harrowing, and sees the author captured after identifying a number of prestigious nobles from a variety of houses, participating in the depravities of House Mira. Hunted through the Agistment, one of the last people to face such a risk, Roland escapes back to Meridia before being assigned to investigate the origins of the Snatchers in The Promenade, on the promise the Tribunal would raid Mira's Eye.

Influence

As one of the first investigative and analytical histories, In the Den of the Depraved influenced a number of important figures. In his own day, Roland's work and subsequent disappearance in The Promenade led to a final crackdown on the growth of organized, and government-involved, crime following the Crossing Over. In the years and decades following his death, his work influenced a number of Crimson Quills and other authors, particularly Isobard Quickquill.

Item type

Book / Document