In wealthy society circles, talk of the Expression has become a popular parlor game. There you'll find occult secrets collected and sold in the way others collect art. They decorate manor houses, stitch sigils into dinnerware, and hire scholars to recite fragments from the Desert Manual between courses. Outsiders call them dilettantes, but I've seen enough to know at least a few circles manage to stir up some real effects.

Some practitioners take their commitments farther than others, embellishing their on behaviors or entwining them with cultural flair. Some in the far west insist on vegetarian vows and meditative fasts trying to recreate the austerity the Manual praises. Others abandon discipline for spectacle. I met one woman hosting séances every week and theatrical rites designed to thrill her companions. Rival lodges poach members or leak each other’s secret siglis. Scandal may weaken the view of these magics to the layperson, but they invigorate the halls of society.

A bored aristocrat with access to the these orders can shred a political alliance as easily as any supposed conjured fire. Whether the power is real or not almost matters less than the belief that it could be. That tension keeps the societies thriving. Which is all for the best, since the Strata doesn't seem to be particularly inclined toward change.