Luminarian Silencing of Accusations (Lorica)

Luminarian Silencing of Accusations
As a result of the corrupting policies of the mage-priesthood, public accusations of fabricating discoveries dried up, and soon all that was ever heard and said of the mage-priests was their great curiosity and inventiveness, and nothing was said of how some among them were corrupt. And so in the shadows of the religion of illumination, corruption grew.

Starting in 625 AL, those who made accusations of false discoveries were taken before the Circa Judicara, or Circle of Judicators, to be judged for breaking the ongoing gag order, and generally stripped of their titles and publicly flogged, so as to discourage any others from making public accusations. This was ostensibly done in the name of preserving the image of the priesthood. Those who brought these claims to the Circa Incuira would have their way for another hundred years, but for much of that time at least one member on the Circa Incuira was a corrupt mage-priest, who worked to silence the accusers: they would leak out the names of the accusers to the accused, and thereafter the accusers oftentimes found themselves blackmailed, kidnapped, or killed. Before long, the mage-priests began to notice this pattern, and soon very few people approached the Circa Incuira with accusations.

Eventually, in 727 AL the Circa Incuira proclaimed that any who would bring false accusations would themselves be punished, and publicly, should the accused be proclaimed innocent. The five members of the Circa Incuira all became bribed to simply always proclaim the accused innocent, bribed by those corrupt mage-priests who wanted to ensure that none dare challenge them. They succeeded. After a string of high-publicity punishments of the accusers for experiments that some mage-priests could verify independently, it was blatantly obvious to the mage-priests that the Circa Incuira was totally corrupt, yet there were so many corrupt mage-priests voting to keep them in office that they remained in power. Almost no accusations of false discoveries would be brought before the Circa Incuira starting 734 AL.