Catherion Imprimiture

The Catherion Imprimiture was the experiment, undertaken during the Imperator Presidency, that resulted in the creation of a new generation of casts called "babels".

To create the babels, a breeding-engine was symbolically purchased from the extinct House Catherion for the price of three birds' eggs, a small plot of land, and a small pocket watch immaculately crafted by Mr Harrison of Yorkshire, England around 1765. During the experiment, grotesque modifications were made to the breeding-engine.

The Imprimiture lasted for fifty years, during which at least three and at most eight babels were grown. Many or all of the babels were incurably insane; one escaped and brutally slaughtered the inhabitants of House Catherion. At the time of the massacre, the pocketwatch disappeared from the Homeworld; by the time of the War, the "receipt" of the breeding-engine's purchase was the only surviving documentation of the Catherion Imprimiture or the babels. (PROSE: The Book of the War)