Picture a lord in ancient Ériu who turns a poet away from his gate.

Not a wise move. Not because the poet might write something unkind – but because under Irish law, he was legally entitled to be let in. The right to hospitality was calibrated to rank. A senior Filí arrived with an entourage. The host provided for all of them. Refusal had consequences you could bring before a court.

This is where it gets strange.

The Filí, though poets, were not classified as artists. They were a legal category. Each of the seven grades of the mastery carried defined rights, defined obligations, a defined number of people who could travel with you. Junior grades, modest entourages. A poet of the highest rank – the Ollam – held status comparable to a minor nobleman. He could cross territorial borders that were otherwise closed. He could compose a satire against a king, and the law would treat that satire as a weapon.

Not metaphorically. Legally.

A satire of sufficient craft and sufficient provocation, delivered by a poet of sufficient standing, was understood to threaten not a king's reputation but his sovereignty – his right to rule. The legitimacy of the throne, dissolved by verse.

What kind of society builds that into its law? One that has decided, somewhere deep in its foundations, that the person who names the world holds real power over it. The Filí didn't just compose poetry. They preserved genealogies, validated kingships, remembered what happened and decided how it would be remembered. That function was considered so essential that the law protected it – and armed it.

The game I'm building is set inside that logic. The winner doesn't win because they fought hardest. They win because they became the voice the king cannot rule without.

In Ériu, that was never a small thing.

From the Mead-Hall
Ull Sande / Dániel Lukács • Budapest, July 2026