Long before Messmer's burning, the Hornsent had their own inquisitors. The Hornsent's spiral-tower theology had a parallel apparatus of coercive questioning whose iconography survives in the Realm of Shadow's incantations and weapons. The Giant Golden Arc incantation description names the apparatus : 'Sorcery of the inquisitors of the tower, wielded as an incantation of the spiral. A swing of the arm releases a giant golden arc. The arc resembles the barb, a known symbol of coercive questioning.' The Hornsent inquisitors held the spiral as their sigil and the barb as their tool ; gold-tipped barbs were ceremonial and torture-implements at once.

Their pay and standing are recorded in the Golden Horn Tender flavour text : 'Old currency used by hornsent made by coating spiral horns with gold. Once bestowed upon inquisitors as an honor.' The Inquisitor Ashes summary preserves the social architecture : 'The inquisitor hags wield barbed candlesticks. Inquisitions often perplexed the minds of the uninitiated, and so seniority was viewed as an asset.' Old women, in other words, conducted the torture. The most senior of them, Jori, wielded the Barbed Staff-Spear, a greatstaff whose tip bristles with the golden barbs of inquisition. The Bonny Village potentates, with their butcher knives and caterpillar masks, are the Hornsent's craftsmen-violence ; the Inquisitors were the same culture's formal-violence wing. The two were not in opposition. The Hornsent's brutality was its own, Messmer arrived to a society already practiced in cleansing.

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IncantationGiant Golden Arc

Sorcery of the inquisitors of the tower, wielded as an incantation of the spiral. The arc resembles the barb, a known symbol of coercive questioning.

Item / MiscGolden Horn Tender

Old currency used by hornsent made by coating spiral horns with gold. Once bestowed upon inquisitors as an honor.

Spirit AshInquisitor Ashes

The inquisitor hags wield barbed candlesticks. Inquisitions often perplexed the minds of the uninitiated, and so seniority was viewed as an asset.

WeaponBarbed Staff-Spear

Greatstaff of Jori, elder inquisitor. The tip bristles with golden barbs symbolic of the inquisition's torture.