Editing Sigil:Iron Covenant (section)

== Decline and Survival ==

The Covenant's political power declined as the Warg kingdoms gave way to more stable realms and as the Old Faith and later the Triadic institutions offered different models of authority. Its Forge-Houses were seized, abandoned, converted, or destroyed; some Iron Priests were killed by victorious rulers, while others simply became local religious figures under less provocative names. The creed never disappeared completely. Soldiers, mercenary companies, isolated noble houses, ascetic brotherhoods, and communities shaped by unusually harsh conditions preserved fragments of its teaching long after formal Covenant worship became disreputable.

This survival matters because Malivare did not resurrect a religion from nothing. He found surviving traditions, texts, symbols, and grievances that could be gathered into a revived institution. What returned in Tael Neydra was both ancient and new: recognizably the Iron Covenant, but reorganized by a regime with ideological needs no Warg King could have imagined.