The Silver Shields
The Creed of 381, engraved in Greek and Latin at the order of Pope Leo III (c. 810)
Leo III, bishop of Rome
A pope’s answer to being told what his own office could do: the older words, in metal, where everyone coming in would walk past them.
- Catch rate
- 12 / 255
- Base research
- 180
- Stat total
- 298
Base stats
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
The shields themselves are long gone. What survives is the record that they were made, and what was on them.
It is the Creed, unedited, put where the argument was happening. Very little in this game contends harder for its length.
A text ratified by an ecumenical council and cut in metal by a pope who disagreed with leaving it alone. Difficult ground to attack.
Two shields in a doorway at St Peter’s. They do not have to be found or read out; they are simply there, and the question is already answered.
Cited for this book
Toledo added the Filioque to the Creed in Spain in 589; Charlemagne’s Franks adopted it in 809 and pressed Rome to follow. Around 810 Leo III refused — he held the doctrine to be true, and held that he had no standing to alter a creed the whole church had ratified. He had the older text cut into two silver shields, Greek and Latin, and set up at St Peter’s. Rome admitted the word into the Mass in 1014, two centuries later, under Benedict VIII. This game confesses the Filioque; what Leo refused was the addition, not the doctrine.
Moves learned
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Silver Shields | Bible | Argument | 92 | 100% | 5 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 30 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 34 | Through the Son | Theology Proper | Argument | 84 | 100% | 10 |
| 38 | No Superior, No Equal | History | Argument | 76 | 100% | 15 |