Borrits

Borrits, commonly called "borries," were quietly developed in the early middle-Imperial period as an underclass of citizens separated out from birth by physical deformities and raised in a closed educational system that eschewed all traditional religious and moral training. Although state maintenance of special boarding schools for borrits was cut off during the reign of Emperor Devon-Lars III, local communities continued to fund them by collecting alms on their behalf. The last of the borrit schools was closed once Targhandism introduced cosmic irony into the post-Uzdumalian theological imagination.

Borrit Identification

Most borrits were identified as such by midwives or family members of the parents. A misshapen form or apparent inattention to stimuli could mark a child as a borrit, even if it was not discovered until the child was three years of age. (Some have suggested that parents who feared the discovery of infidelity might convince a family member to wrongfully identify borritism in a child, but most believe this beyond the moral capacity of non-borrits.) Past the age of three, according to local folklore, even a true borrit was too spoiled by traditional values to ever settle into borritism.

"Borrie Schools"

Upon identification, borrit children were taken by the local curate to Borrie School, where they were each provided with clean facilities in an individual room with a door. The doors to these rooms were made of tightly woven grass, so that the borrit might hear through the door, but not be able to see his fellow borrits. When the child was weaned, food would be passed each day through a flap at the bottom of the door, which was only opened to change the waste receptacles and provide medical assistance, and then only by persons wearing blank paper masks and shapeless suits, the ostensible purpose of which was to prevent the borrit child from recognizing his own physical deformity.

Because borrits were thought to be incapable of moral perfection, every effort was made to prevent the teaching of the Sixty-seven Truths, lest the borrit child pervert the Truths in misguided attempts to comprehend or act upon them. From their earliest moments at Borrie School, little borrits heard lectures through their doors. These lectures conferred only that which was practical knowledge, but passed whenever possible through an anti-moralistic filter. The worst of the Emperors were praised for their deeds during history lessons, and even the great pre-Uzdumalian poetry was recited for them, with all moral lessons reversed. Murder, jealousy, greed, disbelief, infidelity, laziness, and dependence on public welfare were celebrated, while temperance, loyalty, gentleness, humility, and self-sufficiency were denigrated. Borrits were, of course, exempt from the Balogh-Isoherranen Exams.

Most Uzdumalian adults of the age spent some time volunteering as lecturers at a Borrie School. Not only was this volunteerism encouraged as a civil duty on behalf of those lamentable lost souls; it also served as a purge for heretical and violent thoughts in otherwise right-thinking Uzdumalian citizens. One could leave after a few hours of "borrying" with one's soul at ease.

Borrit Adulthood

Once a borrit reached the age of fifteen, he was considered fit for turning out into the world and given his first and only clothing, a tight bodysuit made of violently-colored silk. Practically naked to the elements and shunned by all, borrits tended at this age to choose between a life in the roving borrit gangs, serving as all-purpose-immorality prostitutes for non-borrit backsliders, or else begging at the Intrigular gates of urban areas during the appointed hours for begging. Those who turned to begging competed to compose the most self-loathing speeches imaginable on the subject of their moral insufficiency and ignorance of the Truths.

Anti-Borritism

The few disorganized pre-Targhandan attempts to wipe out Borrie Schools and end borrit discrimination were easily dismissed by pious Uzmudalians who pleaded in the beggar-borrits' own terms, that they were nothing but poor borrits, whose parents would have cast them headlong into the streets were it not for Borrie Schools. As put by the extreme pro-borritist Goodbishop Yurm, "Do we blame the borrit for opening his orifices to every visitor, or for taking payment to commit our crimes, that our souls might remain blameless? Do we hate the borrit for his bright silken garb any more than we hate his hideous shape? Take the title of borrit and the distinction of his colors from him and he is, suddenly, just a damned soul in a damned body, which is piteous indeed."

The Targhandistic response to this famous argument was not, of course, that the distinction of borritism should be eradicated, but rather universalized. What is a human but a damned soul in a damned body? The bright silk of Targhandan evangelists would, in those early post-Uzmudalian years, have clearly signified an identification with the self-loathing and yet physical shamelessness of borritism.

Famous Borrits

A few borrits distinguished themselves by becoming great statesmen, including Master Phlauth, Urgenbah-Fits-Under, and Jellinibo-Buys-Mule.

Balogh-Isoherranen Exams

Sixty-seven Truths

Goodbishop Yurm

Urgenbah-Fits-Under