There is the old truism about fish: give a man a fish, and you offer him hope; teach him how to fish, and you give him purpose. The acolytes of the Abandoned Sun have the fish tattooed on their right palms, a persistent reminder of their devotion and an outward sign of their charity. "Fishers of Men," they are called by the Illuminati Scribes, an appellation fraught with age-old enmity.

The reason for the split between the scribes and the priests has been forgotten, or simply lost to the rest of the world. There is a document somewhere, of course, that tells that tale, but it has been buried in one of the hidden libraries of the scribes.

The fishers of men are itinerant, following the currents of history and the tumult of war. They haunt the battlefields, offering succor to the dying and easing the pain of the wounded. A man, broken and afraid, is more receptive to the promise of the fish, to the promise of redemption. "Will you accept the guilt of your fathers and their fathers? Will you bear the burden of their blood debt? Do you understand that your pain is the world's pain, and your death is not meaningless?"

Death is a portal, just as life is a pathway. The acolytes of Abaddon do not hold the Key, just as they are not the Guardian of the Lock. Their symbol, the curved shape of the fish, is just a representation of faith. There is a Door; there is a Key. There is a Path.

Nothing is meaningless. As long as there is guilt.