Daniel’s Letter
Daniel of Winchester, Letter to Boniface on Persuading the Heathen
Daniel, Bishop of Winchester
“In no irritating or offensive manner, but with the greatest calmness and moderation.” A bishop telling a missionary that his tone is part of his argument, in 723.
- Catch rate
- 18 / 255
- Base research
- 150
- Stat total
- 288
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.
One letter. There is no second copy of the argument if this one fails.
Nothing in it is description. Every sentence is a question designed to be asked out loud to somebody who has never heard it.
He is writing from Wessex about a country he has never visited, to a man who is standing in it.
Eight steps, about nine hundred words, and it can be read in the time it takes to walk to the next farm.
Cited for this book
About 723. Boniface was cutting down sacred oaks in Hesse; his old bishop in Winchester wrote to him with something better than an axe. Do not attack their gods, Daniel says. Let them tell you where the gods came from, and then ask what the gods were standing on before the world existed. Ask it quietly. The letter survives because Boniface kept it.
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 | Calmness and Moderation | Ethics | Stat shift | — | 100% | 10 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 30 | Then They Had a Beginning | Natural Theology | Argument | 82 | 100% | 10 |
| 33 | The Whole Extent of Space | Natural Theology | Argument | 74 | 100% | 15 |
| 36 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 39 | Who Is the Strongest? | Rationality | Argument | 78 | 95% | 10 |
| 42 | What Does the Sacrifice Add? | Rationality | Argument | 76 | 100% | 15 |
| 45 | Why Spare the Christians? | History | Argument | 72 | 100% | 15 |
| 48 | Only the Frozen Lands | History | Argument | 70 | 90% | 10 |