The High Overseer

High Overseer Campbell

The High Overseer is a book found in Dishonored.

Transcript

[Excerpt from a series on Overseer roles and rituals]

Over the centuries, the Abbey of the Everyman has held its place as the dominant religion across the Isles. Not only do its adherents call it the only meaningful faith, but aside from a few tolerated variants, they castigate the followers of other religions as heretics, actively resulting in harm rather than harmony.

A key component to the Abbey’s health is the High Overseer, venerated by all other Overseers, the women in the Oracular Order, and the congregations from each town and city across the Empire. The High Overseer is called upon to interpret the Seven Strictures and to initiate important ceremonies such as the Fugue Feast at the end of each Calendar year.

Above all, the High Overseer must embody the Strictures, serving as a living example of their perfection.

Upon the death of the acting High Overseer, it falls upon a council made up of elder Overseers to call for the Feast of Painted Kettles, the first step in the arduous process of choosing a new leader for the Abbey.

Trivia

• There are eleven known High Overseers named over the course of Dishonored:
  • Benjamin Holger, the first known High Overseer, killed in the Siege of White Cliff.
  • John Clavering, Holger's successor, who commissioned the construction of the Abbey.
  • Abram Templeton, who was present at the Siege of White Cliff and pronounced some of the invocations that later appeared in Litany on the White Cliff.
  • Francis Perry. On the first floor of the Abbey of the Everyman, Overseer Sturgess can be heard answering questions from citizens. Sturgess comments that, "In 'The Life of High Overseer Perry' it is written that the great man conversed with the Outsider in dreams, so it is true that he may walk there."
  • Steven Gainsford, who discovered the "discordant scale" used for the Overseer Music Boxes.
  • Scott Grafton, the first to travel to the Pandyssian continent in the name of the Abbey.
  • Rhye Mattson, founded the Trials of Aptitude.
  • Tynan Wallace, who "led the first of the Great Trials" and began efforts to "investigate barriers beyond the physical" within the Abbey.
  • An individual known only as Gerard, the addressee of a report on the sinister nature of bone charms.
  • Thaddeus Campbell, High Overseer during the early events of Dishonored and a participant in the coup against Empress Jessamine Kaldwin.
  • Teague Martin, an undercover member of the Loyalist Conspiracy.
• The ashes of eight High Overseers are kept on display in the Office of the High Overseer.