The Order of the Sealed Cart
“Weight we bear, vow we keep.”
The Order of the Sealed Cart is a monastic fellowship within the Church of Minos composed of teamsters, bonded couriers, and wagonwrights devoted to the sacred duty of honest transport. Founded in reverence to Exemplar Revina of the Sealed Cart, the Order believes that every cargo, be it coin, casket, crate, or contract, is a covenant, and that the act of carrying it unspoiled across the chaos of the world is an act of living faith. Where others wage war or barter fortunes, the monks of the Sealed Cart haul, pull, and deliver over mountain pass, battlefield, and plague-ridden road. To the Order, trust is a sacrament and delivery is liturgy. The seal, once pressed in wax, is inviolate. The vow of a courier is as binding as a divine pact.
The Order operates monastic "Axelhouses" at key crossroads, ferry ports and in major trade towns. These structures are a combination stable, shrine, weigh-hall, and courier lodge, where monks can rest, repair wagons, or exchange sealed manifests. They are managed by Wagonwrights of the First Spoke: master logisticians, responsible for the day-to-day affairs of the Axelhouse, route sanctification, blessing cargo and training of the monks under their care. Cart-Brethren are vowed monks who handle the actual hauling, protection, and ritual sealing of shipments. Many drive the Holy Carts, distinct wagons marked with Minos’ Golden Seal and Revina’s sigil. Oxbinders care for the Order’s beasts of burden and train novices in the spiritual practice of measured strength and patient travel. The Keepers of the Seal are trusted monks who carry the sacred Signets of Minos and apply the ceremonial wax seals to parcels and chests under divine vow. Finally, the initiates of the Order are the Journeymonks who apprentice under senior Cart-Brethren, often walking beside their wagons on pilgrimages of distance and duty.
Every full brother or sister of the Order undergoes a rite in which their left palm is branded with a wax seal, not to glorify pain, but to memorialize the vow of the flesh to carry burdens unbroken. The "Sealhands" (as the monks are known colloquially) tend to dress in earth-tone robes reinforced with padded vests and bear wide-brimmed hats or hooded cloaks marked with Revina’s sigil: a sealed cartwheel with seven spokes, the eighth conspicuously absent...a reminder of the burdens that remain unseen but still borne.
The Order is very close with the Brotherhood of Roadwardens, often sharing waystations and even cohabitating in the same monastery. They maintain strict neutrality in all conflicts, refusing to carry weapons, political messages, or cursed objects—even under threat. This neutrality is part of their famed reliability. When an item must absolutely arrive...sealed, unspoiled, and honored by divine trust...even kings and cults turn to the Sealed Cart.
