The Criers’ Guild

At the three-hundred-fortieth annual meeting of the Criers’ Guild of Ustalav, Guildmaster Zotov Ivanovich is barely holding himself together—partly from nerves, partly from the looming presence of Ellis, an incorporeal wraith assigned by the newly risen tyrant Tar-Baphon to “advise” the guild’s messaging. As Zotov faces a hall full of bewildered criers furious over his increasingly absurd, undead-approved propaganda edits, he must juggle terrified guild members, impossible political spin, and the constant threat of Ellis’s lethal “feedback.” A darkly comic tale of bureaucracy under occupation, The Criers’ Guild follows one very stressed town crier trying—and mostly failing—to survive a new era where every announcement might be his last.