• Location: Public Services Ring, Arla Town
• Address: SE Public Services Ring Road 3
• Surroundings: Adjacent to the John Hickensaw's Practice

The Church of the New Dawn was the only Christian church in the Free State of Settlers. Established in 2627 by the Covenant of the New Dawn, it became the movement’s spiritual home and the only dedicated religious building on VOI 700 D during the Beta Age. While local attendance averaged just 35 members from Arla Town, the annual Easter gathering drew nearly 170 believers from across all Free State settlements.

The church was destroyed during the Great War in 2629, when the Alliance of Native Tribes razed Arla Town. Since then, the Covenant has returned to meeting only in private houses.

• Founding (2627): Built by Covenant members with community labor, the church symbolized permanence and faith in a frontier world.
• Spiritual Center: Its Easter gatherings were the only large-scale religious assemblies of the Free State. Pilgrims traveled from Hope, Morningstar, and New Kourou to attend.
• Minority Faith: Though small in number, the Covenant’s public visibility through the church gave them unique standing among the otherwise secular settlers.
• Destruction (2629): The church was burned down during the raid that destroyed Arla Town, leaving no formal Christian place of worship in the Confederation thereafter.

During the Beta Age, the church was led by a full-time pastor, supported financially by Covenant members in Arla Town and donations collected during annual Easter gatherings. This pastor provided weekly services, pastoral care, and coordination for the wider Covenant network.

For the Easter gatherings, multiple pastors from across the Free State joined in rotation, delivering sermons and sharing communal meals with the congregation. This reinforced Arla Town’s role as the Covenant’s spiritual center until the destruction of both town and church in 2629.

• Construction Materials: Local timber frame, clay-stone foundation, salvaged alloy roof panels from ship debris.
• Floors: Single level
• Design: Rectangular hall with simple benches, a wooden cross above the pulpit, and stained-oil windows overlooking Lake Arla.
• Bell: Instead of a bell tower, a bronze ship’s bell was mounted on a timber frame outside the entrance, rung for gatherings.

Interior

• Assembly Hall: Wooden benches arranged in rows, pulpit at the front, and small dais for visiting pastors.
• Communion Table: Simple plank table used for shared meals during festivals.
• Storage Nook: Shelves for scriptures, hymn sheets, and oil lanterns.

Exterior

• Churchyard: Open grass patch with driftwood cross markers for symbolic memorials.
• Bell Frame: Ship’s bell rung for services and gatherings.
• Lakeside Path: A short trail led down to Lake Arla, used for baptisms and reflection.

Step inside and the air smells of timber oil and lake reeds, mingled with faint smoke from the clay stove. Wooden benches creak under settlers’ weight as soft twilight filters through patched windows. A ship’s bell tolls outside, its echo carrying across Lake Arla. Hymns rise without organ or instruments, only voices bound together by conviction. The atmosphere is plain, intimate, yet powerful: faith stitched into a fragile frontier life.

Today, nothing remains but charred stone footings and scattered alloy roof panels, half-buried in weeds. Driftwood crosses lean, forgotten, at the lakeside path. Pilgrims illegaly sometimes leave flowers or scraps of scripture at the ruin, but the Covenant has no church anymore — only private homes where whispers of prayer continue in secrecy. When fog drifts in from Lake Arla, the bell’s echo is said to ring again, though no bell remains.

Though a minority, the Covenant’s church was symbolically significant: the only public expression of religion in the Free State. For Arla Town, it represented a moral counterpoint to the rougher establishments of the Public Services Ring, such as the Poseidon Inn.

• Minimal Oversight: No guards; safety relied on community trust.
• Controversial Visibility: Its existence drew suspicion from staunch secularists but was tolerated under Free State law.
• No Defense During the Great War: The church was among the first structures consumed by flames in 2629.

The church provides a rare faith-driven setting for VOI 700 D adventures, contrasting with the overwhelmingly secular environment.

• Conflict Potential: Ideal for roleplay around faith, community, and minority rights.
• Hooks and Leads: PCs might uncover hidden relics in its ruins, or protect pilgrims risking arrest for clandestine services in the Gamma Age.

• “Pilgrimage to the Lake” – PCs escort Easter pilgrims to Arla Town. Tensions rise when secular settlers and opportunistic bandits see the gathering as a provocation.

• “Ashes of the New Dawn” – PCs are tasked with retrieving a sacred artifact rumored to have survived the fire in the ruins of Arla Town’s church. Federal authorities, however, guard the site to prevent illegal gatherings.

• Beta Age
• Free State of Settlers
• Arla Town
• Lake Arla
• Covenant of the New Dawn
• Poseidon Inn
• Great War