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