Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
12/19/2011
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It is common knowledge that London is the Fifth City to Fall and join the Bazaar. Prelapsarian study has long been one of the great pursuits of mystery-minded Netheans - and rather less immediately risky than pursuits into celestial languages or the names of ruminated gentlemen. I suggest that here, as well as anywhere, would be a good place to collate evidence, compare notes, and try to piece together which cities have previously graced the Neath, and why. I believe that our ever-delightful hostess, the Duchess, is something of an expert on this subject. It would of course be the very soul of rudeness to make any demands of her knowledge - though perhaps a cat might give me a nudge if I drop any particularly howling bricks!
To begin with the barest facts: London, capital of the British Empire, fell 'three decades' before 1889. The lives of the Empress and/or her Consort were somehow tied to this exchange of premises. London retains much of its structure of government - Parliament still stands and the bureaucratic machine rolls on. The Masters exert a great deal of control over London's society and structure, and many names are gradually being lost... but I digress. Many alive remember the Fall and can recount their experiences.
The Fourth City is largely intact as the Forgotten Quarter, and, while it is remote and sometimes dangerous, its outskirts are frequently visited by archaeologists, students and sightseers. Artefacts from the Fourth City include pottery, statuary, fragments of text and even intact food and drink. All of these strongly suggest that the city belonged to the Mongolian Empire - an expansionistic, legalistic, commercial entity not unlike Britain, and famous for its horsemanship. Scattered records and modern esoteric texts suggest that the Fourth City fell during a period of siege and imminent battle. The Forgotten Quarter houses at its heart a palace and a magnificent silver fountain. One of the Mongol capitals, Karakorum, was built around a palace and a silver fountain, and was invaded by the Ming Empire in the fourteenth century, approximately five hundred years before the Fall of London.
This much, we may say, is moderately obvious. The earlier cities are a trickier parcel of plums, and I shall retreat for now to re-order my notes and allow others to continue, contradict and correct (I have no doubt you've far better ideas than I!)
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
12/19/2011
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Before I delve into the identification of cities preceding London -- permit me to offer to the discussion a compilation of whispers heard in London and abroad. (Or, in other words, let me offer some quotes from the game, which we may pick apart and piece together at will.)
Of the First City:
What was the First City? Only two things are known to remain of the First City: the name, the Crossroads Shaded By Cedars, and the saying: even the First City was young when Babylon fell.
The script is primitive and the hand is clumsy. The scribe was better used to a clay tablet and a blunt reed. You've seen the script before, on a coin. You can't make out what it says, but this is definitely First City writing.
First City Coins: One side bears what might be a cedar tree. You've never met anyone who can read the script on the other side.
Of the Second City:
What’s the problem with the Second City? Never mention the Second City to the Masters of the Bazaar. Mr Wines will look at you narrowly and give you his worst vintage. Mr Cups will fly into a rage. Mr Veils will harangue you for your discourtesy. Mr Iron will say nothing, only write down your name with its left hand.
A peculiar antipathy Certain of the Masters of the Bazaar – Mr Stones, Mr Apples and Mr Wines, and possibly others – seem to have a particular contempt for Egypt and the Egyptological. Perhaps they’re simply reacting to the fashion for the Pharaonic that overcame London before the Descent. But it’s unusual that they should care.
Mr Eaten’s opinion on Egypt: I think the place is charming; the weather, delightful; the Pharaoh’s daughters, most hospitable.
The things it said! The things it said! [...] The tall man’s daughters. The city of granite. The drowning.
... the hieroglyphic tablets from the Second City, more than three thousand years ago, which mention [the Vake's] taste for royal blood ...
... a memory that used to belong to a jackal. You pad across chilly sand. Royal flesh! The Pharoah's youngest daughter escaped, but you'll crack the bones of the others where they lie bleaching in the desert sun ...
'The insets date from the Second City, although the mirror and frame are of recent manufacture ...'
Some of this stonework is old, old, old. Here is a glyph daubed in dried and ancient blood. There is a faded fresco of a bird-headed man carrying a lamp ...
The symbols on the gravestones aren't words at all, they are rows and rows of precisely-carved images. Stylised hawks and oversized lizards; something which must surely be the sun; a boat with a single sail; water poured from a jar. Everywhere, twined around and between everything, there are cats curled up as if asleep. And what's that in the corner of the oldest stone? A row of tiny cloaked and hooded figures, one bearing a goblet?
... a small coffer ... a strong whiff of dust and rotting fish ... a bundle surrounded by a number of interesting trinkets. The bundle is wrapped in yellowing fabric and is terribly thin, with a narrow neck, a triangular head, and no limbs. A painted scene on the inside of the coffer shows a boat with a single sail, and a sleeping cat.
A woman passes you. She is dressed in a simple white linen shift and about twenty pounds of gold jewellery. She is dark-skinned: African, perhaps.
'A long time ago ... three cities ago in fact ... when I was more than a Duchess, but still a friend to cats ... I was betrothed. I loved him a great deal, and when a serpent stung him, I was distraught ... I would have done anything to save him.' [...] 'There is always a cost that is known, and a cost that is not. The Empress knows this now. My sisters and I learnt it then.'
The bats are surly, but they don't object to you getting close and removing tiny cylinders from their legs. [...] One of the messages is written in the picture-alphabet of the Second City. The part you can make out says, '..all the Pharoah's daughters bar one are gone...'
But you enjoy a pleasant half-hour listening to Mr Wines' tales of previous cities: ... the sour beer of the Second ...
'These days, I'm researching the music of the second city. I'll be giving a zummara recital next week.'
Relic of the Second City: Gypsum heads and indecipherable clay tablets.
Of the Third City:
What was the Third City? No-one talks much about the cities that preceded London. The Third City seems to have been acquired a thousand years ago. It had five wells, they say. And the weather was better.
What is the Correspondence? [...] They say it’s the last accounts of the last days of the Third City, strung in beads on cord in a code no-one living understands.
Careful study. ‘…now study most carefully as Miss Forward performs a dance of antiquity from the Third City. Note the sinuous motions and ungodly rhythms of this ancient art. From the costume we must deduce that the Third City was very warm…’
‘… be hypnotised by the rhythmic movements of her hips … marvel at that thing she is doing now with that silk veil …’
The patience of Hell. [...] The devils’ interest in the Correspondence is still unclear, but something to note is that their records of investigating it go back a long way. To at least the Third City, in fact. They have been looking for something for at least a thousand years.
The ruins resemble a long, walled courtyard rather than a building. If you weren't here to research, you might think to string up a tennis net [...] Skyglass shards, perished lumps of indiarubber, a few bones. This court was definitely built and used by people of the Third City.
You spend some careful hours looking at bas-reliefs depicting what could be rituals from the Third City ...
The Fragrant Academic is studying the Third City [...] Over the course of a few days you drip-feed him juicy clues, and he invites you to spend several honey-fuelled evenings in speculation. You pick his brains, paying careful attention to his ideas — skyglass knives, black mirrors, and well-attended sporting events? Fascinating!
But you enjoy a pleasant half-hour listening to Mr Wines' tales of previous cities: ... the maize-wine of the Third ...
Skyglass Knife: These turn up in the ruins. From the Third City, it’s said. They’re useless as cutlery, but handy for murder.
Relic of the Third City: Cinnabar beads and little square granite gods.
Of the Fourth City:
What can you find in the Forgotten Quarter? The Quarter is the last remnant of the Fourth City, which the Bazaar acquired five hundred years ago. Statues of warrior-kings line silent avenues. A fountain shaped like a silver tree stands before a ruined palace at its heart.
Who carves horse-head amulets out of bone? Whoever lived in the Fourth City. If all the Fourth City amulets on sale are real, they must really have liked horses.
A troubled conversation about dusty stones. “If they said … and she meant … and we were on the Ramparts on the night the Constables never came … has the fountain always been dry?”
“But where does the Forgotten Quarter fit into it? And why are there no foxes in the city?”
It’s something about the silver tree. And a battle that never happened. “Blood on the troubled garments …”
Wherever the city was in its surface days, it was definitely somewhere closer to Samarkand than Rome.
The Forgotten Quarter’s avenues are disquietingly wide [...] There are remnants of the Fourth city scattered around: a dusty stone tortoise here, a few horsehead amulets there.
The far reaches of the Forgotten Quarter are dominated by monuments: dry fountains and statues of warrior kings.
… a strange torchlight glow from a large building [that] resembles an Oriental temple ….
None of these places really have names, but sometimes visitors give them names that stick for a while. So, here, the Shuddering Stones. There, the Shadowed Dome. This must be the Fountain of Names. That might be the Holy Chasm.
Horse-bone amulets and cracked clay rice-bowls. A stone monument, its bell-like shape familiar to you from your outings to the Forgotten Quarter, now subsumed by clinging moss. The denizens of the Fourth City came here in numbers.
You spend some careful hours ... turning over what might be potsherds from vessels used for offerings in the Fourth City ...
Tonight the view from your window is of the armies ringing the Fourth City, the night before it came underground ...
But you enjoy a pleasant half-hour listening to Mr Wines' tales of previous cities: ... the fermented mare's milk he sold in the Fourth ...
Relic of the Fourth City: Horsehead amulets carved from bones and blue-glazed potsherds.
Fourth City Rags: This threadbare garment whispers to you in your dreams. When you wake, sometimes you remember.
Fourth City Airag, Year of the Tortoise: At last you find an obliging fellow from Tartay who can translate the faded label: 'For the Khan of Dreams'. It smells like horse-sick.
edited by theodor_gylden on 12/19/2011
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Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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Nathanael S. Wells
Posts: 80
1/11/2014
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The Case for Amarna
Hidden for spoilers! Quite long!
[spoiler]
On why the Second City was Egyptian:
Never mention the Second City to the Masters of the Bazaar.
Hereby we know that the Second City has a special relation to the Masters; one taboo and indicating bad memories.
A peculiar antipathy Certain of the Masters of the Bazaar – Mr Stones, Mr Apples and Mr Wines, and possibly others – seem to have a particular contempt for Egypt and the Egyptological.
Hereby we know that the same relation exists between the Masters and Egypt; since none of the other cities seem to be so reviled - not even the Third City, with its wells and God-Eaters and other unpleasant events! - the connection between the Second City and Egypt first becomes apparent.
'...one hears that the Masters of the Bazaar stayed in the Second City far longer than they intended. Perhaps that's something to do with their disdain for Egypt...'
And here it becomes evident: this snippet equates the Second City with Egypt. Note that "Egypt" is named, not Nubia; despite the active cultural exchange between Egypt and Nubia, they both had distinct cultures and it should, even by the standards of 19th century Egyptology, be easy to tell apart. As such, Meroe is not a likely candidate.
A woman passes you. She is dressed in a simple white linen shift and about twenty pounds of gold jewellery. She is dark-skinned: African, perhaps.
Much is made of the Duchess - who is confirmed to be one of the "Pharaoh's daughters" that will find further mention below - being described as dark-skinned to the point where the player characters pinpoint her origin to Africa. Ethnic considerations on Ancient Egypt are quite a messy subject, but ultimately it ought to be said that black Africans in Egypt were, while common during certain eras, not the native populace; DNA tests of isolated oasis communities in Egypt as well as Copts suggest that Egyptians shared a common ancestor with the Berber peoples of North Africa. Note that both Berbers and modern-day Egyptians are, while not black, often decidedly dark-skinned. The Duchess being particularily dark-skinned is not a convincing argument for Nubian ancestry.
On why it was Pre-Hellenist:
One of the messages is written in the picture-alphabet of the Second City. The part you can make out says, '..all the Pharaoh's daughters bar one are gone...'
Two things here, although none 100 % conclusive: both the title of "pharaoh" and the use of hieroglyphs (as opposed to the later Demotic script, or indeed Greek) are associated with native Egyptian culture; were it a Ptolemaic city, like Alexandria, there would be a prominent Greek architectural, religious and linguistic element to the Second City, but there seems to be none.
'...I still hear speculation about Alexandria, but I'm sure that isn't true. The Second City didn't have nearly enough temples to be Alexandria.'
You heard it, folks. Alexandria is out of the question provided this is a reliable source (and most of the item conversion hints that aren't failures seem to be) and we have gained another hint: the Second City didn't house as many temples as one would expect of an Egyptian city. Let's see what we can do with that.
On why it was Akhetaten:
'...They say her father was mad, you know. Tore down all the old Gods and raised himself up.'
Akhenaten, pharaoh of Egypt, instituted radical religious reforms in Egypt, the most brazen of which was the declaration of monotheism centered around the Sun, personified as the god Aten. Akhenaten renamed himself to honour his god, and he built a new capital for himself at Akhetaten; his stunt was unique, so the references to the "tearing down of the Old Gods" and apotheosis of some degree (Akhenaten regarded himself as a projection of Aten on Earth) find no comparable event in Egyptian history.
The tall man’s daughters. The city of granite. The drowning.
"The tall man", huh? Flyte was so kind as to alert me to the fact that during the rule of Akhenaten, a new art style emerged, which has been coined, quite appropiately, "Amarna art". Amarna art is interesting for many reasons, central to this observation of the Second City is that Akhenaten himself (not exclusively, but quite prominently) is depicted as very tall, spindly, with long and gangly limbs and elongated features; this is a clear break from former Egyptian art traditions where humans in general and the pharaoh in particular were depicted as handsome, muscled and well-proportioned.
There is an air of celebration [...] a great disaster has been averted, the King's folly is ended by the Princess' cunning, the heralds of night are bound. Yes, the sun is gone, and no, the places below ground are not what had been taught, but perhaps that's for the best, considering.
I used to think the Duchess was Ankhesenamun, but since she's said to be the youngest among her sisters, she could likely be Setepenre; in any case it is noteworthy that Atenism did not survive Akhenaten, was immensely unpopular among the priesthood (who'd have thought?) and was quickly hidden under the rug. Tutenkhaten and Ankhesenaten, children of Akhenaten, changed their names to Tutenkhamun and Ankhesenamun, respectively.
"Yes, the sun is gone, (...) but perhaps that's for the best, considering."
Further evidence for the heliocentric heresy of Akhenaten, and its overturning.
[/spoiler]
With all these specific descriptions of the Second City pointing towards Akhetaten/Tell el-Amarna, I believe it safe to assume that the identity of the Second City is as certain to us as that of the Fourth.
Countless thanks to Theodor Gylden, whose compilation of Pre-Lapsarian Archaeological notes made this post much easier to write, and Flyte for poking me into writing this and providing me with sources and clues.
edited by Nathanael S. Wells on 1/11/2014
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Nathanael S. Wells, the Epicurean Polymath.
Founder and Patron of the Damnation Army, a philanthropic society devoted towards bringing food and clothes to the destitute and impoverished Seekers! Consider donating food (no Rubbery Lumps, please!) or clothes (no Veils-Velvet, please! We don't need another incident.)
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Beli Yaal
Posts: 15
2/9/2014
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If I may be permitted, a bit of musing on the second city, and why it seems to upset the Masters so:
It seems that every so often, on a rather regular schedule, the Masters rise from the 'neath and steal a city.
It seems that the criteria on which this city is chosen are that it
A) Be the capitol of the most powerful empire in the world at the time (thus why the Pope's letter implicitly acknowledging the Holy Roman Empire's submission to the Mongol empire shifted the Masters' target)
and
B) that its fade away from the world stage will cause the empire to fall.
Love is the instrument through which the masters gain their cities, but it seems that love is not what they want from the cities.
Instead, it seems that it is the very significance of the city that feeds them (or feeds the bazaar, or fuels its journey). If "importance" can be thought of as an actual substance, as a food, they need to feed on a city so important that empires will fall for its loss.
So consider, then, Amarna.
When the masters poked their head up from the 'neath for their scheduled city-swiping, they would be entirely correct in surmising that Amarna was, indeed, the center of the Kemetic empire.
But, as we (and history) have established, Amarna was a weird capital. It had only been established less than a lifetime ago, by a mad king's folly, and without him to hold it together, it would be abandoned just as quickly. Its loss would not spell the end of the empire, in fact its continued existence was more likely to doom them. Freed of Amarna (and Akhenaten), the Egyptians would in fact be better off.
It had all the indicators of being an important city (after all, it sat at the heart of the empire), but none of the substance. Underneath all the usual pointers, it was an aggressively unimportant place.
It was a false meal. The Bazaar bit, and yet came away starving.
Perhaps the Sisters knew this, and knew they were setting up the Masters to bite a wax apple. That as soon as the Masters took their worthless city, the Capitol would be moved back to Thebes and the empire would continue, robbing the Bazaar of sustenance.
And maybe that's why the Bazaar lingered there so long: having taken their shot and come up empty, the Bazaar lacked the power to continue its journey and take another city.
Which leads us to the "Feather-Wearing Heathens" that the sisters spoke of, who ruined the plan. Weren't the Mayans fond of feathers?
edited by Beli Yaal on 2/9/2014
edited by Beli Yaal on 2/9/2014
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Beli~yaal
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hannah mckay
Posts: 14
3/2/2012
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For what it's worth, I've developed my own pet crackpot conspiracy theory regarding the Manager's lover. In the Doubt Street interview, he says that his lover is 'over the water', but that he sees 'his face in the streets every day'. Now, in Wilmot's End, you can meet a Clay Man standing by a statue that could be his double. Putting the two together, I find myself wondering whether the Clay Men are made in the image of someone specific, someone over the water in Polythreme, and it is in them that the Manager sees his lover's face...
Probably the ramblings of a lunatic, but I figured I'd toss it out there.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
12/19/2011
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I theorize that the the Second City is Amarna, and that the Duchess is not the Pharoah's wife, but one of his daughters. The latter, because she refers to the lessons she and her 'sisters' learnt, and because Mr Eaten, the memory of the jackal, and the note on Corpescage Island all refer to the Pharaoh's daughters. The jackal's memory and the note, in particular, refer to one daughter -- the youngest daughter -- surviving.
As for why Amarna -- Akenaten (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten) had many daughters, and his reign was a complex and troubled one. You may also note that he embarked on the wide-scale erasure of traditional gods' names and draw comparisons to the fate of a certain fallen master.
The 'indecipherable clay tablets' sold at the Bazaar also resemble the Amarna letters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_letters), if somewhat superficially.
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Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
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Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
1/23/2012
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Thanks for your intriguing post, whiteadder! Very interesting indeed!
whiteadder wrote:
I seem to recall some mention of a pharaoh who shook up the Egyptian religious system... but the class this was mentioned in was some time ago, so I'll leave that to you fine gentlemen.
That Pharaoh was Akhenaten. He had six daughters, and he built the city of Amarna...
Well, that shakes things up a bit: Akhenaten's and Amarna's fall occurred ca. 1335 BC. If Amarna really was the Second City, then the First was considerably older than we thought.
Of Akhenaten's six daughters Ankhesenamun was the most notable: she became the wife of another great pharaoh, Tutankhamun.
Oh, and I really hadn't thought the Capering Relicker to be such an interesting fellow. I wonder if his "colleagues" have similar histories of their own?
EDIT: Hang on, this is big!
whiteadder wrote:
The Capering Relicker says this when you get a fortunate result for "Recertify a double-armful of scraps": "I saw the Fall. I raised my jar as the eye temple fell. And they've looked for me ever since. Want me to brew more. They'd flip their cloaks if they knew I was here, under their snouts."
The online Encyclopaedia Britannica redirects to this entry when asked for "eye temple":
"Tall Birāk, also spelled Tell Brak, ancient site located in the fertile Nahr al-Khābūr basin in Al-Ḥasakah governorate, Syria; it was inhabited from c. 3200 to c. 2200 bc. One of the most interesting discoveries at Birāk was the Eye Temple (c. 3000), so named because of the thousands of small stone “eye idols” found there. These curious objects have almost square bodies and thin heads carved with two to six large eyes. The temple itself is important for its use of typically southern Mesopotamian decorative motifs."
(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/66347/Tall-Birak)
Wikipedia writes:
"Third millennium BCE cuneiform texts from the city of Ebla and from Brak itself identify Nagar (Brak's ancient name) as the major point of contact between the cities of the northern Levant, eastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia."
That sounds a very likely place for a crossroads shaded by cedars... (here's the Wikipedia article on Tell Brak)
Also: "Look: an eye. - The city around the Bazaar is called the Fifth City because, they say, it's not the first the Bazaar chose as a home. You can still turn up bricks from the older cities, now and then. Look: here's one marked with an eye."
(You may have noticed, too, that the Capering Relicker promises "something secret" for 3200 Certified Scraps. That must be... a bottle of Hesperidean Cider!)
EDIT 2: The only thing not fitting in here is the saying "even the First City was young when Babylon fell". But it's only a saying, after all. A very old saying. People tend to confuse these things a bit. Babylon was founded around 2240 BC, so when you say "even Babylon was young when the First City fell", it makes perfect sense.
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
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Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
12/20/2011
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Wieland Burandt wrote:
Oh, that tree is really impressive! But of course, they could've had something similar in Xanadu, as well?
I guess I just like that idea of Xanadu being the Fourth City... Kubla Khan is one of my favourite poems 
And that Kubla Khan could indeed be called a Khan of Dreams!
Wieland Burandt wrote:
But are you sure about that date? Babylon "fell" quite a few times (click here). Is there any evidence that the fall in question is the Persian invasion of 539 BC?
It need not be. My only thought was that the Fall referred to the Biblical Fall of Babylon prophesied by Isaiah ('behold, I will stir up the Medes against them'), but even that may be a source of some contention, and I am no religious scholar to settle it.
Nevertheless, as the conversation turns Biblical, it may be worth offering a passage of particular interest to those of us in the shadow of the Bazaar.
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,
And cinnamon, and spice, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.
I must credit Ms Scarlet with this discovery. The passage mentions the trades of Mr Stones, Mr Veils, Mr Iron, Mr Spices, Mr Wines, and that most detestable of trades, the Soul Trade, in the context of Fallen Babylon. I do not know whether this will contribute at all to the identification of more literally fallen cities, but it is -- as I said -- of interest.
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Dave
Posts: 215
3/3/2012
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hannah mckay's brilliant observation has given me the piece of a puzzle I needed to push my own pet idea from "this city keeps showing up on my searches" to "full-blown conspiracy theory" level. If you enjoy that sort of thing, stay with me for a fine tale of cross-cultural historical myths dredged from wikis, stirred together without regard to consistency, and seasoned with my personal blend of wild speculation.
Tyre
I'll start off with the "incidentals" but the most intriguing aspect is at the end.
Tyre is an acient Phoenician city dating back to 2,700 BCE or more (though the Phoenicians were Caananites then.) It spent over a thousand years as one of the most powerful cities of the Phoenicians, one of the most powerful groups of its time. There is much history there; they are nearly single-handedly responsible for the Bronze age. It was Tyrian ships that discovered and brought Tin from the Brittish Isles; and they maintained a ruthless stranglehold on that route for hundreds of years. Our interest in it starts later though; during it's second rise to greatness, sometime in the 800 BCE range.
One thing to note is that some of the reasons for suggesting Jerusalem as the first city actually apply better to Tyre. First city coins, for insance - it was in Tyrian shekels that Judas was paid. Tyrian coins which, by the way, looked like this:
That "could" be a cedar. It isn't, it's actually an olive tree base on the founding myth of Tyre; but it looks remarkably like the first city coins. Cedar trees, by the way, are another Tyre tie-in to Jerusalem. The famous temple of Jerusalem, you see, was built by Tyrian laborers (renown for their skill), using cedars shipped from Tyre, and built to a plan identical to a famous Tyrian temple. This was under the rule of it's God-king Hiram I, good friend to David and his son Solomon, and about the only self-identified God-king that the Bible mentions in a good light.
This brings up two more interesting facts of Tyre: it's government, where the king was kept in check by a ruling body of merchants (sound familiar fallen Londoners?) And those merchants were so successful they are listed in the Bible as well. You can see that here; it contains what you'd expect. Lots of mentions of goods like Iron, Stones, cloth, ivory, Bronze, etc. It's not a one-to-one correlation with the Masters, but... worth looking at.
While we are mentioning religion, here's some interesting bits about Tyre's. The famous temple isn't "the temple of the eye" unfortunately; it's a temple to Melqart (with a dozen alternate spellings), who was something of a trinity. He was one aspect of Baal, another aspect of which was Baal's consort and also Melqart's consort, Astarte. Melqart represented the sun and moon, the seas, and the underworld, and Astarte later became intermingled with Aphrodite by the Greeks. If you want an underworld with "moonish light" cast by disturbing giant sea-creature looking things (see the lightfingers ambition) and driven by love, you could hardly do better for a deity than Melqart and his consort/aspect Astarte.
Two more little tidbits before I move on to the most promising stuff. Tyrian sailors were some of the best in the world, and Tyrian lore refers to the Pillars of Melqart (later the Pillars of Hercules) - supposedly the passage through the straights of Gibraltar. It's a possible tie-in to the pillars of the underzee as well. Tyre was also known for its bronze and its brass, which is important because of the manager of the Royal Bethlehem's buttons... which takes us to the exciting parts.
Okay, the good bits:
Following the 900 BCE's, Tyre was in something of a slump. Until about 878 BCE, they were suffering a mess of revolutions and regicides. This came to an end with the ascension of Eth-baal (Ithobaal), the first priest-king of Tyre. He used his position as religious leader to put an end to the king-killing. Under him began a new golden era of Tyre. Now, I haven't been able to find out if the rest of his bloodline ruled as priest-kings as well, but it seems likely. He had many interesting descendents, such as Jezebel (yes, that Jezebel) but the most interesting of which for our purposes are Pygmalion and Dido.
Dido became queen, and her husband king - which made Pygmalion quite jealous, according to legend. He killed Dido's husband and took the throne in 831 BCE; Dido scurried off and founded Carthage. Now, this doesn't have any special ties to Echo Bazaar's storyline, except for this striking coincidence: There is another famous Pygmalion. This other Pygmalion was also a king, though the Greeks who wrote about him (from secondary sources) had him pegged as a king of Cyprus. However Cyprus, at the time of Tyre's Pygmalion and Dido, was partially ruled by Tyre - so it is possible that these two Pygmalions are one and the same.
If so, this is fascinating, because what this other Pygmalion is known for is loving a statue so much that Aphrodite (the Greek interpretation of Astarte, remember) brought the statue to life, and they lived together and had children. This is the interesting tie-in with hannah-mckay's observation that the manager of the Royal Bethlehem's love may be related to the Clay Men. If Tyre was stolen in the time of Pygmalion, and the two Pygmalions are the one and the same, the Manager could be Pygmalion, in love with his statue (or his statue's children) still to this day - the descendents of which (in one sense or another) are the clay men.
It's not a perfect theory - 800ish BCE is still 100 years or so too soon for the invention of proper coinage. There is also the matter of the second city issues: the age of the vake, and the tearing down of the old gods. The first could be explained if the vake didn't always live in the 'neath; the second by Rome. The Ceasers often raised themselves up as Gods; after tearing down the old order. It would make for a more consistent timeline if this is the case - 800ish years of 1st city, 1,000 ish years for the second city (judged "too long" by certain masters) and 500ish for the cities afterwards.
Frankly, because of these issues, I still feel like I'm missing something though; but also that there is something useful here.
Well, there you have it. Other than the fact that it's all plainly the ramblings of a lunatic, it holds together as well as the other theories, at least...
--
The Dave, a terrifying, lethal, inescapable and sagacious gentleman
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
7/11/2012
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So I've been going after the cities a slightly different way recently, focusing on love stories (as advised by the Duchess in the University murder investigation) for each of the fallen cities. Once again, it's somewhat possible start with the most recent cities and work backwards. What this has lead to is stumbling across a huge clue for the Third City, utter confusion for the Second City, and some intriguing possibilities for the First City.
The basic framework goes something like this:
- Each of the stolen cities was swapped for some benefit to the party that sold it to the Bazaar
- These scenarios will all involve love of some sort
- In each scenario, there will be a connection to some historically known, rumored, or legendary figures, and clues about these figures are available in the game.
Along those lines, I'm going to go city-by-city and take the clues I've found in the game or shared here and try to match them up with historical figures, which I've found gives major clues to the cities (and sometimes raises more questions than it answers.)
FIFTH CITY
Clues:
- Traitor Empress traded the city in 1861 but now stays shut up with her consort in the Shuttered Palace
- The consort was ill from typhoid, but after the Fall, appears to have recovered and is healthy
- Um, the game is now called Fallen London...
Historical facts:
- Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, died in 1861, and the contemporary diagnosis was typhoid.
- The marriage had an aspect of forbidden love to it, as Albert was seen as being too low bred (only the son of the King of Belgium) to carry the title of King Consort. As such, the Lords at the time made him Prince Albert, Consort, which upset both Albert and Victoria
- Following his death, Victoria was consumed with grief, wearing mourning for the rest of her life
Surmise:
London, obviously, and the love story is handed to us on a silver platter. As I mentioned earlier, the Traitor Empress is clearly Victoria and the consort is Prince Albert, who in real life died of typhoid at the time when in the game the city was stolen. I'm only mentioning this because it sets a pattern -- the city is a tradeoff for immortality, involves a somewhat unique love story, there was some hidden cost to it that we don't fully know, and the principles involved are still running around the Neath.
FOURTH CITY
Clues:
- Correspondance dreams give you "the language of Xanadu," there's a fountain shaped like a tree in the Forgotten Quarter, it was filled with temples with lanterns and jade, and in the last days before its Fall people were huddled against some siege.
- There's a whole host of "Oriental connections" surrounding one Gracious Widow who seems to be involved in a lot of covert smuggling and dealing
- I haven't come across any specifics about life of the Gracious Widow, but Shadowy is my weakest stat, which locks me out of a lot of stuff, I think. The closest is the story of the urchin adopted by the Gracious Widow, showing some strong maternal instincts.
Historical facts and myths:
- Karakorum, which I think clues in the game conclusively point to as the Fourth City ("the language of Xanadu" would also have been the language of Karakorum), fell in 1380 under a vicious counterattack by the second Ming Emperor Hongwe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uskhal_Khan_T%C3%B6g%C3%BCs_Tem%C3%BCr).
- The most intriguing character I've found in the late Mongol period, as far as the game goes, was the Korean second empress of the last great Kahn, Togun Temur, referred to in the all-knowing Wikipedia as the Qi Empress. During the reign of her husband, she constantly maneuvered to install her son, Ayushiridara, as the heir to the Khanate, and was eventually successful. After Togun Temur's death, she became the Dowager Empress, and Wikipedia leaves us with this tantalizing nugget: " It is possible that she was captured by the Ming Chinese when Mongol royal family was fleeing. According to the myth, she was pregnant when captured by the Ming army. She possibly married Hongwu and gave birth to the Ming Emperor Yongle." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi_Empress)
- The Yongle Emperor went on to become one of the most militarily powerful and feared Emperors of the Ming dynasty.
Surmise:
There's too much that falls into place regarding the Qi Empress for me to ignore. The surmise here is that the Qi Empress, now known as the Gracious Widow, sold Karakorum as it was on the verge of being sacked in return for being able to marry the Hongwu Emperor and place her son on the throne of the Ming Dynasty, along with an endless supply of Hesperidian Cider, one presumes. As with Victoria and Albert, there is the interesting twist that she was Korean, and hence regarded as a foreigner and less deserving of the title, but rose to a position of power nonetheless.
THIRD CITY
Clues:
- Maybe I haven't gone to the Tomb Colonies enough, or I'm hitting the wrong stories, but Third City clues seem almost as rare as First City clues. There's some figure known as the Presbyter, who may or may not be related to Feducci (feel free to post spoilers if I've got this horribly wrong).
- We know the city had ball courts, temples, and five wells (leading some to rush to anoint Hopelchen, a modern village with no nearby ruins of any size whose name happens to mean "city of five wells," as the Third City).
- The Third City fell 1000 years ago in game time, putting it in the range of 900 CE.
- The game strongly hints several times that the Third City is in the Western Hemisphere somewhere, probably tropical.
Historical facts and myths:
- Of the various civilizations which blossomed, peaked, and fell in pre-Columbian Americas, the Mayans were far and away the most dominant at the end of the first millennium CE. The Mayan "Classical" period ran from roughly 250 CE - 900 CE. The Toltecs, Aztecs, and Incas all developed their major cities later.
- In my original post in this thread, I was leaning towards the greatest of the Mayan-era cities, Teotihuacan, but I've slipped away from that. Part of it is there's no way I can get five wells out of it.
- On the other hand, I originally dismissed Chichen Itza because it seemed to last too late to be a fallen city, and I could only find documentation of two cenotes, the natural sinkholes that opened to available groundwater. Calakmul, with an equally impressive pyramid, had five cenotes, but didn't have much story to it. Since then I've found this document which says Chichen Itza is in an area of 13 cenotes, five of particular note (http://www.famsi.org/reports/03101/81rocio_osorio_schmidt/81rocio_osorio_schmidt.pdf), but it also had a number of other water management structures which were critical to the success of the civilization.
- . . . and then looking for a Mayan love story myth, I stumbled onto the story Sac Nicte and Canek (http://www.haciendatresrios.com/culture-and-tradition/mayan-legends-bedtime-stories-of-an-ancient-civilization/). The young, newly appointed king of Chichen Itza, Sac Nicte ("black serpent") fell in love with Canek ("white flower"), princess of nearby ally Mayapan, but she was betrothed to the prince of a third ally, Uxmal. On the day of the wedding, Sac Nicte showed up and spirited her off, spurring the Mayapan and Uxmal to war with Chichen Itza. When they got to Chichen Itza, it was completely abandoned, with Sac Nicte having led the people of the city off to another city.
Surmise:
I don't care about five wells anymore. I don't care about fall dates being exactly 1000 years before Victorian London. We have a 100% perfect Bazaar forbidden love story that leads to a king abandoning his city in return for the love of the princess. The Third City is Chichen Itza -- maybe I'll change my mind on this later, but if this love story business means anything at all, this one is far too perfect.
SECOND CITY
Clues:
- No city has quite as many maddeningly specific clues.... that don't match up to anything at all in history. Sure, you think you've got it nailed, but oops, there's something missing...
- The Masters of the Bazaar get mad when you talk about the Second City. The Masters of the Bazaar get mad when you talk about Egypt. Hmm...
- Per the spoiler posted here earlier, the Sisterhood of the Vake consists of a formerly royal family of the Second City that managed to hoodwink the Bazaar, but that it somehow didn't work out. They left behind the youngest daughter as a hostage, somehow.
- Now the sisters are involved in fighting off the Vake, (SPOILER) who likes to eat people after confusing them by yelling screams of consciousness at them. Huh?
- There's the enigmatic figure of the Duchess. She's obsessed with cats (SPOILERS COMING), she's dark skinned, perhaps African, she loved a young man who was bitten by a snake and made a deal with the masters of the Bazaar to save his life (or so it would seem), without realizing that his life would be that of the Cantigaster, constantly oozing highly toxic venom from sores on his skin.
- Before the fall of the Second City, the Duchess's father was instituting reforms that removed the old gods. There weren't many temples in the Second City, which is why the text of the game specifically precludes Alexandria.
Historical facts and myths:
- Hoo boy. Freakin' culture with over four millennia of recorded history. Let's see....
- You google "egypt princess death by snakebite" and you of course get 50 million hits regarding a certain Roman and a certain Egyptian queen that Billy Shakes wrote a skit about. One problem -- the legend is that *SHE* died of a self-inflicted snakebite after *HE* killed himself... with a knife.
- There are two cat deities in ancient Egypt -- Bastet and Sekhmet. Neither one have much of a love story associated with them or were associated with any cities that fell suddenly.
- You have the idiosyncratic rule of Akhenaten, nee Amenhotep IV, who decided to throw out all the old gods, move the Capital from Thebes/Luxor to Amarna and worship Aten the Sun Disk with his wife Nefertiti. After his death, the capital promptly moved right back to Thebes/Luxor and subsequent Pharaohs started trying to wipe the whole business out of history.
- Akhenaten was succeeded by his son the famous Tutankhamun (a.k.a. "King Tut"), who married his sister then died as a young man. At least a dozen different theories of why he died have been floated, not one of them is snakebite.
- In despair, his sister and wife (ew) Ankhesenamun wrote to the king of the Hittites that she really needed another husband. The king sent his son, who was killed along the way. The two never met, and there's not one mention of snake bite anywhere in the whole mess. To make things more complicated, she was actually married to her father before her brother (EW!), and then later maybe married her grandfather and Vizier Ay (yeah....) in a kind of Jafar in Aladdin situation before dying herself. And no snakes anywhere (or cats for that matter).
- Akhenaten and Nefertiti had six daughters, most of whom died in adolescence before ever being involved in any kind of love story.
- There's the city of Bubastis, the home of the cat goddess Bastet, which was (maybe) the capital for the 22nd Dynasty. In the areas around the temple, thousands upon thousands of cat mummies have been found buried. I can't, however, find any figure from the 22nd Dynasty that figures prominently, and Bubastis never underwent a strong fall -- it just briefly rose in power and then pretty soon thereafter declined, remaining a popular tourist -- um, I mean pilgrimage destination for centuries.
Surmise:
Amarna comes the closest, but there are so many pieces that are hinted at that don't seem to fit anywhere in the story here. The story of the sisters and the Duchess could line up most closely with Ankhesenamun and Tutankhamun, but so many of the specifics are missing or wrong, and Egyptian history is so replete with well documented stories of marriage and love and bargaining that I keep expecting to find something that matches up better. I must point out that the more I read, moving the capital and changing the gods around is a pretty common occurrence in ancient Egypt when the dynasties changed. I really feel like something that involves Bubastis is a better fit chronologically (Bubastis was at its peak in the 600 BCE period), as opposed to Amarna, which uncomfortably bumps up against my First City theories.
FIRST CITY
Clues:
- "Crossroads shaded by cedars," "Even the First City was young when Babylon fell."
- The coins with cedars on them, stones with eyes on them, the Eye Temple
- POLYTHREME SPOILER -- the King with a Hundred Hearts makes the Clay Men in Polythreme
- Earlier posted story about the Clay Men, the silk trade, and the inland sea
- Possibly related or not, there's the reference to "when the Bazaar was between stars."
Historical facts and myths:
- In the ancient Near East, which is pretty much what we're down to if we're looking for very early civilizations, apart from the Indus River valley and some very early Chinese settlements, cedars are pretty synonymous with Lebanon. There are some very, very old cities in the Lebanon area, such as Byblos, but none of them appear to be stolen. The cedars grow in the mountains of Lebanon, and peter out before you get to the old cities of what became modern Syria, such as Damascus.
- Others have pointed to Tell Brak/Nagar, particularly given the presence of the "eye idols" that have been found there and in a building now known as the "Eye Temple." On this clue alone Nagar has to be a leading candidate, but it's very hard to make it gibe with the other clues. For the purposes of this analysis, I'm focusing on love stories, and I can't find anything online that references love stories in Nagar (or any other stories from Nagar at this point). If you buy my premise that Failbetter Games based all the stolen cities on a known love story from the period (and of course you may not), this makes Nagar very problematic, but again, the Eye Temple clue is hard to dispute.
- On the other hand, as many have pointed out, there are a lot of things that match up with various points of the story of King Solomon. Just to be brief, as the son of King David, Solomon had 300 wives and 700 concubines, was widely noted for his wisdom in the early and middle part of his reign, but he allowed temples to be built in Jerusalem for his wives' gods, and towards the end of his reign was said to have been turned away from the God of Israel by these false gods, which led to the collapse of his expansive trading empire following his death and a split in the kingdom of Israel. Regardless, the historical evidence is heavy that Solomon maintained some amount of a trading empire that took advantage of Israel's access to both the Mediterranean and hence points west as well as the Gulf of Aqaba and hence points south and east.
- Three stories of Solomon from 2 Chronicles and 1 Kings are particularly interesting here, two of which have already been mentioned. The first is the number of shipments of goods that arrived from the city of Ophir, which involved gold, ivory, peacocks, apes, and all sorts of other goodies. Wikipedia has lots of speculation about where Ophir actually was, with the most believable being either the Indus river or Africa. There's not a love story here, so I'm moving on.
- The second story is that of the Queen of Sheba. The Queen came and was impressed by Solomon (and according to apocryphal stories, seduced too) and sent back lots of gifts.
- The third story is that of the Pharaoh's daughter and the city of Gezer. The scriptures say that one of Solomon's wives -- in fact the only one explicitly named, was "Pharaoh's daughter," and that as part of the dowry, the Pharaoh sacked and burned the city, which had been previously occupied by Canaanites, and gave it to Solomon, who built a large, new palace there with double walls. After Solomon's death, the Pharaoh "Shishak" (perhaps Shoshenq I) re-took the city (The ruins of Gezer have been found at Tel-Jezer, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and helpfully marked by stones which say "Boundary of the City of Gezer."
- Among all the talk of Solomon, both the Temple that Solomon built along with his palace were massive and replete with cedar, such that his house was named the House of the Forests of Lebanon.
- While there's no record of a Pharaoh's daughter marrying being sent out of Egypt to marry a foreign king anywhere near that time, Gezer does feature in some of the letters found in .. . wait for it ... Amarna. The ruler of Gezer wrote to Akhenaten to swear allegiance and to ask for help dealing with raiding tribes in the area. The city does appear to have been destroyed by fire around the time of Solomon, with several layers of rebuilding on top of that.
Surmise:
Oh, who knows. Some deal could have been involved between Solomon, Pharaoh, and the Mastars of the Bazaar, where Gezer is the first stolen city. The love story here would be between Solomon and the Pharaoh's daughter. This is completely incompatible with Amarna as the second city, because this would have happened a half millennia after Ahkenaten. Gezer did sit at the crossroads of the east-west trading routes from the Mediterranean on to Jerusalem and points east and the Egyptian trading route that ran just inland of the coast, and one presumes that if Solomon built a massive temple or palace there, he was probably using the cedars of Lebanon that he used in his Jerusalem temple and palace. The King with a Hundred Hearts wouldn't be all that far from the King with a Thousand Wives, and the creation of the clay men is certainly consistent with the Jewish tradition of golems. On the other hand, with Egypt so fully involved in two subsequent sacks of Gezer, would it be possible that Gezer was actually the second city, with some collection of Pharoah's daughters double-crossing some Assyrian gods? Given that Shoshenq may have been from Bubastis, could the Duchess's cats be involved here somewhere? Another possibility would be some forbidden, foreign love involving the Queen of Sheba, but it's hard to find a city that would be involved there.
Taking a step back, though, one way or the other, the Biblical story of Gezer is of a city that's traded as part of a love story, which is why I've spent so much time on it here.
One final note -- Failbetter games is doing this game in the early 21st century. I refuse to believe that a group of writers who have managed to handle such potentially explosive topics as the church, hell, prostitution, seduction, sex, race, and so on would be so clumsy and crass as to make the hidden story of the Masters of the Bazaar somehow uniquely Jewish, playing on the ugliest of antisemetic tropes dating from the time of the Inquisition. I fully believe that Hebrew stories may be involved here, and on the border of good taste, that the Bazaar being "between stars" could actually refer to a time when, say, the Bazaar was located in Gezer or somewhere where it would have been surrounded by the "Stars of David," or the cities of ancient Israel.
--
Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
5/3/2012
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Scarlet Fenwick wrote:
I got to page 4 and wanted to put this thought out there - one I had when I was at the Genghis Khan exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. (I'm 100% on the Karakorum boat, btw. No doubt in my mind. Just because it stated "the language of xanadu" doesn't mean the city was xanadu. Also, the Mongol language was notably difficult to read.)
What if the connecting factor of all of these cities is that they are strong trade cities of Empires, taken near each Empire's "fall"? Trade being a prominent element in EBZ, this seems to follow. London can arguably say that their Empire declined as they moved into the 20th century. Karakorum was the capitol and a huge multicultural trade city of the Mongol Empire.
This might help us narrow down options for cities that would fit this description: a trade city, most likely a capitol, of an empire. Add in a love story, myth or real, and we might come up with more evidence for our cities.
(forgive me if this has already been stated.)
edited by OScarletO on 5/3/2012
Another thought's shot through me like a lightning-bolt. I was about to explain that Tell Brak, ancient Nagar, our candidate for the First City, was a crossroads for commerce in the Akkadian Empire, located along the Khabur River. If we do believe the Masters target centers of trade, that's further evidence for Nagar.
Then it occured to me that Amarna, too, was located along the Niles (that river with seven mouths, flowing from south to NORTH). Coleridge's poem places Xanadu upon "Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea." Or, if you prefer Karakorum, you may note its proximity to the Orkhon River Valley. Hopelchen requires more of a search, but it seems the territory is altogether divided up by rivers.
Is this a coincidence? For trade and rivers do coincide -- but perhaps there has always been a Stolen River in every city to run to Hell?
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
5/5/2012
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So I apologize for not having read the full forum -- I'm a relatively recent player of the game (to give some context, I'm in the latter stages of exploring the Forgotten Quarter and just gained access to the Shuttered Palace), so I've only skimmed over many of the posts in order to avoid spoilers. So apologies if I miss critical clues that show up later, or if I repeat something that's already been beaten to death.
I very much agree with OScarletO -- London in the late 19th century was less a capital of a military empire and more the capital of a commercial empire. The centrality of the Bazaar and the role of the Masters as industrial age monopolists cum pagan gods in London should drive this point home. The key points for stolen cities to me should be:
* Commercial capitals of the world at that time -- the Royal Exchange ruled the global economy as it existed in the 19th century.
* Among largest cities in the world (if not the largets) -- More on this later, but London, at 3 million people, was bigger than any other city at the time.
* Cosmopolitan -- London in 1860 was home to Irish, Chinese, Indian, and Jewish immigrant communities, in addition to the in-migrants from the countryside. In addition to those who lived there, the boat and train traffic brought an immense number of visitors to the city.
* At the peak of its glory -- London remained a world capital for the next half century, but one could easily argue that 1860 was midsummer for London.
With that...
The Fifth City --
Obviously, it's London, but a bit more than that. It's likely blatantly obvious that the Traitor Empress is Queen Victoria, and that the price for the city was Hesperidian Cider for Prince Albert, who in real history died of typhoid in 1861, after which Victoria went into a period of immense grief that abated somewhat but generally persisted her whole life. I think if the real Queen Victoria could have sent London a mile beneath the earth to save Prince Albert's life, she would have considered it.
The Fourth City --
As I said, I'm less far into the game than many of you, but the arguments for Xanadu over Karakorum make little sense to me. Xanadu, from what I've read, was more of a summer capital and almost a state retreat, a bit like Versailles, whereas Karakorum was the thriving center of the Mongol empire. (Also, the silver tree fountain should ice it, IMO.) I'd speculate that within the game, Kublai Kahn sells Karakorum to the Bazaar and moves the full capital to Xanadu, but like Amarna, it doesn't stay there long. In any case, Karakorum was a highly cosmopolitan city (Ghengis Kahn went out of his way to make sure that all religions were welcomed, and maintained various quarters of the city for different populations). It was rolling in wealth, much of which derived from the Mongol Empire's ability to connect the trade centers of Han China, Eastern Europe, and the Near East. I feel like so many bricks are laid out by the game, this one's a no-brainer. Yes, by my own criteria, it was not that large a city, but the city is quite evidently Mongol, and none of the central Mongol cities were large. If there is an alternative, for my money it's Dadu, on the site of modern Beijing (in fact, as I research writing this, I'm starting to lean that way a bit).
Besides, we have from the Forgotten Quarter the terrified temple denizens cowering in fear in "the last days of the Third City," which doesn't sound much like a relocation of the capital. Karakorum, in contrast, was sacked and violently destroyed in 1370, two years after the palaces in Dadu were razed by Ming forces, as the last days of the Mongol Yuan Empire faded and were replaced by the Ming Dynasty. What else happens in 1370? Let's just say a certain widow mysteriously went missing, with rumors that her child went on to become the second Ming Emperor. Not a bad trade for a city.
The Third City --
Yes, I know the Third City "had five wells," and Hopelchen means "city of five wells." Yay, Hopelchen! There's just one problem -- Hopelchen is the modern name for a town of 7k people and a municipality of about 30k. Yes, the plentiful cenotes in the area probably give the village of Hopelchen its name. There's just one very major problem -- there's no history, ruins, or other indications of any major city near Hopelchen village or in Hopelchen municipality. There are some very minor ones, but they're generally a minor temple or pyramid, not one of the major cities of the area. The closest you get is the famous Chichen Itza ruins, but that site has another major problem. It has very well know, well documented cenotes -- exactly two of them. If "five wells" were a bit of a red herring to throw everyone off, it wouldn't be alone -- there's also the "writing system of beads on a string" which of course sound a lot like Quipu, the Incan number system of knots. (Just for the record, the peak of Incan civilization is very much in the wrong time.)
There are, however, a few cities that might fit the bill.
Teotihuacan -- The collapse comes maybe 100-200 years earlier than the "1000 years ago" clue we're given, but the city was the first truly dominant multi-ethnic city with massive trade, administrative, and religious complexes in the region, and was reportedly the largest city in the world at that time. No other pre-Columbian Mesoamerican city reaches its size. The pantheon is particularly appealing (For instance I'd equate the Great Goddess with Mr. Veils and Isis, but more on that later). It has the additional "feature" of experiencing a catastrophic collapse between 650-750, going from the pinnacle of Mesoamerican civilization to a backwater in less than a century. This is easily my #1 choice, which was originally tempered by the theory that there were no major writing systems in Teotihuacan, but I've since found articles claiming that the pictographs around the site actually represent glyphs that anticipate the more sophisticated Mayan systems that follow. No word about five wells, but there's a massive tunnel network underneath the city that includes some underground springs (can't find how many). Teotihuacan is a later name for the place, meaning "birthplace of the gods."
Tikal -- The most dominant of the Classical Mayan cities, and the only one to approach Teotihuacan in population, reaching around 100k. It grows for 1000 years and becomes a center of learning and culture, but falls in the 9th century as part of the Classical Mayan Collapse. The Mayan cultures have the neat feature of revering the jaguar and having some sort of jaguar god or priesthood (hellooooo Dutchess!), but aside from importance, Tikal doesn't have much that matches the third city. It did have a specific number of reservoirs surrounding the city. Ten of them.
Calakmul -- The rival city to Tikal, about half its size, and eventually overwhelmed. All the same things as Tikal, just half as much. Including the number of major reservoirs -- 5. (!!!) Yeah, I know, but I still have trouble seeing the Masters taking a second fiddle city, or Failbetter Games picking it out of the numerous other great candidates in the area.
Others, including Coba, Monte Alban, and Chichen Itza, just fall way too late.
The Second City --
Amarna is tempting, but it was just the in existence for the period of one single Pharaoh, after which it was abandoned. Furthermore, if the First City truly was "young when Babylon fell," we have a very tight chronology. While Babylon bounced back a number of times, usually I see the "sack of Babylon" refer to the end of the Amorite period, which puts it around 1500 BCE. If the First City was young then, that doesn't give much time for it to get a bit older, get stolen, then for them to come back around for Amarna in 1330 BCE or so.
All that said, I can't exactly say why, but all the stuff I see gives me the feeling of Upper Egypt, not Lower Egypt, so if not Amarna, I'm much happier to go with the dominant city of middle and late period Egypt, Thebes. We have a massively wealthy, diverse city with a complex pantheon, and a definitive sack date of 661 by Assurbanapel. I haven't found much to go on here, but between Amarna and Thebes, Thebes would be far and away the more tempting buy for the Masters, with its superior wealth and millennia of royal history. As for being close to the entrance to Hell, the Valley of the Kings is right around the corner.
The First City --
I've been working on this too long, so I'll just point to my favorite candidate -- Gezer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gezer)
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Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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tofudragon7
Posts: 19
12/20/2011
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Oh boy! There's been a lot of speculation about this on the nets for the past few years, but never a good centralized place to put it. Here's a summary of the best of what I've been able to find, both by my own searching and that which I found on blogs, etc...
4. The fourth city is almost certainly Mongolian. The best evidence for this, I would argue, is the existence of an item called "Fourth City Airag": Airag was a traditional Mongolian drink, centuries ago, brewed from clotted mare's milk. Additionally, horses were the major artistic focus of the Mongolian Emlpire, the domes connote the architecture of Kublai Khan, and jade comes predominantly from Eastern Central Asia.
Yeah, it's probably Karakorum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakorum), which, like Xanadu, was put to the torch in the late 14th century (and don't forget the large fountain shaped like a silver tree)
3. The third city is probably Mayan, not Aztec as first guesses might suggest. The Third City was acquired "about a thousand years ago," which ties in well with the fall of the Mayan Empire. Like the Aztecs, the Mayans made heavy use of obsidian, although they also used more Cinnabar in their ceremonial crafts.
The most likely candidate? Hopelchén, a city whose name means "Place of Five Wells" in Mayan, and which is surrounded by ruins. Supposedly, the Mayan city of Coba also had five wells.
2. Second city is tough, although we know it's most likely an Egyptian city with an old past (hieroglyphic tablets going back 3000 years). Gypsum also suggests Egypt.
1. Silver currency originated in the 7th century BCE; a lack of gold in the first city suggests the city fell not too longer. Anywhere in the Southeastern Mediterranean (Lebanon, Libya, etc.) is a good candidate for cedars. However, much of this area was Phoenician; the Phoenicians are notable for creating the precursor of most phonetic alphabets, a script in which they began to move away from cutting into tablets with reeds (while this was still done, the clue—and the fact that no one can read the language—suggests more that the First City used a cuneiform language, which suggests to me perhaps Babylon or Assyria as the location of the first city).
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T WO Chandler
Posts: 93
3/3/2012
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Hypothesis: What if we've got the 30 silver coins bit the wrong way round?
What if it's not that First City Coins are given in batches of 30 because of Judas?
Instead, could it not be that the infamous traitor was himself a player of the Marvellous, and his betrayal was in order to secure the coins he needed? It certainly seems to fit the facts a bit better to me.
edited by T.W.O. Chandler on 3/3/2012
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For secrets are their own reward.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
2/22/2012
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Something I discovered upon inviting a friend from the surface to discuss proscribed literature:
'...one hears that the Masters of the Bazaar stayed in the Second City far longer than they intended. Perhaps that's something to do with their disdain for Egypt...'
This explains the curious gap between the Second City and the Third, if our dates are correct.
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Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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MaskedGentleman
Posts: 339
9/3/2014
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Welcome to academia.
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I would like to thank this community and game for the many years of joy you have brought me. May you find your Heart's Desire.
Daniel Redwood
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The Midnight Road
Posts: 47
1/16/2015
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You know, I just sat down and read this entire thread in a single go. Wow, that took a while...still, the amount of passion, dedication, and nose-to-the-grindstone research that everyone over the years has put into this is truly amazing. I wanted to voice my appreciation and enjoyment of all the hard work everyone has done here aloud. Well done, one and all.
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The Midnight Road
Come one, come all! I enjoy embracing all the various activities to be experienced down here in the 'Neath!
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
1/24/2014
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Okay, to spin up one more theory that could perhaps account for the problematic timing of the First City...
[spoiler]
The "young when Babylon fell" gives us all kinds of head scratchers, since the most noted sackings of Babylon either happen immediately before or well after the abandonment of Amarna. The hint of the Eye Temple does nod strongly towards Nagar/Tell-Brak, but Nagar was founded in 6000 BC, potentially either before or in the same age as the founding of Babylon. The "it's just reversed" theory bugs me ("even Babylon was young when the first city fell"), but digging through fellow First City-candidate Uruk and its mention in Genesis led me to another fun theory I'll try out.
The early chapters of Genesis are almost certainly adapted from earlier Mesopotamian myths, particularly the Deluge Myth and the very hazy histories of early Antiquity in the fertile crescent. One event which appears in a very brief description in the pre-Abrahamic chapters is, of course, the scattering of humanity at the Tower of Babel. If you look at Wikipedia on the Tower of Babel, one theory is that the ziggurat of Marduk in Babylon is the prime candidate for the myth. This seems more than a bit strange, as it would have been constructed just over a century before the written editions of the Babylonian Talmud would have been composed in its shadow, centuries after the time of Moses, and probably a millennia after the other events described in pre-Abrahamic Genesis. In any case, bear with me and let's assume that in Neath history the Tower of Babel was a structure in early antiquity.
For our First City speculations, a somewhat less inverse modification of the old saying could work very well here. Whatever Mesopotamian city (or amalgamation by FBG thereof) you go with -- Nagar, Uruk, Eridu, whatever -- any of them would have been young when the Tower of Babel fell. Even if you make the common association (though by no means definite) that the Tower of Babel indeed stood in Babylon, given the number of times Babylon fell before finally going permanently into ruins, you could account for the Tower in the city falling without the whole city disappearing.
While we're on the subject, I'm going to take one more flying leap into rampant speculation. The Tower was depicted in Roman-era art as a round, spiraling structure reaching to the sky, a shape not unlike, say, the spirals of a nautilus. It's my understanding that the common perception is that at the time of the theft of the First City, the Bazaar was already established in the Neath. Taking note that in addition to the Talmudic record of the confusion of the languages of humanity at Babel, there are previous myths involving a common language being confused by divine action. Taking that, what if Tower of Babel was, in fact, the Bazaar itself; the fall of the Tower of Babel actually the Bazaar's initial descent to the Neath; and the common language that was confused by the Gods what we now call the Correspondence?
[/spoiler]
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Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
12/23/2013
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Well, that was fun! After discussing the First and Second City elsewhere on the forum, I decided to expand on my quote-collection so that I could remember everything that's ever been said about the prelapsarian cities. Hopefully this doesn't break any of Failbetter's rules -- I tried not to include whole storylets or to give any context, so that if anyone wants the full story they'll have to play the game themselves. But when theorizing, it's nice for everyone to be on the same page.
http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/15715.html
Obviously I don't think I got everything. If there's something important I've missed, could you shoot it my way? I've also put in Wikipedia links as relevant, and if you've picked up a possible reference I haven't, I'd love to know what it is.
Not everything is consistent. The First City is a bit of a mess. I still lean towards it being Mesopotamian, and Tell Brak in particular is tempting, but the Babylon and Silk Road references confuse the matter -- and set a time limit on the Second City that my personal favorite (Amarna) wouldn't be able to make. Still I've tried to include everything that might be relevant, including the Second City is probably Egyptian.
In fact, are we all agreed that the Second City is probably Egyptian, the Third City probably Mesoamerican, and the Fourth City Mongolian (and confirmed to be Karakorum)? It's just the First City that's elusive. I remember when my best guest was Phoenician, but I guess roughly Middle Eastern is still the order of the day.
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
1/4/2014
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We haven't commented on any of these questions: but rumour has accreted in this thread over years, and with the Mysteries tab closing, I want to play fair.
Archaeology and history both have a nasty habit of invalidating historical fiction when people dig up more information; and we did the relevant research to, I would say, about the standard of your average moderately conscientious historical novel. I'm not aware of any extant major inconsistencies (I am aware of all kinds of niggles about Victorian historical accuracy, but as I've said before, there were no sorrow-spiders in Dickens) but some will probably show up. This is part of the reason we asked about 'continent' rather than 'city'.
And I should add that (a) there are some intentional red herrings and (b) the history of the Fallen London universe isn't exactly the same as real history. The points of divergence are usually obvious, but FL is fiction. Karakorum was not stolen by bats.
A few points which have grown legs in this thread, especially re: Trodgmey's extensively researched posts.
First City Coins. It isn't a mistake that these exist; it was a mistake when someone put one in the amber under Flute Street, and we had to retcon that out.
The Silk Road. I'm confident that there's nothing in our content that says that the First City post-dates the Silk Road trade network; and I'm confident that it's far from impossible for a visitor wearing silk to have been in the West before there was regular commerce, particularly with fictional licence. If I'm wrong, then do drop us a line at support@failbettergames.com and we'll treat it as a content bug. :-)
First City Architecture. There are limits to what reads in a 100x130 image. The First City image from the Forgotten Quarter had to be immediately identifiable and distinctive from the Second City image, and (without giving anything away) 'reads casually as Mesopotamian' looks rather a lot like 'reads casually as Egyptian' to modern non-specialist eyes (NB my own eyes are modern and non-specialist). There is a reason the architecture in the FQ and in Polythreme is not the 'mud brick' described in the Hundred's memories: but that reason, has, I think, never yet surfaced. So this is an amalgam of red herring, story point and pragmatic convenience which has confused a minority of folk: sorry about that!
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Alexander Feld
Posts: 348
1/8/2014
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Karhumies wrote:
-snip-
Very thorough. I'm not quite sure about it, though.
The original First City Coins needn't be silver, from what the Numixmatrix said. In fact, they probably weren't; from what I remember, the coin in Flute Street Alexis called a mistake was in a First City ruin, indicating that there weren't supposed to be any coins like that at the time.
Personally, I'm rather fond of the Gilgamesh and Enkidu theory. The story of Gilgamesh does have a connection to cedars. I think the Babylon bit may have been one of the herrings that were mentioned, as it was just sidebar text describing a saying, and similar things said about the Correspondence are laughably incorrect.
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I am a star-gazer, story-eater, and a smelter of words.
I filch hidden things from hidden places, to hide once more in my dark cabinet of curiosities
Alexander Feld, the mad, damned, lord of seekers.
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baudelairean
Posts: 3
4/21/2016
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Felicity Chase wrote:
I was looking through my diary recently and I found the echo I made when I opened a package containing a Fragment of White Gold: "Sometime during the frenzy of unwrapping something chimes on the floor. It's a piece of white gold, a fragment of a miniature wheel with a spoke attached. Pieces like this are from the Second City. Charming! You've heard that certain wealthy collectors desire these greatly." (Emphasis mine)
Resurrecting a bit from all the way back on the first page, but I saw this and got very excited! I'm a bit of a nerd for Egyptian history, and with all the discussion of Akhenaten, the pieces dropped into place, as it were.
I think the symbol being discussed here is, well, the sun itself, or the symbol of Aten! Take a look - fits the description startlingly well if you don't take it quite so literally, and think of it the way a current Londoner would if they found a piece of gold in the same shape - a fragment of a wheel.
I got very excited about this correlation. Don't know if anyone's ever mentioned it before, but there you have it! Seems to add some credence to the Amarna theory.
EDIT: Alright, one more bit about Amarna, and sorry again if this is a repeat, I did my best to read all 22 pages of goodness here. Note that Amarna was referred to as 'Akhetaten' at this time:
"The document records the pharaoh's wish to have several temples of the Aten to be erected here, for several royal tombs to be created in the eastern hills of Akhetaten for himself, his chief wife Nefertiti and his eldest daughter Meritaten, as well as his explicit command that when he was dead, he would be brought back to Akhetaten for burial [...]
'His Majesty mounted a great chariot of electrum, like the Aten when He rises on the horizon and fills the land with His love, and took a goodly road to Akhetaten, the place of origin, which [the Aten] had created for Himself that he might be happy therein...'
The electrum caught my eye considering the 'white gold' of the fragment found in the storylet quoted above. It also jumped out due to the prominent mention of the Pharaoh's well-loved daughters, who I believe have come up in this thread before as another strong piece of evidence for Akhenaten being the Pharaoh of the Second City.
EDIT 2: One more then I swear I'm done.
While not the youngest daughter technically speaking, Ankhesenamun seems like a good candidate for the Duchess. The other five daughters of Akhenaten appear to have had very nebulous lives/life spans in the historical record (with the fifth and sixth youngest daughters of Akhenaten dying possibly in childhood). She has the most interesting adult life by far of all the middle/younger girls - she went on to marry Tutankhamun. There aren't many more dramatic stories of the premature death of a monarch in history than that of Tutankhamun. But then there's this very intriguing tidbit:
"The Amarna letters indicate that Tutankhamun's wife, recently widowed, wrote to the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I, asking if she could marry one of his sons. The letters do not say how Tutankhamun died. In the message, Ankhesenamun says that she was very afraid, but would not take one of her own people as husband. However, the son was killed before reaching his new wife."
A long time ago... three cities ago in fact... I was betrothed. I loved him a great deal, and when a serpent stung him, I was distraught.
Apparently the theory goes that her new betrothed was possibly murdered on his way to her - perhaps even by Ay, the Grand Vizier, who has also been implicated in Tutankhamun's death. Either of these two husbands/fiances seems a good candidate for the Cantigaster, especially if we take the 'asp' that's been referred to as 'biting' him a bit more in the spirit of Egyptian royal symbolism than literally.
edited by baudelairean on 4/21/2016
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TheThirdPolice
Posts: 609
5/30/2016
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If I opened an encyclopedia to five random historical polities, I wouldn't be surprised to see that four of them had some form of nominal or real theocracy.
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Excessive Corpse & Tender to Irreal Ravens
Lover of Flawed Souls
And with especial pride, Worst Screwup of the Decade!
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
2/17/2012
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Time for an update of my little list, then...
First City (Nagar, fell ca. 2200 BC):
Survivor: the Manager of the Royal Bethlehem Hotel
saved Lover: the Capering Relicker?
Last Remains: some bricks with eyes on them; possibly Polythreme?
Connected Mysteries: who makes the Clay Men?; Hesperidean Cider
Second City (Amarna, fell ca. 1335 BC):
Survivor: the Duchess
saved Lover: the Cantigaster
Last Remains: a sandalwood tree in the far east of London; some Egyptian columns in Spite and other unexpected places; NORTH?
Connected Mysteries: Mr Eaten; Dreams of Death by Water; the Vake
Third City (Hopelchén, fell in the 9th century AD):
Survivor: the Presbyter?
saved Lover: Feducci?
Last Remains: the Elder Country?
Connected Mysteries: Snuffers and Face-Tailors; the Correspondence was probably discovered and/or compiled here for the first time (by humans, at least)
Fourth City (Karakorum [fell 1388] or Xanadu [fell 1369]):
Survivor: the Gracious Widow
saved Lover: the Once-Dashing Smuggler
Last Remains: the Forgotten Quarter; the "Orient"?
Connected Mysteries: Dreams of A Game of Chess; the Correspondence (again); the Year of the Tortoise; the battle that never happened; blood on the troubled garments...
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Guest
2/7/2012
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About correspondence between Pope an Khan, I believe there's something here:
https://www2.stetson.edu/secure/history/hy10302/popeandkhan.html
This Correspondence showed Masters that the real world leader was Mongol Empire, not Holy Roman Empire.
Regarding Xanadu and Karakorum. They both were destroyed by Ming troops in 1368 and 1388 respectively. So there was no Corresponce between them after the Fall. I'd rather say that the language fled from Xanadu to Karakorum.
Also the name Karakorum or "Kharkhorin" in Mongolian language might be translated as "black quarter/space." "Khar" means black and "khorin" probably shares the same root as the verb "khorigdoh" that means "to be imprisoned/held" or "khori (to imprison/hold). Now it's "Forgotten Quarter".
edited by Дмитрий Кеворков on 2/7/2012
edited by Дмитрий Кеворков on 2/7/2012
edited by Дмитрий Кеворков on 2/7/2012
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Patrick Reding
Posts: 440
12/19/2011
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When researching the Correspondence, a kind gentleman informed me -- well, screamed really -- of a more likely location for the Fourth City: Shàngdū, better known to Western scholars as Xanadu, the summer capital of China under the Mongolian rule of Kublai Khan. In our universe, the Ming army conquered and destroyed it in 1369. This is consistent with flashbacks of a great siege before the Fourth City's fall in the Royal Bethlehem. It would also explain why the city's architecture looks more Chinese with heavy Mongolian influences than straight Mongolian, with grand pagodas instead of yurts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanadu
edited by Patrick Reding on 12/19/2011
edited by Patrick Reding on 12/19/2011
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http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/Yana
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
4/22/2012
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A rare success for speaking to the Dean of Neocartography --
A lack of worship? '... I still hear speculation about Alexandria, but I'm sure that isn't true. The Second City didn't have nearly enough temples to be Alexandria.'
Further support for the Second City as Amarna, where all worship except the worship of Aten was banned.
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Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
7/26/2012
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That's extraordinarily helpful, actually, as it solidifies the King with a Hundred Hearts as being Chinese, and it not being out of the question that the clay men are actually based on the terra cotta soldiers. (And apologies if someone posted that earlier -- I can't keep them all straight.)
The key bit that stands out for me continues to be the Silk Road, which didn't really pick up in force until near the beginning of the common era. So two thoughts here, and then I'm going to quit looking at this stuff for a bit...
One is that the journey of Zhang Qian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Qian), which basically led to the opening of the Silk Road, matches up with some of the stories of the clay men and the maps on the temple walls. This is hugely problematic for lots of theories, particularly Amarna and Nagar, because it puts the First City's fall around 130 BCE or so. It's even worse for the Dutchess being one of the Pharaoh's daughters, because one presumes there's a gap between the First and Second Cities falling, and one quickly runs out of Egyptian Pharaohs!
UNLESS.... the Second City had a pharaoh, but wasn't Egyptian at all! How is that possible? The Kushitic kingdom of Meroe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mero%C3%AB) called its rulers Pharaohs as well (with good reason, considering that Kush had conquered Egypt and been Pharaohs there for a few centuries), built pyramids, and repelled the nosy invaders that led to the native Egyptian pharaohs' downfall. Big problem -- nobody has transcribed their script, so if there's a love story here, Failbetter likely just invented it. (Or that it exists, but isn't in Wikipedia, but we all know that's just nonsense... One nice bit there is that Meroe's fall was contemporaneous with the introduction of Christianity (and presumably de-emphasized the old gods). Kush was noted for its powerful female rulers (the Candaces) and matriarchal dynastic system.
And the one thing this does revive is the "every 500 years" theory, somehow that the Masters deal for a 500 year lease of sorts. 130 BCE (Zhang Qian, the King with a Hundred Hearts?) - 360 CE (Meroe?) - 860 CE (Chichen Itza or Calakmul?) - 1360 (Karakorum) - 1860 (London). That's seriously far afield, and just wild speculation.
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Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Rhysdux
Posts: 19
10/23/2012
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If we're talking about Mesoamerica (and hence Aztec, Inca and Maya cultures), it's entirely possible that the "zib" sound is caused by a prefix spelled "Xib." I'm betting on this "tomb colony" being Xibalba, the underworld in Maya mythos. No idea who the Serpent, the Cat and Red Bird are. The Mayan faith DID have a Jaguar God of the Underworld, however. and the Feathered Serpent shows up under multiple names in both Aztec and Mayan religion. The red bird is harder to identify, but there is a bird deity in the Mayan faith called Itzamna who is identified, tentatively, as one of the Mayan death gods. The wings of Itzamna are inscribed with the words for daylight and night, which might mean that his flight governs time. And as we know, the Fallen Cities have been removed from the world and from time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_God_of_the_Underworld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_Serpent_(deity)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itzamna#Principal_Bird_Deity
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MatthewtheMagnificent
Posts: 62
7/11/2013
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My fellow scolars of prelapsarian history and of the mysteries of our benevolent overlords. After a delicious reading of your thoughts and a little research of my own I discovered a pattern in the tastes of our masters.
They hunger for love, but said love is never the same:
-In the first city it was the love between men. (The Manager aka the Priestking and the Explorer aka the King with a 100 hearts)
-In the second city it was a daughters love for her father. (The Dutchess aka the princess and the Cantigaster aka the Pharao)
-Now the third city troubled me for a long time but under the pretext that it is related to the myth of Xibalba we have a tale of brotherly love.
-The fourth city was fairly easy as it is a tale of motherly love. (The Gracious widow aka Empress Qi and her son whom she wanted to be king aka Yesterday's King)
-For the fifth city, well we all know Londons story of love between Empress and Consort.
PS: A neat little detail I picked up during my readings on Xibalba, the fallen city of the mayan underworld. It was ruled by twelve deities, one of these falls from grace at the end of the story and ends up deep in the underworld which is at the bottom of a well. Sounds to me a lot like the whole Mr Eaten business.
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
7/12/2013
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On a lark, I started digging into some things that Zmflavius noted, and I think he's on to something with the Epic of Gilgamesh. I had discarded this earlier because of the Silk Road clues, but there's enough evidence for me to change my tune. While everything is always fuzzy, there's quite a lot to point to Gilgamesh as the Manager of the Royal Bethlehem/Priest-King of the First City, Enkidu as the Trader/King with 100 Hearts, and Uruk as the First City, now Polythreme.
As always, Wikipedia is invaluable in speeding up research, but given that I'm not being thorough about checking WP's sources, take all of this with the appropriate grain of salt. Consider the following from the Epic of Gilgamesh:
- Gilgamesh is getting too wild and crazy, so the gods create Enkidu out of clay to keep him occupied.
- After being "tamed" by seven days with a prostitute, Enkidu meets Gilgamesh via the help of a trapper and they become best friends, with the word "love" being used an awful lot between the two.
- They travel from Uruk to the Cedars of Lebanon to defeat a demon there, allowing them to cut down cedars and bring them back to Uruk to build a gate.
- Because Gilgamesh spurns Eanna(Ishtar)'s sexual advances, she sends the bull of heaven after them. Divine intervention saves Gilgamesh, but not Enkidu.
- Gilgamesh's is crazed with grief, and decides to seek eternal life. He visits Uttnapishm (effectively Noah) and hears of a plant that grows on the bottom of the ocean that will give him eternal life. He straps stones to his feet and walks along the bottom of the ocean to get it, but just as he's returned to land, a giant sea serpent eats it.
- In a disputed 12th tablet, Enkidu is mysteriously alive again, and Gilgamesh asks him to go to the underworld to get some items for him.
Clearly, there are a few things right off that are notable -- the crossroads in the desert (Uruk), the cedars (Lebanon), the figures in the love story, the crazed grief at the death of a loved one, the plant of eternal life, and heck, a man made from clay.
Now, looking at Uruk:
- The city is dotted with temples, including a massive limestone temple and a stone-mosaic temple covered in murals, along with statues inset into the walls, much like the temple in Polythreme
- Alabaster ceramics are common relics from Uruk
- Multiple temples kept a ritual fire burning
- While in the middle of the desert, Uruk was a port city on the Euphrates
- Its rulers were known as priest-kings. The temples of the city were its reason for being ("held together by faith"), and drove the urbanization of the populace.
My working theory goes something like this:
Failbetter has had some fun with Enkidu, and made him part of a contingent of the ceramic warriors from China brought to life and sent west with silk. The clay men, therefore, actually started out as clay, including the King with 100 Hearts/Enkidu. After bringing silk to the west (where, as the Manager says, nobody had ever seen anyone like him), priest-king Gilgamesh loves him (platonically or otherwise), goes to the cedars in the mountains of Lebanon with him, comes back, and is so distraught by the death of Enkidu that he makes a deal with the Bazaar for Hesperidian Cider or some other plant of immortality, and in return the spirit of Enkidu is returned to clay, only this time it's to animate the entire city.
Problems:
- The eye temple. *** Brak, which was part of the Uruk trading network, is the only place with an eye temple.
- Young when Babylon fell. This would require the reversal long discussed, that the phrase has been inverted accidentally.
Still a work in progress...
--
Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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LenoraVK
Posts: 15
3/5/2013
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Wren wrote:
I'd like to suggest a different possibility for the First City...how about Dilmun?
The secretive Club in London takes its name from an ancient trading city that is first referenced in texts dating to the 3rd millennium BC, so it was it was old when Babylon was young.
The earliest records of it mention that the "ships of Dilmun brought wood". I have no idea if this was cedar, but maybe. And, these records were on clay tablets.
Some scholars think it was an island and all agree it was a major trading port between Mesopotamia and the Indus. So, while not literally a crossroads it was one metaphorically.
Admittedly I'm not sure how the Eye and Alabaster relate, but I thought it worth considering.
(Also The Epic of Gilgamesh describes it as a paradise and the home of the goddess of the South Wind!)
This is a really interesting theory, even if it does, as Tesuji stated, reverse the First City/Babylon quote.
By simply googling for a connection between Dilmun and cedars, I found that the paradise version was said to be a "land of cedars." Some people have said that it was the location of the Cedar Forest mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the titular character went with his friend Enkidu to get some timber and make a name for themselves. Enkidu died there, and Gilgamesh started searching for immortality, eventually passing through the gates of a garden (relevant, perhaps?) whose trees bore jewels rather than fruit. This causes some people to connect Dilmun with the Garden of the Hesperides, which is, of course, where Hesperidean Cider would be from.
The only unfortunate thing about all this is that while these things support the theory, they're all about Dilmun as a metaphorical place, a paradise. Most people place its geographical location somewhere around Bahrain, and cedars seem to grow farther north. However, Bahrain is indeed an island and could definitely have been that trading route or "crossroads," as you said. Perhaps Failbetter is just seeking to combine the myth with the supposed real-life place? In any case, looking into it led to a lot of relevant-sounding stuff, so I'd say it's worth some more research.
Here are the pages I was reading, in case anyone else finds something of use in them:
http://www.geocities.ws/garyweb65/eden1.html
http://www.crystalinks.com/dilmun.html
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/serpents_dragons/boulay15e.htm
edited by TaraLyn on 3/5/2013
edited by TaraLyn on 3/5/2013
--
Nora V. Kenward, consulting detective and scholar for hire (among other things, possibly), can be found here: http://twitter.com/LenoraVK
ebz profile here: http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/TaraLyn
"Let us draw a veil across the many hours of legwork and startling leaps of deduction that follow. A good detective has no need to brag about his methods." Or her methods, as the case may be.
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Samuel Goodall
Posts: 64
6/10/2012
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Gilgamesh went on a mighty journey to the land Dilum where men never die... He ruled Uruk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh (Goes to a Cedar Forest)
Also a man called Huwawa had "seven auras"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilmun (Also Mesopotamian) Dilmun appeared first on Sumerian cuneiform tablets.
Major trading place... Just putting it out there...
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Twoflower
Posts: 264
6/10/2012
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I apologize if this has been mentioned, but I found an interesting Bible passage.
"2 Chronicles 9:27 - The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills."
This brings to mind the First City coins.
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Lawrence Growe
Posts: 96
3/16/2012
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I do believe that the Fourth City is most definitely Xanadu. Let us adjourn to the library and help ourselves to a certain tome written by an laudanum-addled poet:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
Not being an Intimate of Devils, I will not sully my sterling reputation by commenting on that last passage or quoting the ramblings of this honey-mazed individual any further, but you may find that they are not entirely unlike the visions that haunt our selves in the small hours of the morning, not to mention that "sunless sea" he mentions sounds awfully familiar.
As I mentioned a little bit earlier, I found myself in possession of a peculiar bottle the other day which is believed to contain Fourth City Airag. The airag, being fermented horse milk, is definitely an acquired taste, but the geographical location of Xanadu does fall within the borders of one sprawling Mongol Empire where the recipe for it originated; the label also mentiones a Khan of Dreams, who may or may not be the Khan mentioned in the poem. Erecting statues of warrior-kings, similar to the ones we see in the Forgotten Quarter, was also quite typical for that region, as well as decorating temples with jade.
P. S. An acquaintance of mine is correcting me, saying that "cedarn cover" is a known sign of the First City. This is unfortunate, but does not diminish my belief that I am finally getting somewhere with my research!
P. P. S. Would it be improper to bring up the subject of the Fidgeting Writer in this discussion? It does appear that his misfortunes are related to the Third City and its inhabitants.
edited by Lawrence Growe on 3/16/2012
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MNess
Posts: 59
3/16/2012
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My completely unproven and without a shred of evidence theory is that the Masters, upon seeing the coins of the First City, found the very thought of using money instead of Echoes so infuriating that they stole every coin and even the memory of coins from the Surface, forcing poor humanity to rediscover money all over again.
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
1/4/2012
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Some thoughts on the Third City and the Elder Country
I recently noticed something odd in the new inventory on the Me page: while Relics of the Second and Fourth Cities are duly filed under "Goods", as on the Bazaar page, Relics of the Third City appear under "Elder", together with Mysteries of the Elder Continent. As the inventory is very well organized, I am in no doubt that this is intentional. Now, I find this very interesting. What has the Third City got to do with the Elder Continent? Or, perhaps one should start by asking "What do we know about the Elder Continent?"
Well, for one thing we can reasonably assume (from various hints that I won't quote here) that this is the country whence the mysterious gentleman known as "Feducci" comes. A man who can be killed in the most permanent ways (cut to pieces, etc.) and return a few days later, jolly and healthy.
From Zailors' tales the following could be gleaned: London has a seldom-discussed colony somewhere across the Unterzee on the Carnelian Coast. The Elder Country is lush, dark and mysterious. It contains the Presbyterate, where men live forever.
The abominable Snuffer known as the Big Rat shared these interesting pieces of information: "Men born in the Elder Country wear their umbilical cords uncut, and they are unable to die, that close to the…" he breaks off. "Care for some cherries?" Dark-Dewed Cherries, by the way, known for their revitalizing effect. Under liquid influence, the Big Rat then provided further hints: Snuffers are more numerous there, but it has its human inhabitants as well. He mutters darkly about Feducci, the 'Presbyter's dog'. He speaks of the Face-Tailor of Old London Town, and now his muttering is not only dark but poisonous. The rest of the evening is lost in a tirade against the faithlessness of humans.
Also, there's this odd Basalt Gymnasium that a member of Feducci's Black Ribbon Society left behind. It is remarked, "There must be something powerful in the stones of the Elder Country." And there's a remark by the Querulous Theologian: "Using the Elder Country as a metaphor for Purgatory was most apt."
While all this certainly raises more questions than it can answer, one can with reasonable certainty say that inhabitants of the Elder Country (or at least, from the part of the Elder Country known as the Presbyterate) know something about immortality.
Could the Presbyterate be a sort of "continuation" of the Third City? Because the inhabitants of that city learned the secret of eternal youth? And why is this way not open to Snuffers (who die easily, and do not return)?
The name Presbyterate itself is hugely interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prester_John.
(Speaking of names: The Dilmun Club, His Amused Lordship's secret society sponsoring expeditions across the Unterzee, has a very interesting name, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilmun#Dilmun_and_mythology. Dilmun might even be a contender for First City.)
Now, returning to our original question: What has the Third City got to do with the Elder Continent? Well, I don't know. But it is a most intriguing piece of the puzzle, is it not?
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
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Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Lady Sapho Byron
Posts: 770
1/21/2016
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I propose that the Third City was Calakmul.
We know:
What was the Third City? No-one talks much about the cities that preceded London. The Third City seems to have been acquired a thousand years ago. It had five wells, they say. And the weather was better.
At its apogee Calakmul was the capital of a regional state covering over 3000 square miles (8000 square km).
Calakmul (along with many other Mayan cities) collapsed as a regional power and population century sometime between the early 9th and early 10th century A. D., about 1000 years before the Fall of London.
More significantly, the city had thirteen reservoirs, five of which were major ones.
References: Wikipedia and this: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/calakmul/Calakmul.pdf
edited by Lady Sapho Byron on 1/21/2016
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http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/Lady%20Sapho%20L%20Byron
Fighting the Menace of Corsetry Since 1892.
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Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
8/31/2014
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[spoiler]The problem with that theory is that the lovers are both male. [/spoiler]
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Sara%20Hysaro
Please do not send SMEN, cat boxes, or Affluent Reporter requests. All other social actions are welcome.
Are you a Scarlet Saint? Send a message my way to be added to the list.
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nurgle523
Posts: 1
8/28/2014
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I read almost the entire thread.. and today remembered the "What the thunder said" cards. Suddenly I remembered something, that phrase somewhere else. I searched and it was a poem I like. Now, I had no reason to connect it to Fallen London, it was only to see if they got inspiration from it.
Then I saw something incredibly interesting. Aside from the poem and having a feel very much in line.... there was a list of five cities. Guess what the fifth one was? All Emphasis Mine.
"What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
- Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
- Vienna London
Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells."
Read more: T. S. Eliot: What the Thunder Said | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/t/lit/wasteland/thunder.html#ixzz3BfbYhhUd
Read more: T. S. Eliot: What the Thunder Said | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/t/lit/wasteland/thunder.html#ixzz3BfaJQlQn
edited by nurgle523 on 8/28/2014
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John Vazquez
Posts: 108
3/11/2014
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Nathanael S. Wells wrote:
Considering that the "Hand of Aten" appears in the context and company of the "Traitor Empress" and "The King with a Hundred Hearts", which both are the names given to Queen Victoria and the Priest-King after their trades and "transformations", perhaps "the Hand of Aten" is simply the name by which Akhenaten goes these days in the Neath, and perhaps related to a sort of transformation of his own.
Maybe the Masters reduced him to a walking hand.
I am sorry to correct an educated gentleman as you are, but the King with a Hundred Hearts is not the former Priest King of the First City, but his lover.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/John~Vazquez
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Parelle
Posts: 1084
12/10/2015
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Bother, I had a great theory of proposing St Petersburg for the 6th City trade for the life of the Tsarvich Alexis.
[strikethrough]If Paris was going to be taken, if would be as a great power - and it certainly isn't in the 20th century (unless it picks off the remaining British colonies, huh). [/strikethrough]
edit - I take it back about the French. Still pretty much a Great Power on the Colonial Empire scale. So, bah. Shoot that part of the Theory.
But Russia very much was, and would have benefited significantly for the lack of a British India at its mid-century strength.
But, that theory broke down - if Alice, second daughter of Queen Victoria doesn't marry Louis of Hesse (historically, she was engaged at her father's death and didn't marry until a few months later) her daughter Alix can't become Tsarina of Russia...
edited by Parelle on 12/10/2015
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Parelle, Lady Joseph Marlen. The Singular Librarian. A Midnighter, a Player of the Marvelous.
pages from a dusty bookshop: a badly updated FL changelog | Useful Guidance and Explanations
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Karhumies
Posts: 75
1/8/2014
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
First City Coins. It isn't a mistake that these exist
The history of coinage would point somewhere towards 619–560 BC or later, if we accept King Alyattes of Lydia as the father of coinage.
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
The Silk Road. I'm confident that there's nothing in our content that says that the First City post-dates the Silk Road trade network; and I'm confident that it's far from impossible for a visitor wearing silk to have been in the West before there was regular commerce, particularly with fictional licence. If I'm wrong, then do drop us a line at support@failbettergames.com and we'll treat it as a content bug. :-)
Silk road was established during the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). Alexis's comment implies that the date may well be earlier than that, though.
This gives us a timeline of 619-206 BC to work with for the First City. (Also, remember that the Second City should come after the First but before the Third.)
Potential "falls of the Babylon":
A) In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia
B) In 331 BC, Darius III, the last Achaemenid king of the Persian Empire was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great
C) Red herring possibility: The reference could to a much earlier fall of Babylon, meaning that the First city is actually older instead of being founded somewhere close to this time period
Personally, I would guess A. Mainly because it ties in so neatly with the coinage.
Wall of text behind the spoiler tag:
[spoiler]
Following the line of coinage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_coin
"Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks; their silver drachmas were popular trade coins. The ancient Persians used silver coins between 612-330 BC."
Remember, however, that the First City coins in FL are reproductions, and thus they may have been originally made of other metals than Silver.
First City is unlikely to be in Greece, however, so we need to follow the coinage towards east and forwards in time.
Let's take some keywords from this link:
http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/15715.html
coins - originate from Greece
cedar -
"Cedar" is an ambiguous term and very difficult to narrow down. It can mean juniper, cypress, some flower-like plants, or Lebanese cedar (which seems so obvious it is potentially a red herring). We want something which casts a shade and can form a grove. So something reasonably tall.
diorite in a religious context
"use of diorite in art was most important among very early Middle Eastern civilizations such as Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, and Sumer. It was so valued in early times that the first great Mesopotamian empire—the Empire of Sargon of Akkad—listed the taking of diorite as a purpose of military expeditions."
"Diorite is a relatively rare rock; source localities include ... Northeastern Turkey"
alabaster
"Gypsum alabaster was very widely used for small sculpture for indoor use in the ancient world, especially in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Fine detail could be obtained in a material with an attractive finish without iron or steel tools. Alabaster was used for vessels dedicated for use in the cult of the deity Bast in the culture of the Ancient Egyptians, and thousands of gypsum alabaster artifacts dating to the late 4th millennium BC also have been found in Tell Brak (present day Nagar), in Syria."
silk - from China
crossroads -> we need to find "a crossroads" where all of these things can be located through trade, and we have located the First City.
NOTE: "Crossroads" could also refer to the crossing of two rivers, since during the times before modern big road networks were built, waterways were very useful for hauling heavy cargos.
Also, remember that we will probably need to have also some temples and cuneiform.
Also:
"we came to the shores of the inland sea, where they'd never even seen silk...'" supports the view that this predates silk road. Also, "inland sea" is a hint: either it's a passing point (Caspian Sea fits the description nicely), or the location of the First City itself.
"A series of arrows starts in Eastern China and ends in the land between the Caspian and Mediterranean seas." this could be a red herring referring to the silk road which came later; or the actual journey.
-> Between Caspian and Mediterranean seas there would be modern day Turkey, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and potentially some of Iraq and Iran.
following the coins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrum
"The gold content of naturally occurring electrum in modern Western Anatolia ranges from 70% to 90%, in contrast to the 45–55% of electrum used in ancient Lydian coinage of the same geographical area."
The earliest electrum coins were from Lydia and had a high gold content.
First possible First City:
Ephesus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephesus#The_Period_of_Greek_Migrations
"Ephesus was founded as an Attic-Ionian colony in the 10th century BC on the Ayasuluk Hill"
Temple - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Artemis
"Its reconstruction began around 550 BC, under the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes, at the expense of Croesus of Lydia"
Second possible First City:
Sardis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardis
"Sardis was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia,[1] one of the important cities of the Persian Empire, the seat of a proconsul under the Roman Empire, and the metropolis of the province Lydia in later Roman and Byzantine times. As one of the Seven churches of Asia, it was addressed by the author of the Book of Revelation in terms which seem to imply that its population was notoriously soft and fainthearted. Its importance was due, first to its military strength, secondly to its situation on an important highway leading from the interior to the Aegean coast, and thirdly to its commanding the wide and fertile plain of the Hermus."
Temple mentioned. However, plains rather than cedars. And "a road" rather than "crossroad".
Persian Royal Road: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road
"stretches of the Royal Road across the central plateau of Iran are coincident with the major trade route known as the Silk Road. ... The road also helped Persia increase long-distance trade, which reached its peak during the time of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon)."
Regardless:
"It was during the reign of King Croesus that the metallurgists of Sardis discovered the secret of separating gold from silver, thereby producing both metals of a purity never known before. ... Sardis now could mint nearly pure silver and gold coins, the value of which could be—and was—trusted throughout the known world. This revolution made Sardis rich and Croesus' name synonymous with wealth itself. For this reason, Sardis is famed in history as the place where modern currency was invented."
Supposedly, The First City could come on the timeline after this revelation of minted coinage.
King and coinage: Croesus of Lydia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croesus
"With Herodotus' account also being unreliable chronologically in this case, as J. A. S. Evans has demonstrated,[20] this means that we have no way of dating the fall of Sardis; theoretically, it may even have taken place after the fall of Babylon. Evans also asks what happened after the episode at the pyre and suggests that "neither the Greeks nor the Babylonians knew what really happened to Croesus".
Temple: Sardis Synagogue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardis_Synagogue
Close to Lydia there is also Anatolia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolia
From the region of Anatolia, coinage sprouts forth through trade.
An interesting possible location for the First City would be Urartu:
Urartu (region) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urartu
"The pantheon was headed by a triad made up of Khaldi (the supreme god), Theispas (Teisheba) god of thunder and storms, as well as sometimes war, and Shivini a solar god. Their king was also the chief-priest or envoy of Khaldi. Some temples to Khaldi were part of the royal palace complex while others were independent structures."
We have a priest-king and a thunder god. (and cuneiform and a language no one can read.) But we don't have coins (too early), nor any mention of cedars (wrong climate?).
So..let's move on to where the cedars are, in the same time period:
Achaemenid Empire - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire
"The empire expanded to eventually rule over significant portions of the ancient world, which at around 500 BC stretched from the Indus Valley in the east to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece. The Achaemenid Empire would eventually control Egypt as well. It was ruled by a series of monarchs who unified its disparate tribes and nationalities by constructing a complex network of roads."
This does sound like crossroads to me.
"At its greatest extent, the empire included the modern territories of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, all significant population centers of ancient Egypt as far west as Libya, Turkey, Thrace and Macedonia, much of the Black Sea coastal regions, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, much of Central Asia, Afghanistan, northern Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and parts of Oman and the UAE. ... Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great,[16] would eventually cause the collapse of the empire and its disintegration around 330 BC into what later became the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire, in addition to other minor territories which gained independence at that time."
This covers pretty much the whole geographic region we are looking for during the time frame we are looking for.
The empire's territory also certainly covers cedar, diorite, alabaster and coins.
Here we have another king of the same era:
Darius the Great - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_the_Great
Darius is credited with bringing coinage to be used in many parts of Achaemenid empire.
"Iranian cedar" is a known as "graveyard cypress" or "Pencil Pine". It's a tree large enough to cast a shade, and to form a grove.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupressus_sempervirens
"In classical antiquity, the cypress was a symbol of mourning and in the modern era it remains the principal cemetery tree in both the Muslim world and Europe. In the classical tradition, the cypress was associated with death and the underworld because it failed to regenerate when cut back too severely."
This ties in very well with the ongoing underworld theme of past cities that fell.
"Cypress was used to fumigate the air during cremations. It was among the plants that were suitable for making wreaths to adorn statues of Pluto, the classical ruler of the underworld."
...and here we could have the smell of cedar or pine, and the meaning behind it.
"In Greek mythology, besides Cyparissus, the cypress is also associated with Artemis and Hecate, a goddess of magic, crossroads and the underworld. Ancient Roman funerary rites used it extensively."
crossroads mentioned. coincidence?
"Cypresses are mentioned extensively in the Shahnameh, the great Iranian epic poem by Ferdowsi."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh
"Today ... the greater region influenced by the Persian culture celebrate this national epic."
From this wall of text, I deduce that this "funeral city" may be (this is a wild guess)
Pasargadae? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasargadae
"Cyrus the Great began building his capital in 546 BCE or later; it was unfinished when he died in battle, in 530 or 529 BCE."
...certainly young in 539 BC (age: 6 years), when Babylon fell to Cyrus himself.
"The design of Cyrus' tomb is credited to Mesopotamian or Elamite ziggurats, but the cella is usually attributed to Urartu tombs of an earlier period.[3] In particular, the tomb at Pasargad has almost exactly the same dimensions as the tomb of Alyattes II, father of the Lydian King Croesus; however, some have refused the claim (according to Herodotus, Croesus was spared by Cyrus during the conquest of Lydia, and became a member of Cyrus' court)."
...and here we have convenient tie-ins with Croesus and Urartu.
"Pasargad was first archaeologically explored by the German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld in 1905"
Therefore, they would not yet know its location in Fallen London.
[/spoiler]
tl;dr:
"Iranian cedar" = funeral cypress
First City = Pasargadae?
edited by Karhumies on 1/8/2014
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Karhumies
Author of A Delicious Guide to Fallen London
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
1/9/2014
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I should really apologize for being needlessly pedantic about all of this -- it's easy to forget that a) it's fiction, so not everything lines up, b) this is a work in process, and the author is reading these forums, and c) it's just a game.
On the other hand, climbing down all of these rabbit holes with a flashlight has been a lot of fun. My knowledge of the ancient near-east is substantially larger because of it.
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Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
12/29/2013
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Wonderful work! This caught my eye in a way it hadn't before:
"...the monkeys howl, the monkeys burn; their pens scratch words of red and black...'"
In the Mayan Hero Twins story, the twins trick their older brothers and change them to monkeys, who continue in the story as howler monkey scribes. Many iconic depictions of the Hero Twins show howler monkey scribes around them.
My supposition about the Second City was that Meroe would have been a phenomenal fake-out on the part of Failbetter -- complete with Pharaohs and gods and temples and pyramids but without actually being in Egypt. That said, the more I read the First City content, the more Uruk stands out in my mind.
I do believe that most of the Fall stories will involve either historical or mythical characters. The argument for Uruk and Gilgamesh as the core of the First City story has been laid out elsewhere.
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Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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OPG
Posts: 387
1/23/2014
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To continue this trend of Second-City speculation, the rare success when converting Morelways makes me suspect that, assuming the Duchess is who we think she is,[spoiler]the Cantigaster is Akhenaten.[/spoiler]This also makes me think that the "love stories" so prized aren't always romantic in nature.
Do we know what exactly happened in the Second City with regards to what the Pharaoh actually did?
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Spacemarine9
Posts: 2234
2/27/2014
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I am pretty certain the Vake isn't human, and that it wasn't at any point.
[spoiler]Chugging Black Wings Absinthe in pursuit of the Bag a Legend ambition nets you a few visions from the Vake's viewpoint;
"stars remember stars above below before the coldest hunting ground then called !seduced! !ensnared! a symbiote afloat our everhungry home nestled nested now in cedars cast down the benighted i will be their dragon soar and slaughter scratch in blood the memory of stars"
-- this sounds more like the Vake/Veils' origins lie somewhere out there between stars, although it's not exactly the most comprehensible ramble. Certainly doesn't sound much like anywhere in Egypt, anyway. "Nested in cedars" might also be referring to the First City... which comes before the Second, obviously.
"caught incarcerated caged two dozen centuries no space no space to spread my wings !unbearable! !release me! Spit venom at my judas gaolers may their kohl eyes gender worms may their bones burn in their flesh !unbearable! !release me!"
This sounds like the Vake getting mad as hell at the Second City for chaining the Bazaar and delaying its mission... but we know that the Pharaoh was the one who chained the Bazaar.
Also I'm... pretty certain there's some reference somewhere to the Vake butchering basically all of the Pharaoh's daughters? I think? I can't exactly remember where it is... I might even have imagined it, but I'm pretty certain it's somewhere. Either way, if that is a thing, then it's probably even further evidence towards the dude being not the Pharaoh.
Also also at one point in the Super Secret Vake Identity story Veils complains that "Humans are so flimsy!" and i mean the guy's been a space bat for a while but that doesn't sound much like an ex-human sentiment to me
why would the bazaar uplift someone who delayed its mission massively anyway i mean c'mon [/spoiler]
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Guy Scrum
Posts: 197
1/11/2016
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I've finally got the last relicker to show up (huzzah!), so I am now the proud owner of 1 x Breath of the Void. The result text is quite interesting.
The Shivering Relicker hasn't shown up in person: she's just given Pinnock a note for you. It reads 'This is the sound of an invocation made by the Pharaoh to the Bazaar. Don't let it out.'
The hover text for the Breath of the Void explains that it "is how the Correspondence sounds, when it's spoken between stars." So what exactly was the Pharaoh doing making star sounds? What was the Pharaoh? Perhaps the Pharaoh, being a godlike figure, actually had some power to communicate with the Judgements, and that's why the second city is so hated by the masters.
Apologies if this is old news; I haven't been keeping close tabs on this thread for, oh, three years.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
1/11/2016
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No apologies - that's cool as heck. Given the Pharaoh was a real-world sun-cultst, he was in prime position to learn some Correspondence.
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Fadewalker
Posts: 136
1/26/2017
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I was wondering about some text in SMEN, and now I think it adds evidence about Amarna, though the place and time of the Second city seems to have been ironclad long ago. But I think it is a little interesting.
"'There were three descents,' the Priest confides, 'before the betrayal.'"
"The first descent was that which was given for that which was promised. (The Drowned Man makes no promises to us. He gives us only lessons.) For the second, the hunters of echoes remembered the ways of sunlight, and learnt the stories of the heart. (The Drowned Man's heart was flensed, and we will taste it.) The third: O, the treacherous walkers of the river's shadow! They snared the echo-hunters! (This began the chain of tales which concluded in the Drowned Man's first-feast. So praise that treachery.)"
Since the three descents were before the betrayal, we can safely exclude the fall of the third city. And now the first descent can be the Fall of Bazaar and Masters (and maybe also some Axiles) from the High Wilderness, the second descent is the story about a heart made of a shard from the Mountain of Light, and the third, is the treacherous walkers in Armarna, a city built closely following the trend of River Nile, which is very special among all the ancient Egyptian cities. It looks just like the shadow of the river.
edited by Fadewalker on 1/26/2017
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LordQwert
Posts: 3
12/13/2017
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Masterpiece wrote:
The famous Amarna story is mostly about Akhenaten: the pharaoh who traded polytheism for monotheism, built a new capital city for his god, and later had his name removed from history. Interesting note: the name for the city back then, Akhetaten, means Horizon of the Aten.
I've tried searching through this long thread, so forgive me if this is obvious, spoken of already, etc. I'm going to lay out my (or likely already established) theory with incomplete bits of evidence.
The former Master, now Mr Eaten, either was or took up the role of the god Aten.
- What remains of a name (Eaten as a corruption of Aten).
- The Masters hated him and the second city for something.
- The Masters aren't gods, but the God-Eaters ate a god.
- Like with Mr Eaten, IRL Atenism was nearly wiped from the historical record.
- The bit (in quote) about Akhetaten meaning Horizon of Aten, could easily be corrupted to Avid Horizon.
- Mr Eaten likely was the original dealer in Dreams, which may have led to it wanting to raise its station. Dreams likely include desires, that which humans are "avid of". Perhaps overwhelmed by this, he sought to rise above his place in the Great Chain. What greater place than as a Sun God (Judgement).
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Raihan
Posts: 41
12/31/2017
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To celebrate my finally managing to create an account on these forums, I wanted to set out a couple theories/questions/ideas I had regarding the Cities. I'm obsessed with the Cities, and I find them absolutely fascinating.
First, there is a definite link between the Fall of the Cities and the Masters leveraging some sort of influence on the 'owners' of the cities. We see this explicitly during the Empress' Shadow (when Mr. Wines tells the Shadow that she cannot speak for Berlin) and Lost in Reflections (when Mr. Wines or Mouverde is trying to get the French Emperor to sell Paris to the Bazaar in return for saving his daughter's life).
We know more or less the situations that led to the Fall of most of the Cities. London had Empress Victoria do so to save the Consort, Prince Albert. In the Fourth City (I have not finished playing through the Silver Tree), I imagine it had something to do with the Princess and probably William the Sculptor. In the Second City, I figured it was something to do with the Duchess and the Cantigaster, and finally, with the First City, it was about the Manager and the Hundreds.
But everything we know about the Third City seems to say that the situation was very different there. It's not clear, of course, but it seems like the three priest-kings who dealt with the Masters regarding the Third City were Cat, Red Bird and Snake, the creatures from 'The Fidgeting Writer' story. Other clues from various sources (Kingeaters' Castle from the Seven-Day Reign, that little side story about the zailors stranded on an island with three people who played games) seem to paint those three as humans who became something more/less by being the ones who sacrificed Mr. Eaten and became creatures who subsist on souls.
No love story here, that we know of. Three priest-kings who longed for godhood, and a group of alien creatures who sold one of their own to them to that end, in return for their City. In any case, a very different situation from those previous and those after. Intriguing, IMO.
What interests me is whether or not the Second City survived someway or other until the acquisition of the Third City, or if there was simply a huge gap between their times because of some intra-Master conflict. There is a nearly 2,000 year gaps between them, if Amarna being the Second City is right (and it certainly seems so).
Second, the world of Fallen London is obviously an alt!history. We know this by the presence of a French Emperor (among other things) in the early 20th century.
In a sense, it's also a secret history since it posits an entirely different metaphysical conception of reality from what we regard as scientific fact today.
What I'm curious about is the degree of deviation and the points at which it occurs. I come back to the Third City again. The timeframe (approx. 1,000 yeas before the Fall of London) puts its Fall square during the Classic Maya Collapse. Now that fits the secret history stance - we know the Mayan civilization went through a great collapse but we are not entirely sure how, and in Fallen London-verse, it's because the Bazaar stole a key city. We know that Falls do disturb Surface- control, since we know that the British Empire has been severely hampered, if not completely disintegrated, due to London's Fall. Here, secret history seems to become alt!history since the changes are no longer lost in the mists of time, but apparent to anyone with knowledge of history.
I'm totally rambling here, but I have been dying to talk about the lore for months now, so I kind of spewed it all out at once. In any case, this is one of the most beautifully and intriguingly built worlds I have encountered and I love it. Here's to more, more, more.
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Jack Blackstone
Posts: 124
1/21/2012
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When interviewed the Manager of the Royal Bethlehem and failed it said: Oh, this fellow's just having you on. He's looking after a number of guests in love with their own knees and noses? He used to be a king, ruling from a temple made of eyes? He sings the roof-lights to sleep each morning? Stuff and nonsense. Unusable. Spike it.
Perhaps he WAS the ruler of the First city?
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http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/Jack~Blackstone
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
1/25/2012
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I thought I'd compile a quick list of what we know about the previous cities, their remains, and the love stories leading to their acquisitions. Other similarities could be added over time...
First City (Nagar, fell ca. 2200 BC):
Survivor: the Manager of the Royal Bethlehem Hotel
saved Lover: the Capering Relicker?
Last Remains: only some bricks with eyes on them
Second City (Amarna, fell ca. 1335 BC):
Survivor: the Duchess
saved Lover: the Cantigaster
Last Remains: a sandalwood tree, nowadays found in the far east of the Fifth City
Third City (Hopelchén, fell in the 9th century AD):
Survivors: Feducci; the Presbyter?
saved Lover: unknown
Last Remains: the Elder Country?
Fourth City (Karakorum [fell 1388] or Xanadu [fell 1369]):
Survivor: the Gracious Widow
saved Lover: the Once-Dashing Smuggler
Last Remains: the Forgotten Quarter
Fifth City (London, fell 1861):
Survivor: the Traitor Empress (Queen Victoria)
saved Lover: Prince Albert
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
1/26/2012
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Incredible! I came to share and speculate upon the Capering Relicker's words, and I see that Mr Burandt has already deduced the identity of the First City from them. The First City that has hitherto been the most difficult to pinpoint, but against the evidence, I am thoroughly convinced. And I am convinced anew that the Second City must be Amarna.
whiteadder wrote:
…They say her father was mad, you know. Tore down all the old Gods and raised himself up.
Akhenaten did indeed tear the old gods down in order to clear the way for Atenism, and he did indeed raise himself up. The name he gave himself means the 'Living Spirit of Aten' -- the name he gave his city, Akhetaten, meant 'the Horizon of Aten' -- 'and he said that he was 'the eternal son that came forth from the Sun-Disc.'
Given, however, that it is forbidden to speak the Traitor Empress's name, that pre-lapsarian street signs are contraband in Fallen London, that everything has been renamed and reshaped ... I wonder whether Akhetaten was permitted to remain Akhetaten, after the horizon sunk and the Sun-Disc disappeared. Or perhaps the Masters learned something about the power of the name, and that is why they detest Egypt so.
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Urthdigger
Posts: 939
12/19/2011
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It is probably obvious, but the second city is clearly somewhere in Egypt. As far as the third city goes, I believe it to be in mesoamerica, due to the maize-wine as well as the well-attended sporting event, which is likely the mesoamerican ball game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame
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Guest
1/2/2012
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I'm still at the beginning of the exploration of the mysteries of the Fallen cities, but I noticed a clue on the snippet about the Correspondence, that says:
"They say it's the letter the Pope wrote, the one without which Rome would have been the Fourth City."
How could this be related to the Mongols? The connection is not so straightforward... but there is indeed a letter from a Pope to the Mongols: "In 1245, Innocent IV issued bulls and sent an envoy in the person of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (accompanied by Benedict the Pole) to the "Emperor of the Tartars". The message asked the Mongol ruler to become a Christian and stop his aggression against Europe. The Khan Güyük replied in 1246 in a letter written in Persian that still rests in the Vatican Library, demanding the submission of the Pope and the other rulers of Europe." (Wiki)
How this letter avoided Rome the destiny of becoming a Fallen city escapes me, though...
P.S.: regarding the first city, the ciders are a clear reference to Lebanon - the tree is still today Lebanon's symbol to the point that it appears in its flag - , so I favour the interpretation of the first city as Byblos, or another Phoenician city.
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whiteadder
Posts: 14
1/23/2012
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Just some data points missed so far.
1. The Capering Relicker says this when you get a fortunate result for "Recertify a double-armful of scraps": "I saw the Fall. I raised my jar as the eye temple fell. And they've looked for me ever since. Want me to brew more. They'd flip their cloaks if they knew I was here, under their snouts."
2. When you get a fortunate result while converting Inklings of Identity you get this snippet of conversation. "…it's something about the chap that first brewed Hesperidean Cider. It claims here that he's still in the city. Well, that would make him older than… well, anyone, really.
3. Finally, when you get a fortunate result while converting Incendiary Gossip you get this. "…They say her father was mad, you know. Tore down all the old Gods and raised himself up. Still, she's done splendidly well for herself. I've heard someone saw her true face, though. Perhaps she favours them still.
I would like to point out that the majority of evidence that The Manager is from the first city largely comes from unreliable sources, namely himself, a drunk, and a overheard conversation. Though it would not be surprising that someone who's lived for several thousand years would be somewhat unhinged.
I seem to recall some mention of a pharaoh who shook up the Egyptian religious system... but the class this was mentioned in was some time ago, so I'll leave that to you fine gentlemen. (I believe that the third passage refers to the Duchess.)
Oh and Jack, did you get that failure result yourself or from the wikidot echobazaar wiki? I ask because I put that particular failure result up there, and would find it extremely encouraging if someone is actually reading some of the failure results I post.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/whiteadder
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Dave
Posts: 215
2/12/2012
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Felicity Chase wrote:
Dave wrote:
So, does anyone have any guesses at alternate translations for "stone pig"? And (stone pig spoilers): Is the thing in the well in Hunter's Keep a stone pig? The others I suspect I encountered did not glow...
I've heard from another source that the Latin word for "pig" is Porcus while Orcus was the Roman god of the underworld and punisher of oaths. "Stone pigs" are probably some sort of mistransation, after all...
Google turned up this lovely fable when I went to verify that:
A sly reproof to anyone boasting, showing off, or trying to make himself appear greater than he is. The fable says that a wolf was going to devour a pig, when the pig observed that it was Friday, and no good Catholic would eat meat on a Friday. Going on together, the wolf said to the pig, “They seem to call you by many names.” “Yes,” said the pig, “I am called swine, grunter, hog, and I know not what besides. The Latins call me porcus. ” “Porpus, do they?” said the wolf, making an intentional blunder. “Well, porpoise is a fish, and we may eat fish on a Friday.” So saying, he devoured him without another word.
Well there you go. Biblical tie-ins, pigs, mis-translation, and being eaten, all in one story. Mystery solved?
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Patrick Reding
Posts: 440
2/23/2012
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Wieland Burandt wrote:
theodor_gylden wrote:
Something I discovered upon inviting a friend from the surface to discuss proscribed literature:
'...one hears that the Masters of the Bazaar stayed in the Second City far longer than they intended. Perhaps that's something to do with their disdain for Egypt...'
This explains the curious gap between the Second City and the Third, if our dates are correct.
VERY interesting! One hardly dares to think it, but were they held..... captive?
And maybe the Second City is still in the North -- I feel that the Duchess would've done anything to preserve her father's city for eternity... maybe she finally went with the Masters as a kind of hostage... maybe that's why she's never seen outside the palace...
Then perhaps Mr. Eaten was banished to the well because it betrayed its bretheren to the Duchess! Fascinating!
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
3/3/2012
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So, everybody seems to agree on Hopelchén being the Third City. Here are two different theories for the other three cities:
Theory #1 (put forward by me)
First City: Nagar, fell ca. 2200 BC
Second City: Amarna, fell ca. 1335 BC
Third City: Hopelchén, fell in the 9th century AD
Fourth City: Xanadu, fell 1369
Problems: anachronism of silver coins at the time of the First City; the saying about Babylon doesn't fit.
Theory #2 (put forward by PsiCat76)
First City: Megiddo, fell 586 BC
Second City: Alexandria, fell ca. 30 BC
Third City: Hopelchén, fell in the 9th century AD
Fourth City: Karakorum, fell 1388
Problems: the Vake's age would either be wrong or it would not be from the Second City at all; what about the Eye temple?; the hints at the Duchess' father would be false leads.
-----------------------
Something else: I just found that the Libyan city of Benghazi was originally a Greek colony named Euesperides/Hesperides... wouldn't that be a nice explanation for the origin of the name "Hesperidean cider"? Also, the wikipedia article specifically mentions Hesperides as a place where coins were made -- coins looking like this:
Coins featuring cedars aren't mentioned though. And of course Hesperides wasn't the capital of an empire. It wasn't even destroyed, it was simply abandoned by its people. Still, fascinating... Is it possible the First City has no specific historic counterpart, that the writers just threw in pieces from here and there and created their own First City?
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
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Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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streetfelineblue
Posts: 1459
3/3/2012
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Dunno, I still find it a clearer explanation for the Hesperidean Cider to be called this way because it's made with the apples of the Hesperides. As the golden apple tree grew in the Hesperides' garden, that would also explain why the new Story quality dealing with immortality and undeath in the Neath is called Gates of the Garden, maybe?
edited by streetfelineblue on 3/3/2012
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travellersside
Posts: 288
3/3/2012
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Personally, I consider the fact that Jerusalem is one of the most important cities in the world to be a rather compelling argument as to why it wasn't taken - if it had been, it would have ceased to exist as a relevant location. That would be the entire point of stealing it - so that it's now in the 'Neath rather than Above.
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Allanon Kisigar
Posts: 164
4/3/2012
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There's been an interesting twist with the new storyline involving The Numismatrix, about the truth of First City Coins, that muddles things up much more: [ "Something different now. Have you heard of the First City Coins? Little silver things, cedar tree on one side. I deal in them occasionally. They're not from the First City itself, of course. The actual coins are no more than thirty years old. But they represent something ancient. Fragments of some primal power, locked away in the Masters' vaults since the deal that bought the First City. Of course, the Masters don't buy or sell that stuff any more. They gamble it sometimes, though. A game called the Marvellous."]
Meaning, now, how much do the coins themselves have to do with information about the First City itself?
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
2/29/2012
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travellersside wrote:
It's a very good argument, and I can easily accept that FBG were mistaken about the earliest date that coins existed and just assumed that they'd been around for longer than they had - it's a more obscure kind of information. But the major issue is that we're told that "Even the First City was young when Babylon fell." That kind of date is pretty easy to track down, and so I find it very hard to believe that a mistake was made in this area.
I don't think it's a mistake, I think it's a false lead. A lot of the sidebar texts are. I remember one of the earliest sidebars I saw was the one saying "What is the Correspondence? They say it's the last accounts of the last days of the Third City, strung in beads on cord in a code no-one living understands" which of course calls to mind the famous Quechua of the Incas and suggests that the Third City was Inca in origin. But every other information about the Third City hints at it being Mayan. So, we're faced with the same dilemma: a mistake, or a deliberate false lead by the writers? As a lot of the sidebar texts contradict each other I think it's the latter, but of course I may be totally wrong there...
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Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
5/12/2012
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Huge spoiler from the new Bag a Legend! content:
[spoiler]
'You're a good hunter, I can see that,' the Mother Superior shouts above the wind. 'Best we've had in a good while. So we'll take a chance on you. My sisters and I have been watching the Vake for a many years. Since the Second City, in fact. We were a royal house then. We played those black-cloaked vultures for fools, so we did. Beat them at their own game and pulled the nose of the Bazaar. And they never forgave us. Kept the youngest sister hostage while the rest of us ran for it. We ended up here. It was all for nothing, as it turned out. Those d--ned feather-wearing heathen P... no. That's a story for a different day. The Sisterhood have been many things since those days. Scholars. Carnival performers. Explorers. And now nuns. But we've always kept watch. And if we can endure the wrath of the Masters for centuries without number, we can d--n well do anything.'[/spoiler]
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
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Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
10/24/2012
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I just spent a lot of time I probably should have used to do something more productive reading up on Xibalba. I have to note that one of the Hero Twins of the Popul Vuh who bring about the downfall of Xibalba, the city in the cave, is frequently marked in iconography with spots on his skin, and the other one is in at least one image displayed carrying a coral snake. That would cover the Mottled Man and Serpent Hands. Red Bird could be Seven Macaw, a deity that the Twins defeat early on, or it could be something completely different.
In any case, I'd thought a bunch previously about whether with regards to the Second City if any of the Egyptian stories of the underworld and the travel through it applied to the Neath. It must be noted that the predominant religion of London had its own underworld, and it can be reached easily at Moloch Street Station.
Mad props to Cornuthaum for uncovering this and Rhysdux for finding Xibalba. The Third City that was pulled down from the surface remains unknown, of course, but this is awesome work.
--
Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
10/1/2012
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Okay, one more note about the Second City. As I mentioned, the timing of the First City royally screws up most clues about the Second City, considering that very, very shortly after the first silk shows up west of China, you have your last Ptolomaic pharaohs, and then after Cleopatra the pharaohs are gone from Egypt for good.
Which brings me to the Second City. I am currently of the opinion that a huge number of Second City clues are designed to fake out most readers into looking deeper and deeper into Egypt, when the Second City itself is close to Egypt and features a pharaoh, but isn't in modern Egypt at all.
I put a note up about this a month or so ago, but Meroe in Sudan had its own pharaoh well after the Battle of Actium drove Cleopatra to snakebite, up through the fourth or fifth century CE. While Egypt is specifically mentioned by name as something that the Masters react very violently against in conversation, Meroe was the extension of the Kush Kingdom that at one point had conquered and ruled Egypt, and kept its own variety of Egyptian culture. This not only included pyramids and pharaohs, but certain Egyptian deities, particularly the cat deities of Bast, Sekhmet, and Apedemak. Unusually for the period, Meroe featured a series of powerful Candaces or Kandakes -- queens that were sometimes consorts and sometimes regents.
As I mentioned in my First City brain-dump, I believe that each fallen city still has an extant locale in the Neath. For the other four cities, I believe there are strong reasons to suspect corresponding associations already:
- Fifth City -- Fallen London
- Fourth City -- the Forgotten Quarter
- Third City -- the Elder Continent
- First City -- Polythreme
If Meroe is in fact the Second City, I have to mention that the core of Meroe's economy was locally mined iron. As you might suspect, my guess is that the Iron Republic is the Neath-based remnant of the Second City. In fact, here's the working theory I have of the fall of the Second City:
The "pharaoh's daughters" were a group of sisters who either because of the death or age of their father became the co-regents in Meroe towards the end of its period of dominance (and close to the widespread introduction of Christianity into the area). The youngest daughter, a priestess of Sekhmet or Bast, fell in love with a young man who was then bitten by an asp and was close to death. It was at this point that the Masters showed up with their offer to swap immortality for a city, over which the sisters conferred. In a still-not-repeated swindling of the Masters, the sisters' agreed to swap the city for what effectively amounted to a set of wishes and which, like most wishes, one must be very specific about. The first, of course, was that the youngest daughter's husband/lover survive his snakebite, but the sisters neglected to ask that he actually be purged of the venom, thus turning him into the Cantigaster. The other terms were sneakier -- they demanded that Meroe thenceforth be protected from all laws or rules of any sort, be they of nature or ruler of any sort. Thus, what the Masters suddenly had on their hands was a city where they could not possibly enforce any rules, making it nigh to impossible to run their Bazaar there. After finally obtaining enough Hesperidian Cider to swindle another city, they went after the Third City and left the Second City behind to become the insane haven for devils and revolutionaries it is today. I don't know how Mr. Eaten or the Vake get tied into this story yet.
I have gone over all of my Second City clues very, very carefully looking for something which indicates that the city is actually from Egypt proper and not, perhaps, from a city a bit higher on the Nile. I have so far found none, and hence am currently very high on Meroe as the Second City.
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Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Ruaidri O'Ruadhain
Posts: 33
9/18/2012
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"They say the Third City was famed for its cuisine, before it Fell. They say that hourglasses made with black sand from the Fourth City take a different time to run through on each turn. They say a lot of things."
I'm not sure that card's been quoted yet, in this thread. I don't recall seeing it. I botched a Walking the Fallen Cities card for that one. I'm profoundly interested in those supposed Fourth City hourglasses...
While Karakorum is more literally 'the black quarter', I am seeing the occasional reference on Google to it as 'the City of Black Sand'.
edited by Ruaidri on 9/18/2012
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Cats? Social actions? Conversations about the Fourth City? Newspaper interviews with light-fingered folk?
@proudcockatrice | Ruaidri
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Asher_wilsford
Posts: 4
10/1/2012
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I've got some game text to help revive this thread.
Corpsecage Island:
See what you can dig up
The ruins resemble a long, walled courtyard rather than a building. If you weren't here to research, you might think to string up a tennis net.
Teasing out the trail
The thin, dusty soil up here puts up little resistance to your digging. Your
finds confirm what the carvings on the walls suggested. Skyglass shards,
perished lumps of indiarubber, a few bones. This court was definitely built
and used by people of the Third City. It's chilly up here. They must have
wrapped up warm.
Grunting Fen:
Riches beyond dreams
Careful study and application of everything you ever learned while studying the Correspondence brings you a level of understanding. You hope. You've lived among the strange inhabitants of Grunting Fen for long enough now - the stones and the mosses are almost comfortable talking to you. Most of it is nonsense, of course - petty grumbles about the effects of the briny zee air or territorial bickering between rocks. But a deep pond comes up with something startling. It claims to remember when the Cantigaster was 'his real self, before the asp bit and the pact was sealed. That's why they won't abide talk of that place, you know. She's still there, though, isn't she? Sending him to Parabola when she wants, no doubt. Sometimes the Clay come back here and tell the rest of us these things. Don't you go thinking we live in the past all the time.'
From Heart's Desire:
A hundred hands
The Manager takes your proffered key [Stone Tentacle-Key] and holds it to the light. He rubs distractedly at his chin. A tear wells up in his eye. For a moment, his airs leave him, and the fearsome manager is merely an old, olive-skinned man in a ridiculous frock coat. He speaks to the key rather than you. 'Yes. You've been away a long time, haven't you? A hundred hands and a thousand eyes. And do I smell well water? No matter. I shall have to give you away again. I cannot be trusted with you. Not yet. That would be a weight greater than mountains.' The Manager solemnly places the key in his shirt pocket, next to his heart.
The strutting peacock falters
'You have noticed my buttons, then. How could you not?' The Manager struts up the street for a few paces, like a gilded peacock. 'They were made for me by… someone who was once very special to me.' The Manager's eyes darken, and for a moment he's just an ancient olive-skinned man in a ridiculous frock coat. He scurries back towards his Hotel, elbowing pedestrians out of his way and dropping most of the brass you gave him in his wake.
The desire of your heart
The Clay Priest presses a cone of incense into a burner and lights it by striking an iron nail against his thumb. He walks towards the low marble lintel of the temple doorway and gestures for you to follow.
The Clay Priest leads you to a broad avenue with a good view of the town and the villa above it. 'YOU WISH TO PLAY THE MARVELLOUS? YOU ARE NOT THE FIRST TO COME HERE. THE MASTERS USED TO MAKE PACTS. NOW THEY FAVOUR CHANCE. THE MARVELLOUS IS THEIR GAME. CAN THEY GRANT YOU THE DESIRE OF YOUR HEART?'
'THE MAN YOU KNOW AS THE MANAGER WAS ONCE THE FIRST KING. YOU STAND IN THE STREETS OF THE ONE HE LOVES. POLYTHREME IS ALL AROUND YOU. THE KING WITH A HUNDRED HEARTS. HE HAS SENT MANY PLAYERS AWAY. PERHAPS YOU WILL SPEAK WITH HIM. PERHAPS YOU WILL GAIN WHAT YOU DESIRE. BUT TO SPEAK OF SUCH THINGS PAINS THE KING. THE TOWN WILL SCREAM. THE UNFINISHED WILL COME FORTH. I DON'T EXPECT YOU TO CARE. BUT THIS IS THE TRUTH.
A gift for a king
The Clay Broker leans heavily on his copper staff, which bends under his weight. 'The Manager sent you, didn't he? The King doesn't want to see you. You'll have to bring a gift. Something ridiculously expensive. Something from the East, perhaps. He likes things that remind him of his travels.'
[Fourth City Airag: Year of the Tortoise x 1]
Making arrangements
The Clay Broker examines the bottle, which wriggles in his grasp. 'Not bad,' he says, 'not bad at all. Three cities too late of course, but I don't think the King will mind. I wonder if this stuff was about when the King journeyed West?'
'Well, I'll look after this little fellow, and make sure it doesn't get jittery and spoil its contents. I'll talk to the King. Walk up to the villa tomorrow night, and he'll be expecting you. And when you're up there, don't move anything around. The King's arrangement is vital. Remember that if you anger him, it will hurt more than just you.'
Come inside
The air around the villa is warm and cedar-scented. You are welcome here. You open the copper gates and step into the formal garden around the villa. You crunch down the white gravel path towards the statues.
There are dozens of statues here. Most are men, but there are a few women, some birds, a horse. A few are beautiful, but many are scarred or pockmarked or otherwise unlovely. None of them are moving.
The voice is human, but there's nobody here to speak it. It comes from the statues, the walls, the fountains. 'Welcome to me. I have a good idea why you're here, but that was such a splendid gift. I drank something like it a long time ago, in a dusty tent. Let me show you a few things, and then we can talk about… business'
Two statues move towards you, an asian woman and a masked warrior in ancient armour. They pick up copper oil lamps and lead you further into the rambling villa. The voice says, 'What shall we speak about first? My journey? The Masters? The King of the First City? I have a better idea. I'll show you. Come inside.'
The first time
The villa and its grounds ramble across one side of the island. It's much bigger than it looks from the town. You can see trees and paths and statues stretching away from you in the lamplight. Their duties done, the two statues return to their posts and stop moving.
The voice again. 'Walk through me. Tread my memories.'
You take a few steps down a path. These aren't statues any more. You see a group of travellers in the dress of ancient China, haggling for water at a desert spring. A few more steps and the same group are laughing and eating fruit in an orchard. A few steps more, and one of that group, wounded and desperate, looks down a road at a mud brick town next to a cedar grove. Hot, dusty plains stretch to the horizon.
The traveller must be the King with a Hundred Hearts, back when he was a man. He was certainly handsome - if his memories are to be trusted.
More steps down the path. A priest-king receives the traveller, in a temple painted with eyes. The priest-king's court are amazed at the traveller, and especially impressed by his silk clothes. The priest-king wears white linen, and many layers of shining copper and brass jewellery. He is unmistakably the Manager of the Royal Bethlehem Hotel.
More steps. The priest-king's court feasts in the open air, under cedar trees. The priest-king and the traveller are seated together, laughing and kissing.
The path goes into a cave. Now you're in an underground chamber. A cellar perhaps, or some place of hidden rituals. The traveller writhes and twitches on a stone slab, in some kind of fit. He looks wretchedly thin and haggard. A short step from death. The priest-king weeps over him. Two figures step into the chamber, hunched and garbed in many-petalled black cloaks. Masters of the Bazaar. One carries a clay cup, the other an unlit candle. The one with the cup says, 'I think we can be of service to each other. Allow me to propose an exchange…'
The King's word
The King is an animated statue, finer-featured than his Clay progeny, and made from marble. He motions you to sit with him on a pile of cushions. 'I'm afraid I don't have any refreshments to offer you,' he says. 'My company will have to suffice.'
'So, you've seen my story. China and then the Crossroads Shaded by Cedars. And then the Masters of the Bazaar. My lover saved me, in a manner of speaking. My fits would have killed me, so he bargained that we should both endure the ages, in return for his city. But the Bazaar isn't kind. Look what it did to me. The Masters took a diamond from the great glowing mountain in the South and gave it to me for a heart. They made me like this.'
'I no longer love him. How could I, after what he had done to me? But his love abides, over the sea in London. I am his heart's desire. I will allow him to play the Marvellous, on one condition.
'The diamond that is my heart shattered long ago. A speck of diamond dust is in each of my children. But a shard was stolen from me. Taken to London. A place called… Spite.' He pronounces the word oddly, as one unfamiliar with those dim streets. 'I would have you return it to me. Its absence is like the fangs of a tiger. Bring it to me, and you shall have your player. But promise me you won't let him win. I couldn't bear it.'
The King with a Hundred Hearts stands. 'Take this. A memento of our meeting. It's a later casting, I'm afraid, but so few of the originals are left. And thank you again for your gift and your company.' Down below you, the town of Polythreme weeps and screams for its king.
[gain First City Coins]
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I like the idea of The Epic of Gilgamesh being a part of the First City, but I have nothing to back it up. It is possible that the FBG writers are creating the history that the epic could have been based on (Enkidu was a traveler from the East but legend turned him into a beast man). No matter where the first city is located, it's going to be old, so the odds of a prominent love story from that time still being known are pretty low I'd think.
Here's something I've always been curious about:
A cheery gentleman
In the street, you pass a tall, cheerful man with a brisk manner, a stovepipe hat and a row of bright brass buttons down the front of his coat. He winks familiarly as you pass and spreads his hands: eight fingers.
When I read this, my first thought is eight fingers and two thumbs, but do you think it actually means the Manager is missing two fingers? Might not be significant, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
And a question about the Duchess. Is there somewhere that implies or outright states that the Cantigastor is her husband/lover? Could he possibly be her father?
--
Asher Wilsford: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Asher_Wilsford
Vic Langston: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Vic~Langston
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Tesuji
Posts: 161
2/23/2013
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Wren wrote:
The secretive Club in London takes its name from an ancient trading city that is first referenced in texts dating to the 3rd millennium BC, so it was it was old when Babylon was young.
Except that you've reversed the saying, which is "Even the First City was young when Babylon fell".
... though I must confess I've never quite understood how this could credibly become a saying.
It isn't really making any statement about the First City; rather, it's emphasizing how old Babylon was, which doesn't seem like the sort of thing that anyone would bother making into a saying. I can't imagine there were a lot of Babylon-partisans in the Second City, wanting to make it known that the First City was just a johnny-come-lately on the historical scene.
If the saying were actually "Even Babylon was young when the First City fell", that would make sense--that's the sort of saying that would be made by historians in the Second, Third and Fourth Cities to give a sense to their students of how old the First City was (which, having passed from history when it became home to Bazaar, was probably a city they weren't that familiar with) by comparing it to a city whose antiquity they were familiar.
That's the format I would expect for a saying, something like "Even ____ (something ancient that the listener would be familiar with) was young when the First City fell".
The quoted saying, however, would be like me saying "I'm broke when compared to Bill Gates". Yeah, a lot of people are, just as there are a lot of cities younger than Babylon; that comparison doesn't really convey much meaningful information.
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Tesuji.
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Allanon Kisigar
Posts: 164
8/29/2013
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OPG wrote:
Michael Bacon wrote:
priest-king Gilgamesh loves him (platonically or otherwise), goes to the cedars in the mountains of Lebanon with him, comes back, and is so distraught by the death of Enkidu that he makes a deal with the Bazaar for Hesperidian Cider or some other plant of immortality, and in return the spirit of Enkidu is returned to clay, only this time it's to animate the entire city.
The Cider wouldn't have been involved. The Cider is a creation of the Capering Relicker (whom I believe is Satan, or at least shares some qualities), and I'm fairly certain the Masters want the Cider, but don't know the creator is the Capering Relicker.
Well, they already have some source of the Cider. Not only is it obtainable at the Bazaar, we also know from a certain conversation between two Masters and the Gracious Widow that the Cider the lucky soul who shelled out quite a bit of cash for in the Silver Tree Kickstarter was a order completed by Mr. Wines. (The important bits are below, but for those who wish to read (or re-read) the conversation in it's entierty, you may go here: https://twitter.com/EchoBazaar/silver-tree-chat )
Mr Wines: But to specifics. The finest drink in the Neath is usually found in our cellars. But! not for much longer...
Mr Wines: For we have received an order, paid in advance, for a flask of a most particular and delicious drink from apples. We will deliver shortly!
Mr Pages: By the voids! Can it be true, Mr Wines? A bottle of the Hesperidean? Loose in London? I am gastroflabberated!
Gracious Widow: A bottle of the WHAT?
Gracious Widow: This is UNFATHOMABLE. What were you thinking, Mr WInes
Mr Wines: We were thinking of rolling around in a bath of money, which is also filled with money.
edited by Allanon Kisigar on 8/29/2013
--
A Gentleman of distinct and peculiar interests.
Invites for social actions are most welcome, except for Boxed Cats, SMEN, and Affluent Photographer
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Dolan
Posts: 296
6/23/2013
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Flyte wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen that one. I would really like to believe that Mr Chimes is the Master who trades in Fate. But I'm not sure I can.
We could sort all this out if we could just get the Masters to line up in an orderly fashion. Preferably alphabetically. Can the Bazaar catch fire? Does the Correspondence have a sigil for 'fire drill'?
More questions for my list of mysteries...
Rare success from the second heist:
The Seal of Mr Fires
"...in the event that the Drowned stirs, we will apply the measures indicated in Annex Thirty-Three; Annex Thirty-Four; the Prelapsarian Conditionals; and the Spire-Sign. Through these measures..."
Emergency procedures for the Bazaar: somewhere between a fire drill, a secret treaty and a protective rite. Most of it makes very little sense, but some of it sticks, and burns.
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Flyte
Administrator
Posts: 671
6/27/2013
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Delicious scholars, I have absorbed your keen observations and keenly encouraged their fermentation. I present the resulting speculations on Mr Mirrors and Mr Chimes. I should like to believe they have a pleasing pungency not dissimilar to Broken Giant. But perhaps they merely smell of horse sick. I cannot say. I have not often smelled horse sick. Perhaps others shall bring their experience to bear upon this point. Anyway, here they are.
[spoiler]Having read the document to which Spacemarine alluded, I must now accept the fictitiousness of Mr Chimes. I conjecture that the House of Chimes is a place where the Masters keep humans they find remarkable, attractive or amusing. To be exhibited therein, it is sufficient to gain the interest of a single Master. This is why, for example, those admitted on account of dangerousness or death or sedition are received by a Chimes who communicates in the same manner as Mr Iron.
Now something more tenuous. I don't think Mr Mirrors is Mr Cups; it is Mr Cups' reflection. As such, it is similar or more-than-similar to a Fingerking -- possessed of an autonomous will but no body, and able to influence the Neath through mirrors and dreams. For evidence, consider this exchange:
You and Mr Mirrors both claim to deal with the frangible and the fine. Do your interests overlap? Are you competitors?
Mr Cups: Consider a mirror. Do your interests overlap with those of your reflection?[/spoiler]
edited by Flyte on 6/27/2013
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
10/1/2012
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Thanks for adding the text from the Heart's Desire -- those are really great finds that I never would have seen (I'm on the Bag a Legend ambition).
Here's the critical text surrounding the Cantigaster and the Dutchess, gathered from the murder investigation at the University:
Now that you know the origins of Cantigaster venom, would it be terribly impolite to ignore your tea cup? It would. You force down another sip of delicious tea and watch the Duchess. Cats wander across your lap as if you were part of the sofa.
'You've seen matters that are not your affair. I trust I can rely on your discretion? A less discreet [genderdescription] would soon enjoy a more intimate acquaintance with my husband. I understand the dangers of a curiosity half-satisfied. So: you shall have the truth of it. That truth will remain quite buried. Yes?
'A long time ago... three cities ago in fact... I was betrothed. I loved him a great deal, and when a serpent stung him, I was distraught. I would have done anything to save him. The Bazaar knew as much. It has its own motives, you understand. And its own... what is the word? Its own appetite. Yes. For lovers and for love. A need. So it saved my beloved, in a manner of speaking. There is always a cost that is known, and a cost that is not. The Empress knows this now. In the deepest matters of the Bazaar, always look to love. Always.'
edited by Trodgmey on 10/1/2012
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Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Little The
Posts: 700
7/13/2012
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Actually, in the Heart's Desire ambition, we learn exactly what the First City's love story was: a homosexual one. The lovers were the King With a Hundred Hearts and the Manager of the Royal Beth (who was the priest-king of the First City, it would seem). Does this help you any, or does it just make things more confusing?
--
A gentleman of numerous descriptors that change far too often. Second chance and menace reduction invites are welcome.
My journey to Seek the Name is recorded for posterity here. I asked "Who is Salt?"
I am a member of the Temple Club. If you would like an invitation, feel free to request one!
Fallen London is a game of choices. When you make an important one, you can record your rationale here.
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MaskedGentleman
Posts: 339
5/5/2012
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Spoilers with regards to the latest section of Heart's Desire
The King with a Hundred Hearts came from ancient China.
Also, this is in regards to the gravestone
Two figures step into the chamber, hunched and garbed in many-petalled black cloaks. Masters of the Bazaar. One carries a clay cup, the other an unlit candle. The one with the cup says, 'I think we can be of service to each other. Allow me to propose an exchange...'
edited by MaskedGentleman on 5/5/2012
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I would like to thank this community and game for the many years of joy you have brought me. May you find your Heart's Desire.
Daniel Redwood
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streetfelineblue
Posts: 1459
5/15/2012
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Wait a minute - actually the First City hasn't to be near an inland sea at all. The quotation from the Clay Man only mention that they reached an inland sea during their journey west; not necessarily that it was their final destination. Now, both Wieland Burandt and Patrick Reding pointed out that in the settlement of Tell Birak there was a prominent Temple of Eyes. From the link: During the time of the Akkadian king Naram-Sin (reigned c. 2254–c. 2218), a royal residence was built at Birāk, and the town served as a control point for all the roads of the Jazīrah desert. Well, the King explicitly calls the city a "crossroads"... He calls it "The Crossroads Shaded by Cedars". Also, that means that a stranded caravan of travellers could well end up there, being it a sort of hub of desert trravels. Also, when they arrived, at least one of them wasn't faring good... It's possible the caravan was tired and hungry, and maybe thirsty too, because for how much water there can be in the Caspian Sea, it is salty... Not drinkable.
--
Twitter: @streetfelineblu
Blue's LiveJournal
Blue's Echo Bazaar profile
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Link to Ocelot's Enigma Ambition hint page; PM for clarification. No direct solutions provided.
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Scarlet Fenwick
Posts: 56
5/3/2012
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I got to page 4 and wanted to put this thought out there - one I had when I was at the Genghis Khan exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. (I'm 100% on the Karakorum boat, btw. No doubt in my mind. Just because it stated "the language of xanadu" doesn't mean the city was xanadu. Also, the Mongol language was notably difficult to read.)
What if the connecting factor of all of these cities is that they are strong trade cities of Empires, taken near each Empire's "fall"? Trade being a prominent element in EBZ, this seems to follow. London can arguably say that their Empire declined as they moved into the 20th century. Karakorum was the capitol and a huge multicultural trade city of the Mongol Empire.
This might help us narrow down options for cities that would fit this description: a trade city, most likely a capitol, of an empire. Add in a love story, myth or real, and we might come up with more evidence for our cities.
(forgive me if this has already been stated.)
edited by OScarletO on 5/3/2012
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Scarlet O. Fenwick, The Crimson Coquette and Scarlet Saint of London
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http://folkfusionista.wordpress.com----The Crimson Ring
Community
http://fallen-london.livejournal.com----LJ Community for RPers (Scenes, Logs of Twitter and AIM scenes, etc)
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Allanon Kisigar
Posts: 164
5/3/2012
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With the new Ambition chapters, there have been some interesting revelations. Going to spoiler-whiteout in case anyone doesn't want to know what happens with the latest Heart's Desire... but it does say some interesting things about the Manager, and the King With a Hundered Hearts.
'THE MAN YOU KNOW AS THE MANAGER WAS ONCE THE FIRST KING. YOU STAND IN THE STREETS OF THE ONE HE LOVES. POLYTHREME IS ALL AROUND YOU. THE KING WITH A HUNDRED HEARTS. HE HAS SENT MANY PLAYERS AWAY. PERHAPS YOU WILL SPEAK WITH HIM. PERHAPS YOU WILL GAIN WHAT YOU DESIRE. BUT TO SPEAK OF SUCH THINGS PAINS THE KING. THE TOWN WILL SCREAM. THE UNFINISHED WILL COME FORTH. I DON'T EXPECT YOU TO CARE. BUT THIS IS THE TRUTH.'
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A Gentleman of distinct and peculiar interests.
Invites for social actions are most welcome, except for Boxed Cats, SMEN, and Affluent Photographer
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Dave
Posts: 215
3/13/2012
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The new storylette, Polythreme Ho!, mentions the Eye Temples as a site to see there... this combined with the capering relicker's remarks about an eye temple lends some more credibility to the idea that Polythreme is the remnants of the 1st city. Start socking up those provisions, there's mysteries to unearth! (Perhaps unearth is not the correct turn of phrase for visiting the homeland of the Clay Men.)
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The Dave, a terrifying, lethal, inescapable and sagacious gentleman
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
4/16/2012
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Well, after having finally visited Polythreme, and a meeting with the Numismatrix, I am more certain than ever that my theory Nagar-Amarna-Hopelchén-Xanadu is correct. The biggest problem with it was the age of the First City coins, but that has been fairly dealt with. Nagar/Tell Brak lies right in the middle between the Mediterranean and the Caspian Sea, and on the Silk Road as well. And I already said in an earlier post (my, this thread is getting really long  ) that I do not believe the tree in the Forgotten Quarter to be the one from Karakorum, but one built/created after the Fall of the Fourth City instead.
Also, from a storylet in "Cobblestone rogues and backalley saints" I gleaned the information that at least once someone was brought back from Hell. There's a fairly good chance that was Kubla Khan...
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
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Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Dave
Posts: 215
3/20/2012
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Patrick Reding wrote:
Tyre could be considered to be between the Caspian and Mediterranean, technically, although obviously far closer to the latter. And it would be even more accurate to say it was between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.
At the time of the first fall, Tyre could be considered to be in the Mediterranean. It's a peninsula today, but it used to be an island. The Tyrians used their expert sailing skills to drive off all invaders until Alexander the Great - who went around that "expert sailor" problem by building a land bridge right up to the island that with two millennium of silt buildup has made it the peninsula it is today.
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The Dave, a terrifying, lethal, inescapable and sagacious gentleman
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Morbid
Posts: 1
3/22/2012
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Just found my first Fallen Cities oppertunity Card and it read They say that the Second City was once a blaze of copper and turquoise, and that the vitrified sheen on its best ceramics glows with the heat of that ancient sun. They say that the First City was made of shining alabaster and bone held together by belief. They say the Masters sometimes choose to dream in pictographs. A quick google search later and I stumble on this:
Eye Idols made of alabaster or bone have been found in Tell Hamoukar. Eye Idols have also been found in Tell Brak, the biggest settlement from Syria's Late Chalcolithic period. Now lhfgljhfvljh
Now it is not much but the location of Harmoukar is not impossibly far from the Caspian Sea. But of couse the time period seems to be much later than othervise suggested and the masters would have had to elliminate both writing and coins from extitance.
Kind Regards
Morbid
P.S.: Sorry about the poor spelling and syntax
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wlerin
Posts: 27
3/2/2012
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notemily wrote:
I like the theory about the Masters being mentioned in that Biblical passage. But remember this?
How many names do the Masters have?
It's hard to be certain, but some have traded under more than one name. They say Mr Apples was Mr Barley once. Certainly Mr Iron used to trade as Mr Bronze. And Mr Stones was also trading as Mr Marble quite recently. Until that trouble with the tomb-colonies.
Marble is mentioned in the passage, bronze, however, is not.
The Hebrew word for "brass" is also that for bronze.
Aside from this Eye Temple business, I still find Jerusalem to be the best candidate for the First City.
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
3/2/2012
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Sorry, but I don't believe the Jerusalem hypothesis for a second. The 30 coins certainly could be interpreted this way, but how do you fit in the rest? The Manager is described as an old priest-king, writing cuneiform. The First City coins have cuneiform writing on them, but that was never used in Jerusalem, certainly not around the time of Jesus. In fact, it was used in Sumer exactly around the time Nagar fell.
Also, we know that the Second City was Egyptian and had a Pharaoh. But after the crucifixion there were no longer any Pharaohs, so where between Jerusalem and the Mayans would you fit in the Second City? In fact, we know that the Second City has to be around 3000 years old as that is how old the Vake is...
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Patrick Reding
Posts: 440
3/3/2012
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KatarinaNavane wrote:
I like it! What was his heart's desire?
"I regret my actions and want my friend back." Wouldn't that be hillarious.
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http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/Yana
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wlerin
Posts: 27
3/3/2012
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Wieland Burandt wrote:
Sorry, but I don't believe the Jerusalem hypothesis for a second. The 30 coins certainly could be interpreted this way, but how do you fit in the rest? The Manager is described as an old priest-king, writing cuneiform. The First City coins have cuneiform writing on them, but that was never used in Jerusalem, certainly not around the time of Jesus. In fact, it was used in Sumer exactly around the time Nagar fell.
Also, we know that the Second City was Egyptian and had a Pharaoh. But after the crucifixion there were no longer any Pharaohs, so where between Jerusalem and the Mayans would you fit in the Second City? In fact, we know that the Second City has to be around 3000 years old as that is how old the Vake is...
edited by Wieland Burandt on 3/2/2012
You object because you don't understand what is being proposed.
a) 30 pieces of silver is the weregild of a slave given in Exodus. Many of the laws in Exodus have parallels in other Palestinian and Egyptian legal codes, so this price may have been in use even before that. Granted this doesn't single out Jerusalem.
b) Melchizedek, king of Salem (an old name of Jerusalem) is described as a priest and a king.
c) Cuneiform was used throughout the Middle East, including ancient Jerusalem.
d) No one is arguing for a 70 A.D. Jerusalem. The *latest* would be Jerusalem's fall to the Babylonians, if not even earlier.
e) Although to my knowledge Jerusalem had no native cedar trees, a great quantity of cedar was used to build the temple and Solomon's palace, including a structure referred to as "the house of the forest of Lebanon" because of how much cedar was used in its construction. What do cedars have to do with Nagar?
f) Do we trust the source of this information on the Vake?
edited by wlerin on 3/3/2012
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Urthdigger
Posts: 939
2/17/2012
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Assuming Mr. Eaten was connected to the second city, the third city cannot be the origin of the correspondence. According to a storylet in the forgotten quarter, Mr. Eaten's name is a symbol of the correspondence.
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
2/15/2012
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@Alexander von Brennenburg:
You may have become a bit confused there: there is no indication of any link between the Elder Country and the Second City. It's the Third one, rather...
Your speculation about Polythreme being a remnant of the First City, and the "Orient" one of the Fourth City, is very interesting, though. I never looked at it this way but maybe all the places across the Unterzee are remnants of former cities? I guess we'll see about that when we'll finally be able to go to these places...
Felicity Chase wrote:
I've heard from another source that the Latin word for "pig" is Porcus while Orcus was the Roman god of the underworld and punisher of oaths. "Stone pigs" are probably some sort of mistransation, after all...
Interesting! "Orcus" was the God of the Underworld, and also what the underworld itself (=the Neath) was called... at least that would explain that thing about living "in the head of a pagan god" (=living in the Neath =living in the Orcus).
T.W.O. Chandler wrote:
I, personally, intend to observe the Seventh City from as respectable a distance as I can manage, should I still be present at the time - and I do intend to be. Certain evidence that has come to my attention indicates that something unpleasant indeed may occur when the Bazaar claims it's seventh city, and even one so unrepentantly unwise as I has no wish to be there when it occurs.
Someone once mentioned that the Seventh City would be "the one to rise to the Surface" but I don't know where that piece if information might've come from, or if it was pure speculation. Any thoughts on that?
T.W.O. Chandler wrote:
Although that does bring something to mind. Considering that she was there when it happened, it seems possible that the Duchess may actually know the Name.
I'm quite certain she does.
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Quil
Posts: 39
2/17/2012
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Little The wrote:
The Second City doesn't seem to have a clear link to any of the locations. Which makes me wonder...could its remains be NORTH?
... that is quite, quite brilliant.
Could all of the NORTH dreams be related to whatever went wrong in the Second City?
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Twitter: @HelenKeeble
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
2/17/2012
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That... would make a very great deal of sense.
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
2/6/2012
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LukeMcMillan wrote:
and how does the letter of the Pope fit into the story?
It might be a false lead... the stuff from the correspondence-related sidebars cannot all be true:
They say it's a series of confidential negotiations between the Masters and a devil of some note. [Unlikely, unless that devil never sent a copy of the negotiations to Hell.]
They say it comprises the billets-doux written by Jack-of-Smiles to the Traitor Empress. [VERY unlikely.]
They say it's the letter the Pope wrote, the one without which Rome would have been the Fourth City.
They say if you read it your eyes boil and your hair turns the white of old ice. [Not true: your hair might catch fire, but it doesn't turn white.]
They say it's written on slate in the blood of poisoned bats.
They say it's the language the bats speak. [Possible.]
They say the Snuffer wrote it on the outside walls of New Newgate. [Unlikely. I don't recall any mention of sigils on New Newgate's walls.]
They say the Topsy King learnt it, and that's why you can never understand a bloody word he says. [True.]
They say it's the mathematics of Hell. [Unlikely, unless they forgot their own mathematics.]
They say it's the geography of Time. [Possible.]
They say it was invented wholesale by a honey-sipper sitting giggling in a cramped and filthy room on Hollow Street, and it's been driving gullible scholars insane ever since.
They say it's the key that opens Mr Stones' vaults. [Possible.]
They say it's concealed in Mr Pages' library. [Possible.]
They say it's the only way down here you can ever see starlight. [Possible.]
They say only the Brass Embassy knows. [No, they don't.]
They say it's the only map of all the Unterzee, scratched on the keystone of the Neath. [Possible.]
They say it predicts every price change in the Bazaar for the next hundred years. [Possible.]
They say it's a script that you cannot write and live. [Unlikely, if it really was the language of Xanadu.]
They say every piece of deep amber has a fragment of the Correspondence at its heart. [Possible.]
They say it's a gate that opens in the stalactites behind Wolfstack Docks.
They say you can see it in Mrs Plenty's mirrors.
They say it's the only sure way to tell the weight of your soul. [Possible.]
They say it's the map that connects every glimmer of moonish light to a star. [Possible.]
They say it's the key that unlocks the secrets of bat-flights. [Possible.]
They say it's a trap that someone found inscribed on a wall in the First City, and if you decode its complicated patterns you inevitably decide you're God, to the considerable detriment of your social life. [Possible.]
They say it's the letters that Helen wrote to Menelaus in the years of her imprisonment. [Unlikely, though the Correspondence would be a tragical love story, then.]
They say it's the last accounts of the last days of the Third City, strung in beads on cord in a code no-one living understands… [Unlikely, as the Third City was Mayan, not Inca. Only the Incas used Quipu. The Mayans had a hieroglyphic script.]
I don't think the Masters would've seen Rome as a likely candidate for Fourth City, anyway. The Fourth City was acquired in the 14th century - Rome was not particularly powerful back then (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome#Middle_Ages).
Also, not a single one of the sidebars hints to the Second City, which I think is where the Correspondence was invented/discovered. (Mr Eaten's name is a Correspondence sigil, after all...)
There's also this:
They say it's the letters Raffles wrote about the Cat that never were published.
Unlikely, though very interesting in another matter:
A letter fragment, dated Singapore, 1821
"I have, I fear, at last determined the cause of our poor Leopold's sad disappearance. You will recall that I sent by the Borneo a very considerable collection of [illegible] … identified one variety as the sinister exile's rose of the Bosphorus. Sophia had long admired their colour [illegible] … gardens here about the Government-house [illegible] … although here they call it 'lion's rose'. Singapura is Lion City in the Sanskrit [illegible] … There are of course no lions here, though many tigers. I would not mention this except that when I dream of Leopold, as still I often do, it has always seemed to me that there is a great cat present, the colour of sunset, which is also the colour of the roses…"
Compare:
"Personal tragedies started for Raffles. His eldest son, Leopold, died during an epidemic on 4 July 1821. The oldest daughter, Charlotte, was also sick with dysentery by the end of the year, but it would be his youngest son, Stamford Marsden, who would perish first with the disease, 3 January 1822, with Charlotte to follow ten days later. [...] As Raffles grew restless and depressed, he decided to visit Singapore before heading home to England. Accompanying him would be his wife Sophia and their only surviving child, Ella. [...] Raffles was a founder (in 1825) and first president (elected April 1826) of the Zoological Society of London and the London Zoo."
[from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamford_Raffles]
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Lewis Brown
Posts: 18
2/12/2012
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Forgive me if this has already been raised (and if I ramble a bit much), but in the 'Correspondance savages your dreams' opportunity, choosing to see what you can learn from the dreams nets you this little scrap of information, among others: 'Something about a journey coming to a close. Seven marks . Five are already past.' Or something very similar.
I'm sure many people have already realised the fact that London will one day be cast off by the Bazaar, perhaps sooner rather than later, and end up like the first four cities. But has it occured to anyone that this may mean there will only be a total of seven cities? I'd be interested to speculate as to why that is, and what will happen once the Bazaar has it's seventh. If the Bazaar is on a journey, then where is it going? If it all has to do with the sucking dry of the cities' love stories, then why stop at seven? Maybe the Bazaar will have enough of them then. I haven't the foggiest idea why, or what for. It might not have anything to do with love stories.
I've found references to Antilla, a mythical island known as 'the Isle of Seven Cities', that may or may not have turned out to be America. Possibly seven is just suitably mystical number. Or possibly I've just had too much of Mr Wines' marvellous Black Wings Absinthe, and this has nothing to do with the cities at all. Still, it might be worth saving up for some of that Hesperidean Cider, if only so I can still be around to see what happens to London when the Bazaar chooses it's next city. I have a hunch that it might end up being Tokyo, but that's neither here nor there. Although I would be interested to see if anyone knows how long the Bazaar keeps it's cities. Our days might be numbered.
edited by Lewis Brown on 2/12/2012
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Guest
2/5/2012
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That is an interesting note, Theodor. Perhaps the Fourth City was indeed Karakorum, but maintained far stronger surface ties than the other cities, maintaining regular and frequent corresponence with the capital in Shangdu. And if you want to send messages without Russian spies intercepting them, writing them in the Correspondence (Assuming you can get past the "bursting into flames" problem, of course) seems a fine way to protect them. Hence "language of Xanadu", and possibly the term "Correspondence" as well!
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
12/19/2011
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I must offer my support for the Jerusalem theory. Regarding this saying, might I theorise that with Jerusalem's Fall, the First City was born? In which case, it may well have been young when Babylon fell. Particularly if, for example, Jerusalem Fell at the time it was besieged by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II, mere decades before Babylon itself fell to the Persians. And, if we are to consider this relevant, approximately 500 years before Alexandria fell to the Romans. I think it also worth noting that, Biblically, the great wealth of Jerusalem was described in terms of its abundance of silver and of cedars.
(Regarding your second objection: have we had any word on the state of Jerusalem on the Surface? Or, if we limit ourselves to cities which clearly haven't been swallowed up in reality, then London is disqualified as well.)
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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Urthdigger
Posts: 939
12/20/2011
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Something of note on the first city: The first city coins are made of silver, and mentioned as commonly given 30 at a time. Judas was paid 30 pieces of silver for betraying Jesus. Just a thought.
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MrChris
Posts: 28
12/19/2011
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I got the singular impression that the Fourth City was Karakorum, based on a passing reference to its famous Silver Tree.
As for the first city, the reference to Cedars certainly puts one in mind of present-day Lebanon; "young when Babylon fell" and the existence of coins points us, I think, to sometime in the 7th or 6th centuries BCE.
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Inskora Bournvadus
Posts: 9
12/19/2011
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I suspect the First City is Jerusalem, but I have nothing to base this on other than the First City coins, which are silver in colour and exchanged in batches of 30.
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Felicity Chase
Posts: 62
2/5/2012
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Wieland Burandt wrote:
These were the Shivering Relickers' words when she (very reluctantly) handed me a Night-Whisper:
'Don't let it near the Co… the language of Xanadu. Keep it away from the Bazaar spires, and the ruins of previous cities. Altogether too dangerous to take it there. It will talk back. You understand? It will talk back.'
The Co...? The Correspondence, the language of Xanadu? Is this a false lead? Or is the Khan of Dreams deeply enmeshed in all this?
The Correspondence is definitely referred to as the language of Xanadu. One of the Forgotten Quarter storylets, when you first get the Correspondence Stones:
"Your philologist asks you to watch over him as he sleeps. He sleeps for no more than a minute before he leaps up, his hair on fire, screaming ‘It’s the language of Xanadu!’ You throw the contents of the washing bowl over his head and he calms down enough to tell you that the language is known as the Correspondence, and has been seen written on some of the Bazaar spires."
edited by Felicity Chase on 2/5/2012
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@FelicityChase
Currently accepting: Almost all social actions. But please don't send me invitations to private dinners. And Nightmares may take a very long time to accept, unless you're willing to take some of mine in return.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
12/27/2011
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Points for Cleopatra as the Duchess, and Ptolemaic Alexandria as the Second City: She was the centre of more than one of the great love stories of history, which were directly tied to her civilisation's fall to foreign invasion. That fall took place ~500 years after Jerusalem's fall to Babylon and Babylon's subsequent fall to Persia (if we consider these relevant.) It also took place ~1000 years before the collapse of the Mayan empire, if we consider Hopelchén or another Mayan city a candidate for the Third City.
Points against: Cleopatra's life as it is recorded does not seem to fit the recollections of the Second City. Mention is made of the Duchess's sisters and the Pharaoh's daughters in these recollections. Cleopatra had only one daughter. She did have a number of sisters, though - in real life, at least - few if any survived at the time of Alexandria's fall. This theory also relies on the gaps between the cities being 500 years - 1000 years - 500 - 500 - 500. Perhaps, if the Second City was such a disaster for the Masters, it somehow prevented or dissuaded them from taking another at the usual iteration? Or perhaps I am the wrong dog in the wrong tree, barking incorrectly!
edited by Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook on 12/27/2011
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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Patrick Reding
Posts: 440
12/21/2011
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The passage also mentions sellers of vessels. Mr. Cups, perhaps?
Now this is getting interesting.
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notemily
Posts: 3
12/23/2011
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I like the theory about the Masters being mentioned in that Biblical passage. But remember this?
How many names do the Masters have?
It's hard to be certain, but some have traded under more than one name. They say Mr Apples was Mr Barley once. Certainly Mr Iron used to trade as Mr Bronze. And Mr Stones was also trading as Mr Marble quite recently. Until that trouble with the tomb-colonies.
Marble is mentioned in the passage, and "wheat" is mentioned which could be a connection to barley. Bronze, however, is not.
edited by notemily on 12/23/2011
edited by notemily on 12/23/2011
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streetfelineblue
Posts: 1459
12/27/2011
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The Incorrigible Raconteur wrote:
I always assumed the Second City to be Alexandria, with no real evidence one way or the other but for a general gut feeling. In that same vein, I also believed that the Duchess was -however obliquely- Cleopatra, what with the reference to the serpent's bite - I know it's all a bit of a mash, but I'm trying my hardest not to 'overthink' it!
The main problem with that would be that Cleopatra is after all a "recent" historical figure - she was the last ruler of Egypt, and lived a few decades before Christ was born. The seprent isn't necessarily referring to Cleopatra though - the uraeus (οὐραῖος) was a constant symbol of Egyptian monarchy, usually reproduced on pharaoh's crowns and headgear.
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Siankan
Posts: 1048
1/16/2018
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There is one matter here where I think I can shed some light. It's not vital now, since the identity of the First City has long been locked on other evidence, but it may clear up some confusion. (I do not think this has been mentioned before, but it's a long and ancient thread, and I may have missed something in it over my reading.)
One of the continual puzzles of the Neath is the sidebar phrase that "Even the First City was young when Babylon fell." The discussion has centered around the date of Babylon's fall (was it Cyrus's conquest? some other conquest?) with a healthy smattering of reminders that what "they say" is rarely trustworthy--grains of truth in oceans of rumor, to borrow a phrase.
This snippet, however, I believe to be trustworthy. Our problem has been that we've been looking at the wrong Babylon.
Let me explain. Babylon is more than just a famous city; it is a symbol. Its symbolic roots reach into Judaism; the Jews were understandably upset by the destruction of Jerusalem and their forced resettlement. (Very few peoples survived as ethnic identities after Babylon was through with them.) You can get a good feel for their reaction in Psalm 137.
By the time Christianity appeared (and let us remember that the first leaders of the Church were all Jews), Babylon had become a symbol for temporal wealth, power, and temptation. As such, it could be applied to other cities. Peter mentions in his first letter the church in Babylon, but the "Babylon" in question was imperial Rome. In Revelation (and there are some excellent pokings at a relevant passage very early in this thread) "Babylon" stands for the city of the Antichrist. Later Christian writers picked up the symbolism, so that the name Babylon could be applied to any place of great wealth and great corruption. In short, the Babylon that fell in the First City's youth is not necessarily the city of Hammurabi.
So what is it, then? A center of wealth and vice. Something very ancient. Something that fell.
(Do you see where I am going yet?)
In my reading, the Babylon referred to is the Bazaar itself. It hits all the symbolic points. It fell--very literally--a long time ago. If this saying isn't a red herring, and if it has managed (as sayings often do) to remember truth down through the centuries, then we can date the Bazaar's arrival to (roughly) the Chalcolithic. That date, incidentally, gives us a keystone for a lot of other dates in Neathy history.
The suggestions from six years ago (!) that tentatively connected the Masters to Revelation 18 could, if proven, also be taken as corroborating evidence. After all, it's rather the next logical conclusion.
Now, any good theory needs to be disprovable, and the chief data that might disprove it involve the Elder Continent. A straight reading of the passage, identifying Babylon as the Bazaar and relying on current archaeological evidence, gives us a (very) rough estimate of 3,500-4,000 B.C., plus or minus a few centuries. Now, the advent of the Bazaar is intimately connected with the origins of the Mountain, and I seem to remember theories, at least, that push the history of the Elder Continent (which depends upon the Mountain for many of its characteristics) many centuries before that. If that's proven, then a straight reading of the passage as suggested would be impossible. However, even then we can't be sure without further evidence whether the identification or the dating is incorrect. It could even be both.
At this point, I'd love to hear from those who have played Flint or otherwise dallied with the Elder Continent. How old is the Presbyterate, as far as we know? Its citizens of course can hit four digits, but I don't know what information we have about its origins.
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suinicide
Posts: 2409
12/13/2017
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That is 100% your theory. While it's interesting (and personally I'm going to steal bits of it for another theory). I think you're missing a few details that explain/dismiss a few (not all!) of your points.
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th8827
Posts: 823
11/18/2015
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Going with the theory that the traitors received Hesperidean Cider, during the Searching for a Stiff Drink storylet, the Gracious Widow had an important drink stolen from her. One of her henchmen mentioned that she starts going crazy without that drink...
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Gone NORTH. It's nice here.
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Optimatum
Posts: 3666
11/29/2017
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Chances are anything mentioning both wind and gods are about Storm.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
3/29/2017
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Honestly, it's motivated by wishful thinking, at least on my part. I just really want my characters to be hanging out with Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
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John Moose
Posts: 276
3/30/2017
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Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook wrote:
Honestly, it's motivated by wishful thinking, at least on my part. I just really want my characters to be hanging out with Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
Fair enough. I'd say it's a perfectly reasonable headcanon that in FL universe, the Epic of Gilgamesh was written to recount the tales of a fallen king and his lover, and how people imagined the king returning from the underworld. Maybe the writer was from Uruk, and preferred that it be about a king of theirs
Masterpiece wrote:
Given how far back in history we're going, the First City is likely to be an amalgam of multiple real-world cities, in terms of specific details. However, the one connecting theme we've seen across all five fallen cities has been a good story. The story of Gilgamesh is the oldest known story, powerful enough to resonate several millennia later. Do we know any stories about Tell Brak?
Yes, I'd be inclined to believe this too, had they not included a clearly defined landmark. I know of no famous Tell Brak stories - unsurprisingly there aren't many other stories from the era of the first story - but I'm not really aware of any culturally pervasive stories about Amarna, Mayan cities or Karakorum, either, unless you count famous people having lived there.
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Masterpiece
Posts: 6
3/31/2017
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The famous Amarna story is mostly about Akhenaten: the pharaoh who traded polytheism for monotheism, built a new capital city for his god, and later had his name removed from history. Interesting note: the name for the city back then, Akhetaten, means Horizon of the Aten.
The stories of Chichen Itza and Karakorum aren't part of Western (Greek-Roman-British) culture so we're not familiar with them, but the first three Google results for [chichen itza love story] are three different sites telling the story of Canek and Sac-Nicte. Interesting note: Chichen Itza literally means "at the mouth of the well of the Itza people"
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GSonderling
Posts: 6
3/31/2017
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If there is anything at all I have learned about Masters, it's they mission is almost as mysterious for them as it is for us.
Certainly they do know what they were commissioned to do and the reasons why, but the how eludes them constantly.
In fact it seems to me that they have become rather... disenchanted about their predicament. I know about one who has given up completely and most of the others seem to be more interested in their own designs than their original mission.
Regarding the cities themselves, I rather doubt that Masters have any kind of system or approach implemented to decide which city they choose. Their understanding of love and stories of love is rather limited, to be honest, it seems to me that they equate tragedy with love.
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TheThirdPolice
Posts: 609
1/26/2016
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Calakmul's the most convincing guess I've seen yet! Its rule by "Snake Lords" doesn't directly tie to in game evidence as far as I know, but it would certainly fit the general lore.
OVER-EXTENSIVE EDIT:
Credit where it's due, apparently Trodgmey posted this Calakmul evidence back in 2012 on this thread.
Found some old college notes on Calakmul, nothing relevant to these hints but just in case here are some snippets:
— aka Kan
— in NORTH of lowlands (Gasp! :P)
— polity at height of power 562-695 AD, subduing and allying with rivals (much warfare and politics)
— serious defeats at Tikal hands 695, 736, rest of Calakmul's allies defeated by 744
— Calakmul Dynasty ends in 909, but it's been marginal for a long time by this point
I also came across a general Maya page talking about wells (cenotes and chultnob) — they're important across a wide region, so most cities are going to match to some degree. And to put things in perspective, Calakmul had its day in the sun, but Chichen Itza was a much bigger deal ("largest, most powerful, most cosmopolitan Mayan state in history" according to my notes). After calming down a bit, I think old C.I. is still punching as a heavyweight in this competition.
Oh, and abandoned chultnob were used for burial, so that may be where failbetter got the idea.
edited by TheThirdPolice on 1/26/2016
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Clark Delion
Posts: 3
3/16/2016
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The First city, May be Bylos as it was the ancient Phoenician capital
(established between 8800 and 7000 BC) and was near the Cedars of God. Hence the reference to " the Crossroads Shaded By Cedars".
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TheThirdPolice
Posts: 609
9/9/2015
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The Traitor Empress' Consort produces monstrous children, which hide in the Palace Cellars.
The colonies pattern don't necessarily hold true. I'm not sure how it would serve the Bazaar's or Masters' interest to ensure a colony survives, whereas the deal, the cost, etc. are part of their modus operandi. That said, aren't the Salt Lions Sphinges? Does anyone know the lore and whether that's a remnant of the Second City? (Not necessarily a colony, but a zee-drifted component.)
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Tyrone
Posts: 79
5/30/2016
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Hazel wrote:
Is there any particular significance to the role of the rulers of the cities as civil as well as religious authorities? The Manager was apparently a priest-king, the Pharaoh would of course claim godly descent, and I believe the God-Eaters qualify as well.
I'm sure they presided over quite a few important ceremonies and functions, but they left the day to day altar cleaning and minor services to the other priests.
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Bertrand Leonidas Poole
Posts: 335
5/30/2016
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And the Empress is still the head of the Church of England.
The Khan breaks the loose pattern, however.
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CivilEngineers
Posts: 6
5/17/2016
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First of all, cool responses guys! Thanks!
Secondly, as to colonies, interesting about London's probable one and Visage being the Second City's. I think others brought evidence of one of the further Tomb Colonies being the Third City's colony.
Thirdly, I'm pretty sure generally we were agreed on Amarna and Tutankhamun being the Second City and Cantigaster respectively. Though it's nice to have some more fleshing out of the history!
Fourthly
Equation wrote:
I happened to find a snippet of someone's journal, and in the tradition of London, stole it.
"When the Sixth City falls, I will be safe in Parabola. I will walk its new streets, the strangeness of its sharp-edged shadows. I will look through the windows as I pass, at the cathode shadows dancing on the ceilings. They'll leave me offerings and pay me with prayer. It's a pity about London. But everything passes. Except me."
Now this isn't certain by any means, but having walked through cities at night and seen lights and shadows dancing on the ceilings of houses through windows from people watching TV and older TVs being Cathode ray tubes, it looks like maybe the Sixth City may be stolen in the TV age. Or maybe not.
Btw, do we know if anyone in London is from the Third City? Since the person who strikes the bargain always seems to remain near the Bazaar after successive stolen cities. The Manager of the Royal Bethlehem for the First, the Duchess cor the Second and the Widow for the Fourth. Any sign of someone from the Third?
edited by CivilEngineers on 5/17/2016
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Bertrand Leonidas Poole
Posts: 335
5/17/2016
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Well, without getting too much into a fate-locked storyline, there is a tidbit with a Third City prisoner still out there rowing a brass trieme.
He did say that the common people of the city had no part in the horrible business with the wells.
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TheThirdPolice
Posts: 609
5/29/2016
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Feducci is
[spoiler]
not a tomb colonist at all. He's a disguised agent of the Presbyter. EDIT: The story wiki claims Feducci is from the Third City, but only in passing and not on his main page. And the same passage also puts forward the Hopelchen theory so I don't really trust it.
[/spoiler]
edited by TheThirdPolice on 5/29/2016
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Beli Yaal
Posts: 15
2/10/2014
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I thought of a better analogy: The Bazaar eats the Beating Hearts of Empires. The Pharaoh's Daughter fed them a Tumor instead.
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Karhumies
Posts: 75
1/8/2014
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Alexander Feld wrote:
Karhumies wrote:
-snip-
Very thorough. I'm not quite sure about it, though.
The original First City Coins needn't be silver, from what the Numixmatrix said. In fact, they probably weren't; from what I remember, the coin in Flute Street Alexis called a mistake was in a First City ruin, indicating that there weren't supposed to be any coins like that at the time.
Personally, I'm rather fond of the Gilgamesh and Enkidu theory. The story of Gilgamesh does have a connection to cedars. I think the Babylon bit may have been one of the herrings that were mentioned, as it was just sidebar text describing a saying, and similar things said about the Correspondence are laughably incorrect.
I'll try to support this theory that red herring is not the cedars; but instead the term "coin" used instead of "currency" with the aid of Google.
Cuneiform:
Akkadian.
Crossroads:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/neareast/ss/052909Mesopotamia_2.htm
"Mesopotamia was a cross-roads of the early ancient world for trade between Egypt, India and China"
So not a literal crossroads, but a figurative one, meaning "center of trade".
diorite - Egypt (northeast Turkey and Egypt are the only main sources of the region)
silk - China
gypsum alabaster - ties in with Mesopotamia
India may also be connected somehow, potentially culturally (religion?)
Money, especially if it's not in coin form:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/neareast/ss/052909Mesopotamia_2.htm
"Marvin A. Powell, in "Money in Mesopotamia," lists the types of money used by people of ancient Mesopotamia from probably the third millennium B.C., by which date Mesopotamia was already part of an extensive trade network [see the silk road]. Money was not in coin form at that time, although words like minas and shekels* -- used in connection with coinage and perhaps familiar from the Bible -- were applied to the weights of the ancient Mesopotamian form of money."
The etymology for minas and shekels to have meant weights rather than coins in the past may have well been the source of the red herring.
Giving coins 30 at a time:
(previous source)
"Barter is a form of trade that is (1) not symbolic and (2) where the units of exchange have intrinsic value."
Units of exchange having intrinsic value ties in closely with the time period.
Uruk? & Cedars:
If we interpret cedars not as graveyard cypress, and turn to the Epic of Gilgamesh, we realize that there are no natural cedars in Uruk.
http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/geography/story/sto_set.html
Maybe this story is enough to tie in with everything else, though.
edited by Karhumies on 1/8/2014
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Karhumies
Author of A Delicious Guide to Fallen London
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BillyCosmos!
Posts: 30
6/3/2015
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Has anyone considered Uruk as the First City? I'm struck by the similarities between the tale of Gilgamesh and Enkidu (Now King with a Hundred Hearts), and that legend says Gilgamesh built the city from cedar.
Also, the Bazaar seems to have a habit of trading the life of a ruler's loved one for their city. What if Gilgamesh wasn't rebuffed at the end of his quest?
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Jeremy Avalon
Posts: 345
6/22/2015
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Niddhog wrote:
If the Bazaar is buying cities every few hundred years, why would it wait THOUSANDS between the second and third?
Because the princesses of the Second City did something that chained the Bazaar to the Second City, potentially indefinitely, or at least until the God-Eaters got their teeth into the affairs of the Masters.
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How we must glow; yes, I bet we look like snow.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
7/14/2014
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I'm not altogether certain which thread to throw this into, but here's something interesting --
http://deepdarkmarvellous.tumblr.com/post/91717626399/sacred-cenote-wikipedia-the-free-encyclopedia
scherzofrog wrote:
“The rain god Chaac was thought to live at the bottom of the sacred cenote, and many humans were sacrificed to appease him.”
wait, hang on
deepdarkmarvellous wrote:
… Intriguing.
After an evening of honey-fueled speculation with the Fragrant Academic: “… you are both absolutely certain you know where the Third City was and why it fell. Sadly, when the hangovers wear off, neither of you can remember anything but fragments. Was it something about black mirrors? Or well-attended sporting events?”
From Wikipedia: “The Mayans believed there were three entryways to Xibalbá. The bottom of the sacred cenote was one entryway; the other methods of entry were through caves or through competition in the Mayan ball game.”
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Louisa Finch-Hatton
Posts: 7
8/31/2014
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My apologies if this has already been covered: I'm relatively new to the game and certainly have not read the entire forum.
It looks as though Amarna is all but certain to be the Second City, but I wanted to point out something else that may (or may not) be of significance: the Second City relics are described as "[g]ypsum heads and indecipherable clay tablets".
The famous bust of Nefertiti was found in 1912 at Amarna by a team led by German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt. While it is made of limestone, "Borchardt is suspected of having concealed the bust's real value... [and] claimed the bust was made of gypsum to mislead the inspector."
As for the clay tablets, another find at Amarna was that of the Amarna letters, an archive of tablets found in the remains of a building whose bricks are stamped with the words "Correspondence of Bureau of Pharaoh". They date from the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty and are primarily comprised of diplomatic letters between Egypt and its neighbours. One phrase often used is "I fall ... 7 times and 7...", for what that's worth.
Interestingly, the letters are written in cuneiform pressed into clay tablets, rather than in hieroglyphs painted on papyrus. Admittedly, Akkadian cuneiform had begun to be translated by the 1850s, and so the letters could not really have been described as indecipherable after the Fall of London.
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shylarah
Posts: 171
2/7/2018
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I'd think the Second was negotiated by a certain master we do not mention, and he might well have been in on the sisters' trick. It feels right to me, at least -- perhaps he knew, perhaps he admired their cleverness when he found out. Perhaps he simply forgave them. I don't know the details of the second conflict involving that city, so it may be that was the greater tricky, and helping with that -- and not accepting the city -- is why a certain someone ended up not so well off. Or entirely well off, depending on how you look at it (don't look at it that way).
Fires, who so loves London, seems a likely candidate for negotiating its fall. He's very concerned with what players think of the city, after all, and he doesn't want the Bazaar to leave it, or to pull another city down atop it. Now he could just like the city, but it seems like the kind of behavior that the one to obtain the city would engage in.
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Sara Hysaro
Moderator
Posts: 4514
9/2/2014
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[spoiler]Yep, we're certain.[/spoiler]
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MartzelDePamplona
Posts: 49
1/9/2015
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I have a few issues with the Tel Brak, theory, chief among them being that other than the "Temple of the Eyes" all the other evidence doesn't really fit Tel Brak. So I went looking and found an alternate explanation that opens up the possibilities to more Early Mesopotamian cities.
http://www.ajaonline.org/online-review-book/1674
Of special note is the following quote:
Meant to be visible, these sculptures and their embodiment (including the stereotypical large eyes), not necessarily of divine agency but of the donor, was key to their function, as was their location in and around areas of movement (thresholds and courtyards). The theoretical concepts of the gaze offers another area for expansion.
http://www.ajaonline.org/article/209 - Picture of the statues
According to this and other articles I've read, these statues were a common feature in early Mesopotamian temples. The grouping around the threshold and courtyard of the temple - the areas that would be most prominent to any observer of the Fall of the First City - is significant, as are their most prominent feature: their huge eyes. Each worshiper would bring one to the temple to represent themselves and their worship when they were not at the temple. Thus, a temple in a larger town could be filled with dozens or even hundreds of these statues. In a city perhaps thousands would be throughout a large temple, though to my knowledge none that large have been discovered by archaeologists. Such a temple could be called a "Temple of Eyes". It's not the best explanation, but it could open up the possibility of other cities than Tel Brak as the First City, considering Tel Brak was not well known or an important city in ancient Mesopotamia, but other cities that would have had these temples were.
edited by MartzelDePamplona on 1/9/2015
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MissCrumpet
Posts: 113
1/11/2015
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Hello! This is my first time on the forums, which I primarily joined because I am so interested in these speculations on the Fallen Cities. I've read all 20 pages but today, I stumbled across text I'm not sure has been posted here before:
"A code! It's not an unknown language: it's a code! The language of the city of the Silver Tree, but obscured. Once you've realized that, an evening's work with magnifying glass and calculations is enough to yield - you think - the answer. THE LIGHT AT THE HEART IS THE DAUGHTER OF THE BAZAAR NEVER TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED. THE SHAMES ARE HERS TO RULE IS LIFE."
This might be something you've already interpreted (I've only been playing for a few months, after all), but I think this is the first reference I've seen to a "daughter of the bazaar." I'm curious what others have to think about this. I think the most straightforward interpretation would be "the love story central to the fourth city is the daughter (Gracious Widow), which the bazaar will not acknowledge, and the ruler earns eternal life." Still, I'm intrigued by three things:
1) the wording "daughter of the bazaar" - any thoughts on more metaphorical meanings?
2) why are these stories "never to be acknowledged?" Would revealing these be the keys to ultimately taking down the Bazaar?
3) "To rule is life" might imply that, though the masters feed off of love stories, it is only by ruling those powerful cities that they remain immortal.
Any thoughts? Or maybe this has already been discussed to death earlier.
(Please let me know if I should change the formatting or add spoilers for the game text!)
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Moritz
Posts: 9
6/28/2015
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Also it is mentioned in the fortunate success text for Identity Uncovered
'...but have a look at these journals. They were confiscated from the Royal Bethlehem. Most of them are ravings about wells and going North, but see here. The Manager is an ancient priest-king? Now, I saw him once writing a menu in cuneiform...'
that the manager is writing cuneiform which I would think confirm Uruk since it is the origin of the first written story that remains from the history of mankind. Which also fits the original aim of the Masters I mean The Epic of Gilgamesh is at least in part the first ever written love story
After further research I also discovered that the creation myth Uruk's, the Enuma Elish, closely resembles the creation of the Bazaar.
There were Apsu and Tiamat the two creation gods, the latter of which appears to be the Sun in the world of fallen london, create all the other things and later on get annoyed with them, thus Apsu decides to kill them, I assume that Apsu is the earth which might have been a eldritch thing at some point aswell(?), Tiamat disagrees and finally kills Apsu to stop it.
From here on it gets interesting as Tiamat finds a new husband Kingu(the bazaar ?) and creates eleven monsters(= the masters) after she is defeated she gets killed ripped apart and turned into the sky( proof for the sun thing) then her new husband is killed aswell and his blood(= lacre) is used to make the humanity( and as we know from the Nomans the lacre can create life). It is not cited what happened ith Kingu's body but presumably he is buried thus put into the neath(?).
edited by Moritz on 7/2/2015
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CivilEngineers
Posts: 6
9/9/2015
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After going through this thread for the second time now, I thought I'd weigh in. All five cities seem very well researched and set, apart of course from the First. But I'd say that I agree with the whole Gilgamesh theory. As obscure as some of the in game hints are, few are as obscure as Tel Brak. The tale of Gilgamesh, though not immediately known, is still in the cultural psyche.
Anyway. Not what I came here for. I wanted to discuss patterns. The history of the Neath follows set patterns. Each city follows patterns.
So. A city is bargained for in return for some Hesperidean Cider to save a dying loved one of some form (the cloaked figures with a cup and an unlit candle at the first, the carving of hooded figures one bearing a cup from the second). Each bargain includes caveats. Diamond heart for the first, Cantegaster for the second, possibly an aversion to noise for the fifth with the Shuttered Palace (the Duchess mentioning the price that is known and the price that is not). Each city was at the time of its theft, the beating heart of an empire, after which the empire fell. Except in the case of the Second (cunning daughters). Also except in the case of the second, each was aquired after a period of 500 years. Meaning that unless something truly monumental goes wrong, another city won't be taken until 2260ish. There are 7 cities needing to be taken. This may have some relation to the Stone Pigs and seems to be a reqirement for the Bazaar to leave the Neath and possibly go into space?
Now we get on to patterns touched on but not really discussed.
First. The people who trade the cities live on forever. The Manager and Hundred Heart lasting through milennia, the Pharaoh's Daughters and the Cantigaster, Yesterday's King and the Widow etc.
2. Equally, at least one of the deal makers stays near the Bazaar in the Fallen Cities.The Manager, The Duchess, The Widow.
3. Each fallen city, after it arrives, eventually establishes a colony across the Zee, which becomes the eventual haven as the new city arrives. The obvious one being Polythreme. But though I'm trying to avoid mention of Sunless Sea content it is nevertheless existent, and the New Khanate is mentioned in Fallen London. And of course London itself has Port Carnelian.
But you might say. There are hols in these patterns. You're wrong. I disagree. There are gaps. Which raise questions. Whom from the Third City actually traded it for the life of a loved one? Why is there no apparent terrible cost for Yesterday's King if his was the life tat was saved? What terrible cost does the TraitorEmpress now understand and does it have anything to do with how quiet the Shuttered palace is? What colonies did the Second and Third cities build? Well we know one of the tomb colonies are ruled by three Mayan gods that are mentioned as walking amidst the denizens of the Neath to this day, but did they have any other colonies? The Iron Republic is the colony of Hell, the Presbyterate and mentions of a city with pillars suggests Prester John (legends of a mythical Christian kingdom beyond the Islamic world now assumed to be medieval Ethiopia, that was said to contain many magical things including the fountain of youth, which would grant immortality without Hesperidean Cider) and Iram of the Pillars respectively. Neither of these would fit colonies of any of the previous cities so maybe they were added for the flavour of the Neath being home to mythical places.
Maybe the Tomb Colonies were originally a colony of the Second or Third city but became a place for all frequently dead (tombs, obelisks and mummies being rather egyptian, and cities of the dead and mayan gods ruling a city of the dead being traces of the Third City). Maybe the Carnelian Coast or Elder Continent hide all that is left of the Second City Colonies. I don't know.
The llast point is with the third city being, apparently, the only one with no one in London itself. What was the love story there? Was it the live of the twins? If so is one twin in London? Is this stuff we will find out in new stories?
The answer I have for all of these is I dunno. But hey in raising these questions to such august company maybe we can come up with some answers.
Also appologies for any spelling or other errors. Its 2 am and I did this all on my phone.
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Niddhog
Posts: 19
6/22/2015
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"No Snuffers. No Masters. No Constables. No Copper. I'll stay down here. Survive the next Fall. Only two more. Then the Bazaar can go and we'll live forever. Might need to eat each other. Not much to eat down here. Fish. Fungus. Forget we're hungry, though. I like your shoes."
I found this in the Cave of the Nadir when upgrading a pair of hushed silk slippers. This does seem to heavily confirm that there will only be a total of 7 cities. Of course, these guys are all mad... but there is definitely a theme of "Forbidden knowledge leads to madness" in the world of Fallen London. Just look at the Topsy King and the Correspondence in general.
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Ruairidh Mòr
Posts: 3
12/10/2015
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Parelle wrote:
If Paris was going to be taken, if would be as a great power - and it certainly isn't in the 20th century (unless it picks off the remaining British colonies, huh).
I must humbly and respectfully disagree with your assessment of la belle pays. While it appears from our glimpse into the future that there may have been some wibbles and wobbles in the timestream, even in our own timeline France was ranked highly among the great powers.
Attached is a clipping from August 7th, 1902:
In terms of Naval Power, a diminished Britain would be most advantageous to the French.
In another article, August 13th, 1911, Europe's three "Great Powers" were Britain, Germany, and France:
In terms of great powers in our timeline's 1908, Britain stands at the fore, with Germany in the Ascendant, and France falling behind, but still ahead of Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the Americans. In this potential Alternate timeline? We only glimpse what we are shown, and the narrator is of the unreliable sort, so it may amount to much or nothing.
[spoiler]Though an Empire rather than a République? That does seem to point to a number of interesting changes in the timeline...[/spoiler]
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Ruairidh Mòr
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Parelle
Posts: 1084
12/10/2015
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Re: the power of France
Fair, fair, I admit my Anglophile bias again the French (and I'm disadvantaged for not having played Reflections I understand).
Admittedly, historically France is definitely diminished post-the 1871 Franco German war (though that led to the fall of the Second Empire which appears not to have fallen hmm). And bah, my now 10 year old memory of my British Empire class is shaky on the size of the French colonial empire, so I retract the claim on them not being a Great Power.
But, I would argue, that the Great Game as played out in Central Asian would be to the advantage of the Russians without England. And besides, it'll be an excellent setup for a different kind of trade for love.
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pages from a dusty bookshop: a badly updated FL changelog | Useful Guidance and Explanations
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Passionario
Posts: 777
12/10/2015
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CivilEngineers wrote:
Each fallen city, after it arrives, eventually establishes a colony across the Zee, which becomes the eventual haven as the new city arrives. The obvious one being Polythreme. But though I'm trying to avoid mention of Sunless Sea content it is nevertheless existent, and the New Khanate is mentioned in Fallen London. And of course London itself has Port Carnelian.
Oh, London will certainly leave a legacy beyond the Zee, but it won't be Port Carnelian.
"The Fifth will live on in the heart of the Sun..."
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
12/15/2015
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Arzei wrote:
What are the second's and third's colonies? Tomb Colonies for the third, perhaps?
Yeah, I dare say. And Visage seems to be what remains of a Second City colony.
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Màiread
Posts: 385
12/17/2015
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Paris is certainly the masters' next intended target, confirmed both here and in July's exceptional story. Whether or not that will come to pass is another question entirely.
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I'm happy to accept most social actions except for lethal sparring and loitering suspiciously. Please challenge my plant! Currently not accepting calling cards.
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streetfelineblue
Posts: 1459
1/4/2014
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
We haven't commented on any of these questions: but rumour has accreted in this thread over years, and with the Mysteries tab closing, I want to play fair.
Archaeology and history both have a nasty habit of invalidating historical fiction when people dig up more information; and we did the relevant research to, I would say, about the standard of your average moderately conscientious historical novel. I'm not aware of any extant major inconsistencies (I am aware of all kinds of niggles about Victorian historical accuracy, but as I've said before, there were no sorrow-spiders in Dickens) but some will probably show up. This is part of the reason we asked about 'continent' rather than 'city'.
And I should add that (a) there are some intentional red herrings and (b) the history of the Fallen London universe isn't exactly the same as real history. The points of divergence are usually obvious, but FL is fiction. Karakorum was not stolen by bats.
A few points which have grown legs in this thread, especially re: Trodgmey's extensively researched posts.
First City Coins. It isn't a mistake that these exist; it was a mistake when someone put one in the amber under Flute Street, and we had to retcon that out.
The Silk Road. I'm confident that there's nothing in our content that says that the First City post-dates the Silk Road trade network; and I'm confident that it's far from impossible for a visitor wearing silk to have been in the West before there was regular commerce, particularly with fictional licence. If I'm wrong, then do drop us a line at support@failbettergames.com and we'll treat it as a content bug. :-)
First City Architecture. There are limits to what reads in a 100x130 image. The First City image from the Forgotten Quarter had to be immediately identifiable and distinctive from the Second City image, and (without giving anything away) 'reads casually as Mesopotamian' looks rather a lot like 'reads casually as Egyptian' to modern non-specialist eyes (NB my own eyes are modern and non-specialist). There is a reason the architecture in the FQ and in Polythreme is not the 'mud brick' described in the Hundred's memories: but that reason, has, I think, never yet surfaced. So this is an amalgam of red herring, story point and pragmatic convenience which has confused a minority of folk: sorry about that!
If I may enquire about the "continent" topic: should we only refer to continents in the strict geographic sense of the term, or are locutions like "Latin America" or "Central America" acceptable?
--
Twitter: @streetfelineblu
Blue's LiveJournal
Blue's Echo Bazaar profile
Blue's Night Circus diary
Link to Ocelot's Enigma Ambition hint page; PM for clarification. No direct solutions provided.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
2/26/2014
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Heaping another piece of evidence for Amarna on to the pile. 'The Hand of Aten' has been mentioned. Given the history of Atenism, can it be anything other than Amarna?
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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VMannetswell
Posts: 7
2/28/2014
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[spoiler]
Trodgmey wrote:
(As a side note, I'm noticing a theme that aside from Vicky and Al, the regents who traded their cities for love seem to be oriented around sun worship of one form or another. Someone tell Sundance, Wyoming to be on the lookout for giant talking bats.)
Well, she did have an empire on which the sun never set...
[/spoiler]
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Cutlerine
Posts: 3
3/2/2014
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It seems to me to be pretty well established that Amarna was the Second City, but I'll add another bit of evidence anyway. It was previously mentioned in this thread that one can come across "a piece of white gold, a fragment of a miniature wheel with a spoke attached." Given that the symbol used to depict the Aten was a sun-disk with downward-radiating rays of light, it's easy to see why a nineteenth-century Londoner without an Egyptological education might mistake a broken Aten amulet for part of a damaged wheel.
Also, as a fun aside regarding all these sun-connections, the sun technically still has not set on the British Empire.
edited by Cutlerine on 3/3/2014
edited by Cutlerine on 3/3/2014
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Cutlerine
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Avelina~Strauss
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
1/23/2014
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OPG wrote:
To continue this trend of Second-City speculation, the rare success when converting Morelways makes me suspect that, assuming the Duchess is who we think she is,[spoiler]the Cantigaster is Akhenaten.[/spoiler]This also makes me think that the "love stories" so prized aren't always romantic in nature.
Do we know what exactly happened in the Second City with regards to what the Pharaoh actually did?
That, my friend, is an exceptional find. And highly persuasive at that.
Very well, I lay down my last objection to the Amarna hypothesis. The First City will continue to be an absolute head-pounding knot because of it, but I imagine I'll be quite sad when we've tugged out the last of the mystery.
--
Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Humblest
Posts: 76
1/24/2014
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Trodgmey wrote:
That, my friend, is an exceptional find. And highly persuasive at that.
Very well, I lay down my last objection to the Amarna hypothesis. The First City will continue to be an absolute head-pounding knot because of it, but I imagine I'll be quite sad when we've tugged out the last of the mystery.
Just for grins, consider this:
[spoiler] Akhenaten was thought to have suffered from Marfan's syndrome, that being (supposedly) the cause of the unusual depictions of height, head shape, etc. Another symptom of Marfan's syndrome is long, spindly, fingers also known as arachnodactyly. Thus, the connection to spiders and the form of the cantigaster. Another symptom was congenital heart problems which would make him sickly and eventually in need of the same sort of rescue as the Prince Consort.
One flaw here is that this isn't actually true. DNA analysis disproved it... in 2010. Fallen London has been running longer than that, right?[/spoiler]
edited by Humblest on 1/24/2014
--
Humblest: An irresistible, magnificent, inescapable, sagacious, and incurably ironic gentleman.
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
1/26/2014
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theodor_gylden wrote:
Trodgmey wrote:
Okay, to spin up one more theory that could perhaps account for the problematic timing of the First City...
-- snip --
Interesting! I had to dust off my (digital) copy of the De Occulta Philosophia for this quote in particular:
[spoiler]"We might doubt whether Angels, or Demons, since they be pure spirits, use any vocal speech, or tongue amongst themselves, or to us; but that Paul in some place saith, If I speak with the tongue of men, or angels: but what their speech or tongue is, is much doubted by many. For many think that if they use any Idiome, it is Hebrew, because that was the first of all, and came from heaven, and was before the confusion of languages in Babylon ..."
Now, 'Hebrew' is a popular guess, but the theory goes around in occult circles that there was an Adamic language before the Tower of Babel -- and if the Correspondence is the language of celestial entities, it could well be the language of angels or Judgments or whatever else presides in the FL universe.[/spoiler]
Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash generally centers around Sumerian as a primeval universal human brain stem-based language. The reason for the confusing of the languages was, in that world, a means of obstructing a neurolinguistic virus that had been unleashed on mankind. Here, the language would be pre-Sumerian, I think, as the cuneiform of the First City would be after the fall...
--
Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Hazel
Posts: 69
5/30/2016
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Is there any particular significance to the role of the rulers of the cities as civil as well as religious authorities? The Manager was apparently a priest-king, the Pharaoh would of course claim godly descent, and I believe the God-Eaters qualify as well.
--
"I can walk in the Mirror-Marches at the edge of dreams as easily as I might promenade in Tyrant's Gardens."
Skymaw & Belle Dame
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AbelFry
Posts: 5
9/12/2016
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It's been a while since I was here so I can't remember if this has already been discussed but I found this in the Cave of Nadir
"The revolutionaries of the Third City sleep here, fifty-five of them. They would have made their republics in the tomb-colonies. It was not permitted them..."
This seems to suggest to me that Venderbight was a Port Carnelian-esque colony of the Third City. Which fits well with the snippet that describes tomb colonies as "more Mictlan than Milan."
Could Venderbight have been designated a tomb colony by the Masters as punishment for attempting to secede?
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Isaiah Hazardway
Posts: 39
9/18/2015
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Doesn't really prove anything, and there is no demonstrable connection, but I will put it out there to back up the Uruk/Gilgamesh theory. 'Dilmun' in the Dilmun Club is where Gilgamesh made his journey for immortality. Now, I know that the Club are looking for the same thing and that there is supposed to be a garden and everything, but just the fact that it's named Dilmun and not Eden feels significant. And, if I remember my lore correctly, the Garden in-game is at the foot of the Mountain, a shard of which was placed in the Hundreds.
Of course, someone might have pointed all of this out earlier. This is a very long thread and the forum's search tools are wanting.
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Isaiah~Hazardway
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Guest
11/10/2015
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rykarmalkus wrote:
Something interesting about this chronological patterning is this recent business about the Sixth City.
[spoiler]
I can't remember which story it was from, I think a recent exceptional story, but I'm fairly sure that Paris has been confirmed as the Sixth City. And from *another* exceptional story, it's due to be stolen in 1908. That's not even a half-century![/spoiler]
Now, it's possible that the timing is changing based on the rapidity of development. Even so, it seems a bit quick- do you think that London has gone and Messed Up Somehow? Or... will have gone and messed up, in the future? (I'm not from Irem, I swear).
It was from Lost in Reflections, and was an alternate Future. Like the Destinies, it is only a potential of what might come. While such a city of Love and Romance is very likely, it's not guaranteed or set in (Mr.) Stone(s).
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Tyrone
Posts: 79
1/12/2016
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Take warning O proud,
And in length o' life vain!
I'm Shaddad son of Ad,
Of the forts castellain,
Lord of pillars and power,
Lord of tried might and main,
Whom all earth sons obeyed
For my mischief and bane,
And who held East and West
In mine awfulest reign.
He preached me salvation
Whom God did assain,
But we crossed him and asked,
"Can no refuge be ta'en?"
When a Cry on us cried
From th' horizon plain,
And we fell on the field
Like the harvested grain,
And the Fixt Day await
We, in earth's bosom lain!
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Equation
Posts: 2
1/13/2016
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I happened to find a snippet of someone's journal, and in the tradition of London, stole it.
"When the Sixth City falls, I will be safe in Parabola. I will walk its new streets, the strangeness of its sharp-edged shadows. I will look through the windows as I pass, at the cathode shadows dancing on the ceilings. They'll leave me offerings and pay me with prayer. It's a pity about London. But everything passes. Except me."
--
There are only three things certain in life: Death, taxes, and the second law of thermodynamics.
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Azothi
Posts: 586
7/9/2017
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BillyCosmos! wrote:
Teaspoon wrote:
I seem to recall a snippet saying that it might have been the Fifth City instead of London.
Ah, then it doesn't do my theory on the cyclicality of urban lapsarianism any favors (unless it was in the 1410's).
Such a pity. Not that I was anywhere near solving the blasted riddle of the 2nd city's 21 centuries of bazaarine solitude. Fourth City.
I'd take these with a healthy dose of skepticism, though. Quite a bit of these snippets are hit by the unreliable narrator. I personally trust this one because it's oddly specific, but it's far from concrete.
edited by Azothi on 7/9/2017
--
Azoth I, the Emissary of Cardinals - A Paramount Presence (not currently accepting new Proteges)
Away to where the Chain cannot bind us.
 Hesperidean.
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Teaspoon
Posts: 866
7/11/2017
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Thief of Faces?
--
Truth lies at the bottom of a well.
https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Alt%20Ern
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A Dimness
Posts: 613
7/12/2017
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Teaspoon wrote:
Thief of Faces?
Father-Snuffer, quite a complicated bit of lore.
It's safe to say he is an Elder Continent entity, it's safe to see he birthed the Snuffers, it's safe to say he pissed off Stone something fierce.
--
A truth so strange it can only be lied into existence
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Masterpiece
Posts: 6
3/29/2017
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Given how far back in history we're going, the First City is likely to be an amalgam of multiple real-world cities, in terms of specific details. However, the one connecting theme we've seen across all five fallen cities has been a good story. The story of Gilgamesh is the oldest known story, powerful enough to resonate several millennia later. Do we know any stories about Tell Brak?
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Optimatum
Posts: 3666
3/12/2017
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Fadewalker wrote:
I read the entire thread quite a long time ago so I'm not sure if someone has mentioned that before. I'm always wondering if there is a zeroth fallen city.
-snip-
So, I just wonder if we should count that one as a fallen city; a city which fell and later lost its name and memory, served as a prototype, before all human cities and all human-being. Forgive me if it is common sense, or nonsense.
[spoiler]Flute Street is primarily made of the ruins of the First through Fourth Cities. The "Proto-City" bit may refer to remnants of Axile down there; this would fit in with "Non-Memory" as none of the Shapelings recall how it came to that place, and they sang of their lightnings and shapeful disgrace, etc.
I'm pretty sure the first descent is when the Bazaar first came to Earth before taking any cities, hence why that one specifically is referred to as a descent - there was no accompanying city. Not sure why the First City is so rarely referred to as the second descent though.[/spoiler]
--
Optimatum, a ruthless and merciful gentleman. No plant battles, Affluent Photographer requests, or healing offers; all other social actions welcome.
Want a sip of Cider? Just say hi!
PM me for information enigmatic or Fated. Though the forum please, not FL itself.
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John Moose
Posts: 276
3/29/2017
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I do have to ask at this point, since a quick skim of the thread hasn't so far helped me with this; is there actually any evidence for Uruk as the first city? So far all I've seen is "Manager&Hundreds' story is inspired by Gilgamesh&Enkidu, so it's Uruk" or evidence that points to any city of that region like "Manager uses cuneiform."
What we do know of the First City is: eye-temple, crossroads shaded by cedars, and "even the First City was young when Babylon fell."
(I'm pretty much just using wikipedia as a source for real-world knowledge here; feel free to point out any amateur mistakes I make, please.)
For the last to be true, it'd have to have been a city founded around 1600BC (assuming Babylon's fall would be when the Hittite empire conquered it), only two hundred years before Amarna fell, if memory serves me correctly. I think we can safely assume that the proverb is simply mistaken, and either tells us that Babylon (founded circa 2300BC) was young when the First City fell, or that it's completely wrong and shouldn't be taken into account.
While it's been pointed out that eye-decorations weren't uncommon in Mesopotamian temples, Tell Brak has an actual eye-temple as a famous land-mark - "its famous Eye Temple is unique in the Fertile Crescent" to quote wikipedia.
On the subject of cross-roads; Tell Brak was " an important trade center; it was an enterpot of obsidian trade during the Chalcolithic, as it was situated on the river crossing between Anatolia, the Levant and southern Mesopotamia." It is also much closer to where the Silk Road ran, of which the Hundreds was likely a pioneer of.
To conclude, I have failed to see any evidence for Uruk being the city, and disregarding the eye temple feels to me like having a fallen city from 21st century North America, the city having as a land-mark a huge statue of a woman in a torch, and suggesting Washington DC. It seems perfectly likely to me that the writers took inspiration from Gilgamesh for the story of the Manager, but decided not to take the most obvious city as the First, instead choosing a less well known one, but leaving in a major hint for those interested to uncover the actual city.
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Optimatum
Posts: 3666
1/18/2018
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Siankan wrote:
At this point, I'd love to hear from those who have played Flint or otherwise dallied with the Elder Continent. How old is the Presbyterate, as far as we know? Its citizens of course can hit four digits, but I don't know what information we have about its origins.
The issue is, we're not quite sure. Sunless Sea has a line about the Presbyterate making a treaty with "a certain other power" before the Bazaar ever came to the Neath. There's some disagreement on whether that power was Salt or Stone. Neither way fully makes sense - either Salt came to the Neath to spy before the Bazaar was in residence, or Stone somehow got to the Neath independently despite later seemingly being incapable of leaving.
So yeah, the Presbyterate is capital o Old, but aside from that we don't know.
--
Optimatum, a ruthless and merciful gentleman. No plant battles, Affluent Photographer requests, or healing offers; all other social actions welcome.
Want a sip of Cider? Just say hi!
PM me for information enigmatic or Fated. Though the forum please, not FL itself.
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Siankan
Posts: 1048
1/29/2018
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Plynkes wrote:
Doesn't The Silver Tree document the Fall of the Fourth City? That game is set in the 13th Century rather than the 14th (1254 to be precise). Though I may be talking entirely out of my hat because it was so horribly grindy I never finished it. So there may be some kind of time-skip involved or it may not document the fall at all. Someone who managed to play it through to the end might be able to tell you, though.
1254? That's the year William of Rubruck visited and documented Karakorum, so it's an important year in that sense. Nothing significant happened to the city itself that year, at least that I know of. Does William show up in the game?
--
Prof. Sian Kan, at your service.
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suinicide
Posts: 2409
1/30/2018
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The nadir likely came before everything else, as without its irrigo the neath could not exist.
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/profile/sunnytime
A gentleman seeking the liberation of knowledge, with a penchant for violence.
RIP suinicide, stuck in a well. Still has it under control.
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Rhysdux
Posts: 19
12/27/2011
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I believe that the First City was Byblos. It has risen and fallen a couple of dozen times (so the fact that it has been rebuilt is not an obstacle); it's located in Lebanon, which is noted for its cedars; and it was known by such soubriquets as "the crossroads of the world" and "the crossroads of civilization." It's also at least seven thousand years old.
(And no, Byblos isn't Babylon.)
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notemily
Posts: 3
12/27/2011
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If the theory about the cities falling in exchange for a loved one's life is correct, though, Cleopatra could have had more than one daughter after her city fell.
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KatarinaNavane
Posts: 462
1/23/2012
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Might Iram be the first city? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iram_of_the_Pillars
--
Storynexus sn Katarina Navane.
My art page (much of which is dark, Victorian, and/or full of tentacles): http://www.facebook.com/demonkittydesigns
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
2/5/2012
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Thank you, Felicity. I played that storylet such a long time ago, I'd forgotten the philologist's words... (I'd all but forgotten about the Correspondence Stones, too.)
But of course, "the language of Xanadu" might just translate as "the language of Dreams"...
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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T WO Chandler
Posts: 93
2/5/2012
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Wieland Burandt wrote:
These were the Shivering Relickers' words when she (very reluctantly) handed me a Night-Whisper:
'Don't let it near the Co… the language of Xanadu. Keep it away from the Bazaar spires, and the ruins of previous cities. Altogether too dangerous to take it there. It will talk back. You understand? It will talk back.'
The Co...? The Correspondence, the language of Xanadu? Is this a false lead? Or is the Khan of Dreams deeply enmeshed in all this?
If you enter the House of Chimes using your Scholar of the Correspondence quality, Mr. Chimes will make a remark regarding the Khan of Dreams. So yes, there is a definite link there.
--
For secrets are their own reward.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
2/5/2012
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We know, however, that the Correspondence predates the Fourth City, from research at the Brass Embassy --
It takes weeks of work to piece together the morsels you find in the Embassy. The devils' interest in the Correspondence is still unclear, but something to note is that their records of investigating it go back a long way. To at least the Third City, in fact. They have been looking for something for at least a thousand years.
That places the Third City in the 9th century, some centuries before the existence of Xanadu. That suggests to me that 'the language of Xanadu' must be a moniker adopted in later generations, perhaps well after Coleridge's opium-dream ... and is there not much significance to dreaming, in the Neath?
Kublai Khan was, however, responsible for the initial decline of Karakorum, when he made Xanadu his capital. Perhaps that was the Masters' opportunity. Perhaps that part is not a metaphor.
TheDaveEBZ wrote:
So... who else has done more studying of ancient history due to echo bazaar than they ever did in school?
I am certainly learning more of the Mongol Empire than school ever taught me!
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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Felicity Chase
Posts: 62
1/30/2012
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I was looking through my diary recently and I found the echo I made when I opened a package containing a Fragment of White Gold: "Sometime during the frenzy of unwrapping something chimes on the floor. It's a piece of white gold, a fragment of a miniature wheel with a spoke attached. Pieces like this are from the Second City. Charming! You've heard that certain wealthy collectors desire these greatly." (Emphasis mine)
Unfortunately, the internet is providing very little information about white gold in Egypt, never mind Amarna. Silver was called hedj, "white gold" in ancient Egypt; the modern definition of white gold is an alloy of gold and "at least one white metal" (Wikipedia). I don't know if the ancient Egyptians made alloys of white gold.
Clicking on the Fragment in my inventory allows me to "Melt down a fragment of white gold and breathe deep of the smoke to be renewed in vigour and in clarity of mind", increasing my Watchful and substantially decreasing my Wounds. But research sources on the alchemical properties of gold in ancient Egypt are scarce. One website says "The ancient Egyptians used a white powder from gold which was mixed with water and called "the teardrop of Horus." It was used in a ritual by the Pharaoh and high priest to achieve immortality", but the entire text sounds pretty bogus and it's trying to sell me white powder gold anyway, so I'm skeptical. (http://www.freeworldnews.com/wgold.html)
Edit: Actually, the storylet option cites it as a Custom of the Neath, "from page 67 of Curious Customs from Under the Earth". So it may not be relevant after all.
In conclusion, I don't have any idea what this means. But I think it's relevant...
edited by Felicity Chase on 2/5/2012
--
@FelicityChase
Currently accepting: Almost all social actions. But please don't send me invitations to private dinners. And Nightmares may take a very long time to accept, unless you're willing to take some of mine in return.
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Dave
Posts: 215
1/30/2012
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For some reason, I first thought the fragment was a coin. I found an interesting coin with a wheel on one side, and an Egyptian scepter on the other, and even biblical ties to a "gracious" widow! Unfortunately, it dates to about 1,000 years later than most people are guessing for the 2nd city. Ah well, it probably wasn't a coin anyway.
There is also the Oxus Chariot Model, which would have gold wheels and axles of the right size. Again, a few hundred years later than we're looking, but I thought it might be a direction to head. Unfortunately, searching for gold chariots was a dead end - or rather, an explosion of directions. Every king, tribal leader, and deity between here and the discovery of the wheel seems to have ridden a golden chariot.
So... who else has done more studying of ancient history due to echo bazaar than they ever did in school?
--
The Dave, a terrifying, lethal, inescapable and sagacious gentleman
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travellersside
Posts: 288
12/19/2011
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It is not possible for Jerusalem to have been the First City, at least by the information that we have been given. We hear that "Only two things are known to remain of the First City: the name, the Crossroads Shaded By Cedars, and the saying: even the First City was young when Babylon fell."
As Jerusalem dates back to almost 2,000 BCE and Babylon's fall wasn't until a couple of centuries BCE (I'd find the specific dates if it was important), this means that Jerusalem could in no way be considererd to have been 'young' then.
(In addition to this, Jerusalem still exists as a city, and has not itself fallen. Once a City is taken by the Bazaar, it ceases to have a role in the world above. There are a number of candidates for the title of First City, but the most obvious criterion is that it must no longer be a city!)
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
12/19/2011
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I think Amarna is too old to be Second City. They had coins in the First City, but when Amarna was built coins weren't even invented (as far as we know). Alexandria seems more likely (especially because I believe that the Duchess is Cleopatra), but of course Alexandria still exists today... My Egyptological knowledge doesn't go very far, but how about Memphis? It was the capital of the empire (at least for a time) and it doesn't exist anymore.
My guess for Third City would be Teotihuacan, though I haven't checked the dates.
I'd say Xanadu/Shangdu/Shangri-La/Shambhala was the Fourth City, especially because of the mention of a "Holy Chasm".
That leaves us with City #1. I'm pretty sure that it's Uruk in Mesopotamia because it's one of the oldest cities in the world and it's the place where the first writing system was developed. Also, the reason behind that invention was that merchants needed to keep count of the ever-increasing numbers of traded goods -- that seems like a good birthplace for the Bazaar.
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
12/19/2011
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Jack Blackstone wrote:
One last thing: do you you have any ideas why the Pharaoh is called "the tall man"?
The art of the time depicted Akhenaten as long-limbed, narrow-featured, and remarkably tall. However, in identifying him, I neglected to consider the ages of the other cities -- especially the First City --
Wieland Burandt wrote:
I think Amarna is too old to be Second City. They had coins in the First City, but when Amarna was built coins weren't even invented (as far as we know).
In addition to having coinage, the First City needs to have been young when Babylon fell to the Persians in 539 BC ... Damn.
Further evidence for claiming the Fourth City is Karakorum. Compare this image of the Forgotten Quarter -- http://images.fallenlondon.com/headers/forgottenquarter.jpg -- to a reconstruction of the silver fountain and the palace behind it -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kharkorum_silver_tree1.jpg. Notice the shapes of the buildings, the tiered structure of the tree.
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
12/20/2011
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Oh, that tree is really impressive! But of course, they could've had something similar in Xanadu, as well?
I guess I just like that idea of Xanadu being the Fourth City... Kubla Khan is one of my favourite poems
theodor_gylden wrote:
the First City needs to have been young when Babylon fell to the Persians in 539 BC
And my Memphis theory is contradicted: it was founded ca. 3000 BC, so it definitely wasn't young when Babylon fell. And Alexandria is too young, it wasn't even founded in 539 BC!
But are you sure about that date? Babylon "fell" quite a few times (click here). Is there any evidence that the fall in question is the Persian invasion of 539 BC?
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Andrey Shmarev
Posts: 35
12/19/2011
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It's important to note that all cities were the capitals of the most powerful empires of their respective times. So my guess would be that Alexandria fills the role as the second city.
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Urthdigger
Posts: 939
12/20/2011
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The first city cannot be Babylon. They say it was young when Babylon fell after all.
edited by Urthdigger on 12/20/2011
--
Looking for second chances to maximize your loot output from those troublesome storylets? Check out our handy gang of volunteers in this thread, or even volunteer yourself!
@Urthdigger on twitter
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Nagato-01
Posts: 92
12/20/2011
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I'm just gonna drop this link here.
http://cl0ckw0rks.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/notes-on-the-previous-four-stolen-cities/
--
He can always be replaced.
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tofudragon7
Posts: 19
12/20/2011
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Right; I said "Babylon" when I meant "Babylonia." There are actually quite a few Babylonian cities on the Euphrates which might qualify.
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
2/5/2012
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T.W.O. Chandler wrote:
If you enter the House of Chimes using your Scholar of the Correspondence quality, Mr. Chimes will make a remark regarding the Khan of Dreams. So yes, there is a definite link there.
What I don't understand is: Kublai Khan died in 1294 - 75 years before the fall of Xanadu, 94 years before the fall of Karakorum. So, what does he even have to do with it all? Have the Masters been courting the Mongols for 100 years or more?
Which brings me to something else: I'd like to know if some of you have a theory concerning how the succession of cities works... Do the Masters get rid of one city and immediately move on to the next? Or are there periods of respite, with the Bazaar "in limbo" patiently waiting for the next city?
This would be especially interesting in the case of the Second City. We know something went wrong there, but when? Immediately after it was acquired? Or was everything going well for hundreds of years until "whatever-happened" happened?
And on a related note: what do you think will happen to the Prince Consort when the Bazaar acquires the Sixth City? Because every time at least one of the saved lovers who sold their cities apparently falls from the Master's graces eventually: the Once-Dashing Smuggler, reduced to the life of a tomb-colonist; the Cantigaster - well, being from the Second City, it's hardly a wonder he was extremely hard done by... the Capering Relicker, if he's the one, hides behind a mask... and we still don't know Feducci's story.
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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colinsapherson
Posts: 191
2/7/2012
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Felicity Chase wrote:
Hmm. "The symbol has been eluding you for weeks. But you think you have it… No, that cannot be right, can it? Does the Correspondence really have a symbol that indicates love?" Found in my journal again, so unfortunately I don't remember what storylet this is from.
That is, I believe, from the rare success where you are researching the Correspondence in part 1 of the University. 'Do some actual research' is the name of the storylet.
--
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Colin%20Sapherson%2c%20Lord%20President%20of%20the%20Council
Available for Knife & Candle Moon League matches, Tournaments of lilies and other social actions (including boxed cats and photographers).
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Strangewheys~Wandering
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/RUSKIN~WARE
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T WO Chandler
Posts: 93
2/7/2012
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The lucky result for for turning Incendiary Gossip into Identities Uncovered features the following line "The Manager is an ancient priest-king? Now, I saw him once writing a menu in cuneiform…". Figure that's worth noting in regards to speculation on his true identity.
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For secrets are their own reward.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
2/7/2012
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T.W.O. Chandler wrote:
The lucky result for for turning Incendiary Gossip into Identities Uncovered features the following line "The Manager is an ancient priest-king? Now, I saw him once writing a menu in cuneiform…". Figure that's worth noting in regards to speculation on his true identity.
That fits well with this discovery at Bullbone Island --
It's scratched into the wall with a sharp stone. The script is primitive and the hand is clumsy. The scribe was better used to a clay tablet and a blunt reed. You've seen the script before, on a coin. You can't make out what it says, but this is definitely First City writing."
And the words of this well-used encyclopedia --
Cuneiform documents were written on clay tablets, by means of a blunt reed for a stylus.
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
2/12/2012
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Seven seals, seven seas, seven days, seven wonders, seven sins, seven virtues, seven hills, seventh sons of seventh sons, seven chakras, seven plus or minus two memories. There are, as you say, a number of mystical associations attached to the number seven. What have the Fallen Cities had that has made them First through Fifth?
--
Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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T WO Chandler
Posts: 93
2/6/2012
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How does the line go? "In the deepest matters of the Bazaar, always look to love".
I suspect that the references to love are more to do with the Bazaar itself than the Correspondence.
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For secrets are their own reward.
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Ephemerayla
Posts: 11
2/14/2012
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Regarding the origins of the Bazaar, this sidebar has always stuck out to me:
Residents have been known to say 'since the Fall', to mean, not the Biblical Fall, but the Descent of London. Well enough. But what do they mean by 'since the Bazaar was between stars'?
That gave rise to my personal pet theory, long before I began to look into discussions on the subject, that the Bazaar is indeed of extraterrestrial origins. It arrives at a planet, finds its most notable cities, and then feeds on them like a vampire until they are crumbling husks, twisted in on themselves.
Just my own impressions. Though I'm at a loss as to what could have gone so wrong with the second city...
--
If my heart could beat, it would break my chest.
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T WO Chandler
Posts: 93
2/14/2012
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Alexander von Brennenburg wrote:
We can draw four conjecturse from these pieces of knowledge.
1) The Bazaar is furious that the Second city escaped its grip and found shelter in the Elder Country, where they appear nigh-invulnerable.
2) The Bazaar resent the duchess for finding out its true appetite.
3) All of the above, and perhaps more.
4) None of the above, and the Bazaar's dislike of Egyptians is linked to a completely unknown and different reason. One of which may be that the deal they made with the Second city was somehow unsatisfying.
Well, that turned out less brief than the Wry functionary's latest novel. My apologies
edited by Alexander von Brennenburg on 2/14/2012
Doesn't seem that likely to me. Other cities have had their populations escape and individuals learn the true appetite of the Bazaar without the Masters displaying any sort of unusual antipathy towards them.
I'd say that the more likely reason for the Masters to dislike the Second City is the whole business with Mr. Eaten. There's been a degree of speculation about that previously, in the thread, I believe.
Although that does bring something to mind. Considering that she was there when it happened, it seems possible that the Duchess may actually know the Name. She appears to be an exception to the usual antipathy displayed towards those Seeking the Name, judging by her positive reaction to what happens if you choose to attend her salons and speak of terrible things.
--
For secrets are their own reward.
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Little The
Posts: 700
2/17/2012
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Hm. I believe someone mentioned earlier that they thought the "Even the First City was young when Babylon fell" to be a corruption of the original phrase? I think that would make a great deal of sense. Why would it be important that something was young when Babylon fell? Babylon fell quite a while ago, many places were still young then. I agree that the original phrase was almost certainly "Even Babylon was young when the First City fell." In which case, Jerusalem suddenly becomes a tantalizing possibility...
Edit: Hold on a minute. On the topic of places across the Unterzee being remnants of the previous cities, what's up with the Iron Republic? If Polythreme is the First City, NORTH the Second, the Carnelian Coast the Third, and the East the Fourth, where does the Iron Republic come from?
edited by Little The on 2/17/2012
--
A gentleman of numerous descriptors that change far too often. Second chance and menace reduction invites are welcome.
My journey to Seek the Name is recorded for posterity here. I asked "Who is Salt?"
I am a member of the Temple Club. If you would like an invitation, feel free to request one!
Fallen London is a game of choices. When you make an important one, you can record your rationale here.
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travellersside
Posts: 288
2/17/2012
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Urthdigger wrote:
Assuming Mr. Eaten was connected to the second city, the third city cannot be the origin of the correspondence.
That's not entirely true. Of course, I don't actually believe that the Correspondence is anywhere near that recent - I think that it predates the First City by eons - but reason compels me to note that other symbols have included:
breath
death by water
an exchange
love
and many others. All of these concepts would, by necessity, predate even the First City. As such, it's possible that Mr. Eaten's name is in fact something like Endless Hunger, or Forever Lost (depending on interpretations) and that concept was included when the Correspondence was compiled.
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Quil
Posts: 39
2/17/2012
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Little The wrote:
Edit: Hold on a minute. On the topic of places across the Unterzee being remnants of the previous cities, what's up with the Iron Republic? If Polythreme is the First City, NORTH the Second, the Carnelian Coast the Third, and the East the Fourth, where does the Iron Republic come from?
edited by Little The on 2/17/2012
It's an outpost of Hell, so perhaps it's not linked to human cities?
Though the fact that it's described (in the Iron Republic dream as part of the Nemesis ambition) as thick with a choking fog makes me think of the famous smog of Victorian London...
EDIT: Just checked the list of locked places across the Unterzee, and the other one that hasn't been mentioned here is "the Pillars". I can only find one other reference to this place, on the 'Gather Round Me Bully Boys' zailor card - "The evening finishes with a fist-fight over the nature of 'the Pillars': a formation in a desert, an abandoned city of glass or a village of savage women." . More mysteries...
edited by Quil on 2/17/2012
--
Quil, a midnight, sinister, inescapable and sagacious gentleman.
Twitter: @HelenKeeble
Always available for a rousing game of Pass the Cat!
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
2/23/2012
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Patrick Reding wrote:
Rupho Schartenhauer wrote:
theodor_gylden wrote:
Something I discovered upon inviting a friend from the surface to discuss proscribed literature:
'...one hears that the Masters of the Bazaar stayed in the Second City far longer than they intended. Perhaps that's something to do with their disdain for Egypt...'
This explains the curious gap between the Second City and the Third, if our dates are correct.
VERY interesting! One hardly dares to think it, but were they held..... captive?
And maybe the Second City is still in the North -- I feel that the Duchess would've done anything to preserve her father's city for eternity... maybe she finally went with the Masters as a kind of hostage... maybe that's why she's never seen outside the palace...
Then perhaps Mr. Eaten was banished to the well because it betrayed its bretheren to the Duchess! Fascinating!
.... and Mr Wines created the Vake in order to take revenge on the Duchess. It killed all her sisters (and the Pharao too, probably, though not "completely"), but for some reason couldn't kill her!
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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merusdraconis
Posts: 52
2/26/2012
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I would be very surprised indeed if the Correspondence came from an earthly city - it seems to be from the same place as the Bazaar is. I suspect that the 'between stars' reference refers to gravity, which is, after all, a kind of attraction.
Moreover, if the cities people have posted are accurate we should be able to find a historical figure who would have made the same compact as the Traitor Empress did, and for the same reasons. The Bazaar buys stories of love, such as the love between the Empress and her Consort, which suggests that the other four cities also have a love story at their heart.
I naturally jump to Antony and Cleopatra for the Second City, which would suggest the Masters' annoyance has to do with Rome declaring war on them, although the hints we've gotten regarding the Duchess suggest that instead we're looking for a mother and her child.
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
2/28/2012
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The Bluejay wrote:
This has probably been addressed already, but surely the first two cities can't be that old? I think I'm right in saying that the game specifically mentions First City coins - but coins weren't invented until around 700BC at the earliest. This would, of course, reconcile the "The First City was young when Babylon fell" clue, since Babylon was razed by the Assyrians in 689 BC.
I actually did address this earlier in this thread, but thanks for pointing it out again. It certainly gives me a headache, especially when everything else seems to fit in so nicely... there's really no other mention of an "eye temple" anywhere but the one at ancient Nagar, and Amarna fits best of all Egyptian cities. Also, the Vake is mentioned to be more or less exactly 3,000 years old, so if the theory that it comes from the Second City is right then the First City has to be even older...
But the coinage matter is certainly a problem. Maybe it will be addressed in the game itself at some point?
EDIT: Thinking about this, I guess the Bazaar would've simply introduced money to the First and Second City... waiting for mankind to discover it for themselves doesn't strike me as the Masters' style. After all, we don't even know if the First City had had coins before its fall.
SECOND EDIT: Maybe this means that money is no earthly invention at all? Money from outer space? Talk about "root of all evil" and all that...
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
2/29/2012
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Guest wrote:
Were there any "coin-like" things used by people dating that far back that might be a fit for First City "coins"?
Yup:
"Stone and clay seals with pictorial designs predated coins."
"Many cultures around the world eventually developed the use of commodity money. The shekel was originally a unit of weight, and referred to a specific weight of barley, which was used as currency. The first usage of the term came from Mesopotamia circa 3000 BC."
"The Mesopotamian civilization developed a large scale economy based on commodity money. The Babylonians and their neighboring city states later developed the earliest system of economics as we think of it today, in terms of rules on debt, legal contracts and law codes relating to business practices and private property. Money was not only an emergence, it was a necessity."
"The Code of Hammurabi, the best preserved ancient law code, was created ca. 1760 BC in ancient Babylon. It was enacted by the sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi. Earlier collections of laws include the code of Ur-Nammu, king of Ur (ca. 2050 BC), the Code of Eshnunna (ca. 1930 BC) and the code of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin (ca. 1870 BC). These law codes formalized the role of money in civil society. They set amounts of interest on debt... fines for 'wrong doing'... and compensation in money for various infractions of formalized law."
"The city-states of Sumer developed a trade and market economy based originally on the commodity money of the Shekel which was a certain weight measure of barley, while the Babylonians and their city state neighbors later developed the earliest system of economics using a metric of various commodities, that was fixed in a legal code."
"Several centuries after the invention of cuneiform, the use of writing expanded beyond debt/payment certificates and inventory lists to codified amounts of commodity money being used in contract law, such as buying property and paying legal fines."
Aren't First City coins mentioned to be made of clay, somewhere? Even if not, I'd think they are. Which would be another hint in the direction of Polythreme...
(Sources: http://rg.ancients.info/lion/article.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_money#History)
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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travellersside
Posts: 288
2/29/2012
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Wieland Burandt wrote:
Aren't First City coins mentioned to be made of clay, somewhere? Even if not, I'd think they are. Which would be another hint in the direction of Polythreme...
No, they're specifically said to be made of silver.
The best source of information on them is as part of the Heart's Desire Ambition, since you need to collect 77 of the coins from your choice of various sources. As such, they're described several times as being silver coins, just as they are in your inventory.
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PsiCat76
Posts: 1
3/3/2012
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First time posting so might as well throw in my theories for the cities.
First City (Tel Megiddo fell 586 BC]):
Fell in the same time as the destruction of the First
Israelite Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians and remains uninhabited.
Even the first city was young when Babylon fell - Perhaps it is refering
to the cities age in the Neath so if Babylon fell a few decades after the
first city was taken then the first city was still young when they heard
the news from the surface.
the name, the Crossroads Shaded By Cedars - It sat at a crossroads and
ancient strategic location. Jezreel Valley which it overlooks includes
cedar trees in it's forest. And, it has a name that remains synonymous
with the end times.
Who makes the Clay Men? - Well they hold certain similarities to Golems of
Jewish folklore.
Second City (Alexandria, fell ca. 30 BC):
The Duchess might have once been Cleopatra and her lover of
course Mark Antony. Cleopatra had two sisters Berenice IV and Arsinoe IV,
and of the Pharoah’s daughters she's the last. Perhaps she was able to
delay the Masters claiming the city somehow until the tsunami of 365 AD
(drowning and the Death By Water dreams). Perhaps Cleopatra seduced the
information on how to do so from Mr. Eaten.
Third City (Hopelchén, fell in the 9th century AD):
Skyglass Knife - The Maya made extensive use of obsidian for weapons.
The Third City seems to have been acquired a thousand years ago. It had five
wells, they say. - the Mayan city of Hopelchen "place of five wells".
Fourth City (Karakorum fell 1388 AD):
It's something about the silver tree. And a battle that never happened. -
The silver tree existed in Karakorum during the reign of Ogedai Kahn.
One of his generals was due to attack an area of Egypt but was called
back when Ogedai Kahn died. So a battle that never happened.
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Patrick Reding
Posts: 440
3/23/2012
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RageBox Alice wrote:
Played a Fallen cities Opportunity card last night and got this lovely little blurb. I'll leave it here for others to dissect.
They say the broken, tarnished silver tree at the heart of the Forgotten Quarter was once a living birch, that it was transformed into a fountain at the Fourth City's Fall. They say the gods of the Third City still walk amongst the citizens of the Neath. They say that the Masters know everything and nothing about this.
The trick, of course, is that "they" say a lot of things. A lot of those things may be somewhere in the vague vicinity of the truth, but most are just garbage.
edited by Patrick Reding on 3/23/2012
--
http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/Yana
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RageBox Alice
Posts: 112
3/28/2012
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True, "they" say a lot, some of it completely contradictory. And there's always the chance that there is some misdirection going on.
BTW, has anyone traded Compromising Documents for Stolen Kisses and gotten this blurb?
A damp alley two streets from the Museum of Mistakes. At last, the Muffled Intriguer. '...took longer than I'd planned. Sorry. Most of the coins are gone. But look at these. The kisses that built Rome and killed the queen of Carthage. Romance, eh?'
I received 10 Stolen Kisses and four First City coins.
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Facebook: RageBox Alice
Twitter: @rageboxalice
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Guest
3/29/2012
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I believe the Caspian link is about Great Silk Road.
[spoiler]A Clay Man runs the silk length through his thick fingers. His lips crack in a smile and he closes his eyes. He speaks in the voice of a human man. 'Silk, silk. So long ago. Such a journey westward with the precious cargo. They said the world wasn't that big, but we came to the shores of the inland sea, where they'd never even seen silk...'
A map. It's simply realised, but you recognise Asia and the Middle East. A series of arrows starts in Eastern China and ends in the land between the Caspian and Mediterranean seas.[/spoiler]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Silk_route.jpg/400px-Silk_route.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Transasia_trade_routes_1stC_CE_gr2.png/800px-Transasia_trade_routes_1stC_CE_gr2.png
The northern Silk Road leads from Mediterranean Sea (where Cyprus is located) to Caspian Sea. And the major role in establishing this route belongs to Ptolemiac dynasty, successors of Alexander the Great, who ruled Cyprus, Egypt and Syria (including Judea and Lebanon).
After visiting Polythreme I had some Alexnder-Ptolemy theories, and they keep coming back.
edited by Дмитрий Кеворков on 3/29/2012
edited by Дмитрий Кеворков on 3/29/2012
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Aspeon
Posts: 311
3/29/2012
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A tidbit from the Grunting Fen: [[Your ship] tells you that a terrible bargain was made once in a far dry place, and that all water still remembers it because all water contains something that was once well-water.]
So does "far dry place" refer to Egypt, or does "well-water" tie this to Mr. Eaten? Or both?
--
A raccooning will not be postponed indefinitely.
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Aspeon
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Patrick Reding
Posts: 440
3/29/2012
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Some new information from the Unfinished storyline:
"THE KING WITH A HUNDRED HEARTS IS OUR MAKER AND OUR SOUL. HE DREAMS US TO BEING. BUT NOT ALL HIS DREAMS ARE PLEASING. THE KING REMEMBERS DAYS OF SUNLIGHT AND FLESH. WHEN YOUR CITIES WERE YOUNG. HE UNDERTOOK A GREAT JOURNEY WESTWARDS, PAST THE END OF THE WORLD. HE DREAMS OF THE HORRORS OF THAT JOURNEY, AND THE UNFINISHED COME."
This means the map from China to the Caspian almost certainly actually of the King's journey. It also shuts down the Pygmalion theory, since he was once flesh.
Hmm. A journey from China to the West. You don't suppose this has anything to do with that Journey to the West, do you? Well, probably not, since that one ended in India.
edited by Patrick Reding on 3/29/2012
--
http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/Yana
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Mingminos
Posts: 1
3/17/2012
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Jack Blackstone wrote:
I was trading Muscaria Brandy for Brass rings for the first time, and i failed. While i was dismayed that i didn't get anything extra, the description was very enlightening on the possible location for the next Fallen city: Now, I've heard that when the time comes for the gates to open and the host to head Eastwards, those wearing these rings may be spared the fire. So, if you still care for anyone, you may wish to make gifts of them.'
edited by Jack Blackstone on 3/16/2012
edited by Jack Blackstone on 3/16/2012
I believe the demon means Hell's gate and infernal host, not the Bazaar. Some of us know that another war with these demons is imminent, now we know what they plan.
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Quil
Posts: 39
3/18/2012
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theodor_gylden wrote:
hannah mckay wrote:
For what it's worth, I've developed my own pet crackpot conspiracy theory regarding the Manager's lover. In the Doubt Street interview, he says that his lover is 'over the water', but that he sees 'his face in the streets every day'. Now, in Wilmot's End, you can meet a Clay Man standing by a statue that could be his double. Putting the two together, I find myself wondering whether the Clay Men are made in the image of someone specific, someone over the water in Polythreme, and it is in them that the Manager sees his lover's face...
You will find support for your theory across the Sea of Voices, in Polythreme. (Spoilers, naturally.)
I am beginning to wonder if the Manager is some version of Pygmalion. I don't have the specific texts to hand at the moment, but someone in Polythreme (the Masked Man?) mentions that the whole city originally began as one statue. Plus we discover that the Clay Men are 'birthed' from the walls, and I am beginning to get the impression that they are somehow all aspects or fragments of the King of a Hundred Hearts... problem is, Pygmalion is I believe far too late in 'history' for the timescales we're discussing here for the city. Anyone know of any similar personages? Perhaps out of Jewish legend (thinking of golems here)?
--
Quil, a midnight, sinister, inescapable and sagacious gentleman.
Twitter: @HelenKeeble
Always available for a rousing game of Pass the Cat!
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hannah mckay
Posts: 14
3/19/2012
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Points of note from the second stage of the Polythreme Travelogue story:
(spoiler) They say Polythreme's been here for ever. I dunno about that, but there used to be a carving in a temple of when the first ship turned up here carrying a Pharaoh's daughter. - the Duchess? or one of her sisters?
I've heard tell that the Hundreds was bound up in a bargain with them Masters long ago. And that's how Polythreme came to be. Summat about love and a statue...
You don't talk about love to the Hundreds if you know what's good for you. And he curses the name of someone who still lives in London. - possibly more support for the idea of the Manager as Pygmalion.
Also, it mentions that visitors from the Presbyterate refer to the Hundreds as 'The Diamond King' - anyone have any theories of how to interpret that?
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
4/18/2012
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LucasDixon wrote:
Further evidence for the third city being Aztec instead of Myan. There was that earlier mention of the third city's black mirrors. When you set out to zee you get this snippet:
Eastwards down the Stolen River"
The River flows somber to the uttermost ends of the Neath...you pass the crouching bulk of Watchmaker's Hill to the South: the lamps of the Observatory shine softly amber at its summit. To the North, the distant blink of the Prickfinger Wastes, glittering like an empire of knives. Will-o'-the-wisps and mudlarks' Davy-lamps glow along the shore of Bugsby's Marshes. Then London is behind you, and the Unterzee stretches broad and dark before you, black as an Aztec mirror, stippled with moonish light. Back in the foggy embrace of London, it's easy to forget just how big the Neath really is...
This could be a coincidence but in Fallen London things seldom are.
It might be a false lead, as most things we know about the Third City, e.g. the importance of maize and cinnabar, clearly hint at it being Mayan. Also, the dating issue: the Aztec civilization was at its peak at the time the Fourth City fell... while the "Classic period" of Mayan civilization ended 1000 years before London fell - "The Third City seems to have been acquired a thousand years ago."
There's another thing: the Mayan were the only Mesoamerican civilization with a fully-developed writing script ("Aztec writing is not considered to be a complete writing system that can communicate everything that can be expressed verbally and understood without a great deal of contextual information. This is because there is no complete set of characters that map to every verbal element in Nahuatl"). And that seems to be as important to the Bazaar as economic strength.
And let's not forget the five wells... Hopelchén actually meaning "Place of Five Wells" is really too big a coincidence to be cast aside.
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Lawrence Growe
Posts: 96
3/16/2012
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For a while, I entertained a notion that the Fourth city might be Troy, but then I acquired a bottle of Fourth City Airag and that steered my thinking away from the Mediterranean and towards the East. This artefact does point towards Mongolia, does it not?
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Patrick Reding
Posts: 440
4/3/2012
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Th- thirty!? I imagine the development team was trying to dodge the "Were coins invented yet?" problem, but still, that's a little nuts. I guess it still works, though, if they were minted in Polythreme, which can still reasonably be considered the First City. It's also interesting they were minted right after (or before?) London's Fall.
Of course, now I hate the Numismatrix even more for grotesquely overcharging me for those coins.
edited by Patrick Reding on 4/3/2012
--
http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/Yana
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Estelle Knoht
Posts: 1751
4/4/2012
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Patrick Reding wrote:
travellersside wrote:
Establishing a character as a definitive authority on something is a great idea, but they shouldn't then say something nonsensical about their specialist sphere!
Unless she only has personal experience with the new coins, and is unaware of the older ones that can be found in Flute Street. It's not as if Rubbery traders know the archaeological goldmine they're sitting on.
While the Numberminimatrix strikes me as a knowledgeable person, I can't imagine she walking in Flute Street digging up coins
--
Estelle Knoht, a juvenile, unreliable and respectable lady.
I currently do not accept any catbox, cider, suppers, calling cards or proteges.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
4/5/2012
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T.W.O. Chandler wrote:
Bizarre, probably incorrect theorising regarding the Numismatrix's statement: Taking her words about the Coins simply being tokens representing some primal power, perhaps they were placed beneath Flute Street intentionally? By the rubbery men for some strange reason? Hidden or lost there by a previous visitor perhaps? Maybe it could be that the vault in which whatever the coins represent is stored is actually located so far beneath the Bazaar as to actually be below Flute Street?
The Rubbery Men are collectors of 'vital essence' ... could the primal power behind the coins be the same?
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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Patrick Reding
Posts: 440
4/15/2012
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Jack Blackstone wrote:
This is new..... I was in the Suttered Palace when i came across gravestones that might explain the flooding of the second city!
The symbols on the gravestones aren't words at all, they are rows and rows of precisely-carved images. Stylized hawks and over-sized lizards; something which must surely be the sun; a boat with a single sail; water poured from a jar. Everywhere, twined around and between everything, there are cats curled up as if asleep. And what's that in the corner of the oldest stone? A row of tiny cloaked and hooded figures, one bearing a goblet?
This might sound silly but what if The Duchess had a magical jar that when opened created the Underzee?
That... does sound silly. The symbols are clearly meant to be heiroglyphics, likely meant to be read phonetically. If you dig up one of the little graves, you find a mummified cat, although the narration doesn't recognise it for what it is.
edited by Patrick Reding on 4/15/2012
--
http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/Yana
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Alexander von Brennenburg
Posts: 36
4/15/2012
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On the subject of First City coins...wouldn't it be plausible if most of them were indeed forged, as the Numismatrix's boasts, but these copies would originate from authentic coins ? It could explain why we can find some in Flute Street.
--
You do look weary, my friend. Come, help yourself with some of this tasty spiced wine. It will put a stop to your troubles, I assure you.
An Excerpt from "The Seeker Of Shadows" :
Are you having chronic nightmares ? Do your acquaintances meet an hideous demise shortly after seeing you ? Contact directly Alexander von Brennenburg for an immediate solution, free of charge !*
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
5/5/2012
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Allanon Kisigar wrote:
With the new Ambition chapters, there have been some interesting revelations. Going to spoiler-whiteout in case anyone doesn't want to know what happens with the latest Heart's Desire... but it does say some interesting things about the Manager, and the King With a Hundered Hearts.
'THE MAN YOU KNOW AS THE MANAGER WAS ONCE THE FIRST KING. YOU STAND IN THE STREETS OF THE ONE HE LOVES. POLYTHREME IS ALL AROUND YOU. THE KING WITH A HUNDRED HEARTS. HE HAS SENT MANY PLAYERS AWAY. PERHAPS YOU WILL SPEAK WITH HIM. PERHAPS YOU WILL GAIN WHAT YOU DESIRE. BUT TO SPEAK OF SUCH THINGS PAINS THE KING. THE TOWN WILL SCREAM. THE UNFINISHED WILL COME FORTH. I DON'T EXPECT YOU TO CARE. BUT THIS IS THE TRUTH.'
Interesting. That confirms the Manager was a priest-king of the First City; the King with a Hundred Hearts may have come from elsewhere. Now, perhaps, we may make more sense of the Polythremean references to the Silk Road.
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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Anna Carbonyl
Posts: 38
4/23/2012
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Quil wrote:
Patrick Reding wrote:
The symbols are clearly meant to be heiroglyphics, likely meant to be read phonetically. If you dig up one of the little graves, you find a mummified cat, although the narration doesn't recognise it for what it is.
edited by Patrick Reding on 4/15/2012
OK, who here can read hieroglyphs? Because I will bet 77 silver coins that the symbols mentioned were not pulled out of thin air by our esteemed writers...
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I have the means to read them, but not the time to go and compile them all. Seriously, get me a list, and I'll see what I can do.
--
People are dumb, talk to rocks instead. Or Correspondence Stones. Whichever talks back first.
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Anna Carbonyl
Posts: 38
4/24/2012
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Quil wrote:
The symbols on the gravestones aren't words at all, they are rows and rows of precisely-carved images. Stylized hawks and over-sized lizards; something which must surely be the sun; a boat with a single sail; water poured from a jar. Everywhere, twined around and between everything, there are cats curled up as if asleep. And what's that in the corner of the oldest stone? A row of tiny cloaked and hooded figures, one bearing a goblet?
Armed with the storylet text and Wikipedia, I have found:
Hawk - lots of options; the most "hawklike" seems to be the symbol for Horus though, which is not too illuminating (see here)
Lizard (crocodile?)- I3, I4 or I5 from here. Of these, I5 would seem to have the most intriguing connotations?
Sun - Rather generic, probably just means literally "sun"? See here
Boat with single sail - this is so specific I can't help but think it's a clue. The only single-sailed boat I can find is P2 here
Water pouring from a jar - Sounds like W15 here
Sleeping cat - I can't find anything that's a sleeping cat rather than a seated cat (see here) so may be decorative element rather than word?
Figure holding a goblet - Again, I can't find anything (see lists here and here) that's a figure specifically holding a goblet; this may be a picture, rather than a hieroglyph
Any good?
I'll see what I can do. I'm relatively certain a few of them are made up to specifically reference the game lore, and not any Egyptian lore. These don't sound like they're making words, if it is meant to be real, and it's on a grave, it might just be a cartouche for a specific person or meant to commemorate an event symbolically. Also, it may be that your character is reading them wrong, as you don't get much exposure to ancient Egyptian culture in Victorian England.
The sun is a symbol of Ra/Amun-Ra, a hawk is generally an A sound, a boat with a single sail probably represents the journey to the underworld after death.
The hooded figures holding the goblet sound like they were made up just for the game lore, they don't have lots of hooded things in hieroglyphics, as far as I know.
I'll be able to figure out more when I get home and check some reference books.
--
People are dumb, talk to rocks instead. Or Correspondence Stones. Whichever talks back first.
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
4/24/2012
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The cat-curled-as-if-asleep may certainly reflect Neathlore -- see, the moon in the Marches, and the patterns thereon: http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/echo_theodor?fromEchoId=234247
I wonder if the hieroglyphs do not tell a story. The boat could indicate a journey -- to the Underworld, or across the Unterzee. The row of hooded figures could be the Masters, and the goblet could be of Hesperidean Cider, or the elixir of life from the Elder Country.
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
5/5/2012
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A deftly argued post -- I have been persuaded to Karakorum, half-way to Xanadu, then back again, thanks to your rhetoric. I still, however, lean towards Amarna as the identity of the Second City. You say that Thebes is a diverse city with a complex pantheon, yet the Second City is noted for its distinct lack of worship in the text ruling out Alexandria ... and it is said elsewhere that its pharaoh tore down the old gods, as he did in Amarna. If the pharaoh in Thebes had done the same, I might be better-convinced.
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
5/11/2012
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Scarlet Fenwick wrote:
Second city - I /still/ fall with the Cleopatra idea (probably because I'm a romantic) and that would have been Alexandria - a great trade city of Ancient Egypt, which ended with her death ~30BC. This creates the basis for my other choices using FredTC's ~500 year idea.
Alexandria is the one place I believe the Second City is not, if only because it's the one theory to mentioned by name and then dismissed.
A lack of worship? '... I still hear speculation about Alexandria, but I'm sure that isn't true. The Second City didn't have nearly enough temples to be Alexandria.'
There are also references to the Masters staying in the Second City longer than intended, so if there is ~500 year rule, it need not apply.
edited by theodor_gylden on 5/11/2012
--
Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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MNess
Posts: 59
5/13/2012
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Wieland Burandt wrote:
Huge spoiler from the new Bag a Legend! content:
The Sisterhood have been many things since those days. Scholars. Carnival performers. Explorers. And now nuns. .
Ok, I have to say that I find that quote hilarious. From carnival performers to nuns? Hee. I'm following Heart's Desire, so I wouldn't have seen it - thanks for posting.
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Felicity Chase
Posts: 62
5/15/2012
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I don't recall if it's been said already, but I believe the First City was on the shores of an inland sea. From bribing Clay men with surface-silk in Polythreme:
A Clay Man runs the silk length through his thick fingers. His lips crack in a smile and he closes his eyes. He speaks in the voice of a human man. 'Silk, silk. So long ago. Such a journey westward with the precious cargo. They said the world wasn't that big, but we came to the shores of the inland sea, where they'd never even seen silk...'
--
@FelicityChase
Currently accepting: Almost all social actions. But please don't send me invitations to private dinners. And Nightmares may take a very long time to accept, unless you're willing to take some of mine in return.
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streetfelineblue
Posts: 1459
5/15/2012
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Michael Bacon wrote:
Inland sea, huh? None of the Asian seas would make sense, as they'd all be on on near the Silk Road and would definitely know silk.
For some reason, I keep coming back to the various stories of Solomon for the First City (Gezer being another), but here's one outlandish theory that could be a fun diversion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophir#Americas
I'm not sure the Asian seas should have to be barred: as explicitly stated in the new Heart's Desire content, the Priest-King of the First City got to know silk from the Eastern traveller (he and his group wore anchient Chinese-like garb) who later became the King with a Hundred Hearts in Polythreme. I don't know exactly how old is the Silk Road, but it could have been the King with a Hundred Hearts himself to establish it. There's another element to consider: if the King's memories are to be trusted, his travel was mainly land-based, taking him through a vast desert, and just before arriving at the Temple of Eyes where he met the Priest-King, the surroundings are described as "a road at a mud brick town near a cedar grove. Hot, dusty plains stretch to the horizon". So I'd say the First City should have to be somewhere reachable on foot from China; possibly right on Silk Road's track.
--
Twitter: @streetfelineblu
Blue's LiveJournal
Blue's Echo Bazaar profile
Blue's Night Circus diary
Link to Ocelot's Enigma Ambition hint page; PM for clarification. No direct solutions provided.
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Azarias
Posts: 13
7/26/2012
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One problem with that particular theory: what you learn in Heart's Desire does not support the idea that the first city was in Imperial China, as one of the characters (The Manager of the Royal Bethlehem hotel) says of his lover, "He was so beautiful, you know. I'd never seen his like. Nobody had. He'd come so far from the East. With such wonderful things! We'd never seen silk before." Furthermore, you are told a story of travel upon meeting the King with a Hundred Hearts, who summarizes it by saying "So, you've seen my story. China and then the Crossroads Shaded by Cedars." Which implies that the two are very distant from each other.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but if anyone can figure out what's missing, it's you.
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BaronElectric
Posts: 68
7/27/2012
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Just an interesting 4th city tidbit I found today in the new content:
'Look, we all know what's coming. We have to pick a side, or it'll be the Fourth City all over again. Nobody benefits from that. You've not seen the Gracious Widow's face, have you? Well, there you are, then.'
--
Profile
Twitter: @flbaronelectric
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Samuel Goodall
Posts: 64
8/12/2012
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Found some information whilst dreaming. "She was caught red handed. Crimson alizarin!" Crimson alizarin was found inside Prince Tuts tomb. He was married to Ankhesenamun
the third of six daughters of the Pharaoh Akhenaten. So I think this gives us a time frame for the Second city.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
8/13/2012
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It's damn close to being the First City in reality - certainly one of the first. There's evidence of human societies long before Uruk - including, from memory, examples of long-distance trade and ceremonial burial going back possibly as long as sixty thousand years, in my own country - but Uruk's near as dammit where urban civilisation began.
--
Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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ThirdTerrene
Posts: 2
8/17/2012
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Michael Bacon wrote:
FOURTH CITY
Clues:
- Correspondance dreams give you "the language of Xanadu," there's a fountain shaped like a tree in the Forgotten Quarter, it was filled with temples with lanterns and jade, and in the last days before its Fall people were huddled against some siege.
- There's a whole host of "Oriental connections" surrounding one Gracious Widow who seems to be involved in a lot of covert smuggling and dealing
- I haven't come across any specifics about life of the Gracious Widow, but Shadowy is my weakest stat, which locks me out of a lot of stuff, I think. The closest is the story of the urchin adopted by the Gracious Widow, showing some strong maternal instincts.
Historical facts and myths:
- Karakorum, which I think clues in the game conclusively point to as the Fourth City ("the language of Xanadu" would also have been the language of Karakorum), fell in 1380 under a vicious counterattack by the second Ming Emperor Hongwe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uskhal_Khan_T%C3%B6g%C3%BCs_Tem%C3%BCr).
- The most intriguing character I've found in the late Mongol period, as far as the game goes, was the Korean second empress of the last great Kahn, Togun Temur, referred to in the all-knowing Wikipedia as the Qi Empress. During the reign of her husband, she constantly maneuvered to install her son, Ayushiridara, as the heir to the Khanate, and was eventually successful. After Togun Temur's death, she became the Dowager Empress, and Wikipedia leaves us with this tantalizing nugget: " It is possible that she was captured by the Ming Chinese when Mongol royal family was fleeing. According to the myth, she was pregnant when captured by the Ming army. She possibly married Hongwu and gave birth to the Ming Emperor Yongle." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi_Empress)
- The Yongle Emperor went on to become one of the most militarily powerful and feared Emperors of the Ming dynasty.
Surmise:
There's too much that falls into place regarding the Qi Empress for me to ignore. The surmise here is that the Qi Empress, now known as the Gracious Widow, sold Karakorum as it was on the verge of being sacked in return for being able to marry the Hongwu Emperor and place her son on the throne of the Ming Dynasty, along with an endless supply of Hesperidian Cider, one presumes. As with Victoria and Albert, there is the interesting twist that she was Korean, and hence regarded as a foreigner and less deserving of the title, but rose to a position of power nonetheless.
I believe you're quite close on this one. Recent developments in The Affair with the Box point to the Gracious Widow and a new figure referred to as "Yesterday's King" being the rulers of the Fourth City. The relevant passages follow, please be aware that they contain SPOILERS FOR RECENTLY PUBLISHED CONTENT.
. . . And what's this, in the bottom of the box? A little bundle of letters, tied with a red ribbon.
The script is that of the fourth city, but you can read a few words. These are love letters. What in the Neath?
- "Illegal, even for a Master ..."
. . . 'And Fourth City love letters, you say? That makes no d--ned sense at all. You'd best ask someone who can read them. The Gracious Widow, perhaps. Well, pip pip. I'm back off out to the wilds before one of those crows catches me. Lovely to chat to you.'
The room is swathed in darkness. But not even the Gracious Widow can read a love letter without light. She lights a tiny candle. It illuminates her hand - spotted and clawed with age, frail for one so powerful. You sip your green tea as she reads. Is that a sigh, a tear? The Widow clutches a pendant hanging around her neck - a beautifully fashioned silver leaf - as she reads.
Your cup is empty before the Widow speaks. 'Thank you for these. I had thought them lost forever into the hands of the Masters. They will provide me some comfort. I know a little about your box. And though it is now empty, it is still important.
'You see, few know that the box is empty, so it is still useful as a playing piece. A piece in a game that has been going on across London since this latest Fall. And before that in other places. The Masters play. The devils have once more joined the game. But as players or pieces?
'The Masters of the Bazaar are... not, perhaps as united in their aims as they like to claim. They squabble and war amongst themselves. The box is part of that conflict. It is a thing of Mr Stones, I would guess.
'I played once. The previous time this game ended, so did my city. I learned that lesson. I will speak no more of it. Speak to Yesterday's King if you must. But you must leave now. I wish to be alone.'
The favours and time you spent tracking him down don't matter now. You know where Yesterday's King is. Like the other relics of the Fourth City, he's in the Forgotten Quarter.
You find him in the ruins of a temple on the far outskirts of the Quarter, living in a rat-worried lean-to made of decayed bamboo. He's scrawny and ancient, ruined by time. He throws a rock at your head as you approach, but it doesn't get halfway to you.
'Go! Go! Oh, you're not a devil, are you? You look a bit like a devil. You shouldn't do that, looking like a devil and creeping about around here. Too many devils by half around here. I'm five hundred years old, you know.
'Did the Khan's daughter send you? That woman ruined me. Promised me the thrones of the world. All I had to do was bring down the Masters of the Bazaar. We had a city and the Neath. How hard could it be? They destroyed us. Razed the city and then went looking for another. London! What a terrible joke. And they forgot about me. Just left me here to rot.
'But they won't be laughing long. A devil came here yesterday. And I do mean yesterday, not ten years ago. I'm not that far gone. Nice hat. Yellow rose. One up to his neck in the intrigues of the Masters. Asked me a lot of questions about my little coup. I think he wants to try his hand. Where do you think the Sixth City will be?'
edited by ThirdTerrene on 8/17/2012
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
10/31/2012
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I got two newly added cards today regarding the missing tomb colony. One (The Northbound Parlimentarian) didn't echo to my journal right for some reason. The other one, whose name I seem to have misplaced, reads:
""Three"
'Whether the captain was a drunken fool or just a drunk, I don't know. But we ended up in the wrong Tomb-Colony! An awful place. It was bad enough to have to leave at all, but this place! Ruled over by ancient tyrants! Serpent, Red Bird and Cat. He wasn't even a nice cat!'"
Clearly the same as the Surface Poet dream, right?
--
Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
11/2/2012
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Another couple of cards on the mysterious Tomb Colony.
'That d--n fool of a captain got us lost, and we ended up in some uncharted, miserable Tomb-Colony. Worse than usual. Dust and death and... you don't want to know. Three of them lording it over the colonies. Serpent, red bird, cat. But if you ever end up there, know this. They play games, and they don't cheat. We only got out because the Cardsharp beat them at rummy.'
Methinks we're about to have some new content on the Third City...
--
Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
11/2/2012
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Not to spam everyone too much, but I got yet another card (and managed to lose the text again) for which Xibalba is dead on. It mentioned "the sheer amount of effort in maintaining a river of scorpions."
This from Wikipedia's entry on Xibalba:
"Xibalba seemed to be rife with tests, trials, and traps for anyone who came into the city. Even the road to Xibalba was filled with obstacles: first a river filled with scorpions, a river filled with blood, and then a river filled with pus.[7] "
--
Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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David
Posts: 79
12/15/2012
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I just got interested in this topic again, and did some research. It looks like I could have saved a lot of time if I'd just caught up on this thread again first; I hadn't looked in months!
I came to the same conclusion about Xibalba, but what really got me looking was another rather unfortunate clue to the Third City. Previously Chichen Itza had been dismissed because it fell too late, but it was again included because that late fall was it's *second* fall. The first was about the right time. What I noticed about it though is it's wells (which number 2, 5, or 6 depending how you count) - one in particular. You see, if you were going to fall down a well after being tied up by priests and cut by knives of black glass (and, let's face it, some of us without names do this from time to time, and others of us dream of it) there's really only one well for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Cenote. It's part of Chichen Itza. The Mayans believed its bottom was one of the entrances to Xibalba. And the sacrifices at said sacred well were to Chaac, the rain god - and by that I mean thunder god. Like many Mayan gods, he had four aspects, one for each cardinal direction with an associated color. Chichen Itza was ruled by the "East" aspect, denoted by the color red.
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Zmflavius
Posts: 53
2/4/2013
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San wrote:
Apologies if this has been discussed already and I'm just behind the times, but I just pulled an opportunity card referencing the previous Cities that I hadn't seen before and thought I'd share.
"Palimpsests"
They say that the Second City was once a blaze of copper and turquoise, and that the vitrified sheen on its best ceramics glows with the heat of that ancient sun. They say that the First City was made of shining alabaster and bone held together by belief. They say the Masters sometimes choose to dream in pictographs.
The stuff about the Second City isn't really all that helpful/useful--it lines up well with other evidence that the Second City was in/around Egypt but it doesn't really help identify which city or when. (Or what love story precipitated its fall.) The info about the first city, however... I dunno, it may end up being nothing but some of the phrases used seem like they might be useful clues to someone who is more knowledgeable about history than I.
"Alabaster and bone" -- city with famous alabaster architecture or sculptures?
"Held together by belief" -- Implying that the First City was a significant religious center or had a major temple?
Also, anyone have thoughts on whether or not the storylet title "Palimpsests" is significant in any way? (Other than the connotations of scraping off and rewriting, that is.)
It's known that the king of the First City was some sort of priest-king. So religiouswise, the First City probably had a theocratic aspect.
Funny thing, I've been wondering, under the mysteries tab, why is it that practically every player seems to think that the First City is in Europe? Literally every piece of evidence we have argues against it.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Zmflavius
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
2/4/2013
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Pay no attention to the other opinions in the "Mysteries" tabs on the locations of the other cities. A lot of people see what the most popular option is and then put it in themselves, leading to herd incorrectness.
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Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
2/10/2013
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I wouldn't worry too much about the coins - the Numismatrix hints that the coins that we see now may somehow be relatively modern physical representations of an older metaphysical concept. I don't know what, exactly, but, hey, we're talking about a city where echoes are currency - money has always been an unknown quantity here.
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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protonsinthedark
Posts: 106
2/23/2013
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So I know we know with 100% certainty that the Fourth City was Karakorum (thanks to The Silver Tree) so a lot of people have moved onto speculation about other cities. However, I haven't seen any kind of analysis of all the new information we've got. Some of the conclusions I came up with are pretty interesting, and run contrary to previous prevailing theories. So I thought I'd make a post: http://victorianvigilante.tumblr.com/post/43791692722/the-fourth-city-deconstructed
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
10/1/2012
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To continue the thread, though, I haven't updated recently because I haven't been able to find anything conclusive (though not for lack of looking). As with everything in this thread, please consider the following to be laced with SPOILERS:
On the Third City, which I'm probably the most interested in, I've got absolutely nothing new. Which brings me to mention... does anyone have any tips on either getting to the Elder Continent or finding out anything about it? I've killed Feducci but the closest I've gotten to the Presbyterate is the Killing Wind. I'm off on scientific expeditions at the moment, so if that leads anywhere, I'll be there soon enough.
***
I've made a fair bit of progress on putting together clues about the First City, but they're maddeningly inconclusive and sometimes contradictory. With some reading, I am firmly convinced that the story of the First City is that the King with a Hundred Hearts was either Zhang Qian, a member of his party, or someone in another Chinese emissary from around the time period of the opening of the Silk Road, sometime between 50-250 BCE. This comes from, among other places, the words of the Clay Men in Polythreme, the clues about the King with a Hundred Hearts, the writings on the walls of the eye temple in Polythreme, and a number of other places that pretty directly indicate the time of the opening of the Silk Road. (The Wikipedia article on the Silk Road, like most, misses some details but is a very good start for nailing down that period: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road) Among other things, if we accept the general hints that the First City was one near the western ends of the Silk Road in this time frame, we're looking at basically the last days of the Hellenistic period and very likely a city that was either part of the late Seleucid Empire or one of its antagonists, like the Kingdom of Armenai, Parthia, Pontus, or one of another half dozen minor fiefdoms in that area. (I'm generally eliminating distinctly Roman cities because this would have been around the time of their founding and flourishing rather than the time of their fall, and in the case of Karakorum at least, the Fall in the game seems to roughly correspond to the time of a precipitous decline or fall of the historical city.)
I realize that this time frame causes major problems for a lot of the going theories of the First City, being way too late for many of them (and further causes big headaches for Second City theories as well). I realize this, but there's just too much evidence that plants the city in the Seleucid
Unfortunately, the clues get very confused after that. The key features I'm looking for in First City candidates:
- Somewhere on or near one of the Silk Road routes. (There's lots of maps online -- here's a basic one: http://www.east-site.com/images/silk_road_map.gif)
- A city that didn't last into Roman times or beyond, or at least had to be rebuilt. The time frame works fairly well for the extension of Roman domination into Anatolia (Turkey), the Levant, and beyond, but there's a lot of turmoil around that time so it doesn't have to be Roman conquest.
- The city also shouldn't be too ancient. It was apparently "still young when Babylon fell," which while Babylon fell multiple times, the canonical Fall of Babylon was somewhere around 1500 BCE. Potentially, this could also refer to a more thorough sacking in the 600-700 BCE range.
- Some manner of crossroads.
- Cedars, whether live, imported wood, or symbolic. The most famous cedars grew in Lebanon, but some grew in the mountains of southeastern Turkey. I've found some very sporadic references to a few in modern Armenia and the southern coast of the Caspian Sea in Iran, but they're hardly cultural touchstones there. There's also "salt cedars," but they're low growing desert bushes that would hardly be shade for a crossroads.
- Based on the maps in Polythreme, the city should be in the vicinity of "in the land between the Caspian and Mediterranean seas." If the King with a Hundred Hearts is really based on a historical figure, it's probably going to be closer to the Caspian side, as neither Zhang Qian nor any of his immediate successors made it past Mesopotamia. It's possible that the authors of the game have surmised an explorer that pushed all the way to Syria or Lebanon, which is why I include a number of those cities here (and because of those pesky Lebanese cedars...).
- Cedar coins, although I think these may be an invention of the game and not exist historically. Every single coin I can find from the period, if it has any recognizable picture on it, is an image of the ruler who issued them. The only cedar-decorated coins I can find are very recent Lebanese coins.
- Any of the geographic features of Polythreme, which I believe to be the Neath-located remnant of the First City. (It's quite obviously related to the First City, but it's possible that it's not the First City itself.) From "A long chat about the town" in Polythreme, we get "Steep streets lead up from the harbour to the rambling, abandoned villa that overlooks the island" and "there's marble to be found on the island, and copper. But little else." Further (an item I just now noticed), Polythreme is an island -- "The business is overseen by Mr. Fires, although it's not been seen on the island since before London's Fall. Some accommodations have to be made for changes in geography when a city is brought miles underground, but certainly with London the general local geography (particularly the winding of the Thames) remained the same. Of course, it's tricky for something to be both a crossroads and an island, which is complicated more by Asher Wilsford's text from Heart's Desire, ". . . a mud brick town next to a cedar grove. Hot, dusty plains stretch to the horizon." If Polythreme is the First City, and it was an island on the surface, it seems clear it was an island in a river.
- A temple with eye carvings on the walls of the portico.
- If the pictures in Polythreme can be believed, the architecture was at least moderately Hellenistic. Most of the pictures are of decidedly Greek pillars, and the city seems to be dominated by marble.
Again, what this leaves us with is latter Seleucid Empire cities or potentially Parthia, Armenia, Pontus, or something else in there. Here are the candidates I've beat my head against:
- The Phoenician cities of Lebanon, including Byblos, Beirut, Tyre, Sidon, Arwad, and Tripoli. The big thing they have going for them is the cedars, but not much else. Most lasted well into the common era and are still extant today. While several were important harbors for the silk road, they weren't exactly crossroads, and they certainly weren't on desert plains. Most of them are also so old they couldn't have been called young at the fall of Babylon.
- Tell Brak/Nagar. It has the Eye Temple, but that name derives from relics that have two to eight eyes on them, not the walls of the temple. It also has no harbor, and is way, way, way too early for Silk Road traffic, marble sculpture, Grecian architecture, or as mentioned earlier, coins.
- Antioch. It's one of the most important cities of the period, was a major terminal on the Silk Road and certainly a crossroads, and isn't too far from the great Cedars of Lebanon. Part of the old city sat on an island in the river Orontes. The biggest problem is that historically, Antioch was just hitting its stride when Zhang Qian arrived, and was a massive city and major player in the early Christian world. Also, it was a good deal bigger than a "mud brick town next to a cedar grove," being called "Antioch the Great" or the "Golden City" at times.
- Baalbek. Founded after Alexander the Great came through, it's the site of one of the largest and best preserved Roman temples in the world. Sits right on a dry plain in Lebanon, but again... Roman. Most of the temple was built in the Common Era. I can't find any text associating it with the silk trade either. Still, those Corinthean columns from the temple of Baal Jupiter sure look like the graphics of Polythreme....
- Aleppo. A major Silk Road city where the routes to Antioch and to Tyre split. It also hits a lot of the geographic requirements, being a river city surrounded by the dry plains of Syria, but is close enough to the Mediterranean that it's not inconceivable that a small grove of cedars grew there once. Biggest problem -- Aleppo really wasn't a city before the opening of the Silk Road, and most of its historic remnants are from the Common Era. Although this has nothing to do with the games, it's hard to look up facts about Aleppo and ignore the violence going on there. Here's hoping for the best for Syria.
- Apamea. Another of the Syrian cities, this one left in ruins, and one I keep coming back to. It was apparently a "treasure city" on the Orontes, and its ruins have lots of lovely fluted columns and a hill with some interesting structures on it. No cedars nearby, unfortunately, and it also suffers the just-a-bit-late problem of the rest of the Syrian tetrapolis.
- Palmyra. Some of the grandest Roman ruins in Syria, and unquestionably a major stop on the Silk Road. Palmyra was an oasis and a waystation in the Syrian desert, and grew massively in importance along the Silk Road, but its period of importance was brief as the growth of the Sassanids in Persia shifted the travel routes. It certainly wasn't an island, and I don't know what cedars would grow that far out in the desert, but I can't eliminate it based on any evidence other than the standard time scale problems for all these Syrian cities.
- The Armenian cities, including Artashat and Tiganocert. Founded by the relatively short-lived Kingdom of Armenia, these cities were waypoints on travel from the Syrian cities like Palmyra into Asia Minor, and were the capitals for their respective kings Artaxes and Tigranes. Just from a perspective of positioning, they're in a very believable spot, but there aren't many ruins to get a good read of anything else from. I keep hoping I'll find some temple with eyes or something to justify pursuing these cities further, because they match a number of features and don't have any major strikes against them, but there's just not many specifics to match up.
- Tarsus. Most famous as the birthplace of St. Paul, I include this because it certainly had cedars nearby (the Turkish subspecies of the Cedars of Lebanon) and was a very minor crossroads.
- The Parthian cities. There's well over a dozen decent candidates among the cities of the Parthian empire, which didn't have a major capital. (http://www.parthia.com/parthia_cities.htm). On the one hand, Parthia remains the most likely location for the First City, given that it's the westernmost point that Zhang Qian actually reached and was generally the stopping point for merchants who actually started out in China, where they would trade their goods to other merchants from the west. Geographically, it fits a lot of the criteria, with large swaths being roughly between the Caspian and Mediterranean seas, covering much of Mesopotamia and modern Iran and Afghanistan. In the clay man's story in Polythreme, the journey came to the "shores of an inland sea, where they had never even seen silk before," which could easily be the Caspian, Black, or even Aral Sea. My favorite of these is Hekatompylos (meaning "City of a Hundred Gates," where hundred here means "lots," giving a nice symmetry with the Hundred Hearts) in Hyrcania, which was allegedly one of the capitals of the Parthian empire and is at least moderately close to the modern Abr Forest.
On the other hand, one of the supporting yet maddening things about Parthia is that historical information is ridiculously hard to come by. The ruins of Hekatompylos haven't been conclusively located, and the ruins of other cities (like Ctesiphon) are in very bad shape. The back side of First City coins have writing that "no one living can decipher" -- "parthian" is a modern idiom for a completely indecipherable language, as what remnants of the Parthian language we have are still untranslated. Parthia itself was perhaps the biggest confounding factor in the Silk Road trade, as it basically controlled all the overland routes (except for the rarely used and very dangerous route around the north end of the Caspian Sea) for a couple hundred years, and effectively kept Rome and China from fully communicating well.
So, like I said, I have an enormous amount of nothing to show for my research. But maybe someone can find something in all of this worth using.
--
Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
10/1/2012
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Asher_wilsford wrote:
Here's something I've always been curious about:
A cheery gentleman
In the street, you pass a tall, cheerful man with a brisk manner, a stovepipe hat and a row of bright brass buttons down the front of his coat. He winks familiarly as you pass and spreads his hands: eight fingers.
When I read this, my first thought is eight fingers and two thumbs, but do you think it actually means the Manager is missing two fingers? Might not be significant, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
In Brian Trent's novel "Never Grow Old" there is a scene where Gilgamesh has Agga, the defeated king of Kish, swear an oath never to attack Uruk again. He has Agga place his hands around the blade of Gilgamesh's sword, waits for Agga to swear his oath and then wrenches the sword free, severing two of Agga's fingers. (You can read it here, in Chapter 17.) I don't know if the incident with the fingers is taken from original source texts, or from the author's fantasy. But it's curious to find an actual historic king with eight fingers who has a connection with Gilgamesh.
Asher_wilsford wrote:
And a question about the Duchess. Is there somewhere that implies or outright states that the Cantigastor is her husband/lover? Could he possibly be her father?
In the "Featuring in the Tales of the University" storyline the Duchess herself states outright that the cantigaster is her husband.
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 3/24/2015
--
Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Cornuthaum
Posts: 13
10/23/2012
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From what appears to be a recent addition to the Free from Surface ties quality, the Bawdy Cardsharp card:
'I don't know how drunk you have to be to miss a whole Tomb-Colony, but our captain managed it. The place we ended up was called Zi... Zib... something. I don't know how to say these d--n foreign words. Anyway, I heard from one of the locals that the chaps in charge have been around for near a thousand years. And none of yer funny cider either. They just take whatever they like. Including the bodies of their subjects...'
You are more learned folk than I am; maybe you can make something of this.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
10/23/2012
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Well, it seems clear that the Tomb-Colony in question is ruled over by the same three priest-kings as haunt the dreams of writers and reach out to devour lives through black mirrors (possibly the same black mirror as that of the Aztec deity Tezcatlipoca, who also wore the skin of a spotted leopard.) Presumably Cat, Serpent and Red Bird are equivalent to Mottled Man, Serpent-Handed and... Red Bird. Is this Tomb-Colony what remains of the Third City, or one of its outposts? Can we think of any sites - perhaps Mesoamerican cities - with a name beginning with a 'Zid' sort of sound?
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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BrightonParis
Posts: 6
6/10/2013
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To jump back to a slightly earlier topic, it does seem that there are lands which hearken back to previous cities. However, we are also informed that the Fifth City is placed squat and flush atop the previous four. Slightly more here.
Has anyone reasoned out any sort of justification for that? For how the Elder Continent can be the location of the Third City while we still find its relics beneath our boots?
And what of that snippet?
"What are the things under the City? In no particular order, these are said to be: the first Four Cities; the Masters’ summer homes; the hatcheries of the Rubbery Men; and a number of gigantic sleeping beasts which are drugged every year to prevent them awakening and destroying the Neath. These are sometimes referred to as the ‘stone pigs’, but that’s probably some sort of mistranslation."
Has no-one theorized anything like the cities moving across the 'Neath? And what of the rumours of the Masters' summer houses, are they connected to the fabled hospitality of the warm Second City somehow? Are the stone pigs the gods we keep silent further under us?
edited by BrightonParis on 6/11/2013
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Aspeon
Posts: 311
6/21/2013
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Here's an interesting tidbit from the Archaeology content (the result that gets you the eyeless skull):
Horses are depicted, rearing to the sun: eleven hooded figures shrink away from its rays. "We are still here," the shrine seems to say, "and we have not forgotten."
Were there ever eleven Masters?
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A raccooning will not be postponed indefinitely.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
7/24/2013
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There's some damn convincing theories being shared here! As for me, well, I was tootling around looking up something quite unrelated, when I found a bird/cat/snake triumvirate like the priest-kings of Neathy-Xibalba - although they're not Mayan. Rather, Wiki describes the metaphysics of the Incas dividing the cosmos into the celestial realm (represented by a condor), the intermediary mortal world (represented by a puma,) and the underworld (represented by a snake.) Which rather sound like the Celestials, Bazaarines and Nocturnals, now I think about it. But, in any case, I wonder if this cosmology influenced Cat, Red Bird and Snake - perhaps they're invading rulers, or gaolers, or... well, I could speculate forever.
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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Aximillio
Posts: 1251
7/24/2013
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Not sure if this is any help, but...
These images on the site are named ruinsfirst, ruinssecond and ruinsthird. You may have a look.
  
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Possibly returned after a long hiatus. Please do not send live rats or tournament requests.
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
7/24/2013
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Aximillio wrote:
Not sure if this is any help, but...
These images on the site are named ruinsfirst, ruinssecond and ruinsthird. You may have a look.
Very nice, and in two of them largely confirm what we know. The First City one continues to be maddening, as it is unmistakably either Helenistic or Roman architecture, which runs completely counter to the Uruk/Nagar/Eye Temple facts. If the First City could simultaneously fall at around 2900 BC and 200 BC, we'd be set.
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Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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Trodgmey
Posts: 164
7/24/2013
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Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook wrote:
There's some damn convincing theories being shared here! As for me, well, I was tootling around looking up something quite unrelated, when I found a bird/cat/snake triumvirate like the priest-kings of Neathy-Xibalba - although they're not Mayan. Rather, Wiki describes the metaphysics of the Incas dividing the cosmos into the celestial realm (represented by a condor), the intermediary mortal world (represented by a puma,) and the underworld (represented by a snake.) Which rather sound like the Celestials, Bazaarines and Nocturnals, now I think about it. But, in any case, I wonder if this cosmology influenced Cat, Red Bird and Snake - perhaps they're invading rulers, or gaolers, or... well, I could speculate forever.
On this one, just idly speculating, but I wonder if the bargain that sold the Third City (which I'm still holding as Chichen Itza) involved three mortals whose deal involved killing the gods of Xibalba and becoming immortal like them, with the "hidden cost" (in the words of the Duchess) being an eternal hunger for human flesh. That would give us the dead gods of the nightmares and the flesh hunger in the Fidgeting Writer story.
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Trodgmey -- an otherwise pleasant chap with a peculiar obsession with the first four cities.
http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Trodgmey
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