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
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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
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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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
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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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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?
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The Dave, a terrifying, lethal, inescapable and sagacious gentleman
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
2/4/2012
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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?
--
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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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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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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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
2/5/2012
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It seems my own theories have been quite exploded, but we've got some cracking stuff going on 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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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.
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For secrets are their own reward.
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Patrick Reding
Posts: 440
2/5/2012
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Wieland Burandt wrote:
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"...
Except that Xanadu is not a dream or metaphor or anything like that. It was a real city, more accurately called Shangdu, as I pointed out earlier. The name translates from chinese as "upper capital". It was only after Coleridge that it came to mean anything else.
edited by Patrick Reding on 2/5/2012
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http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/Yana
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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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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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Patrick Reding
Posts: 440
2/5/2012
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Oh, sorry. That was me. I got logged out while typing that. :p
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http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com/Profile/Yana
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Felicity Chase
Posts: 62
2/5/2012
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Wieland Burandt wrote:
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"...
This investigation is fascinating and I'd love to contribute more, but I'm not far enough in the game's stories to even know of what most of you are taking as fact (Egypt confirmed for Second City, for example). So I'll help any other way I can 
That said, I do suspect that the Fourth City is Karakorum but the Correspondence (or at least a current name for it) comes from Xanadu, as Patrick said. I like the similarities of the silver fountains in the Forgotten Quarter and in Karakorum too much to give up on the Karakorum theory.
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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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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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Guest
2/5/2012
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and how does the letter of the Pope fit into the story?
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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
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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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Urthdigger
Posts: 939
2/6/2012
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They say the the Topsy King learnt it, and that's why you can never understand a bloody word he says. [True.]
You find out the truth of the matter during the Hearts Desire ambition [spoiler]The play he wrote, the Bell and Candle, is stuffed full of correspondence glyphs, which leads to a rather amazing performance[/spoiler]
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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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KatarinaNavane
Posts: 462
2/6/2012
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"They say the the Topsy King learnt it, and that's why you can never understand a bloody word he says. [Possible.] " I thought this one was pretty much confirmed, actually. It seemed pretty clear in what's learned in the 'Heart's Desire' ambition that the Topsy King's madness is due to his involvement with the correspondence. edit: haha, Urthdigger, you beat me to it.
On Rome and the Fourth City--they could have been courting Rome for the fourth city centuries prior to their actually acquiring Xanadu for it. They don't have to have been courting Rome at the time they acquired the fourth city, just any time after they acquired the third.
edited by KatarinaNavane on 2/6/2012
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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
2/6/2012
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KatarinaNavane wrote:
On Rome and the Fourth City--they could have been courting Rome for the fourth city centuries prior to their actually acquiring Xanadu for it. They don't have to have been courting Rome at the time they acquired the fourth city, just any time after they acquired the third.
Yeah, but the Third City was acquired in the 9th century, and the next 500 years were hardly the pinnacle of Rome's history...
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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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