So I’ve been playing for a bit and like… I’m still not entirely sure what the Bazaar is? By which I mean… I feel that were I physically in Fallen London I would be able to look at the Bazaar and see something that would give me a better understanding of it than I have from the snippets of lore I get through playing.
So lets say I was standing at a high point in London, looking down at the Bazaar, with a casual citizen who knew an average amount about London next to me. What would I (A) see and (B) get told if I asked "what’s up with that thing over there?" Because currently I have like… it’s a bunch of tentacles that that pulled London down on top of the last 4 cities it pulled down and is kinda in charge of a market that’s of top of it? ish? Does the Bazaar talk? Does it communicate in some other way? Does it DO anything? Is it in charge of London? Is it like… considered evil for what it did to London? Is it a problem we’re trying to solve? A quaint aspect of the city we’ve grown fond of?
I would love some like… short narrative story about a descriptive tableau for the various areas of Fallen London that give readers the sort of information they would get if they actually wandered around that area. Does such a thing exist somewhere? The wikis are all aggressively mechanic rather than lore based from what I’ve seen.
The Bazaar is a spired building or collection of spired buildings carved with Correspondence Sigils, where the Masters and some favoured or wealthy citizens live. The map of London warped around it somehow when it Fell. I’ve never seen it move but then again we do call it He and She and there is that door made of teeth…
Perspective of a knowledgeable Londoner:
This thing is definitely alive and possibly sentient. There is also a disturbing amount of evidence that it will eventually choose to kill us all and trap the next city.
Perspective of scholars and madmen:
The Bazaar is a sentient messenger from beyond the Earth. It has contracted the Masters to help it, but leaves them in charge of day-to-day governance. It collects the stories of our love, and when it is done it will turn us all to lacre to power its engines.
There is more to it than that but any further and we’re getting into some of the deepest lore in the game. The game tells you more in oblique or metaphorical ways in some of the Destinies, and in the Seventh Letter play (which I think is only available during the Feast of the Exceptional Rose).
Ohhhh. See, I played Sunless Sea first so I first saw the Bazaar in < this image > Based on the description the game gave me of it "pulling down" London I though the Bazaar was those tentacles in the water and the building was just something built on TOP of it. Like… some dawn engine, iron republic level magic nonsense. edited by easter on 4/5/2018
Yes, the Bazaar does have tentacular subsurface structures that are mysterious and rarely mentioned. The moment of a Fall has never been fully described from the perspective of the new City, as far as I know, but it’s probably more subtle than a physical wrenching. We do have one description in what might be the first promotional image ever made for Echo Bazaar:
The Bazaar does have roots, which probably includes those tentacles. As for the building, it’s a sentient space-crab, so who knows what it ‘truly’ looks like.
Cladery Heart - the ship was built around the Bazaar’s Cladent Lobe and became a living ship so I imagine that could give a hint as to the aesthetic of the Bazaar
@Optimatum — I almost described those things as “roots” but a quick Google search failed to remind me where I heard that description. There’s some place that uses that word, right?
@A Nice Friend — Is that a Sunless Skies image? I need to get back to that game…
The image shows up in Fallen London (shrunken down to tiny icon size) in certain Bazaar-related scenarios, but the bigger version I posted is from Sunless Sea.
I also played Sunless Sea before Fallen London and it’s honestly really fun that way. Sunless Sea gives a lot of answers and revelations about really late-game and important Neathy lore, but since you haven’t played Fallen London you don’t really have the context for a lot of it. Then you start a character in Fallen London and you’re drip-fed knowledge about the Neath and the puzzle fills itself in, backwards. Or something like that.
@TheThirdPolice - The picture @A Nice Friend posted is from (or at least in) Sunless Sea. It’s used in the Fulgent Impeller’s story. edited by easter on 4/5/2018
Given we both had the same word in mind, there’s probably some source. I’m not sure if those tentacle things are specifically called roots, though—I think that term was used to refer to all the subterranean Bazaar things, such as the Sundered Sea.
I really hope in Sunless Skies we get to meet on of…whatever species the bazaar is from, even from all the images we get I still have trouble picturing what it looks like, it’s widely mentioned to be a crab squid but it looks like a city in all those pictures? what? I always pictured the “spires” to be some kind of like…shell?
In Sunless Skies, you may encounter this scene of what appears to be the aftermath of a battle.
Is that the underside of a messenger space-crab? Who knows. Looks like there wasn’t a winner, but the crustacean really held its own against that snaggly toothbeast (a dragon possibly?)
The image is from Sunless Sea, for the Fulgent Impeller - an engine created based on the Bazaar’s method of propulsion (the Stone Pigs) stolen from its dreams.
