Alexis Kennedy's Cultist Simulator

Fallen London
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I’d say that winnowing a game using debug shows a level of interest more likely to encourage than annoy its creators. Besides, so far we’re only as collectively devious as a 3-year-old child.

I used debug to fastforward. Also to play when deceased, just to observe that Glover and Glover don’t notice, and Acquaintances are keen as ever. I wish this ‘Cool Air’ style scenario was possible in-game; it would actually be a relevant use for a strict timer (like a lot of people, it seems, I don’t favour them as a pacing mechanism).

Whilst fiddling about using debug, which may or may nor be relevant, I once got a blank card called ‘The Waking Word’ – if this has been mentioned before, I’ve forgotten it. No image or text. ‘Studying’ it on its own generated The Rite of the Watchman’s Sorrow, without needing to combine any ordinary sorts of Lore:

The Waking Word is scored as 5 Forge, 5 Lantern, and 5 Lore, which seems quite substantial for anything in the alpha. I doubt it’s an Hour – it’s high, but not god-tier? - though I suppose it could be. A weapon or spell (more probable)? Something else? I’ve been sadly unable to find it again.

Given the traditional symbolism of moths to flames,and that Illopoly himself is linked to the Wood, like the Moth (studying the first part of Travelling at Night gives you Wood-Whispers,and the Moth ‘seeks among the trees of the Wood’), I wonder if the Unburnt God could be linked to The Moth and the Black-Flax, on the basis of the snippet that you long ago recorded from de Horis:

“The Glory is a question, and the Moth always answers Yes. The Black-Flax’s answer is No, and that is always its answer.”

Which might make the Unburnt God the one that gives the opposite answer, the mysterious Black-Flax. Maybe.

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I considered that as well, but t I’m not so sure the Unburnt God is the Forge of Days. Obviously this god partakes in, or has some relationship with, the Principle of the Forge, but a Forge isn’t unburnt…it literally is burning.

Do you think &quotunburnt&quot when you think &quotforge&quot? Actually, Unburnt seems to suggest a deity in opposition to the Forge of Days - one who cannot be consumed or transformed, even by that which yearns to consume and transform everything. There are still eleven Hours as yet unaccounted for after all.
[/quote]
Yeah, I don’t think it’s particularly likely to be a duplicate, I just think that the Forge of Days is the most likely candidate if it is a duplicate. The point of a forge is that the forge itself doesn’t burn, so that you can get the intense heat necessary to shape metal easily.

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There’s a new book!

The Humours of a Gentleman

Card Description: Samuel Savage’s satirical comedy, on the intrigues of the ailing, but cunning John Sonne, his mistress Maevelin, her lover Leo, and the upstart Corvino.

Alexis: It’s not all dusty tomes crammed with bloodstained etchings of blasted ruins in Cultist Simulator.

Which makes sense - as the Principles of the Hours are in everything material, you could presumably learn about their natures, domains, and influences by consulting non-occult works as well. You’d just have to know what to look for. References to Don John of Austria or maybe the Don John character of Much Ado About Nothing. Samuel Savage sounds a little like Jonathan Swift.

Alexis has also posted a Kickstarter update with the following Q/A format:

If I backed the game on Kickstarter, will I get access to the beta build?

Yes.

If I pre-order the game now, will I get access to the beta build?

Yes.

If I pre-order the game after the beta comes out, will I get access to the beta build?

Yes.

So there’s no difference between backing on Kickstarter, pre-ordering now, and pre-ordering after the beta comes out?


No difference at all.

And if I do any of these things, I get Perpetual Edition, i.e. any and all DLC forever?

Yes.

Where’s the link?

Right here.

And if I don’t like pre-orders?

That’s fine. The game’s out in April 2018, though it might slip to May 2018. Not much longer now.

Is it true that Christopher Illopoly, sometimes called ‘the only readable occultist’, devoted a considerable portion of the third volume of his diaries to erotic poetry dedicated to one ‘Baldomera’?

Absolutely.

So Christopher published that poetry in his third diary. It will be interesting to look at Teresa Galmier’s Trespasses, which was probably written around the same time, to see if there are any additional hints about what was going on.
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edited by Anne Auclair on 11/22/2017

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[quote=Anne Auclair]There’s a new book!

The Humours of a Gentleman

Card Description: Samuel Savage’s satirical comedy, on the intrigues of the ailing, but cunning John Sonne, his mistress Maevelin, her lover Leo, and the upstart Corvino.

Alexis: It’s not all dusty tomes crammed with bloodstained etchings of blasted ruins in Cultist Simulator.[/quote]
It sounds like an allegorical Comedy of Humours, where each character is formally identified with an attitude or philosophy. The characters could easily all be Hours allegories, but I’m only willing to bet on one:

John Sonne, cunning but ailing – The Sun-in-Rags, IMO. Busy old fool, unruly sun.

Maevelin - I haven’t a clue. The name Maeve is rooted in the idea of intoxication, though, especially through mead.

Leo - The Lionsmith?

Corvino – The Beachcrow? (also, an upstart. Ha. May be a red herring. Let’s see)

There is a definite poetical theme emerging. 'The poet makes himself a seer by an immense, long, deliberate derangement of all the senses’ - poets are at risk of opening certain avenues of dodgy esoteric insight – either knowingly, or in the pursuit of art.

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By the way, I looked up “Baldomera”, the (clearly fake) name of the person to whom Illopoly addressed his poetry, and the main results were a book of that name by Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco and Baldomera Larra Wetoret, who apparently invented the pyramid scheme.

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Oh, wonderful observation!

[quote=Vexpont]The characters could easily all be Hours allegories, but I’m only willing to bet on one:

John Sonne, cunning but ailing – The Sun-in-Rags, IMO. Busy old fool, unruly sun.[/quote]
That seems like a pretty safe bet. Sonne is apparently an obsolete term for both son and sun. I think this double meaning (son/sun) is pretty intentional, especially if you think the Sun-in-Rags is the product of the True Sun being split or divided in some way.

I’m thinking either the Grail, which has a aspect that one might characterize as intoxicating (‘blood and delight’ - ‘the Delightful Sacrament’), or someone we haven’t seen yet. Maybe a rival to the Thunderclap, which is the god of coffee and other stimulents.

It certainly seems rather leonine.

Since Corvino is derived from the Latin corvus, which means raven/crow, this seems an even safer bet than John Sonne. There’s only one crow themed Hour.

Poets seldom do so knowingly, at least if Socrates/Plato are to be believed:

For after the public men I went to the poets, those of tragedies, and those of dithyrambs,and the rest, thinking that there I should prove by actual test that I was less learned than they. So, taking up the poems of theirs that seemed to me to have been most carefully elaborated by them, I asked them what they meant, that I might at the same time learn something from them.

Now I am ashamed to tell you the truth, gentlemen; but still it must be told. For there was hardly a man present, one might say, who would not speak better than they about the poems they themselves had composed. So again in the case of the poets also I presently recognized this, that what they composed they composed not by wisdom, but by nature and because they were inspired, like the prophets and givers of oracles; for these also say many fine things, but know none of the things they say; it was evident to me that the poets too had experienced something of this same sort. And at the same time I perceived that they, on account of their poetry, thought that they were the wisest of men in other things as well, in which they were not. So I went away from them also thinking that I was superior to them in the same thing in which I excelled the public men.

Apology, 22a-22c.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 1 translated by Harold North Fowler; Introduction by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1966.
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edited by Anne Auclair on 11/23/2017

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I’d say that winnowing a game using debug shows a level of interest more likely to encourage than annoy its creators. Besides, so far we’re only as collectively devious as a 3-year-old child.[/quote]
That was my reasoning as well, plus it was surprisingly easy to poke through the files. But still, the one major thing I found regarding a previously unmentioned Hour made me hesitant. :P But regardless, permission from the Tiger Keeper has been granted. He said he didn’t put anything in the files that he wouldn’t want players to know, which is a relief because, assuming that still stands with the beta, I’m definitely going to poke through that build as well haha. Still spoilering everything though, and of course this is all subject to change since the most recent alpha build is about 5 or 6 months old now.

[spoiler]The aforementioned Hour is, interestingly, The White, &quotthe Hour of the cold that ends,&quot and its principle is Winter. Founding a society with its lore item, The White Ceremony, creates the cult The Children of Silence.



There’s a handful of unused lore items, and one implies that, in the full version, we may be able to base our societies around other forms of esoteric knowledge rather than a specific Hour. For example, founding a cult using an Occult Scrap creates the Society of St Hydra, which is based on the Secret Histories.



Spawning the Scholar: Fucine card allows translation of the Geminiad, which gives the Witch-and-Sister’s lore item, the Recitation of Amethyst. The Witch-and-Sister’s society is the Society of Midnight.

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Galmier’s third book, Trespasses, is readable:


The Thunderskin/Heart Relentless’ lore item is The Words that Walk, and its society is The Temple Unceasing:


Off the top of my head I can’t think of which Hour Knife-Patterns or its society corresponds to, but here they are:


And I think that’s about it for now, until the beta is released at least. The Waking Word shown above is, I think, probably just a dev tool; no art nor description, using it to found a society just gives the Unflinching Order (same as Ardent Prayers), and studying it gives the Rite of the Watchman’s Sorrow.[/spoiler]

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Alexis has since raised the total number of books to 150 ^_^

The Beta is going to have between 24 and 33 new occult texts (the alpha currently has only 7). So there’s going to be a lot for us to chew on come mid-December.

One of the new books is De Bellis Murorum - which I think means War of the Battlements? Hmmm, two Worm Wars, a War of the Roads, now a War of the Battlements…the Hours have a lot of wars, it seems.

Alexis also posted a clip from the third volume my favorite weird text, The Orchid Transfigurations:

The Cup is obviously the Red Grail, which is actually referred to as ‘the Red Cup’ when you’re slowly starving to death (the Cup seems to be the least discrete Hour, befitting hunger, which is powerful and incessant). The Pine-Knight strikes me as a distinctly Woodsy Hour – probably the Ring Yew, as pine trees and yews are both conifers. The Midwife Mountain-Mother is clearly another version of the Mother of Ants, who presides over wounds, openings, and bringing children into the world. Here her presence involves/inspires all three. The Vigilant Storm bares a very clear likeness to the Thunderskin. Consider, the Thunderskin is symbolized by storms and it vigilantly guards the skin of the world; the Vigilant Storm is “joyful,” while the Thunderskin “demands the dance” – and a rather frenzied dance at that; and lastly, the Vigilant Storm bursts out of the Woody Pine-Knight and the Thunderskin resides “in the Wood below the world.” Interestingly, the Thunderskin’s tarot card shows it tied to the trunks of two ruined trees, surrounded by a clearing of other ruined trees.

So that’s who everyone is. So what are they doing? Well, as this is an allegorical account of an alchemical ritual: the figures might, for instance, represent the forces at work within some laboratory vessel (or alternatively, in the purely spiritual types of alchemy, the soul). Now, assuming these alchemical forces are reflections or extensions of the relationships that the Hours have with each other, we can learn a few things about said relationships. The Pine-Knight is pursuing some version of the Arthurian Grail quest, though the larger purpose remains unknown (that might be in book 2). The Cup being in the birthing bed attended by the Midwife is suggestive of the Grail/Mother of Ants relationship/alliance we’ve been speculating about since Sir William Hoare’s testimonial concerning Saint Agnes of the Serpent. It also handily explains why some thought Saint Agnes was the Grail – the Grail and the Mother of Ants share the same territory, though it’s significant that it’s the Grail that’s actually in the birthing bed while the Mother of Ants is merely the midwife besides the bed. The whole thing with the the Grail, the Mountain-Mother, the Pine-Knight, and the Vigilant Storm sounds like an allegorical creation myth for the Heart Relentless, wherein it is in some sense the progeny of the Ring-Yew and the Mother of Ants.

This highlights just how much complexity the Mansus has. There are 24 ruling Hours and 6 other Hours. So each Hour has 29 relationships. And this is without taking into account the Names, the Long, the Know, the Dead, and whatever the Worms are. In this instance, the Mother of Ants seems like an Hour who would be at odds with the Heart Relentless - the Heart preserves the world’s skin, the Mother cuts said skin. But here she is as the cause of the Heart. Perhaps, before you can open the way, there need to be barriers.

Btw, the Mother of Ants seems like a pretty powerful Hour, doesn’t she?

btw2, speaking of the Grail - it’s the Hour of birth, blood, hunger, lust, and the drowning waters. The first four are straightforward, but does anyone have any idea as to what the &quotdrowning waters&quot are, exactly?
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edited by Anne Auclair on 11/25/2017

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My god…
Will I even have the chance to understand those texts when I receive the game?
If this allegory continues, I will probably stop playing after 10 minutes :(

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[quote=Gonen]My god…
Will I even have the chance to understand those texts when I receive the game?[/quote]
Naturally, though some texts will be more difficult than others (the Orchids Transfigurations is supposed to be &quotquite challenging,&quot while Christopher Illopoly’s work is considered extremely &quotreadable&quot). In such cases, the key to fully understanding one text might lie hidden in another, completely different book. Or in a dream. Or a ritual experience. Or something horrible.
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edited by Anne Auclair on 11/25/2017

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De Bellis Murorum means ‘On the Wars of the Walls’, I think.

That’s quite an act.

There is a thematic link to the Greek legend of Attis and Marsyas. Short version here. More detailed is The Golden Bough, by myth-theorist and erudite gorehound, James Frazer, who devotes three consecutive chapters to the cheerful topics of self-castration and ritual flaying:

The Myth and Ritual of Attis (Paras 1 & 2)

Attis as a God of Vegetation (Para 1)

Human Representatives of Attis (Paras 1 & 2, and maybe 3 except Frazer starts digressing like he always does. It’s not necessary to read about all the no-good things done by the Bagobos of Mindanao)

Apart from the Grail and the Thunderskin I’m uncertain about the Hour identifications (I’ve barked up the wrong tree before, and also I’m sure there is going to be some fun misdirection afoot). ‘Mountain-mother’ sounds as if it’s perhaps something we haven’t yet encountered, since her presence is surprising (and how), and the presence of the Mother-of-Ants would perhaps be expected. The self-mutilating Pine-Knight is curious. On its card, it’s The Moth - rather unexpectedly - that is associated with cutting off part of yourself under a tree, though mercifully in this case it’s just plaited hair and the trees are decked with lots of scissors.

[quote=Alice Lutwidge]
But regardless, permission from the Tiger Keeper has been granted. He said he didn’t put anything in the files that he wouldn’t want players to know, which is a relief because, assuming that still stands with the beta, I’m definitely going to poke through that build as well haha. Still spoilering everything though, and of course this is all subject to change since the most recent alpha build is about 5 or 6 months old now.[/quote]
Yep, the terrific mystery of The Waking Word turns out to be that it’s a dev tool and doesn’t do much. Your efforts are vastly more interesting (the Mother-of-Ants definitely sounds like a traditional D&D-style two-headed snakething). Also, a while ago man bought high-level Kickstarter backing as a present for his bride-to-be, and they were linked to a story called Matthias and the Amethyst Imago, which judging by this newfound material means that whatever fate is going to befall them will involve the polydactylously purple Witch-and-Sister and their Recitation of Amethyst.

[quote=Gonen]My god…
Will I even have the chance to understand those texts when I receive the game?
If this allegory continues, I will probably stop playing after 10 minutes [/quote]
This is bothering me too, and I’m a hopeless mythology nerd. It may be possible to integrate freestanding fantastical lore with existing myths and allegories, but it’s surely not going to be easy and I wonder if it’ll put some players off. Just exactly how arcane is, well, a bit too arcane?

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Personally, I don’t find it difficult? It’s mostly a matter of patience, really. If you don’t understand something at first, eventually you will.

I’m getting a pretty strong sense that the universe will be self-contained. Although connections with real world mythology are fascinating, I don’t think they’ll actually be necessary to understand things once the game is fully complete? We find them useful because we’re discussing very small fragments of the game, you know? So I don’t think that’s going to be something the average player will have to deal with unless they want to.
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edited by Anne Auclair on 11/25/2017

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Those lore items are certainly very interesting. Thank you.

[spoiler] Are we sure that the hour of cold is actually named “The White”? If we are, then that would definitely be a BIG DEAL since that’s the name of a mysterious entity involved with Salt in Sunless Sea. If not, then I’d be willing to bet then that’s the lore of the Sun-In-Rags, the false-sun that’s always depicted in a snowscape that desires beautiful endings. It was the Alpha, so I’d reckon that The White is either another name of SiR, or a placeholder name/easter egg.

The Society of St. Hydra was definitely an interesting development, as every other lore snippet involved in the founding of every other society included in the alpha implies each cult is centered around the worship of a certain Hour or Hours. I also wonder what other lore and societies he might add later that he didn’t feel comfortable giving away now.

Knife-Patterns seems to be the lore of The Colonel and The Lionsmith (aka The Golden General). The society having Edge in it’s name all but confirms the involvement of the Colonel. The two of them are locked in a never-ending battle with each other, it makes sense for their spheres of influence to include struggle and conquest. This is interesting, as again we have a society based around the worship of numerous Hours at the same time. How one would go about conducting a society that reveres two opposed forces at once is interesting to imagine. [spoiler]

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Thinking About the Suppression Bureau

Investigations in the alpha happen in three stages. First, the authorities start paying Attention to your activities. This can be triggered either by the RNG or from a failed burglary. Presumably in the full game there will be a broader range of triggers. If you have a Notoriety card laying on the table, this will go into the Attention token and lead to the Suppression Bureau opening an Investigation. You can stop the Investigation by bribing them with funds or by sacrificing a follower, but if you don’t get the investigators off your back then things proceed to the third stage, the actual Trial. At the Trial, as with the Investigation, you can bribe the authorities or place all the blame on a follower. If you fail to stop the Trial you are convicted and the game comes to an end. Should the investigation end at any point short of conviction, the investigation token produces a second Notoriety card.

In true witching hunting fashion, Investigations narratively begin with “rumor squat[ting] on rooftops and flutter[ing] in gutters.” People are talking about you and it’s not good, leading the authorities to start asking questions. If there is a particularly notorious story floating around somewhere – about your Society meetings, your esoteric lectures, your outrageous behavior, your recent burglary attempt – people tell the the investigators and this leads them to begin actively digging into your activities.

As many of the things that earn you Notoriety aren’t technically illegal, you are for the most part investigated on the basis of your public reputation alone, as opposed to any specific crime. But, there might be a bit more to the Bureau’s methods than first meets the eye. Perhaps the Suppression Bureau has its own special ways of divining your guilt once you have been brought to their attention. Presumably their investigators would have access to the same books and the same dreamscape as the people they are investigating… Although the image of the Suppression Bureau as a gang of diviners is somewhat undercut by how easily you can pin all blame for your activities on a willing patsy…you’d think they’d see through such a ruse.

Anyway, regardless of whether they’re going after you on the basis of rumor or magic, it is explicit that an actual physical crime is wholly unnecessary, for the Suppression Bureau “are charged with suppressing the less usual type of criminal – the criminal whose crimes may exist only in dreams.” So thought crimes, essentially - though with the added twist that your dreams happen in an actual, objectively existing place, the Woods and the Mansus, where your private thoughts and desires have an impact outside your head. Because of this distinction, it might be better to think of these transgressions as more astral crimes, immaterial crimes, or invisible crimes. These are the crimes you commit in trying to go beyond the world’s skin, just as real as a murder or a robbery.

These immaterial crimes are also state secrets and their existence is actively hidden from the general public:

You aren’t even fully informed of the charges against you. In fact, it’s entirely possible that the judges don’t even understand what you are being accused of:

[quote=Conviction]The nature of my crimes was vague, and the trial contentious. But there was a consensus that I have done something I should not. [/quote]
It all seems to come down to whether or not there is something…off…about you. And of course there has to be something off about you in order to bring the attention of the Suppression Bureau. QED.

This is an organization that is very much a law unto itself. As suspicion is all that is really needed to establish guilt, conviction is always assured. Unless, that is, you pay, for the Bureau’s power is second only to its incredibly pervasive corruption. Their demands aren’t cheap – a single funds card is enough to keep a person in reasonable comfort for a significant period of time. But they aren’t particularly exorbitant either, costing about as much as a shopping trip to Morlands or a selection of specialty candles. Anyone with a steady and reasonably paying job, or a significant amount of inherited wealth, can easily buy them off.

There is an interesting contrast between the vast powers of the Suppression Bureau and just how easily they can be financially induced to leave you alone. These two features, its unchecked power and its unchecked corruption, are very much interlinked. The secrecy that makes the Bureau so menacing is also what ultimately makes it so ineffective. It’s the rumor based investigations, secret laws, otherworldly jurisdictions, opaque court system, and vague charges which enable the pervasive corruption that undercuts its core mission. If you can be jailed for a vague, unspoken, and secret reason, you can just as easily be let off for a vague, unspoken, and secret reason. Thus a system designed to keep occult matters hidden from the public is what allows an underground occultism to flourish.

Based on your interactions with it, I suspect that the Suppression Bureau spends most of its time blackmailing and extorting various collectors, writers, nonconformists, and dabblers, as opposed to locking up actually dangerous occultists. I’m reminded somewhat of the U.S. Prohibition Bureau, the corrupt, undermanned Federal agency that was good at raiding and shaking down speakeasies but utterly ineffective at enforcing real prohibition or combating organized bootlegging by criminal syndicates. I wonder if there is a similar dynamic at work in Cultist Simulator, with the reportedly immortal Long taking the role of occultist gangsters. It would fit the general 1920s atmosphere. Miss Morland’s shop has always struck me as having the same atmosphere as a speakeasy, from the dingy location, lack of advertising, and stated policy of never learning the patron’s names.

Maybe the Bureau will get a bit more serious when the bodies start piling up and the world’s skin begins to tear – this would make sense both narratively and in terms of difficulty. When you start off you’re just dreaming, gathering disciples, collecting books, committing minor burglaries – small stuff, really. Bigger things, like say summoning an Hour via human sacrifice, would presumably risk getting the attention of the Bureau’s top most people – the Untouchables of the Cultist Simulator world.
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edited by Anne Auclair on 11/26/2017

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[quote=Anne Auclair]The Humours of a Gentleman

Card Description: Samuel Savage’s satirical comedy, on the intrigues of the ailing, but cunning John Sonne, his mistress Maevelin, her lover Leo, and the upstart Corvino.

Alexis: It’s not all dusty tomes crammed with bloodstained etchings of blasted ruins in Cultist Simulator.

Which makes sense - as the Principles of the Hours are in everything material, you could presumably learn about their natures, domains, and influences by consulting non-occult works as well. You’d just have to know what to look for. References to Don John of Austria or maybe the Don John character of Much Ado About Nothing. Samuel Savage sounds a little like Jonathan Swift.[/quote]

[quote=Anne Auclair][quote=Vexpont]The characters could easily all be Hours allegories, but I’m only willing to bet on one:

John Sonne, cunning but ailing – The Sun-in-Rags, IMO. Busy old fool, unruly sun.[/quote]
That seems like a pretty safe bet. Sonne is apparently an obsolete term for both son and sun. I think this double meaning (son/sun) is pretty intentional, especially if you think the Sun-in-Rags is the product of the True Sun being split or divided in some way.[/quote]
Omigawd, I can’t believe I missed this, given how Clifton Royston has pointed it out - the author of The Sun Rising is John Donne!!

So, yeah, it seems like a pretty safe bet that John Sonne is the Sun-in-Rags. (At the very least John Sonne is definitely something sun related).

Now I wonder if this was planned from the start or if Alexis noticed the poem in Clifton’s encyclopedia, liked it, and saw a great opportunity for a literary reference, a shout out, and a play on words, one that could easily be accomplished by simply changing a D to an S.
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edited by Anne Auclair on 11/26/2017

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I fear I must come to his defense and say the Sun-In-Rags is not a false sun ^_^

He might be cold and distant and bloody, but he gives off light. He’s an evening sun, a setting sun, a winter sun, a dying sun, the last sun you see before the dark and cold. Your heart wants him to be a god-from-light…and then your head notices that something’s not as it should be. The light is leaving, not arriving, and it’s getting colder.

Thinking about him some more…

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The Sun-In-Rags is setting because he ends things. That’s his domain. He ends periods of time: days, seasons, years, landmarks. He ends artistic creations: novels, plays, symphonies, games, fashions, moving-pictures. He ends things we wish he wouldn’t: lives, eras, civilizations, peace, health, prosperity, generations. But he also ends terrible things that can’t depart soon enough: wars, plagues, famines, tyrannies, sorrows. On a more metaphysical level, the Histories the Hours write also have an end to them. For things to begin, there have to be endings. You can’t have spring without winter, you can’t have a sunrise without a sunset. As awful as it sounds, the old world has to end in order to make way for the new. He’ also strikes me as a fairly egalitarian deity - death usually is.
I’m reminded of a small section from John Crowley’s Love & Sleep:

There are many Monarchs, and many Princes, but only one Emperor. Rudolf II, King in his own right of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduke of Austria, became Emperor by election and the chrism with which the Pope had anointed his head: Singular and Universal Monarch of the Whole Wide World. Or at least his shadow.

His grandfather Charles, who had been king of all the lands Rudolf was king of, had been king of Spain too, ruler of the Netherlands and Low Countries; he had been king of Savoy, lord of Naples and Sicily, he had had the Pope at his feet and sacked His City. Rome. God’s scourge. Charles had had a device made for him, of all the famous devices and signs and emblems of great rulers the most famous, known and seen throughout Christendom and in lands around the world that the old emperors in Rome had never known existed. Charles’s emblem showed two pillars - they were the Pillars of Hercules that stand at the Gates of the Sea, the gates to the New World. Around these two pillars ran a banner, that bore these words: Plus ultra, &quotEven farther.&quot The emblem was cut on medals and embossed on shields and breastplates, it was engraved in wood and printed on the title pages of geographies of the New World, and it was stamped on coins made of gold that was dug on the other side of the world. This emblem was so famous that it went on being stamped on gold coins long after Charles was dead, for so long that the dies lost their detail, and the words of the motto were worn away, and still it kept being stamped on Spanish coins, though all that was left to be seen were the two pillars and the twinning banner, no longer meaning &quotEmpire&quot or &quotCharles&quot or &quotEven farther&quot but only &quotdollar&quot:

No kingdom is eternal.

This is sort thing I imagine when I think of the Sun-In-Rags, anyway.

And through it all he has the challenge of having to end works predominately created by others. Because he’s not the author of the beginning or the middle of the stories that come to him. The other 23 to 29 squabbling Hours are the ones who battle to provide that content…only the final part is the Sun-In-Rags domain. If the stories themselves are immoral and twisted and unfair, that’s not really his fault, is it? He takes what he is given and does the best he can to make it all aesthetically pleasing, because the alternative is just to have a great big ugly mess with no significance. So there’s no sense in cursing your fate when he shows up - the real malefactors are elsewhere.

One thing I’ve been wondering though…can the Mansus end? Or the Woods? Or the Hours? Does the Sun-In-Rags ever wonder about that? Then there’s the Long - &quotthe Long, who do not end&quot - it seems doubtful they’d really get on with the Hour of Endings, doesn’t it?
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edited by Anne Auclair on 11/27/2017

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Here are my thoughts on what Alice found ^_^

[spoiler]
I love all the new stuff, particularly the White Ceremony and Knife-Patterns! The White Ceremony is both intriguing and ominous, while Knife-Patterns summons to mind bronze clad warriors and ferocious ancient wars.

The big takeaway is the existence of three additional types of lore, one with its own principle: Winter. This brings the total number of occult principles from seven to eight. It also completely throws off all my prior speculations, which assumed that there would only be seven pieces of basic lore. Numerology fails yet again, when will we learn? Anyway, this ties into Alexis’ AMA response when asked about the number of cults in the game:

Q: There are 7 occult principles which you can use to found of cult. Each principle is represented by a sort of iconic Hour. Then there are 23 additional Hours, each with very distinct desires and personalities. Then there are the Names. How are you planning on channeling all this cosmic diversity through seven cult choices?

A: There are seven so far; also Poseidon is not the only God in the sea; also, things are different since the Intercalate.

At the time I assumed he meant there would be more than seven cult types - and with the Society of St Hydra and the Children of Silence, we see that that there will be. But it’s now apparent he also meant that there would be more than seven occult principles.

This increases the games depth and complexity, so yay ^_^ I wouldn’t be surprised if Hours like, the Crowned Growth and the Rising Spider get their own principles, seeing as how singular they are (and how hostile their agendas).

I’ve been thinking a bit about the lore cards. Their described origins differ rather markedly at times. I’m not sure you always learn about them directly from the books you study and the dreams you have. Sometimes, it’s more like your studies and dreams give you what you need to in order to find, remember, reconstruct, or reinvent these pieces of lore yourself.

So far there seem to be five distinct lore types:

  1. Lore gained or expressed through remembering:

Mansus-Glimpse
A snatch of poetry; a single memory of a certain house that all of us visit twice in our lives.

You’re remembering with your soul.


2. Lore gained or expressed through demented ritual actions.

The Consent of Wounds
To open the way, one must first open oneself. This practice outlines that opening, in the name of the Mother of Ants.

Notice its description calls it a practice, meaning its something like a ritual performance. Sounds like you’re cutting yourself…eek.

  1. Lore gained or expressed through formal prayers and magical declarations.

The Delightful Sacrament
So pleasant upon the ear. One could listen over and over.

The White Ceremony
When I speak it, my lips don’t crisp with frost. Each time, this is surprising.

The Words that Walk
The syllables of this formula are compelling… I find myself snapping my fingers to its rhythm. It desires not to cease.

You get these from the books. Notice how all these words have a subtle supernatural effect on you.

  1. Lore gained or expressed from recognizing certain hidden messages embedded in the world’s structure:

Wood Whispers
Lie awake, and listen. The wind speaks in the branches. The house cries out in its sleep. There are the roads that chaos ride.

Knife-Patterns
When our ancestors forged swords, taught the arts of martial movement, spoke curses on the eve of battle - all these things shared certain patterns.

These are more primitive powers, though also seemly more approachable.

Ardent Prayers
When we watch a fire, what are we watching for? When we find it, these are the words it will speak: a word that sanctifies the change when the seared skin peals.

You spend time staring intently at the fire, hoping it will speak a prayer. Sometimes it does.

  1. Miscellaneous - need more information.

Occult Scrap
Secret histories are layered beneath the one we know, like the notes in rare wine. This is a detail from one of those histories.

The Recitation of Amethyst
Clearly unfinished, with placeholder text.[/spoiler]
edited by Anne Auclair on 11/27/2017

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Some more thoughts on the debug revelations, this time having to do with what they can possibly tell us about occult societies.

[spoiler]Occult societies are going to be a big part of the game. Founding, building, instructing, governing, and utilizing your society is presumably what the Guru role is all about. Your choice of society will also no doubt lead you in certain narrative directions. So the subject and purpose of your society matters quite a bit. And this is more than just a matter of different Hours/Principles - not only the subject, but the very approach that your society takes to the subject can vary considerably. A society might deal with plural Hours, single Hours, place linked Hours, free ranging Hours, the Hours directly, the Hours through their domains, the collective work of all Hours, and so on. It all amounts to a pretty considerable variation.

Of the societies we know about, there seem to be four distinct types:

  1. Societies dedicated to the Hours of a specific otherworldly place:

The Mirror of Glory
An occult society dedicated to the understanding of the Light that leaks from a fiercer place.

The Wildwood Club
An occult society dedicated to chaos, and the unexpected Hours.

The Church of the Bright Edge
An occult society dedicated to the Hours of struggle and conquest.

The Glory, the Woods, and the Edge, along with all the Hours associated with these respective places. Worth noting that these societies seem fairly ideological– they’re also dedicated to the Light, to chaos, and to struggle, respectively (light probably represents order). These seem like factional power centers.

  1. Societies dedicated to the mysterious supernatural forces associated with a particular Hour:

Temple Unceasing
An occult society dedicated to the drumbeat which can never end.

The Unflinching Order
An occult society dedicated to the fire that changes and remakes.

The Order of the Bloody Cup
An occult society dedicated to the mysteries of birth, blood and appetite.

These societies are concerned with the larger domains of the Heart Relentless, the Forge of Days, and the Red Grail. Emphasis on domains – music, fire, blood – which somewhat eclipse their individual Hours. One says the drumbeat, not the Hour of the drumbeat; the fire that changes and remakes, not the Hour of the fire that changes and remakes; the mysteries of blood, not the Hour of blood. These Hours are presented as the sources of powerful but diffused influences which your occult society is trying to understand and master.

  1. Societies explicitly dedicated to a single, individual Hour:

The Society of Midnight
An occult society dedicated to the Hour at night’s heart, on which the world turns.

Children of Silence
An occult society dedicated to the Hour of the cold that ends.

The Moth and the Sun-In-Rags, specifically. It’s worth noting that these two Hours are portrayed as concentrated, solitary, decisive powers. The world somehow turns on the Hour of midnight, while the Hour of the cold makes endings. As a result these Hours get more individualized worship (if worship is the right word).

  1. Societies dedicated to other things:

Society of St Hydra
An occult society dedicated to the study of the thousand unknown histories.

Features of the universe not particular to any one Hour or any one group of Hours.

So, to sum up:

  1. Specific places/ideas
  2. Spread out influences
  3. Concentrated power/responsibilities
  4. Universal elements[/spoiler]
    edited by Anne Auclair on 11/28/2017
259

Only just now getting caught up with the recent updates, and I’m really excited about the amount of books that’ll be in the beta–and that we’ll be able to publish some ourselves! Though I imagine becoming a published author will undoubtedly attract attention, wanted or not. And that we’ll be able to &quotbegin exploring the Mansus,&quot which makes me wonder exactly how far we can go, and how much farther we’ll be able to in the final game.

[quote=Edward Warren]Those lore items are certainly very interesting. Thank you.

spoiler[/quote]
No problem!

[spoiler]True, I maaay have gotten a lil excited and assumed that the Hour is called the White, when that could possibly just be a descriptor; the Sun-In-Rags does seem fitting, now that you mention it. But at the risk of sounding crazy, when I recently re-read Galmier’s letter describing Port Noon, I was sort of reminded of the &quotWho is Salt?&quot SMEN ending (…I hope that isn’t too telling, is it? I can explain further via PM if anyone wishes, but of course I don’t want to publicly say anymore than that). I know Alexis stated early on that Noon and Fallen London were separate universes, but… I just can’t help this niggling feeling that there may be a connection there, somehow. But I know that I may be reaching there :P

And I think simultaneous worship of The Colonel and The Lionsmith can maybe be possible; perhaps if their followers view them as a sort of duality? Thinking about it, in a way I’m reminded of the God and Goddess duality present in some pagan religions, most notably Wicca.

Definitely, and I’m eager to see how it all works. While not actually executable in the alpha, the game’s files do make references to more interaction with one’s society, such as promoting members, finding a suitable premises, and possibly even having different categorizations, such as a Clique or an Order–or perhaps our cults will begin as a Clique and evolve into an Order, once more believers are recruited and initiation rites (also mentioned) are established? It’s hard to tell, but the &quotclique&quot description is: &quotAn earnest and informal club. Set the correct rite at its heart, and it will grow to become both weapon and fortress.&quot (Forgive me if all of that is available in the browser prototype–I honestly couldn’t get that far into it, but I have noticed some content from the browser version is present in the alpha’s files :P)
[/spoiler]
edited by Alice Lutwidge on 11/28/2017

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Ain’t that the truth.