(Spoilers just in case)
The Curators staged a mass rebellion against the Judgements similar to the Devils, and were crushed by the Judgements as a result. It could be that Masters serve Couriers and their Judgements and Curators run the gamut of loyalties. Being sent to serve a Courier might be a punishment for the Masters as Curators hate servitude, but it seems unlikely given what we have heard from the Masters.
From Skies: Apples pursues immortality from before the Descent of the Bazaar, and this is explicitly forbidden. So, Treachery is identified.
I’ve never understood why "violation of the Order of Days" is necessarily Veils, although I’ve also never played Bag a Legend so it’s possible I’m missing something. Veils always seemed a better candidate for "aberration and runtery" to me, with Apples as "violation of the Order" and Cups as "Treachery".
Veils is frequently focused on as the smallest Master, which implies runtery. In the Convocation of Runts part of Nemesis, for instance, it can be identified by its tendency to talk in all caps and is explicitly identified as smaller than all the others.
Apples, with its obsession with immortality, could be considered violating the Order of Days by refusing to age and die naturally.
Finally, Cup’s plan in Nemesis of betraying the Bazaar by corrupting its love-stories with tales of revenge and pushing it towards seeking vengeance on the Sun seems to fit with "pursuit of a Treachery."
edited by Chauncey Dastard on 6/4/2020
[quote=Chauncey Dastard]I’ve never understood why "violation of the Order of Days" is necessarily Veils, although I’ve also never played Bag a Legend so it’s possible I’m missing something. [/quote]Indeed: Bag a Legend explicitly proves this crime to belong to Veils.
Found the relevant Echoes in your profile and that is, indeed, definitive. I do remain convinced that Cups is ‘pursuit of a Treachery’ though, given its plans for the Bazaar in Nemesis.
[quote=Chauncey Dastard]I’ve never understood why "violation of the Order of Days" is necessarily Veils,
[/quote]
It hunts even when it is not the time of hunt.
[quote]
Veils always seemed a better candidate for "aberration and runtery" to me[/quote]
Better than the master that was "aware of his deficiency, long before the betrayal"? And almost explicitly called in his content to be the runt of his clutch?
Necroing a bit.
Competely forgot about Bishop’s barn - Mr Hearts there clearly indulges in Treachery of Amalgamation. Hearts is also Apples, and in Skies Apples pursued immortality since times immemorial, utilising Red Science.
Light-bringing. According to Mr Menagerie, when the skies were young Curators were hunting in the dark, then Judgements conquered them and imposed their laws of Light. So, Light-bringing could mean among other things a betrayal and revealing their position to the enemy.
Charity. Also Mr Menagerie is careful to always demand a symbolical price for his stories, and wording implies this law is also imposed by Judgements. Seems like it’s defined as “giving without taking”, not taking in account actual prices.
Don’t know if it make things clearer.
Also, there is a Master involved in a very suspicious story - Mr Candles is to blame for such a prolonged stay in Amarna, and according to Heart’s Desire it’s considered a Gift of Time. Perhaps he demanded nothing in exchange, and at some point other Masters found out, and that was the actual reason for their rage.
Barse isn’t here to tap the sign, so in his stead: obligatory Mr Candles was not responsible for the Second City and did nothing to justify getting betrayed
edited by Optimatum on 6/21/2020
I suggest that Mr Fires is Light-Bringing and, furthermore, that this means the Master is actively planning to broker a deal with the Dawn Machine
(Spoilers for Bag a Legend, Laboratory research, Dawn Machine and Devils lore below):
In the part of Bag a Legend my alt has just reached, you break into the Khan of Silks factory to find Mr Fires, who is using the factory to create forged Justificande coins and a clockwork replacement of Mr Veils. Watching the minting process rewards you with an Element of Dawn and Mr Fires, convinced you are Mr Veils, tells you to "Go back out into the dark. Enjoy it while you can." When you take one of these coins to the Numismatrix she tells you it will be used to pay off "a great but gullible power."
All of these seems to indicate that Mr Fires is planning to deal with the Dawn Machine, a fake Judgement made by London’s admirality that controls the minds of its servants and was designed to bring law, order and light to the Neath. This would fit well with what we know of Mr Fires, as it clearly loves London but hates strikes, disorder and other shows of free-will by Londoners. All of London losing their free-will to a giant star would suit it just fine, provided the Master didn’t itself suffer.
It’s even possible that Mr Fires is itself influenced by the Dawn Machine, but simply not as greatly effected as humans due to being higher up the Chain. Descriptions of Mr Fires often emphasise the Master’s eyes, for instance describing them as "reddish stars", which seems siliar to both the "amber irises and gold-speckled sclera" found on Dawn Machine operatives and the eyes of Devils (who were themselves servants of the Judgements before rebelling). I haven’t been able to find any other Master whose eyes are as frequently mentioned, but an old description of the Masters eyes from a Silver Tree thread says they’re typically pale blue.
I know Mister Fires is also a big part of Light Fingers, but haven’t played it. If anyone has played through that Ambition and can add to or disprove this theory, please do!
edited by Chauncey Dastard on 7/1/2020
Fires wants to keep London from being squashed by Paris, or whatever the 6th city would be, since he’s having fun.
This is a direct violation of Bazaar’s contract - the reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely.
He attempts to cheat out of a deal through means described in LF.
Justificande is used to pay for broken promises, so it fits. And even the Master of the Bazaar wouldn’t have enough cash to bail entire London, so he forges it.
So far Elements of Dawn seem inconsequential - you can simply bargain for them with the Dawn cult if you have something to offer, and they are marvellously useful when you deal with Red Science, such as during forging of coins to pay for broken promises.
[quote=Aro Saren]Fires wants to keep London from being squashed by Paris, or whatever the 6th city would be, since he’s having fun.
This is a direct violation of Bazaar’s contract - the reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely.
He attempts to cheat out of a deal through means described in LF.
Justificande is used to pay for broken promises, so it fits. And even the Master of the Bazaar wouldn’t have enough cash to bail entire London, so he forges it.
So far Elements of Dawn seem inconsequential - you can simply bargain for them with the Dawn cult if you have something to offer, and they are marvellously useful when you deal with Red Science, such as during forging of coins to pay for broken promises.[/quote]
Yes, Fires is planning to preserve London, but the Moon-Milk deal described in LF hardly fits the description of ‘Light-Bringing’. It could potentially be ‘pursuit of a treachery’, but there doesn’t seem to be a better option for light-bringing than Mr Fires.
[spoiler](Except possibly Mr Cups, who describes wanting to ‘ignite’ the Bazaar with vengeance in Nemesis, but could also be ‘pursuit of a treachery’ as it is planning to sabotage the Bazaar’s mission.)
Still, there are a number of unaccounted for phrases in Fires’ dialogue that suggest merely postponing the reckoning is not the end of that Master’s plan. In LF it states it ‘shall make arrangements to preserve the city’ after using the Hybrid to get the other Masters to abandon the city as a lost cause and the Justificande coin is for dealing with an explicitly gullible power, which presumably isn’t all the Judgements as a collective. Plus its aforementioned dialogue with ‘Mr Veils’ in Bag a Legend implies that it forsees a day when London will be full of light, which wouldn’t happen if it only planned to let the city stay down in the Neath as it is.
LF is about Fires’ plan to stop the Masters from bringing down the Sixth City, but the Hybrid doesn’t seem to be the end of its strategy, which I suggest is establishing the Dawn Machine over London and bringing light, and law, where it doesn’t belong.
[/spoiler]
edited by Chauncey Dastard on 7/3/2020
There’s a distinction between a treachery and one of the Treacheries, and list mentions the second one.
First is just a betrayal.
Second is a rebel against one of laws of the universe as declared by Judgements’s editcs.
We know of several currently - Glass deals with separation between Is and Is-Not, Maps messes with geographical layouts, Clocks is responsible for repeatable storylets, Measures and Distances is obvious, Breath is about rising after death, Amalgamation is about messing with one’s standing in The Great Chain, Sands is not yet revealed, iirc.
Also one should take in account that Masters’ crimes and shortcomings in the list are from the Descent era, several millenia ago. While they certainly can continue them, anything not present during that time does not count.
Re-compiling the list again, with new information available.
Obvious and confirmed:
Mr Stones, for obvious reasons: hoarding
Mr iron, for obvious reasons: perpetration of the crimes of knife and of candle
Mr Wines, for the Beggar’s Crown, the Scepter of Mr Wines, and what we learned in Cricket, Anyone: failure and defeat, a fall from king to beggar
Mr Pages, confirmed in Ambition: Heart’s Desire: truth-strangling
Mr Veils, for his role in Ambition: Bag a Legend: violation of the Order of Days, which determines the hour of the hunt, the feast, the council, the bargain, and the slaughter
Mr Spices, for his role in Smiles case, University drug research and wars over dreams: idleness, and the dwelling-on of dreams
Unclear:
Mr Mirrors - either runtery, aberration (called a runt and aberration in Ambition: Nemesis) or Glass-whispering and charity (what’s left of him communes with parabolan creatures and can be persuaded to be charitable)
Mr Apples/Hearts - either pursuit of Treachery (wants remake himself to get immortal body, also Bishop’s barn) or impersonation (unlike Cups Hearts was the same in First and Fifth Cities)
Mr Candles/Mr Eaten - possibly glass-whispering (his domain included dreams) and charity (even if he wasn’t the one to buy the Second City, he was able to prolong the stay there, similar to Fires and London)
Mr Cups - ?
Mr Fires - possibly light-bringing because of name and use of Dawn Elements, but these are relatively recent developments
edited by Aro Saren on 7/7/2020
[quote=Aro Saren]
Mr Mirrors - either runtery, aberration (called a runt and aberration in Ambition: Nemesis)[/quote]
Mirrors is an abberation now, after being heart-desired. Is there anything calling him abberation/runt before that happened?
Candles was "aware of his deficiency" and then almost explicitly called the runt of his clutch, in SMEN.
[quote=xKiv]Mirrors is an abberation now, after being heart-desired. Is there anything calling him abberation/runt before that happened?
Candles was "aware of his deficiency" and then almost explicitly called the runt of his clutch, in SMEN.[/quote]
No, that content from Ambition: Nemesis is a vision of the Masters before they ever came to Earth, when they had just made the deal with the Bazaar. So Mirrors was an aberration even then.
You’re right of course about SMEN. Candles was specifically called the runt there, meaning we currently seem to be faced with a contradiction in lore. I can’t solve the riddle for you, though I think that content which was added just now weighs a bit more than SMEN content from years ago (SMEN was almost exclusively AK’s brainchild and might not be the most dependable source. There’s also the possibility of it containing deliberate misinformation and false leads).
[quote=Aro Saren]Mr Cups, for his role in Smiles case, University drug research and wars over dreams: idleness, and the dwelling-on of dreams[/quote]You mean Spices there, surely. ;)
Looking through your list, you end up with something for everyone and a ? for Cups. Why not go all the way and put Pursuit of a Treachery there? ;)
About Fires: while he has many other interests now, his chief responsibility is still the gaslighting of London (double-meaning not intended, oh wait, maybe…? :: )
Anyway, in Fallen London it’s something we tend to overlook, but "bringing light" anywhere is the Judgements’ domain, so anyone interfering with that would be considered a major criminal by them. I really don’t think we need to look any further here, since nothing else in the list of crimes fits Fires at all.
edited by phryne on 7/5/2020
That content is what Mirrors is dreaming now, though. The entirety of it is Mirror’s dream, which is his prison.
(unless there’s some other more specific specific thing in it that I am not remembering)
I think that using Nemesis to put Mirrors under "maybe runt" while not putting Candles also under "maybe runt" is … not consistent, at the very least.
edited by xKiv on 7/7/2020
Cups instead of Spices - oops, wasn’t paying attention.
Candles - erm, it’s embarassing to admit, but I has been avoiding SMEN during whole this time, and have no plans to delve in, so here’s that.
Regarding the contradiction, though - writers of FL are not keen on consistency of the canon. Best is to bet on information that came during roughly the same period and management, and original SMEN was discontinued aeons ago, and now AK left the board, if that’s any indication.
edited by Aro Saren on 7/5/2020
[quote=Aro Saren]original SMEN was discontinued aeons ago, and now AK left the board, if that’s any indication.
[/quote]
The part I am referring to is not discontinued.
But … https://www.failbettergames.com/a-secret-about-the-masters/ - the crimes are sunless skies thing (2017). AK was not involved with skies at all, and (as far as I can tell) left (mid 2016) before development of skies even began (early 2017?).
That would, of course, make any arguments based on nemesis finale (released 2020; vs. skies full release in 2018) suspect too, though.
[quote=xKiv]
That would, of course, make any arguments based on nemesis finale (released 2020; vs. skies full release in 2018) suspect too, though.[/quote]
Point.
I also don’t have access to most of Fate stories, so at this point my knowledge ends.
Ah, no, wait, I remembered one more thing.
Another reason to suspect SMEN credibilty is description of Candles being eaten: it mentions golden god-flesh. From various other instances we now know that Curators, when not modified with Red Science or whatever Parabolan shit Veils was high on, have more or less usual meat, while golden god-flesh is specifically referred as such in Sunless Sea, as belonging to Judgement and made of Law (at least, it’s a leftover of what was Salt before transformation and escape to Parabola).
So, either Candles was forcibly subjected to Red Science to briefly promote him in the Great Chain before being eaten, or someone is full of shit (serves these priests right for being such an assholes).
edited by Aro Saren on 7/7/2020
[quote=Aro Saren]
Ah, no, wait, I remembered one more thing.
Another reason to suspect SMEN credibilty is description of Candles being eaten: …[/quote]
The chronology as I understand, though, is
I wouldn’t be surprised if the god-flesh was a new development for the devouring - so the priests would become god-eaters.
Do Masters have normal flesh? The descriptions of their bodies seem a bit inconsistent. Sometimes they’re flesh-and-blood like normal bats, but the creature that came out of the Bishop’s barn (Hearts) and the Thing on the Roof of the Foreign Office (Veils) are described as like holes into space.
As an aside: I must confess I’m not up-to-date on the newest lore, and may be working off outdated speculation, but I was under the impression that Mr Veils wasn’t one of the original Masters, but a human (specifically, the Pharaoh of the Second City), who made a deal with the Masters. Am I misinformed?