Little secrets

Fallen London
1

The Neath is, of course, full of secrets - that’s more or less the point, isn’t it? Some are big, some are small. Some are part of unfinished storylines; others have been resolved, or there are hints, at least. But there some events which seem… particularly enigmatic. Things the game doesn’t dwell upon and which aren’t point of a story line proper, but nontheless… strange. I thought it may be fun to speculate about those topics - or perhaps, someone else picked up hints which I didn’t. Below is a small and entirely incomplete list of little enigmas that have been haunting me. Feel free to suggest your own!

[ul][li]Everything relating to the Leathery Human Hearts. [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]You find one on an Unfinished Man currently operating as Jack-of-Smiles, which is a little unusual to begin with - especially as Jacks of this sort continue operating after you solved the Jack-of-Smiles case - and you can turn five of them in for a small increase in Connected: Revolutionaries. The Professor of Anatomy will apparantly “repatriate” them.[/color]
[/li][li]What exactly do you see when you use that Lens on your own blood? [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]A stark black-and-white-forest filled with skull fragments, inscribed upon one of which is ‘AND THIS IS EDEN’? That would seem to suggest you visit the Far Shore, but what sort of afterlife looks like this? Interestingly, the item image for the Primaeval Hint - “an apprehension of something impossibly ancient” - seems to be fitting the description. Not that it helps.[/color][/li][li][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)][color=rgb(0, 0, 0)]When you exchange Mourning Candles for Scrutinisers, you learn [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]that the Revolutionaries are apparantly looking for powerful lenses. Why? What are they trying to spy upon? The ceiling of the cavern the Neath is in? A distant land?[/color][/color][/color][/li][li][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)][color=rgb(0, 0, 0)][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)][color=rgb(0, 0, 0)]Why is the Gracious Widow smuggling [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Clay Men [/color]out of the city? And where? The Elder Continent, perhaps? But why would they have a need of them?[/color][/color][/color][/color][/li][li]Talking to the Sun. [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]This shows up exactly twice - first as the subject of a dream, then when the Provost has someone murdered who tried to do this. [color=rgb(0, 0, 0)]Can you actually do that?[/color][/color]
[/li][/ul]
edited by Cedric Appleby on 6/24/2012

2

I’d like to know more about Spider-councils - we know that they’re[color=#ffffff] a bunch of sorrow-spiders forming one big spider, [/color]but why? Why do they care about the[color=#ffffff] Correspondence[/color]? What does “apples for the tree” mean?

Come to think of it, the Correspondence is another. For being a Scholar of the Correspondence, I hardly know much about the ruddy thing. All I really know is that it’s [color=#ffffff]a language that has words for oddly specific situations, it can set people on fire, and that it’s somehow connected to the Name. [/color]
[color=#ffffff]
[/color]
Also, there’s precedent for talking to the weather, so talking to Sun might not be as absurd as it sounds - What the Thunder Said, anyone?

EDIT: And another thing - pretty much all of the ending of the Face-Tailor storyline.
edited by Twoflower on 6/24/2012

3

[quote=Twoflower]I’d like to know more about Spider-councils - we know that they’re[color=#ffffff] a bunch of sorrow-spiders forming one big spider, [/color]but why? Why do they care about the[color=#ffffff] Correspondence[/color]? What does “apples for the tree” mean?

EDIT: And another thing - pretty much all of the ending of the Face-Tailor storyline.[/quote]

Spider-councils are actually explained in detail already, although it might not be immediately obvious. If you have access to the House of Chimes, a certain lady there can shed light on Spider-Council and their motives in a easy, simple terms (at the end)

4

[quote=Byron Man][quote=Twoflower]I’d like to know more about Spider-councils - we know that they’re[color=#ffffff] a bunch of sorrow-spiders forming one big spider, [/color]but why? Why do they care about the[color=#ffffff] Correspondence[/color]? What does “apples for the tree” mean?

EDIT: And another thing - pretty much all of the ending of the Face-Tailor storyline.[/quote]

Spider-councils are actually explained in detail already, although it might not be immediately obvious. If you have access to the House of Chimes, a certain lady there can shed light on Spider-Council and their motives in a easy, simple terms (at the end)[/quote]

Sadly, I did the story before I got the Arachnologist quality, and as far as I know, there’s no way to replay it.

5

Even if we know what the Tree of Ages is, we don’t know why its called that.

6

I reckon it’s something to do with [color=rgb(0, 0, 204)]this.[/color]

7

[quote=Twoflower]

Come to think of it, the Correspondence is another. For being a Scholar of the Correspondence, I hardly know much about the ruddy thing. All I really know is that it’s [color=#ffffff]a language that has words for oddly specific situations, it can set people on fire, and that it’s somehow connected to the Name. [/color]

EDIT: And another thing - pretty much all of the ending of the Face-Tailor storyline.
edited by Twoflower on 6/24/2012[/quote]

I somehow gained the impression that it was the language of the Masters. Perhaps because it’s written on the spires of the Bazaar? I don’t honestly know where this idea came from, but it’s the one I’ve been working with for quite some time.

I don’t even remember the ending to the Face-Tailor except that I kept thinking there was more to the story. It was very odd.

8

As much as the Masters use it, the Correspondence seems to me more like an ancient language that the Masters merely adopted - I don’t think there are instances of the Masters actually using it, but the fact that Correspondence sigils are engraved on the spires of the Bazaar seems to imply that the Masters at least understand it. I think I read in some snippets that it is actually the language of the Seraphim? Then again, it isn’t even 100% sure that it was the Masters who engraved the sigils on the spires: in the ending of the Jack-of-Smiles case, [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Mr. Spices clearly claims that it is his [/color][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]duty[/color][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)] to feed the Bazaar, and that at least in one occasion, it didn’t accept the… “food”. This would seem to hint that either the Bazaar has an individual personality (and is apparently the Master’s superior), or, at the very least, that was created by another entity entirely, and the Masters are but its… administrators, so to say[/color]. So it could be that somebody else etched the Correspondence sigils on the Bazaar’s spires, or even that the Bazaar wrote them itself O_o

9

[quote=Twoflower]
Sadly, I did the story before I got the Arachnologist quality, and as far as I know, there’s no way to replay it.[/quote]

I think I echoed it in my journal. If you are interested, I can either send a PM or direct you to the page my echo is buried in.

10

[quote=Twoflower]
EDIT: And another thing - pretty much all of the ending of the Face-Tailor storyline.
edited by Twoflower on 6/24/2012[/quote]

Totally agreed on that one. I thought for the longest time that I hadn’t finished it yet because I had no idea what happened and there was no closure, I thought it was one of the many ‘dead end’ storylines that they haven’t gone back and completed yet.

There are a bunch of loose ends I’d like to know about, but first and foremost among them is the fact that because I didn’t get the albino rat in the Big Rat storyline, I will never get to finish the Playing with Broken Toys story, which is really upsetting. If I had known there would have been any connection here I would have chosen differently. It doesn’t seem fair to not indicate that taking certain options will lock you out of apparently unrelated stories, and then charge fate to . But I digress, I suppose.

I definitely agree on the correspondence, too, I’d like to know more about it.

This probably isn’t likely to happen, but I’d like to know who some of the powers in the great game are, and what the hell is the point of it all, because all the storylines having anything to do with the game are so very vague you never even really know what you’re doing, even at the highest levels.

And you find out -more- about the Rubberies at flute street, but never the whole of their origins or motivations (trying to be vague about that to not spoil anything fate-locked.)

And why does the Bazaar want love stories anyway? And what is under the masters’ cloaks? …Well, getting out of little secrets here and into big mysteries.

11

I want to know about snufflers and what happend to people from all the past cities. Can Devils survive on the surface?

12

I am fairly new here . One thing I wnt to find out is why there are no foxes in the Neath? What are the foxfire candles made of? What are really the glim? The jade is really souls? Why the drownies act so different from other "people that had experienced death? let’s say tomb-colonists? and many other perhaps tiny but interest secrets…

13

[quote=Valquinn]I am fairly new here . One thing I wnt to find out is why there are no foxes in the Neath? What are the foxfire candles made of? What are really the glim? The jade is really souls? Why the drownies act so different from other "people that had experienced death? let’s say tomb-colonists? and many other perhaps tiny but interest secrets…[/quote]’

If you’re pursing the Light Fingers ambition, you’ll learn about glim and the Drownies.

14

Interesting… that might be a possibility. But there’s not really enough light in the Neath to make that practicable, is there? Not in comparison to, say, dynamite.

I have something of a theory relating to this, assembled from a wide variety of snippets; I believe the mystery is frustrating mostly because big pieces of the puzzle are not actually found within the Neath. Be warned: Some speculation ahead. My conclusions may be - indeed, likely are - entirely wrong, but the snippets themselves may still provide a few additional data points to greater minds.

[ul][li]First of all, let us consider the source of all this excitement[color=rgb(255, 255, 255)] - the [/color][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Liber Visionis[/color][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)], and its author, Benjamin Villein[color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]. [/color][/color]Mr. Villein[color=rgb(255, 255, 255)] is a high-ranking bureaucrat who has been working for the Ministry of Public Decency for twenty-three years, as you may learn if (and [/color][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]only if[/color][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]) you enjoy [/color]digging through the comment threads[color=rgb(255, 255, 255)][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)] on long-dead Facebook status updates. (I do, fortunately.) The Liber Visionis is, supposedly, “A complete, indeed frank, account of a particular element which moves in Fallen London soc[/color]iety: its habits, its superstitions, its attire. (…) The individuals I described garb themselves in exotic mode. I will lay bare their sartorial secrets. I will outline means by which even the layreader may take some limited advantage of similar techniques!”[/color][/li][li]So, what does the Liber Visionis allow you to do again? [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Simple: The page you can hang on to lets you change your face. Now, where have we heard this before? [/color][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Snuffers[/color][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]. Snuffers can do this. Interestingly, the Scowling Flint Idol is also connected to the matter of face-changing or the wearing of masks - which is what Snuffers call their slightly disgusting habit of wearing human skins. We also know that Snuffers eat candles - foxfire candles, specifically, but they may have an appetite for other types of candles, too. So the vanishing of the candles could be explained as a visit by Snuffers. [/color]
[/li][li]They have a vested interest in keeping their habits a secret, of course - and how they can be spotted. After all, disguise is what they’re all about. [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]The Snuffers are, as some of those especially favoured by Fate may know, not entirely unfamiliar to the walks of power; this would perhaps explain how they became aware of Mr Villein’s work, and why they wanted to destroy it.[/color]
[/li][li]This leaves the question Scowling Flint Idol itself. [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]It is, we may presume, is from the Elder Continent - it fits the other little square granite gods they seem to favour over there. The place is also crawling with Snuffers, which are apparantly in opposition to a party known as the Presbyter, and/or the Presbyterate. Remember the details of the dream? A mountain? Colourful birds and lush tree life? A paradise you are banned from because you are not wearing the right face? I’m jgoing to drop a secret here - there’s perhaps a half-dozen hints across the Neath, but you may still want to stop reading. Alright? Still with me? The Bishop of St Fiacre’s is almost certainly a Snuffer. And he is a member of the Dilmun Club, which seeks the secret of immortality. Snuffers are not welcome in the Presbyterate - indeed, they are killed on sight - and the Mountain is probably the source of the place’s strangely death-defying qualities.[/color][/li][li][color=rgb(0, 0, 0)]So, in conclusion, I believe that the whole mess is the result of two conflicting agendas.[color=rgb(255, 255, 255)] My theory is that Mr Villein came into the possession of the Scowling Flint Idol by accident - “Face-Tailor” being an unflattering nickname for him, perhaps - and used it in his research into the nature of Snuffers; a rather too successful research for their tastes. They intervened, recoverd the idol and destroyed the [/color][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Liber Visionis[/color][color=rgb(255, 255, 255)].[/color][/color]
[/li][/ul]You may feel free to don your tin hats now.
edited by Cedric Appleby on 6/25/2012

15

[quote=Byron Man][quote=Twoflower]
Sadly, I did the story before I got the Arachnologist quality, and as far as I know, there’s no way to replay it.[/quote]

I think I echoed it in my journal. If you are interested, I can either send a PM or direct you to the page my echo is buried in.[/quote]

A PM would be nice, thanks!

16

[quote=Cedric Appleby]

  • Talking to the Sun. [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]This shows up exactly twice - first as the subject of a dream, then when the Provost has someone murdered who tried to do this. [color=rgb(0, 0, 0)]Can you actually do that?[/color][/color][/quote]

I’d contest that phrase ‘exactly twice.’

17

If you didn’t get the Idol, the people from the Ministry mentioned that there’s a bad apple (probably Villein) working among them. Although whether this is a deception by Snuffer or not is another matter… Just chiming in for a bit.

18

[quote=Twoflower][quote=Valquinn]I am fairly new here . One thing I wnt to find out is why there are no foxes in the Neath? What are the foxfire candles made of? What are really the glim? The jade is really souls? Why the drownies act so different from other "people that had experienced death? let’s say tomb-colonists? and many other perhaps tiny but interest secrets…[/quote]’

If you’re pursing the Light Fingers ambition, you’ll learn about glim and the Drownies.[/quote]
Oh… I’m pursuing Hearts’s Desire…

19

[quote=Valquinn][quote=Twoflower][quote=Valquinn]I am fairly new here . One thing I wnt to find out is why there are no foxes in the Neath? What are the foxfire candles made of? What are really the glim? The jade is really souls? Why the drownies act so different from other "people that had experienced death? let’s say tomb-colonists? and many other perhaps tiny but interest secrets…[/quote]’

If you’re pursing the Light Fingers ambition, you’ll learn about glim and the Drownies.[/quote]
Oh… I’m pursuing Hearts’s Desire…[/quote]

If you’d like, I can PM you the info.

20

My turn to ask you for a PM, as I am pursuing Heart’s Desire :)