It is the year 1895 and we’re all probably still drawing the usual amounts of Orthographic Infection. Also known as: way too many Orthographic Infections until the moment we need Appalling Secrets. Clearly the Ministry of Public Decency is still hard at work cleaning off graffiti the moment you’re finished looking at it. (How courteous of them.)
So I’d like to ask a question: What’s up with London’s graffiti? Specifically:
What kinds of graffiti? Xanadu, obviously. Most likely English as well. But what else? Horizon glyphs? Correspondence? (Can Correspondence even be painted?)
Who’s leaving this graffiti? Criminals, probably. Academics? Urchins?
Where? Flophouses? The side of the Ministry of Public Decency itself? Does it matter?
And laugh if you like, but: What about Clay Men? Have they been painted with graffiti in the past, and what would happen if they were? What if someone painted the Correspondence onto one?
Some of these questions probably don’t have answers, but I was never one to discourage good-old-fashioned speculation.
edited by ReusedNPC on 8/18/2017
The language of Xanadu and Horizon Glyphs are Correspondence. It depends on what you draw on Clay Men, like all Correspondence.
A Scholar of the Correspondence is increasing…
Alright, that simplifies things. I could have sworn there was some Egyptological element to Horizon Glyphs, but perhaps not. In any case, why would the Correspondence be left on random buildingsides like it is?
edited by ReusedNPC on 8/17/2017
Horizon Glyphs was used during The Calendar Code to refer to hieroglyphics. If it’s used elsewhere it was probably referencing the Correspondence, though.
Devils are known to leave graffiti in the Languages of Hell, which do tend to drive one insane but in a different way to Correspondence.
Correspondence Graffiti seems unlikely, few people know it and its very nature makes it hard to paint solids with without things burning or exploding.
In Sunless Sea the Tireless Engineer seems to paint a clay man with a Correspondence Symbol while making a serpent trap- it turns him into a Fingerking Recepticle. You can also get a Correspondence Tattoo on Sacksmas so it’s possible a Clay Man wouldn’t suffer any harm from being graffiti’d on. Or maybe he’d explode. It depends on the specific Correspondence Sign.
edited by A Dimness on 8/17/2017
I suspect that horizon glyphs are the sigils which cover the isle of Codex.
[quote=Allow your Navigator to join the Mute Exiles]The stones of Codex crawl with sigils. Your Navigator steps into the enfolding silence of the glum, grey shore. His tattoo shivers like a nestling gull.
One of the Mute Exiles brings him a loaf of brown algae-bread. Another gives him a chipped jug of water. The Navigator does not thank you or say goodbye. From the moment he sets foot on the isle, he does not speak at all. But he takes your hand in his, briefly, before turning to the Exiles’ cave. As you leave, one of the Exiles tugs at your sleeve. He leads you to an unmarked stone the size of a church Bible, produces a chisel and hammer from his robe, and strikes the stone three times. It splits in half. Inside, a sigil the colour of quartz glistens, trapped in the stone like a fossil. The Exile gestures at you to take it.[/quote]There’s a distinct lack of the usual spontaneous combustion and incoherent madness which tend to accompany the Correspondence. The same kind of symbols can be found very close to the Avid Horizon; none of the story events there mention the sigils, but they can be seen in the game world.
As for the language of Xanadu, it may be just Hudum. A full century after Coleridge’s famous poem, ‘Xanadu’ would be widely recognized as the name of Kublai Khan’s summer palace (called Shangdu in modern pinyin). Hudum would make for some bloody good graffiti; here’s "Mongol", written in a few styles of Mongolian script and in Cyrillic. Alternately, it could have something to do with Parabola, because the Fourth City was rather experienced with the place. They built the Galleries of Serpents to imprison finger-kings, and The Silver Tree has a story branch where the player character delves into the weird world of Mongolian dream-shamanism.
Curiously enough, take a look at the first lines of ‘Xanadu’ and you’ll find another familiar name.
[quote=Samuel Taylor Coleridge]In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.[/quote]As an aside, if you ever refer to the Mongol script as "just" Hudum around a Foreign Office diplomat, you’re in for a thrashing.
[quote=Anchovies]As for the language of Xanadu, it may be just Hudum. A full century after Coleridge’s famous poem, ‘Xanadu’ would be widely recognized as the name of Kublai Khan’s summer palace (called Shangdu in modern pinyin). Hudum would make for some bloody good graffiti; here’s "Mongol", written in a few styles of Mongolian script and in Cyrillic. Alternately, it could have something to do with Parabola, because the Fourth City was rather experienced with the place. They built the Galleries of Serpents to imprison finger-kings, and The Silver Tree has a story branch where the player character delves into the weird world of Mongolian dream-shamanism.
Curiously enough, take a look at the first lines of ‘Xanadu’ and you’ll find another familiar name.
[quote=Samuel Taylor Coleridge]In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.[/quote][/quote]
My real-life experience with Xanadu consists more of alt rock than poetry, to be honest. Still, that is a very intriguing connection. Odd that what’s a location in the verse is a language here, though. It may just be a nod towards the old poem… but of course it may not. Might Xanadu be a location on the Surface? On the Elder Continent? Perhaps in Parabola?
edited by ReusedNPC on 8/17/2017
I’m pretty sure that Correspondence only catches fire in significant quantities, say seven symbols. As mentioned you can safely get one symbol as a tattoo without any conflagrations. The graffiti could also be bastardized Correspondence like the glyphs inside the lighthouse on Winking Isle.
Regarding Xanadu: The real Xanadu was the city of Shangdu, one of the (Mongol) Yuan dynasty’s capitals. The form we know is the result of a few unusual transliteration choices and popularized by Coleridge’s poem. It is in a sense a dream-city (and Coleridge wrote the whole thing from an opium dream), but the original is quite historical.
Regarding the language of Xanadu: As logical as it would seem to associate the phrase with Hudum, it is in multiple places directly connected to the Correspondence.
Regarding Horizon Glyphs: I have not found an identity for these anywhere, though their sidebar description of "neat pictographs" does rather distance them from the Correspondence. Also, the Making Your Name labels for Ladybones treats them as something separate from the language of Xanadu, so I think it’s fair for both reasons to say they are a different mystery altogether.
