Questions and Observations Regarding A Palatial Estate in the Arctic Circle

Fallen London
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21

Why not? It’s their native tongue.

The Sugarplum ES demonstrated that the Masters are more than happy to break out their first language for a petty argument over literal crackers.

And let it never be forgotten that the Masters’ involvement in the Youthful Naturalist’s destiny boiled down to tapping a Correspondence paperweight once between signing tax forms.

The Correspondence is a royal pain in the ass for us as player characters to deal with. For the Masters? Not so much. And as acquisitive and obsessive as they are? It would not be even slightly out of character for them to enforce any land deal with High Wilderness legalese.

22

My apologies, I misspoke. What I intended to convey was really more along the lines that the Masters got the Arctic land as gifts from world powers attempting to attract the eyes of the Bazaar. Of course, if anyone would write a contract to acknowledge receiving a gift, it would be the Masters, I still want to emphasize that they never bought the Arctic land, nor did they offer to purchase it. They were freely given that land by whoever owned it first, and as such whatever agreement or document that gave them ownership of that land was almost certainly written by the country of original ownership; the leaders of which probably cannot read or write Correspondence.

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23

You raise a great point here, I totally see what you’re saying!

24

You don’t need to read or write the language a contract is written in to sign your own name on the dotted line, and as I attempted to outline above? Writing up a boilerplate Correspondence contract to go with the human-language one they were first offered is an afterthought for a Master.

As far as I can tell, per the wording of the actual snippet? My interpretation seems correct.

And it seems to me like most criticisms of said interpretation hinge on the assumption that the Masters aren’t being upfront/literal… at the one point in Heart’s Desire when they’re forced to actually be upfront about what they can and can’t do for you.

  1. You can become one of us! In a hundred years, with no small amount of pain involved.

  2. You can be adored! For occupying a purely ceremonial position in a doomed city.

  3. You and London can have all the time you need! Actual amount of time TBD by Bazaar.

  4. You can have your own luxurious private demesne above! In a location comparable to the Hurlers in terms of hospitability that you can only visit freely during the 6 coldest months of the year.

  5. You can also flip us the bird, and ruin our card game! (Please don’t, we’re terribly bored down here.)