So, in the course of my investigations into Salt, I was reminded of the existence of the Neath’s Mysteries card. Now, said card let’s you increase one of four qualities through a social action. The qualities you can increase are Walking the Fallen Cities, Approaching the Gates of the Garden, Touched by Fingerwork, and Seeing through the Eyes of Icarus.
Now, the first three, well, they’re pretty apparent as to what they are connected to. Fingerwork increases in connection to Fingerking storylets. Fallens Cities in connection to the prior four Fallen Cities. The Garden increases in connection to Death, and the Garden itself is something the Dilmun Club is seeking.
However, that leaves one quality: Seeing through the Eyes of Icarus. Just what the hell is this connected to? I know it’s used in the violent Toys story, but I’ve also gotten it recently on Bullbone Island (working on research for my Owl), and you can get it in Parabola. Sure there’s other places to get it, I just haven’t compiled a list yet. What connects all these things together?
Linguistically, it sounds a lot like it COULD deal with the Bazaar. After all, Icarus flew too close to the Sun. But that really doesn’t explain some of the weird places I’ve increased the quality. Seriously, what does Mandrakes on Bullbone have anything to do with this?
Seeing through the eyes of Icarus is about the travelers between stars, the order of the Great Chain and the Correspondence, and about escaping that order through dreams, Neathlight, and Amalgamy.
That seems awfully broad for a single quality. Nor does it appear to answer the connection to the Toys. It maybe could connect to the Mandrakes, and I understand that the correspondence would have a connection.
It also seems like a particularly refined answer. Did I accidentally make a superfluous point, and it’s already been discussed?
I note that one of the storylets that increases the Icarus quality is the ""dream about an angry mountain." That sounds like Storm to me, and having the Icarus story connected to her is consistent with Grenem’s guess of "life" in odd and perhaps unnatural forms.
And while we’re at it, think about this too. Icarus, in the Greek legends, is a craftsman/scientist/engineer who discovered how to fly with wax wings, and plummeted to his death when he flew too close to the Sun. Now think about the fact that the Bazaar loves stories of tragic love. Perhaps Storm loved Icarus, but he loved the Sun instead?
That, I suspect, has to do with their birth from the King with a Hundred Hearts’ dreams in some way. Wonder if there is more to their origin than we’ve yet seen
That seems awfully broad for a single quality. Nor does it appear to answer the connection to the Toys. It maybe could connect to the Mandrakes, and I understand that the correspondence would have a connection.
It also seems like a particularly refined answer. Did I accidentally make a superfluous point, and it’s already been discussed?[/quote]
The Great Chain includes beings below men. The Cousins are just below, the Rubbery Axiles below them (for now…), and the Clay Men. But the Clay Men at least have a fragment of a soul. Below even them are toys and statues which could receive a spark of the Mountain’s Heart but have not yet done so. The Clay Men consider them to be dead, or perhaps sleeping.
The refinement of the answer is the result of IRC conversations, lore posts from SM9’s Blog, and some considerable thought given to the matter previously. Don’t take it as definitive, certainly, but it shouldn’t be more than a little bit wrong.
The Great Chain includes beings below men. The Cousins are just below, the Rubbery Axiles below them (for now…), and the Clay Men. But the Clay Men at least have a fragment of a soul. Below even them are toys and statues which could receive a spark of the Mountain’s Heart but have not yet done so. The Clay Men consider them to be dead, or perhaps sleeping.
The refinement of the answer is the result of IRC conversations, lore posts from SM9’s Blog, and some considerable thought given to the matter previously. Don’t take it as definitive, certainly, but it shouldn’t be more than a little bit wrong.[/quote]
Hmm. I was aware of the Chain and placements on it, but not that there were things ranked below us as well (I did recall that the shapelings were particularly despised). While that answers the toys question for me, it doesnt seem to connect Bullbone. The other three qualities I mentioned are pretty specific in their categorization, Death, prior Cities, Is-Not. Icarus does not seem to have that same specificity. True, categorization is a concept of the mind, and I’m trying to pigeonhole things, but it just seems like Icarus has a defining quality, one I’m not grasping. While it does seem like it might be connected to those things you have mentioned.
And before we just say ‘everything is bound by the chain’, well, okay, let’s just get rid of all the other qualities, and only have ‘Enchained’.
I guess you could summarize it as “Straining Against the Bonds of the Great Chain”.
The Mandrake’s involvement is a bit of a puzzler, but having looked at the text, I think I have a reasonable explanation:
Mandrakes, like the Exceptional Rose, are plants at the cusp of being something greater on the chain. They talk(ish), they move, they sense their environment. They’re all but animal while still being vegetable.
Conversely, the success text on Bullbone talks about you feeling the call of the soil and wanting to take off your boots and wiggle (root?) your toes in the loam. I read this as the same pull that the Principles of Coral feels in Sunless Sea: being lesser on the Chain is more peaceful and less existentially painful.
Like “the Mommy” says in Choke “You don’t see fish agonized by wild mood swings. [Sea] Sponges never have a bad day.”