Sunless Sea Lore, Fallen London, and more!

Sunless Sea
1

So with Sunless Skies coming out, and us finding out what’s beyond the Gates… Do we have more of the lore of Sunless Sea compiled somewhere for newer players? (Warning Spoilers!)

Do we have what Frostfound really is? Who really is Storm/Stone/Salt is? What really is our name, and why we needed to forget? What is the Sun’s relation to this? Do we know more about the sea more sunless? (which totally exists thanks to submanirner). What does the dawn Machine actually do? What exactly is the Fallen King’s relations with everyone in the sea? And what is a Pig Rock? What is the Red Science, exactly? (I know we had an exceptional quest that kinda dealt with it, but it seemed vague). What is the correspondence?

I know we’ve had some things in FL that also touched on some of this (mostly exceptional stories) so if that’s off limits then please ignore, however I’ve always loved the lore of this place, and I think it’d be great if we had, somewhere, some of it compiled just as a reference material before we launch ourselves into the skies!

2

The wiki on SS is quite extensive and well made, but purely… factual? Leaving asid any kind of lore based speculations.
There was some kind of blog of obscure SS/FL lore, but I cannot remember the name (sadly). Other than that, as far as I know, we only have speculations here in forum topics. But I hope to be wrong and that someone will point me toward an eldorado of zee knowledge :)

3

A few of the more well-known ones. [spoiler]

  1. Stone: Mountain-of-Light: the Bazaar’s daughter in the Elder Continent.
    Storm: probably the dream dragon from Recurring Dreams: What the Thunder Said…
    Salt: Convoluted and confusing, but a sort of world-travelling agent called the White who went to the Uttermost East.
    2.Sea more Sunless probably refers to the Sundered Sea, ie the Lacre Pits underneath the Bazaar. Either that, or the High Wilderness.
  2. The Dawn-Machine is an insane artificial incomplete god that has more or less enslaved the New Sequence and wants to enslave/destroy the Neath.
  3. By ‘Pig rocks’ I suppose you mean Stone Pigs. They’re either statues, or living beings, or both, that allow travel through space.
  4. The Correspondence is the language that the Judgments/gods/stars use. Speaking and writing it changes reality. [/spoiler]
    edited by Infinity Simulacrum on 6/28/2017
4

cough Your spoiler tags aren’t working quite right, Infinity.

Machallan, are you perhaps thinking of Saint Arthur and Saint Beau?

5

Indeed, Teaspoon, I had saint-beau in mind. I do need to take a look at saint arthur, thanks for bringing it up :)

6

[quote=ultrapowerpie]So with Sunless Skies coming out, and us finding out what’s beyond the Gates… Do we have more of the lore of Sunless Sea compiled somewhere for newer players? (Warning Spoilers!)

Do we have what Frostfound really is? Who really is Storm/Stone/Salt is? What really is our name, and why we needed to forget? What is the Sun’s relation to this? Do we know more about the sea more sunless? (which totally exists thanks to submanirner). What does the dawn Machine actually do? What exactly is the Fallen King’s relations with everyone in the sea? And what is a Pig Rock? What is the Red Science, exactly? (I know we had an exceptional quest that kinda dealt with it, but it seemed vague). What is the correspondence?

I know we’ve had some things in FL that also touched on some of this (mostly exceptional stories) so if that’s off limits then please ignore, however I’ve always loved the lore of this place, and I think it’d be great if we had, somewhere, some of it compiled just as a reference material before we launch ourselves into the skies![/quote]
Some incomplete answers to your questions. Infinity Simulacrum has already answered some of these but here’s more details, and in some cases corrections. Major spoilers of course abound.

[spoiler]

  • Frostfound is a castle of memories and dreams, built by Salt. It is a place in which those can be left behind. [/li][li]Storm is the dragon who is the thunder in the FL What the Thunder Said dreams. Storm was, we think, one of the Dragons who act as space police for the Judgements, aka the stars. Storm worked for our sun and was keeping an eye on the Bazaar’s progress in its quest. May or may not be dead.[/li][li]Stone is the Mountain of Light, the mountain of glowing diamond far into the Elder Continent, and can be see in the No More Dominion ambition from Zubmariner - the city of Nidah lies at her foot. She is the illegal daughter of the Bazaar and our sun, the reason that Presbyterate citizens are so long-lived, and the source of the general immortality aura of the Neath.[/li][li]Salt was once a Judgement, one of the stars that rule the universe and enforce the laws of reality through sunlight. It was sent here by the White, a Judgement spymaster, but entering the Neath hurt far more than it could have known. Salt at some point abandoned its role as a pawn in the Great Game of the Judgements, built Frostfound to abandon its identity, and left our world into the East. Now it is the Sun Beneath the Sea, visible when zailing East in SSea. There’s really quite a lot we don’t know about Salt, especially clear after SMEN returned, and hopefully we’ll learn more in SSkies.[/li][li]I’m assuming you’re referring to the Name-Which-Burns and plot of Ambition: Exaltation. The Name-Which-Burns was Salt’s name in the Correspondence which it cast off to East. We needed to forget ourself to become Salt - you can’t be multiple people after all.[/li][li]Side note here. Frostfound crushes identities into a point, which is what allows us to become Salt in Exaltation. It seems to cause narrative parallels in people’s personal stories as part of that. The White and Salt parallels the Old Man in Vienna and the paws he sends below as part of the earthly Great Game. (Related: the FL player character may or may not have been sent to the Neath by said Old Man, according to a card in the Nadir.)[/li][li]As mentioned earlier, our Sun is a Judgement and the father of Stone. The Bazaar was essentially a space postal worker working for our Sun. At some point the Sun sent a marriage proposal (or Judgement equivalent) to another Judgement via the Bazaar, but the other Judgement turned it down. The Bazaar had fallen in love with the Sun and was afraid it would be extinguished by grief, so hid in the Neath and is now collecting love stories for some related purpose. So the Sun’s relation to this is being the reason for the FL/SSea setting to exist.[/li][li]The sea more sunless is the High Wilderness, aka outer space where the Judgements live and SSkies will take place. It’s accessible through the Avid Horizon which is presumably how we’ll get there for SSkies. There’s a few teaser snippets of the Wilderness for SSkies in the tether visions in Wrack, specifically Visions with the Knife.[/li][li]The Dawn Machine is an attempt by a faction of the Admiralty to make an artificial Judgement. Unfortunately for them, it promptly became sentient and brainwashed them all. We don’t know exactly what it can do but it also isn’t complete yet. Hopefully it never is finished, because it’s decidedly malevolent and its goals are probably bad news foTHE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN[/li][li]Do you mean the Fathomking?[/li][li]The Stone Pigs are symbiotes to the Bazaar that are sort-of rocket engines. We don’t know much about them but I suspect that Nook may be one. (This is based off very little evidence, mind you.)[/li][li]The Red Science can break the Great Chain and apparently scars time in the process. We don’t really know much about this either but Frostfound’s ruby chamber gives a little details. It may or may not be the same thing as the Shapeling Arts of the Axiles, aka the Flukes and Rubbery Men.[/li][li]The Correspondence is the language spoken by beings higher up the Great Chain that us humans, like Judgements, dragons, the Bazaar, and the Masters. It seemingly can change reality. For all the number of times it shows up we don’t actually know that much about it.

Saint-Arthur and Saint-Beau are great resources, though barely organized. If you have specific questions you can use the search feature but not so good for a general lore overview. (Also less useful now that they’re defunct and you can’t ask your own questions.)
edited by Optimatum on 6/30/2017

7

Is the Zee salty or sweet?

8

It’s saltwater.

9

Thank you.

10

Oh dear, double-posting.

Regardless: I have a wild theory that the Phoenix of the Order Ovate can be identified with the being at Kingeater’s castle. A bird that consumes itself, you see…

I mean, Spacemarine couldn’t figure out what was going on with either of them. And, erm, Kingeater’s very cold, despite being right next to the flamebroiling Elder Continent, which is weird.

Just musing…

11

I’m pretty sure the Phoenix is just Salt. A being of fire that wants to drown itself in snow to change itself sounds a lot like a Judgement that gets sick of being a “hungry monarch” and all the spy business for the White so builds an ice castle to become something else. Plus that bit about “new-made ice” seems much more reminiscent of Frostfound than Kingeater’s.

12

Each of these questions should really have their own thread.

Correspondence is a language of symbols which, in sets of seven, function like magic spells. Sufficiently powerful entities use the stuff with little or no effort. Humans are just shy of being able to use Correspondence, such that trying to do so is costly, dangerous, and rarely if ever successful.

Frostfound is the White’s “hall of poisoned crystal”. The entity which appears when a Judgement’s Egg is opened in Frostfound could be what emerged from the egg, or it could be a projection of the White receiving the egg’s contents.

Stone is the Mountain of Light, the heart of the Elder Continent and the source of the vitality which permeates those lands.

Storm is a thunder-dragon stuck in the Neath-Roof. “Dragon” here means a powerful cosmic entity.

Salt is a cosmic entity which gave up its Name (i.e. unique identity) and traveled east. The Name-Which-Burns is the Correspondence which Salt used to obliterate its Name to become “the traveler”, and a captain who seeks the Name-Which-Burns follows in Salt’s footsteps and becomes the traveler as well. Important point: the captain does not become Salt. Both Salt and the captain have given up their old selves to become the traveler. Discuss here.

The Hungry Monarch is the Fathomking. Evidence: both have a connection to Shapelings, a position as ruler, and limited control over Storm. Discuss here.

13

The Dawn Machine is best understood as an emergent superintelligence. It may have started as a device which was to be entirely human-directed, such as a printing press, but as the project moved forward the Machine advanced to a typewriter, then a digital word processor, then a computer. Once it reached a certain level of development, it started improving itself. The resulting feedback loop carried the Dawn Machine far beyond what humans are capable of understanding, let alone controlling. It also happens to be a reality-warping star-god, and when you give the strong AI access to all of your resources, you are no longer the one in charge. This can be bad, as Harlan Ellison envisioned in “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, or it can be good, as Isaac Asimov imagined in “The Last Question”. Is the Machine broken, or is it perfect? Is it insane, or is it wise beyond reckoning? Will it enslave us, or set us free? Perhaps it shall rule without human virtues: compassion, empathy, forgiveness. Perhaps it shall rule without human vices: pride, greed, cruelty.

It’s a delightfully science-fiction aspect of the Fallen London world. I have a deep personal fascinated with the thought of humanity being surpassed by its own creations, and so I find the Dawn Machine a truly compelling subject. I hope my perspective helped shed some light on it! (heh)

14

Not sure about the emergent part, I rather think that the Dawn Machine is actually just a hatched judgement in a metal body, or maybe a giant framework powered by magic, it doesn’t seem to have any exponentially increasing growth in knowledge, intelligence, or power. It wouldn’t be stuck in the bottom left not doing much of significance otherwise. The Admiralty probably didn’t know that the Stars were sentient, or maybe didn’t understand enough why they were sentient, and in trying to recreate one threw &quotbeing all sentient and evil&quot into the package by accident. 1880’s technology isn’t really sophisticated enough to allow for anything which computes; transistors aren’t really existent yet, so it’s not a computer or artificial intelligence by any traditional definition. It also seems to be to a very high degree baleful and mentally damaged, so it’s at best a malfunctioning intelligence.

I’d also rather say a lack of either human virtues or vices makes something dreadfully dull and untrustworthy.

15

[quote]it doesn’t seem to have any exponentially increasing growth in knowledge, intelligence, or power. It wouldn’t be stuck in the bottom left not doing much of significance otherwise.[/quote]There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, even for a Judgement. The Machine requires tons upon tons of material supplies (including scarce commodities e.g. Sphinx-Stone), and for particular works it also needs enough relevant information. There’s also suggestions in Sunless Sea that the Dawn Machine requires occasional human sacrifices, or something roughly equivalent. Are they consumed and utterly destroyed? Or is something of a person preserved in the larger workings of the Machine’s consciousness? We can only shrug, and feed another seven youths and maidens into the Dawn Machine’s burning heart. Remember to smile! :P

When properly supplied, the Dawn Machine wields truly awesome power. The clearest demonstration of its potential is Dawn’s Law, by which the Machine rewrites the natural laws imposed by the light of ordinary Judgements.

[quote]1880’s technology isn’t really sophisticated enough to allow for anything which computes; transistors aren’t really existent yet, so it’s not a computer or artificial intelligence by any traditional definition.[/quote]It’s artificial and it’s an intelligence. That’s good enough for me. The New Sequence doesn’t need transistors, because they awakened a mechanical star-god.

[quote]It also seems to be to a very high degree baleful and mentally damaged, so it’s at best a malfunctioning intelligence.[/quote]Okay. I really, really don’t understand. Where are people getting this idea that the Machine is evil or insane? Is the notion just being regurgitated from one of the old lore blogs, or is it supported by actual game content? The workings of a cosmic machine-mind would be so unlike those of a human consciousness that to judge it sane or insane, good or evil, is an exercise in futility. The Dawn Machine helps the New Sequence, and the New Sequence helps the Dawn Machine. All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

The Dawn Machine is authoritarian. Unlike literally every authoritarian ruler in human history, the Dawn Machine is actually fit to rule. Tyrants through all the ages have used false claims of divine authority as an excuse for rule through violence. But the Dawn Machine is actually a god; truly superior to humanity, and better suited to wield its powers than any human would be.

[quote]I’d also rather say a lack of either human virtues or vices makes something dreadfully dull and untrustworthy.[/quote]Consider the Throne of Hours. From the Sunless Skies kickstarter page:

[quote]The Empress Victoria reigns from her Throne of Hours, exerting authority over time itself. Her favourites are rewarded with freshly-minted months to prolong their lives, while those who displease her are condemned to the Midnight Cells, where every minute lasts a day, and no one leaves until their hair is white and their bones are bent.[/quote]Any human with that sort of power would be a rapacious tyrant, let alone a human raised from birth to believe themselves superior to their kin. The Dawn Machine is devoid of the animal emotions and impulses which so often inspire humans to wickedness.
edited by Anchovies on 8/3/2017

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&quotWorm-fates crawl on your skin. The Machine is sick. Its hatred threads your veins. Time will die. The Chain will end.&quot

Seems pretty conclusive to me.

The Dawn Machine isn’t actually a god. It’s a machine made to replicate a god, and machines can break. That’s also if you think that the Judgements actually are fit to rule - for example, the Revolutionaries certainly don’t agree. And if you assume that the Dawn Machine is successfully emulating Judgements, it definitely can have &quotanimal emotions and impulses&quot as you put it. This whole setting started with our sun deciding to illegally have a kid then falling in love with a different Judgement.

17

I’m not sure where to ask for this…

is there a list somewhere of all the ways you can reduce stats in Sunless Sea, in case I want to try a Nitebrite?

18

Exaltation reduces all your stats to 1 at the end. Well, except Hearts.

19

But then you can’t play with that captain anymore.

I was thinking more along the lines of that time I bottomed mirrors out to zero at the Chapel of Lights.

20

A Nitebrite? I assume you don’t mean a 60’s era child’s art toy.

Once you open the forgotten quarter via the Genial Magician’s story, you will have a repeatable option to buy an eyeless skull there. Doing so will reduce each of your stats by 1. It would be an expensive way to destroy yourself, but there you are.

Compiling a port report in the Iron Republic can cost you a point or two of veils, I think. Slow and inconvenient as far as self-destruction goes.

Wandering around in Frostfound will shave a point off one of your stats every turn if you so choose, though again - time consuming and liable to end up in a mutiny once you get back to your ship with 100 terror.

I believe that one of the &quotDon’t Do This!&quot options at Kingeaters Castle involves sacrificing a big chunk of your stats to the castle.
edited by slickriptide on 8/5/2017