I feel like there should be some sort of group dedicated to studying Parabola now. Like a Parabola club.
[li]
If anywhere was going to be the focal point it would be the Bazaar, surely?
Oh my god you are brilliant.
I hope it’s not too late to respond, but I found some things about Parabola.
It seems like the Bazaar has a long history with Parabola. Sorrow spiders travel through mirrors, and it made a past city cover all of its mirrors. The sidebar claims that cats ruled the Second City, but the Masters don’t talk about the Second City much. Now the cats patrol Parabola, and fight with bats. I wonder if creatures from Parabola tried to invade the Bazaar before it was in London. People go to either the garden or mountain to find eternal life. The Sidebar snippet confirms that the mountain is in the Elder Continent. It says "That vast continent to the South with a glowing mountain at its heart…"Now we need to find out how to reach the garden. Eventually there should be some crossovers.
What content should I be following to find more about the Parabola and the Mountain? (Since my Destiny scared me off the Liberation of Night.)
Well visiting the marshes is your best way. The Gallery of serpents expedition is quite interesting too.
A quick word about the bees, I seem to recall that the Nemesis ambition (mine, alas, my poor brother) has a few more details about the various honeys and the bees. There may be hints in there? I did it AGES ago though, so I just cannot remember if there’s anything relevant. thumps head on desk trying to shake details loose Nope.
Still, I thought I’d mention it in case someone has a better memory than me. It’s times like this I really miss the full-text wiki.
The bees in Nemesis arn’t tied to Parabola. Rather they are tied to a certain rare flower…
So side note: Glassmen can establish basecamps in Parabola for the cost of 99 dreams of someone being there, 1001 memories of light, an impossible theorem and some other stuff i forgot. This seems interesting.
Anyone a member of the temple club? I don’t remember where, but somewhere online I was reading the options and it seems you get possessed by a fingerking. So if someone whos done that could go back and check, or if they could send me an invite so I could check it, Id really appreciate it. Also, there’s some sort of thing they say about the Bazaar not being allowed to claim any Christian cities or something like that, so it might offer an insight :)
No it’s not a finger king. Atleast i dont think it is.
I don’t remember what the exact text was (which is why I was hoping someone could check), but I do believe your character gets posessed after looking at a statue of a serpent.[li]
EDIT:
Found it :) Not sure if I’m allowed to post the text or not, as it isnt fatelocked and is technically available to anyone for free, but did cost money to unlock while it was available, so I suppose it will just get redacted or something if it isnt supposed to be here. Now lets see if I can get this spoiler thing right
[spoiler] You walk over to the fountain. The serpent spews airag with ophidian calm. The smell of it is all around you. It’s overpowering. Now you can taste it. It fills your mouth. Your lungs. You’re drowning in airag. You cough and retch. Other members come over to help you, but they can do nothing. You black out.
And then it’s gone. You can breathe again. The others are staring at you. ‘No need to shout,’ says a red-faced aristocrat. You beg his pardon. ‘You were ranting! And in a funny accent, no less! Lot of nonsense.’
You enquire further. ‘Warn the kings of the West’, you said, and ‘The Bazaar cannot be allowed to deal in Europe. Its eye must not fall on a Christian city!’
[/spoiler]
edited by Zephyr15 on 12/17/2013
Doesnt appear to be a finger king. Parabola can only be accessed in the neath to my knowledge. Probably the ghost of someone. Why there is a ghost i dont know but it seems most neathy-logical.
The Temple Club is in the Neath.
Yeah i know. What i mean is, Why whould a fingerking contact someone on the surface? Why whould they care about christianity? It seems awfully strange.[li]
(( To clear up the confusion. The message seems aimed at the surface. Considering the temple club was ofcourse a 4th city temple it does make a bit of sense that a fingerking could desperately have tried to send a message. Still strange. ))
edited by Blackleaf on 12/17/2013
Edit: I don’t really get why Christianity is mentioned either, assuming there’s a concrete reason for it. There’s probably a good reason why, but I couldn’t begin to guess.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 12/17/2013
edited by Sara Hysaro on 12/17/2013
[quote=Blackleaf]Yeah i know. What i mean is, Why whould a fingerking contact someone on the surface? Why whould they care about christianity? It seems awfully strange.[li]
(( To clear up the confusion. The message seems aimed at the surface. Considering the temple club was ofcourse a 4th city temple it does make a bit of sense that a fingerking could desperately have tried to send a message. Still strange. ))
edited by Blackleaf on 12/17/2013[/quote][/li][li]
I dunno, it seems to me more to be aimed at the bazaar, or at the masters. The subject was about certain locations on the surface, and I am not sure what their interest in the surface, or in Christianity is, but I think its a safe assumption that anything serpent in the neath is either a fingerking or related to them. And I suppose the church could be involved with whats going on in the neath more than we know… They do seem to be thriving don here, and using different aspects of the neath to their advantage. And we do know of a certain bishop who allied (or allies?) with the fingerkings[/li][li]
[/li][li]Also, the Temple Club may be a fourth city temple, but that doesnt mean the temple was built when the fourth city was on the surface. We know from expeditions that they continued building shrines and whatnot after the fall. Shrines that had very much do to with serpents. (I really do think anything serpent is fingerking…)[/li][li][/li][li]
edited by Zephyr15 on 12/17/2013
Hmm, if that’s the case then… side-eyes her pale and serpent-shaped neathymon
My interpretation: the message if from the protagonist of The Silver Tree, and delivered much too late.
That was my interpretation, too. The character’s mission was, after all, partly to make the Masters look away from Rome as the Fourth City.
Still not sure about whether the serpent in the fountain matters. It was part of the real-world silver fountain, so it could just be that. The Hound of Heaven, though… that could be more significant.
[quote=Sara Hysaro]Edit: I don’t really get why Christianity is mentioned either, assuming there’s a concrete reason for it. There’s probably a good reason why, but I couldn’t begin to guess.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 12/17/2013
edited by Sara Hysaro on 12/17/2013[/quote]
Well, I’d say the first reason is added creepyness, in the moment you realize this has already happened. The instant shocker is deconstructed in the very next sentence XD (There’s another neat exmple of this narrating technique in the Transformers "More than meets the eye" IDW comic series).
Agreed.
That was my interpretation, too. The character’s mission was, after all, partly to make the Masters look away from Rome as the Fourth City.
Still not sure about whether the serpent in the fountain matters. It was part of the real-world silver fountain, so it could just be that. The Hound of Heaven, though… that could be more significant.[/quote]
The Hound of Heaven does seem like a silver serpent. I would have said it was a reference to the fountain, if the Theological Husbandry storyline didn’t predate the Silver Tree. So, unless Failbetter Games planned the Silver Tree very in advance, it does look like a reference, Or maybe it’s just a coincidence or a red herring. (Furthermore, serpents seem to be a leitmotiv of the Bishop of Southwark, considering that both his plans so far - creating an artificial creature and finding allies - involve snakes. That could be just a joke, considering that he didn’t seem too keen on the snakes matter at first XD).