- raw goat. Honey. Wine. Possibly worse.
edited by suinicide on 4/3/2018
21 at least is a reference to a pretty tragic bit in Jude the Obscure - why the rats are doing it, though, I’ve no idea. Maybe there are just too many of them? :P
-
Storm is a dragon, basically a space cop. It went to the neath because funny business was going on there. At some point it made a deal with the Masters/Bazaar that limited the number of cities the Bazaar was allowed to take to 7 as a kindness (the Bazaar’s plan is a bit far-fetched and probably wouldn’t work).
Not sure how it died, but I imagine it’s pretty angry due to the fact it’s dead. -
Too many rats so they kill one and send it to you.
-
If I remember correctly, in the Gift one of the royals wanted to eat you (could be totally wrong, it was the second Fate-locked thing I played and I didn’t know how to echo stuff). Most of them got twisted in some way, shape, or form and the only one that seems more or less human is the Captivating Princess. At least the Captain was pretty nice.
edited by JainaEgo on 4/3/2018
edited by JainaEgo on 4/3/2018
- We have very little concrete information about Storm; we don’t even know for sure if it’s really dead. It’s one of the Dragons that work for the Judgements and is presumably in the Neath because of the Bazaar.
Since Storm’s purpose is to enforce the law (probably via murder) I wonder if it had to self-destruct in order to show the Bazaar mercy.
Storm’s thoughts and dreams seem to be stuck bouncing and echoing around the cavern roof of the Neath, giving it a sort of second life. This is probably why the Neath is sometimes referred to as the skull of a long-dead pagan god: it houses Storm’s mind!
That would make sense. There’s also the whole http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mind_of_a_Long-Dead_God which has to do with Storm stuff.
I’ll continue to update the first post but at this point it seems easier to update you folk here as well on the reddit discussion (I’ll leave you to read the above yourselves):
New Unanswered:
- Can sentient nonhumans or Drownies be members of the Church in Fallen London? Asked by evergreenmonster (This is a question to direct roleplaying, so while many of us know about a certain secretly nonhuman church member, the question is more about church policy.)
New Fully Solved:
-
Why are moon pearls useful for clocks? Asked by evergreenmonster, answered by me: The appearance of moon-pearls changes predictably over time to match the phases of the moon, which seems useful for a timekeeping device.
-
So if death doesnt happen in the 'neath how does aging work? Do people age slower, not at all, what? Asked by evergreenmonster, answered by me: People continue to age, although I get the impression the decay is more about accumulated damage and a reduced ability to recover from wounds. Eventually you become a tomb-colonist, and eventually the tomb-colonists who do not find a better ending start to lose their ability to speak, to see, etc.
edited by TheThirdPolice on 4/5/2018
-
Note that Tomb-Colonists who live long enough also go mad outright, hence the Sanitarium. All Things Must End tells us that the oldest ones can even see the Far Country, where the permanently dead go.
-
No clue if they officially can join the Church, but Drownies pretty much never leave the water if they can help it. The ones in Dahut have their own church, but their worship is about the Fathomking and the sea rather.
Proximity to the Mountain of Light (Stone, located in the Elder Continent) makes aging a lot less severe. Folks anywhere in the Neath could live a very, very long time if they don’t suffer too much, physically, but those living close to the Mountain can live longer, if I’m not mistaken. At the very least, the Presbyter (head of the Presbyterate’s College of Mortality) can give people eternal life and take it away - the Presbyterate Adventuress was doomed to age and live only 100 years for her father’s sin of living beyond his allotted 1000 and members of the College of Mortality are immortal. Whether this is due to proximity to the Mountain or some other property is unknown to me.
Yes, the Mountain is the source of eternal life and those who control its Garden are able to distribute this gift as they see fit, though the mechanism is unknown.
I suspect that the Presbyter doesn’t actually have any method of giving or taking eternal life. Citizens are not allowed to live past a thousand years, but the Presbyterate Adventuress’s father did just that, so it’s clearly possible. As such I suspect citizens are supposed to submit themselves to execution on their thousandth birthday.
Also, re: aging, the Adventuress notes that she’s much older than she looks, so proximity to Stone does visibly slow aging outright.
Both a Fallen London Destiny and a Sunless Sea Ambition allow the player to attack the Presters in order to gain Eternal life and grant it to all men (or your chosen ones), so direct control does seem possible. If we’re nitpicking I guess those stories only reveal that your character thinks it’s possible, but its impossibility would be quite a disappointing plot twist.
To clarify, I meant that I doubt that the Presbyter has any control over immortality other than governmental power. Being close enough to Stone seems to cause immortality, given the enforced limit on lifespans, and the past Presbyters and Nicator. Having access to the Garden means your character could at minimum give everyone Hesperidean Cider. Although some Wines upconversions hint that Cider doesn’t give full immortality without Garden access.
Does Hesperidian Cider come from the garden? I was under the impression it was made from apples from Parabola.
Who is Nicator?
Also, the Presbyterate Adventuress was destined to age a lot more severely than the folks in Fallen London seem to. It seemed like on some level the Presbyter was able to actually affect that, although I could have just misinterpreted her story in Sunless Sea.
The cider is at least heavily related to the garden, as it gives visions of it.
Nicator was a (the first?) Presbyterian king, who died because of something he saw in the mirror. He appears in SMEN, rather worse for wear.
The adventuress was being hunted, so the presbyter could give her that death.
Hesperidian Apples grow in the garden, which is only accessible by winged creatures. Sometimes they drop the seeds outside of the garden though, I think? You do find a hesperidian apple in a dream in Sunless Sea, I forget how it got there.
The Capering Relicker was the first person to brew hesperidian cider from the apples but he’s unfortunately a bit loopy, so good luck getting any useful answers out of him. Dude’s thousands of years old. (though his nephew the Manager of the Royal Beth seems much more coherent)
Since we’re on the topic of the Mountain:
THIS COUNTRY - MOUTH-OF-THE-RIVER - THIS WAS THE PLACE OF HER OVERTHROW
…what’s it about?
[quote=suinicide]The cider is at least heavily related to the garden, as it gives visions of it.
Nicator was a (the first?) Presbyterian king, who died because of something he saw in the mirror. He appears in SMEN, rather worse for wear.
The adventuress was being hunted, so the presbyter could give her that death.[/quote]
True, but in Sunless Sea you can gather Hesperidian Apples in Parabola (uses up a Searing Enigma and boots you out).
She was being hunted, but she was also beginning to age. I suppose that could just be because she was so far from the Mountain of Light.
[quote=Aniline]Since we’re on the topic of the Mountain:
THIS COUNTRY - MOUTH-OF-THE-RIVER - THIS WAS THE PLACE OF HER OVERTHROW
…what’s it about?[/quote]
Sounds like Adam’s Way. Not sure what overthrows may have happened where London is now. I don’t recall any other locations where rivers end/begin (there aren’t a lot of rivers in Sunless Sea as it’s about the Zee. Only referenced rivers other than the Stolen River and Adam’s Way is the river of dreams, but that doesn’t end at Hunter’s Keep, IIRC).
[quote=Aniline]Since we’re on the topic of the Mountain:
THIS COUNTRY - MOUTH-OF-THE-RIVER - THIS WAS THE PLACE OF HER OVERTHROW
…what’s it about?[/quote]Most of the all-caps quality texts you get in destiny locations are actually taken from the Pyramid Texts, mainly the Cannibal Hymns.
[quote=Utterance 282]"O this country (xAs.t) Mouth-of-the-River,
this is the place of my overthrow.
This country, Mouth-of-the-River belongs to me, the Gold of the Praise,
It is xaj-tA.w of the praise, this your ox,
the renowned one, against whom this has been done."[/quote]For the Castle of Forest’s OPEN ARE THE DOUBLE-DOORS OF THE HORIZON…
[quote=Utterance 220]"Opened are the double doors of the horizon; unlocked are its bolts.
Alternatively: The doors of the horizon open themselves, its bolts slide."[/quote]Down Among The Flukes has THERE ARE GODS WHO LIVETH ON THEIR FATHERS, FEEDETH ON THEIR MOTHERS, which also comes from the Cannibal Hymns.
[quote=Utterance 273]"Clouds darken the sky,
The stars rain down,
The Bows [a constellation] stagger,
The bones of the hell-hounds tremble,
The porters are silent,
When they see king Unis,
Dawning as a soul,
As a god living on his fathers,
Feeding on his mothers."[/quote]The Liberation of Night gets its I HAD A DREAM, WHICH WAS NOT ALL A DREAM from Lord Byron’s Darkness, breaking the Egyptian pattern.
[quote=Darkness]I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;[/quote]
For the fifth and only remaining desting, A Long Road, I don’t have the slightest clue. ASCEND NOW TO YOUR PLACE IN THE SUN never comes up word-for-word in what Egyptian texts I’ve seen and it’s the sort of phrase that could pop up just about anywhere.
[spoiler]On the topic of references to Egyptian texts, the option for sending an Antedeluvian Ushabti to somebody is titled "I repeat to you the good deeds which my own heart did for me from within the serpent-coil", which comes from the Coffin Texts!
[quote=Coffin text 1130]Hail in peace! I repeat to you the good deeds which my own heart did for me from within the serpent-coil, in order to silence strife…
I made the four winds, that every man might breathe in his time…
I made the great inundation, that the humble might benefit by it like the great…
I made every man like his fellow; and I did not command that they do wrong. It is their hearts which disobey what I have said…
I have created the gods from my sweat, and the people from the tears of my eye.[/quote][/spoiler]