DukeLawliet
Posts: 121
3/5/2012
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That phrase keeps coming up. They say they are elder monsters beneath the Neath...but...somehow, I feel we'll see them more often. My personal theory is that theyr'e somehow tied to the pillars, and the Mottled Man.
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a Nice Friend
Posts: 127
7/24/2017
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During Christmas you can feed lacre to actual pigs, and rather than killing them or mutating them or causing them to explode, it just puts them to sleep.
Lacre is also what keeps the stone pigs asleep.
Pigs confirmed. It's pigs. (It's pigs!)
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Definitely a nice friend - http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/a%20nice%20friend
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Anchovies
Posts: 421
4/1/2017
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I'm firmly of the position that their name is not because they oink or have curly tales. The Stone Pigs are part of the Bazaar, and like many things about the Bazaar, the way we know of it is some distance apart from its true nature due to an inability of the human mind and senses to fully perceive and comprehend it.
Specifically, the Pigs are the Bazaar's engines, which through mechanisms unknown carried the Bazaar across the High Wilderness before it went into hiding in the Neath. Engines need fuel. Interstellar engines need lots of fuel. The Stone Pigs are pigs not in shape or temperament, but in appetite. Where in Fallen London might we find mineral resources to sate the Pigs' hunger? Look no further than the Bazaar's personal attendants.
"Mine."
Mr. Stones is tired of Fallen London. Presumably, that means a desire to return to the High Wilderness, which in turn requires the Bazaar to be prepared for its eventual departure from the Neath. A departure which will require not only the seven cities' worth of love stories the Bazaar came to the Neath for, but also enough fuel to get the Pigs up and running again. Mr. Stones is stingy with his supplies because every diamond, every crystal, every block of marble traded away is one less morsel to feed the Bazaar's engines.
edited by Anchovies on 4/1/2017
edited by Anchovies on 4/1/2017
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Perhaps our role on this planet is not to worship God — but to create Him.
—Sir Arthur C Clarke
Lionel Anchovies. Character on indefinite hiatus.
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Vexpont
Posts: 137
4/5/2017
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Anchovies wrote:
I'm firmly of the position that their name is not because they oink or have curly tales. The Stone Pigs are part of the Bazaar, and like many things about the Bazaar, the way we know of it is some distance apart from its true nature due to an inability of the human mind and senses to fully perceive and comprehend it.
On the other hand, some of us scoffed when told that London had been 'stolen by bats’, only to later be forced to admit that it'd literally been stolen by bats. I'm going to remain agnostic on Stone Pigs.
Actual swine or not, my hunch is that someone on the writing team is a fan of William Hope Hodgson’s ‘Carnacki’ tales. Specifically, The Hog, where ‘pig’ could indeed be the way the human mind interprets something it can only sense as an insatiable appetite -- or perhaps it’s a genuine nebula-sized pig, which somehow manages to be far more ludicrous, but also unreasonably worse.
A favourite story of China Miéville's, I believe. Proof that no concept is too weird if you sell it with utter conviction.
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Dangerous to my enemies; loyal to my friends. Not too handy at telling the difference.
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Vexpont
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WireWolf
Posts: 29
2/26/2015
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Sunless Sea has pretty much explained that the Stone Pigs are the Bazaar's engines.
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When Mortals from the path of Honour stray,and strong passions over reason sway,
What are they then but Brutes? ‘Tis vice alone that constitutes. Th’enchanting wand and magic bowl,
The exterior form of Man they wear,But are in fact both Wolf and Bear,The transformation’s in the Soul.
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Arcturus Paleheart
Posts: 4
8/2/2015
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WormApotheote wrote:
We only vaguely know what they are even with sunless sea. Also... [spoiler] During the Tireless Mechanic's quest line, when you take him to Frostfound for the secret he stole from the stone pigs, he essentially informs us that the stone piglet he finds there is his mind's literal interpretation of what he stole. Given what he uses that to eventually build, we can assume that the Fulgent Impeller, the best engine in the game which has a sage as its heart mechanism and sometimes calls to mortals to become its fuel, is a mere fraction, a child's version, of the Stone Pigs that the Bazaar utilizes.[/spoiler]
edited by ReidlosToof on 8/2/2015
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Rupho Schartenhauer
Posts: 787
3/5/2012
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I think they're the EB version of Lovecraft's "Great Old Ones"...
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Rupho Schartenhauer has killed a Master, well: most of it.
Cortez the Killer has killed a Master, definitely.
Deepdelver has become the progenitor of London's brightest star. It's... complicated.
Dr. Kvirkvelia, gone NORTH on 23/12/1894.
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Lily Fox
Posts: 346
3/5/2012
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The things we call Devils, and the Masters too, they cannot be the worst that Hell has to offer. I imagine they are merely... halfbloods and thinbloods, lower orders of the infernal races. The elder monsters are perhaps greater demons (not Great Demons, merely greater by comparison with the residents of the Brass Embassy). I dare not speculate as to their intelligence or motives but I am confident that, should they ever wake, the Neath shall know destruction such as we have never seen. Perhaps that is in fact their purpose - to wipe the slate clean before a new city arrives.
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@LilyLayer4
Fallen London character: Lilith B.
Author of Maelstrom - Play - Discuss
Author of City of Phire - Play - Discuss
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Lord Hoot
Posts: 47
8/2/2015
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Do you suppose they're literally porcine, or are they called pigs because they devour things greedily?
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TheThirdPolice
Posts: 609
8/3/2015
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Lord Hoot wrote:
Do you suppose they're literally porcine, or are they called pigs because they devour things greedily?
One of the sidebar hints (which are not guaranteed to be reliable) suggest that the name is a mistranslation. I figure this was Porcus, pig, confused for Orcus, god of the underworld.
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Excessive Corpse & Tender to Irreal Ravens
Lover of Flawed Souls
And with especial pride, Worst Screwup of the Decade!
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
7/24/2017
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Vexpont wrote:
Actual swine or not, my hunch is that someone on the writing team is a fan of William Hope Hodgson’s ‘Carnacki’ tales. Specifically, The Hog, where ‘pig’ could indeed be the way the human mind interprets something it can only sense as an insatiable appetite -- or perhaps it’s a genuine nebula-sized pig, which somehow manages to be far more ludicrous, but also unreasonably worse.
A favourite story of China Miéville's, I believe. Proof that no concept is too weird if you sell it with utter conviction.
Well wasn't THAT just the cutest thing I've ever read! Thank you for making me aware of its existence 
edited by Kukapetal on 7/24/2017
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al2o3cr
Posts: 66
3/31/2017
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There's a bit of text on the way to Flute Street that
[spoiler]
at least suggests the Pigs are physical entities of some sort that are sleeping. Very LARGE entities.
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/nedemmons?fromEchoId=2175225
[/spoiler]
Sadly, there's no option on that card like "bring back your Revolutionary friends and all the dynamite you can get your hands on to see what happens". Nothing *good*, I suspect. 
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slickriptide
Posts: 97
7/24/2017
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Teaspoon wrote:
I wonder what happens if someone wakes up the Stone Pigs on purpose.
I mean, I'm mostly wondering if any Revolutionaries have thought of this as a way to destroy London. Or save it.
Sunless Sea offers the suggestion that the Masters utilized the Stone Pigs in some fashion to melt out the tunnels connecting the locks that make up the Cumaean Canal. Then again, what do random superstitious zailors know about it?
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Slickriptide
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Teaspoon
Posts: 866
7/24/2017
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I wonder what happens if someone wakes up the Stone Pigs on purpose.
I mean, I'm mostly wondering if any Revolutionaries have thought of this as a way to destroy London. Or save it.
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Truth lies at the bottom of a well.
https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Alt%20Ern
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3Squirrels
Posts: 38
8/3/2015
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Not really certain if this is overspoilery, but better safe than sorry?
[spoiler]Perhaps it's several mistranslations at this point, if it an attempt at voicing Correspondence? The in-game effect of that language seem to be faltering, confusing translations at best and a complete lack of words for it at worst. I'd wager each city that's fallen has had someone figure out what they are, but lacking words in their own language for what they saw or felt, they're left groping for a proper phrase and we're left with this?
Maybe this is just the more recent one, from London's Fall, and there's other weird mistranslations from prior cities as well. I'd be keen to see what other cities wrote on the subject; maybe we're not all thinking pigs?[/spoiler]
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Eddy Gale, The Unburdened Cracksman - Available for all your burglary-related needs.
Brought to you by Three Squirrels Who Game.
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Masterpiece
Posts: 6
3/31/2017
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Picture the Enterprise from Star Trek. The Bazaar is the saucer section. The stone pigs are the drive nacelles. The Masters are the officers. The Rubbery Forehead Men are like random Vulcan civilians already on board before the show started.
London is like Season Five of Star Trek Earth.
Note: don't ask the crew about Season Two or about Mr Chekov.
edited by Masterpiece on 3/31/2017
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
2/26/2015
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Bit of a spoiler there, O Wiry Wolf - maybe chuck that in some spoiler tags! (And, that said, even if we know what they are, we don't know -what- they are.)
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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