Quotes / Fallen London

Fallen London

Doubt Street

"You're going to be rummaging around in the secrets of the mighty anyway. You might as well have an excuse and a method of publication to hand."

"Your morning ritual demands a newspaper of quality, even if you have to write it yourself."

Making the Truth
Newsprint, ink and journalists are unimportant. What matters is what people think, and you'll make sure that they're thinking the right things.

The Flit

Rob the Bazaar
Now, that is just the height of foolishness. Everyone knows that it is impossible to steal from the glittering black spires of the Bazaar.
They know nothing.
The vigilant Constables and numberless neddy men. The endless flocks of wheeling bats. The smooth towers carved with symbols that make your eyes bleed and hair smoulder. Do these things mean nothing to you?

Ladybones Road

A Smith's Cellar?
The smith shrugs. "His money's good." It would be. Devils' money is usually good.

Mrs Plenty's Most Distracting Carnival

"Pay for tickets to the carnival? Oh ho! How droll you are. The very idea!"

The Shuttered Palace

Call in favours at the Shuttered Palace
The cellars of the Shuttered Palace overflow. In some cases, literally. In some of those cases, wine. If you choose to ask a boon, some of it may be yours. You have earned a little present.

Opportunity Cards

A candid discussion with a devil?
'The effects [of losing one's soul]? Well, nothing one would really notice. A little depression of mood. A pleasing melancholy here and there. Perhaps a lessening in appreciation of beauty. But does not beauty cause so much of the world's difficulties? Look at these things - the contents of pockets and such. The detritus of spirifage. Are they beautiful? No. But they have value nonetheless.'

Places of Menace

A slow boat passing a dark beach on a silent river

[Dying feels] like going to sleep. If going to sleep really hurt.

A moment of pettiness
The Boatman hisses as he topples his king with a bony knuckle. "Enjoy it while it lasts," he growls. "You're all of you mine in the end."

A state of some confusion

You have lost your mind!
Don't panic. You may be able to get it back. In the meantime, everything is gold and red and marvelous.

What were you looking for?
D—ned if you can remember. Were you even meant to be looking for something? Unlikely. It's teatime and there are three kinds of jam today.

You are yourself again.
You would no longer be considered insane by most citizens of Fallen London. A dubious comfort.

Characters

The Duchess

"In the deepest matters of the Bazaar, always look to love. Always."

The Relickers

Capering Relicker: Let's play a game of dice. If you win, I'll give you my cherries. If I win, I get to hit you with a stick.

The Curt Relicker: This pickle fork was used in the assassination of... actually, no, I never said that. I'll just certify these and be on my way.

The Curt Relicker: Wait! I can see the code here. Well, almost. Monty, get the books! We decrypt!

The Shivering Relicker: Don't let [the Night-Whisper] near the Co... the language of Xanadu. Keep it away from the Bazaar spires, and the ruins of previous cities. Altogether too dangerous to take it there. It will talk back. You understand? It will talk back.

The Capering Relicker takes your scraps and with a great heave, throws them in the river. Next, he grabs Gulliver, and runs down the riverside holding the distressed rat above his head. Let's hope Gulliver can swim.

Ambitions

Light Fingers

You've moved to a new area: A small, velvet lined box. You can't see anything. You have just enough space to twist onto your belly or your back. Oh dear God. Oh dear God.

Stories

Recalling A Dream of Other Places

A dream of a vineyard
"There was kind of a sun...and the light that flooded the vineyard was thick as honey and red as port wine. We waited for the sun to speak, but it only watched us in sorrow. I knew then that it was waiting for us. As I woke, I thought that its light lingered somehow in my eyes..."

On the Velocipede Squad

Someone has been robbing drunks. Actually, someone is always robbing drunks. But the last drunk was the Chief Constable's aunt.

Experiencing Strange Times: Twelve Days of Mr. Sacks

Mr Sacks! Take my best regards!

A scoffing trill
"You, [gendertitle], are no more generous than you deserve. Good day." And he's gone, before you can untangle whether 'more generous than you deserve' actually means anything except 'I enjoy the sound of my own voice.'

A shrilling chuckle
"Of course, of course! I accept them in the spirit in which you conveyed them. Be well. All shall be well, you know. And all manner of thing. That was the promise. How I do prattle on. Sleep well! As will those below."

An Unusual Pail of So-Called Snow

It's noticeably different from most of the 'snow' in the streets. It has an oilier lustre, and the smell is not quite the same: ammonia, but touched with oil of roses. There is no indication at all that the stuff is safe. The wisest thing to do would be to dispose of it.
So what will you do?

Feed it to a Talkative Rattus-Faber
Hello, what d'you have there? Ooh, can't say I like the smell. Is it? Is it really? Are you sure? What, even behind my ears at the back? Mm, all right! Have you got a spoon? No, I don't mm mf fmfm mmff...

Failure: An unfortunate effect
Your pet spins around, shrieks heart-rendingly and collapses, stone dead. Almost immediately, it begins to deliquesce into pale goo. Quick! a mop!

Success: Silence at last
Your pet stops in mid-sentence and collapses like washing on a broken line. When you try to pick it up, you find to your distaste that a whitish fluid is already congealing on its skin.

Over the next day and a half, the fluid hardens into a cocoon of sorts. When your rat emerges, no naturalist would recognise it as a rodent. It is less talkative, for a start.

Dump it on the fire
Some memory tugs at you...

Success: A cloud of stinking steam
Yes... this is how the Mountain is remembered. When the Garden first was young, when the Neath was not the Neath, when the Earth had not yet set like candle-wax, when the jewels remained uncovered to casual sight. So sad, so long...wait. Who were you thinking?

Failure: Shivering and cursing
The temperature in the room plummets. The sodden grate smells like urine-soaked mackerel. Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea.

Drown a rat in it
Splash, splash. Let us have a tiny sacrifice.

Your own little well
All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL MANNER OF THING SHALL BE WELL SHALL BE WELL. ALL SHALL BE WELL. ALL SHALL BE WELL. SHALL BE WELL. SHALL BE WELL. SHALL BE WELL. SHALL BE WELL. NOT POSTPONED. NOT IN THE END. NOT FOR LONG.

Maniac's Prayer

Perhaps you can distinguish ghastly truths in here? Possibly is just rhymes funny.

Repeat a great many Maniac's Prayers
This is a plan without a flaw nor any possibility of error!

Some time later
A room. Possibly your room. You don't know the time of day, or which day it is, or your name. But these are trifles, and your hair will grow back eventually. What matters is what you have witnessed. The howling letters from beyond the reach of Surface telescopes!

Recurring Dreams

Recurring Dreams: The Fire Sermon

You dream that you're flinging books happily on to the Stolen River, the one they used to call the Thames. The river is on fire! Flames leap higher than the houses on either side. Every time you throw another book on, there is a flare of coloured light, like a firework, and a puff of sweet-scented smoke. You look down and realise with horror that you've run out of books: you are flinging your clothes on to the fire. When your clothes are gone, you begin peeling off skin and throwing that. You wake before it goes very much further.

Recurring Dreams: Death By Water

A dream about your home
Back on the surface! How charming! The moon is rising outside your window! And all your dear familiar things around you. Warm firelight. Birdsong outside. It's been so long since you've heard birdsong.
But the view outside your window isn't right
The moon shines on a flooded desert. The waters lap around the wreck of a dirigible. The night breeze that flows through the open window is cold and salt and sad. Your stomach growls.
You begin to gather your things
It'll be a long journey, but someone has to do it. If you don't get up there, who else will arrange matters properly? You heft your luggage and leave a note on the table: GONE NORTH.

Recurring Dreams: What the Thunder Said

The eye of the storm
Your mind's eye turns northeast, away from the sun. Dark clouds begin to mass on the horizon. They gather around you, blotting out the sunlight and the sea. All you can see now is soft, heavy grey mist. It enfolds you and envelops your consciousness. Thunder rolls. 'You wish to see through my eyes?' it says. 'So be it.'
You blink. You're back on the cliff. The storm clouds are gone, but your vision is... altered. The trees have a cast to them, as if their light is being refracted through a new prism in your eye. The air is heavy with the sickly foreboding that comes before a rainstorm.

I will dive into the water!
I will swim in the eye of the storm and reach the heart of the sea!
I leap! I fly!
I plunge into the black water. I slice through the onyx depths, describing a parabola. As I swim, the dark fills my eyes and I see through it, into the heart of the storm.

I have reached the thunder!
I am one with it. I rejoice.
The thunder loves me
I love the thunder. The thunder tells stories to those it loves. The thunder tells me of the correspondence between lover and loved and invites me into its heart. I see with the thunder's eyes. I demand to be loved!

I bid the wind speak
I laugh with delight to find it gusting here! I open my arms, and I welcome the wind! I ask it what news and it screams in my face! I roar back, my voice blending with the wind's, exultant!

Ask a question
Why are you here? You turn to one of the hooded figures and ask your question. You cannot see the face under the hood. Something red gleams in the shadow. 'It's just a dream,' says a voice. 'You made me up.'

Dreaming Strange Dreams: A Game Of Chess

You can go anywhere. You use secret passages to enter the rooms of your enemies, vulnerable in their sleep. You climb dark staircases and cross vast, silent halls. [...] You can do anything. Anything except scrub this gore from your hands.

Seeking Mr Eaten's Name

Seeking Mr Eaten's Name

Accept the Name!
Though you will forget it when you wake. Even the memory of the visit will be erased. Lacre cannot bury the law.
A trace of sadness, like the frost which silvers the night
The light on the edge of sleep was mine. I was Mr Candles. I will not be again.

The well gapes
This is the last time. The walls of the well are studded with chunks of glass-sharp obsidian. You knew it must be so. But if you bleed to death before you drown, it will be for nothing.

Your flesh rips as you fall. Both your arms and one thigh are ragged tatters. You scream with pain and fury into the water. Too much blood! You won't have time to drown. You won't have time to drown.

You arranged your own betrayal. You made yourself a target. The venal and the vicious could not resist it. But they didn't chain you. They beat you and robbed you. Why can they not understand?

A voice heard in a dream
"No, you damnable beast, I will not! A man's got to draw the line somewhere, and I won't, you hear me? I won't!" Then there is a scream and a silence broken only by the laughter of a hat.

So few of them know what you are. You speak and eat and smile like any other. Even your friends may not suspect. But sometimes it all gets too much. You are hungry.

Eat. Just eat.
You need something rare. Something rich and red. If it were still moving, perhaps? Oh God yes.

Police-whistles, and the smell of smoke
"For I was hungry, and I ate you. I was thirsty, and I drank you." What happened in there? Your memory is patchy. The cutlery. The difficulty with the tablecloth. That business with the mouse. If only it had moved faster. If only the sous-chef had been more co-operative.

"Have you ever been to the Iron Republic?"
Things are different there.
A long silence
Then a sound. Is she... is she weeping? "Yes," she says very quietly. "Just once."

[Another player] has set St Destin's Candle in your window. Or so they claim. It’s not even real. It’s something imagined in an empty space. But it has hollowed you out like a rotted nut.

Now we have the wax, which is the streak beneath our skin, and the wick, which is the faith we have skeined, and the tinder, which is the harm we have done to those who loved us, and the flint, which is the name, the Name, the treasure of music stilled. Now. It will hurt, we must render ourselves a little, there will be scars, but one more scar, what is that?

"Tonight. Snuff the lights. All the laudanum you can drink and more. Then you'll learn a thing about souls."

What is a secret? Only a truth untested. You've given up so much (and yet so much remains: shhh, we won't speak of it; there are never no secrets). Of the tested truths, a few fragments remain. A knife. A word. An hour. A cup. A candle. A promise. And now, a question.

You are always and still a moth to folly's candle.

Flavour Text

Flavour Text

Enough of these, and you'll know the secrets of earth and sea.
—Map Scrap

Mysteries are fire. Truth burns.
—Searing Enigma

Whose soul was this? A queen? A genius? A prophet? It's like looking into the face of the sun.
—Coruscating Soul

This is so. This is not so.
—Impossible Theorem

A really good look at that which men should never learn.
—Semiotic Monocle

Even you have a hard time taking yourself seriously in this extraordinary creation.
—Ridiculous Hat

You can't go wrong with an iron hat. Except that you look ridiculous. That's a problem, certainly.
—Iron Hat

Like wearing a live wolf.
—Insatiable Glove

What were you doing again?
—Bottled Oblivion

I saw it! Ask anyone! ...except her. Don't ask her.
—Dubious Testimony

"We shall complete you! You will delight in wearing us!"
—Moderately Co-operative Clothes Colony

"...what I had to go through to create this..."
—Iron Republic Journal

You never, ever want to put this hat on your head.
—Unfinished Hat

What could mark a soul?
—Stain on your soul

Were your eyes always such a dark grey? Did you hear what the Thunder said?
—Stormy-Eyed

You have observed, stolen, followed, decrypted and occasionally murdered.
—a fine piece in the Game

You stole that which cannot be stolen.
—Master Thief

Why? In God's name, why? Stop now. Before it's too late.
—Seeking Mr Eaten's Name

What...what did that place do to you?
—Changed By the Iron Republic

You're now important enough to be worth murdering.
—Enjoying Lethal Prominence: A worthy target

Why are you here? Are you here at all?
—Ambition: Enigma

Take comfort - there are arrangements for every reckoning.
—Fragment of the Tragedy Procedures

You cannot begin to measure the length of your journey unless you recall the person you once were. How much weaker, how much more fragile.
—Memory of a Much Lesser Self

It is not blackmail material, because it is not secret. But you know every vexing detail of the affair, and the ability to mention it just when it will have most effect.
—Mortification of a Great Power

Clay Man Stories

"IN POLYTHREME THE BED I SLEPT ON WAS A SLAVE. THE ROOM WHERE I SLEPT WAS HACKED FROM SCREAMING STONE. THE WATER I DRANK BEGGED ME TO STOP. THEY PAID ME IN COIN THAT PLOTTED MY DOWNFALL. THE MEMORIES ARE TROUBLING. THIS PLACE IS BETTER."

"I TIRE OF CARRYING BOXES."

Miscellaneous

The Starveling Cat has moved into your lodgings. May God have mercy on our souls.
—Message displayed when obtaining the Starveling Cat from another player

Something terrible has happened. Perhaps a server has caught fire, or a database flared and guttered like a dying star.
—Standard Error Message

If this doesn't knock their socks off, what will? Shakespeare rising from the grave to rip the spires off the Bazaar?
—Message displayed at the option of selling your short story as a classic

Character creation screen

May we ask whether you're a lady or a gentleman?

* A lady
* A gentleman
* My dear sir, there are individuals roaming the streets of Fallen London at this very moment with the faces of squid! Squid! Do you ask them their gender? And yet you waste our time asking me trifling and impertinent questions about mine? It is my own business, sir, and I bid you good day.

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