History VideoGame / FallenLondon

Fallen London can be played [[http://www.fallenlondon.com/ here]]. ''[[http://silvertree.storynexus.com/ The Silver Tree]]'', set [[TheVerse in the same universe]], was funded through Kickstarter. A spinoff game, ''VideoGame/SunlessSea'', is available on Creator/HumbleBundle, Website/GOGDotCom and UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. Its sequel, ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'', was released on 31st January 2019, and its story involves heavy spoilers for this game. A prequel VisualNovel, ''VisualNovel/MaskOfTheRose'', arrived on UsefulNotes/{{Kickstarter}} in February 2021, and was released June 8, 2023.

** The Location of an Underground Organ, the reward for getting 40 Renown with the Rubbery Men; is weaker than one fate-locked item and gives the same bonus as the Unexploded Mine, the rewards for 40 Renown with the Docks, which is much easier to acquire favours with, making the Rubbery alternative virtually obsolete; and requires the player to access a location that requires unlocking with real money. Not only is it arguably among the weakest Renown 40 rewards, it is also the most difficult to get, and the only reason to get one is if you want to collect all the Renown items or you just really like Rubbery Men.

* MissionControlIsOffItsMeds: During the world event about delivering unexploded ordnance, you could find your own way or stake success or failure on a single roll by working with your destination's signal lamp operator. Fail, and your character had time to wonder why the man would send "STRAIGHT AHEAD", "HAZARD", "AVOID" in that order before the explosion.

* MissionControlIsOffItsMeds: During the world event about delivering unexploded ordnance, you could find your own way or stake success or failure on a single roll by working with your destination's signal lamp operator. Fail, and your character had time before the explosion to wonder why the man would send "STRAIGHT AHEAD", "HAZARD", "AVOID" in that order.

* ReflectiveTeleportation: All reflective surfaces can be used as portals to [[DreamWorld Parabola]] by those who know to use this ability. There is an entire science (Glasswork) dedicated to the study of this power, and one of the tricks experts can do (including the player character in the second half of the game) is travel from one mirror to the other; long-distance crossings, espionage and even assassination are easily carried out using mirrors in the right places. This is one ''big'' reason Londoners are careful with mirrors; another reason is that humans aren't the only ones that can do this.

* BizarroApocalypse: The oft-mentioned "Liberation of Night" increasingly looks like one of these the more you advance into the lore, with light as a concept being removed from existence. The truth of it entails [[spoiler:the complete destruction of all law, including the laws of nature and reality, and of both its creators ([[SentientStars the Judgements]]) and their law-enforcing light. Those proposing it hardly see it as a cataclysm, finding the Judgements are too tyrannical to suffer and ''literally anything'' would be an improvement, but it's hard not to see it as an apocalypse all by itself]].

** While the details are unknown due to [[DoNotSpoilThisEnding the creators advising players to not spoil them]], Seeking Mr Eaten's Name has three endings depending on whether you Grieve, Hate, or complete an optional branch that lets you ask about Salt instead.

* ArcWelding: The ''player themselves'' can engage in a bit of this at [[http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/Why%3F one point in the "Seeking Mr Eaten's Name" Story]], where the player character is asked why they persist in their quest despite their assured destruction. You can choose from over a dozen (!) possible responses, and some of them reference Stories that occurred earlier in the game. For example, you can imply that your character has never been the same since, say, their visit to the Iron Republic or being exiled from the Shuttered Palace.

* AnachronicOrder: The game's myriad of storylines can usually be progressed independently and at any time. This means that after you sit down for tea and conversation with somebody, you can embark on a voyage to sea, spend months governing a colonial outpost, sail back, and resume your conversation with no time having passed at all. This is justified in-universe as [[spoiler:the Treachery of Clocks, one of the Seven Treacheries. The Neath is a giant cavern, free from the light of [[OurGodsAreGreater the Judgements]] which determine the laws of reality, including such laws as "effects follow their causes." Consequently some events are free to happen out of order or multiple times.]]

** The Iron Republic is free from all laws, up to and including the laws of physics.

** If you want the Secular Missionary or the Revolutionary Firebrand as a companion or spouse, you must side with that person the first time you leave the Cave of the Nadir, meaning that obtaining one permanently locks out the other.

* AbsurdlyHighStakesGame: The Marvellous, focus of the Heart's Desire ambition, is "a notorious card game in which you can stake your soul and win your [[TitleDrop heart's desire]]". And you can lose worse than "just" your soul; just look at [[spoiler:the Topsy King, who bet his mind and lost it]].

** The various sigils of the Correspondence can affect the things they interact with in strange and mysterious ways, but the most common way is by setting them on fire. This is why the safest way to store such sigils is on huge plaques of lead; regular paper just burns. However it also means that whenever a steady source of heat and light is required, a few Correspondence sigils in the right place are the way to go. [[spoiler:The Discordance has the opposite effect, freezing anything it touches, but so far no practical application has been found for its extreme cold.]]

Welcome, [[CatchPhrase delicious troper]]. ''Fallen London'' (formerly ''Echo Bazaar'') is a [[BrowserGame browser game]] produced by Creator/FailbetterGames. It's set in the eponymous city, a [[BeneathTheEarth mile underground]] and a boat down the river from {{Hell}}, where people are either piecing together the mystery of what exactly happened, trading souls, or just politely murdering other people. Players start off as prisoners plotting to break out, and after that... they're free to do whatever they want.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: A number of them appear, though never by the name they're best known by. There appear UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud, Creator/CharlesDickens, Victoria and Albert, Pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt, Creator/OscarWilde (though it seems like he came to a tragic end), Charles Babbage, and [[spoiler:one or more of the royal families of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Möngke Khan]]. The PlayerCharacter of The Silver Tree is based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Rubruck William of Rubruck.]]

* WorkplaceHorror: Many of the storylines involve the characters treating the various horrors of the Neath as workplace inconveniences. The Exceptional Story The Bloody Wallpaper is a standout example. In it the player is charged with working a shift at the [[BedlamHouse Royal Bethlem Hotel]] and the horror comes equally from the threats and dangers within the hotel itself, and the soul crushing horror of having to [[StepfordSmiler keep smiling]] while dealing with the inconsiderate and disgusting guests. It is equally comparable to a surreal nightmare and a tough shift at a bad service job.

* WorkplaceHorror: Many of the storylines involve the characters treating the various horrors of the neath as workplace inconveniences. The Exceptional Story The Bloody Wallpaper is a standout example. In it the player is charged with working a shift at the [[BedlamHouse Royal Bethlem Hotel]] and the horror comes equally from the threats and dangers within the hotel itself, and the soul crushing horror of having to [[StepfordSmiler keep smiling]] while dealing with the inconsiderate and disgusting guests. It is equally comparable to a surreal nightmare and a tough shift at a bad service job.

* WhaleEgg: The FictionalHoliday of Whitsun involves collecting and hatching eggs that contain a number of unsettling pets, bizarre companions, and freaks of nature. [[ExaggeratedTrope They can also hatch into clothing]].

** August 2023 added an [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity+1]] (or [[InvertedTrope Negative-Infinity-1?]]) of these items in the [[TheJinx Weasel of Woe,]] which drops your late-game stats by ''10'' and your base stats by a whopping ''250'', well above the regular {{Cap}} for both. It also greatly increases your Wounds buildup.
--->'''Description:''' It's not the weasel's woe. No, this weasel brings ''you'' misfortune.

* BandagedFace: Major characteristic of Tomb-Colonists, and one of the neutral-gender options has your face wrapped up, a la TheInvisibleMan.

** Reaching 10 Renown with a faction grants access to an item that grants a bonus of 4 to a single highway stat. All of these items are outclassed by rewards of the Making Your Name stories (which cost no Echoes and are very easy to get), Bazaar items that are cheaper than the corresponding faction's Connected item (which is needed to grind Renown in the first place) or the Judgemental Hat (which costs no Echoes ''nor'' actions). Adding to the fact that a fair amount of Favours are needed to reach 10 Renown themselves, and each of these items requires you to draw the faction's opportunity card and spend 3 Favours, it's better just to spend the Favours elsewhere or store them and beeline for the higher Renown items, which are often more useful.

* DiscOneNuke: Through access codes or events, it is often possible to acquire high-level items (like the Judgemental Hat or a Scuttering Squad) far earlier than you should be able to normally. These items trivialise a bunch of gear, but they are usually not best-in-slot, even when limited to Bazaar gear only (except the Portable Lamp-Post, which is the only 2 BDR Home Comfort that doesn't require spending Fate, completing an Ambition or doing very-late-game content).