History NightmareFuel / SunlessSea

* [[AdultFear Salt's Curse]]. If you go to London without lifting Salt's Curse, you will lose your lover, and your child as well, if you have one.

* Kingeater Castle. An abandoned shrine to the gods on the edge of the Zee. The architecture is bad enough, but the dark rituals that you can conduct there for things such as the the Fulgent Impeller cement it as a place of dark, incomprehensible and otherworldly power.
** There's a huge stone limb jutting out from the zee near Kingeater. Zubmerging allows you to see the massive statue of a person it's attached to. [[FridgeHorror It looks like it's in the middle of gasping for breath]].

-->"The sun is black. ''It squirms.''"

--> In an wide space behind the Hollow Temple, you happen across a stepped platform of sorts. Four statues guard it, marked with glyphs all but lost to time and idle vandalism. They look a little like the glyphs that decorate the Echo Bazaar in London, though...
--> At the heart of the platform is a long-filled well-shaft, too. You poke about briefly, but something in the place makes you uneasy. A frost-moth - the size of a farmer's hand - flutters down to perch on the well's edge. Another. A third. You retreat...

-->No blemmigan will ever prosper here.

--> "...vanished, every one, all on the same night. On the wall of the room where your heir slept, we found this message painted: TRAVELLER RETURNING. No other trace remains. The Constables are baffled. My most heartfelt condolences..."

** [[MadnessMantra THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN]]

-->[[NothingIsScarier Welcome back. Nothing has changed. There's been some progress, of course]]

** The Tree of Ages. Remember the sorrow-spiders from Fallen London, and how they could form [[TheWormThatWalks spider-councils]]? The Tree of Ages is one lurking near Saviour's Rocks, one ''[[BigCreepyCrawlies bigger than a dreadnought]]''. The picture that appears for the event when you kill it is quite creepy as well, showing a humanoid figure towering over what looks like a city, completely covered in spiderweb. Also, the spiders at Saviour's Rocks are planning to form the [[UpToEleven Tree of Eons]], presumably incorporating the Tree of Ages into something '''''even larger.'''''

* The Chapel of Lights is arguably the most horrifying location in the whole game, maybe even the whole franchise. On the surface it's quite whimsical, filled with voices, music, and many, many candles, and hey, they even have free food! Then you learn the inhabitants worship [[EldritchAbomination "The Drowned Man"]] (that is, ''[[GreaterScopeVillain Mr Eaten]]''), and suddenly the Smiling Priest's charity seems a little...[[IAmAHumanitarian fleshy]], and your captain is feeling rather [[HorrorHunger Unaccountably Peckish]]...

** Claiming it's signature weapon, the [[BrownNote Irrigo]] Cannon, reveals that the cannon is actual an ordinary gun firing supernaturally charged ammunition. While you can apply the same irrigo-boosted gunpowder to your own shells for a substantial boost to your Irons, you learn that your magazine is now host to ethereal whispering.

* Avid Horizon, like its FallenLondon incarnation, is NothingIsScarier made into a place. There's the stars above, the two statues, and a gate. That's it. There's nothing else, anywhere in the area. And you get no clue as to why it's there, or where it leads. Or, more importantly, whether it's unopenable from the other side as well, as remarked in the Port Report. Looking at it underwater is also pretty unsettling, it glows red compared to the rest of the ice shelf and is covered with creepy sigils, and directly underneath it is what looks like volcanic magma which is only found underwater next to Mt. Palmerson.

** ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'' finally answered the mystery of the eye, which depending on your inclinations makes it better... Or far, far worse. [[spoiler:The Eye is a Judgement. More specifically, it is a looking glass for The Halved, the Judgement of Eleutheria and one of the main propagators of the Liberation of the Night. It emits anti-light, which strips away law wherever it lands. And it has been watching the Neath ''all this time'' through the Eye and knows how things work in locations with no sunlight. And if you dived into it, [[TouchedByVorlons you're now bound to it]], likely forever.]]

** Putterponies are deep-zee cargo haulers from the Khanate, easy prey for an enterprising captain, but if you're feeling charitable, you can opt to hear the last wishes of the crew as their vessel sinks. Failing a Hearts test nets you the soul-chilling sight of their hands frantically slapping at the glass of the airlock, pleading for an impossible rescue from the ship that doomed them. Succeed, however, and a single woman appears at the porthole, and with her final breath mouths to you across the void, "Neither of us should be here."

* The Chapel of Lights is arguably the most horrifying location in the whole game, maybe even the whole franchise. On the surface it's quite whimsical, filled with voices, music, and many, many candles, and hey, they even have free food! Then you learn the inhabitants worship [[EldritchAbomination "The Drowned Man"]] ([[spoiler:that is, ''[[GreaterScopeVillain Mr Eaten]]'']]), and suddenly the Smiling Priest's charity seems a little...[[IAmAHumanitarian fleshy]], and your captain is feeling rather [[HorrorHunger Unaccountably Peckish]]...
** The services in the Chapel are all rather creepy, but [[spoiler:St. Gawain's service trumps over them all. The ritual to create St. Gawain's Candle, which you can subject yourself to, consists of keeping a person alive via Correspondence sigils as their head is cut off, their organs are scraped out, and the now hollow interior is pumped full of burning hot wax and the spine is replaced by a wick. It's non-fatal: the sigils keep you alive afterwards. Oh, and said wax is said to have been donated by lesser worshipers (that is, rended from their ''body fat''), and the wick is said to span from the crown of your head all the way to [[GroinAttack the hollow of your groin]]. Feel free to puke now.]]
* Your captain can be a terror as well, ''especially'' if they're Unaccountably Peckish. A certain ritual done in [[spoiler:Kingeater's Castle, upon the poor Sigil-ridden Navigator]], will tell you as much, and you easily partake in rituals and meals that involve slaughtering someone and feeding them to your unknowing crew.

** The Tree of Ages. Remember the sorrow-spiders from Fallen London, and how they could form [[TheWormThatWalks spider-councils]]? The Tree of Ages is one lurking near Saviour's Rocks, one ''[[BigCreepyCrawlies bigger than a dreadnought]]''. The picture that appears for the event when you kill it is quite creepy as well, showing a humanoid figure towering over what looks like a city, completely covered in spiderweb. Also, the spiders at Saviour's Rocks are planning to [[spoiler: form the [[UpToEleven Tree of Eons]], presumably incorporating the Tree of Ages into something '''''even larger.''''']]
** Mt. Nomad. A grandchild of [[spoiler: the Sun]] and child of the first Snuffer (see below), that lurks near the Chapel of Lights and Avid Horizon. "There are reasons no one likes going near the Avid Horizon. Mt. Nomad is at the top of the list". It can wield the [[LanguageOfMagic Correspondence]] as well, much like a Lorn-Fluke, befitting of the relative of [[spoiler: a Judgement, [[EldritchAbomination the Bazaar]], and the Fathomking]]. Nothing quite compares to seeing a mountain of black glass, looking like a Lifeberg gone wrong, cruising leisurely over the edge of the screen towards you.

** What do you learn about it later? [[spoiler:That it's, in a sense, [[EldritchAbomination alive]], likes brainwashing people, it's taken over a chunk of London's admiralty, it plans on usurping the Judgements, and more importantly, ''it hates you''. The machine only wants to rule, and you're either a pawn or something to be deleted]].

** There's a quality called Supremacy: The Dawn Machine. And yes, it can be maxed, leading to [[spoiler:the damn thing ''winning'']]
-->[[spoiler:[[NothingIsScarier Welcome back. Nothing has changed. There's been some progress, of course]]]]
** Worse yet, ''Videogame/SunlessSkies'' strongly implies that [[spoiler: the clockwork sun in the heart of Albion is the Dawn Machine]]. In other words, [[spoiler: the Dawn Machine, canonically, [[TheBadGuyWins managed to take over at least part of the world]].]]

** In said nightmare, conquering the eye is as simple as running away. [[spoiler:[[NightmareRetardant As the Eye never actually attacks you, that wisdom will serve just as well in reality.]]]]
** It gets even better underwater when you have the Zubmariner DLC, as the eye is terrifyingly detailed, ''and its pupil always follows your ship''. As soon as you get near it, the music is abruptly muted, terror jumps by 10, and you get a message saying "We are beheld!" [[spoiler: It turns out that it's more or less a kind of entrance to some unknowable realm, and that it's apparently connected with the Liberation of the Night, adding to the mystery of just exactly what the hell it is or why it's there.]]

** While most things have at least some explanation in the lore at large, King-Eaters Castle ''does not''. There is only the vaguest notion of who built it, when it was built, and for what purpose. However, if you're knowledgeable in the ''Fallen London'' lore, you can realize that this is most likely the place [[spoiler:where Mr. Candles was given to the leaders of the Third City so that they could [[CannibalismSuperpower feast on its flesh to grant them untold power]]]]. That's right: [[spoiler:''this is where Mr. Eaten, a.k.a. the Drowned Man, was betrayed'']]. Still feel like staying? The possibility that it is ''not'' that place, which also has evidence backing it [[note]]Mostly that it's too far from any of the fallen cities, and that Mr Eaten is supposed to be North under granite; this place is to the uttermost Southeast[[/note]], is equally unnerving, too. That would mean [[spoiler:Mr Eaten]] and whatever happened here are separate terrible events, as if one wasn't enough.
** Kingeater Castle also seems to have ''some'' kind of connection with Salt, the sea god, as a questline added in the ''Zubmariner'' expansion allows you to gain Salt's attention (and lift Salt's curse) here. [[spoiler:Entering the centre of Frostfound alludes to a 'terrible hunger' that the traveller left behind when it went East, which could make Kingeater Castle the physical incarnation of Salt's hunger, left behind in the Unterzee... Or just the end result of what happens to a place when a god decides to give up something in a physical location.]] Either way, ''not'' a pleasant place.

** Having high enough terror leads to a scene where, upon pulling into port, your nightmares gain physical form and "line up on the quay, waiting, waving like old lovers." [[spoiler:Subverted if you accept their invitation -- your embrace of them ''halves'' your Terror and gives you Fragments.]]
* The Low Barnet seems rather tame, at least compared to most of the other locations. Until you ring the bell. [[spoiler: The Bell is alive, and some sort of EldritchAbomination. You get a terrifying first person description of what it does to you]]

* It is possible to pick up "a Raggedy Fellow". Or not, where he curses you "to be abandoned, just as you abandoned him." [[spoiler: This turns out to be a very good idea, for there is a chance that he is a Snuffer. The first sign you get is finding a peeled off face on the decks, that of the Raggedy Fellow, and you begin losing crew to the Snuffer. Thankfully, there are a variety of methods to stopping him. Including your crew rearranging his organs and tossing him into the zee.]] But if this continues to the point where it's just you and one crew member... Good luck. [[spoiler: For you might murder your own human crew member, or the Snuffer kills you and escapes. Or you are the Snuffer.]]

*** The part about haunting your nightmares? Worse than it sounds. Whatever it is you give, you will lose an equivalent in the real world. And the angrier Sacks is, the more direct the loss; by the time you're throwing crewmen away, they're dying "coincidentally" back in the waking world. [[spoiler:And if you have nothing to offer, you can only offer yourself... [[NonStandardGameOver And he'll gladly take you]]. [[NothingIsScarier The last thing you hear is the desperate calls from your crew to try and wake you up, before leaving nothing but the black silence of the sack]]]].

** Recovering the corpse of a Neither sees you dispatch a pair of hapless divers, only for them to be quickly and brutally sucked into the churning, dissolving mass and consumed. One lives long enough for you to behold their fear-twisted face, crying out in terror before the mass envelops them. You assure yourself that it's impossible, but the crew insists they could hear the screaming through the hull.
** Putterponies are deep-zee cargo haulers from the Khanate, easy prey for an enterprising captain, but if you're feeling charitable, you can opt to hear the last wishes of the crew as their vessel sinks. Failing a Hearts test nets you the soul-chilling sight of their hands frantically, helplessly slapping the glass of the airlock, pleading for an impossible rescue from the ship that doomed them. Succeed, however, and a single woman appears at the porthole, and with her final breath mouths to you across the void, "Neither of us should be here."

*** The part about haunting your nightmares? Worse than it sounds. Whatever it is you give, you will lose an equivalent in the real world. And the angrier Sacks is, the more direct the loss; by the time you're throwing crewmen away, they're dying "coincidentally" back in the waking world. [[spoiler:And if you have nothing to offer, you can only offer yourself... [[NonStandardGameOver And he'll gladly take you]]. [[NothingIsScarier The last thing you hear is the desperate calls from your crew to try and wake you up, before leaving nothing but the black silence of the sack]]]].

* [[spoiler: The ritual to create St. Gawain's Candle, which you can subject yourself to, consists of keeping a person alive via Correspondence sigils as their head is cut off, their organs are scraped out, and the now hollow interior is pumped full of burning hot wax and the spine is replaced by a wick. It's non-fatal: the sigils keep you alive afterwards]]

** Kingeater Castle also seems to have ''some'' kind of connection with Salt, the sea god, as a questline added in the ''Zubmariner'' expansion allows you to gain Salt's attention (and lift Salt's curse) here. [[spoiler:Entering the centre of Frostfound alludes to a 'terrible hunger' that the traveller left behind when it went East, which could make Kingeater Castle the physical incarnation of a God's hunger, left behind in the Unterzee... Or just the end result of what happens to a place when a god decides to give up something in a physical location.]] Either way, ''not'' a pleasant place.

** Mr. Sacks is one of the only things on the zee your character will be [[TheDreaded abjectly terrified by]]. You have to carry out his assignments, such as [[KickTheDog bringing hunger to the adorable Pigmote Isle]], otherwise he will haunt your nightmares, take your money or fly into a rage and damage your ship.

** "The Crimson Beast of Winter waits in your hold..."

* It is possible to pick up "a Raggedy Fellow". Or not, where he curses you "to be abandoned, just as you abandoned him." [[spoiler: This turns out to be a very good idea, for there is a chance that he is a Snuffer. The first sign you get is finding a peeled off face on the decks, that of the Raggedy Fellow, and you begin losing crew to the Snuffer. Thankfully, there are a variety of methods to stopping him. Including your crew rearranging his organs and tossing him into the zee.]] But if this continues to the point where it's just you and one crew member... Good luck. [[spoiler: For you might murder your own human crew member, or the Snuffer kills you and escapes. Or you are the Snuffer.]]