Fallen London lore wall of text

Still here? Well then.

A long, long time ago, before Earth actually congealed into a proper planet, lived an entity of indeterminate species that is seen by many as sort of crab-like, whom we know now as Echo Bazaar. This nice alien spacecrab was working as a Messenger.

Whose messenges did she carry? Why, those of the Stars, of course. For Stars, also known as Judgements, are very very important and also very busy maintaining the Laws of the Universe. ALL of them. They create them, transmit them and maintain them through their light. Their language is what we now call the Correspondence.

But back to the spacecrab! One day the Messenger was sent by some other star to bring a message to the Sun. And you know our Sun! So nice and shiny and likeable. Whatever their reasons and predilections, the Bazaar and the Sun fell in love. Not only that, but they also procreated! Oh, and that message the Bazaar was supposed to bring? It sort of didn't get delivered. And you know how the Stars feel about undelivery of messages (remember the thingy in Nuncio's basement?)

Even worse than said undelivery were those love and procreation shenanigans. Because you see, the Stars maintain a very strict hierarchy of being. One might call it the Great Chain of Being. It's sort of part and parcel of the laws of the universe. And one of the things the Stars forbid? Involvements, entaglements and other suspect dealings from differents points across the Chain. And no matter how awesome the Bazaar was (and his awesomeness is kind of questionable), it was never near being on the same level of the Chain as our Sun, who, being a Star, was right at the top. Obviously.

So the Sun hid their Daughter -The Mountain of Light - in the Neath, a convenient space inside newly formed Earth where the Sun, ahem, don't shine. Which means that the Laws aren't all that strictly enforced in here, and said daughter can be out of sight of the Judgements. Being a star-worth of vitality shoved inside a reasonably-sized mountain, the Mountain overflows with life and makes everything around her alive (yes, even stuff we tend to consider inanimate) and immortal. Even far away from where she resides (which is the Elder Continent that forms the South coast of the Zee) living beings tend to... not die. Mostly.

Anyway! Either at the same time or a bit later, the Bazaar came down to the Neath too. But unlike the Mountain, which was forcibly hidden (and actually kinda wants to leave, but fortunately can't on account of being a mountain and thus rooted in one place), the Bazaar is here on a mission. See, he wants to prove in the court of Judgements that their love with the Sun can and should be allowed to exist. To do that, she is collecting love stories, and inscribing the best and most fitting of them on its carapace in flaming Correspondence sigils.

And in order to... generate a lot of those stories in close proximity, I guess... the Bazaar steals cities. Well, he buys them. But those deals tend to backfire. Still deals they are, and they are brokered by the Bazaar's Masters. The not-so-aptly named Masters are Bazaar's servants that it recruited at various points of her travels through the High Wilderness (meaning space). Masters all at this point of their existence are Alien Space Bats. Literally. But some of them might've been something else, species-wise, before. Who knows.

Unfortunately, the whole city-stealing business has a deadline of Seven Cities, and the poor Bazaar is on her Fifth and apparently still no closer to solving his Romeo and Juliet situation. Why does it need to change cities from time to time? Who knows. But it seems that something about the Neath makes people not fit to generate appropriately transgressive but amazingly true love stories, as time passes. So when the city is wrung dry of its potential, one or several Masters go to the Surface to find another suitable one. They always aim for giant bustling cities that stand on crossroads of trade and are hearts of empires (they got cheated once on those terms and are still cranky about it). They find someone who has absolute authority over a city fitting their criteria, court them with amazeballs promises, and at some point said leader finds themselves in such a desperate situation that they take the deal. Masters and the Bazaar actually deliver what they promise! And a new city falls down over the old one. Literally, by the way. Crushing the remaining inhabitants (and there usually are plenty of those)...

But enough about that! I wonder how they will bargain for a Sixth city, since I doubt that Future Earth will tend to have a lot of great trade cities that can be bought through the authority of a single person. Heh.

So there you have it. In the deepest matters of the Bazaar, always look to love.


First City was probably Tell Brak, or slightly less likely, Uruk. It was sold by its Priest-King, who became the Manager of the Royal Bethlehem Hotel (also known as the Merry Gentleman), in exchange for something that will save the life of his lover, the first trader from China to ever reach Mesopotamia, and grant them both eternal life. Well, he got his wish, but the life-saving thing was a shard from the Mountain of Light (which might or might not  be the reason she's wounded and eternally bleeding). Said diamond shard was made into a new heart for the poor chinese guy dying of... some slightly indeterminate disease. All was well until the thing shattered into miriad of pieces. The poor guy is now King with a Hundred Hearts, and his heart-shards are what animates Polythreme (and the endless Clay Men coming to London).
Guess what, that didn't go so well for the relationship.
Also, Chelonate is what's left of the First City descendants. Check out the nifty cuneiform on their dead turtle. Oh, and they really, really don't like Polythreme and its... products. Go figure.

Second City was Akhetaten, or El-Amarna. The exact process of its sale went horribly shitty for the Masters, and I long for the day we discover how exactly the Egyptians managed to fuck over the Masters. Why was Amarna shitty for the Bazaar? Well, it's a fake-city. Yes, it was a capital of an awesome empire at the moment - but it existed for like 15 years and was created and sustained through the whim of a mad King. Also, the Bazaar somehow got chained to it and stayed there for over 1000 years. What do we know about the sale? Pharaoh Akhenaten was somehow involved, but probably wasn't the one to strike the final deal. His daughters somehow turned that deal into whatever it became that was so shitty to the Bazaar. The Duchess is one those daughters and was probably the one through whom the deal was enacted, and her love that was saved is the Cantigaster, bitten by a deadly snake. His life is saved, but now he's basically a sac of venom writhing in endless pain. He might or might not be Akhenaten himself. Oh, and the Duchess also got eternal life and youth out of the deal. Other Pharaoh's daughters fucked off and founded what later becomes the Sisterhood of the Abbey Rock.
And Visage and Salt Lions are what's left of Second City descendants and their creations on the Unterzee.

Third City was most likely Chichen Itza, or maybe Hopelchen. It was sold for the love of Godhood. Three of its High Priests likely demanded something that would give them... eternal life, too? Godhood, however they understood it? Anyway, they were fed the flesh of Mr. Candles, everyone's favourite dead spacebat (Who, excitingly, was most likely the Master most involved with the sale of Amarna. And who bore no ill will to the Egyptians, whatever they did). This act, highly ritualized, might've been what allowed the Amarna chains to be removed from the Bazaar. So, Neath got itself another new city, Mr. Veils got himself unsavoury reputation (being the one who orchestrated the deal), and Mr. Candles got dead. But a reckoning, as one knows, cannot be postponed indefinitely. :confuoot:
The First Curator of Venderbight is one of the remaining Third City citizens. And you can see some of Third CIty style buildings in Venderbight's design. Other than that, we know jack shit about the remnants of it. There is an isolated Tomb-Colony somewhere on the zee, called Xibalba, where those Three Priests still rule. Oh, yeah, those assholes apparently got exactly what they wanted, too. They are nightmarish all-powerful eternally living body-snatchers.
But they might be eternally bored and lonely in their nightmare kingdom, so there's that?

Fourth City was Karakorum. Sold, apparently, by its Last Khan (Möngke Khan), to save it from enemies at the gates? Or perhaps to save specifically his daughter. I'm not clear on that, and the Silver Tree game is so horrendously grindy I cannot bear replaying it to get all possible info. Also there's like 3 important story branches locked behind piles of real money, and I cannot force myself to pay for them when I'll still need to GRIND to get that info anyway.
Well, his daughter is still around, she's the Widow, and a significant portion of his people fucked off to the zee and founded the Khanate out there, where they are still pretty prosperous and awesome. I want to play as a Khanate citizen. Or at least get to spend more time there and interact with the place.

Fifth City is, as we all know, London. And we're back to traditional love stories, finally they managed to find an Empire ruler in dire need of pure lover-saving with no additional clauses attached. Queen Victoria wanted to get her dear Albert back and living, and she got her wish. The result is pretty much what Dany got with her sun-and-stars. A walking corpse, basically.