Irem

Irem
Missing text
● The Riddlefishers: Matters of Destiny → Go fishing for a riddle [plenty of variations],
Learn/Alter your Destiny [with 25 Fate]
● The Arrival of the Mail → Sort through the advertisements [failure]
● The Woven Wind → Engage in a little sport [failure]
● Spiralhügel → Decipher the signage [failure]
● The Ennui of Victory → Not as you are, anyway [with the Manager as the city], lots of
possible variations for other destinies
Note: Reaching Irem requires completing Evolution, which is recorded in this document.
⬥ The Port
[Location: Your Cabin; Unlocked with: Discovered: Irem (hidden)]
Destination: Irem
Irem, the Pillared City. She will rise from the zee and the ice like dawn. She will be garlanded
with red and decked with gold. The Seven-Serpent will watch you longingly from its high
pedestal.
Option 1:
Zail to Irem
Have you a destiny to meet?
[Unlocked with: 1 x Iremi Zee-Chart, no Moored At: Irem]
Result:
Onwards
One day you will step out onto her shores.
● You have moved to a new area: Poring over the Maps
● You will arrive in Irem. [Zailing to Destination: Irem]
● [An occurrence! Your 'Zailing to Sea Zone' Quality is now 5! (Hidden)]
● [An occurrence! Your 'Route Description' Quality is now (10 * Zailing on: + Zailing to
Sea Zone)! (Hidden)]
● [An occurrence! Your 'Ready to chart a course' Quality is now 1! (Hidden)]
[With Zailing on: = Zailing to Sea Zone]
● [An occurrence! Your 'Zailing locally' Quality is now 1! (Hidden)]
[Otherwise]
● [An occurrence! Your 'Distance Clockwise' Quality is now ((Zailing on: - Zailing to Sea
Zone) mod 6)! (Hidden)]
● [An occurrence! Your 'Distance Anticlockwise' Quality is now ((Zailing to Sea Zone -
Zailing on:) mod 6)! (Hidden)]
● Go to: Chart a Course [leave this document]
———————
Option 2:
Disembark
Will you stay a while longer?
[Unlocked with: Moored At: Irem]
Result:
Unfinished business
You will one day depart, but not yet.
● You will arrive in Irem. [You have moved to a new area: Irem]
● [Your 'Zailing on:' Quality has gone! (Hidden)]
● [Your 'Moored At:' Quality has gone! (Hidden)]
[Zailing the Unterzee autofire storylet; Unlocked with: Zailing Route exactly 3, Zailing... ≥ Distance to
Zail, Troubled Waters < 8, no An Exceptional Journey, no In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast]
Arriving at Port
At last, the sight of land, and relative safety.
Option:
Dock at Irem
You will always arrive as a stranger to her shores.
[Unlocked with: Zailing to Destination: Irem]
Result:
Red and gold
Your ship will drift with the currents for days, nights, entire seasons. You will think that you're
lost; that you'll never arrive. But like the dawn, Irem will rise from the eastern horizon.
Garlanded with red and decked with gold. And from its pedestal above the city, the
Seven-Serpent will watch.
● Zailing... has been reset! A new leg on your journey, or an arrival at port?
● Your 'Zailing to Destination:' Quality has gone!
● You are no longer zailing. [Your 'Zee Peril' Quality has gone!]
● [Your 'Zailing on:' Quality has gone! (Hidden)]
● [Your ''Distance to Zail' Quality has gone! (Hidden)]
● [Your 'Zailing Route' Quality has gone! (Hidden)]
The House of Snow and Brine

At the root of the jetty, you will find a place of respite and commerce – a small shelter for
those who will arrive from over the zee.
Option 1:
Explore the futures market
The Iremi will not engage in much commerce, isolated as they will be in that frigid corner of
the Zee.
Result:
The commerce of Irem
You will be shown all manner of trinkets: The bones of zee-beasts left as offerings by
Chelonites. Stone tablets from the Presbyterate. Tapestries woven with secrets and riddles.
You will make no purchases – whatever coin the merchants of Irem will take, you will not
have any. But they will let you read the disposition of the threads in their wares, and you will
learn much.
Irem has an exchange; certain items that can only be obtained here can be sold for more
universally-useful ones in the Bazaar tab.
● You've gained 100 x Cryptic Clue.
———————
Option 2:
Rid yourself of a Justificande
The promised day has arrived.
This in an inefficient way to reduce Wounds, Nightmares, and Troubled Waters.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Justificande Coin]
Result:
Forgiveness
The riddlefisher will not offer you anything in exchange for your justificande – the debt that it
encloses was created long ago. But in the cessation of these obligations, there will be relief.
● You've lost 1 x Justificande Coin.
● Wounds is dropping… (-1 CP)
● Nightmares is dropping… (-1 CP)
● Troubled Waters is dropping… (-3 CP)
———————
Option 3:
Go for a walk
You will learn the streets and turns of the city.
Result:
Snow and roses
The city will be vast, a metropolis of stone rising from the zee, surrounded by ice, blanketed
in roses. Her streets will meander into curls and tangles, obeying no clear pattern. Closer to
the jetty, her streets will be flanked by buildings of granite and marble. But further north, past
the seat of the Seven-Serpent where all her streets converge, the city will resemble a silent
temple. There you will find stone pillars and grand staircases, rising into the air to no
discernible purpose.
So close to the northern edge of the city, the smell of roses will be overwhelming; the wind
unyielding; the cold dangerous. You will turn back the way you came.
● You've gained 1 x Memory of Distant Shores.
● You've gained 1 x Sighting of a Parabolan Landmark.
———————
Option 4:
Drink coffee at the House
You will feel exhaustion grip your shoulders.
This will restore 10 actions.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Darkdrop Coffee]
Result:
Rare warmth
The Iremi way of making coffee will be unusual for a Londoner: ground terribly fine and
poured into a small copper pot filled with boiling snowmelt. It will be frothy, and dense, and
redolent of roses.
● Your actions have been refreshed!
● You've lost 1 x Darkdrop Coffee.
● Wounds is increasing… (+1 CP)
———————
Option 5:
Sit at the edge of the jetty
The zee will call to you, here, where the northern ice and eastern gap meet.
This will increase your maximum Zeefaring to 7. It will not consume your Treasure.
[Unlocked with: Zeefaring Ztudies exactly 1, 7 x Zee-Ztory, 7 x Memory of Distant Shores, Eastern
Wind, Northern Wind, Southern Wind, 777 x Stashed Treasure, Base Zeefaring 6]
Result:
A zailor's life
Ice floes will drift past, swirling and colliding. The fog banks will part and show the light of the
false-stars above. A wind from the East will push gently against you, as if suggesting that
you plunge into the icy water.
Blue Prophets will make a rare journey to this cold northern reach to alight on your shoulder
and whisper the names of the soon to die. Midnight Whales will swim past the jetty, shooting
jets of brackish water into the air in greeting. All the maps in your cabin will unfurl
themselves at once, and the leaks in your ship's hull will seal themselves. All will be clear.
The zee will open to you.
● Your maximum Zeefaring is now 7. [Zeefaring Ztudies 2]
● Your 'Troubled Waters' Quality has gone!
● You've lost 7 x Zee-Ztory.
● You've lost 7 x Memory of Distant Shores.
[Unlocked with: Knowledge of the Crossroads 5]
The Riddlefishers: Matters of Destiny

The inhabitants of Irem will recognise you as someone who has wandered the paths. Their
nets shall open to you.
Option 1:
Learn/Alter your Destiny
The whims of the Seven-Serpent will be unknowable. But it will grant the occasional glimpse
of the future.
[Without Destined] This will allow you to obtain one of the original Destinies – a prerequisite for
forging the new, greater Destinies available in Irem.
[With Destined] This will allow you to change your Destiny to another of the original Destinies.
Once you do, you will still always have the option of obtaining a greater Destiny in Irem, at any
time.
Ordinarily, this costs Fate. But at certain times of year, it can be done for free: The Feast of the
Rose, the Fruits of the Zee festival, Hallowmas, and the last week of December. Exceptionally,
it is also available for two weeks after the release of Irem. You can only change your destiny
like this, without spending Fate, once per festival cycle.
[Unlocked with: Irem: Favourable Winds, no Meddling with the Future]
Result:
Fourteen eyes of stone
And you will turn towards the pillars. And the Seven-Serpent will turn its eyes towards you.
You will not be able to do this again for a month, without spending Fate.
● Make sure to spend any Promissory Notes to Yourself within a month. [Activates ?]
● You now have 1 x Meddling with the Future.
● Go to: The Gates of the Serpent
———————
Option 2:
Learn/Alter your Destiny
The whims of the Seven-Serpent will be unknowable. But it will grant the occasional glimpse
of the future.
[Without Destined] This will allow you to obtain one of the original Destinies – a prerequisite for
forging the new, greater Destinies available in Irem.
[With Destined] This will allow you to change your Destiny to another of the original Destinies.
Once you do, you will still always have the option of obtaining a greater Destiny in Irem, at any
time.
Ordinarily, this costs Fate. But at certain times of year, it can be done for free: The Feast of the
Rose, the Fruits of the Zee festival, Hallowmas, and the last week of December. Exceptionally,
it is also available for two weeks after the release of Irem.
You've already done this once during this festival cycle; you can spend Fate now, or wait for
the next festival.
[Cost: 25 Fate; Unlocked with: Irem: Favourable Winds, Meddling with the Future]
Result:
[Missing]
● Make sure to spend any Promissory Notes to Yourself within a month. [Activates ?]
● Go to: The Gates of the Serpent
———————
Option 3:
Pose your own question to the Riddlefishers
Will they accept you as one of their own?
This will give you a Questioning of Riddlefishers, an Affiliation that increases your Glasswork
skill.
[Unlocked with: Destined, no A Questioning of Riddlefishers, You unlocked this by not having one of
several Destinies that could only be obtained with Fate. [no Charmed Fate]]
Result:
Salt, silence, questions
[With Associating with a Youthful Naturalist 800] You will tell them of a man who sought to defy
his Destiny. You will chart the currents that dragged him, again and again, back to the
pinpoint of gravity that he circled. You will tell them about what he will relinquish. You will tell
them about what will be freed by his annihilation.
pinpoint gravity that he circled. You will tell them about the bargains he struck. You will tell
them about how he will, one day, inhabit a place in-between himself and nothing.
pinpoint of gravity that he circled. You will tell them about what he will become. About the
chase he will lead Death on, and how he never intends to be caught.
[Shared text] You will then ask: Was he right to choose this thread?
The answer will be silence. But in that silence, a Riddlefisher – skin scarred by the cold wind,
eyes the colour of sunset in Parabola – will take your hand. Around your palm, they will bind
a white thread; a fishing line. And the hook? Where and when the hook will strike your skin,
that will be another mystery.
● You now have 1 x A Questioning of Riddlefishers.
———————
Option 4:
Pose your own question to the Riddlefishers
Will they accept you as one of their own?
This will give you a Questioning of Riddlefishers, an Affiliation that increases your Glasswork
skill. This option ordinarily costs 10 Fate, but it's free to those who have one of the Fate
exclusive Destinies.
[Unlocked with: You unlocked this by having one of several Destinies that could only be obtained with
Fate. [Charmed Fate], no A Questioning of Riddlefishers]
Result [ASK]:
Salt, silence, questions
[Same quality variable description as above]
You will then ask: was he right to choose this thread?
The answer will be silence. But in that silence, a Riddlefisher – skin scarred by the cold wind,
eyes the colour of sunset in Parabola – will take your hand. Around your palm, they will bind
a white thread; a fishing line. And the hook? Where and when the hook will strike your skin,
that will be another mystery.
● You now have 1 x A Questioning of Riddlefishers.
———————
Option 5:
Obtain a curious promissory note
It will be strangely familiar.
This will allow you to obtain one of the Destinies exclusive to Irem.
You can always change from one of the ordinary Destinies to one of the greater Destinies that
can only be claimed in Irem. But once you do, it will be harder to change Destiny – it can only
be done at certain times of year, or by spending Fate.
[Unlocked with: Destined exactly 1, Before you do this, you should claim your Questioning of
Riddlefishers. [Charmed Fate < 2, appears as 2 without A Questioning of Riddlefishers], no
Promissory Note to Yourself, no Mark of Acceptance]
Result:
Signed and delivered
Much later, when you zail away from this place, you will question where you purchased the
document, and what price you paid. Your own signature will blaze on your mind's eye like a
sigil.
● You now have 1 x Promissory Note to Yourself.
———————
Option 6:
This will allow you to change your Destiny to another of the Destinies exclusive to Irem.
This can be done without spending Fate during certain festivals – the Feast of the Rose, the
Fruits of the Zee festival, Hallowmas, and the last week of the year.
Exceptionally, it is also available for the two weeks after the release of Irem.
However, you can only do this once per festival cycle.
[Unlocked with: Irem: Favourable Winds, Destined exactly 2, no Promissory Note to Yourself, no Mark
of Acceptance, no Meddling with the Future]
Result:
Signed and delivered
Much later, when you zail away from this place, you will question where you purchased the
document, and what price you paid. Your own signature will blaze on your mind's eye like a
sigil.
● You now have 2 x Meddling with the Future.
———————
Option 7:
This will allow you to change your Destiny to another of the Destinies exclusive to Irem.
This can be done without spending Fate during certain festivals – the Feast of the Rose, the
Fruits of the Zee festival, Hallowmas, and the last week of the year.
You've already done this once during this festival cycle; you can spend Fate now, or wait for
the next festival.
[Cost: 25 Fate; Unlocked with: Irem: Favourable Winds, Destined exactly 2, Meddling with the Future,
no Promissory Note to Yourself, no Mark of Acceptance]
Result:
[?]Signed and delivered
[?]Much later, when you zail away from this place, you will question where you purchased
the document, and what price you paid. Your own signature will blaze on your mind's eye like
a sigil.
———————
Option 8:
Rebel against your destiny
Will you find your fate unacceptable
This will rid you of the Mark of Acceptance, allowing you to obtain one of the greater Destinies
available in Irem.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Mark of Acceptance]
Result:
Perhaps not
Acceptance could never be enough. Not knowing what you know.
● You've lost 1 x Mark of Acceptance.
———————
Option 9:
Go fishing for a riddle
Will you find yourself with answers in search of a question?
This will give you a Baited Riddle.
[Unlocked with: Knowledge of the Crossroads 6, 7 x Fluke Spine, Freely Given, 7 x Memory of
Sunlight, 7 x Selenitic Fragment, 7 x Limpid Soul, 1 x Justificande Coin]
Result:
Asked
You will tie one end of a rose-coloured thread around your index finger. You will cast this line
into the freezing waters. To your zailors, waiting fearfully aboard your ship, the wait will seem
like an eternity. To you, it will be nothing more than seven breaths.
And then you will drag a question from the water, freezing and shivering and slick. The
riddlefishers will admire your work, and name it:
[With Airs of Irem 2] "What is forgotten?"
[With Airs of Irem 10] "Who plays with the red pieces?"
[With Airs of Irem 12] "What happened to the Empress' issue?"
[With Airs of Irem 17] "Who is December?"
[With Airs of Irem 21] "What is the taste of black honey?"
[With Airs of Irem 22] "Who sits at the high table?"
[With Airs of Irem 27] "Which love felled the First City?"
[With Airs of Irem 32] "What were the Masters' crimes?"
[With Airs of Irem 48] "What does the sphinxstone weep for?"
[With Airs of Irem 52] "Is the Neath truly the skull of a long-dead god?"
[With Airs of Irem 55] "What is the Vake?"
[With Airs of Irem 56] "What is the value of a soul?"
[With Airs of Irem 57] "What is the wax-wind's sibling?"
[With Airs of Irem 66] "What are the False-Stars?"
[With Airs of Irem 76] "What lies behind the ruined path?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What lurks in the sixth coil?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What did devils leave behind in Irem?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "Who is June?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "Do you recall, how you came to that place?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What are the Prester's laws?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What is the path to Nidah?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "Who is May?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "Who loves the Cantigaster?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What does the Stone-Tentacle Key unlock?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "Who slew the King of Hours?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What have the Admiralty been building?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "Who is March?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What became of the Melipone Parliament?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What is Parabola?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What is inscribed on the skin of the Bazaar?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "How much does the Sun know?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "Who is the Taimen truly loyal to?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "How many Judgements are still in their thrones?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What was drowned in poison at Jericho?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "Who is the Moon's sibling?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "Why do Londoners bear masks during Hallowmas?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "What new Power will rise in the West?"
[With Airs of Irem ?] "Who is Storm?"
● You've gained 1 x Baited Riddle.
● You've lost 7 x Fluke Spine, Freely Given.
● You've lost 7 x Memory of Sunlight.
● You've lost 7 x Selenitic Fragment.
● You've lost 7 x Limpid Soul.
● One question named. There are many others. [Airs of Irem shuffle (hidden)]
The Gates of the Serpent

Any two pillars can enclose a gate, and Irem will have many pillars. Before you may weave
your fate anew, you must glimpse your fate. When the Seven-Serpent allows it, a glimpse of
the future can be claimed in Irem.
A selection of potential Destinies lies before you. Choose; you will then be able to claim a
greater Destiny in Irem.
Option 1:
A chilly future
Irem will be cold; too cold for roses, though they will be everywhere.
Destinies between stars.
Result:
Ice
The wind will pick up, blowing crimson blades towards you. Rose petals, frozen solid. A bite
on your cheek and a streak of blood—
● ASCEND NOW TO YOUR PLACE IN THE SUN [You have moved to a new area: a
Long Road (leave this document)]
● You now have 1 x Pair of Iremi Obols.
———————
Option 2:
An obscure future
You will be far from the Bazaar and far from the Mountain. If you were to lit a fire, would it
give light?
Nocturnal, anarchic destinies.
Result:
Ink
The wind will snuff out braziers; the false-stars will move away. Darkness—
● I HAD A DREAM, WHICH WAS NOT ALL A DREAM [You have moved to a new
area: The Liberation of Night (leave this document)]
———————
Option 3:
A silvered future
Irem will be near to Parabola, a neighbour, a cousin, an unreliable ally. But she will not be in
Parabola; for many things in Irem will be true.
Destinies in an imagined wilderness.
Result:
Silver
A sheet of black ice, polished into a mirror, and your own eyes peering out of it—
● OPEN ARE THE DOUBLE-DOORS OF THE HORIZON... [You have moved to a new
area: The Castle of Forests (leave this document)]
———————
Option 4:
An abyssal future
Irem will rise from the waters. One day, she may sink again – even futures decay.
Destinies beneath the black waves.
Result:
Mother-of-pearl
Air will snag in your throat; lungs will hitch. All of a sudden, the sensation of drowning—
● THERE ARE GODS WHO LIVETH ON THEIR FATHERS, FEEDETH ON THEIR
MOTHERS [You have moved to a new area: Down among the Lorn-Flukes (leave
this document)]
———————
Option 5:
A jewelled future
The desire to be elsewhere will never be far.
Destinies of conquest and immortality.
Result:
Ruby
Two pillars raised on a platform, conspicuously aligned. Between them, in the far distance,
you will glimpse a terrible light—
● THIS COUNTRY - MOUTH-OF-THE-RIVER - THIS WAS THE PLACE OF HER
OVERTHROW [You have moved to a new area: the Approach to the Mountain (leave
this document)]
[Unlocked with: Knowledge of the Crossroads 5]

The Seven-Serpent, Revisited
A monumental pedestal will rise above Irem. The Seven-Serpent will coil upon that pedestal:
carved scales encrusted with frost, jaws dripping with icicle-fangs, ruby eyes watching the
steps. It will look over the city of snow and roses, placidly tallying up days yet to come. And it
will hold destiny in its teeth, awaiting those who come to claim it.
Option:
Grip the thread of your own destiny
You will seize it from the serpent's teeth.
The Loom is neither a singular story nor a wheel, but something quite different. There are a
few secrets to uncover.
[Without Promissory Note to Yourself] You may wish to obtain a Promissory Note to Yourself from
the Riddlefishers before entering.
Result:
Abyss
The thread will feel so thin and strong that it will threaten to cut your hands to ribbons as you
grip. You will at first feel as if you are pulling it; then, as if you are dangling over a precipice,
hanging on by that same thread.
And then, you will be falling.
● Smog, hooves on cobblestones, the clicking of bats. You are home. [You have
moved to a new area: A Nearby Future]
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: A Nearby Future!
● [On your first visit] Your knowledge of the crossroads is increasing… [Knowledge of the
Crossroads is increasing… (+1 CP)]
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Nearby! (Hidden)]
Put to Zee
Her cold will settle in your bones, and the scent of roses will turn acrid in your nose. You will
know, then, that it is time to leave.
Option:
Return to your ship
Your zailors will greet you with unexpected warmth, eager to set zail again.
Make sure you are ready to depart. Iremi commodities can be sold in the Bazaar tab; they will
turn into Moon-Pearls or Memories of Light when you leave.
Result:
Away
One day you will return to her shores.
● You have moved to a new area: Your Cabin [leave this document]
● Your 'Seeing Through Eyes of Peligin' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Driven by a Pitch-Black Heart' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Grasping With a Red Left Hand' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Smiling with Sapphire Lips' Quality has gone!
● You've gained (10 * (Neo-Echo + No Currency) + Bandage Scrap + Frayed Thread +
Shard of Lightless Glim) x Moon-Pearl.
● You've gained (5 * (Dismal Victuals + Fluke Spine, Freely Given + Limpid Soul +
Memory of Sunlight + Selenitic Fragment) + Ounce of Lily-Balm + Fingerking Scale) x
Memory of Light.
● Your 'Bandage Scrap' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Dismal Victuals' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Fingerking Scale' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Fluke Spine, Freely Given' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Frayed Thread' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Limpid Soul' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Memory of Sunlight' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Neo-Echo' Quality has gone!
● Your 'No Currency' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Ounce of Lily-Balm' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Selenitic Fragment' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Shard of Lightless Glim' Quality has gone!
● You will glide upon the glassy waters of the Pillared Sea. [Zailing on: The Pillared
Sea (hidden)]
● [An occurrence! Your 'Moored At:' Quality is now Irem! (Hidden)]
⬥ Universal Fate-Weaving Content
[Fate-Weaving opportunity card; Standard frequency; High urgency; Unlocked with: Wounds 7]
Slings and Arrows

Your fingers are wet – suddenly slick with blood. The threads in your hand are soaked with it.
Option:
Tighten your mortal coil
Cut the threads that lead to painful demises. Unravel these bodily miseries.
Result:
Stitching yourself back together
That unexpected fall into an open sewer. That bullet wound after the lights went out. That
attempt on your life at the Khaganian Ambassador's home. That untimely death met during
the fall of the Seventh... rip it all out, discard the yarn. Card the remaining strands and start
again.
● Unraveling is increasing… (+7 CP)
[Fate-Weaving opportunity card; Standard frequency; High urgency; Unlocked with: Nightmares 7]
Outrageous Fortune
Are these threads in your hands or minuscule asps, their tiny fangs biting and scratching at
your skin?
Option:
Tend to your fraying sanity
You are becoming entangled in nightmares.
Result:
Reknit
Find the right thread, pull, rip – there. Now you never saw that.
[Fate-Weaving autofire storylet; Unlocked with: Unraveling 8]
Unraveled!
One frayed thread too many, and the strands beneath your fingers are snapping. Searching
down the loose stitches of destiny can be dangerous.
Option:
Step away
But you were never really here, now were you?
This will return you to Irem. You will lose all warp, boons, and some amount of accumulated
wealth from the future.
Result:
The stairs of the temple, again
The Seven-Serpent will look down at you. Not with pity, nor disgust. It will simply observe.
● Unraveling is dropping… (-26-32 CP)
● 'Bombazine Warp' has been reset: a conclusion, or a new beginning?
● 'Silken Warp' has been reset: a conclusion, or a new beginning?
● 'Sinewy Warp' has been reset: a conclusion, or a new beginning?
● Your 'Seeing Through Eyes of Peligin' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Driven by a Pitch-Black Heart' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Grasping With a Red Left Hand' Quality has gone!
● Your 'Smiling with Sapphire Lips' Quality has gone!
● You've lost 3? x Bandage Scrap.
● You've lost 1? x Fingerking Scale.
● You've lost 2? x No Currency.
● You've lost 1? x Selenitic Fragment.
● You've lost 8? x Shard of Lightless Glim.
[Location: Fate-Weaving; Unlocked with: Promissory Note to Yourself, Knowledge of the Crossroads
5]
Throwing the Shuttle

This deep in the labyrinth of potential futures, one might weave one's fate anew. You need
only choose a thread to follow.
Seeing certain possible futures will reveal more options in this storylet. Choosing an option
here will reveal a little more about the possible destinies in store in each future; you will have
a chance to back away before spending your Promissory Note.
Option:
Reject this meddling in your own Destiny
You already know your future, and you would rather keep it.
Instead of an advanced Destiny, this will consume your Promissory Note and give you the
Mark of Acceptance, a powerful Home Comfort that greatly increases Mithridacy. If later on you
decide you'd rather have an advanced Destiny after all, you will need to relinquish this item.
[Unlocked with: Discovered: A Brilliant Future, Discovered: A Ruinous Future, Discovered: An Altered
Future, Destined < 2]
Result:
Weights and measures
The loom is yourself and you are the loom; in changing the weave, you change yourself.
Perhaps in ways that are unforgivable. You would rather stay true to the course you have
already charted.
You will open your eyes, still facing the Seven-Serpent, though it will turn its eyes away from
you. In your hands you will hold something terribly cold.
● You've lost 1 x Promissory Note to Yourself.
● You now have 1 x Mark of Acceptance.
● Wounds is increasing… ((Unraveling level - 1) CP)
● Nightmares is increasing… ((Unraveling level - 1) CP)
● Your 'Unraveling' Quality has gone!
● [Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality has gone! (Hidden)]
[Location: Fate-Weaving; Unlocked with: A Cartographer of Fate 3]
The Colour of Fate

Light is the messenger and the enforcer of Law. It is first to arrive, bringing the future;
whatever wonder or terror it may contain.
The threads of fate have no colour and take no dyes. Their appearance is a matter of
perspective. Cast the right light upon them, and you'll be elsewhen.
By opening a mirrorcatch box, you can instantly revisit a future you have already seen. Doing
this will consume the box, as well as all your Warp. Not all futures can be revisited this way.
Option 1:
Peligin
In its light, you are monstrous.
Return to the Altered Future.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Peligin-filled Mirrorcatch Box, Discovered: An Altered Future]
Result:
Tangles in the loom
You are a spider at the centre of a web; you are an anemone, extending tendrils out into the
world.
● Sense-memory: Threads running through your fingers, scraping just a little of your
skin away as they move. You are home. You've always been home. [You have moved
to a new area: An Altered Future]
● You've lost 1 x Peligin-filled Mirrorcatch Box.
● You've gained 1 x Mirrorcatch Box.
● You wander a familiar path. [A Cartographer of Fate is unchanged]
———————
Option 2:
Violant
In its light, you are bound by a promise.
Return to the Chilly Future.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Violant-filled Mirrorcatch Box, Discovered: A Chilly Future]
Result:
The sky and you
You are held aloft by the wind catching on the thin membrane between life and death.
● The wind of the High Wilderness on your pinions. You are home. [You have moved to
a new area: A Chilly Future]
● You've lost 1 x Violant-filled Mirrorcatch Box.
● [The rest of the effects are the same as above]
———————
Option 3:
Apocyan
In its light, you are remembered.
Return to the Abyssal Future.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Apocyan-filled Mirrorcatch Box, Discovered: An Abyssal Future]
Result:
Bearing gifts
Three great presences. Memories in the water. You were here before? Or you will be here,
again.
● The presence of the lorn-flukes. The approach of the feast. You are home. [You have
moved to a new area: An Abyssal Future]
● You've lost 1 x Apocyan-filled Mirrorcatch Box.
———————
Option 4:
Viric
In its light, you are asleep.
Return to the Silvered Future.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Viric-filled Mirrorcatch Box, Discovered: A Silvered Future]
Result:
Wednesday, again
The light lulls the unwary into sleep. Not you – you don't sleep. You've never slept a wink in
your life.
● Stray notions grazing lazily on the grass that grows on buried dreams. You are home.
[You have moved to a new area: A Silvered Future]
● You've lost 1 x Viric-filled Mirrorcatch Box.
———————
Option 5:
Cosmogone
In its light, you are very nearly radiant.
Return to the Jewelled Future.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Cosmogone-filled Mirrorcatch Box, Discovered: A Jewelled Future]
Result:
Illuminated
When they write the story of your life, they will need rivers of ink.
● The Light of the Mountain filtering through the flap of your command tent. You are
home. [You have moved to a new area: A Jewelled Future]
● You've lost 1 x Cosmogone-filled Mirrorcatch Box.
———————
Option 6:
Irrigo
In its light, you are less.
Return to the Ruinous Future.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Irrigo-filled Mirrorcatch Box, Discovered: A Ruinous Future]
Result:
No
This is not a place to return to. And yet, here you are.
● All is lost. You are home. [You have moved to a new area: A Ruinous Future]
● You've lost 1 x Irrigo-filled Mirrorcatch Box.
———————
Option 7:
Gant
Is it light?
Return to the Dark Future.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Gant-filled Mirrorcatch Box, Discovered: A Dark Future]
Result:
Theory and praxis
You are who you are, in the dark.
● Total darkness. You are home. [You have moved to a new area: A Dark Future]
● You've lost 1 x Gant-filled Mirrorcatch Box.
[Location: Fate-Weaving]
The Thread in your Hand

Will you still hold on?
Option:
Let go
One day you will abandon this pursuit.
This will return you to Irem. You will lose all Warp, but will keep other things you have
gathered here.
Result:
Safely returned
One day you will depart this place; perhaps soon.
⬥ A Nearby Future
[A Nearby Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]
A Royal Absence
The Empress is seldom seen, these days; her presence is no longer felt. In the Palace,
clandestine throne-room thrysts are becoming alarmingly frequent. On the streets,
Londoners openly name the current year and joke about the Prince-Consort's condition.
Those who courted the Empress' favour now pursue other avenues to power.
Option:
The Captivating Princess
She is a friend of yours. She is, increasingly, a friend of everyone's.
This will give you Sinewy Warp. Card borders in Irem indicate which colour Warp each card
gives.
Result:
A business discussion
The Captivating Princess has a busy social schedule, and she keeps powerful company.
Lunch with His Amused Lordship; dinner with the Enlightened Monopolist. Breakfast with
you.
The fashion is wrought-iron patio furniture and coffee under electric lights. You take a bite
out of a square of mille-feuille. The Princess has brought her own food, an eccentricity that
would be rude on anyone other than her. One delicate hand takes a thumb-sized wasp out of
a jar, and brings it to her lips.
● You've gained 1 x Sinewy Warp.
● You've gained 1 x Memory of Light.
● Nightmares is increasing… (+1 CP)
———————
Option 2:
The Admiralty
London's naval power seems ready to awaken from a long dormancy.
Result:
Matters of exchange
The place to find and converse with naval officers is at the launching of a new vessel – an
occasion that happens almost weekly, now. There is a practiced ease to the way the Admiral
handles the bottle of champagne, a predictable cadence to the speeches and fanfare.
Every ship rolling off the drydock is an occasion to make deals on the manufacture of the
next. London's naval industry works to exhaustion, fueled by electrical power and a deluge of
cheap credit. Much of the raw material comes from the hinterlands, so your involvement in
the railway business gives you a certain gravity in this crowd.
● You've gained 25 x Neo-Echo.
The Fires Run Cold

There is a silence at the heart of London's industry: many of Mr Fires' factories have shut
down in recent years. Some closed due to insolvency, the obsolescence of their products,
labour unrest. But some close in the middle of the night, without warning, the morning shift
arriving to find their notice of termination pinned to the door.
Option:
An opportunity for speculation
Mr Irons runs a periodic auction of distressed properties.
[Watchful and Respectable challenge]
Success:
Small victories
Much of what is being sold is of no interest to you: plots of land that are only useful if one
already owns their neighbours, or industrial machinery that you couldn't turn a profit with. But
you place a few strategic bids, aiming to disorient your competitors about what you value.
And when the moment comes, you strike. Another property in Spite is added to your growing
collection.
● You've gained 1 x Silken Warp.
● You've gained 1 x Neo-Echo.
Failure:
Discretion
The faces at these auctions are familiar: the Duchess, His Amused Lordship, the great and
the good of London. They pick away at the carcasses on display like vultures. You wait for
your moment to strike; it's no good to buy something for a fair price, after all. But when you
call out your number, a representative of the Enlightened Monopolist raises his paddle
alongside you. The auctioneer sees his bid first, conveniently.
———————
Option 2:
Investigate the real causes
Urchins have always known more than even they realise. They might offer hints at what is
happening.
[Persuasive and Dreaded challenge]
Success:
A change in management
No thing has a single cause, of course. But the urchins who congregate in Spite claim that
Mr Fires has not been seen in its factories in quite some time. This contradicts what you
have heard, but the urchins are vehement: "It's not Mr Fires, it's the other 'un, pretending to
be Mr Fires." Which one? "Wines, ushually. But sometimes it's the new 'un. The Master
that's a little shorter than the others."
Failure:
Mocked and taunted
You canvass the local urchin population. Today, however, they are in no mood for
cooperation, and offer you only a panoply of insults that no child of ten or eleven years
should know. Some things in London really don't change.
The Arrival of the Mail

You get more and more of it, these days; it seems like every week there's more unsolicited
paper stuffing your mailbox. Printing really is getting too cheap.
Option:
Open the illumination bill
It's cheaper than candles. But these days, just barely.
This will give you Bombazine Warp. Card borders in Irem indicate which colour Warp each
card gives.
Result:
The cost of light
The Unified Illumination Company prefaces its bills with a warm, personal message from the
Enlightened Monopolist; this time an anecdote about a game of cricket, and the new
floodlights that enable playing even when the false-stars are very dim.
It's all very charming, until you get to the number printed at the bottom.
● You've gained 1 x Bombazine Warp.
———————
Option 2:
Sort through the advertisements
Maybe there's something in there worth buying. Maybe you just don't value your own time all
that much.
[Watchful challenge]
Success:
Hidden signs
It is mostly just trash, of course. But here and there – a letter out of place. A watermarked
sigil. A strange toxic scent where the lingering alcohol smell of a mimeograph should be. You
start to find patterns – reminiscent of the graffiti that used to be so common a few years
ago...
● You've gained 20 x Appalling Secret.
Failure:
An afternoon of wasted time
[Missing]
● You've gained 50 x Whispered Hint.
5]
Throwing the Shuttle [2]

[Same as before]
Option:
A nearby future
A yarn you know well.
Destinies of a London soon to be.
Result:
● Go to: The Ennui of Victory
The Ennui of Victory
You have accumulated all attainable accomplishments. A founder of the Great Hellbound
Railway. An explorer of obscure corners of the Neath. You have bargained with chthonic
powers and advanced many plans and plots. There's nowhere left to go.
Option 1:
Not as you are, anyway
You must change into something else entirely. Something greater, something more
permanent.
A Destiny that increases your Kataleptic Toxicology skill.
[Unlocked with: 2 x Selenitic Fragment]
Result:
Changed
You have seen such a transformation worked on others / Furnace, years before / Cornelius,
years before / one very much like yourself, years before / a man, years before. Your own
change will not be exactly the same – you plan to elevate yourself, not to be lifted by a
greater power.
You must solve two problems. The first is purely a matter of patience and expense. You sink
hundreds of thousands of echoes into funding expeditions on the Surface, until finally one
finally finds a promising meteorite in Patagonia. The fragment of stone is cream-coloured
and pockmarked, no bigger than a fist, redolent with discarded possibilities. Once you have
confirmed its origins (through spectrography, through chemical analysis, through ingestion) it
instantly becomes the most valuable thing you own.
The latter problem exacts a more personal cost. You ingest a panoply of toxins: every colour
of amber. The crushed spines of Lorn-Flukes. Honey – gold, red, and black. You learn to
poison only the unsuitable parts of yourself. Eventually, everything you want to abandon
comes up your throat and pours out of your mouth. What is left behind is the larva of a
perfected self.
You walk off into the Hinterlands, leading a group of those closest to you. You wander the
dark landscape for days, searching for a place that feels right. There, the person you trust
the most opens your skin and gives you a new heart; a heart of pale stone, no bigger than a
fist.
Your new, vast self is a glowing beacon in the wilderness; a white-hot beacon that
announces the arrival of a new power. And then, as you cool and dim, your most intrepid
followers begin to explore the spiraling acropolis of your body. Soon you will be a beacon
again; in time, the light of those you shelter may outshine London.
● A thread is discarded. [Your '[Destiny]' Quality has gone!]
● XVIII: A truth that can be felt, but never spoken. [You now have 1 x The Moon]
● You've lost 2 x Selenitic Fragment.
———————
Option 2:
Nowhere to go but up
It is time, then. To return to the Surface. To feel the Sun on your face again.
A Destiny that increases your Kataleptic Toxicology skill.
[Unlocked with: 10 x Ounce of Lily-Balm]
Result:
A return
The idea crept into your mind years ago, on a zee-voyage past the Cumaean canal. It was
only an inkling, then. It would grow into a notion, then an idea, then a plan. You could return.
You would return.
Preparations consumed years. The mundane: settling your affairs in London; preparing
someone to succeed you (on the board of the Great Hellbound Railway, and in other
matters); securing a supply of Cider. London's gossips know, by now, that you plan to go
somewhere and not return. Your actual plans are beyond the limits of their imagination.
What truly occupied these years was the research into the effects of solar exposure on
Neath-dwellers. The long conversations with cagey Benthic scholars. The pursuit of Devils
and their knowledge of starlight. The rituals of the lily. The purchase of boxed sunlight, to
build up a tolerance. The changes this process has worked on your body. There is no clear
outward sign that you are ready. You simply decide that it's time to test your theories.
You opt for passage through the Travertine Spiral. The expense means little to you. You
keep your goodbyes short. The ascent itself feels as long as the years you spent preparing
for it.
It is best, you reason, to make the trip during winter; to start with minimal sun exposure, at
first. So the London you leave behind is covered in lacre and decorated for Christmas. Even
then, when you take your first steps on the Surface, the daylit world is painfully bright; and
the low, cold morning sun is the warmest thing you have felt in a very long time.
● An occurrence! Your 'The World' Quality is now 1!
● Your 'Promissory Note to Yourself' Quality has gone!
● You've lost 10 x Ounce of Lily-Balm.
———————
Option 3:
Discard this thread
No – this isn't what you want.
Result:
A step backwards
An unwanted tangle. Pick it apart with careful fingers. Return.
[Location: A Nearby Future]
The Loom: A Nearby Future

There are passages you don't dare look into, not just yet.
Option 1:
The mirror over your dresser
Those eyes staring back – not quite your own.
[Unlocked with: Sinewy Warp 2]
Result:
No, not quite
You are staring out of the mirror. You have always been staring out of the mirror. Is that not
so?
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: A Silvered Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Silvered! (Hidden)]
● [On your first visit to this future] Another thread of destiny mapped out. [You've gained 1
x A Cartographer of Fate]
● [Afterwards] You wander a familiar path. [A Cartographer of Fate is unchanged]
———————
Option 2:
The ladder to the attic
Light seeps out through the cracks above. An escape hatch!
[Unlocked with: Silken Warp 2]
Result:
Climbing towards the light
The murmur of an army encamped after a long march. Your arm is still in a sling; the pain is
persistent, but you make no hay of it, for the benefit of your officers. Some of your men are
wounded much more grievously.
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: A Jewelled Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Jewelled! (Hidden)]
———————
Option 3:
The trapdoor on the floor
Did your lodgings always have a cellar?
[Unlocked with: Bombazine Warp 2]
Result:
Down, among the Lorn-Flukes
Brackish humidity clings to every surface of your body; your ears ring unpleasantly as the air
pressure suddenly rises.
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: An Abyssal Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Abyssal! (Hidden)]
⬥ A Silvered Future
[A Silvered Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

A Game of Chess
You never play chess with the Fingerkings, of course – they are terrible cheats. But they host
exhibition matches in the Castle's courtyard, pitting you against slumbering grandmasters.
You play for the placement of pieces on a much greater board: chess, in Parabola, is a map
and a territory of intrigue.
Your opponents, whom Fingerkings hunger for? They play for the right to wake up.
Option 1:
Claim the red pieces
Lose. But learn something in the process.
This will give you Sinewy Warp, and greater understanding.
Result:
Queen's scythe to knight's seventh, check
You castle on opposite sides of the board, and your opponent's flank attack proves
unstoppable. But you defend well enough that he has to employ secretive, dangerous
pieces. You make note of them – the sinuous movement of the Scythe; the cross-board
charges of the Ram.
● An occurrence! Your 'Grasping With a Red Left Hand' Quality is now 1!
———————
Option 2:
Claim the white pieces
Make the first move. Play to win.
[Winds of Fortune challenge; Unlocked with: Colour at the Chessboard not exactly 2]
Success:
Queen's bishop's pawn to third
You fianchetto an assassin in Leipzig. Your opponent opts for the counter-attack on the
opposing flank, underestimating you. Solid defense might have forced you to a draw, but
instead you win easily.
● You've gained 6 x Moves in the Great Game.
Failure:
Careless
You and your opponent willingly enter the giuoco piano. Equality soon settles over the board;
material is exchanged down to nothing. A draw.
———————
Option 3:
Claim the black pieces
Ordinarily, Black plays to draw. But you are confident you can win.
[Winds of Fortune challenge; Unlocked with: Colour at the Chessboard not exactly 3]
Success:
Well played
Your opponent opens with the King's pawn. You lead him into the dark forest of an obscure
Sicilian variation. You accumulate advantages, and he resorts to throwing everything he has
at you – supernumerary pawns lurking in the edges of the board; the Bat that moves in the
lines between spaces. But your positional play dissipates his cheap tactics, and you emerge
with a winning endgame.
● You've gained 6 x Moves in the Great Game.
Failure:
Defeat
You gambit a pawn in Buenos Aires. Your opponent doesn't take the bait, and the pawn
becomes a persistent weakness – a self-inflicted thorn in your position. Outmanoeuvred,
facing an undeveloped bishop and a stranded knight, you play an unfavourable midgame.
Soon, the position is totally lost.
High Upon the Parapets

The Castle of Forests is a watchful place. It is a place for watching. Watching the world (that
is not the world) go by. Climb the highest tower and you'll see as far as one can see, from
the Smoking Shore to the Skin of the Sun and everything in between. Watch the dreamers in
their slumber, and see all that they dream.
Option 1:
A Clay Man
Dreams of clay are largely invisible to the casual visitor in Parabola. Only a master of the
craft could even glimpse one.
This will give you Sinewy Warp.
Result:
The sleep of stones
Most dreams are sensations or events or places. Free-falling in utter darkness. Your best
friend's wedding day, though all the guests are hippos. Your parents' bedchamber when you
were six years old: redolent of linen, shaving lather, and the perfume your mother wore at
the time.
A Clay Man's dream is nothing of the sort. It is topography; it is a feature of the terrain,
almost imperceptible, rumbling under the surface. A place where the ground rises to form a
hillock that wasn't there before. The deep groundwaters of Parabola rise up beneath these
hillocks; here and there, a temporary spring might be found. The water that pours out onto
the terrain smells intensely of petrichor, and carries with it the tiniest bit of the Mountain's
light.
● You've gained 25 x Sighting of a Parabolan Landmark.
———————
Option 2:
The Efficient Commissioner
Her dreams are a star-shaped fortress; earthworks surround impossibly tall walls. They are
far from the Castle; you will need to get closer.
[Winds of Fortune challenge]
Success:
A heist
You ransack the dreams of a banker's son for convictions so weightless that they float and
carry you with them. The Efficient Commissioner's dreams are guarded by cannons, rotary
guns, field artillery. Whatever did someone do to make her so wary of sleep? It's only
through luck that you are able to stay unharmed as you ascend.
From far above, you catch rare glimpses of what goes on inside her fortified slumber. The
Fingerkings pay you handsomely for the knowledge you glean.
● You've gained 6 x Fingerking Scale.
Failure:
Unplanned descent
You ransack the dreams of a banker's son for convictions so weightless that they float and
carry you with them. The Efficient Commissioner's dreams are guarded by cannons, rotary
guns, field artillery – you are shot down and land on the outside of the earthworks
surrounding her fortress. Upon impact, your bones dream of shattering.
Bargaining with Serpents

Market day in Parabola! The exchange of notions, figments, hopes and fears. The courtyard
of the Castle of Forests bustles with activity. Stalls cobbled together from the fabric of
nightmares. Wares stolen from a thousand forgotten dreams: childhood toys, feathers of
fictional birds, wedding gowns woven from pure pining.
Option 1:
Make a terrible deal
You will pay with a little of the Will-Be rendered into the Might-Have-Been.
This will give you Silken Warp.
Playing this branch will give you an unsatisfying ending in another, as-yet-unwritten story. You
will not know which story; it may not come out for months, or even years. This is permanent
and irrevocable.
Result:
Profit and loss
The laws of commerce find no more purchase here than any law. Mutually detrimental
bargains are struck; debts are made that can never be repaid. You pluck a possibility out of
the air – surely you won't miss it – and crush it in your hand. Your counterpart earns less
than what you lost. The contract is signed with a smile.
● You shouldn't have done that. [A Severed Thread 1]
———————
Option 2:
Offer only yourself
You are their huntsman; the gore of victory clings to you. Let them lap at the blood of
murdered dreams.
Result:
A feast!
Days of tracking, searching, for an isolated dream. A child's dream; you can recognise them
by the softness of their colours. In a clearing safe from the lurking nightmares of youth, a
bright hope had been nurtured. You felled it with one shot from your rifle.
Now that you have returned, the Fingerkings smell the blood on your raiment. A rare delight!
They will gladly pay the huntsman's due.
● You've gained 5 x Fingerking Scale.
[Location: A Silvered Future]
The Loom: A Silvered Future

There are many mirrors in the Castle of Forests, and you know all of their names. All except
for three; the Namer of Miseries is silent about those, grinning (how else) like a snake. This
only makes them all the more enticing.
Option 1:
The one that's always damp
Brackish water seeps out from the gap between the frame and the glass.
Result:
A dream of Lorn-Flukes within a dream of silver
Across the glass is somewhere damp and cold. The pressure in the air is wrong.
● [The rest of the effects are the same as here]
———————
Option 2:
The one that's always cold
If you bring this mirror into a quiet room, you will hear whistling – like air escaping through a
narrow crack.
Result:
A dream of the High Wilderness within a dream of serpents
Wind on your wings. Cold for you; would have been freezing to your former self. You have a
delivery to make.
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: A Chilly Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Chilly! (Hidden)]
———————
Option 3:
The one that's broken
Utterly ruined! What's it like, to walk through a broken mirror?
Result:
A ruined dream within a dream of ruin
Ah! Now you, too, are broken.
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: A Ruinous Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Ruinous! (Hidden)]
[On your first visit to this future]
● Your knowledge of the crossroads is increasing… [Knowledge of the Crossroads is
increasing… (+1 CP)]
● Another thread of destiny mapped out. [You've gained 1 x A Cartographer of Fate]
[Afterwards]
⬥ A Jewelled Future
[A Jewelled Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]
The Shores of the Elder Continent

Weeks at zee, and then days skirmishing with the Prester's navy. The names of sunk ships
still reverberating across the crew of your flagship. The Sword of Nidah, the Admiral's
Garters, the Illumination II. Anticipated losses. The war could not be won at zee, but a path
could be carved.
Option 1:
Make landfall at Cline
You have long known this to be one of the Prester's weak points.
Result:
Regretful
The walls of the city are surprisingly brittle; great streaks of white dust go up into the air with
every cannon shot. The city's rulers neither raise a flag of truce nor encourage resistance.
They choose doing nothing over possible error, and so the city falls into paralysis. Soon, you
are marching in through the city's sea-facing gate, unopposed.
This is hardly a great success. The Prester's reinforcements will not be delayed; a few
ill-armed city guards are not representative of what you will face. But you need these small
victories to keep your army from coming apart.
———————
Option 2:
Lead your fleet down Adam's Way
Blood flows from the Mountain to the Zee, and at the mouth of this river lies the fortified city
of Apis Meet. Sail upriver, and you can avoid a long walk.
[Zeefaring challenge]
Success:
Breakthrough
Normally, Apis Meet would let any fool who wants to sail up the Nameless River do so – no
ordinary ship can survive the trip. But they know who you are, and they know you are terribly
prepared. So they raise their seldom-used harbour chain to block the mouth of the river.
Against this, you employ that most powerful naval strategem: nominative determinism. At the
head of your flotilla, just in front of your flagship, zails the Iron Republic icebreaker Ender of
Chains.
● You've gained 1 x Presbyterate Passphrase.
Failure:
Overboard
You are not here for a pitched battle. Your flotilla will race up the mouth of the river, breaking
through whatever coastal defenses Apis Meet can mobilise.
But your helmsman is not quick enough, your lookouts not watchful enough. One shot from a
300mm gun rocks your ship, and all of a sudden you're falling, falling towards the stream of
the Mountain's blood below. It will not be a pleasant end. Everything around you is red and
your body overflows with vitality. You have three eyes, four mouths, five livers, six lungs,
seven—
But this is not a thread worth following.
● Unraveling is increasing… (+? CP)
The Edge of the Desert of Delights

Behind you, years and travails and bloody betrayals. Alliances shattered and reforged.
Crowns broken. Gifts poisoned (the moon-pearls still shimmer green in your dreams). Three
hellworms dead, flesh ravaged by the Prester's dogs. Armies lost to carnivorous swamps.
But ahead! Spires twinkling over the dunes, the seven-walled city awaits.
Option 1:
Prepare your army
The desert is a horrific snare of mirages and false pleasures. You must ready your troops.
Result:
Surgery, again
Some proposed to tear out their tongues (to know that the delicacies of Nidah are but a
mirage in the desert). Or to pierce their ear drums, rip out their eyes. You are not so crude.
You lead your army in a delicate exercise.
They raise their knives in unison. They perform just as you taught them: the incision followed
by the excision. A man's capacity for pleasure is such a small thing, so easily removed.
Some save the tiny bloodied lumps in handkerchiefs, glass jars, pockets. Some, in total zeal,
simply discard them. It is a necessary sacrifice. No army that still has light in its eyes can
cross this desert.
———————
Option 2:
Prepare yourself
You must lead them through this desert, telling truth from lies.
Result:
An end to delight
You send scouting parties out and tell them to bring back sand, as much sand as they can
carry. Two never return. The third is only mostly lost. A disturbingly loyal soldier from the
22nd Company crawls into camp dragging a bloodied sack.
You take his hard-won prize into a makeshift laboratory in a sweltering tent. It took aeons for
the wind to erode a whole desert of this sand from the face of the Mountain. Under the
microscope, each individual grain is a whole kingdom in a bottle. There's a jungle of
man-eating pythons. There's a grassland of nomads' tents and fat, happy goats. There's a
vast city of clockwork automata: wide boulevards flanked with fruiting trees, streets paved
with jewels, brass dancers and top hatted diplomats.
With a mortar and pestle, you crush thousands of these tiny worlds into an even finer dust.
One ingredient in an antidote, along with sapphires and the secretions of your remaining
hellworm.
When you emerge from the tent, days later, your quartermasters are on the verge of tears.
But you tell them that you will resume your march soon; and that you will cut a clean path
through the desert. You tell them that you now see the truth of everything. You say this to
them, smiling, through lips that are as blue as a clear Surface sky.
● An occurrence! Your 'Smiling with Sapphire Lips' Quality is now 1!

The Mountain and the Light
This close to Nidah, the Light of the Mountain is like a blazing sun. Your skin, your lips, your
hair; everything flakes, dries, breaks. No part of you is accustomed to so much light.
Your army – at least those in your army who are not devils or snuffers or Clay Men – brays in
suffering. From a greater distance, the light is a beacon. But up close, flesh demands relief.
Option 1:
Endure it
Long sleeves and scarves, even in the heat. Ointments and balms against the sun. Your
army has faced worse.
This will give you Bombazine Warp.
Result:
The wheel, and the breaking
You do what you can. Arrange your army in narrow files that can walk beside the war
machines and hellworms, for shade. Quibble with the quartermasters over the whiskey
rations.
———————
Option 2:
Accept December's help
They are your greatest expert on luminous matters. But the plan they outline is risky.
Success:
Night's emissary
December doesn't accept your help. They retreat into their tent. You pace outside it for
hours, until—
A law is enacted:
The messenger sings a lower tone.
The night watchman falls asleep in his tower.
Iron is quenched in midnight oil.
No candle shall light paper ablaze.
The Light of the Mountain is a dim red glow, and your skin feels cool for the first time in days.
A bitter dry cold replaces the sweltering heat. December emerges from their tent; one of their
hands is bandaged. You order your army to unpack their winter coats.
Failure:
Unclear
December's baggage contains all manner of substances and devices. If you didn't know
better, you'd call them an expert in the Red Science. But you do know better. They are an
expert in much worse things.
When the device is activated, you feel immediate relief. The light was oppressive, piercing
through through clothes and tent canvas; it had been inescapable these past few days.
Suddenly, you don't feel it on your skin anymore. But neither can you see anything. Nor can
your entire army.
But this isn't a thread worth following.
[Location: A Jewelled Future]
The Loom: A Jewelled Future

Among the maps in your pavilion is one of particular obscurity. Your army stands ready to
accept even the strangest of orders.
Option 1:
"Through the canyon, towards Varchas"
You will order your men to gather all the mirrors in the baggage train.
Result:
Another day in Parabola
It rises up over the terrain ahead, very slowly, though your mind takes it as a sudden arrival:
the Castle of Forests is before you. If you were at the head of an army, it was only a figment,
a notion, a suggestion of an army.
———————
Option 2:
"Back towards the Unterzee. We have erred gravely."
There will be mutiny. If four or five loyal men actually follow you as you flee, it'll be more than
expected.
Result:
London, again
No one listens to you. Your captains will descend into internecine conflict without you, but it
doesn't matter. The only sound is that of your feet taking you away – away from the
Mountain, from the Elder Continent. Back to London, to the city of forgiveness, bathed in
light—
● Sunlight streaming in through a window. You are home. [You have moved to a new
area: A Brilliant Future]
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: A Brilliant Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Brilliant! (Hidden)]
[Afterwards]
———————
Option 3:
"Make camp. And someone please bring me a cup of tea"
And perhaps some biscuits. You are quite famished.
[Unlocked with: Bombazine Warp]
Result:
Your lodgings, once more
Your command tent is beginning to feel like home – with the glass windows, and the
fireplace, and the sound of children playing on the cobblestone streets outside...
⬥ An Abyssal Future
[An Abyssal Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]
It Eats Regret
Spiralling into the depths of the Earth. Slow-moving and silent. It knows what you did. If it
had eyes, they would be fixed on the amber you carry closest to your heart.
Option 1:
"I bring shame"
Are you ashamed, or were you shamed?
[Scandal challenge]
Success [GIFT]:
Feeding
It devours your indiscretions; gorges on the tawdry fabric of your life. You shed this skin
gratefully.
Failure:
Inedible
It chews. It swallows. It does not care.
———————
Option 2:
"I bring guilt"
Are you guilty?
[Suspicion challenge]
Success [GIFT]:
Illicit treats
It subsists on the forbidden, the unspeakable. You give it so much. You have so much guilt to
feed it; you wouldn't be here, otherwise.
Failure:
Inedible
It chews. It swallows. It does not care.
———————
Option 3:
"I bring complicity"
What have you done, to have what you have?
This challenge becomes harder the more Echoes you have.
[Penny challenge]
Success [GIFT]:
Given
It chews greedily on your life's balance sheet. It tastes each misdeed, gorging on the weight
of wealth that balances it; for this exchange, you are owed a minor token of its affections.
● You've gained 1 x Fluke Spine, Freely Given.
Failure:
Too much
It chews greedily on your life's balance sheet. It tastes each misdeed, gorging on the weight
of wealth that balances it. There's so, so much. Enough to choke it, momentarily. The cavern
shakes; stone breaks apart with a peal like thunder. You will be buried— but that's not a
thread worth following.
It Eats Fear
An eye surrounded by spines, staring out into the world in horror. It sees so much and likes
none of it. Standing before it, you might as well be naked.
Option 1:
"I bring fear"
Give it the worst day of your life. Give it the worst terrors that are yet to come.
[Nightmares challenge]
Success [GIFT]:
Given
The things that crawl; the things that bite. Disgorge all the petty fears and open a path for the
ones that truly keep you up at night. The things you might lose. The whispers you hear. The
enemies you've made; the enemies who made you.
Failure:
Received
You offer tender, shapeless fears; fears that menace with claws and fangs rather than
whispers and dissolution. It is unimpressed. It disgorges some of its own fears – a very small
amount – as an example of what it wants.
———————
Option 2:
"I bring only hunger"
The worst fear of all. The fear of absence.
Success [GIFT]:
Devoured
It laps hungrily at the emptiness you offer. You give it nothing and it wants more of it.
Failure:
Empty
It is hungry, and so are you. Your ribs constrict around the empty sacks of your organs.
● You've gained 1 x Unaccountably Peckish, up to 1.
It Eats Hatred
Sharpness on sharpness on sharpness. Look upon it and be cut. Its hate is vast. Its hate is
not enough.
Option 1:
"I bring pain"
The source of your hurt doesn't matter. It will feel your pain, and lash out at the whole world
for it.
[Wounds challenge]
Success [GIFT]:
Given
Blood on blood-red amber. Find a mouth and offer it. Slow, cautious; twist your arm around
the spines as you reach. The cavern trembles. It delights in its revolt.
Failure:
Cut, cut, cut
Hold the amber tight in your hand; make an offering. You find one of its mouths. But not
unscathed; its spines are serrated, curving, treacherous.
———————
Option 2:
"I bring grievance"
You have a shared enemy. Remind it of that.
[Advancing the Liberation of Night challenge]
Success [GIFT]:
Given
Camaraderie in commiseration. Do you remember how you came by this amber filled with
memories of despicable light? Feed it what it hates; claim some of that sharpness for
yourself.
Failure:
Received
Is the hatred that you share sincere, on your part? It can show you its former place on the
Chain; the agony of existing in it, and the agony of leaving it.
[Location: An Abyssal Future]

The Loom: An Abyssal Future
A labyrinth of twisted chambers spirals out, though it is unclear what these passages are.
More caverns? Or the awaiting maws of vast abyssal creatures?
Option 1:
The eastern passageway
It is damp and soft; the most like a throat.
[Unlocked with: Sinewy Warp]
Result:
A long crawl
What crawls out of the tunnel is not what crawled in.
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: An Altered Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Altered! (Hidden)]
———————
Option 2:
The western passageway
A tunnel of masonry and brickwork.
[Unlocked with: Silken Warp]
Result:
A long crawl
How strange that it should lead directly to your parlour.
———————
Option 3:
The downward passageway
Its interior is entirely dark.
Result:
A long crawl
You keep crawling forwards through the tunnel, expecting your eyes to adjust to the
darkness. They never do.
● Total darkness. You are home. [You have moved to a new area: A Dark Future]
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: A Dark Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Dark! (Hidden)]
⬥ A Chilly Future
[A Chilly Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]
The Counting of Days

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose, under heaven. The days in the
sky are marked with observances, holidays, feasts, fasts. Your traveling companions pass
the time by closely observing it, slicing it into choice cuts.
Option 1:
Observe the Day of Terminations
A day for celebrating things that end: labours, loves, lives.
Result:
'The cessation of something that has overstayed its welcome'
The observances are simple. You share a meal – and then you stop. Mr Pages improvises a
speech, though following it requires reading obscure sigils. It uncorks 'relief at the end of
pleasant circumstances which, should they have lasted indefinitely, would have ultimately
turned sour' and its captive audience roll their eyes.
Mr Apples is nowhere to be seen, you take note – this might perhaps be its day of shame.
———————
Option 2:
Observe the Day of the Hunt
A day for pursuing, and fighting, and hopefully catching.
[Monstrous Anatomy challenge]
Success:
Pursuit
You assemble into pairs of hunter and hunted based on past grievances. And then, you let
loose and chase one another in aerial duels – letting go of your habitual names, speaking
only in piercing screams, seeing little through the buffeting wind and dust.
The skies themselves join the hunt – the air is sharp and rakes against your membranes like
knives. You bend, dive, glide, swing, chasing your quarry around the vortices of wells,
through the rifts in cracked worldlets, along the invisible currents of high air. Eventually, your
claws connect; a ribbon of blood streams across the sky.
Your victory will be celebrated – after the day ends, and such things as laughter and
language are once again allowed. Though some bottles will go unopened.
● You've gained 6 x Bottle of Strangling Willow Absinthe.
Failure:
Fledgeling
You assemble into pairs of hunter and hunted based on past grievances. And then, you let
loose and chase one another in aerial duels – letting go of your habitual names, speaking
only in piercing screams, seeing little through the buffeting wind and dust.
You come up short of making a catch, however. Later, when the day has ended and
language is once more permitted, Wines will joke about your inexperience.
The Woven Wind

"Not a true Wind," protests Wines, "just sorrow-spiders flying from worldlet to worldlet. A
plague." The exact nature of the phenomenon aside, it is unnerving to see a mass of
spiderwebs floating gently in the air towards you.
Option 1:
Weave your way through gaps in the silk
They spin their webs wide, like great sails.
Result:
Graceful
Spiderwebs as big as cities, woven from silk strands as long as battleships. The Bazaar will
be covered in spiders for weeks, of course, but it won't be bothered by them – it has had
worse millennia. You and your companions are a different matter. You narrow your wings,
shooting through the gaps in the webs, keeping yourself spider-free. Pages is not so
fortunate; it lets out a terrible yelp at one point, which will supply all of you with amusement
for weeks.
———————
Option 2:
Engage in a little sport
A sorry prey. But they live in breach of the laws of the sky – every day is spider-hunting day.
[Monstrous Anatomy challenge]
Success:
Catch and release
You can't really eat them, and they make dull trophies. Once the small conclave of spiders
caught in your claws starts to debate phenomenology, you let them go – leaving a streak of
unhappy eight-legged philosophers in your wake. They'll land somewhere interesting, you're
sure.
● An occurrence! Your 'Driven by a Pitch-Black Heart' Quality is now 1!
● You've gained 250 x Silk Scrap.
Failure:
[Missing]
The Waking Well

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first must make mad," quotes Mr Wines – though the
blazing letters of its speech are embroidered with subtler meanings. You fly close to a
yawning maw in the sky.
Option 1:
Listen to the well's voice
To every well, there is a prisoner, and a crime, unloved by heaven.
Result:
Oubliette
"The waking well is the well of nighthawks," explains Mr Fires, "and sleepwalkers. It is the
resting-place of those who counted the days and found them few. Of those who would also
have nights."
You bend your wings and fly a little closer, careful not to be caught in the eddies of spiralling
air around it. The fog and debris swirl around the mouth of the well; at their centre is only
darkness.
You align your body to that dark heart, and close your eyes. Let out a shrill shout into the
well. There is no reply. The bottom of a well is so far beneath reality that it barely exists. So
why is this faint "let me out" ringing in your ears?
———————
Option 2:
Fly in with a bottle
Dangerous; but the thin, lightless ejecta from the heart of the well has some value.
Success:
Skillfully done
It is a difficult manoeuvre. You pick up speed, catching a gust of wind in your wings before
turning your body so that you slam, talons-first, into the barely-visible line of matter escaping
the well. As you escape the well's gravity, you take care to put a cork in the bottle.
Your traveling companions regard you with a mix of envy, admiration, and annoyance at your
recklessness. But they'll want to barter for what you collected all the same.
● You've gained 1 x Limpid Soul.
Failure:
Too dangerous
The wind around the well is not just unpredictable, but mean-spirited. Before you lose your
way, you feel the impact of Apples crashing into you to keep you from falling in. Its frustration
with your carelessness is palpable.
[Location: A Chilly Future]
The Loom: A Chilly Future

There are winds you dare not glide on. But you could – you could! You need only spread
your wings and catch the air just so...
Option 1:
A new wind
It's so young it doesn't even have a name yet.
[Unlocked with: Sinewy Warp 3, Knowledge of the Crossroads 6]
Result:
Morning again
A shrill recording of birdsong jolts you awake. Check your watch immediately: 06:37, 28º,
AQI Moderate, BP 16/9, stress endocrine response detected, 777 unread emails—
● Cool, dry, air-conditioned air. You are home. [You have moved to a new area: A Neon
Future]
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: A Neon Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Neon! (Hidden)]
[Afterwards]
———————
Option 2:
The mirror-wind
It flies from two directions at once, always in opposition to itself.
Result:
Wednesday in Parabola, once more
Wind rustling through the grass. It is a feast day here in the Castle of Forests – though you
forget the saint's name. It's probably not important.
———————
Option 3:
The wind of ruin
A wind that breaks couriers and strips worldlets bare.
Result:
Wandering again
You shiver. Wind cutting through the ruins again. Holes in your coat.
⬥ A Ruinous Future
[A Ruinous Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]
Bleeding
You usually are, these days.
Option 1:
Unravel someone
Through use, bandages become frayed to dust. But there's only so much linen left in
London.
Success:
Cut, cut, cut
The knife is horribly dull; it tears more than it cuts. But you come away from the collapsed
figure with a few fresh bandages and a white stone fragment untangled from the filthy linen.
Move on quickly, before more scavengers appear.
● You've gained 1-20 x Bandage Scrap.
● You've gained 1 x Selenitic Fragment.
Failure:
Snared
Some of the collapsed bodies in the rubble are, though not dead (for nothing really dies in
the city), diminished to the point of being no threat to a linen-scavenger like you.
But some are merely lying in wait. Some were never human at all. Some are hungry and
patient things; and when roused to action, they may be too fast for your dulled senses to
react to, until their teeth already close around your throat— but that's not a thread worth
following.
———————
Option 2:
Bandage yourself
Again, and again. It occupies much of your time.
[Unlocked with: 10 x Bandage Scrap]
Result:
Staunched, for now
Wrap it very carefully, and pull it tight – to the point of numbness.
● You've lost 10 x Bandage Scrap.
The Absence of Rats

Even the vermin are gone. Starved, vanished, fled. Sometimes you find piles of tiny bones,
arranged into trails.
Option 1:
Pick through minute debris
Small treasures accumulate in hidden places, with no scavengers to collect them.
Success:
Searching
Your bony fingers scrape at the cracks in shattered walls; you pick through piles of rubble.
Hours sometimes go by without finding anything, and your eyes hurt from the strain. But you
manage to collect a tiny pile of darkened flakes.
● You've gained 191-246 x Shard of Lightless Glim.
Failure:
Something finds you
Your reactions are dulled; danger is rare, these days, but there are hungry things with
enough teeth left to harm you. You can offer little resistance as it drags you to its den
beneath the rubble— but that's not a thread worth following.
———————
Option 2:
Make pilgrimage
The rat-cairns mark a path through the rubble. Following it would take days; do you have
enough to eat?
Result:
Blessings sought
It is a slow march to visit the stations of this pilgrimage. The old cobbles under your feet are
brittle, shattered; you walk toe-first, probing the uneven ground. At each tiny pile of rat
bones, you leave a minute scrap from your bandages; an offering, or a warning.
● You've lost 1 x Dismal Victuals.
The Hunger
There are several, stalking you from the shadows. Most have not been sated in so very long.
Option 1:
Scavenge for miserable sustenance
Nothing is worse than starving but being unable to die.
Success:
Nothing
In the awful stillness, any noise is a clarion. You follow the sounds of a feast for a half-day
until you see it, lying on the rubble: a carcass the size of a cow, fallen from the roof. A dozen
or so fellow scavengers precede you; they have no words for you, and no strength to fight.
[Without Ambition: Light Fingers! 54+?] The obvious cracks in the creature's shell have been
picked clean. But there's enough strength to tear open the gap between two ventral plates,
and pull out some of the grey, fibrous flesh.
[With Ambition: Light Fingers! 54+?] The moon-miser must have been dead for months. With
her lightless shell and her body broken and curled up, you can't tell whether she would have
been familiar to you, in life. You have enough strength left to tear open the gap between two
ventral plates, and pull out some of her grey, fibrous flesh.
● You've gained 1 x Dismal Victuals.
Failure:
Nothing
Days of walking over what once were streets. Rubble, dust. Nothing.
———————
Option 2:
Barter for food
Some are too far gone even to eat. They hoard a little food, to trade for trinkets.
[Unlocked with: 50 x Shard of Lightless Glim]
Result:
Exchanged
There's not much left underneath his bandages. He wears the brittle scales of black glim,
wrapped up in the filthy linen, to create the impression that there's more of him than there
really is.
● You've lost 50 x Shard of Lightless Glim.
● You've gained 1 x Dismal Victuals.
[Location: A Ruinous Future]
The Loom: A Ruinous Future

But what if you could escape?
Option 1:
A mousehole, too small to crawl through
Get me out of here.
Result:
Sense-impression (directional): Below, below, below
Your old body couldn't crawl through this space. It was good to shed it.
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: An Altered Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Altered! (Hidden)]
———————
Option 2:
A collapsed passageway
Get me out of here!
[Unlocked with: Silken Warp 3, This specific path into a distant future is ruined, and can never be
opened. But there may be another, hidden elsewhere. [Ruined], Knowledge of the Crossroads 6]
Result:
[Impossible]
———————
Option 3:
A broken mirror
GET ME OUT OF HERE!
Result:
A feast day in Parabola
You are so desperately hungry all of a sudden – best wander over to the refreshments. The
fingerkings have made sandwiches.
⬥ A Brilliant Future
[A Brilliant Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]
The Eyes of the Ministry

It is simply the Ministry, now. The Ministry of Public Everything. The Ministry for the
Continued Existence of a Public. Theirs is the distribution lily-balm, and the assurance that
all remains well. They are so very busy; it is a good thing that there are so many of them.
Option 1:
Aid in the censoring of texts
Their original task remains, and it is never done. They are fortunate to never have to face the
spectre of unemployment.
Some may engage in the distribution of sanctioned texts. You should report all such persons
to the Ministry.
Result:
Elimination
It is a good thing that harmful text now ignites itself. You splay the books open, exposing
each page to the sunlight. You are rewarded with a tenth of an ounce of balm for every
chapter turned to ashes.
● You've gained 1 x Ounce of Lily-Balm.
———————
Option 2:
Break into a storehouse of lily-balm
In their infinite mercy, the agents of order turn a blind eye to the petty theft of vital supplies.
But no thief has lived to learn how the balm is manufactured.
[Shadowy challenge]
Success:
The manufacture of wax
Opening the padlock on a high window can be done with simple tools, but the interior of the
building is abuzz with activity. The sunlight streaming through the windows leaves precious
few places to hide. There's no safe way to retrieve the precious balm – fresh, still warm in
storage vats. All you can steal is the knowledge of how it's made, for what little good it does
you.
The source of the balm is a group of captive devils – emaciated creatures with none of the
luster they had when they walked free upon the streets of London. Men from the Ministry use
two-handled blades to scrape the waxy substance from the underside of their chitinous
carapaces; it comes off in long, curling strips.
Failure:
Caught
As you tap at the pins on the padlock, you feel a heavy hand on your shoulder. More forceful
gestures to follow. You don't walk all the way down the path of this unpleasantness – best
leave this thread behind.
● Unraveling is increasing… (+? CP)

A Good Day for a Stroll
The sun shines on Tyrant's Gardens. The flowers are in bloom – lily of the valley, marigolds,
even exotic orchids. The Ministry employs many in the careful maintenance of the lawn and
the planting of trees.
Option 1:
Aid in planting trees
Cherries, apricots, apples. But the living trees in the gardens are still mere saplings, years
away from yielding fruit.
Some may say that too much exposure to the Sun is not so good for you. You should report
any such persons to the Ministry.
[Memory of Sunlight challenge]
Success:
A perfect day under the Sun
The Ministry supplies you with a heavy linen garment that covers you from head to toe, and
a broad-brimmed workingman's hat that shades you from the sun. Still, by the end of the
afternoon, you can hardly pick out the dirt from under your fingernails; your skin stings, and
your vision blurs, and there's a ringing tone in your ears that won't go away.
Failure:
A lovely day under the Sun
You wear a sun hat, and sun boots, and a sun smock that covers as much of your skin as
possible. Still, the warmth lingers, all over your body, lasting longer than the smell of grass in
your nose.
● You've gained 1 x Memory of Sunlight.
———————
Option 2:
Take the day for yourself
It is, for the time being, still legal for Londoners to visit the gardens simply for a restorative
walk. But to do so without a heavy application of lily-balm is ill-advised.
Gaining Memories of Sunlight will make this check more difficult.
[Wounds challenge; Unlocked with: 1 x Ounce of Lily-Balm]
Success:
Recovering
You are as you should be, or closer to it. These days, you only feel like yourself under the
warm gaze of the Sun.
● You've gained 10 x Romantic Notion.
Failure:
Ineffective
You walk, smell the growing grass, admire the saplings, refrain from picking any flowers. It
does nothing for you. All is already as it should be, after all.
The Hour of Dusk

Nights are blessedly short in London – the gaze of the Sun is rarely drawn away from the
city's inhabitants. It's not so bad; you sleep very little, these days.
Option 1:
Light a candle
Illumination is the duty of every citizen. And no fuel has arrived from Hell in several years.
Some may claim that the light of the Sun is a poison. You should report all such persons to the
Ministry.
[Memory of Sunlight challenge]
Success:
Seven candles
One candle lit and you suddenly miss it: the light that didn't nestle in your retinas like a coiled
snake, the light that didn't leave afterimages dancing in your eyes for hours. You light
another candle, and another, and another— but no. This is not a thread worth following.
● Unraveling is increasing… (+(Memory of Sunlight / 2) CP)
Failure:
A light in the darkness
The Sun barely dips below the roof-horizon. Londoners leave candles on every windowsill,
willing it to return. It does. All is as it should be.
———————
Option 2:
Try to sleep
How long has it been? A week, maybe two?
[Nightmares challenge]
Success:
Respite
You sleep soundly, but you don't dream. Five or six hours are mercifully excised from your
experience of the world. Sunlight fills the room to greet you.
Failure:
Tossing and turning
You close your eyes. Only the afterimage of the light leaking through the blinds is there to
greet you. You open your eyes and stare at the ceiling. You close your eyes, wishing for lying
dream-serpents and opinionated chessmen. Only darkness. You open your eyes again. The
ceiling is still there.
● You've gained 5 x Tale of Terror!!.
5]

[Same as before]
Option:
A brilliant future
The colour in this thread has gone pale; sun-bleached.
Destinies under the pitiless gaze of the sun.
[Unlocked with: Charting a Future: Brilliant, Discovered: A Brilliant Future]
Result:
● Go to: Inspection Day
Inspection Day
It has no fixed date; it comes whenever the Ministry deems it necessary. When the Special
Constables arrive, you let them in. They search your lodgings for signs of sedition; for
Revolutionary literature, for mirrorcatch boxes, for bomb-making materials. They will find
nothing, of course.
Option 1:
You are loyal to the Law
More loyal than they are. More loyal than anyone in this city of the damned.
A Destiny that increases your A Player of Chess skill.
Result:
The light of Law
You are, to all appearances, a model citizen. You bask in the light of the Sun at all assigned
hours. Your eyes burn with inner light; if you close them, you can see it – a fixed point above
the horizon. You scrape and claw for pennies to buy lily-balm.
It is not remotely enough. There's something about the light of the Sun that's not right.
Devils, when Devils walked the streets of London, would talk about soul flaws. You are
nearing a theory. You are nearing a theory that the light of a star might be flawed in a similar
way. The more you gaze into the light seeping in through the roof, the more you are certain:
this light is tainted with sentimentality; an inability to let go. It is cloyed. You need the light of
a better star. You need to return to the Surface.
It takes years. The stockpiling of lily-balm, and the deprivation of sunlight that it gives you.
The assemblage of lenses you have moved, at catastrophic expense, up the Cumaean
Canal. You spend every favour, every penny, everything you have on it. You buy land in
Naples. You build an observatory.
And then, on a warm summer night, you fix your telescope on a bright, blue star. It is not like
any other telescope. It is not made to resolve a clear image, but to amplify as much of the
dim starlight as you can get – not a scientific instrument but a hungry funnel. The very little
light that reaches your eye is like a droplet of water to a man dying of thirst. It is perfect; a
cold, dispassionate light of finality. You gaze into the star every hour that you can. It is like
drinking ambrosia through a pipette.
When that cold star gazes back into you, you welcome it. You crave justice; you need to be
measured. You give it everything, starting with your own foibles, your own sins. Once those
are gone there's very little left of you, but that very little keeps going. It describes the
distortions it has felt in Sun-light. It confesses its suspicions, its theories. It greets
Judgement, when that finally arrives, as nothing but evidence and scrupulous desire.
● LXXVII: A reckoning no longer postponed. [You now have 1 x Judgement]
———————
Option 2:
You have ensured there will be nothing to find
They have no idea what you know. You know their schedules, their inclinations, their
suspicions. You know their thoughts before they have them.
A Destiny that increases your Mithridacy skill.
[Unlocked with: Advancing the Liberation of Night: Less slowly, Significantly, Dramatically]
Result:
Resistance
When the Roof was breached, you could hardly hear for the screaming. Sunlight shone on
London and the Masters were all disappeared or dead; the old structures of power crumbled
in instants, to be replaced by a rigid new order.
You were more prepared than most. You had seen the machinations of the Dawn Machine;
visited the sites on the roof where incipient cracks were spreading. You had a little time to
make preparations.
Above, on the sunlit streets, the Constables and the Ministry are none the wiser; you have
carefully pruned your reputation to ensure this. But when you can steal a little time, you
disappear below - down into the buried depths of London, into the outskirts of the Nadir.
There, where the sun-seared enforcers of order dare not go, are the ever-expanding ranks of
the dispossessed.
You’ve become something of a leader almost by accident - to Devils, Rubberies, criminals,
trade unionists, revolutionaries. The five remaining members of the Calendar Council (that
you know of) and the Bishop of St Fiacre’s. Some of you can still go above - to secure
supplies, to steal information, to mislead the authorities. Those who can’t tend to the
lightless fires of the Great Work. It is a difficult existence, squeezed in between the irrigo
below and the authorities above. But you are fueled by the clarity of knowing that the
Liberation must arrive; it has become a matter of survival.
● XLIX: To protect a truth with an armour of lies. [You now have 1 x The Mask]
———————
Option 3:
Discard this thread
Result:
A step backwards
[Location: A Brilliant Future]

The Loom: A Brilliant Future
London is a little smaller than it used to be; some districts are marked as off-limits. But there
is still plenty to see.
Option 1:
A stroll to Wolfstack Docks
The Admiralty's hive of activity.
Result:
Buzzing
It looms over the warehouses and the docks, glinting brilliantly in the Sun: The vast
beehive-shaped structure of ruby glass, the false-Mountain that reflects celestial light, the
Admiralty's great and final work.
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: A Jewelled Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Jewelled! (Hidden)]
———————
Option 2:
A walk around the block
What mysteries lie in your own neighbourhood?
Result:
Perfected
The streets are straight and wide – the word 'street' hardly describes them. London is now a
city of boulevards and parkways. You can tell the old buildings by how they have been
scraped and scrubbed and sun-bleached, the smog filed out of their nooks and crannies.
You can tell the new buildings by their bland Neoclassicism. But here – what's that graffiti? It
reminds you of something you saw, once, long ago.
———————
Option 3:
An excursion to Watchmaker's Hill
The Observatory used to house a cult of astronomers who gave their eyes away to
Sorrow-Spiders. This barbaric sect has been abolished – it now houses a cult of
astronomers who gaze at the sun until their eyes fail.
Result:
To burn with the light of certainty
Crowds of wide-eyed day trippers walk towards the Observatory. Crowds of sun-seared day
trippers return from the Observatory.
⬥ An Altered Future
[An Altered Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]
Thread-Collapse: 'Asphyxia'
Water up your nose and down into your lungs; creeping numbness in your extremities;
darkness in the edges of your vision. Here are all the threads that end in drowning – in the
abyssal depths of the zee, most often. But also in the Stolen River, in the locks of the
Cumaean Canal, in boiling vats of wax, in the lacre pools beneath the Bazaar, in wells.
Option 1:
Turn the key
Reject drowning.
Result:
Urodela
Gills on your neck, like blood-red tree branches. But now the water is so much more a part of
you: every dissolved mineral, every lurking toxin. What saves you is itself a vulnerability; and
other deaths may be found, lurking in flooded places.
———————
Option 2:
Leave the key alone
Accept drowning.
Result:
Black
The Fathomking, and his spouse. The secrets of the abyssal depths. What lies at the bottom
of the lacre pools. The Midnight Whales. The Gant Pole. Lady Black. You see them all. And
there are things one might learn, even with a lungful of water.
● You've gained 233-299 x Frayed Thread.
Thread-Collapse: 'Haemorrhagia'
The shock of red on your hands, the sharpness of pain, your skin going cold and clammy
and then insensate. Here are all the threads that end in blood. At the end of blades: players
of Knife-and-Candle, Licentiates sent by the Masters, the agents of the Prester. But just as
often by accident – building collapses, unfortunate falls. One thread has you impaled on
Feducci's lance after tripping on your own feet.
Option 1:
Turn the key
Reject bleeding.
Result:
Siphonophora
Undifferentiate your organs; let all of you be stomach and lungs and brain. No more veins to
open. Escape all the quick, bloody deaths. But become something slower in the process –
something that moves in its own time. And time, then, may one day come to devour you.
———————
Option 2:
Leave the key alone
Accept bleeding.
Result:
Crimson
Nothing will teach you about war like being a casualty. The armies of the Prester marching
on London. The armies of London marching on Hell. The armies of the Roof marching on the
Neath. Armies you didn't know about, battlefields you hadn't seen. Some bloodied threads
are longer than others; find the very longest ones, and see the exquisite shape of the knives
that end them – knives of steel, of flint, of glass, of ceramic, of aluminium and titanium and
plastic...
Thread-Collapse: 'Katalēpsis'
A jumble. The rotting flesh around a viper bite. The sharp pain of neurotoxic shock. The
complete cessation caused by Cantigaster venom. Here are all the threads that end in
poison. All so different from one another; all end in the same place.
Option 1:
Turn the key
Reject poison.
Result:
Sibloglinidae
This is the very hardest one. You must twist your metabolism so far away from everything
else that the toxins won't know what to do with you. Your blood will be sulfur and your bones
silicon. You may flee to the brine pools, to the deep-sea vents, to the most obscure places of
the Earth. Death will find you there – but it will need new tricks.
———————
Option 2:
Leave the key alone
Accept poison.
Result:
Viridian
Cantigaster venom, discriminating aconite, black honey. Every poison of the Neath, obscure
or notorious. You sip them all. Each is a teacher with a different lesson. Hold the very end of
each thread in your hand; right before they are severed, they know so much.
5]

[Same as before]
Option:
An altered future
This one is the colour of squid ink.
A destiny forever changed.
[Unlocked with: Charting a Future: Altered, Discovered: An Altered Future]
Result:
● Go to: Doom/Knot
Doom/Knot
The familiar twist of yarn pinched in your fingers. The weave of a tapestry. But your hands
are slick with blood. Follow any thread to its conclusion and they're all dyed the same colour.
Option 1:
Turn the Key
Reject death.
A Destiny that increases your Shapeling Arts skill.
[Unlocked with: 777 x Frayed Thread, 1 x Stone Tentacle-Key]
Result:
Escape
What is an orbit? It is falling so fast that you keep missing the ground.
You will orbit Death. You will keep changing, so fast and so obliquely, that Destiny keeps
missing. Let it tie you by the ankles and swing you around. Let the centrifugal force rip you
out of your skin, over and over again.
You will have no lungs to drown, no neck to snap, no veins to empty.
London’s depths will be opened to you, and you will commune with the things beneath. Flute
Street. The Light-in-Exile. The Regret-Beyond-Death. The other buried things that the city
couldn’t kill. You will know them all. You will slough off the flesh that could have died so
easily. And when the lacre overflows and the stone pigs stir, you will remain.
You will have no metabolism to stop, no chemistry to poison, no electricity to ground.
If the Neath is a vast body, you will be its last parasite. Let the homecoming of silver happen.
Let the earth finally crush this blister beneath her skin. Let the Judgements rot in their
thrones. You’ll still be there.
You will have no electrons to strip, no nuclei to fuse. No mass, no velocity, no charge and no
spin.
At the end of the universe there will always be a version of you, a speck that remains after
every possible skin has been shed, a creature of gant shadows and negative space. Death
needs no witness; but you will be there to witness the vastness of death, all the same. And
you won’t be alone.
● XII: The necessary sacrifice of a limiting part of yourself. [You now have 1 x The
Hanged Man]
● You've lost 777 x Frayed Thread.
● You've lost 1 x Stone Tentacle-Key.
———————
Option 2:
Discard this thread
Result:
A step backwards
[Location: An Altered Future]
The Loom: An Altered Future

Sense-memory: The audible snap of tearing a muscle. You are in a place that bends you.
Option 1:
Bend into nothing at all
How many times can you fold a sheet of paper before you no longer have paper?
[Unlocked with: Sinewy Warp 3, Steward of the Discordance 5, Knowledge of the Crossroads 7, 1 x
Immaterial Material]
Result:
Gone
There – one thread. Just one. You can follow it down its length. Eventually, you run out of
fibers. But the thread, immaterial, keeps going.
● You are not home. [You have moved to a new area: No Future]
● An occurrence! Your 'Discovered: A Discordant Future' Quality is now 1!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now None! (Hidden)]
———————
Option 2:
Bend into a ruined shape
Broken! Broken! Broken!
Result:
Interesting times
There are so many threads that stop short. And these, smeared in ashes, which fray and
weaken but keep going, going, going.
———————
Option 3:
Bend into a shameful shape
Think about an old regret and curl yourself up into a little spiral, tight and pathetic and
oh-so-disgusting for the whole world to see.
Result:
Feasting on yarn
All is well. You've come to a place where your shames are appreciated. Open yourself up –
there, a needle to hold your skin in place – and disgorge it all.
⬥ A Dark Future
[A Dark Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]
The Liberation, in Apocyan

A new society ferments under apocyan light. No longer is humanity fettered by the
hierarchies of 'present' and 'past'. The life of memories is afforded the same consideration as
the life of the body and the life of the mind. The city becomes a living system of places,
actual and remembered, that is navigated not for the subsistence-maintenance of the
present, but for the continuous reconstruction and reevaluation of the past.
Option 1:
Hear a story
The revolution preserves, as its permanent fuel, the memory of what sparked the revolution.
Result:
What is preserved
A small crowd arrayed in a circle around a lightless fire. The storytelling never stops. People
join in, people leave, but their words linger in the air. Each scene of London under the
tyranny of the Masters is woven into a shared memory. The brutality of factory shifts; the
slow dying of starvation in the streets. The ones who fought for the Great Work; the ones
who knew they wouldn't live to see its completion.
———————
Option 2:
Tell a story
Each person had their own revolution. You might contribute yours.
[Advancing the Liberation of Night challenge]
Success:
Yours, ours
You sit near the fire and walk through all of it – all that you've done, all that you've seen.
Things that before would have had you arrested. Things that would have had you exiled.
Things that would have had you dead at a Licentiate's hands.
You set aside judgement. If your actions were regrettable: they happened in a regrettable
world. If your actions were heroic: let them stay there, in a world that still needed heroes.
They were your actions, either way; now they are everyone's.
● You've gained 26 x No Currency.
Failure:
What remains
You sit near the fire and let it all out: the shock, the confusion. The moment that the lights
went out, and the weeks and months after. The dislocation. The grief for what you lost. The
world turned upside-down.
In different circumstances, this perspective might mark you as an enemy. But the Liberation,
in its exhaustive inevitability, simply absorbs your long-held fears. Weaves them into a story
that is no longer your story.
● You've gained 26 x No Currency.
The Liberation, in Peligin

A new society ferments under peligin light. No longer is humanity fettered by the hierarchies
of 'human' and 'monstrous.' Autonomous relationships emerge between selves that are not
atomised liberal subjects but assemblages of knowledges and meanings drawn from a
continuum of bodies.
Option 1:
Make another more like yourself
Self and other, like all boundaries, are blurrier in the dark.
Result:
Freely given
You are full to bursting of yourself. Like someone with a citrus tree in their garden – in
summer, there is too much to use or even sell; it must be given away, or left to rot.
And so you walk the unlit streets, giving away parts of yourself. Mannerisms, habits.
Favourite kennings and turns of phrase. The curve of your nose or the sway of your gait. You
give away so much that if you opened your skin, your innards might not notice – the world is
so much, now, like what's inside of you.
———————
Option 2:
Become more like another
Peligin-eyed cats wander the streets of the city – the adoptive children of a body returned.
They have something for you.
Result:
A light that is not light
Some secrets settle deep in the bones, where they cannot be shared by whispers or furtive
notes. A dancer's balance or a cat's footfalls. The undulations of Rubbery Men, or the facial
contortions of snuffers.
The Liberation unseals what once was pigeonholed in distinct shapes. Through amber, and
peligin radiation, and the subtle resonance of electric bodies, you might become something
else.
The lamp-cat is a messenger; a surgeon; when necessary, a psychopomp. It makes an offer
with a headbutt and a stare of those not-quite-black eyes. What she has to teach you is, very
literally, a way of seeing the world.
● An occurrence! Your 'Seeing Through Eyes of Peligin' Quality is now 1!
● You've gained 1 x Memory of a Much Lesser Self.
The Liberation, in Violant

A new society ferments under violant light. No longer is humanity fettered by the hierarchies
of 'self' and 'other'. Social relations are given primacy over their subjects – a world where the
edges of the graph hold the importance previously afforded to the nodes.
Option 1:
Give something
From each according to their ability.
Result:
Giver of gifts
You share, above all, those things you have in excess. Help those in your community who
are lacking in regrets, in minor indiscretions, in old extravagant pre-Liberation clothes, in
curious travelling companions...
———————
Option 2:
Take something
And to each according to their need.
Success:
Taker of prizes
Those who still care to remember London (before the Liberation, when such names applied)
might compare it to the winter holidays. But you are all Mr Sacks. "Take these lapsarian
wines," a neighbour tells you. You gladly oblige.
● You've gained 10 x Bottle of Morelways 1872.
● You've gained 100 x Bottle of Greyfields 1882.
Failure:
Bearer of burdens
It is true, perhaps, that the emergent organisation of economic life within the context of
non-coercive exchanges does tend to produce somewhat more random outcomes than the
consistent grinding misery of a market system. Which is how you find yourself with a surplus
of furniture, when a friend of a friend decides to experiment with "empty living space" and
"the reconfiguration of architectural lifeways." It's rather nice, old furniture, too. The kind
that's liable to give you an injury if you try to carry it.
5]

[Same as before]
Option:
A dark future
This thread has no colour.
Dark destinies of the Liberation.
[Unlocked with: Charting a Future: Dark, Discovered: A Dark Future]
Result:
● Go to: The Liberation, in Gant
The Liberation, in Gant

The lights have gone out – in what was once London, at least. The city's corpse is a rich
loam on which new societies grow. The Masters, the Empress, the great and the good: they
all have reaped what they spent fifty years sowing.
t is time to plant something new.
Option 1:
Plant the seeds of a new community
In the dark, you will learn to live as you could not have before.
A Destiny that increases your Monstrous Anatomy skill.
Result:
Seeds
The work is difficult. The Travertine Spiral and the Cumaean Canal are blockaded by fearful
Surface powers, and you soon realise how dependent London truly was on Surface trade. In
the first few chaotic days, the Palace's larders are thrown open, as are the storehouses of
the Bazaar. These stocks can't last.
But the darkness brings its gifts, in time. Luxury yachts are repurposed into fishing trawlers.
Tyrant's Gardens is covered in edible mushrooms, new strains that could not have lived
under gaslight. A creature bathed in peligin light has taken up residency in Parliament, from
where it dispenses secrets to a community of river fishers. It is not the life that there was in
London – you haven't seen butter in years – but it has its own wonders.
There are rumblings of war on the Surface. Every few months a ship from the College of
Mortality tries to moor on Wolfstack Docks before being driven off by locals. Law-furnaces
run cold, and devils debate the merits of adopting new approaches in the procurement of
souls – monetary enticement being no longer effective. It is not a life without worries, either.
For your own part, you've relinquished a great deal of power. You've learned what you can
from Drownies, from Clay Men, from those whose knowledge London once corralled and hid
away. Even then, you only have your two hands – for now, though additional appendages
are increasingly in fashion. You contribute where you can, tending to this garden. It is a little
pocket of time and space where freedom has found a handful of you; where none call each
other Master.
● The card with no number: To see the world not with eyes, but with hyphae. [You now
have 1 x The Mushroom]
———————
Option 2:
Plant the seeds of the Great Work
London is only the first. There is so much more to liberate.
A Destiny that increases your A Player of Chess skill. Weaving this destiny will increase
Advancing the Liberation of Night a great deal.
Result:
Justice
In the weeks and months that followed the Liberation, the Calendar Council would meet.
Without a full quorum, at first – May was missing for a few weeks, and January was
occupied, and December's attendance was spotty. But soon they would all begin to convene
together with regularity. Twelve months, and you.
The first order of business was to chart the extent of Liberation; find the boundaries of
remaining tyranny. West: Ealing was liberated, but not Hell; the boundary was somewhere in
between. East: Mutton Island and a few nearby locales, but the broad unterzee still resisted.
The cause still had far to advance.
The rest of the Neath, first. The lights of the Khanate going dead. The glinting smiles of
tigers as they dissolve their court. The Mountain, shattering. Years of struggle, but merely
the first step.
And then, when there are no more shores to liberate in the Neath, you will zail to Irem. A
dark and silent voyage in a zubmersible that has seen its share of battles. Midnight whales
following your wake. Navigation by sonar and memory.
You will, eventually, return to her shores. From the dark knot that is the detonation of the
Unclear Bomb, many threads will splay out. Threads that will weave through the Avid
Horizon, to the skies of Eleutheria. Threads that will reach the heart of the Halved (the heart
it does not have) and the things that lurk at the bottom of wells (the wells that have no
bottom). You will take these thin, dark strands and weave them into rope – to tug at the
hands of the clock, to pull down the idols of the stars, to drag the Judgements out of their
thrones.
● XI: A long-overdue change in course. [You now have 1 x Justice]
● Advancing the Liberation of Night: is increasing… (+? CP)
———————
Option 3:
Discard this thread
Result:
A step backwards
[Location: A Dark Future]

The Loom: A Dark Future
These dark pathways used to be streets, but the hierarchies of private and public, of inside
and outside, have melted away. They lead somewhere else, and you are free to escape
there.
Option 1:
The way travelled by amber-gatherers
It leads below.
Result:
Down among the Lorn-Flukes, politically
The self-other distinction is the originator of all hierarchy; where you're going, that category
melts away even more.
———————
Option 2:
The way you came
All of the City is your home; but the place this leads towards is more your home than the
rest.
Result:
Comfort
There's a fireplace, here. Ignite the fuel for warmth; no light will be cast.
———————
Option 3:
No path at all
It leads nowhere.
[Unlocked with: Bombazine Warp 3, Steward of the Discordance 5, Knowledge of the Crossroads 7, 1
x Immaterial Material]
Result:
Below, even further
You don't take this path. But you don't stay put, either. It wouldn't have helped you if you did.
● You are not home. [You have moved to a new area: No Future]
● An occurrence! Your 'Discovered: A Discordant Future' Quality is now 1!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now None! (Hidden)]
⬥ A Neon Future
[A Neon Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]
A Visit
Friday night comes with its long-awaited energy. Clerks throw their neckties over their
shoulders and nurse cans of beer in the W-Bahn; ill-advised photos abound on the feed; the
faint pounding of electronic music creeps over the city.
One of your old acquaintances is free tonight – a chance to rekindle your friendship. Or
intrigue against a mutual enemy.
Option 1:
Go see the Duchess
She was not a comforting figure when you first met her. But she is now; everything has
changed around the two of you, again and again.
Result:
Nostalgia
The Duchess had barely moved into an old townhouse in Kraterberg when sixty-story
roofscrapers started springing up. Her home is now narrowly squeezed between concrete
behemoths, looking more like a spite house than the stately home it was meant to be.
But the interior is insulated from the bustle of the street outside, and preserves little bits and
pieces of London – the porcelain tea set she still uses, for one thing. A rotating cast of cats
and visitors maintains a tense truce over the use of the cushions. Seeing her, at the center of
it all, tiny glass of something strong in her hand, sends you back a century.
———————
Option 2:
Meet the Elusive Violinist for dinner
Or, try to; getting her attention is a challenge, even after long acquaintanceship.
[Persuasive and Mithridacy challenge]
Success:
A brief encounter
You post a few pictures in a daring new outfit. Log on to a few burners and fill the network
with targeted misinfo. Getting a rise out of her is always a shot in the dark. But a message
arrives in the middle of the night. She meets you for drinks on a rooftop bar.
You have a long conversation – catching up to do. About December. About the state of the
city. Her eyes rarely meet yours; she stares over the railing, watching the cars racing down
lilastraße. She doesn't stay long – these days it's as if she can hear a countdown in her
head.
● You've gained 1 x Memory of a Much Lesser Self.
● You've gained 1 x Scrap of Incendiary Gossip.
Failure:
Radio silence
There's an artistry to baiting the Violinist: false claims on the network; spray-painted sigils on
walls; strategic adjustments to your wardrobe. But your performance is not judged worthy of
a response.
Spiralhügel
It is a stalactite gingerly dropped onto a plaza in the middle of Brunnenberg; a
city-within-a-city; a commune; a chthonic Power that imposes its own rules upon the
landscape. A stone edifice that most resembles Bruegel's Tower of Babel upside down.
Wrapped in an anarchy of illuminated signage, much of it blazing violant or peligin.
Option 1:
Visit the Street market
The Starved Men who inhabit the tower are largely self-sufficient. But they still enjoy luxuries
that only the city can provide.
Result:
Changes
The street market is known for handmade textiles, exotic cultivars of mushrooms, liquor that
doesn't comply with Herrn Weine's regulations. But new stalls have popped up in the last few
years. Increasingly, the spiral market is the place to buy electronics at cut-rate prices or discs
laden with bootleg software.
———————
Option 2:
Decipher the signage
It's not written in German, or any terrestrial language.
[A Scholar of the Correspondence, Artisan of the Red Science and Watchful challenge]
Success:
The surface of the tower
For a brief moment in the nineties, Scholars of the Correspondence thought that digital
computing would make their work exponentially easier. This idea was quickly proven
optimistic. Computers don't like to encode the Correspondence any more than paper does;
and though silicon is less flammable, it is also much more expensive. Fireproof paper and a
mechanical pencil are still the primary tools of the trade.
Some sigils upon Spiralhügel were added as signage by its inhabitants. Some are deep,
ancient grooves in the rock, cast in deep shadows by the haphazard lighting around the
building. Every so often, they change or shift.
Observing them is a surprisingly relaxing afternoon: stare at the sigils, write a tentative
translation ('to accelerate futilely against inescapable gravity'). Apply some extra-strength
eye drops, chew on currywurst, go back to transcribing. Eventually, you have a notebook full
of new transcriptions and the skin on your scalp is crawling around like mad. Time to go
home.
● You've gained 1 x Volume of Collated Research.
Failure:
Not today
[Missing]
———————
Option 3:
Consummate a long-awaited agreement
Your business today is with the tower, not its inhabitants.
[A Player of Chess, Artisan of the Red Science, Mithridacy, Monstrous Anatomy and Winds of Fortune
challenge; Unlocked with: Discovered: A Chilly Future, Discovered: A Jewelled Future, Discovered: A
Silvered Future, Discovered: A Dark Future, Discovered: An Abyssal Future, Discovered: A Brilliant
Future, Discovered: A Ruinous Future, Discovered: An Altered Future, 1 x Justificande Coin, 1 x
Memory of a Much Lesser Self, You can only do this once. [no Memory of a Much Greater Self]]
Success:
The Magician
You bear a safe-conduct – a scar upon your person, made with a flint knife, long ago.
Starved men let you into the concentric chambers of the great stone edifice; their living
quarters, communal kitchens, workshops. Eventually you cross the threshold into a
cavernous space that shows no sign of human (or posthuman) habitation.
The spiral tower does not have a heart; the heart it does not have is here. There are many
entreaties you could make in this place, though the costs would be terrible. You bring a
simple enough request: the extension of certain laws, and the granting of time. Your plans
have grown beyond the bounds of a normal lifespan, even in the abnormal conditions of the
Neath. Continued reliance on the Masters and their gifts might be unwise. The ancient
Powers of the Earth have other ways—
The loom halts. The moment in which you receive the tower's gift is murky, hard to find
among the strands of your destiny. You have a sense of what it entails – changes to your
body, carefully-laid plans, new links forged on the Chain. But the details elude you.
There's a fourth component, too: the alteration of your own personal history. And that, then,
must be the familiar-yet-unfamiliar hand you're feeling on the loom; the force stopping you
from going further. What you're left with is just the thrill of possibility – you could, if you
wanted to, be more than you currently are.
● You've lost 1 x Memory of a Much Lesser Self.
● You now have 1 x Memory of a Much Greater Self.
Failure:
A lost thread
Your fingers try futilely to follow this strand to its conclusion, but it's no use – this is a tangled
knot you cannot unravel, at least not yet.
In other potential futures, you may find ways of ensuring success in this check.
The City and the Network

There's the city and then there's the electric soul of the city – the one that permeates
everything, silently moving the world. You were not born to this sub-surface web, but you
have learned to manipulate it all the same.
Option 1:
Perform a small favour
A class of criminals has emerged that operates almost entirely in the wires. It's good to have
them in your debt.
Result:
Spooky action at a distance
A bike courier drops off a device in your mailbox. It's an oblong beige box with no apparent
external ports; clearly it works wirelessly. You are meant to hide it somewhere – in a
briefcase, duffel bag, backpack – and simply walk, at a specified time, through a specified
path..
The location is a side-street off Ostzeestraße, the head branch of a prominent bank. You
keep an eye out for outward signs of intrusion on the terminals. Nothing; your innocent stroll
passes without incident. Whatever RF attack you were asked to perform, it must have been
silent – and probably targeted at someone walking past you, rather than at the infrastructure.
———————
Option 2:
Prepare a mirror attack
Beneath the surface of the world, the network. Beneath the surface of the network, Parabola.
Result:
Darkly
The network borders Parabola – feeding on wild-eyed possibility and misinformation. The
Fingerkings call it a blight, a breach, a calamity. An electric domain that, to them, is even
less real than dreams. Those who use and operate the network view Parabola as an
anomaly, a wild territory that must be fenced off. This mutual ignorance is an opportunity for
the few who can understand both kingdoms.
The worm you nurture is half-dream, half-code; it devours information and excretes entropy.
You might set it loose on an enemy when they least expect it, or simply hold it in reserve as
a threat. Such things often outgrow their creators – but that's a problem for a future self.
● You've gained 1 x Vienna Opening.
5]

[Same as before]
Option:
A neon future
This thread is slick and springy; silk from a steel spider.
Electric destinies from the Seventh City.
[Unlocked with: Charting a Future: Neon, Discovered: A Neon Future]
Result:
● Go to: June 22nd, 2023
June 22nd, 2023

You belong to an exclusive club. Few entities survive the fall of a city, let alone two. Maybe
you've done things you're not so proud of; sometimes you're asked, in hushed tones, what
treacheries have allowed you to linger on this long.
Other times, you're posed the question of why you've stayed. That's a much easier question
to answer.
Option 1:
"For the memory of London."
The Seventh is supposed to be the last. You mean to ensure that implies its survival and
independence – to defy the bleakness of that pronouncement.
A Destiny that increases your Artisan of the Red Science skill.
Result:
To save a city
Learning the fate of past Fallen Cities – and the fate that awaits one's own city – changes a
person. Some choose to ignore it; some fall into despair. You made a plan.
That plan did not come into fruition for London. It did not come into fruition for the Sixth. But
you salvaged what you could – stolen knowledge, bargains with chthonic powers, debts
owed to you by the Bazaar and her servants. Your closest allies are not people but
geography: the Creditor, the Moon, the Principles' Remnant.
You have given up much in these exchanges. But you are left with the raw material with
which to forge new laws. Laws that protect rather than bind. Laws that may, in time, damn
the Bazaar to save those it would feed on. When the Stone Pigs awaken, you will ensure
that the City – with its fragments of London, with everything that it contains – is still there at
the other side of it.
● LXVII: A course set by the light of something bright and distant. [You now have 1 x
The Star]
———————
Option 2:
"For you, of course."
Your beloved smiles at the answer, and extends you a hand.
A Destiny that increases your Glasswork skill.
[Unlocked with: Committed:]
Result:
Together in the dark
These days, you share a small apartment in Brunnenberg. It's just about big enough to
dance in.
The home you had together in the Sixth was bigger, and your London lodgings – the word
itself nostalgic, lodgings – were bigger still. But so little can survive the fall of a city; you hold
on to whatever you can carry. As your life together has fit into smaller spaces, it has become
denser. Every touch and glance is a world of meaning; you can no longer escape the gravity
of your love.
You have both been below for a long time, and many of the things that drew you together
can now only be seen in the Waswood. You've had time enough to build cathedrals in shared
honey reveries. Even when you are simply asleep, you often find each other in dreams: you
are questing knights with a shared vow; you are a tall ship and her captain; you are two
worlds, tidally locked, eternally facing each other like dancers in the night.
● VI: The pull of mutual gravity willingly accepted. [You now have 1 x The Lovers]
———————
Option 3:
"That was simply how long it took to put my plan into motion."
Certain things take time to prepare for. And once you're done, you'll have all the time in the
world.
A Destiny that increases your Zeefaring skill.
Result:
East
For some things, you simply had to wait: advances in naval technology that allow you to
make this voyage with such a small crew. But others did indeed take you over a century.
Research and inquiry into profound mysteries. Preparatory voyages: to the Elder Continent,
Wither, Frostfound, Kingeater Castle, the Avid Horizon. Simply surviving long enough to
assemble all these plans – through the fall of two cities in less than a century – would have
occupied most people entirely. But you're not 'most people.' You are less like most people by
the day; your preparation has also involved making substantial changes to yourself.
The voyage itself is shockingly uneventful. You take safe, well-trod zee routes. You stop at
Gaider's Mourn to resupply; nobody in your crew remembers when the pirate's nest at the
heart of the Zee was real and not a tourist attraction. You stop at Port Stanton and
disembark what little crew you have; the rest of the journey you will go alone.
You turn the ship East and hit the throttle. There's nothing left to do, then, but sit on the deck
and watch the world disappear behind you; watch for that gleam in the far distance. A
mountain wreathed in green and gold looms above a perfect white-sand beach. This will be
all that you see. But you prepared yourself, and you have new senses with which to
understand what is happening to you. Time stretches and pulls into a taut string. Feel the
tension; pluck; watch the vibrating ripples stretch out through space.
● VII: Escape velocity. [You now have 1 x The Chariot]
———————
Option 4:
Discard this thread
Result:
A step backwards
[Location: A Neon Future]
The Loom: A Neon Future

Open the feed and hunt for dopamine (find none). Here and there, an ad catches your eye.
Option 1:
Great deals on holidays to Gaider's Mourn and Varchas
They advertise the base price and then upsell you monstrously, of course.
Result:
Then again...
Maybe a little time up north would do you good. Weather in the city gets worse every year;
you long to feel the brisk air.
———————
Option 2:
Annual pass on the Travertine Funicular
Who needs these? Who goes up to the Surface that often? Or at all?
Result:
'ESCAPE TO A SUNLIT REALM'
It is a mystery how the Travertine Transit Consortium stays in business. Rumour has it that
the Masters simply bankroll their operation wholesale. They certainly advertise all those
convenient and inexpensive ways to visit the Surface, but who would buy them?
● Sunlight streaming in through a window. You are home. [You have moved to a new
area: A Brilliant Future]
● You have a new Accomplishment... Discovered: A Brilliant Future!
● [An occurrence! Your 'Charting a Future:' Quality is now Brilliant! (Hidden)]
———————
Option 3:
Six dozen or so offers to join a cult
There's too many to count and they're all so same-y. Back in your day there was an artistry
to it.
Result:
The cults of the Seventh City
They all have little themes, copied from other cults; an unbroken chain of repackaging the
same ideas over and over. Candles. Blood. Sorrow-spiders. But here, this one – this one's a
little different. All they talk about is ashes.
⬥ No Future
[Location: No Future]
The Adulterine Castle, One Final Time

Everything that isn't here has melted away, like snow on a spring morning. The castle that
doesn't exist is all that remains of existence. And all that remains within the castle (for its
twisting passages and spiraling spires are not here) is the yawning absence of an
Anchoress.
Option:
Enter the cell, and end it
The Anchoress is not within.
This will consume your Immaterial Material and give you a Destiny that increases your Steward
of the Discordance skill.
[Unlocked with: 1 x Promissory Note to Yourself, 1 x Memory of a Much Greater Self, 1 x Memory of a
Much Lesser Self, 1 x Memory of Discordance, 1 x Memory of Light, 1 x Memory of Sunlight, 7 x
Fluke Spine, Freely Given, 77 x No Currency, 777 x Frayed Thread, 1 x Immaterial Material]
Result:
The cat sits on the sill of a tiny barred window. No light – nothing at all – can be seen
outside. "Ah," it says, through broken teeth. "I was counting the days until your arrival. But it
seems I ran out of days before you got here."
You'd sit on a chair if there was a chair; there isn't.
"It's funny." There's no humour in its voice. "Our conversations always were one-sided,
weren't they?"
You'd look it right in the eyes, if there were eyes; there aren't.
"But that was then, and then didn't happen. I suppose now isn't really happening, either."
You'd smile, if you had a mouth; you don't.
"So many laws and you went and found that one."
You open the mouth you do not have. A law is enacted:
No thing shall be
● XVI: Nothing. [You now have 1 x The Tower]
● You've lost 1 x Memory of a Much Greater Self.
● You've lost 1 x Memory of a Much Lesser Self.
● You've lost 1 x Memory of Discordance.
● You've lost 1 x Memory of Light.
● You've lost 1 x Memory of Sunlight.
● You've lost 7 x Fluke Spine, Freely Given.
● You've lost 77 x No Currency.
● You've lost 777 x Frayed Thread.
● You've lost 1 x Immaterial Material.

Irem

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Irem

[Location: Your Cabin; Unlocked with: Discovered: Irem (hidden)]

The House of Snow and Brine

[Unlocked with: Knowledge of the Crossroads 5]

The Riddlefishers: Matters of Destiny

The Gates of the Serpent

[Unlocked with: Knowledge of the Crossroads 5]

⬥ Universal Fate-Weaving Content

Slings and Arrows

[Fate-Weaving autofire storylet; Unlocked with: Unraveling 8]

Throwing the Shuttle

[Location: Fate-Weaving; Unlocked with: A Cartographer of Fate 3]

The Colour of Fate

The Thread in your Hand

[A Nearby Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[A Nearby Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

The Fires Run Cold

[A Nearby Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

The Arrival of the Mail

Throwing the Shuttle [2]

[Location: A Nearby Future]

The Loom: A Nearby Future

[A Silvered Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[A Silvered Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

High Upon the Parapets

[A Silvered Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

Bargaining with Serpents

[Location: A Silvered Future]

The Loom: A Silvered Future

[A Jewelled Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

The Shores of the Elder Continent

[A Jewelled Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

The Edge of the Desert of Delights

[A Jewelled Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[Location: A Jewelled Future]

The Loom: A Jewelled Future

[An Abyssal Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[An Abyssal Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[An Abyssal Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[Location: An Abyssal Future]

[A Chilly Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

The Counting of Days

[A Chilly Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

The Woven Wind

[A Chilly Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

The Waking Well

[Location: A Chilly Future]

The Loom: A Chilly Future

[A Ruinous Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[A Ruinous Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

The Absence of Rats

[A Ruinous Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[Location: A Ruinous Future]

The Loom: A Ruinous Future

[A Brilliant Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

The Eyes of the Ministry

[A Brilliant Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[A Brilliant Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

The Hour of Dusk

Throwing the Shuttle [3]

[Location: A Brilliant Future]

[An Altered Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[An Altered Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]

[An Altered Future opportunity card; Standard frequency]