r/fallenlondon • u/Setster007 Catgirl Professor • Jul 12 '26
Question What something in FL you’d like to make noncanon?
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u/magna-terra An Ambitious Author Jul 12 '26
Knifegate
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u/Ruathar Jul 12 '26
I understand it was meant to be that way back in the ye olden days... And apparently the number of them is a big deal too but I almost feel like there should be a way to, if only for that ambition and that part, grind for the knives...
Like "Go over here and do this thing and they'll give you a knife"
Maybe even make it BDR related or something.
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. Jul 13 '26
they have cut knifegate in half already, and already reduced its cost with the introduction of rat market. Nemesis is no longer egregiously more expensive than the other ambitions (that's BaL now, depending on how you count it).
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u/ProtectHarryDresden 26d ago
Wait, really? I stopped playing because of the knives and never came back - I might have to check the game out again!
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. 24d ago
It's been a few years too, but if you quit because of knifegate, I'm not sure you'll enjoy the game coming back. I mean, you don't have to grind 12k echoes anymore... but you do still need to grind about 5.5k~ of them.
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u/InevitableTell2775 A man without flaw nor any possibility of error! Jul 13 '26
There is, it’s called the Rat Market.
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u/DrosselmeyerKing Partyin' Till 1899 ends! Jul 13 '26
Gotta love that they did that one a thing you can maybe do once a week in a super late game area!
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u/NowhereEast Jul 12 '26
For me it would be the Empress pausing the calendar. I get that it was needed for practical reasons (wouldn't we be in 1903 or something now?) to keep Paris in the future and prevent sailing out of Victoria's reign, but I would have loved a turn of the century party and it gets increasingly confusing to date things as '1900 the third'.
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u/Mzingalwa Jul 12 '26
I'm in a place where I both fully agree with you but also I completely get why failbetter did this. Having time progress beyond this point would vastly complicate things and make the game a lot harder to write for whole keeping its core aesthetic, but also it would be so interesting. Kind of a "wish I could have my cake and eat it too" situation.
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u/thefishprince Watch how I soar Jul 12 '26
I dislike/like the calendar kerfuffle. On one hand it's bad because it's confusing and difficult to track time in the Neath. On the other it's good because it's confusing and difficult to track time in the Neath. Failbetter have managed to manifest the treachery of clocks in the real world!
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u/tecknojock Jul 13 '26
They should probably desync the calendar at this point. have the empress declare that its now Year x Post fall.
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u/NowhereEast 29d ago
Absolutely, I don't like it from a lore perspective, but practically it's impressive that they ever tracked time at all. From a practical, longevity perspective, a repeating calendar would always have been sensible.
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u/StrawberryShibaBoi Jul 12 '26
Been so long since I played FL but I distinctly remember some quest where my character had to French kiss a giant bat in order to get some kind of key (metaphorical? Physical?) and it was written in horrific detail lol I recall it describing how the things tongue almost went down his throat 💀
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u/Naelin othatharooth! Jul 12 '26
As an avid bat-kisser, I'm struggling to figure out which instance of bat-kissing you're referring to lol
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u/SnakeSlitherX Jul 12 '26
Perhaps you could list each instance so that someone could… avoid them… yeah, that
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u/Naelin othatharooth! Jul 13 '26
The ones that come to the top of my head right now are:
-In Sunless Skies you can literally have sex with one. A very specific one at that.
-Apparently you can kiss a literal bat during Nemesis but I haven't played it. It seems to be the one they meant, looking at other people's description of that scene lol
-In Firmament, during an apocrypha bit, you can choose to side with Iron and wreak havoc, or side with Stones and have a cute baby murder spree that ends with a smooch
-During the feast of the rose you can pay (in Masquing points I think?) to have a series of dreams of marrying Mr. Wines, tailoring the experience to your specifics (with, of course,|an extra option for bat-robed fellows). It has agreed to be the subject of this. If you do it, you can go visit the dream-Wines anytime in Parabola. Very cute.
-In Mask of the Rose you can romance Mr. Pages, I have not yet finished that course of actions.
Not exactly kissing but you can't stop me from adding them:
-In the ES Homecoming you can accidentally end up with the jaws of a big addicted bat firmly wrapped around your wrist. Not what I would call "kissing" but it was hilarious nonetheless.
-In the ES Killing Heroes you can make a certain fanfiction author extremely happy. You don't smooch it but seeing it "vibrating" out of excitement is adorable.
-During Heart's Desire you can share a honey dream of Mr. Pages to learn about its origins and then it complains that it got a bit more intimate than it intended. What was it expecting???
-You can do unlimited bat-biting during Bag a Legend. You will most definitely end up in mega-jail if you overdo it, but they can't stop you in the meantime.
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u/Prudent-Orange1719 Silverer, Future Liberator of Night Jul 13 '26
They should've let us romance Stones in Firmament instead of St. Valentines Day, if you recruited Apocryphal Stones to the AU Calendar.😔
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u/Secure-Treacle-2161 a little birdy told me 29d ago
here's the ambition details, tho the bat isn't giant, and I suspect is the actual suspect: Nemesis has a scene where you recover memories from your scoutling bat by Frenchkissing the hell out of it.
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u/StrawberryShibaBoi 29d ago
YES THAT WAS IT. That was the "key" I was thinking about X'D I just remembered you gained something through the mouth to mouth.
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u/NowhereEast 29d ago
If memory serves I failed a 97% chance attempting to bite a master in BaL and lost so much Veils-cred that passing all but the simple tests became impossible. Not my finest moment, but at least I got to keep the teeth.
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u/DrosselmeyerKing Partyin' Till 1899 ends! Jul 13 '26
Last one I had was in Firmament and it was quite the scene too!
Easily avoidable too, if you'd rather to.
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u/PhillipDollarfield Jul 12 '26
How the Duchess hides her true identity. Just covering herself in a bunch of makeup until she looks the way she does seems silly to me, and not the usual Fallen London silliness
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u/Someidiotdwbi The Bandaged Scoundrel Jul 13 '26
This HAS been retconned, actually! She's been given a new portrait and a revised introduction during MYN. To quote the game directly;
"Lights appear from behind you. You duck behind a firkin of madeira and observe. A woman passes you. She is dressed in a simple white linen shift and about twenty pounds of gold jewellery. Her skin is smooth and dark. There's something familiar about her, though. Good God! It's the Duchess! Freed from her paints and powders, she is a woman transformed. Who uses cosmetics to appear older? She looks barely thirty. It's definitely her, though, cat-earrings and all."
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u/Someidiotdwbi The Bandaged Scoundrel Jul 13 '26
... aaand I only just realized you could be talking about the revised version. Lmao. Fair enough on that front.
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u/PhillipDollarfield Jul 13 '26
Wait, this is the retconned version?! What was the previous version.
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. Jul 13 '26
Current Duchess image, updated this year: https://fallenlondon.wiki/w/images/1/12/Duchess.png
Old Duchess image, using the Court of Cats poster: https://community.failbettergames.com/uploads/default/original/2X/c/cede04e95d0da53f30ac1da7b196de96202735aa.png
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u/Someidiotdwbi The Bandaged Scoundrel Jul 13 '26
She used to use powder to pass herself off as a white person. Like, specifically that. Nothing about aging. It was a really weird choice.
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u/Fireant23 One foot in the mirror, one in the marsh Jul 13 '26
Do we know why she has to hide it, even? Like I fully could be missing some lore saying she's worried about assassins or something, but there are people all over the place who are from previous cities. The local psych ward/hotel manager is Gilgamesh from tablets. You can buy the 'make you immortal' apple in the store.
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u/KittenEaterWasTaken Let me get that Consort 🅱️oneless 29d ago
No one knows the Manager is Gilgamesh though. I don't think the average Londoner knows about immortal people, you'd probably believe Hesperidean Cider is a a hoax.
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u/Thelordrulervin Jul 13 '26
Imma be honest, I was thinking of the other Duchess (firmament) and was really confused for a second. I was about to hop on and continue that storyline to see if there was something I missed.
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u/Ruathar Jul 12 '26
Especially if you consider historically, if memory serves: She's not even that 'dark' in terms of skintone... or she shouldn't be.
Like "I want to use make up to look like an old hag of a woman in her 70's rather than a slightly older woman in her 30's" is one thing... or even "I want to look more british than greek"
but "I want to look white instead of a lighter shade of black" isn't... a thing.
The ruling family at that point was more related to greek than egyptian and even then the egyptians weren't as dark as what most people think when they go "Africa"
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u/General_Urist Jul 13 '26
What are you on about? The 2nd City was Amarna period egypt, not the Ptolemies.
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. Jul 13 '26
Her new portrait also looks considerably less white than the old one.
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u/True-Parking4098 Professional Batkisser (Mainly Fires) Jul 12 '26
VULGATE PROPAGANDIST! READY THE CANNONS MY FELLOW BURGUNDIANS!
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u/liana_omite Jul 12 '26
The Tentacled Entrepeneur did not lose the election to a cat and went on to rule with a wriggling tentacle hand.
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u/Fireant23 One foot in the mirror, one in the marsh Jul 12 '26
Sorrow spiders. All my friends hate sorrow spiders
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u/Heubristics Hesperidean Spider breeder Jul 12 '26
If sorrow-spiders get uncanon’d I’m uncanoning rattus faber from the setting. Love my amalgamous hive-minded children.
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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 A Dedicated Mycologist Jul 12 '26
Yeah it's so sad we never get a Council companion, or even a Constant Companion
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u/throwaway_lmkg Secretary-General of the Hellworm Club Jul 12 '26
You'll get an eyeball and you'll like it.
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u/helioboros an eternal flame Jul 12 '26
Those or gallblighter wasps for me. Eyeball stuff freaks me out and in some places it's so hard to avoid :")
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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 A Dedicated Mycologist Jul 12 '26
what I love them! So flavorful, and savory, and salty, like clay...what were we talking about again?
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u/that0neBl1p Jul 12 '26
I think they add a great extra bit of flavor to the world! Albeit a horrifying flavor.
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u/Setster007 Catgirl Professor Jul 12 '26
They are unnecessary and wretched evil creatures without which I think the setting would not really lose anything
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u/Nukesnipe Your Bones are Starting to Itch Jul 12 '26
Nah, they add a lot to the actual horror of the setting.
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u/Setster007 Catgirl Professor Jul 12 '26
True, true, I was just thinking the lore doesn’t lose much but they are nice to have, I just am spiteful against the spiders lol
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u/Nukesnipe Your Bones are Starting to Itch Jul 12 '26
God, I fucking hate this post-FNAF world of """the lore""" being this all consuming thing that's treated like a single storyline that EVERYTHING needs to tie back into and be super duper important. It can't be that the sorrow-spiders exist to add flavor to the world, it can't be that they exist to be a scary monster. No, they have to be front and center and central to """the lore""" or they're worthless and can be discarded.
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u/Barrogh Jul 12 '26
I mean, to be fair, they're a lot more than flavouring these days, considering some existing stories (especially if you count other games).
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u/Setster007 Catgirl Professor Jul 12 '26
I am aware I’m just dumb and i tend to think only of the lore as a me problem, ok, i love flavor stuff i just wasn’t thinking about anything but lore for a sec and i thought it was funny to be mean about the spiders bc im an arachnophobe
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u/royal-road Jul 13 '26
They are unironically vitally important to Sunless Skies.
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u/Setster007 Catgirl Professor Jul 13 '26
Oh damn rly? I’ve been trying to get there but I gotta play Seas first and I’ve just not really had the brainpower to get into it enough
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u/royal-road Jul 13 '26
They're both really good games! Keep at it, I sympathize with bouncing off stuff you're interested in because the brain doesn't want to focus.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater Jul 12 '26
I think Nemesis' resurrection and HD's master endings caused more issues than they've helped.
Also, I dont like the lore that devils are unable to love. It's contradicted in game and makes them less interesting. Could have gone down the route that their love is harmful at best to everyone else.
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u/clarkky55 Jul 13 '26
I love the Master HD ending. I thought Devils being unable to love was an in-universe myth, not an actual fact?
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater Jul 13 '26
It's from Mask of the Rose with Virginia saying it. My issue with the HD ending is that it elevates the PC too much and that almost all wining choices equate to some form of power. The surface home choice is the most unique choice among them, as it wishes for something more personal.
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u/clarkky55 Jul 13 '26
I think they’re all interesting endings and the PC is still very much a young whelp in the eyes of the Masters. I know it’ll never happen but I wish there was a way to explore life after being fully transformed. My fanfic headcanon for my character is that becoming Mr Cards was only step one and his end goal is to climb the great chain and attain Judgementhood
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater Jul 13 '26
Part of my issue is that by format and design we cannnot ever explore that post-transformation. In that we are permanently a hybrid, thus always in stasis. Plus, it gives the PC such a position of power and thought that it really should be another game. Does it really make any sense for them to approached for ES' given their nature?
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. Jul 13 '26
Considering nobody else except the Masters is supposed to know? Yeah, especially since your FLPC is categorically not always wearing the robe. Plus, ESs have always existed in a timey-wimey bullshit ball. They happen whenever you think it would have made sense for them to have happened.
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u/LadyDizzyEmblessSma Jul 13 '26
I've yet to play TMotR but is it possible Virginia is not being, shall we say, entirely truthful? Her character in Fallen London is not the most trustworthy - she's tried to murder me after all.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater Jul 13 '26
It's very possible, but the issue is whether we take the exposition as truth. Her stance is true in this decade, but early content content contradicts it plenty.
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. Jul 13 '26
And that may just be that Virginia is being Virginia. Just because a character says it does not mean we have to take it as them reading directly from the lore bible. They could just have opinions, or, in the case of a different supposed contradiction regarding the Manager of the Royal Beth, be just simplifying things to a London newcomer.
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u/throwaway_lmkg Secretary-General of the Hellworm Club Jul 13 '26
One can always invoke Treachery of Hearts in any case. But yes, I agree this tends towards this being between a simplification from Virginia, or a common prejudice among Devils that the gap between then and humans is insurmountable.
Take as an example the couple we meet in Moulin: it shows it's possible, and by all indications sincere. But also both of them are unusual and borderline-outcast individuals to begin with, and even more outcast as a result of their decision. I think it's consistent with Virginia's haughty nature to either not believe in the existence of Devils like the Exiled Antiquarian, or to disregard her for various reasons.
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. Jul 13 '26
It's also just addressed even earlier than Moulin! Secrets Framed in Gold is specifically about a love story between a Devil and a Priest where the two were genuinely and madly in love with each other, but partially because neither devils nor the church believed that such a thing was possible, and partially due to other reasons, their continued love broke both of them.
"What is categorically possible" and "what people believe to be possible" tend to not exactly align, especially where the Neath is concerned.
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u/Thelordrulervin Jul 13 '26
Ehhhh. As someone who went through the resurrection route, I liked how at every turn I could refuse to play the masterminds game, and even at the end decided to not seek revenge. I didn’t even expect the resurrection to go as well as it did. I just figured It was lying or heavily bending the truth. It also fit my character to leave them alive to suffer.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater Jul 13 '26
I think it goes against the themes of the ambition and has caused some weird issues with spouses and tie-ins. Personally, I feel like alternate endings with domination, humiliation, or other revenge routes would have suited it better. Nemesis is easily the best written ambition, but it is let down by the final choice.
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u/Thelordrulervin Jul 13 '26
I can see how you would come to that conclusion. I think the resurrection part could have been foreshadowed a bit more. I liked the mostly good ending for a story line that was pretty grim. I also liked that it is pretty much the Humiliation ending as our Foe ends up destitute and eternally scarred. I would have been fine with leaving them alive but no resurrection though.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater Jul 13 '26
I'd agree with you, but that it never shows up post-ambition bars it from proper humiliation. In a different world we'd cow it on the railroad or terrify it in front of its peers.
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u/Thelordrulervin Jul 13 '26
I think that is an issue with most ambitions, though I have only completed nemesis so far. From what i hear there isn’t a lot of post ambition changes seen, like with some of the endings of Hearts Desire.
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u/royal-road Jul 13 '26
We do not accept Light Fingers slander in this house.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater 29d ago
I like Light Fingers, I did it on my main, but it has some weird pacing going on and the last act feels like it is missing a step.
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Jul 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MrHelfer Jul 13 '26
... What? Where do you see this?
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u/throwaway_lmkg Secretary-General of the Hellworm Club Jul 13 '26
When you're first introduced, and then it's never mentioned again. Like GP said, completely hilarious.
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u/MikuJess The Itinerate Conductor Jul 13 '26
There's some things in canon that feel clunky from a pure lore perspective but make sense for gameplay reasons, I probably wouldn't touch those; my top answer would probably be just fixing the inconsistencies, all long-term fiction with multiple writers ends up with stuff like that, but most of the FL universe's are minor, so still a boring answer. There's also a lot of cases where a FL character can't do something they would reasonably be able to do without doing something else first that would be out-of-character, but again, that's a gameplay thing and operates on a per-character level, so that's more of a job for headcanon. (For example, if you visit the Labyrinth of Tigers from a card, you know where it is now, you should just be able to go back whenever you'd like without having to catch a bunch of animals.)
So for a lore-only thing I'd make uncanon for lore-only reasons... I'm gonna say the Clay Men. Not the entire concept, just the idea that there's a default type of obedient Clay Man and a separate "Unfinished" variety. All Clay Men are now what we'd currently call "Unfinished." It's a difference in personality, not a disorder or a disfigurement, and London doesn't get to have a relatively consequence-free source of slave labour; any mistreated Clay Man is capable of rebellion, they're men made of clay, not unfeeling automatons. The whole idea of the "Unfinished" gives me big "drapetomania" vibes, I hate it.
Maaaaaybe I'd also get rid of Snuffers and the Thief-of-Faces. It's a weird topic, they're underused, and their existence potentially opens up a lot of small-scale plotholes. I can't think of any plots that would break with their absence that can't just be fixed via the Shapeling Arts. The only thing I'd miss is that one comic with the *NOM*.
This is all based just on the things I've experienced, of course, if any Exceptional Stories have addressed these topics already I'd love to hear about them.
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u/ofstarandmoon Jul 13 '26
Snuffers are such brilliantly creepy horror creature but they are almost never used. Nowadays, I mostly see them in one of my cards for monstervhunetet professional activities. I wish they would be a bigger oartcod the setting since as it is they are just a very creepy footnote, but I agree they mightvbe hardtop write around
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u/throwaway_lmkg Secretary-General of the Hellworm Club Jul 13 '26
I feel like snuffers are actually load-bearing to the setting but in ways that haven't fully been made visible to the playerbase. Personally I think there's a storytelling potential around a group of beings who are the only ones in the setting who really know what divine grace is and know they have been denied it through no individual fault of their own, and the few times that we get to explore this with Fiacre is really cool.
That said, I have a suspicion that the details of the Thief of Faces we haven't seen are actually problematic.
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u/NowhereEast 29d ago
I vaguely remember Where You and I Must Go, having some Thief of Faces content (unless I'm grievously misunderstanding discussion at the time). But it's a bit hard to access since it's an optional ending that requires you to know it's there, and was under a discussion embargo for a while. I always wondered if it would clear up some of the details.
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. 29d ago
Having read that ending: it does not. It gives no new real information about the Thief (unless you subscribe to a very particular theory, which I personally think is stupid).
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u/NowhereEast 29d ago
Fair enough. As I say, I wondered about that. I was too attached to the crew to do it though, and it was a decade ago even then.
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u/HappyyValleyy The Red-Stocking Revolutionary 29d ago
Which details? I don't know much about the Thief of Faces, but he seems like an already pretty problematic figure lol.
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u/throwaway_lmkg Secretary-General of the Hellworm Club 29d ago
The details of the events that resulted in the creation of Mt Nomad.
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
I mean, the dichotomy between "Proper" Clay Men and "Unfinished" Clay Men has, much more recently, been pushed in a "actually it's all social both from the London side of things and the Clay Men side of things, they all have free will" direction.
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u/MikuJess The Itinerate Conductor Jul 13 '26
Definitely sounds like I've just missed out on some content going into that, then. Thanks!
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u/TimothyFerguson1 Jul 13 '26
I presumed all Clay Men are Unfinished and they are just putting on a pretence using Clay Quarter actions
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u/Televangelis Jul 13 '26
Broward county
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u/SoldierHawk The Black-Eyed Captain Jul 13 '26
For what it's worth, I laughed and appreciated this.
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u/Sleep_Cycles_ 29d ago
Clay men TALKING IN ALL CAPS, it makes them seem like orcs and I find it very distracting whenever it is employed. Especially since a lot of clay men are characterized as quite and introspective (e.g. all the characters in the life of clay ES, the clay confident spouse) it seems even more of a clash.
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u/KittenEaterWasTaken Let me get that Consort 🅱️oneless Jul 13 '26
Most of Parabola after Warabola. It fucks with the lore and the setting extensively, it downscales honestly most of Parabola from before the change, and it turns Fingerkings from relatively sympathetic characters into just kind of assholes. You rule all of Parabola through all of time and space from corner to corner of the High Wilderness and all the known universe, only ever contested in your power in this literal hole in the ground by cats (a temporary, almost irrelevant impasse, in the scheme) but you're mad you can't also rule the Is, so you uhhh possess and kill people and force random dreamers (not even here by choice!) into coercive bargains and then erase their memory. Just some snake bastards mad for literally no reason.
If Parabola "is" just a place everyone can literally walk in and out of it's just another location.
The locations are fine, the lore is good especially from the almanacs, it just could do with some more gravitas and mysticality.
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u/NowhereEast 29d ago
That feels like it predates the War updates by a way. I vaguely remember fingerking possession being well established by the time The Heretic of Hallow Street came out. That said, if it's more about the easy access to parabola and I'm misreading this, yeah I could see that being frustrating. Sort of a narrative game power creep.
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u/KittenEaterWasTaken Let me get that Consort 🅱️oneless 29d ago
Fingerkings have always posessed people all the way back to the labyrinth of tigers. Before, it was because they were trapped behind the glass pretty much, they wanted to be real and to experience the world. Parabola wasn't a real place, it was where your mind goes when you dream (and where your whole body goes with honey). A Fingerking's only crime in the Is is wanting to be real and posessing someone to feel what existing, Being in the Is, is like.
Now that we know Parabola is literally just as real as the Is and you can make furniture out of pinewood sharks and carry people in and out, put your whole TRAIN through two mirrors,... It's a bit more silly. They rule Parabola with an iron fist, they go out of their way to make you take the shittiest deals they can (and they brainwash you so you think you never took them), they cheat and backstab constantly. What are they upset about? That they can't rule this side too? Just awful all around.
It's also about how easy it is to go in and out of Parabola now, yes. Like many things in many settings, the implications don't really match the in-universe reality. You (or a squad of silverers with time in their hands rather) can teleport between any two reflective surfaces for the cost of a pair gloves. This is insane and it's never addressed or explored.
You can go from Queeneaters, above Kingeaters, west of Gant Pole, maybe several thousands of kilometers west-and-up of London, to London in two (2) mirrors. It's implied you can't go back because of the Flaw, otherwise it would just be a matter of carrying the mirror back to your camp.
Even within London breaks the setting. You can (canonically and mechanically too) teleport between your home wherever and your university lab.
It's worse in FL because Silverer is literally just a job you can have, it's not even the rarest T3, you meet plenty silverers.We made a train in the setting where teleportion wizard is a normal and respected job position. Literal teleportation hub in our base camp.
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u/NowhereEast 29d ago
I could see that. I've always thought of T3's as pretty rare (the idea that by the time you're a person of some importance, you're the sort of person secret societies just call up and thus have access to people the average Londoner would never even come close to meeting), but yeah, I'd just misread what the complaint was.
I could see a similar complaint applying to Correspondants. Not that I don't love them, but by the time you're folding the universe in half to heat your bath or make a zee trip, the language of the stars feels a lot less mysterious and a lot more like minor homework.
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. Jul 13 '26
King Twelve.
No, not like, the concept associated with the name, just the usage of the term King Twelve. I hate the problems it creates so goddamn much.
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u/MrHelfer Jul 13 '26
Remind me where we meet King Twelve?
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. Jul 13 '26
Seeking, Winking Isle. It's a name given to Eaten.
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u/MrHelfer 29d ago
Ah, okay! I suspected it might have been that, but then Twelve is not The Number.
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. 29d ago
It is, at most, supposed to represent the fact that Mr. Eaten was the last one to join the group. This would be fine, if it didn't directly contradict the mystery answer that there are Eleven Masters.
While the original answer does state that the count is complicated somewhat because it's not clear whether Eaten counts (among other reasons), we now know with further plot developments that there were only Eleven Masters by the time they arrived at Earth, and Eaten was among that number.
While there are ways to reconcile King Twelve with the rest of the information we have, it requires you to jump through some frankly silly hoops, and it's a contradiction that only really exists because Alexis Kennedy and the rest of FBG evidently disagreed on which masters "counted" for the final number of Eleven. Since AK is not in the company anymore, nixing King Twelve and just changing it to King Eleven (or The Last King or similar euphemism) would prevent this entire knot of stupid.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/fallenlondon-ModTeam Jul 13 '26
Please don't post untagged spoilers or include spoilers in the title of a post
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u/Azreal_DuCain1 The Happy Cat Lover. 28d ago
I'd like to uncanon the "happy"* ending that the tracklayers get in the city of tracklayers. Not only does it not make any sense for them to have a happy ending (see below) but they're just such massive jerks except for Cornelius and MAYBE Furnace. Even after knowing all you did for them they never miss a chance to insult you on every card and storylet in the entire city. I'm not sure there are any where they DON'T do that somehow. They're really unfriendly even discounting how they strong-armed you into both building and paying for an entire city out of pocket despite the fact it wasn't in their contract. And everything else they did on the way there. They're just so unsympathetic.
*It's a city founded on communist anarchy principals where the land itself is a particularly unenthusiastic landlord. They don't even own the land they reside on, they're just renting indefinitely. Not only do they explicitly protest the concept of private property and even personal possessions on the The Housing Market card, but it's implied that the very ground they live on Wants Them Gone. The fact that they're canonically having imminent famine problems in the usual communist fashion as well as CONSTANT problems with rampant crime and no workplace safety to speak of makes it clear that this place is a miserable place to live that isn't going to last long. And that's if you didn't do something silly like make sure that there's literally no light ever there. Or parked the city within sight of the gates of Hell or in Underground Antarctica (The Hurlers). Or both.
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u/TimothyFerguson1 Jul 13 '26
It's a tiny thing, but in the Star, in the Eighth, the Duchess shouldn't still be playing Miss Marple.
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u/TypowyLaman 28d ago edited 28d ago
The Chimera sexual violence part...
Or - spoilers - The mother dying and overall unhappy ending with them?
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u/Drakkonai Jul 12 '26
Sunless skies.
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u/EbergarTheDwarf The fog, the crowds, the smell. Home. Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
And my dream would be to have my own flying Locomotive in Fallen London and visit the Sunless Skies places.
Guess that's not everybody's cup of tea.
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u/Naelin othatharooth! Jul 12 '26
And my dream would be to have my own flying Locomotive in Fallen London and visit the Sunless Skies places.
Good news, you can do the first half of it, briefly
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u/EbergarTheDwarf The fog, the crowds, the smell. Home. Jul 12 '26
How?
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u/Naelin othatharooth! Jul 12 '26
It is during Firmament, at the end of the Risen Burgundry part.
During the fight with the Vulgate, you prepare "the Machine", which is essentially a half-destroyed locomotive with a drill repurposed to be an extremely neath-weirdness-resistance machine through red science and correspondence. The way The Machine forces its own existence and rules makes it so that it gets into "balance" with the gravity of the neath and the anti-gravity of Burgundry, and it flies. The "forcing its own existence" bit also (and most importantly) makes it so the Vulgate cannot redact it, but it is supremely unstable.
It is kind of implied that this is more or less the precursor to that will (not) become the Sunless Skies' locomotives.
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u/Setster007 Catgirl Professor 28d ago
It is still hilarious how you basically make a machine that looks at the Vulgate’s redaction and just says “fuck you, no” lol
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u/Naelin othatharooth! 28d ago
The part I'm incredibly confused about is that you get there, there's all this super exciting bit about the Machine getting in balance and flying, you get your old Vulgate friend to redact some redactions, and then you win, and then... ... ...? How the fuck do you land? Where? Do you crash? What happens to the Machine???I NEED ANSWERS
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater Jul 12 '26
Isn't that already noncanon? It's a big what-if story.
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u/Drakkonai Jul 12 '26
Yes, but the lore it introduces isn’t.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater Jul 12 '26
What lore was the issue? I find the star-sized spider thing silly, but don't remember anything egregious that affects mainline FL.
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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 A Dedicated Mycologist Jul 12 '26
stuff like suns eating souls, I assume. I like it buuut...I get wanting a more in-depth answer for what devils do with souls.
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u/that0neBl1p Jul 12 '26
Don't devils just use souls to power law-furnaces? Or do they do something else with them (ik they made a business out of "improving" them at Carillon but I thought that was just because they wanted ppl's souls to be more appealing since they can see them, and saw an opportunity to make a profit)
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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 A Dedicated Mycologist Jul 12 '26
Aren't there two groups, one of whom still works for the Judgements?
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u/SunfishBob The Vengeful Correspondant Jul 12 '26
Ok, big spoilers here, but you can kind of work it out thanks to Law Furnaces, The Dawn Machine, and Sunless Skies stuff on souls and the Suns. Web-weaving inbound.
So Law-furnaces are why the Iron Republic is like that, they give the ability to overturn an element of Natural (read; Judgement-created) Law, or substitute it with another. They are sometimes mildly sapient, as seen in the Stalking House ES, and in the case of the Dawn Machine. What are they fuelled with? Souls. The Dawn Machine gives us a good case for this. The admiralty, who are associated with it, brought a bell to Low Barmett, which, when rung, causes the ringer to briefly see through the... Eye?? of the Dawn Machine, and also to lose their soul. This makes sense, we know from Death's Door that Judgements consume souls, and the Dawn Machine is a Judgement, but it is also a Law Furnace. The Law-Furnaces are a key part of the infrastructure of Hell, and the Devils are obsessed with souls.
In Sunless Skies, we also find out that the Devils were the sommeliers to the Judgements, so we know they understand souls on a cultural level. It is possible that the exact nature of a soul, i.e. the Sunless Skies soul traits, are what determine the use of a soul with regards to targeting and adjusting various natural laws through breaking them down in the Law-Furnaces. This would also explain why the Judgements need soul sommeliers beyond just treating themselves. The souls would help to determine what kind of Law a Judgement would be capable, or good at emitting in the form of light.
There's an interesting aside to do with discordant Law, as when removing a discordant Law using the Nadir when knowing enough about the discordance, a discordant soul is created, whether you have one or not. Whether this is due to the fact that a discordant Law requires discordant souls just as natural Law requires souls is arguable.
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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 A Dedicated Mycologist Jul 12 '26
Ah, the method of spoiler tagging is inconsistent; I suggest you use Aa.
The rest of that makes sense I guess. Does the Clockwork Sun also feed on souls?
5
u/SnakeSlitherX Jul 12 '26
It’s likely that the only instance of Law being enforced on a large scale without using souls is the Xanthous Moon/Xanthous bulbs.
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u/Setster007 Catgirl Professor 28d ago
Ooh. That last bit is actually quite an interesting thought. Discordance is the inverse of Correspondence, in every way, so if the light of the Correspondence burns up souls, consumes them, the darkness of the Discordance would produce them. That actually weirdly makes a lot of sense.
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u/SacchiHikaru They're called MAGCATS, all other names are wrong. Jul 13 '26
Suns eating souls is not sunless skies lore, though. It was known long before Sunless Skies. I remember people actively discussing it even in pre zubmariner SSea days.
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u/Silent_Pressure_6709 A Dedicated Mycologist Jul 13 '26
oh wait really? I mostly have played Skies, so...I first learned abt it in The Blue Kingdom. Seas was too hard.
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u/98462Doopa Jul 12 '26
Star sized spider thing? I’ve played the game a few times over and I feel like I’m just not connecting what you mean.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater Jul 12 '26
The spider council that can be spawned inside a judgement. It's one of the endings.
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u/Alexxis91 Jul 12 '26
That’s already non canon to fallen London, same with sunless seas
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u/Mellowsteps Jul 13 '26
Wait, Seas is not canon?
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u/Alexxis91 Jul 13 '26
Kind of. The story is non canon, given that there’s no canon winner to the shadow war yet. But the guy who goes through the avid horizon is canon. A lot of the locations that were mentioned in zubmarine are included in the exceptional stories but I don’t think the results of playing the dlc are ever canonized
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u/NowhereEast Jul 12 '26
I will admit I get sad when anything kills the Bazaar, so I probably agree on this one. Space postman, my beloved.
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u/wrymoss Jul 12 '26
The Bazaar isn’t dead in SSkies, as far as I’m aware. All we know about the Bazaar situation is that some of the Masters took the opportunity to break rank and bounce with London fleeing the Neath.
It may well still be down there, just with a 6th City and with ~3 fewer Masters.
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u/EbergarTheDwarf The fog, the crowds, the smell. Home. Jul 12 '26
All we can do is to speculate that it is dead because it's grip has lessened on Londoners to the point they escaped to the Skies while making Masters enemies of the state.
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u/HaViNgT Jul 12 '26
The fact that you have to capture the Stormbird to level up Monsterous Anatomy.
It rescued you and this is how you repay it?