Spirifage

"There's a healthy export trade in souls from Fallen London to Hell. But like all trade, it's licensed and overseen by the Bazaar. Spirifers are those rogues who bypass the Bazaar to sell directly to Hell. A soul may be a final desperate payment against a bad debt; it may be gambled unwisely; or it may be tricked from its first owner."

A Spirifer's Fork.

Spirifers are soul-merchants who lack permission or licensing from the Bazaar or London's authorities. Most are human, and they usually try to trade souls directly to Hell instead, bypassing London's tariffs and strict regulations. Their trade is called spirifage; it can be lucrative, but spirifers are prosecuted severely if caught.

Soul Thievery

Spirifers are infamous for their preferred means of obtaining souls: stealing them from invalids and other incapacitated parties. To do this efficiently, they use spirifer's forks, brass-colored metallic instruments that can wind out a person's soul from their mouth or some other orifice. Unfortunately, victims tend to die of shock from the extraction process. Apparently, spirifer's forks work because they're specialized in removing souls that are considered "loosely tethered".

To be established as a spirifer, an aspirant needs a patron, such as a devil from the fringes of the Brass Embassy. They may be forced to pass a grueling test before the patron will accept them and provide them with a spirifer's fork, but after paying for it, the newly-minted spirifer can sell souls to their patron for a better rate than at the Echo Bazaar.

Even An Ape Can Do It?

A Pentecost ape.

The Empire of Hands, in the far eastern Unterzee, is a colony of intelligent monkeys who have managed to acquire and absorb many human souls within themselves - several in one body, in some cases. Being monkeys, they often go overboard and conclude that more is better; social status in the Empire is in fact based on how many souls a monkey possesses, and they actively try to acquire souls from donors as well as from careless zailors. Apparently, they "absorb" human souls with the intention of inheriting the soul's traits and becoming more human-like, due to a burning envy for their less fur-covered counterparts. Much to their anger, the Admiralty considers their activities a form of spirifage, and has cut them off from any business with London as a result.

Spirifage in the Skies

A Spirifer Engine.

Given the abundance of souls within the Blue Kingdom, it's not surprising that illegal spirifage would be an issue even there. Spirifers in the High Wilderness travel in Spirifer Engines, strange locomotives that often disguise themselves as funerary locomotives, decorated in a crude imitation of the Blue Kingdom's burial customs and rites. They may also appear to be merchant ships, or take on other disguises are that less well-known; unfortunately for them, the Logoi that patrol the Blue Kingdom are rarely fooled by this ruse, and as such attack them on sight.

Spirifers in the High Wilderness may also possess strange artifacts that can open the various Vaults that pepper the Blue Kingdom; these treasure troves are filled with souls, but are frequent targets for raiders and ambushers due to their lucrative contents.