Fingerkings

"Are you quite sure you want to know this?" Beyond this point lie major spoilers for Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, or Mask of the Rose. This may include endgame or major Fate-locked spoilers. Proceed at your own risk. You can find out more about our spoiler policy here.

“Humans rule the waking world,” he tells you, “more or less. And the Fingerkings rule most of this place. A long time ago, some rather careless people made these images to imprison Fingerkings. I'm not so careless. I can use it to enact my revenge on the 'king that took my hand.”

Fingerkings are snake-like entities that rule over the majority of Parabola.

The Emerald coils

A Dream Serpent.

"The Fourth City trapped Many-Fingered Kings behind mirrors and tortured them for information: the rulers of the Is-Not, by knowledge of their domain and process of elimination, know all there is to know about the Is. But as the Khaganians today say, there is no greater curse than knowledge you cannot verify."

Fingerkings are serpentine beings that rule the dream-lands of Parabola. Their point of origin is unclear; some claim that they originate from the country-sized lake that contains the Drowned Forest while others say that Fingerkings used to be gems, which would explain their apparent lust for those precious stones.

As a result of being native to the lands of the Is-Not the Fingerkings desire a true existance above everything else and derive sustenance from the memories and substance of non-dream beings. The main way the Fingerkings can achieve true existence is by possessing someone from outside Parabola- common sings of such situations include gaps in an afflicted person's memories and changes to their eyes, from a simple change in gaze to having slitted pupils. The creatures native to the Is-Not can also become possessed, although most Fingerkings don't want do so unless said being can survive in the real world.

Fingerkings are very knowledgeable creatures; their vast knowledge of the Is-Not combined with the process of elimination allows them to know everything, althought they can't really verify most of that knowledge due to being confined to Parabola. This great knowledge combined with their power over dreams makes many individuals desire help and other favours from the Fingerkings, which results in many deals being made between the two parties.

Fingerkings, while persuasive, rarely speak in a traditional sense, as communication with a lesser being is incomprehensible to the powerful ones, while also being too subtle and complex for the minor ones. As such, most Fingerkings communicate through dreams and visions, with some of them being able to project their thoughts directly into other people's minds.

The Wriggling Courts

An example of a white Fingerking.

"They are captained by a seven-headed serpent. Each of its heads is a different shade of a gloomy rainbow. Thirteen eyes watch you as the contract is drawn up. The fourteenth eye is blind, lost in an exchange of vengeances with a Tigerish enemy."

The Fingerkings's biology is, like the rest of Parabola, rather flexible. That being said, individual Fingerkings tend to appear as colorful venomous serpents, with the most popular scale colors being red, yellow and black. Said scales are regularly sloughed off, with the great Dome of Scales itself being built from the scales of the first Fingerkings.This quality is extended to the Fingerkings's servants, who regularly slough off their own skin during certain rituals. Fingerkings tend to reproduce by laying eggs; their most popular breeding grounds include The Drowned Forest and the dream-side of the great city of Varchas.

The most notable part of a Fingerking's biology is their ability to combine many individual serpents into a single hive-mind being known as a congregation. These unions are vastly more powerful and intelligent than their individual components and serve as princes, kings and other influential positions in the serpentine society. The appearence of them can vary wildly, from a single many-headed serpent to giant mass knotted serpents that blot out the sky itself. The congregations are further divided into many specific types, such as Knots, Boils, Catastrophes and Conclaves. The Orts are a specific type of congregation, known for being particularly cunning even in comparison to it's own kind. Another unique type of congregation are The Satraps, commonly associated with the Smoking Shore. Certain legends tell of the Satraps's cousins on the far shore of the Brimstone Sea, lost long ago but still remaining as allies with the Fingerkings.

The War of Many Fronts

"On the fifth day, as the host still advances, a bronze trumpet sounds. From behind the Fingerking host, you make out pennants and spears: a vast army of bronze-helmed lions and lynxes, pouring into the valley. A great red lion is their general, his mane golden, his breast-plate gleaming."

While the Fingerkings hold sway in many regions of the Is-Not, such as The Castle of Forests, The Drowned Forest and The Coiling Spire, they are not the undisputed masters of Parabola, as many other factions and groups constantly fight them in a giant, never ending war. The foremost amongst are the Cats and Tigers, tasked with an ancient duty to protect the real world from Parabola. The war between these two factions is a complex topic of battles, such as the Battle of Pulled Claws, shifting dominances and even democracy. Two groups of humans loyal to each of the factions, known as The Shroud and The Glass, fight their own kind of a proxy wars in London, called the Wars of Illusion.

Another one of the groups that opposes the serpentine lords are the forces of The Moonlit Chessboard, particularly those under the sway of The Red-Handed Queen, who is known as being both the ruler and prisoner of the Fingerkings.

The Little Snake and The Grumpy Bee

"The devils swarming into Parabola longed for many things: for souls, for escape, for their own deaths and the things that waited beyond each death. The Fingerkings saw their longing, and welcomed them as food.

The devils were bargainers, contract-writers, enemies of the stars. The Fingerkings saw their nature, and welcomed them as allies.

The devils were hollow, skin-shedders, eternally in chrysalis. The Fingerkings saw their capacity, and welcomed them as salvation."

Fingerkings have a long and tumultuous history with the Devils. Long ago, when Devils sought an escape from The High Wilderness, the Serpents allowed them to enter Parabola through Caduceus and stay there for as long as they wished, in exchange for allowing themselves to be possessed when they chose to leave the Is-Not. The Devils agreed the deal knowing such a thing impossible; the inside of a Devil is too changeable and corrosive to properly host a Fingerking. And so, when the time came for the Devils to leave for their new home, they did so without a single Fingerking inside them. This story is still a very sore topic for the two groups and it has even lead to the Fingerkings manipulating The Fourth City into a war with Hell.

The Devils are also the ones responsible for the creation of the Prisoner's Honey, which allows an easy way to physically travel to Parabola, and in turn makes the imbiber much more vurnerable to Fingerking possession. In exchange for creating this addicting honey, the Fingerkings have agreed to give a fifth of what they own to the Devils.

The exception to the poor relationship between the two groups can be found with the Parabolic Saints, a group of Grand Devils that remained on good terms with the Fingerkings, the biggest example of which is The Drummer.

The Serpent Compendium

=== {{{Section Header}}}===

{{{Quote}}} Below is a list of all known Fingerkings. The Boil of Calamities, Lord of the Seething Sky, who tends to the sacred places of it's kind. The Catastrophe of Crowns, currently locked away together with The Fourth City's final Khatun. The Parlous Knot , who made the unwise deal with the Devils of old. The Sleeping King, a mysterious figure that might be partially responsible for the smoke that fills The Smoking Shore. The Serpent of the Dome, a nameless king raised from great tithes gathered throughout Serpentdom. The Prophet Exile, the former leader of an ancient Solonocean Conjunction. The Destroyer of Undeserved Admiration The Conjunctions of Misery The Sliver of Treaties The Satrap of Shallows a Lesser Boil of Smoke and Salt The Would-Be-Satrap The Blistered Boil The Puce Boil of Perfidies The Boil of Raptures