The Masters of the Bazaar

"The Masters of the Bazaar - Mr Wines, Mr Spices, Mr Veils and the rest - speak in high-pitched whispers, and under their concealing cloaks they seem winged or hunchbacked. Fallen angels, stunted pterodactyls, mobile colonies of fungus? They dismiss all personal questions with an airy wave of their gloved hands."

"The Masters apply peculiar customs duties: to fish below a certain size, to green ribbons but not red, to speckled eggs but not plain. Perhaps their strangest tax is a heavy duty on stories of love, but it only applies to stories leaving the Neath..."

The Masters of the Bazaar: it's hard to describe these cloaked, slightly creepy things as anything but, well, alien space bats. They call themselves Mr, but they may not really be men. There are eleven titles, but two Masters take up four of them, and the rest have one apiece for a total of nine total Masters. Oh, and there are a few other titles that aren't really Masters, empirically speaking. Confusing? Fallen London is generally that way...

An Introduction

"Authority is what's left when the money runs out."

The Masters of the Bazaar are in near-complete control of London's trade economy. Each Master oversees a certain form of trade; for example, Mr Iron oversees the trade of metals and weapons. The Masters may seem united, but in truth, many of them run independent (and sometimes incompatible and clashing) schemes that occasionally span far beyond the scope of London.

The Masters generally took on similar jobs and roles in the previous Fallen Cities; for example, they were called Khans during the time of the Fourth. As might be expected of these beings, the Masters are thousands of years old. Don't ever mention the Second City in their presence, however; they will all react in different but unanimously negative ways.

The Masters as a Group

"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.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Mr Apples/Mr Hearts

"'Catch?' There is no 'catch'. All is delight and freedom from care!"

"This upstanding citizen governs commerce in food, wood and immortality. They say it's an ally of Mr Veils."

A peddler of life.

Mr Apples is a darkly cheery and overly familiar Master that is in charge of trade in food, wood, and immortality. It loves games and gambling, driving it to create the high-stakes card game known as the Marvellous. It can be found at Mrs. Plenty's Carnival occasionally. As Mr Hearts, it deals in meats, skins, ligaments, bones, bloods, and animals, and runs an emporium at the Labyrinth of Tigers.

Apples/Hearts is probably the most innocent Master; the worst atrocity it is known to commit is selling a very mysterious meat from suspicious sources at its storefront.

Mr Apples has also been called Mr Barley, the Lord of Blood in the time of the Third City, the Saint of Flesh and the Paradisal Saint by the Cult of the Sanctified in the Sunless Skies timeline, and the Khan of Roots and the Khan of Hearts during the time of the Fourth City.

Sunless Skies

"Gone. But I could make more. I was Mr Apples, once. As I was once other things, other names, other people."

In the Sunless Skies timeline, when London rose to the skies, a few Masters followed. One of them was Mr Apples, now known as the Chiropterous Hoarder. It used to sell Hesperidean Cider for a high price, but it has run out of its precious golden apples, so it now seeks a new and better means of immortality.

Mr Cups

"Work hard for the enrichment of the Bazaar, and us all. Shun seditionists. Practice courtesy & honesty."

"'Crockery, pottery, sculpture.'"

That which is empty.

The distant and proper Mr Cups is in charge of trade in crockery, pottery, and sculpture. It employs a group of rag-and-bone men known as Relickers who are tasked with salvaging junk and certifiable scraps, which they sometimes pay for with valuable items. As a result, Mr Cups is notorious for its formidable hoards of various odds-and-ends, such as First City Coins and other knick-knacks.

Mr Cups is also in charge of London's timekeeping systems, and is rather possessive over its monopoly. This may be the reason why it and Mr Wines drove the Watchmaker's Daughter, a talented craftswoman whose toys came alive, to suicide.

As Mr Mirrors, it is in charge of trade in "the frangible and the fine;" this includes fine or quality secrets, unlike the more affordable variety proffered by Mr Pages. It also runs Mr Mirrors' Marquee of Mystification, a collection of past electoral memorabilia - though this has been shuttered since mayoral elections have been ceased. Mr Mirrors sides with Mr Wines in its dispute over dreams with Mr Spices, and it sometimes acts as an arbiter for certain Parabolan matters. According to Mr Cups' noman at Sacksmas, who is in turn pretending to be Sacks-Mirrors, Mr Mirrors wishes to reflect dreams, not rule them.

Mr Cups resides in a parlor with a high ceiling, filled to the brim with its collections of crockery, pottery, and sculpture. Mr Mirrors' walls are covered with mirrors, each one with a single shard missing.

In the Sunless Skies timeline, Mr Cups is called the Saint of Chalices by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon.

An Eye for an Eye

"The Bazaar's dream is a folly! Its message will be spurned, and when it is, its heart must not break, but ignite! For vengeance is hot as love! Let it suffer, and let the sun suffer – as I have suffered over the span of five cities!"

A blade forged in your heart.

As part of a grand, mysterious scheme, Mr Cups hired an assassin named Scathewick to murder seven particular people on the Surface in a bid to lure their vengeful loved ones to the Neath. These Surface-dwellers would then either give up on their vengeance or die trying, and their tragic tales would be etched into the spire of the Bazaar alongside its other stories by the Lady in Lilac, who was coerced into doing so by Mr Cups.

Ironically, Cups' own motivation for this complicated scheme also happens to be revenge. It has grown tired of serving the Bazaar over the course of five Fallen Cities, and it now thinks that the Courier's mission of saving the Sun with its Message will fail. By tainting the Bazaar's collection of love stories with stories of vengeance, Mr Cups hopes that when the Bazaar's Message is inevitably spurned, its heart will "ignite" instead of break, causing both it and the Sun to suffer as Cups itself has suffered during its time in the Neath. Mr Cups does not feel remorse or regret for what it has done, and it will certainly not apologize, but its seventh story of vengeance still remains unfinished...

Mr Mirrors

"For years she stalked one Master, Mr Mirrors. It's gone. It's been gone for years. She lured it into dreams. And dreams – nightmares – are her weapons."

"The frangible and the fine!"

That which needs to be filled.

The "Mr Mirrors" that many Londoners know of is actually a persona put on by its former colleague, Mr Cups. The original Mr Mirrors actually disappeared from the Neath before the events of Fallen London, and Mr Cups took over its identity in its absence.

In an age when the Masters still scoured the skies, Mr Mirrors was hunted down and captured for glass-whispering, a mysterious ritual that involved quietly speaking to a shard of a mirror in a hidden cave in an asteroid in deep space. Glass-whispering is considered a sin to Curator-kind, so Mirrors was likely exiled following its capture. Some time after this, an ostracized and heavily scarred Mr Mirrors chose to follow the other Masters beyond the Avid Horizon to join the Echo Bazaar on its mysterious mission. It brought a box containing the Claiming Wind, a tempestuous entity that Mirrors treated as some sort of pet.

Unfortunately for Mirrors, around the time of the Fifth City, it was imprisoned by a woman with an affinity for the Parabolan: October of the Calendar Council. October disguised her identity and won the Marvellous, the Masters' high-stakes card game that grants the winner their Heart's Desire. As an avid revolutionary and opponent of the Masters, she used her newfound power to ensure that Mr Mirrors would be chained in Parabola in a "prison of its own failures," effectively destroying its presence in reality.

In the Sunless Skies timeline, Mr Mirrors is called the Saint in the Glass by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon.

The Dreams Within a Dream

""To be reduced to this," it bemoans. "Undone by a perfidious revolutionary, given to my own pet as a toy—" here, it shoots a wounded look across the moor, to where the Claiming Wind harries the heathers, "—and now at the mercy of some anonymous Parabolan vagrant." It turns its fractured eyes on you. "Miserable.""

Every dream imprisons its dreamer.

Presently, Mr Mirrors is chained to a fence-post in the center of a crossroads on a hill deep in Parabola, serving as a fortification guarding the mysterious Grave of Mirrors. This crossroads is known as the Beggar's Wake, and very little remains of Mirrors itself. Meanwhile, its former pet, the Claiming Wind, has been set free, and it will do anything in its power to ensure Mr Mirrors stays chained, just like it was once chained itself.

Around the Beggar's Wake, other dreams of Mr Mirrors have manifested as physical locations in Parabola: the Court of Honey and Spices, representing its dream of glass-whispering; the Convocation of Runts, representing its dream of the Avid Horizon; and the Pedlar King, representing its ultimate ambition of becoming a great and terrible king. Within all these dreams, the aspects of Mirrors have one trait in common: strange, mirrored eyes.

Mr Fires

"'Coal, gas, candles. Warm yourself.'"

"Not bad, my little one. I’ll be keeping an eye on you."

Warm yourself.

Mr Fires, ember-eyed and honey-voiced, governs trade in coal, gas, and candles, along with the Neath's unique form of railway steel. As a Master, it presides over several of the factories in Fallen London and many of the workers at Wolfstack Docks, and it does so with an unwavering grip. It can usually be found near its office in Wolfstack Docks, and it is also in command of London's dirigible system, a position that apparently required quite a lot of effort on its part to acquire.

Fires is known to deny its laborers many basic necessities, like safe working conditions and fair pay. It often uses the Masters' enforcers, the neddy men, to quell and dissipate any protests, unions, or revolutionary activity it deems troublesome. Furthermore, its factories are heavy polluters, spewing several pounds of noxious waste into the air and waters of London and beyond. All these factors make Mr Fires notorious, especially among those of a revolutionary bent, as one of the most antipathetic and poor-tempered Masters in modern-day Fallen London.

Every seven years, Mr Fires is obligated to write a letter to the Bazaar; this letter is usually a love story, as to be expected, but sometimes Fires likes to vary it up a little and submit an editorial on Fallen London based on the opinion of one of London's intrepid citizens. By writing the letter in this manner, Mr Fires wishes to change the course of London's fate by influencing the Bazaar's opinion on some unspecified issue. Does this place Fires in the same boat as the revolutionaries it seeks to destroy? Probably not.

Oh, and it considers London escaping to the skies a spectacularly bad idea.

Mr Fires resides in several apartments that blaze in various hues of light so bright they recall the Surface: gas, candles, dazzling stones, and strange light bulbs.

Mr Fires was known as the Khan of Fire in the time of the Fourth City, and is called the Saint on the Pyre by the Cult of the Sanctified in the Sunless Skies timeline.

A Payment in False Coin

"ONE DAY YOU WILL FORGIVE is stamped on the back. It is a commandment as much as a promise."

"It looks much like a real Justificande, but it doesn't have the same effect on nearby clocks."

Forged Justificande Coins

Mr Fires is known to conduct several independent schemes that often come into conflict with its colleagues, like Mr Wines, Mr Spices, and Mr Stones. It commissioned the Dean of Supernumerary Fellows at the University to investigate the private stash of mysterious sedatives that Mr Spices (possibly) consumes but doesn't sell, and it paid the Dean in several forged Justificande Coins, the mysterious currency of Irem.

To produce these coins, Mr Fires made an arrangement of sorts with Mr Veils to take over one of its neglected workshops from the Fourth City. Fires converted this workshop into a coin fabrication factory, while Veils retained ownership but would not visit. Within this workshop lies an automaton imitation of Mr Veils (yes, seriously) to fill in its position in its silk shops should the real Mr Veils ever meet its end or go missing. Given its activities, Veils' demise seems fairly likely to occur soon...

A Moon of Misery

""Once a suitable love story is found, it’ll be the end of London. Can you imagine?" The lamp trembles in its hand. Its voice rises an octave. "The end of London! I couldn't bear it! I love this city. It's my sole comfort, the greatest joy I have discovered in all my centuries. I'd do anything to preserve it.""

"Since the very beginning, I have had the best interests of London at heart. In the longer term, the Hybrid's milk is the only thing that can save the city. Once seeded across the populace, all love stories will be rendered suspect. Any love, no matter how pure or moving, could simply be the symptoms of an aberration's venom. Love will be robbed of its allure. The Bazaar will not know which stories it can truly believe in."

A shard of glim, sheddings from a moon-miser.

Deep within Mr Fires' soot-blackened heart lies a surprisingly genuine love for London as a city; this puts it at odds with its colleagues, many of whom seek to end their service to the Bazaar as soon as possible. As a result, Mr Fires regularly sabotages the love stories procured by Mr Wines and Mr Spices, and it is responsible for interfering in Mr Stones' plan to sell moon-milk to an exiled captain from Hell; this would have persuaded the captain to destroy London in an apocalyptic war.

But Mr Stones isn't the only Master interested in using moon-milk for its own ends; Mr Fires itself has conducted several experiments on moon-misers and their milk within the walls of the Orphanage, a laboratory that uses political prisoners and other unfortunate victims as guinea pigs. Its inhumane investigations revealed that unaltered moon-milk caused only shallow obsession, not true love - so it was worthless for forging love-stories, and the obsession faded after a few years anyway, to say nothing of the awful side effects it had on its imbibers.

Fires always has a backup plan, however, and this one is ghastly: what if it crossbred a moon-miser with a human? The resultant hybrid might secrete a special strain of moon-milk that induces true love, or at least a form of love that the Bazaar cannot distinguish from true love. Fires theorizes that adding this new moon-milk to London's water supply would render all future love stories worthless, frustrating the Bazaar's mission to collect them.

Mr Iron

"Tools, printing-presses, guns, steam-engines: taxes from trade in these are payable to Mr Iron. They say it never speaks, but can write with both hands simultaneously."

Some dexterity required.

Mr Iron is in charge of trade in tools, engines, weapons, and printing presses. Silent and humorless, it is best known for communicating only through written means, often writing with both hands at once. It also heads the Iron and Misery Company, and supervises its Funging Station in Demeaux Island, one of the most abhorrent places in the Neath.

Mr Iron actively discourages individuals from gaining notoriety and forging their own stories, as it seems to have a degree of animosity with the Bazaar. Rumor has it that it is also secretly in charge of the game of Knife-and-Candle.

Mr Iron can be occasionally encountered at Mrs Plenty's Carnival, but one probably does not want to meet him there. Mr Iron has also been known as Mr Bronze, was known as the Khan of Swords during the time of the Fourth City, and is called the Saint of Blades by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in the Sunless Skies timeline.

Mr Pages

"It is my business to keep secrets, your Grace. Mine and the Ministry’s. We desire only to preserve London from maleficitude."

"'Literomantic purveyor of the written and the read!'"

Mr Pages

Known for its bountifacious proclivity towards verboserlous sayitudes, the excitable and personable Mr Pages is in charge of trade in anything and everything written, read, or both.

Mr Pages employs the Ministry of Public Decency to collect cool books protect the public from "pestilent and obstacudent" literature. The literature the Ministry is known to suppress can range from somewhat fungal trends in romantic poetry to various threats to public civility, such as rogue Correspondence on abandoned streets.

As one of the more amiable Masters, Mr Pages can often be encountered via its campaigns to collect rare literature, either for destruction or for its own private library.

Mr Pages also manages the coiling indices of London's Notability system, using a collection of adding machines to manage the cutthroat bureaucracy. It may occasionally send Unsigned Letters to those deemed Persons of Some Importance, and it may even go as far as to send gifts to the truly extraordinary or offer them inspirations of sorts for advancement in their respective Professions.

Mr Pages also seeks to publish the 'Dictionopedia', a mere draft of which apparently took decades to complete.

Mr Pages was known as Mr Granite during the time of the First City, and is called the Saint of Inks by the Cult of the Sanctified in the Sunless Skies timeline. Mr Pages has also published several works under the pseudonym 'Mrs Frontispiece', and its works are notorious for provoking outpourings of tears. These, however, are not too popular anymore in the Sunless Skies timeline.

Revision and Editing

"The book celebrates us. He gave it to me right before—" His voice catches. "Before that monster..." Mr Pages? The Dandy nods. "My love spoke a truth. And he stood by it."

"These are the deeds and annals of your kind – records of accords and journeys, of victories and defeats in bloody primacy contests, the inventories of great troves accumulated by legendary Curators. They are the myths of your ilk, hoarded from firelit councils in the recesses of the sky.

"There are parts that may be factually correct, but nevertheless weaken the whole. Your claws twitch. There is a hard flint in your grasp – you itch to amend. To correct and improve. To edit. You set to work."

Something to burn? Or something else entirely?

As one of the busiest Masters, Mr Pages employs a group of individuals known as Reliables to perform certain tasks, such as retrieving stolen books from its library or serving as pawns in its heated rivalry with Mr Iron.

Mr Pages has a ruthless side, especially when it has a chance to procure works of truly extraordinary value. One of these works belonged to the Epigrammatic Irishman - speculated to be Oscar Wilde. The Irishman's book celebrated his love and intimacies with the Wilting Dandy, but according to the Dandy, the Irishman also spoke a truth and stood by it. This resulted in the Irishman being permanently killed, and the book sitting safe in Mr Pages' library. The Dandy would later go on to steal the book back as a sort of remembrance for the Irishman, but Pages sent its most reliable Reliable to retrieve the book at any cost, even if meant another death.

A dream of truth-strangling?

Mr Pages' sordid history as a revisionist goes back much further than one would expect. During its time in the High Wilderness, Mr Pages encountered a hallowed, sacred cave. Written in words that burned were the histories and achievements, the defeats and victories, and the details of the hoards of the Curators, the species the Masters belong to. But Mr Pages was incensed by this record; in its opinion, some parts left out the full context of events, were based on assumptions, or were... unflattering to the piece as a whole. So Mr Pages got to work revising and editing. Unfortunately for it, tampering with this record was a crime amongst its kind known as truth-strangling, and Pages was promptly captured for its transgression and forced into the situation it is in now.

Mr Pages hopes to return to the skies again to continue its work, and to accomplish this, it aims to win the Marvellous - its companion Mr Apples' own card game - for its Heart's Desire. During its time as a player, it has developed a searing hatred for apes; a past winner, Gregory Beechwood, wished to reject humanity and return to monkey (so to speak), but lost none of his skills in the transformation and is now playing the game again! Pages is incensed by this, and will do almost anything to defeat Beechwood and leave the Neath once and for all.

Mr Spices

"I do not play games! I am a Master of the Bazaar! It is not a matter for games!"

"'Purveyor of spices and sweet smokes. The only reliable source for dreams. Do not accept imitations.'"

Mr Spices

The irritable and peevish Mr Spices is in charge of trade in spices, sweet smokes, and prisoner's honey. As a Master, it appears very infrequently throughout London, and much of its scheming occurs behind the scenes.

Mr Wines and Mr Spices were once close allies, but they now fight fiercely over the domain of dreams following the death of one of their colleagues during the fall of the Third City. Wines covets the honeyed roads into Parabola that Spices presides over, and their warring often manifests as a destructive dance of fire and ice known as the Fire Sermon.

Mr Spices resides in a den filled to the brim with spices: turmeric, basil, lavender, cinnamon; enough to overwhelm even the most tasteless of palates.

Mr Spices was known as the Honey-Lord during the time of the Third City, and is called the Saint of the Silk Road by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in the Sunless Skies timeline.

The Ironmonger's Knives

"The Bazaar has... appetites. And it is one of our many duties, along with that sodden villain Wines, to fulfil those needs. You understand that Jack-of-Smiles was something of an experiment. Using the unnatural vitality of the first customer's lover, we created Jack. For what inspires love more than the threat of death?"

Jack-of-Smiles

Like many of its colleagues, Mr Spices wishes to return to the High Wilderness by fulfilling its contract; furthermore, it and Mr Wines are the primary Masters responsible for the collection of love stories for the Bazaar.

To achieve its goals quickly, Mr Spices gave a honey-sipping man who lived in Polythreme a rather distressing dream, telling him that his wife was unfaithful. The man burnt down the town he lived in out of rage, but he was severely honey-mazed, and he destroyed said town in reality as well. This killed the town's vitality, leaving only a single building standing: the Ironmonger's Workshop.

Within this workshop, Spices enlisted the help of several iron workers to produce many, many Polythremic knives. Unbeknownst to them, each knife carried with it a sinister vitality, crueler than any other found in the Neath. These knives soon possessed their wielders in London, and these unfortunate souls became known as the various iterations of Jack-of-Smiles. Much to Spices' chagrin, the love stories produced by the tension and drama of Jack's sprees were rejected by the Bazaar for being overly synthetic, so Spices shrugged its winged shoulders and left the mess for someone else to clean up; other matters required its attention.

Mr Spices' Private Stash

"A quantity of a drug you haven't encountered before. You have only the rumours of where it comes from and what it might be."

A mysterious substance

Mr Spices is in possession of a mysterious substance, a Private Stash that it does not sell. The drug has a soporific or calming effect on its consumers, and is known to be more effective on winged animals, including chiropterans, or bat-like creatures. However, the precise effect may vary based on the subject species; the Storm-bird in particular seems to experience a stimulating effect instead of sedation, possibly due to its Parabolan origin. The drug contains several exotic ingredients, at least one of which is only known to be available across the Unterzee; furthermore, its composition bears distinctive hallmarks of FF Gebrandt, and it is speculated that she or one of her disciples contributed research to its creation. FF Gebrandt herself, however, says nothing on the issue when presented with the drug. Perhaps it was indeed one of her disciples acting without her knowledge; otherwise, it can be inferred that she cannot or will not openly admit knowledge of it.

But perhaps the most intriguing note on this substance is its effect on pregnant creatures; pregnant animals who consume this drug find their offspring stronger and healthier, and the runts of their litter are more likely to survive. Furthermore, their offspring also become quieter, calmer, and closer to their parent, leading to longer and more robust dreams.

All of this raises the question of why Mr Spices itself is a habitual consumer...

An Infant Curator, Provisionally Known As Mr Transport

"If Mr Transport understands any of this conversation, it doesn't show it – it simply continues to headbutt the back of your shoulder, as it's been doing continuously for the past thirty-six minutes."

"I don't know," said Spices, "why Mr Cards needed a railway. You might have left it for a future Mr Transport."

Mr Transport is an infant curator, the child of Mr Spices and the Solicitor-Baroness, a deviless. It was born of Mr Spices aboard an unusual locomotive, designed by either of its parents, as it raced through the Hinterlands at an impudently fast pace.

Mr Stones

"Mine."

"'Jewels. Quarrystone. Salt. Blasting Powder. Enough.'"

Like a star in the palm of your hand.

The terse and materialistic Mr Stones is in charge of trade in all manner of stones and minerals, including jewels, quarrystone, salt, blasting powder, and numerous corrosive mineral compounds. It also trades in less valuable jewels and currencies, such as moon-pearls and glim-shards.

As a Master, it is not particularly interested in anything at all apart from growing its hoard of precious jewels. As a result, purchasing gems from the Echo Bazaar is next to impossible, and prices for them in the Bazaar Sidestreets and its stall in the Labyrinth of Tigers are far, far higher than what should be considered reasonable. In fact, taxes on jewels are so high in London that gems are considered contraband, so trading these must often be done under Stones' nose.

Mr Stones resides in a lodgings "as bejewelled as a rainbow's colon", as to be expected, with each centimeter of its workshop encrusted in enough jewels to buy ten kingdoms.

Before becoming Mr Stones, this Master was known as Mr Marble, until "that trouble with the Tomb-Colonies". Said trouble presumably involved the construction of the Grand Sanatoria, massive palaces for the dead made of marble. During the time of the Fourth City, Mr Stones was known by multiple different names, including the Khan of Gifts and the Khan of Shackles.

The Affair of the Box

"This thing has seven locks, each more difficult than the last. You haven't yet found a way to open it."

"So. Box is opened. Our box. No more. Disappointed. Didn't need glim. Needed moon-milk. Devils interested. Valuable trade opportunity lost."

A Heavy Iron Box.

Fancy rocks aren't the only gems Stones is interested in; one must only look up to the gems of the roof, to the false-stars: the moon-misers.

Using a lock that could only be opened with a special song from a Drownie, Stones managed to trap a moon-miser within a heavy iron box. The box also contained several important Fourth City love letters from Mr Fires, which led to the Gracious Widow taking notice. Stones hid several false keys throughout London, such as within Mahogany Hall, to throw off interlopers. Then it tasked two Unfinished Men, Jasper and Frank, with supervising the box at all costs, adding even more moving parts to this mysterious scheme. This chaotic game of shadows became known as the Affair of the Box.

Using the moon-milk produced by the miser, Mr Stones sought to bribe an exiled captain from Hell to start a war with London and raze it to the ground. All of this, it turns out, played out because Mr Stones tires of life in the Fifth City, and hopes to expedite its destruction. The Box is just one of many means to this end.

Mr Veils

"A scream is just an imperfectly tuned song. And we all have a song in our hearts."

"Mr Veils deals with clothing and fabric, and takes a close interest in the silk-weavers of Spite. But not in any of the more dubious activities in the district of Spite! The mere suggestion is slander!"

Keep your hands clean.

Duplicitous and impatient, Mr Veils is best known for its enjoyment of hunts and songs, and is in charge of trade in clothing and fabrics. Zailors sometimes misattribute Mr Veils as being in charge of Mr Wines' ladies of the evening in their zee-zongs. This Master may (or may not) be responsible for a certain betrayal of which we will not speak.

Mr. Veils assumes another, more malevolent identity as well, which is probably the only known case of a Master actually using its wings.

Mr Veils was known as the Khan of Silks during the time of the Fourth City, and is called the Masquerader Saint by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in the Sunless Skies timeline.

A Bat of Many Faces

Like a respectable lady's petticoats and skirts, there are still more layers to this Master. The Vake is but one of its alter egos, the many different masks it has worn across cities - and sometime after the fall of London, this one took over. Veils' identity as a Master... dissolved into the background, really. This had almost no effect on its reputation in London; after all, it has always been cryptic, and no one will notice that anything has changed beneath its heavy cloak. Mr Wines did notice, though, and has been forced to reconsider its relationship with Veils.

At its core, despite all these masks, Veils/the Vake has only three selves:

• Veils the Curator is the most primal and savage form of Mr Veils, desiring only to fly, hunt, and kill, showing itself most easily in the Vake as we know it.
• Veils of the Third City was a feathered god-priest of blood, who saw a special beauty in violent sacrifices and gory rituals. It still lives, and it follows this crimson path to the end, to reckoning.
• Veils the Intriguer is no less vicious than the other two, but stands as an outlier: it has no claws or wings, nor a hunger for blood... at least not directly. The Intriguer is a grand manipulator, a mastermind behind the chessboard, who makes its pawns do all sorts of nasty things. The reason for its relative pacifism is that the Vake's hunt for those who would seek to slay it has changed both its prey and the Vake itself, to become more like each other. Thus, in a way, the Intriguer is more human. And that has baffling implications indeed.

Mr Wines

"To the wicked and the wise! To the hungry and the sharp!"

"Trade in anything drinkable comes under the jurisdiction of Mr Wines. Though it can't be bothered with water. Entertainment, music and the business of the ladies of the evening are also its domain. There's supposed to be some sort of dispute about dreams."

Care for a sip?

Mr Wines, known for entertaining guests at huge revels, is in charge of the trade in all things drinkable, including medicine and excluding water. As one of the more accessible Masters, it can be encountered throughout London; for example, it'll occasionally visit Mrs. Plenty's Carnival. Most of the time, though, it conducts business through its favored servant, Jervaise. It is in charge of a group of dancing beauties who are often misassigned by zailors to Mr Veils.

Though Mr Wines is not known for many atrocities, it and Mr Cups/Mr Mirrors drove the Watchmaker's Daughter, a talented craftswoman whose toys came alive, to suicide. Mr Wines is also London's most notorious cheque-skipper, and has a reputation for leaving others holding the bill for parties here and there. It also sells harmful substances under the label of "absinthe", including one that aids "a friend and colleague".

Mr Wines was known as the Khan of Dreams during the time of the Fourth City,, the Cloaked Emissary in Surface Karakorum in The Silver Tree,, is called M. Mourvèdre in visions of a possible future Paris, and is called the Crowned Saint by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in the Sunless Skies timeline.

Ozymandias

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Mr Sacks

"A knock on your door. A hunched figure. Every year, this Crimson Beast of Winter brings his terrible sack, demanding gifts to fill the void. And now you hear a high-pitched, faintly peevish voice: 'What will you put in my sack?'"

HO HO HO

Mr Sacks appears during the eponymous 12 Days of Mr Sacks, a rather demented version of Christmas. It is also known as the Crimson Beast of Winter. It is - er, they are in fact other figures of note: at first Mr Wines, then various Nomen (and one showman) emulating the other Masters.

Mr Sacks carries around a huge bag, which it uses to collect gifts from the citizenry over the course of the holiday. It's Christmas, only in reverse. And more ghastly, because sometimes, Mr Sacks will collect people.

Mr Chimes

"Who is it? Is it, in fact, one of the Masters of the Bazaar? Is it Mr Iron or Mr Pages trading under another name? Or is it a bold rascal pretending to be an unknown Master?"

For the Exceptional only.

We do know that it runs the House of Chimes. Mr Chimes was known as the Khan of Drums during the time of the Fourth City; it seems to be a role played by many Masters.

The Masters' Artifacts

Everyone has treasures they'd like to keep under wraps, and the Masters are no exception.

The Crimson Book

"The most stirring, the most wretched, the most savage tales of love and loss are here entombed. It has passed through fire and flood to rest in your hands. Leave it sealed... for now." The Crimson Book contains the most 'savage tales of love and loss' and has 'passed through fire and flood'. This indicates that the Crimson Book may have been written long before the Fifth City; perhaps it is still being added to today? The Masters have allegedly assigned a group of Special Constables to specifically seek out and confiscate any and all copies.

Masters' Blood

"The most grandiose trophy an anarchist might aspire to. Was it shed in battle, or given as a gift?" Masters' Blood has many unusual and unique properties that separate it from normal blood. It is a far deeper red, is cold to the touch, and contains a song: 'an unending fading ring like black space struck with a fingernail.' It also emits a constant low vibration, and if left on a shelf, other items will physically move away from it.

Veils-Velvet
"If Mr Veils shed hair - if blind orphans collected, carded and spun it over the years - it might just look like this." Little is known about Veils-Velvet aside from this quote, which would explain why this fabric is so incredibly valuable.

The Sceptre of Mr Wines

"Topped with a black ruby miniature of an unknown crown, this bronzewood sceptre represents all the authority of some far-away kingdom and its once and former king." A symbol of power that once belonged to a king. The Scepter of Mr Wines is as heavy as lead, covered in frost and talon-marks, and is topped with a jewel from a faraway land. Mr Wines doesn't like looking at it much; maybe it's just insecure.

What Lies Under the Cloak

"The second source is A Rhyming Revelry, a slim book of nonsense rhymes written by a once-celebrated cellist. He was, for a time, a favourite at Mr Wines’ revels. One rhyme concerns eleven pilgrims who travelled from a cold and windy waste. It enumerates each of the reasons the pilgrims were unwelcome in their homeland."

Mr Apples / Mr Hearts. Art from Sunless Skies.

Based on two controversial sources, one called On the Origins and Descent of the Masters and another called A Rhyming Revelry, we may reveal the following information.

The Masters belong to a species native to the High Wilderness called Curators. These oversized space-bats hunt in the space between stars, often alone. On occasion, a group of Curators may band together to boast of their hoards and trade deals, and may fight amongst themselves for supremacy. Curator chiefs are described as "victorious, merciless pedlar-magnates."

In the grand scheme of things, the Masters of the Bazaar weren't Masters at all. Rather, they were a group of misfit criminals who joined forces with the Bazaar to escape "misfortune, failure, and fruitlessness."

A Rhyming Revelry provides hints about the crimes of the Masters, though which crimes correspond to what bat are based on conjecture and guesswork. The circumstances given in A Rhyming Revelry are:

• hoarding (Stones?)

• light-bringing (Fires?)

• impersonation, and the delivery of false testimony (Cups?)

• perpetration of the crimes of knife and of candle (Iron?)

• idleness, and the dwelling-on of dreams (Spices?)

• runtery, aberration (Eaten)

• pursuit of a Treachery (Apples/Hearts?)

• failure and defeat; a fall from king to beggar (Wines?)

• glass-whispering. And worse: charity (Mirrors?)

• truth-strangling (Pages?)

• violation of the Order of Days, “which determines the hour of the hunt, the feast, the council, the bargain, and the slaughter” (Veils?)

Mr Eaten

"In the migrainous straits of deep sleep, there is a marsh where candle-flames buzz like wasps." WARNING: Beyond this point lie spoilers for Fallen London's most infamous storyline: Seeking Mr Eaten's Name. Turn back now. You can find out more about our spoiler policy here.

"Who is Mr Eaten? A good question, but not a wise one."

"The Drowned Man's brothers - aye, and sisters - gave him to the knives and the lacre."

There is appetite.

Consumed long ago when the Third City fell. Now a reclusive shadow of its former self. The main force behind the nightmarish, incredibly menacing search for its true name. One could pursue this search... but don't. Just don't.

"A reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely."