Helicon House

"Interlocked tentacles: a gathering place. Soothing bubbling noise: an invitation, hesitantly extended. An explanatory writhing: humans are only sometimes permitted. It will have to wait for a suitable time. Also, most of the other humans who attend are... what's that word? Painters? Raving? You've always had trouble distinguishing the terms."

Helicon House is an arts center in Ealing Gardens.

Invites Only

"A Clay Man with an unusually keen expression keeps the door. He admits Rubbery Men without question, but challenges the human visitors."

A piece of amber.

Helicon House is Ealing Gardens' center for the arts, where Rubbery Men are free to express themselves and present their ideas to a wider audience. In its many halls and salons, Rubbery art and culture is given foremost importance: the majority of Helicon's artists are Rubbery musicians and sculptors. Paintings by Bohemians are displayed as well, representing several artistic schools. At its root, Helicon is a celebration of change - both of the physical changes brought upon by the Shapeling Arts, and of the cultural evolution of the Rubbery Men.

A Rubbery Man.

Helicon was built sometime after the Fall of London. Externally, it's an ordinary townhouse based on that of His Amused Lordship, though its rooms are double the size and feature Rubbery-influenced details and decor. Its existence is a secret, even among London's counterculture; Rubbery Men may enter freely, but human visitors are vetted by the Keen-Eyed Clay Doorkeeper, who provides guidance on proper etiquette towards Rubbery Men and ensures orderly conduct within Helicon. For instance, entering late into the evening is frowned upon, as it is discourteous towards the musicians. The staff includes humans, Clay Men, and Rubberies alike.

Frequent visitors to Helicon receive an amber pendant, which they are usually required to leave at the door when they enter; the pendant is thus ostensibly a perpetual admission pass.

Main Halls

"It is a music of approximation; it offers imperfection as a necessary state, and mutation as inevitable."

A Rubbery musician.

At the South Parlor, Rubbery composers present their music at the start of each evening. Their works can be unorthodox, using dissonances and shifts in rhythm to convey feelings of development, imperfection, and mutability.

The Supper Room serves food supplied by Bohemians for human consumption, alongside dishes more amenable to Rubberies. (No, those are not potatoes!)

The Yellow Salon and Prussian Salon both showcase sculptures and paintings; the former is kept quiet, while the latter is a space for discussion.

Secluded Corners

"What was that flash of light? And is it a shade of light that should exist in these parts?"

"Behind Helicon House, a curling gallery of stalagmites forms a sort of shaded tunnel. This is a place for art that is too radical even for the interior of the house; sculptures of bone and amber, and some of the most secretive arts of the Rubbery Men."

A mirror.

The Mirrored Salon is a tucked-away wing of Helicon, where visitors seek inspiration from the arts of Parabola. The room is marked by flashes of light alien to this world, and the hallway leading to it is covered in viric wallpaper decorated with vines and snakes. The room itself is covered in several mirrors, and illusionists use this place to stage wonders and visions that would be too intense or esoteric for Mahogany Hall.

The name of the Upstairs Honey-Den explains itself; consuming prisoner's honey in this hidden room leads to the Sea of Spines, a wondrous location reminiscent of Axile. Dreamers feel as though they're deep underwater in a moonlit sea, with aquatic features suiting their new environment. When they return, however, they find themselves covered in liquid.

A piece of amber.

The Sculpture Garden is a refuge for artwork "too radical" even for Helicon. Here, Rubbery Men practice calligraphy, make sculptures out of amber and bone, and collaborate with Bohemian sculptors. Some of the Bohemians here have partaken in the Shapeling Arts to better their art.

Below-Stairs is a basement beneath Helicon that serves as a lab for the Shapeling Arts. Here, Rubbery Men gather around a massive crucible of amber and produce wonders of shaped flesh and bone. Visitors may partake as well, though newcomers are closely supervised.

The Entrepreneur's Patronage

"The Tentacled Entrepreneur's study is windowless and dark, an interior void in the building that you wouldn't know was there from the shapes of the rooms around it."

"Within, a semicircle of guests surround a small sculpture on a dais. In the relative darkness, it's hard to make out the material, or the shape; something dark and tangled – a bramble, an octopus, a venus flytrap?"

The Tentacled Entrepreneur

The Tentacled Entrepreneur recently took an interest in Helicon. During his campaign to become Lord Mayor of London, he became one of its most generous patrons, and worked to make it more accessible for the general public. He also ensured that Helicon would become a key staging ground for the expression and evolution of Rubbery culture.

After the Entrepreneur's bid for Lord Mayor failed, however, he reevaluated his goals. In pursuit of his new priorities, he commissioned a Rubbery Man named the Malleable Sculptor to produce and showcase unique works of art, the first of which resembles a massive jaw that lightly clamps around those who interact with it. The Entrepreneur's further plans for himself and his kin are unclear, but it seems that rather than aimlessly striving for similarity with London, the Entrepreneur is now pursuing another path, and perhaps even a new beginning.