Mr Pages
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Beyond this point lie spoilers for Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, or Mask of the Rose. This may include midgame or minor Fate-locked content. Proceed with caution. You can find out more about our spoiler policy here. |
"It is my business to keep secrets, your Grace. Mine and the Ministry’s. We desire only to preserve London from maleficitude."[1]
"'Literomantic purveyor of the written and the read!'"[2]
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.[3]
A ...Man?... of Letters
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.[4]
Mr Pages employs the Ministry of Public Decency to collect cool books protect the public from "pestilent and obstacudent" literature.[5][4] 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.[6][7]
Mr Pages also manages the coiling indices of London's Notability system, using a collection of adding machines to manage the cutthroat bureaucracy.[8] 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[9] or offer them inspirations of sorts for advancement in their respective Professions.[10]
Another of Pages' endeavors is the 'Dictionopedia', a mere draft of which apparently took decades to complete.[11]
Mr Pages was known as Mr Granite during the time of the First City,[12] and is called the Saint of Inks by the Cult of the Sanctified in the Sunless Skies timeline.[13] Mr Pages has also published several works under the pseudonym 'Mrs Frontispiece', and its works are notorious for provoking outpourings of tears.[14] These, however, are not too popular anymore in the Sunless Skies timeline.[15]
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.'"[16]
"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."[17]
As one of the busiest Masters, Mr Pages employs a group of individuals known as Reliables to perform certain tasks,[18] such as retrieving stolen books from its library or serving as pawns in its heated rivalry with Mr Iron.[19]
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 (possibly 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.[20] 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.[21]
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 its current state of affairs.[22][23]
The Novel's End
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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. |
Mr Pages hopes to return to the skies again to continue its work,[24] and to accomplish this, it aims to win the Marvellous - its companion Mr Apples' own card game - for its Heart's Desire.[25] During its time as a player, it has developed a searing hatred for apes;[26] 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![27] Pages is quite annoyed by this development, and will do almost anything to defeat Beechwood and leave the Neath once and for all.[28]
