Furnace Ancona

"There are some things we were not meant to know, they say. But you wouldn't be down here if you took that seriously." 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.

"I'm 'Furnace' Ancona, I run the Tracklayers' Union, and if you want to put down any rail out of London, it's me you need to be dealing with."

Furnace Ancona is the well-respected leader of the Tracklayer's Union.

An Advocate for the People

"I'm not putting down a single rail tie if we're not being paid, and it takes more than your word on that."

As the leader of the Tracklayer's Union, Furnace supervises her union's projects, meets with investors, and ensures everyone is paid fairly. Her work has made her a living legend among tracklayers, labor advocates, and revolutionaries alike; she is even called Saint Furnace Ancona by some. Despite her excellent political acumen, she is not at all a bureaucrat. She instead prefers to lead from the front lines, working alongside union members and making use of her extensive knowledge of the practicalities of tracklaying. Furnace stands in opposition to any threat to workers' rights, especially by the monopolistic Mr Fires and its lackeys.

Furnace's ultimate goal is to build a city for the Neath's tracklayers, where they can live free from the Masters' influence and any other form of oppression. This is also the founding principle of the Emancipationist ideology, one of the three schools of thought within the Tracklayer's Union. She has very detailed plans for this city's infrastructure and governance, in hopes that she may set an example for the future. She claims this as an extension of her down-to-earth attitude, though her plans reveal her utopian leanings.

History

"My grandfather belonged to a Friendly Society – before the fall. They all swore – on the skeleton of his neighbour's goat – never to work for less than ten shillings a week. One of his friends was caught and transported to Australia, for taking such a stand. And that was before... before Mr Fires and Mr Stones and the Bazaar."

Born in the Neath as Beatrice Ancona, Furnace is of Italian descent, as her surname would indicate. She comes from a family of worker's rights activists; her grandfather belonged to a Friendly Society, and swore never to work for an unfair wage even though his comrades were punished for it.

Before founding the Tracklayer's Union, Ancona worked in one of Mr Fires' factories. One day, the Master demanded that workers no longer wear protective helmets, and she started to plan her revenge against such blatant worker cruelty. Mr Fires was warned that something would happen, but it did not act on the threat; Beatrice successfully trapped it in one of the back rooms, where it remained for three days. As a consequence of this incident, all the workers in the factory lost their jobs; however, Ancona gained the nickname "Furnace" (because "what else contains a fire?") and her reputation grew rapidly. Ancona was eventually hired to work on the Moloch Line, the railway commissioned by Hell to join it and London; she used her position to offer jobs to all her past colleagues from the factory. Her fledgling union also built a now-decommissioned children's ride at Mrs Plenty's Carnival.

To this day, Furnace still prefers her nickname, as she would rather use a name she earned than the one she was given.

Appearance

"Early the next morning – much earlier than a civilised person should be awake – a woman presents herself at your lodgings. She's wearing overalls, work gloves, and a vast metal helmet, as though she were going on a deep-zee dive."

Furnace is a muscular woman who is generally seen wearing rugged overalls, gloves, and an enormous metal welding helmet, with a front visor and holes drilled into the sides. Her helmet hides, for obvious reasons, the fact that she has two extra faces positioned slightly behind her ears. Each of her faces can act and speak independently, sometimes commenting from within her helmet, and one might even fall asleep and snore while the others remain awake.

Personality

"Furnace isn't the kind that stays home stamping letters for the front. Where the work is, that's where she is. When she's in London, that'll be because that's where she's found the biggest threat to the workers. But she's been all the way out. Made the journey to Hell and back on foot, twice." "Furnace accepts the Hillmovers with pleasure. "I'd like to see a Master roost on this," says a voice that doesn't come from her mouth."

Courageous, charismatic, and compassionate, Furnace is equally adept at delivering fiery speeches and listening to the voices of her union constituents. As the leader of a broad coalition, she always ensures fairness and equality in her decisions, even when she does not agree with all parties involved. That said, she is steadfast and resolute in her own principles; she is willing to incur personal sacrifices for the greater good, and refuses to risk her workers being defrauded. She gets along best with her working-class comrades, and harbors distaste for the rich and privileged. Thanks to her position of leadership and selfless attitude, Furnace rarely displays vulnerability, though she privately worries that her plans might fail and that she will let her fellow workers down.

Each of Furnace's faces has its own personality, corresponding with each of the three schools of thought within the Tracklayer's Union. Her real face - that is, the one located where it should be - is Emancipationist, as this is the ideology she herself espouses. Her Prehistoricist face follows the teachings of her former colleague Cornelius; it is restrained, conservative in regards to change and disorder, and has a tendency to wax philosophical. Her Liberationist face supports the Liberation of Night; it is audacious and driven, but prone to picking fights with Furnace's other faces.

The Hurlers Incident

"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.

"This is what Cornelius' experiment did ... He invoked a power against speaking 'more than one truth with the same mouth.' So when I needed to speak for one of my constituents that I don't personally agree with, this happened. Didn't silence me, though."

It was around this time that Furnace became involved in the fledgling Tracklayer's Union; at the time, she shared leadership of the group with her colleague Cornelius. The construction of the line went well until the workers reached the Hurlers. A deviless sought to sabotage Cornelius, teasing him about not being able to read an inscription written in the Discordance, and smuggled him a dictionary. When Cornelius read the inscription, it wounded him grievously enough to send him to the Slow Boat, and granted both Cornelius and Furnace some startling physical consequences. Furnace now has two extra faces, which she hides beneath her helmet, and which become apparent when she argues for multiple points of view at the same time.