"There are some things we were not meant to know, they say. But you wouldn't be down here if you took that seriously."
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"A spit of black rock and stunted heath. Touched by all the previous cities, so they say."[1]
Corpsecage Island is a tiny, desolate, and rocky islet that is said to have been part of all the Fallen Cities to date, except for London. The island is rife with relics from cities past;[2] as such, access is permitted to archaeologists working with the Dilmun Club.
Corpsecage is mostly populated by bats that carry intelligence from players of the Great Game - though these secrets are quite expired.[3] London's Constables, the only other parties officially allowed access to Corpsecage, exile the city's "worst and most scandalous" prisoners here;[4][5] this is said to have been a tradition of law enforcement in the Neath since the Second City.[6] A confiscated and discarded diary found on the island belonged to a certain political visionary with much to say about class and capital, who seems to have met his end on Corpsecage.[7] There is one other, isolated prisoner on the island: the devilessVirginia's former lover, a Grand Devil and one-time prince of Hell.[8]
A group of people came to Corpsecage from the Fourth City,[9] but they left and zailed eastward,[10] with a detour to the Elder Continent on the way.[11] This is consistent with the expedition of the Great Khan toward the end of the Fourth City, which resulted in the founding of the Khanate after a failed invasion of the Continent.[12] There is also evidence of Third City settlement,[13] and the gossip of the bats[3] suggests potential Second City involvement as well.[14]
Historical Inspirations
That political visionary could only be Karl Marx, who did spend much of his life in London. Marx needs little introduction, but for those less familiar, his best-known works include his coauthorship of The Communist Manifesto, and Das Kapital, a foundational philosophical text and critique of capitalism.
↑ 3.03.1The Corpsecage bat, Fallen London"The bats are surly, but they don't object to you getting close and removing tiny cylinders from their legs. [...] One of the messages is written in the picture-alphabet of the Second City. The part you can make out says, '..all the Pharaoh's daughters bar one are gone...'"
↑Inauspicious iron, Fallen London"The manacles are of a style that was standard issue for the Constables of ten years ago. But not even the Velocipede Squad would stoop to this barbarity, would they?"
↑Rummage around the fire, Fallen London"You consider the mind of a criminal. Perhaps a revolutionary. Where, during a brief escape, would such a person hide something of value? There. [...] Radical texts, jade, and the discarded manacles and mask of a prisoner. So the stories were true."
↑Digging up bones and rough justice, Fallen London"Certain radicals say that the Constables occasionally dispose of the worst and most scandalous criminals here. They say this is a tradition that began in the Second City."
↑The zee-caves, Fallen London"It's a little wooden chest, with the lock wax-sealed [...] The seal bears the locked-book crest of the Ministry of Public Decency. You force it open and extract a small book. It's a decade-old diary. You flip through the pages. The author was evidently a radical thinker. Good Lord! There's some complex stuff here about class and capital. It's no wonder the author ended up here."
↑Ambition: Heart's Desire %E2%80%93 the Prince's Prison, Fallen London"You climb to a gorsed dell, tucked against a shoulder of a cliff. At its middle is a hollow, and at the bottom of the hollow a hole, barred with rusting iron. From within comes a nagging drone, the speech of locusts. A chain rattles, musically. Something wraps around the bars from below. Not fingers. Fingers lack chitin."
↑Digging up bones and rough justice, Fallen London"You unearth the remnants of the past. [...]. Horse-bone amulets and cracked clay rice-bowls. A stone monument, its bell-like shape familiar to you from your outings to the Forgotten Quarter, now subsumed by clinging moss. The denizens of the Fourth City came here in numbers."
↑What's written here?, Fallen London"This is a map. Well, a set of directions. You can't decipher all of it [...] But there's somewhere East over the Unterzee. Somewhere that zailors of the Fourth City called 'our last bastion and salvation'."
↑What's written here?, Fallen London"There's somewhere East over the Unterzee. But on the way there, the zailors of the Fourth City visited the Elder Continent. Perhaps they left something there? A camp? A colony, even?"
↑See what you can dig up, Fallen London"Your finds confirm what the carvings on the walls suggested. Skyglass shards, perished lumps of indiarubber, a few bones. This court was definitely built and used by people of the Third City. It's chilly up here. They must have wrapped up warm."
↑Writing it all down, Fallen London"You have seen proof of Fourth and Third City inhabitation, and some evidence suggesting the Second City."
