The First City

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"Only two things are known to remain of the First City: the name, the Crossroads Shaded By Cedars, and the saying: even the First City was young when Babylon fell." "The first taught restraint..."[1]

The First City, known as the Crossroads Shaded By Cedars, was originally located in Ancient Mesopotamia and dates back to the third millennium BCE.[2] The remnants of this city live on in Polythreme; ruins and artifacts of the First City can also be found in the Hinterlands, especially under the Magistracy of the Evenlode.

The First Fall

"The sudden sunlight is dazzling, prompting you to step into the shade of the trees nearby. Here the air is sweet and cool; the cedar sap is heady and light. Down the path are a number of small, grey-brick homes. Children in curious garb squeal with joy, workers shout – in an unfamiliar language, but the tone is cheerful. This is a place of industrious contentment."[3]

Before its Fall, the First City thrived as a major commercial hub in Mesopotamia,[4] flourishing through trade with its sister-cities.[5] It had established contact with ancient China, welcoming merchants from distant lands. Among them was the King with a Hundred Hearts, then a handsome young trader whose caravan met disaster, forcing him to seek refuge in a mud-brick town.[6] There, he first encountered the priest-king of the settlement, the Manager.

The king’s court was astonished by the foreign merchant’s exotic appearance and attire.[7] The priest-king, captivated, soon fell deeply in love with the young traveler.[8] But fate was unkind—the merchant fell gravely ill and was near death.[9] In desperation, the priest-king accepted aid from two Masters of the Bazaar, Cups and Candles.[10] They offered him a bargain: the salvation of his lover in exchange for the city itself. The priest-king accepted.

The Masters transformed the merchant into the King of Polythreme, preserving his life but also trapping him in the form of a metropolis. The First City, in turn, was claimed by the Bazaar, marking the beginning of the cycle of Fallen Cities.[11]

Culture

"Debts take many forms. Debts of honour. Of money, obviously. Blood. And then there are the debts of greater and more terrible natures. And a debt – no matter how great, no matter how terrible – must be repaid in full."[12]

The First City’s written language was cuneiform, but after its Fall, its script diverged from its Surface counterpart, evolving into something distinct.[13] Laws and oaths held great significance,[14] with many of the City’s legal edicts surviving through the ages.[15] The cedars bore silent witness to these agreements[16]—their sap a sacred seal for merchants striking binding pacts.[17] It was believed that the cedar-spirit enforced oaths sworn beneath its branches.[18]

A notable legal practice was the Cedar-Trial, a form of arbitration where disputing parties clasped hands before a cedar tree, allowing its spirit to serve as the ultimate judge.[19] Justice in the First City was not just law but an extension of the natural and divine order. It was a method of survival for the First of Fallen Cities.[20]

The city was also home to a prominent Eye Temple,[21] where its priests and priest-king ruled[22] and conducted esoteric rituals.[23]

First City Coins

"One side bears what might be a cedar tree. You've never met anyone who can read the script on the other side."[24]

Coins attributed to the First City, though widely dismissed as modern forgeries, hold significance in the Marvellous as substitutes for "fragments of a primal power."[25] They are traditionally exchanged in sets of thirty, the number of silver coins Judas was paid for betraying Jesus.[26]

All First City coins bear an image of a cedar tree on one side. The reverse varies: some display an undeciphered script encircling a profile of a face, others depict the Bazaar itself, and a few show a pair of unsettling eyes—possibly belonging to a Devil.[27] Coins have surfaced as far as Port Carnelian, hinting at an ancient trade network that extended even to the Elder Continent.[28]

Survivors

There are a few confirmed living survivors of the fall of the First City:

  • The Capering Relicker, a priest in the Eye Temple, and the Manager’s uncle,[31] and who was the first to brew Hesperidean Cider.
  • The Surgeon's Child is from the First City, though it remains unclear whether she is still alive. She was the surgeon responsible for lobotomizing the Bazaar, removing its urge to deliver messages.
  • The Yearning Custodian, who was born in the First City and initiated the Marvellous in the Third. He now resides in the Root of Need in Parabola, and is the Keeper of the Marvellous and chronicler of its history and rulings.

There are also a number of rumors about the First City: that it was made of shining alabaster and bone held together by belief,[32] that there is a First City priest living on an atoll, who challenges all those who encounter him to tell him a true lie. Those who cannot answer the riddle must stay on the atoll with him.[33]

Historical Inspirations

The first candidate for the First City is the Sumerian city of Uruk, renowned for its prominence in Mesopotamian history and its association with the Epic of Gilgamesh. This would mean that the Manager is Gilgamesh, from the famous Epic of Gilgamesh, due to the similarities between his tale and the epic (although there are differences).[34] The King with a Hundred Hearts would be Enkidu, Gilgamesh's closest friend in the epic; however, in this story he was originally a merchant from China,[30] rather than being a creature of clay the whole time like Enkidu. Additionally, the King's relationship with the Manager was explicitly romantic. Lastly, this would mean that the Capering Relicker is probably Utnapishtim, who in the epic was granted immortality by the Sumerian gods as a reward for preserving humankind through a great flood.

Another candidate is Tell Brak, an ancient settlement in modern-day Syria. This theory gains support from the existence of the Eye Temple,[22][35] The historical Eye Temple at Tell Brak is famous for its thousands of eye-shaped figurines, some of which were embedded into the mortar of the mud-brick temple.

References

  1. ↑ Bask in the light, Fallen London
  2. ↑ Crouching in a low stone building, Fallen London "the land between the Caspian and Mediterranean seas"
  3. ↑ The Season of Ruins, Fallen London
  4. ↑ Transform this dream with vistas of the First City, Fallen London "At your command, roads cross the jungle, radiating from a central place. Once, the glory of the First City was that it was connected to everywhere else. [...]"
  5. ↑ Transform this dream with vistas of the First City, Fallen London "We had done something wrong; we were cut off from our sister cities, which were bound to us by treaty and the source of our wealth. What else was there to do but make the journey?"
  6. ↑ Looking in the garden, Fallen London "You see a group of travellers in the dress of ancient China, haggling for water at a desert spring. A few more steps and the same group are laughing and eating fruit in an orchard. A few steps more, and one of that group, wounded and desperate, looks down a road at a mud brick town next to a cedar grove. Hot, dusty plains stretch to the horizon."
  7. ↑ Looking in the garden, Fallen London "More steps down the path. A priest-king receives the traveller, in a temple painted with eyes. The priest-king's court are amazed at the traveller, and especially impressed by his silk clothes."
  8. ↑ Looking in the garden, Fallen London "More steps. The priest-king's court feasts in the open air, under cedar trees. The priest-king and the traveller are seated together, laughing and kissing."
  9. ↑ Looking in the garden, Fallen London "The traveller writhes and twitches on a stone slab, in some kind of fit. He looks wretchedly thin and haggard. A short step from death. The priest-king weeps over him."
  10. ↑ Looking in the garden, Fallen London "Two figures step into the chamber, hunched and garbed in many-petalled black cloaks. Masters of the Bazaar. One carries a clay cup, the other an unlit candle. The one with the cup says, "I think we can be of service to each other. Allow me to propose an exchange...""
  11. ↑ Meeting the King, Fallen London "[...] The Masters took a diamond from the great glowing mountain in the South and gave it to me for a heart. They made me like this."
  12. ↑ Press for a harsh sentence, Fallen London
  13. ↑ The Edicts of the First City, Fallen London "The writing […] is First City cuneiform; the early variety, before their writing truly began to diverge from Surface examples. […] Proper translation will take some time; but the few word stems you recognize suggest that it concerns the repayment of debts."
  14. ↑ Expand your understanding of oaths and boundaries, Fallen London "[...] You know a little, now, of how that was done. Of how those enforced truths still resonate in the Neath; of the treaties and boundaries they make manifest. But you also understand how the first laws in the dark were almost immediately succeeded by the very first crimes."
  15. ↑ Provide cover to a Chilly Legal Scholar, Fallen London "[...] He hands you […] a tablet of fired clay, covered in First City writing. Edicts and pronouncements, written as law […] one line catches your eye: ONE DAY YOU WILL MAKE US WHOLE."
  16. ↑ The Way West, Fallen London "In the first of all cities, the Cedar was witness of oaths."
  17. ↑ Sap of the Cedar at the Crossroads, Fallen London "Sticky and indelible. It binds together treaties and poisons oath-breakers." "Merchants treasure this stuff. A guarantee of word and bond."
  18. ↑ Ask about the Cedar, Fallen London "A spirit that came down with the First City," says the Creditor's Solicitor. "Or the double of a spirit that has always lived here." You press her for more, but she shrugs. "It creates the framework for an agreement, and the authority for its enforcement. But it is not itself either law or oath."
  19. ↑ Invoke sacred methods of enforcing an oath, Fallen London "The sapling that grows in the courtyard shall serve to find the balance of the participants' oaths. [...] the verdict will not be the judge's. Both parties are induced to clasp hands before the tree. Each thinks this method will benefit them most of all."
  20. ↑ Expand your understanding of oaths and boundaries, Fallen London "[...] The oaths those first inhabitants would have made. The truths they spoke into being as a matter of daily survival. The world they had to invent to remain alive, and remain human. [...]"
  21. ↑ Recertify a double-armful of scraps, Fallen London "I saw the Fall. I raised my jar as the eye temple fell. And they've looked for me ever since. Want me to brew more. They'd flip their cloaks if they knew I was here, under their snouts."
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Interview the Manager of the Royal Bethlehem, Fallen London "He used to be a king, ruling from a temple made of eyes"
  23. ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, Fallen London "Eyes in the temple walls. They watch. Carved irises and eyelids and pupils dilated, chiseled to observe the rites the priest-king works upon the stone altar. They will never stop watching. Never. They are always open. They are painted, and plated with radiant bronze. The walls are wrong. The walls are always wrong."
  24. ↑ First City Coin, Fallen London
  25. ↑ A lovely place for a lecture, Fallen London "[...] Have you heard of the First City Coins? [...] They're not from the First City itself, of course. The actual coins are no more than thirty years old. But they represent something ancient. Fragments of a primal power, locked away in the Masters' vaults since the deal that bought the First City. [...]"
  26. ↑ Give them to someone else, Fallen London "Traditionally, one gives these coins thirty at a time..."
  27. ↑ Examine First City Coins, Fallen London "While all First City coins have a tree on one side, the inscriptions on the other side vary. On a few examples, the undeciphered script circles around a face in profile, or an image of the Bazaar, or a pair of eyes that one can't help but suppose belong to a Devil."
  28. ↑ Examine First City Coins, Fallen London "First City coins have been found as far afield as Port Carnelian, suggesting that commerce between the Falling Cities and the Elder Continent is ancient. Did they trade with the Presbyterate? A precursor state? Something else entirely?"
  29. ↑ Looking in the garden, Fallen London "The priest-king wears white linen, and many layers of shining copper and brass jewellery. He is unmistakably the Manager of the Royal Bethlehem Hotel."
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Looking in the garden, Fallen London
  31. ↑ Hand over a roomful of scraps for a Coruscating Soul, Fallen London
  32. ↑ Ancient stories, Fallen London "[...] They say that the First City was made of shining alabaster and bone held together by belief. [...]"
  33. ↑ Discuss your scraps with the Salty Fabulist, Fallen London "That one leads to an atoll. On the atoll lives a priest of the First City, who challenges all comers to tell him a true lie. If you can't, you have to stay on the rock with him."
  34. ↑ Meeting the King, Fallen London
  35. ↑ Looking for the manager, Fallen London "I received him in the temple of eyes"
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