Judgements
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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. |
"The Great Darkness awaits: the Kingdoms of the Judgements, strewn with joys and treasures..."
"Look ahead, to the light of the Judgement. All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
Judgements are the ultimate power (or so they claim) in the universe.
Look to the Stars
Powerful celestial entities, the Judgements oversee the lesser beings that exist alongside and beneath them. They are the ultimate lawmakers of the universe, and all under their eternal light adhere to their rules. Every star in the night sky, even our own sun, is a god to their respective planets and subjects. Only a few exist outside their influence, and those who do resent their complete dominance of the universe. For those who live outside of a Judgement's gaze (as is the case for most Neath denizens) the laws become... er, strong recommendations rather than mandatory rules.
In the 1890s, little is known about the Judgements in the eyes of mortals; what we do know is just through hints. We know that, like all beings, Judgements have souls. These souls, also known as Judgement's Eggs, are spores of the gods. One day these souls will become stars of their own, or used in dark rituals and other quests for power. It is also known that the Judgements adhere to an immensely strict hierarchy, called the Great Chain of Being, quite similar to a caste system. All entities are set to a certain rank, and contact is strictly professional (in most cases). The Judgements do not take kindly to the breaking of this rule, and is part of the reason why the Bazaar is here in the first place (and to a lesser extent, us).
It is also known, to a few select individuals, that Judgements are not unstoppable; quite the opposite in fact. Through arcane research and dedication bordering (and often well past) the bounds of insanity, the anarchists are slowly devising methods on which to kill the Judgements, as part of their quest to achieve the Liberation of Night.
By 1906, the Judgements have mysteriously begun to die off, with someone or something killing them one by one. The British Empire has taken advantage of their deaths, abandoning London and colonizing the Judgements' empty domains. There are still a couple alive, like the Sapphir'd King, who lives in the Blue Kingdom and rules it with impunity.
Known Judgements
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| "Parabola-linen crumbles in sunlight. The mushroom wines of the Neath are not kindly received in the wine-shops of Italy and France. Prisoner's honey loses all its virtue."
The Sun is the Judgement of the Earth and of Mankind, at least for those dwelling on the surface. For many, it is a benevolent force, even one worthy of worship, but for...more informed individuals, the Sun's virtue is thrown into question. The Sun is brutally effective at enforcing its laws, any Neath denizen who's overdue for their death will crumble to dust almost immediately upon reaching the Surface, and most of the Neath's fantastic delights are simply reduced to what they normally are. Parabolan entities are cooked almost immediately, as they too Are-Not. Stories about the Neath are simply not believed because of this. The Sun does have a view of the Neath in the form of Aestival. In general, sunlight is highly addictive to Neathians (who doesn't love a warm summer day?) and many of them go out with a smile. The Sun's story is that of fleeting desires and the horrors of love. In a time before time, the Sun fostered the Mountain of Light with the Bazaar. Naturally, such a union was scandalous even for the stars, so the Sun stored Stone in the Neath to avoid execution. Then the Sun, being the cad that he is, fell in love with a different star, and had the Bazaar deliver a love letter to her. The Bazaar delivered it, and the other star rejected the Sun, so the Bazaar now bides its time to prevent the Sun from drowning in its own tears. It's not clear what became of it by the 1900s; contrary to popular belief, Albion's star is not the Sun. | ||
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| "It's very far away; but perhaps it's watching you."
The Mountain of Light is the daughter of the Sun and the Bazaar, a half-Judgement. Zailors know her as Stone. Her daughter, a quarter-Judgement, is Mt. Nomad.
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| "-UN. THE SUN. THE SUN. THE SUN. THE S-"
The Dawn Machine is an ambitious and dangerous artificial Judgement built by the Admiralty.
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| "The light of the Clockwork Sun oozes into your cabin like rancid honey."
The Clockwork Sun is the second, more successful artificial Judgement that lords over Albion.
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| "Old soul. Where are you going, old soul?"
Salt is a quasi-Judgement of sorts, also called the Sun-Beneath-the-Sea. He lurks to the East, where new winds blow.
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| "The White comes to fulfil the frozen law."
The White is the spymaster of the heavens. It may have been the entity responsible for sending Salt to the Neath, but unfortunately Salt got distracted and things got complicated. The White's grand plan is mysterious, but it may have something to do with holding back the Liberation of Night. The following information on the White is taken from Alexis Kennedy, who no longer works at Failbetter Games: "The Liberation of Night stained the Deep Wilderness long, long before it touched the Earth, and the White feared - reasonably that its metastasising rapture would darken the hearts of too many stars for it ever to be contained. [This is lore I'd have explored more in Sunless Sky/ies as it was originally conceived, but Failbetter have gone, I believe, in a completely different direction, and this is no longer continuity.] He resorted to the Neath, that notorious half-secret laboratory of stellar secrets. The Bazaar is developing its own Counsel to soothe and cheer the Sun; the White hoped to find or foment a final argument of despair which would quell the rebellious hearts of any Liberated star it touched. It would also quell the hearts of any loyalist Judgements, but the White would rather see an empty universe than a disordered one. Of course the White couldn't know that the Counsel of Peace might threaten Histories beyond its own, but the White is the White, and it's unlikely that this would have dissuaded it." | ||
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| "They rage against the sun's death at the hands of a half-sun, a midnight murderer. The killer sent false messengers bearing a well-seed. They planted the seed in the sun's heart, and it bloomed! Bloomed and ravened. A lawless killing! A shameful death, enacted without due ceremony!"
The Garden-King is the former Regent of the Reach; by the 1900s he has long since died. Without his regulating influence, the Reach overgrew and became the wild and chaotic realm that it is now known as today. However, the Garden-King prepared light-emitting plants that keep the region somewhat regulated, so the Reach isn't completely dark by any means. The Garden-King is responsible for the conception of the Scrive-Spinsters, which were later created by the Binary in the Forge of Souls. Later on, the Garden-King was murdered by the Halved, where a false-messenger planted a well-seed in its heart, creating Old Tom's Well. The corpse of the Regent now lies within. It is said that you can still hear the Garden-King's rage throughout the Reach, manifesting as the Peacock Wind, furious at the unlawful murder. | ||
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| "The body of the sun is still cooling. A few embers continue to glow at its core, a low and sullen red."
The King of Hours was the Regent of Albion, or at least the space that would become it. During his reign, he used his power as the king of all time to hold his realm in a state of eternal stasis, nothing was created, and nothing ended. A golden age to some. The Sapphir'd King, a Judgement who adhered to the Amaranthine Conjunction (everything must end basically), didn't like this very much, so he poisoned the King of Hours using poisoned words. After his death, the Clockwork Sun took over his Throne of Hours, and the King of Hours rages on as the Storm that Speaks | ||
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| "The Halved! The sun turned to night!"
The Halved is the Sable-Sun of Eleutheria, formerly known as the King who Wars.
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File:Secretsquare.png The King who Speaks | ||
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| "INT: An ancient throne room, built and bathed in the light of Law. On a throne of fire sits the KING WHO SPEAKS. On a throne of obsidian sits the KING WHO WARS. They are the TWIN KINGS OF ELEUTHERIA, united in ruling."
The King who Speaks was the Halved's other half. Unusually for a Judgement, the King who Speaks was quite reasonable, and actually took the time to listen to other being's points of view. Unfortunately, it got too reasonable, and was manipulated by a powerful Fingerking to join the revolutionary cause and let its guard down. The moment it did so, the Fingerking swiftly assassinated it. In response, the King's other half, the King who Wars, threw the Fingerking down the Well of Wonders, inverted its colors, and lived up to its name. | ||
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| "The Sapphir'd King suffuses the entirety of the Blue Kingdom, but he emanates from its heart"
The Sapphir'd King, also called the Azure and the Westernmost King, is the Sun of the Blue Kingdom, bathing his realm in a lovely shade of blue.
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Other Judgments, such as the Red and the Gold have been known to exist.
Interstellar Politics
"Once, the stars went to war with themselves. The Courtesy was the agreement that ended it: thereafter, the stars were permitted to kill each other so long as they adhered to the formalities and procedures set out in the Courtesy."
Thanks to the Royal Society's magnificent telescope, the behavior of Judgements among themselves has finally come to light!
It turns out that Judgements can form groups. Minor ones, called constellations, consist of three to four stars, and are often formed by neighboring stars, resembling clans. Conjunctions, on the other hand, are much, much bigger. So far, only three conjunctions are known:
- The Chrysanthemum Conjunction is concerned with new beginnings.
- The Amaranthine Conjunction believes in endings and conclusions.
- The Nepenthine Conjunction advocates separation and isolation.
The old saying that the Suns are hungry is in fact completely true, the Suns eat souls for sustenance. Some Judgements are more ruthless about it than others, the Sapphir'd King for example practically designed his realm to be a soul-feeding machine, what lies beyond Death's Door is nothing more than a star's gaping maw.
What is killing the stars are in fact each other; some massive insult has provoked a massive war among themselves, with the Courtesy, the Judgement "rules of war" being constantly invoked. That the suns are prone to just as much lethal politics as mortals is something they do not wish anyone lower on the Great Chain to know, to the point where they have specifically assigned a Logoi to hunting down anyone who learns of it. Of course, the Halved, not being a particular fan of one particular sun nor being especially upset by the idea of the Chain being violated, has thought of a way to abuse the language of the Courtesy to give said targets legal right to invoke war...
