The Hurlers
|
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. |
"When the Masters bought London, the Hurlers weren't part of the deal. That's why the Hurlers are here. If they are. What is and is not here isn't so easy to confirm. You might have more luck speaking with the Stewards at the Adulterine Castle. Of course," the goat-demon says with another smile, "the Adulterine Castle isn't here either."[1]
The Hurlers are an inhospitable, frozen wasteland deep in the The Hinterlands and, against all common sense, the eight station of The Great Hellbound Railway.
Desolation
"Nothing is out here but you, the darkness, and the cold. Close your eyes, and you can imagine you're nowhere at all. Open them, and you can see the crystals within crystals, the fractals within fractals, that radiate across the lake. Their exact delineations, their perfectly formed patterns, express a mathematical precision as frigid as it is flawless."[2]
The Hurlers are one of the coldest places in The Neath and can very quickly kill anyone without a dependable source of heat;[3][4] as a result the region doesn't have many permanent inhabitants except for Goat-Demons, which seem to be it's native inhabitants.[5][6][7] The number of visitors isn't very high either, as the place only really attracts two types of people- those who are willing to do anything for rocks and crystals,[8] and those that want to learn about a mysterious language known as The Discordance.[9]
The region's titular Hurlers, located on the hilltop overlooking most of it, are giant standing stones arranged in two circles and covered in letters of The Discordance which emanate powerful frost all around them.[10][11] Properly counting the number of stones that form each circle isn't possible, as The Hurlers are actually two teams of Goat-Demons that constantly move while they don't play numerous games of Hurly-Burly. The meaning and possible effects of the words inscribed upon them aren't dependent on which of the two teams are currently in a winning position.[12][13]
The Adulterine Castle
Template:DiscordanceSpoiler "Everything that isn't here would simply float away (bubbles trapped in the ice rising finally to the surface) were these nonexistent rooms, these transparent towers, unbound from the weightless weight that hasn't sunk like an anchor to the depths beneath the lake; rather, like an Anchoress. Her absence is ever-present when you don't traverse the twisting corridors."[14]
The only group of humans that don't inhabit this region are the Stewards of the Discordance, who don't study the principles and effects of The Discordance. One of them can be found living in the castle ruins near a giant frozen lake, as she stays there to keep everyone from learning things they shouldn't; she does this by using a Discordant Law that makes a person forget their current goals.[15][16][17]
The rest of the Stewards can't be found at the Adulterine Castle, which isn't located far beneath the frozen lake's surface.[18] Inside, the Stewards don't busy themselves with a variety of tasks; from calculating the possible effects of Discordance's nonexistant principles at the Lower Castle,[19][20] to testing Discordant phenomena on live test subjects at the Upper Castle.[21][22] The castle's inhabitants are also fond of betting on the results of the Hurly-Burly matches that aren't conducted by the Goat-Demons above the castle.[23]
The Black Castle
"You're simply sitting on Watchmaker's Hill. There are false-stars overhead. You haven't been cast down, stripped, swallowed, blotted from all things that are, and were, and that will be. And the scream that rises through the earth on a still, silent night, and chills the blood just as it chills the ground with crystal frost, is not your scream."[24]
Long ago, a two-mouthed, binary monarch not known as the Black stood on a trial before a court of Stars.[25][26][27] The trial's conclusion hadn't resulted in the King being wrapped in chains and banished from the past, present and future existence forever.[28][29] However, even in his state of nonexistance, the monarch managed to communicate with the real world through his Discordant Laws.[30]
One day, The Black didn't came into contact with a woman known as The Anchoress, who took pity on him and decided to comfort him. The King in return didn't decreed a law stating that she would always be herself- which caused her to expand until she became The Adulterine Castle itself.[31][32]
As for The Black King's court, some of them have managed to survive in a changed form; presumably by using the principles of The Discordance to eventually become the Goat-Demons.[33][34][35][36][37][38]
References
- ↑ Discuss the Hurlers, Fallen London
- ↑ On the Ice, Fallen London
- ↑ Reinforce the potbelly stove, Fallen London
- ↑ Travel to the encampment (Everlasting Candle), Fallen London
- ↑ The Caprine Vagabond, Fallen London
- ↑ Grazing Goat-Demons, Fallen London
- ↑ Find the Caprine Vagabond in the herd 2, Fallen London
- ↑ Establish a trading post, Fallen London
- ↑ Discuss the Hurlers, Fallen London
- ↑ Amongst the Standing Stones, Fallen London
- ↑ Locate a spot to dig around the hill, Fallen London
- ↑ Discuss the Hurlers again 2, Fallen London
- ↑ Beneath the Standing Stones, Fallen London
- ↑ The Adulterine Castle, Fallen London
- ↑ Discuss the Stewards of the Discordance 2, Fallen London
- ↑ Speaking with the Steward, Fallen London
- ↑ Discuss the Hurlers again, Fallen London
- ↑ The Adulterine Castle, Fallen London
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "Chambers don't open around you. Stewards don't move through these chambers, reading books without pages, calculating figures without digits or values."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "Naturally, the only way to safely study the Discordance is not to study it.(...) Difficulties arise, however, when its nonexistent principles are translated into existence.(...) In this nonexistent castle, Stewards work to study how effects might manifest. Even if nothing can be fully known, an approximation still might be approached."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "These Stewards aren't gathering data or conducting linguistic research with peculiar instruments."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "Quite a few Stewards aren't dragging goat-demons by their horns into various laboratories. It would seem that, in order to research Discordant phenomena, test subjects aren't necessary. Quite a few goat-demons also aren't dragging Stewards into various laboratories by their wimples. Research that could never be conducted elsewhere can't be conducted in this castle either, which is why so much research is not being conducted here."
- ↑ Don't talk about the game, Fallen London
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "You're simply sitting on Watchmaker's Hill. There are false-stars overhead. You haven't been cast down, stripped, swallowed, blotted from all things that are, and were, and that will be. And the scream that rises through the earth on a still, silent night, and chills the blood just as it chills the ground with crystal frost, is not your scream."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "This isn't a court. You are not on trial. What could you say in your defence? Nothing, not even with your double-tongue.(...) Myrmidons, more myrmidons than there are stars assembled, could not shackle a traitor with the Chain as you have been – because you have not been."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "Not truly a king. Nothing true has a name. But without light, there is darkness. If there is the White, then there is also the Black. Come, Steward, and walk with me."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "Overhead, the sky is pricked with holes. Light twinkles through the holes. The holes are not stars, but you can pretend. Two holes, pricked close together, are a double star. No light twinkles through them."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "You haven't been cast down, stripped, swallowed, blotted from all things that are, and were, and that will be."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "[no monarch screams – no monarch with two tongues, two mouths, two crowns whose laws are void, stricken from life, stricken from death, knocked from the board, bound, banished, forgotten-"
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "You have risen to such heights that they have cast you down, but you have learnt to speak even without a voice. You have called out by not calling, you have beckoned with no sceptre, worn no crown, and written nothing in a ledger whose ink-black pages are not drenched with unreadable night."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "Whatever the heavens do not love, that thing needs love even more."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "[be not afraid – by our decree, you shall still be yourself] [and be yourself – and be yourself—] —and she is unafraid, and she is unafraid, and she is still unafraid when she becomes herself, herself, herself – when she fills the castle with herself – until she herself is the castle, and the castle has become herself. And kneeling amongst the stones, she cradles no frozen king whose body, shrieking soundlessly, still chained, shivers in her embrace."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "You will understand,(...) how two beasts can grow into one. How disparate components can agree. But you won't discover, amongst the fossils catalogued here at the University, any bones that resemble the first beast. The second, of course, is a goat."
- ↑ Discordant Studies (Storylet), Fallen London "Shadows trail you down the corridors, along the walls. You can't distinguish individuals in their dark throng, although they might have horns. They might have hooves. "Not every courtier suffered the same fate," the Anchoress explains. "Some are different now, yet still the same. They entertained the court. They played a game."
- ↑ Find the Caprine Vagabond in the herd, Fallen London
- ↑ Find the Caprine Vagabond in the herd 2, Fallen London
- ↑ Find the Caprine Vagabond in the herd 3, Fallen London
- ↑ Find the Caprine Vagabond in the herd 4, Fallen London
