The Cantigaster

"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.

"You can see immediately that the Cantigaster was once a man. Now he is a living, shuddering sac of poison. His flesh swells green and soft like rotting fruit. Foul venoms ooze beneath his skin. The Duchess kisses him fondly and they embrace. You watch as the Duchess... as she milks the poison from his skin. The Cantigaster sighs with relief as his venoms trickle into a stone bucket. The Duchess looks up. Has she seen you? You flee the cellar."

The Cantigaster is a beast locked away in the Palace's cellars, which possesses the deadliest venom known to man. Cantigaster venom can bring a more permanent form of death than that usually suffered by residents of the Neath, and it works best when applied to a blade. The Cheery Man was poisoned with half a drop of Cantigaster venom, which left him barely able to walk.

Beneath the oozing, swollen flesh of the monster is the husband of the Duchess, bitten by an asp before the fall of the Second City in Egypt. The Duchess bargained with the Bazaar to save her beloved's life in exchange for her city; he lived on, but in a tormented state, his flesh eternally bloated with poisons. The Duchess still visits him at midnight each Sunday in the third wine cellar under the Shuttered Palace to milk venom out of his skin and bring him relief; what she takes away, presumably, is Cantigaster venom.

His identity was all but confirmed for a while based on the events at the University, but it was only made certain in "The Calendar Code" that the Cantigaster is in fact Tutankhamun.