The Masters of the Bazaar

"The Masters of the Bazaar - Mr Wines, Mr Spices, Mr Veils and the rest - speak in high-pitched whispers, and under their concealing cloaks they seem winged or hunchbacked. Fallen angels, stunted pterodactyls, mobile colonies of fungus? They dismiss all personal questions with an airy wave of their gloved hands."

"The Masters apply peculiar customs duties: to fish below a certain size, to green ribbons but not red, to speckled eggs but not plain. Perhaps their strangest tax is a heavy duty on stories of love, but it only applies to stories leaving the Neath..."

The Masters of the Bazaar: it's hard to describe these cloaked, slightly creepy things as anything but, well, alien space bats. They call themselves Mr, but they may not really be men. There are eleven titles, but two space bats take up four of them, and the rest have one apiece for a total of nine bats. Confusing? Fallen London is generally that way...

An Introduction

"Authority is what's left when the money runs out."

The Masters of the Bazaar are in near-complete control of London's trade economy. Each Master oversees a certain form of trade; for example, Mr Iron oversees the trade of metals and weapons. The Masters may seem united, but in truth, many of them run independent (and sometimes counterproductive) schemes that occasionally span far beyond the scope of London. What they are united by, however, is their near universal lack of empathy for the whims of mere humans. While some Masters, like Mr Wines and Mr Apples, may seem keen on pleasing people and giving them a good time, the cadre of cloaked beings are still more than a few rungs higher than humans on the Great Chain of Being, and they are often very quick to (indirectly) remind people of the fact. It is entirely possible to curry favor with these enigmatic beings, but many of them simply use particularly talented humans as pawns for their own schemes and goals.

The Masters generally took on similar jobs and roles in the previous Fallen Cities; for example, they were called Khans during the time of the Fourth. As might be expected of these beings, the Masters are thousands of years old. Don't ever mention the Second City in their presence, however; they will all react in different but unanimously negative ways.

The Masters as a Group

"Are you quite sure you want to know this?" 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.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Mr Apples/Mr Hearts

"Catch?' There is no 'catch'. All is delight and freedom from care!"

"This upstanding citizen governs commerce in food, wood and immortality. They say it's an ally of Mr Veils."

A peddler of life.

Mr Apples, also known as Mr Hearts, known for a love of games and gambling (for which reason it created the high-stakes card game known as the Marvellous), is a darkly cheery and overly familiar Master that is in charge of trade in food, wood, and immortality. It can be found at Mrs. Plenty's Carnival occasionally. As Mr Hearts, it deals in meats, skins, ligaments, bones, bloods, and animals, and runs an emporium at the Labyrinth of Tigers. It's probably the most innocent Master; the worst atrocity it is known to commit is selling a very mysterious meat from suspicious sources at its storefront.

Mr Apples has also been called Mr Barley, the Lord of Blood in the time of the Third City, the Saint of Flesh and the Paradisal Saint by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in Sunless Skies, and the Khan of Roots and the Khan of Hearts during the time of the Fourth City.

Sunless Skies

"Gone. But I could make more. I was Mr Apples, once. As I was once other things, other names, other people."

In the Sunless Skies timeline, when London rose to the skies, a few masters followed. One of them was Mr Apples, now known as the Chiropterous Hoarder. It used to sell Hesperidean Cider for a high price, but it has run out of its precious golden apples, so it now seeks a new and better means of immortality.

Mr Cups

"Work hard for the enrichment of the Bazaar, and us all. Shun seditionists. Practice courtesy & honesty."

"'Crockery, pottery, sculpture.'"

That which is empty.

The distant and proper Mr Cups is in charge of trade in crockery, pottery, and sculpture. It employs a group of rag-and-bone men known as Relickers who are tasked with salvaging junk and certifiable scraps, which they sometimes pay for with valuable items. As a result, Mr Cups is notorious for its formidable hoards of various odds-and-ends, such as First City Coins and other knick-knacks.

Mr Cups is also in charge of London's timekeeping systems, of which it is rather possessive of its monopoly over. This may be the reason why it and Mr Wines drove the Watchmaker's Daughter, a talented craftswoman whose toys came alive, to suicide.

As Mr Mirrors, its other name, it is in charge of trade in "the frangible and the fine.", which includes fine or quality secrets, unlike the more affordable variety proffered by Mr Pages. Mr Mirrors also runs Mr Mirrors' Marquee of Mystification, a collection of past electoral memorabilia that may be available for purchase. Mr Mirrors is known to side with Mr Wines in its dispute over dreams with Mr Spices, and it is known to sometimes act as an arbiter for certain Parabolan matters. According to Mr Cups' noman at Sacksmas, who is in turn pretending to be Sacks-Mirrors, Mr Mirrors wishes to reflect dreams, not rule them.

As Mr Cups, it resides in a parlor with a high ceiling filled to the brim with its collections of crockery, pottery, and sculpture. As Mr Mirrors, its lodgings' walls are covered with mirrors, each one with a single shard missing.

Mr Cups is called the Saint of Chalices by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in Sunless Skies.

An Eye for an Eye

"The Bazaar's dream is a folly! Its message will be spurned, and when it is, its heart must not break, but ignite! For vengeance is hot as love! Let it suffer, and let the sun suffer – as I have suffered over the span of five cities!"

A blade forged in your heart.

As part of a grand, mysterious scheme, Mr Cups hired an assassin named Scathewick to murder seven particular people on the Surface in a bid to lure their vengeful loved ones to the Neath. These Surface-dwellers would then either give up on their vengeance, or die trying, and their tragic tales would be etched into the spire of the Bazaar alongside its other stories by the Lady in Lilac, who was coerced into doing so by Mr Cups.

Ironically, Cups' own motivation for this complicated scheme also happens to be revenge. It has grown tired of serving the Bazaar over the course of five Fallen Cities, and it now thinks that the Courier's mission of saving the Sun with its Message will fail. By tainting the Bazaar's collection of love stories with stories of vengeance, Mr Cups hopes that when the Bazaar's Message is inevitably spurned, its heart will "ignite" instead of break, causing both it and the Sun to suffer as Cups itself has suffered during its time in the Neath. Mr Cups does not feel remorse or regret for what it has done, and it will certainly not apologize, but its seventh story of vengeance still remains unfinished...

Mr Mirrors

"For years she stalked one Master, Mr Mirrors. It's gone. It's been gone for years. She lured it into dreams. And dreams – nightmares – are her weapons."

"The frangible and the fine!"

That which needs to be filled.

The "Mr Mirrors" that many Londoners know of is actually a persona put on by its former colleague, Mr Cups. The original Mr Mirrors actually disappeared from the Neath before the events of Fallen London, and Mr Cups took over its identity in its absence.

In an age when the Masters still scoured the skies, Mr Mirrors was hunted down and captured for glass-whispering, a mysterious ritual that involved quietly speaking to a shard of a mirror in a hidden cave in an asteroid in deep space, by its fellow Curators. Glass-whispering is considered a sin to Curator-kind, so Mirrors was likely exiled following its capture. Some time after this, a heavily scarred and ostracized Mr Mirrors chose to follow the other Masters beyond the Avid Horizon to join the Echo Bazaar on its mysterious mission, and with it, carried a box containing the Claiming Wind, a tempestuous entity that Mirrors treated as some sort of pet.

Unfortunately for it, around the time of the Fifth City, Mr Mirrors was imprisoned by a woman with an affinity for the Parabolan: October of the Calendar Council. October did so by disguising her identity and winning the Marvellous, the Masters' high-stakes card game that grants the winner their Heart's Desire. October, being an avid revolutionary, wished that Mr Mirrors would be chained in Parabola in a "prison of its own failures", effectively destroying its presence in reality.

Mr Mirrors is also known as the Saint in the Glass by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in Sunless Skies.

The Dreams Within a Dream

""To be reduced to this," it bemoans. "Undone by a perfidious revolutionary, given to my own pet as a toy—" here, it shoots a wounded look across the moor, to where the Claiming Wind harries the heathers, "—and now at the mercy of some anonymous Parabolan vagrant." It turns its fractured eyes on you. "Miserable.""

Every dream imprisons its dreamer.

Presently, Mr Mirrors is chained to a fence-post in the centre of a crossroads on a hill deep in Parabola, serving as a fortification guarding the mysterious Grave of Mirrors. This crossroads is known as the Beggar's Wake, and very little remains of Mirrors itself. Meanwhile, its former pet, the Claiming Wind, has been set free, and it will do anything in its power to ensure Mr Mirrors stays chained, just like it was once chained itself.

Around the Beggar's Wake, other dreams of Mr Mirrors have manifested as physical locations in Parabola: the Court of Honey and Spices, representing its dream of glass-whispering, the Convocation of Runts, representing its dream of the Avid Horizon, and the Pedlar King, representing its ultimate ambition of becoming a great and terrible king. Within all these dreams, the aspects of Mirrors have one trait in common: strange, mirrored eyes.

Mr Fires

"'Coal, gas, candles. Warm yourself.'"

"Not bad, my little one. I’ll be keeping an eye on you."

File:Fire.png

Warm yourself.

Mr Fires, ember-eyed and honey-voiced, governs trade in coal, gas, and candles, along with the Neath's unique railway steel. As a Master, it presides over several of the factories in Fallen London and the many dock workers at Wolfstack Docks, and it does so with an unwavering grip. It can usually be found near its office in Wolfstack Docks, and it is also in command of London's dirigible system, a position that apparently required quite a lot of effort on its part to acquire.

Fires is known to deny its laborers basic necessities like safe working conditions and fair pay, and it often uses the Masters' enforcers, the neddy men, to quell and dissipate any protests, unions, or revolutionary activity. Furthermore, its factories are notorious for being extremely polluting, and spew noxious waste into both the air and rivers. This makes Mr Fires one of the most antipathetic Masters in modern-day London.

A Forged Justificande Coin.

Mr Fires is known to conduct several independent schemes that often come into conflict with its colleagues, such as Mr Wines, Mr Spices, and Mr Stones. It commissioned the Dean of Supernumerary Fellows at the University to investigate the private stash of mysterious sedatives that Mr Spices (possibly) consumes but doesn't sell, and it paid the Dean in forged Justificande Coins, the currency of Irem. To produce these coins, Mr Fires made an arrangement of sorts with Mr Veils to take over one of its neglected workshops from the Fourth City, which Fires converted into a coin fabrication factory while Veils retained ownership but would not visit. Within this workshop lies an automaton imitation of Mr Veils (yes, seriously) to fill in its position in its silk shops should the real Veils ever meet its end or go missing. Which, given its activities, seems fairly likely to occur soon.

Every seven years, Mr Fires is obligated to write a letter to the Bazaar; this letter is usually a love story, as to be expected, but sometimes Fires likes to vary it up a little and submit an editorial on Fallen London based on the opinion of one of London's more intrepid citizens. By writing the letter in this manner, Fires wishes to change the course of London's fate, by changing the Bazaar's opinion on some unspecified issue. Does this place Fires in the same boat as the revolutionaries it seeks to destroy? Probably not.

Oh, and it considers London escaping to the skies a spectacularly bad idea.

Mr Fires resides in several apartments that blaze in various hues of light so bright they recall the Surface: gas, candles, dazzling stones, and strange light bulbs.

Mr Fires was known as the Khan of Fire in the time of the Fourth City, and is called the Saint on the Pyre by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in Sunless Skies.

A Moon of Misery

""Once a suitable love story is found, it’ll be the end of London. Can you imagine?" The lamp trembles in its hand. Its voice rises an octave. "The end of London! I couldn't bear it! I love this city. It's my sole comfort, the greatest joy I have discovered in all my centuries. I'd do anything to preserve it.""

"Since the very beginning, I have had the best interests of London at heart. In the longer term, the Hybrid's milk is the only thing that can save the city. Once seeded across the populace, all love stories will be rendered suspect. Any love, no matter how pure or moving, could simply be the symptoms of an aberration's venom. Love will be robbed of its allure. The Bazaar will not know which stories it can truly believe in."

File:Glim.png

A shard of glim, sheddings from a moon-miser.

Deep within the black-sooted heart of Mr Fires lies something surprising: a genuine love for London as a city; this puts it at odds with its colleagues, many of whom seek to end their service to the Bazaar as soon as possible. As a result, Fires regularly sabotages the love stories procured by Mr Wines and Mr Spices, and it is responsible for interfering in Mr Stones' plan to sell a moon-miser's milk to an exiled captain from Hell to persuade it to destroy London in an apocalyptic war.

But Mr Stones isn't the only Master interested in using moon-milk for its own ends. Mr Fires itself has conducted several experiments on moon-misers and their milk within the white walls of the Orphanage, a red-bricked laboratory that uses political prisoners as guinea pigs. Its investigation uncovered that unaltered moon-milk caused only shallow obsession, not true love - so it was worthless for forging love-stories, and the obsession faded after a few years anyway, to say nothing of the awful side-effects it had on its imbibers.

But Fires always has a backup plan, and it took perhaps the most sickening route it could: it ordered the forcible impregnation by moon-miser of an unfortunate former singer named Clarabelle, to produce a cross between a human and a moon-miser, a Hybrid of sorts. This Hybrid, Fires assumes, will secrete a special strain of moon-milk that will produce a form of love indistinguishable to the Bazaar from true love, thus making all future love stories potentially worthless. However, the Hybrid, as something that should not exist, can only be born in Parabola, and Mr Fires doesn't know if it would survive a trip back to the real world. This may be the key to stopping its plans.

Mr Iron

"Tools, printing-presses, guns, steam-engines: taxes from trade in these are payable to Mr Iron. They say it never speaks, but can write with both hands simultaneously."

Some dexterity required.

Mr Iron, known for communicating only through written means (often writing with both hands at once), this silent and seemingly humorless Master is in charge of trade in tools, engines, weapons, and printing presses. It also heads the Iron and Misery Company, and supervises its Funging Station in Demeaux Island, one of the most abhorrent places in the Neath.

Mr Iron actively discourages notable professions and involvement in stories, as it seems to have a degree of animosity with the Bazaar. Rumor has it that it is also secretly in charge of the game of Knife-and-Candle.

Mr Iron can be occasionally encountered at Mrs Plenty's Carnival, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Mr Iron has also been known as Mr Bronze, was known as the Khan of Swords during the time of the Fourth City, and is called the Saint of Blades by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in Sunless Skies.

Mr Pages

"It is my business to keep secrets, your Grace. Mine and the Ministry’s. We desire only to preserve London from maleficitude."

Something to burn? Or something else entirely?

Known for a bountifacious proclivity towards verboserlous sayitudes, the excitable and friendly Mr Pages is in charge of trade in anything and everything written as well as all manner of writing implements. Mr Pages employs the Ministry of Public Decency, who are tasked with collecting cool books protecting the public from "pestilent and obstacudent" literature. It's rather ruthless with how it goes about this, however; the censorship of the Ministry is often suffocating, and it's implied Pages killed at least two authors who didn't give up their work. As one of the more accessible Masters, Mr Pages can be encountered throughout the whole of London. It also manages the Bazaar's index of London's Notables, and it may send unsigned letters to those who sufficiently prove themselves.

Mr Pages is called the Saint of Inks by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in Sunless Skies.

Revision and Editing

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Mr Spices

"I do not play games! I am a Master of the Bazaar! It is not a matter for games!"

"'Purveyor of spices and sweet smokes. The only reliable source for dreams. Do not accept imitations.'"

Mr Spices

The irritable and peevish Mr Spices is in charge of trade in spices, sweet smokes, and prisoner's honey. As a Master, it appears very infrequently throughout London, and much of its scheming occurs behind the scenes.

Mr Wines and Mr Spices were once close allies, but they now fight fiercely over the domain of dreams following the death of one of their colleagues during the fall of the Third City. Their warring often manifests as a destructive dance of fire and ice: the Fire Sermon.

Mr Spices resides in a den filled to the brim with spices: turmeric, basil, lavender, cinnamon; enough to overwhelm even the most tasteless of palates.

Mr Spices was known as the Honey-Lord during the time of the Third City, and is called the Saint of the Silk Road by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in Sunless Skies.

A Set of Knives

"The Bazaar has... appetites. And it is one of our many duties, along with that sodden villain Wines, to fulfil those needs. You understand that Jack-of-Smiles was something of an experiment. Using the unnatural vitality of the first customer's lover, we created Jack. For what inspires love more than the threat of death?"

Just a drop.

Like many of its colleagues, Mr Spices wishes to leave the Bazaar's service and return to the High Wilderness; furthermore, it and Mr Wines are the Masters primarily responsible for the collection of love stories for the Bazaar. To achieve this goal quickly, Mr Spices gave a honey-sipping man in Polythreme a rather distressing dream: that his wife was unfaithful. The man burnt down the town he lived in out of sheer rage, but he was severely honey-mazed, and he destroyed the town in reality as well. This killed the town's vitality, leaving only a mysterious building standing: the Ironmonger's Workshop.

Within this workshop, Spices enlisted the help of several iron workers to produce many, many Polythremic knives. Unbeknownst to them, each knife carried with it a sinister vitality, crueler than any other found in the Neath. These knives possessed their wielders, and they soon became known as the various iterations of Jack-of-Smiles. Much to Spices' chagrin, the love stories produced by the tension and drama of Jack's sprees were rejected by the Bazaar for being overly synthetic, so Spices shrugged its winged shoulders and left the mess for someone else to clean up; other matters required its attention.

Mr Spices' Private Stash

"A quantity of a drug you haven't encountered before. You have only the rumours of where it comes from and what it might be."

A mysterious substance

Mr Spices is in possession of a mysterious substance, a Private Stash that it does not sell. This drug calms its consumers, and its soporific effect is known to be more effective on chiropterous, or bat-like, creatures.

But perhaps the most intriguing note on this substance is its effect on pregnant creatures; pregnant animals who consume this drug find their offspring stronger and healthier, and the runts of their litter are likelier to survive. Furthermore, their offspring also become quieter, calmer, and closer to their parent, leading to longer and more robust dreams.

All this raises the question of why Mr Spices itself is a habitual consumer...

Mr Stones

"Mine."

"'Jewels. Quarrystone. Salt. Blasting Powder. Enough.'"

Like a star in the palm of your hand.

The terse and materialistic Mr Stones is in charge of trade in all manner of stones and minerals including jewels, quarrystone, salt, blasting powder, and numerous corrosive mineral compounds. It also trades in less valuable jewels and currencies such as moon-pearls and glim-shards.

As a Master, it is not particularly interested in trade apart from growing its hoard of precious jewels; as a result, purchasing gems from the Echo Bazaar is next to impossible, and prices for them in the Bazaar Sidestreets and its stall in the Labyrinth of Tigers are far, far higher than what should be considered reasonable. In fact, its taxes on jewels are so suffocating in Fallen London that gems are considered contraband, so trades in them are often done under the table, or at least under Stones' nose.

Rather fittingly, Mr Stones resides in a lodgings "as bejewelled as a rainbow's colon", with each centimeter of its workshop, from its benches to its floor, encrusted in enough jewels to bankrupt ten cities.

Before becoming Mr Stones, it was known as Mr Marble, until "that trouble with the Tomb-Colonies"; said trouble presumably involved the construction of the Grand Sanatoria, massive palaces for the dead made out of marble.

The Affair of the Box

"This thing has seven locks, each more difficult than the last. You haven't yet found a way to open it."

"So. Box is opened. Our box. No more. Disappointed. Didn't need glim. Needed moon-milk. Devils interested. Valuable trade opportunity lost."

A Heavy Iron Box.

Fancy rocks aren't the only gems Mr Stones is interested in; sometimes one has to look up, to the gems of the roof, to the false-stars: the moon-misers. Using a lock that could only be opened with a special song from a Drownie, Stones managed to trap a moon-miser within a box, and it hid several false keys throughout London to throw off interlopers.

Using the moon-milk the miser produced, Mr Stones sought to bribe an exiled captain from Hell to start a war with London and raze it to the ground. It also hid several important love-letters from the Fourth City within the box from Mr Fires, who sought to destroy them to ensure the Bazaar stays in London. This chaotic game of shadows was soon known as the Affair of the Box. It turns out that Mr Stones tires of life in the Fifth City, and hopes to expedite its destruction. And the Box is just one means to this end.

Mr Veils

"A scream is just an imperfectly tuned song. And we all have a song in our hearts."

"Mr Veils deals with clothing and fabric, and takes a close interest in the silk-weavers of Spite. But not in any of the more dubious activities in the district of Spite! The mere suggestion is slander!"

Keep your hands clean.

Duplicitous and impatient, Mr Veils, is best known for its enjoyment of hunts and songs. It is in charge of trade in clothing and fabrics. Zailors sometimes misattribute Mr Veils as being in charge of Mr Wines' ladies of the evening in their zee-zongs. This Master may (or may not) be responsible for a certain betrayal of which we will not specify.

Mr. Veils assumes another, more malevolent identity as well, which is probably the only known case of a Master actually using its wings.

Mr Veils was known as the Khan of Silks during the time of the Fourth City, and is called the Masquerader Saint by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in Sunless Skies.

A Bounty on its Head

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Mr Wines

"To the wicked and the wise! To the hungry and the sharp!"

"Trade in anything drinkable comes under the jurisdiction of Mr Wines. Though it can't be bothered with water. Entertainment, music and the business of the ladies of the evening are also its domain. There's supposed to be some sort of dispute about dreams."

Care for a sip?

Mr Wines, known for entertaining guests at huge revels, is in charge of the trade in all things drinkable, including medicine and with the exception of water. One of the more accessible Masters, it can be encountered throughout London; for example, it'll occasionally appear at Mrs. Plenty's Carnival. Most of the time, though, it conducts business through its favored servant, Jervaise. It is in charge of a group of dancing beauties who are often misassigned by zailors to Mr Veils.

Though Mr Wines is not known for many atrocities, it and Mr Cups/Mr Mirrors drove the Watchmaker's Daughter, a talented craftswoman whose toys came alive, to suicide. Mr Wines is also London's most notorious check-skipper, and has a reputation for leaving others holding the bill for parties here and there.

Mr Wines was known as the Khan of Dreams during the time of the Fourth City,, the Cloaked Emissary during the time of Karakorum in The Silver Tree, and is called the Crowned Saint by the Cult of the Sanctified at Avid Horizon in Sunless Skies.

Ozymandias

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Mr Sacks

"A knock on your door. A hunched figure. Every year, this Crimson Beast of Winter brings his terrible sack, demanding gifts to fill the void. And now you hear a high-pitched, faintly peevish voice: 'What will you put in my sack?'"

HO HO HO

Mr Sacks appears during the eponymous 12 Days of Mr Sacks, a rather demented version of Christmas. It is also known as the Crimson Beast of Winter. It is - er, they are in fact other figures of note: at first Mr Wines, then various Nomen (and one showman) emulating the other Masters.

Mr Sacks carries around a huge bag, which it uses to collect gifts from the citizenry over the course of the holiday. It's Christmas, only in reverse. And more ghastly, because sometimes, Mr Sacks will collect people.

Mr Chimes

"Who is it? Is it, in fact, one of the Masters of the Bazaar? Is it Mr Iron or Mr Pages trading under another name? Or is it a bold rascal pretending to be an unknown Master?"

For the Exceptional only.

We do know that it runs the House of Chimes. Mr Chimes has also been known as the Khan of Drums during the time of the Fourth City; it seems to be a role played by many Masters.

The Masters' Artifacts

Everyone has treasures they'd like to keep under wraps, and the Masters are no exception.

The Crimson Book

"The most stirring, the most wretched, the most savage tales of love and loss are here entombed. It has passed through fire and flood to rest in your hands. Leave it sealed... for now." The Crimson Book contains the most 'savage tales of love and loss' and has 'passed through fire and flood'. This indicates that the Crimson Book may have been written long before the Fifth City; perhaps it is still being added to today? The Masters have allegedly assigned a group of Special Constables to specifically seek out and confiscate any and all copies.

Masters' Blood

"The most grandiose trophy an anarchist might aspire to. Was it shed in battle, or given as a gift?" Masters' Blood has many unusual and unique properties that separate it from normal blood. It is a far deeper red, is cold to the touch, and contains a song: 'an unending fading ring like black space struck with a fingernail.' It also emits a constant low vibration, and if left on a shelf, other items will physically move away from it.

Veils-Velvet
"If Mr Veils shed hair - if blind orphans collected, carded and spun it over the years - it might just look like this." Little is known about Veils-Velvet aside from this quote, which would explain why this fabric is so incredibly valuable.

The Sceptre of Mr Wines

"Topped with a black ruby miniature of an unknown crown, this bronzewood sceptre represents all the authority of some far-away kingdom and its once and former king." A symbol of power that once belonged to a king. The Scepter of Mr Wines is as heavy as lead, covered in frost and talon-marks, and is topped with a jewel from a faraway land. Mr Wines doesn't like looking at it much; maybe it's just insecure.

What Lies Under the Cloak

"The second source is A Rhyming Revelry, a slim book of nonsense rhymes written by a once-celebrated cellist. He was, for a time, a favourite at Mr Wines’ revels. One rhyme concerns eleven pilgrims who travelled from a cold and windy waste. It enumerates each of the reasons the pilgrims were unwelcome in their homeland."

Mr Apples / Mr Hearts. Art from Sunless Skies.

Based on two controversial sources, one called On the Origins and Descent of the Masters and another called A Rhyming Revelry, we may reveal the following information.

The Masters belong to a species native to the High Wilderness called Curators. These oversized space-bats hunt in the space between stars, often alone. On occasion, a group of Curators may band together to boast of their horde and trade deals, and may fight amongst themselves for supremacy. Curator chiefs are described as "victorious, merciless pedlar-magnates."

In the grand scheme of things, the Masters of the Bazaar weren't Masters at all. Rather, they were a group of misfit criminals who joined forces with the Bazaar to escape "misfortune, failure, and fruitlessness."

A Rhyming Revelry provides hints about the crimes of the Masters, though which crimes correspond to what bat are based on conjecture and guesswork. The circumstances given in A Rhyming Revelry are:

• hoarding (Stones?)

• light-bringing (Fires?)

• impersonation, and the delivery of false testimony (Cups?)

• perpetration of the crimes of knife and of candle (Iron?)

• idleness, and the dwelling-on of dreams (Spices?)

• runtery, aberration (...?)

• pursuit of a Treachery (Apples/Hearts?)

• failure and defeat; a fall from king to beggar (Wines?)

• glass-whispering. And worse: charity (Mirrors?)

• truth-strangling (Pages?)

• violation of the Order of Days, “which determines the hour of the hunt, the feast, the council, the bargain, and the slaughter” (Veils?)

Mr Eaten

"In the migrainous straits of deep sleep, there is a marsh where candle-flames buzz like wasps." WARNING: Beyond this point lie spoilers for Fallen London's most infamous storyline: Seeking Mr Eaten's Name. Turn back now. You can find out more about our spoiler policy here.

"Who is Mr Eaten? A good question, but not a wise one."

"The Drowned Man's brothers - aye, and sisters - gave him to the knives and the lacre."

There is appetite.

Consumed long ago when the Third City fell. Now a reclusive shadow of its former self. The main force behind the nightmarish, incredibly menacing search for its true name. One could pursue this search... but don't. Just don't.

"A reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely."

References

80.