Dahut

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"Drownies built a copy of London as it never was: a cathedral, and houses, and fields of flowers, all underwater. The water is cool and luminous, and at the same time it is breathable air."[1]

Dahut is a city under the zee, which is inhabited by Drownies.

Singing[edit | edit source]

"Breathe deep. Fill your lungs with a substance cooler and more cleansing than ordinary air."[2]

Perhaps some of the drownies miss their old homes in London. Perhaps they simply wanted to have a place to live and had no other inspiration. Regardless, Dahut is a landmark in itself, its waters completely breathable by humans and safe to traverse.[3]

The drownies that inhabit this place are keen to welcome any visitors, most of whom arrive from nearby shipwrecks.[4][5] Anyone staying in the city enjoys the drownies' hospitality; they are made to feel wanted and unique, and are able to partake in the city's many festivals.[6] These come with their own rituals and debaucheries: bizarre food,[7] the indulgent dances of the Midsummer Festival,[8] and even the chance to... er, stay the night with a drownie at the Spring Rites.[9]

The passage of time in Dahut is quite strange; months and seasons mix together and constantly shift.[10]

Screaming[edit | edit source]

Spoilers ahead: May include midgame or minor Fate-locked content.

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"You sing, and the Drownies around turn, arrested, to stare at you. They do not want to hear this song. The Cathedral beams creak, and you see that the buttresses are also the bones of a wrecked clipper. The Zee-grass ripples, and you see the crabs hiding in it. The water-air shimmers under the weight of the ordinary Zee above."[11]

Dahut's hospitality and beauty is simply an illusion; its warm bonfires are actually geothermal vents,[12] and its grand cathedral is built out of the wrecked ships of the city's visitors.[13]

While the illusions of Dahut can be dispelled at will by consuming a plant called the white mollyflower,[14][15] a portion of Dahut's visitors are unable by default to see its illusory beauty,[16] likely as a result of already living in their own personal delusions.[17] These people are often imprisoned indefinitely under the city's cathedral,[16][18] and some portion are transformed into new drownies on a regular basis.[19] Each midwinter, Dahut frees a selection of its prisoners.[20]

The drownies of Dahut created the city and its illusions as a play in honor of the Fathomking,[21] who used to regularly visit and preside over their religious ceremonies. However, the King ceased his visits to the city at some point, which has left the drownies in a somewhat morose mood and dulled the effects of their magic.[22] The Drownies still pay their respects to the Fathomking at the Liturgy of Souls;[22] during this lengthy rite,[23] drownies and visitors alike can also be "baptized" in a sense, coming away "altered."[24][25] The precise effects of this process are unknown.

Historical and Cultural Inspirations[edit | edit source]

A Breton legend tells of how the mythical city of Ys was swallowed by the ocean after its misbehaving princess, Dahut, opened its dikes either by mistake or in a drunken stupor. Ostensibly, the city of Dahut was named after the princess, and it may have been inspired by the tale in which she features.

The White Mollyflower that dispels the illusions of Dahut is a nod to an herb known as moly, described in Homer's Odyssey. The flower renders Odysseus immune to the magic of the sorceress Circe. While some scholars have suggested that perhaps moly is a type of wild garlic based on its visual description, it has also been suggested that the real moly is the snowdrop, which contains a compound that counteracts the effects of anticholinergic poisons (e.g. nightshade) that cause hallucinations, delusions, and amnesia.

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Dahut, Sunless Sea
  2. ↑ Wander, look, make no commitments, Sunless Sea
  3. ↑ Wander, look, make no commitments, Sunless Sea "Water and air are the same thing here [...] Breathe deep. Fill your lungs with a substance cooler and more cleansing than ordinary air."
  4. ↑ Ask a Drownie for the latest news of Dahut, Sunless Sea "Hardly a single wreck since Saint Aegidius' Day, and then it was only a little yacht with a few sailors aboard. And two of those were able to swim to shore, and didn't come to Dahut at all!"
  5. ↑ Read an Unread Log entry on Dahut, Sunless Sea "The log tells of a ship saved by Dahut. The Zubmarine had been attacked and badly damaged; the fuel was nearly gone..."
  6. ↑ Look for other visitors, Sunless Sea "You ask among the Drownies, but they reply with reassurances and flattery. No no, you are the only ones here! Don't worry! You have no competition. No one could be like you. You are special, welcome, adored. If you think you have heard a strange human voice now and then, it is just a memory from your life before."
  7. ↑ Accept a place at the meal, Sunless Sea "Cold collations of crab meat and ham. Fresh rolls that somehow are not soggy underwater. Mushroom cream soups. Liquors that curl up out of the brandy glass, smoke-gold. And what sort of creature lays these eggs? As for the things that might take away your clarity of mind - the effervescent giggling mandrake salad, the lobsters with kitten faces - you pass those dishes on untasted."
  8. ↑ Consider attending the Midsummer Festival, Sunless Sea "Everything is washed in light, though there is no sun. The air-water tastes of strawberries. The dancers are all around you. The pipes and the drum desire you to sing. And coming towards you are three especially tall and lithe Drownies. They are carrying trophies, and a crown of ivy and white berries, and a witty poem in your honour."
  9. ↑ Consider attending the Spring Rites with a Drownie, Sunless Sea "What could be more expected, more inevitable, than two such persons as your lovely selves, withdrawing to enjoy one another's company?"
  10. ↑ Investigate the Calendar, Sunless Sea "The dates in Dahut do not progress as they should. The seasons sometimes overlap. Sometimes it is no season at all."
  11. ↑ Sing a Song of Broken Hulls, Sunless Sea
  12. ↑ Observe the Bonfire, Sunless Sea "The bonfire is not a bonfire, but a sulphurous rent in the zee floor."
  13. ↑ Sing a Song of Broken Hulls, Sunless Sea "You sing, and the Drownies around turn, arrested, to stare at you. They do not want to hear this song. The Cathedral beams creak, and you see that the buttresses are also the bones of a wrecked clipper. You recognise names inscribed by the door of the Crypt: an Admiralty woman lost at Zee, a well-known merchant. They are Drownies now, or parents of Drownies. "
  14. ↑ Trade for a White Mollyflower, Sunless Sea "It looks like a fish in water and a flower in air. The Drownies recommend owning one if you are going to their cousins at Dahut. [...] Crush it and bite it when the need arises. It is proof against seeing things that aren't there, "which is the only trick they know in Dahut.""
  15. ↑ Partake of the White Mollyflower, Sunless Sea "The light fades out of the air, the warmth from the sea. You can still breathe, but your lungs ache from the chill of what you are breathing in. It is difficult to see any of the buildings of Dahut in this dimness, but the Cathedral looks like a wrecked hull."
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Read an Unread Log entry on Dahut, Sunless Sea "The log tells of a harrowing stay in Dahut: the writer could not see the enthralling visions of the Cathedral and the rose garden that fascinated all of her shipmates. The Drownies dragged her into the Cathedral Crypt and secured her there so that she could tell no one what she saw. There she remained for many months."
  17. ↑ See everything, Sunless Sea "Here are the prisoners of Dahut: A Merchant, who falsified his accounts so entirely and so often that he himself has no idea of his true debts. He believes he is a rich man. A Devil who has forgotten that he is a Devil, almost, as long as he keeps away from mirrors, or bottled souls, or honey. A Poetess, a veteran of London salons, who cannot bear to hear herself praised, because she knows how slight her talent is. The Drownies invited her to a feast. When they applauded her composition, she became savage, and now she lies on an iron bed with her face to the wall."
  18. ↑ Consider attending the Midwinter Emptying of the Prison, Sunless Sea "At Midwinter, the inhabitants of Dahut go below to see which prisoners are ready to leave the breathable water. They sing songs of failure and disgrace, and then the Drownies accept applications for escape."
  19. ↑ Read an Unread Log entry on Dahut, Sunless Sea "Now and then new prisoners arrived. Occasionally the Drownies would take a few prisoners out to be turned into Drownies themselves."
  20. ↑ Consider attending the Midwinter Emptying of the Prison, Sunless Sea "Prisoners remain until they beg to be drowned: At Midwinter, the inhabitants of Dahut go below to see which prisoners are ready to leave the breathable water. They sing songs of failure and disgrace, and then the Drownies accept applications for escape."
  21. ↑ Observe the Bonfire, Sunless Sea "The whole place is a play, a jest for the King of Drownies, a parody of the Surface."
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Sing your part in the Liturgy, Sunless Sea "The Fathomking is not here. The Fathomking did not grace Dahut with his attendance this time. It has been many Liturgies since he last watched over the Drownies of Dahut from the pool at the front of the Cathedral. They have done their best to entice him, collecting objects and people and remains of eminent beings. But he remains in his Hold. This is why they are so anxious, why their feasts are not sustaining."
  23. ↑ Keep awake! Awake!, Sunless Sea "The liturgy is unbearably long and inscrutably complicated."
  24. ↑ Keep awake! Awake!, Sunless Sea "At intervals in the liturgy, a Drownie approaches the Bishop and wades into the pool. There is a Hymn, and the Drownie comes away altered."
  25. ↑ Sing your part in the Liturgy, Sunless Sea "Like the Drownies, you descend into the square pool and bow your head before the Bishop. [...] you are aware of every past extreme simultaneously: the moments of greatest courage, doubt, longing, fury, pain. "It's all true," says the Bishop. Then he slaps you hard on the cheek and pulls you out of the pool. Your body feels differently weighted, but unharmed. Possibly even better than it did before."
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