Editing Law-Furnaces

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{{Character|image1=Lawfurnace.png
|allegiance=[[Hell]]
}}<blockquote>''"The invention that powers the factories of Hell, a law-furnace combusts inconvenient physical laws in the local area. In this case, that means those laws that govern how many crew and cargo can fit into your cabins and hold."''<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/%27Pluto%27_Miniature_Law-Furnace|'Pluto' Miniature Law-Furnace|Sunless Skies|}}</ref></blockquote>

'''Law-furnaces''' are infernal machines used by [[devils]] to forge, enforce, and erase the laws of reality itself. First constructed at the founding of the White City of [[Hell]],<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/The_Forsaken_Crown_of_a_Prince_of_Hell|The Forsaken Crown of a Prince of Hell|Fallen London|}}''"[...] You soar above the white city, still under construction, smoking as it grows. You watch the first law-furnace being founded. You can hear the sound of bees, sonorous as the bells of the city tolling."''</ref> these devices are the backbone of Hell’s legal, political, and industrial systems.

== Description ==
<blockquote>''"With a Law-Furnace, history is what one makes of it. So you acquire a small Law-Furnace. Between the belches of smoke you fill in the blanks of Neathy history – what came before Hell arrived, where did the Great Khan go, and for what purpose? Who was the First Sacristan and where dwells it now – until, regrettably with a final mournful belch of smoke, the Law-Furnace keels over. Still, progress."''<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Repair_destroyed_texts|Repair destroyed texts|Fallen London|}}</ref></blockquote>Law-furnaces are [[Correspondence]]-powered contraptions,<ref name=":0">{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/Wreck_of_the_Berrenger|Deliver a Searing Enigma|Sunless Skies|}}''"The law-furnace is a squat, brutish machine of black iron, currently cold. You lean close, and whisper a word in the language of suns. Lazy flames lick at your throat, and something catches light in the fire pan: a flickering blue ember. The devils hurry forward to feed it with statute books, and transcripts of court judgements, and stern tablets from the Blue Kingdom. Gradually, the fire grows."''</ref> covered in levers and dials that control the laws they create or dismantle.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Trial_and_Error|Trial and Error|Fallen London|}}''"The apparatus seems designed for more than two hands. You cannot reach all the levers at once, nor see all the dials from any angle. Besides the paper, nothing else is fed into the machine, as far as you can tell. How a combination of levers can communicate the specifics of a required case is currently beyond you."''</ref> They glow red-hot when active<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Commission_the_Chelicerous_Sculptor_to_make_his_%22masterwork%22|Commission the Chelicerous Sculptor to make his "masterwork"|Fallen London|}}''"[...] On one corner: A red-hot iron contraption that buzzes with heavy ontologies; a Law-Furnace. [...]"''</ref> and consume physical copies of laws as fuel to maintain operation.<ref name=":0" /> [[Souls]] are used as quickening agents in the process.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Trial_and_Error|Trial and Error|Fallen London}} ''"You find a soul wedged between two gears. It looks damaged."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Breed_the_Rubbery_Hound_5|Breed the Rubbery Hound 5|Fallen London}} ''"They snag a soul in each of these things. Somewhere in the gears. Helps quicken it, or something."''</ref> The mazes of pipes and machinery inside their iron housing<ref name=":0" /> may be positively nonsensical, but are powerful enough to transmute anything they touch.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Trial_and_Error|Trial and Error|Fallen London|}}''"The thing is metal, hastily welded in parts, but in others fitted together without any seam or adhesive. [...] You touch a pipe, and your hand cooks without any sensation of pain. A thin layer of skin sticks to the pipe. It flakes off, changing as it drifts. It clangs to the ground, now a pile of Nevercold Brass."''</ref>  

Law-Furnaces are capable of both creating<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Abstract_your_room_at_the_Brass_Embassy|Abstract your room at the Brass Embassy|Fallen London|}}''"A Buzzing Custodian from the Embassy explains […]: One of the Embassy's law-furnaces will be used to enact a new law. Your room will cease to exist, until […] you have need of it again. No, don't worry about anything as mundane as a load-bearing wall."''</ref> and unmaking laws.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/Wreck_of_the_Berrenger|Deliver a Searing Enigma|Sunless Skies|}}''"Certain laws of science impede our work. We have a law-furnace, that will allow us to unmake those laws. But the thing is a devil to light."''</ref> The [[Iron Republic]], Hell's experimental vassal city, uses law-furnaces to maintain anarchy and keep its laws in a constant state of flux.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Ask_about_the_Annulment|Ask about the Annulment|Fallen London}}''"I commissioned a watertight contract from one of the furnaces in the Iron Republic. They're used to making statements out there. I think they found crafting something to unmake a truth an exciting challenge."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/Iron_Republic#Location_description|Location description|Sunless Sea}}''"Hell has brought freedom to the Iron Republic: freedom from all laws, even those of nature."''</ref> Law-furnaces can retroactively alter history,<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Repair_destroyed_texts|Repair destroyed texts|Fallen London|}}''"With a Law-Furnace, history is what one makes of it. So [...] you fill in the blanks of Neathy history – what came before Hell arrived, where did the Great Khan go, and for what purpose? Who was the First Sacristan and where dwells it now [...]"''</ref> establishing fabricated precedents that hold up in court.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Trial_and_Error|Trial and Error|Fallen London|}}''"The papers range from illegible transcripts of hearings to well-formed descriptions of nonsensical laws. One description [...] finds the prosecution guilty of being a lesser witness. [...] In the pile you find an attempt at charging you for murder. This particular charge accuses you of murdering yourself, which is probably why it was discarded."''</ref> Hell, meanwhile, often uses them to destroy documents,<ref>"Hell's Law Furnaces work to destroy much of its prior literature. But there are some survivals, though much ruined."</ref> people, and devils; anything consumed by a law furnace can be erased from reality entirely.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Follow_a_trail_of_coded_language|Follow a trail of coded language|Fallen London|}}''"Hell's documentation is erratic. Much has been incinerated, defaced or otherwise erased. A still operational Law-Furnace deep within the Embassy is in the process of erasing certain records from ever having been; several disappear in your hands."''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Peel_fact_from_falsehood|Peel fact from falsehood|Fallen London|}}''"[...] A series of texts stuffed in a sagging-open vault suggests a connection between the law-furnaces in Hell and one particular department's success. Those who could not live up to the legal claims they'd made found themselves swiftly and spectacularly extinguished."''</ref> However, this erasure is never entirely clean, and echoes of the once-truth often linger.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Coax_out_the_Knight|Coax out the Knight|Fallen London|}}''"[...] Law-furnaces erase those who err against Hell's bureaucracy, so only fractions of them remain to drift across the hinterlands. [...] The Knight arrives in the bitter hours before morning. You do not see them approach: there is very little left of them. A few pieces of flesh, held together by the memory of that which the law-furnaces have erased. This palimpsest knight hands you their emblem, gold-orange. It is one of the last pieces of them. They leave, diminished."''</ref> When applied to devils, this form of punishment is reserved for Hell’s worst dissenters, who are seemingly erased gradually.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Divine_the_location_of_the_Knight|Divine the location of the Knight|Fallen London|}}''"For certain crimes, an individual law furnace would be created to mete out appropriate punishment. Afterwards, a devil who had sought to unredact the redacted and restore the lies of old – to make of Hell's text a palimpsest – would earn the Marigold. She would be asked to find her way back to Hell's walls for a pardon. [...] Hell has almost erased her, only a hint of her persists. You leap for the Marigold: the last tangible element of her crime."''</ref>

In the New Democracy of Hell, law-furnaces are key political instruments.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Locate_an_inner_sanctum|Locate an inner sanctum|Fallen London|}}''"Every Embassy has its heart, even a sunken one. Political control of the law-furnaces in Hell determine the existence of this one. A law must have changed there, for the way to the Concordium yawns open."''</ref> Devils consult them before making major decisions,<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Beseech_Hell_for_aid|Beseech Hell for aid|Fallen London|}}''"The Revolutionary Commanders-General of the New Democracy were convened to hear the petitioner's pleas. [...] The weight of London's need was weighed against the requirements of the White City. The Law Furnaces were consulted when the placement of aforesaid need did not move the scales an inch. [...] Sunlight, they said. A word only permissible through the Recusancy granted by the Law Furnaces, contained within the Mortifications of Assembly Hall. Hell prepared itself for war."''</ref> and Hell’s industries are powered by their continual production and destruction of law.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Divine_the_location_of_the_Knight|Divine the location of the Knight|Fallen London|}}''"Hell's foundries and industry are choked with law-furnaces. Great and small they belch out edicts by the hour, challenging the old law and clause by clause determining the new."''</ref> They were instrumental in forging [[Irem|Justificande]] Coins,<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Conclude_your_study_of_the_metallurgy_of_Justificandes|Conclude your study of the metallurgy of Justificandes|Fallen London|}}''"The coinage is from Irem: that much you already knew. The inscription carries part of its power. But the metal has yet to be mined; and the obligations bedded in the coin were forged by law-furnace."''</ref> and can be modified to produce [[The Discordance|Discordant]] Edicts: frostbitten declarations that erase both truth and falsehood.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Deploy_Counter-Factual_Phantasies|Deploy Counter-Factual Phantasies|Fallen London|}}''"Under Daniel's command, the Hussars surround a promising scriptorium. Using modified law-furnaces, they hurl Discordant Edicts into the scriptorium, erasing falsehood and truth in icy blasts. The surrender is swift."''</ref> Some furnaces have even been weaponized. War-Furnaces, used during the [[The Campaign of '68|Campaign of ’68]], were engineered to demoralize and dismantle enemy forces by compelling desertion, inducing lethargy, or outright killing soldiers.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/For_All_the_Saints_Who_From_Their_Labours_Rest|For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest|Fallen London|}}''"Elsewhere, you can find the detritus of Hell's weaponry. A slumbering Utterance, never committed. The incandescent aftereffects of a Brazen Doctrine, still exuding perfume; the still-smouldering bulk of a War-Furnace; decreeing death, torpor and desertion."''</ref> They were also used to preserve the corpses of fallen soldiers for their comrades to see, as a form of psychological warfare.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/For_All_the_Saints_Who_From_Their_Labours_Rest|For All the Saints Who From Their Labours Rest|Fallen London|}}''"A gibbet stands above the command trenches; three bodies still hang. They have been preserved: an edict from the Law Furnaces."''</ref>

Law-Furnaces emit thick [[violant]] smoke<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/The_force_of_law|The force of law|Fallen London|}}''"The dreams of most lawyers are dry as dust, but near the fringes of the Viric Jungle you find a barrister who has practised in Hell. Law-Furnaces boil and bluster, sending plumes of violant smog into the Parabolan sky. Edicts rattle from their mouths like a Gatling gun, frantically imposing their will upon the unconquerable vistas of the Is-Not."''</ref> and a slurry of oily, toxic effluvia<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/The_77th_Queen%27s_Own_Hussars|The 77th Queen's Own Hussars|Fallen London|}}''"[...] Some weep the oily effluvia of the Law-Furnaces [...]"''</ref> that induce hallucinations upon contact.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Search_for_a_Hellish_artefact|Search for a Hellish artefact|Fallen London|}}''"You fortify yourself with the ingestion of papers bearing religious laws, the statements of the Bazaar and the interminable by-laws of London's municipal authorities. Thus prepared, you dive into the heady waters of the mire, fattened with the effluvia of Hell's law-furnaces. The water's toxins soak into your clothes, your skin, but the pragmatic tedium you have absorbed keeps fantastic delusions at bay. [...]"''</ref> The runoff from these furnaces pollutes Hell’s waters, permanently mutating those who linger in them too long.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Search_for_a_Hellish_artefact|Search for a Hellish artefact|Fallen London|}}''"The Lilymire churns and bubbles with the effluvia of Hell's run-off. Old laws alter the composition of your heart as you dive amidst the foul, brackish waters. The accrual of edicts wears away at your protections, until you are forced to withdraw, lest you be irrevocably altered."''</ref> In rare cases, law furnaces may overheat; the resulting explosions cause severe, often grotesque, transformations in anything caught in the blast.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Patchwork_Devil|Enquire about her unusual condition|Sunless Skies|}}''"[...] Her eyes circle one another coyly. Her mouth moves on her right cheek. "An industrial accident. A law-furnace overheated, back in the Iron Republic. I was the lucky one. Many others suffered more drastic, and occasionally liquefying, consequences. No, it does not hurt. Though eating soup remains a challenge.""''</ref>

== Living Furnaces ==
__forcetoc__<blockquote>"...''they swallow rock, and the law furnaces within convert it into something that will not be in your way."''<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Help_with_the_Hellworms|Help with the Hellworms|Fallen London|}}</ref></blockquote>[[Hellworms]] are great beasts with law-furnaces inside their bodies.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Help_with_the_Hellworms|Help with the Hellworms|Fallen London|}} ''"The Hellworms work [...] they swallow rock, and the law furnaces within convert it into something that will not be in your way."''</ref> Juvenile hellworms, known as Wyrmlights, have golden carapaces and are often referred to as “child law-furnaces.” Wyrmlights are dependent on their parent furnaces for survival,<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Upwards_(Story)|Upwards (Story)|Fallen London|}} ''"Hell [...] Maybe they could loan you one of their rock-eating worms. [...] Wyrmlights [...] A [...] Menagerie-Keeper arrives [...] bearing a brass cage of crawling grubs. [...] golden carapaces cannot hide the burning glow from inside [...] "Child law-furnaces," [...] "They'll thrive so long as their parent does. Should it be extinguished, these little grubs will go out like lights." [...] You set the grubs to work on the rock of the roof. They take to their task hungrily, converting what is rock to what is not."''</ref> and are sustained by a diet of hellish wine and ancient proto-law.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Fuel_the_excavation_with_hellworm_food|Fuel the excavation with hellworm food|Fallen London|}} ''"An [...] Handler cares for the hellworm. It feeds on Muscaria Brandy and ancient proto-Law – the latter, you must whisper [...]"''</ref> They are used to drill tunnels through normally impenetrable land,<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Debating_Matters_of_Business_with_the_Board/Descriptions|Debating Matters of Business with the Board/Descriptions|Fallen London|}} ''"The Railway has encountered a barrier of impenetrable rock. The proposed solution is that the board acquire Hellworms [...]"''</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Help_with_the_Hellworms|Help with the Hellworms|Fallen London|}} ''"The Hellworms work very quickly: [...] They leave a tunnel through the mountain [...]"''</ref> and can mine ores containing impossible materials<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Ask_her_to_help_with_research_into_the_Red_Science|Ask her to help with research into the Red Science|Fallen London|}} ''"Need a Hellworm to mine the ore. It doesn't lawfully exist yet."''</ref> by transmuting rocks into other things.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Upwards_(Story)|Upwards (Story)|Fallen London|}} ''"[...] You set the grubs to work on the rock of the roof. They take to their task hungrily, converting what is rock to what is not."''</ref>

==References==
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[[Category:Other Things of Significance]]