October
"October speaks to you in a dark grove, where the shadow of her monastic holdfast is dimly visible across a great expanse of water. Her words form as reflections in the dark water: to see is to gather intelligence. To acquire intelligence is to garner influence. To hold influence in dream is power. Show me what you see and I am yours."
"The deal made, a cadre of ravens flies from October's island to your Camp. They will follow you across Parabola – and report back your every move."[1]
October is one of the twelve members of the Calendar Council.
No Sleep[edit | edit source]
"You assemble what evidence you can: singed fragments of maps and portraits, plus one partial document. An underlined passage reads: "—to shape their dreams advances the Liberation.""[2]
October is a member of the Calendar Council, but she vanished an unspecified time ago.[3] She studies and documents nightmares of both real and fantastical events,[4][5] and her entry in the Agendums of Ascent lists theories on how to use them to manipulate political thought.[6] She seeks to advance the Liberation of Night,[7] but her work is opposed by the Ministry of Public Decency's Department of Restful Sleep.[8][9]
October can enter the dreams of others,[10] induce nightmares,[11] and manipulate Parabola itself.[12] One such expression of her power is the Peace of October, a flock of ravens formed from the nightmares of her disciples[13] that see and act on her behalf.[14] October does not physically accompany these ravens herself,[15] but they can flock together to form a massive body with which she can fight.[16] October's ravens darken Parabola around them when hunting, representing her desire for the Liberation.[17]
October owns a room in the Royal Bethlehem Hotel,[18] which is decorated with mirrors shrouded by dense flocks of ravens, and whose windows show autumnal landscapes.[19] The Manager of the Royal Bethlehem Hotel, who also serves as May of the Council,[20] considers October an advisor[21] and fulfills her requests zealously and personally;[22] they seem to have a degree of respect for each other.[21]
Appearance and Personality[edit | edit source]
"You walk, slowly, up the stone stairs to her little loft amidst the vaults. She is sat at a heavy writing desk. On her face is a slim black mask – trimmed in russet and chestnut. She looks up, her eyes gold."[23]
"It's her you want to hear about, right? All right. I'll tell you something about her. She has a— a hobby, I suppose you'd call it. She builds halls of mirrors. Curates them. Different sizes, tints, angles; distorted glass that shows you things about yourself you didn't want to know. She always asks us to 'test' them. After the first time, nobody wants to."[2]
October has dark hair,[24] gold eyes,[25][26] and wears a black velvet eye mask trimmed with brown tones.[27][26] She can alter her appearance in dreams to intimidate others; for instance, she can peel off her face along with her mask to reveal blank skin underneath.[28]
October is a particularly radical and militant revolutionary who views society's laws as oppressive, and advocates for defiance and ruthless pragmatism.[29][30] Although she remains cordial with acquaintances,[31][32] she is extremely unscrupulous, even by the standards of the Calendar Council.[33][34] She obsesses over her targets and aims to study everything about them,[35] and will question others about their dreams to use their confidence against them later.[36] Victims may end up stark raving mad or unable to sleep forever,[37][11] and her own subordinates would rather die permanently than face her wrath.[38] One of October's cruelest pursuits involves her houses of mirrors, which reflect back a person's most unseemly and suppressed traits. She forces her subordinates to "test" these mirrors for experiments, which traumatizes them severely.[39]
Dreams Come True[edit | edit source]
"The Masters didn't know who I really was, of course. I spent years constructing a false identity in order to join the Marvellous. Virginia saw through it, but did not expose me. Not that I'd have let her. Afterwards, I used my reward to cast one of the Masters in a prison of its own failures. I understand that most of them have had second thoughts about the game since then."[40]
"It is very tempting to take it all with me. To be utterly irreplaceable. The Council searches for someone who can be a new October. But the cause is more than any of us."[41]
Each member of the Calendar Council opposes the purview of one of the Masters of the Bazaar, and October in particular opposes Mr Mirrors and its "bailiwick" over dreams.[42] She spent years stalking Mirrors,[43] and to defeat her foe for good, she took on a false identity and joined the Marvellous,[44] the Masters' game whose winner is rewarded with their heart's desire.[45] Virginia was one of October's opponents and saw through her disguise, but did not reveal her identity, not that October would let her without a fight.[44][29]
After winning the Marvellous, October requested that her "dreams come true." The Masters made arrangements with the powers of the Is-Not, and granted October special powers in Parabola.[46][47] October reportedly lured Mr Mirrors into dreams,[43] then used her gift to trap it in a "prison of its own failures"[48] - reducing it to a reflection cast by nothing, chained forever in Parabola.[49][50] This incident horrified the Masters,[51] and Mr Cups took on Mirrors' name and duties in its absence.[52] During her battle with Mirrors, October was bitten and scarred by Mirrors' pet, the crocodile-Fingerking hybrid known as the Yolk-in-Yearning.[53][54] It is not known exactly when October assassinated Mr Mirrors, but it is implied Mirrors and Cups were trading names as early as 1862.[55] It is also not made clear whether October has returned to London since then.[56]
With her goal achieved, October retreated to Yesterday's Clerestory,[57] a dream-monastery hidden in Parabola.[58] It originated from the dreams of a European monk (likely William of Rubruck) who died when the Fourth City fell, and since the Masters had no authority over him, it is beyond their reach.[59] October can also use her remaining unspent dream-powers to wipe any memories of her location.[60] October is now a solitary individual[61] who is aware the Council may replace her.[62] She still dresses as though she may leave Parabola for the waking world at any moment, and perhaps make herself irreplaceable, but she acknowledges that the cause she fights for is greater than even herself.[62]
Historical Inspirations[edit | edit source]
William of Rubruck almost certainly would have been the only European monk in Karakorum during the fall of the Fourth City. We know nothing of William's early life, but it may be surmised that he learned of the fledgling Franciscan Order and took monastic vows in Paris before traveling to Egypt and the Levant in the Seventh Crusade. It was after the Crusade that he traveled to Karakorum as a missionary to the Mongols, and became familiar with Nestorian Christianity.
The architecture of Yesterday's Clerestory is described as "improbable: Romanesque with soaring Perpendicular vaults. Once it must have rivalled Fountains or Cluny, but even in dream, this place is ruined – as though its dreamer could not bring themselves to remember it whole." (Fountains Abbey is a Cistercian monastery in England that now lies in ruins; Cluny Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery in France, much of which has been demolished.) The Romanesque style would have been very familiar to William. The Perpendicular vaults are out of place here, as a manifestation of an English Gothic style of architecture that rose to prominence in the 14th century, but the ornate fans and stars in Perpendicular vault designs bear a resemblance to Byzantine and Islamic artwork and architecture. It has been suggested by at least one scholar that these were details brought home in the memories of English crusaders.
The Clerestory is easy to see, then, as a syncretism of the different beliefs and architectural marvels that William encountered on his travels. If the above description is not merely an error or a detail excused by time being strange in the world of dreams, it instead demonstrates how the Fallen London player character's unconscious biases influence how we see the Neath and its surroundings.
References[edit | edit source]
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