The God-Eaters
"Whether the captain was a drunken fool or just a drunk, I don’t know. But we ended up in the wrong Tomb-Colony! An awful place. It was bad enough to have to leave at all, but this place! Ruled over by ancient tyrants! Serpent, Red Bird and Cat. He wasn’t even a nice cat!"[1]
The God-Eaters are a trio of immortal beings who once ruled the Third City.
The Three[edit | edit source]
"You have a powerful conviction that someone is watching you."[2]
The God-Eaters are said to be the very oldest of the tomb-colonists,[3] and they reside in their own private tomb-colony of Xibalba.[4][5] Unlike other tomb-colonists, they are unambiguously immortal, and are said to be over a thousand years old.[4] Furthermore, while they appear humanoid, they are also described as monstrous, with gigantic statures and animalistic features,[6][7]
Despite all this, however, they still enjoy a good game of cards, and refuse to cheat.[8] They also retain a strange aversion to those who seek a mysterious and oddly important Name.[9]
The God-Eaters have three members, whose true names are unknown. They are known colloquially as the Mottled Man, the Red Bird, and the Serpent-Handed.[10]
The Mottled Man[edit | edit source]
"'The Mottled Man?' That's a familiar phrase..."[11]
The Mottled Man,[7] also known as the Cat,[12] is a member of the God-Eaters who is said to possess jaguar-like features, such as sharp teeth, spotted skin,[13] and a powerful roar.[14]
While the God-Eaters seem to lack any apparent hierarchy, the Mottled Man appears to be the foremost member of the God-Eaters to a certain extent,[15] or at least the most well-known of the bunch.[7] Tales of the Mottled Man permeate regularly throughout Fallen London, written by the very maddest of poets.[7]
The Red Bird[edit | edit source]
"The stone knife is hot in your hand. The red bird waits high in the sky. You are a priest. Its priest. You are doing what must be done."[16]
The Red Bird,[12] also called the Cinnabar Bird,[17] is a member of the God-Eaters who is said to possess "red feathers" that "whisper like a crowd of murderers."[18] When the Third City was still on the Surface, the Red Bird commanded a group of priests wearing feathered headdresses, who would carry out ritual sacrifices on his behalf.[19] Following the Fall of the Third City, these priests venerated Mr Veils, as well as the other Masters, as deities.[20][21]
In the present day, these priests have long since died.[22] They now wander the realm of Parabola, their number varying from seven to four to one at any given time.[23] If the Long-Dead Priests are offered a suitable dreamer, they harvest that person's dreams with their knives from the fabric of Parabola itself, taking a part of the dreamer's identity in the process.[24]
The Serpent-Handed[edit | edit source]
"It is gone, now. We gave it up, so we could persist. And now I wonder if it is better to be consumed than to endure."[25]
The Serpent-Handed,[10] also called the Serpent,[12] is a member of the God-Eaters who, as his name may suggest, is said to have serpents for hands.[26]
Despite gaining immortality, the Serpent-Handed is not as thrilled with his situation as he may have hoped. He still wonders if gaining immortality was a curse in disguise, and that perhaps he should have let himself be consumed rather than continue to live.[27] However, he still feels a sense of superiority over all other people: if there was anyone worthy of immortality, it would be him, and therefore anything he would commit to achieve his lofty goal would be justified.[28]
Xibalba[edit | edit source]
"That d–n fool of a captain got us lost, and we ended up in some uncharted, miserable Tomb-Colony. Worse than usual. Dust and death and smoke and glass. Dust and death and smoke and glass..."[29]
Xibalba is a mysterious tomb-colony that serves as the home for the God-Eaters. It is said to be a place almost frozen in time, from when the God-Eaters were still glorious, and is littered with glass gates, pillars,[30] smoke, dust, and death.[31] Other landmarks include the City of the White Scorpion, which apparently contains rivers full of scorpions that chatter like a large crowd and place bets on which nearby ship would sink the fastest.[32]
The location of Xibalba is unclear, though it is accessible via ship across the Unterzee, off the main shipping lanes of the more well-known tomb-colonies.[33]
The Deal[edit | edit source]
"A celebration! The God-Eaters lick their fingers, not to waste a scrap. They will live forever now. Much good will it do them. Perhaps they will eat you, one day. Perhaps. If they know you. If you travel to their lairs of dusty stone."[34]
"We are so hungry. Feed us. Feed us. We sit around the well, and wait."[35]
Back when the Third City was still on the Surface, the City's rulers, three priest-kings, relentlessly hunted down any beast, any meat, anything that would sate themselves.[36] Meanwhile, the Masters of the Bazaar had recently escaped from the Second City after being trapped there for centuries.[37] The priest-kings knew of the Masters and their nature, and thus arranged with them a dangerous bargain.[38]
The bargain was simple: the Masters were to feed the priest-kings a new meat, a form of transcendent flesh. To the Masters, this price was surprisingly manageable, as they had someone they could use as a scapegoat.[39] That "someone" was none other than Mr Candles,[40] the weakest of the Masters,[41] who was lured to the priest-kings by Mr Veils.[42] The priest-kings promptly ensnared Mr Candles, cut him open with their knives of obsidian, and greedily consumed his flesh, even as he screamed,[43] even as the bats rose from beneath the ground, even as the world opened up and the Third City fell.[44]
After the Fall[edit | edit source]
"As you look into the glass, something draws your eye. Hunched figures, like shadows cast on a cave wall, sit in perfect stillness. There are three, at least. They shuffle away from the glass, and are swallowed into the dark."[45]
"Our stomachs growl. Our knives are sharp. We are so hungry. So hungry."[35]
After their infamous feast, the God-Eaters were able to incorporate parts of Mr Candles into themselves, allowing them to ascend the Judgements' Chain and gain immortality and great power.[46][47] They would go on to rule the Third City in the Neath, acting as living gods and ruling through possession of hidden knowledge and rituals rather than by pure force.[48] After the Third City began to decline, the God-Eaters left for a tomb-colony that eventually became Xibalba.[49] Later, during the time of the Fourth City, the God-Eaters managed to enthrall several of the citizens there to do their bidding,[45] forming the group of warriors and enemies of the Khan known as the Copper.[50]
However, the God-Eaters' greed and lust for power came back to bite them in a way even they couldn't anticipate: as time went on, their bodies grew old and withered, and their remains are now little more than husks. Their fearsome appearances may in fact be illusions:[51] the Mottled Man may merely be wearing the skin of an exotic animal, the Red Bird's feathers may only be a headdress made of cinnabar beads, and the Serpent-Handed may be a man holding a snake-headed staff.[52]
The God-Eaters still starve for eternity in their home of Xibalba, trapped in a cave[52] that exists between the Is and the Is-Not,[53] unable to sate their endless hunger, and they can only hope to communicate with the rest of the world through lenses made of black glass.[54] They have used the Red Science in order to infect the obsidian, establishing their influence through time to take over the minds of hapless victims.[55]
The Fidgeting Writers[edit | edit source]
"At first they watch, then they lean close - like the surface of the moon! - and begin to eat. They start with your fingers, then suck on your heart. They eat and eat, every bit of you until there's nothing left but them."[56]
"Come back here. Give us meat. We made a deal. We have to eat."[35]
"We will find you again. You cannot run away. We will find you, and feast in your skull when you sleep. You cannot run away from a dream."[35]
As their condition grew more and more dire, the God-Eaters needed to find a way to solve or bypass their problem quickly - and in their typically diabolical fashion, they found one. Their solution was to invade the dreams of certain unfortunate individuals in the Neath and even on the Surface,[26] giving them horrifying nightmares of bestial giants consuming them bit by bit.[57] As the victim succumbs, they descend into near-insanity, writing madly of the God-Eaters' terrifying forms and the feeling of being watched,[7] their condition worsening the more they're allowed to write.[58] These Fidgeting Writers are then usually taken to a special wing of the Royal Bethlehem Hotel where they spend their last days away from any pens,[59] but those who aren't so lucky embark on trips across the Unterzee to Xibalba,[60] where the God-Eaters snatch and take over their bodies like blood filling a cleft.[4]
Historical & Cultural Inspirations[edit | edit source]
In Maya society, the k'uhul ajaw (holy lord) were not only political leaders but also sacred intermediaries between the human and divine realms. A central part of this role was the ritual impersonation of gods and mythic ancestors. In elaborate performances, kings and high priests donned headdresses, masks, and regalia that embodied divine beings. A ruler might appear wearing the visage of the Maize God, or carry the lightning axe and symbols of the storm god Chaac. These impersonations were not simply theater, as to the Maya, the god was the ruler. Such rituals reinforced royal legitimacy: if the Maize God "walked" again in the king’s flesh, then the king affirmed his role as guarantor of fertility, cosmic balance, and worldly order.
The God-Eaters, being rulers of the Third, each correspond to a Maya deity or supernatural force:
- The Red Bird appears as a seven-starred bird-king of the false sun, with jade teeth, gimlet eyes, golden talons, vast wings, and a crown of smoke.[61] This closely parallels Vucub Caquix (Seven-Macaw), the demon bird who appeared in the Popol Vuh: a false sun whose jeweled eyes blazed with false brilliance, perching daily on a great tree to feast on its fruits.
- The Mottled Man is described as "the night sun, whose sphere is war."[62] This corresponds to the Jaguar God of Terrestrial Fire and War, often assumed to be the "Night Sun," for the shape supposedly taken by the sun god Kinich Ahau during his nightly journey through the underworld.
- The Serpent-Handed is more ambiguous. He may be Kʼawiil, a deity depicted with a serpent as one leg and frequently carried as a sceptre by rulers to symbolize dynastic power. Alternatively, he could be Kukulkan, the great feathered serpent, a god of wind, rulership, and renewal across Maya culture (his Aztec counterpart is the more famous Quetzalcōātl).
References[edit | edit source]
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