Silverers

From The Fifth City Wiki

"The Silverer changes the course of events with truth and lies. She brings treasures back through the mirror. Her eyes are like the sun. Hers are the hidden arts by which the Gallery of Serpents was made. She has ventured into the Marches beyond the sight of all glass, and uncovered the source of the Writhing River."[1]

Silverers are expert explorers of Parabola.

Nice Shades[edit | edit source]

"They follow you on a leisurely hike through the winding ways of Parabola. They gasp and delight at the sights: the Smoking Shore, the Skin of the Sun, the distant Waswood. It is all too beautiful – from a safe distance."[2]

With the help of their trademark cosmogone-tinted spectacles (not to mention a stipend of supplies),[3] Silverers explore deeper into the Is-Not than most other dreamers can fathom. Don't look them in the eye; these spectacles reflect "both pleasing fancies and unkind truths."[4] Their offices are filled with mirrors and prisoner's honey, the gateways to Parabola.[5]

Silverers are often employed as guides for dreamers,[6][7] but they can also produce illusions in the real world using mirrors,[8] recover dream-lost history,[9][10] and hunt Parabolan monstrosities.[11][12] The first landmark for a novice Silverer is the Writhing River;[13] over time, their travels may take them to all the various landmarks of Parabola, from the Waswood to the Skin of the Sun to the Sea of Spines.

Silverers who continue along the path of charting the extent and borders of Parabola, delineating what Is from what Is-Not, are called Ontological Cartographers.[14] This practice has more practical ramifications than one might expect, such as determining what offenses a person might have committed in the real world by noticing what is not present in the land of "could-have-beens."[15][16] Those who choose to explore the possibilities of manufacturing dream-spaces are called Oneirotects;[17] they might build and repair palaces in Parabola to shelter dreamers from harm,[18][19] or build fortifications to help any of the parties warring for control over Parabola.[20]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Become a Silverer, Fallen London
  2. ↑ Guide a gaggle of Bohemians through Parabola, Fallen London
  3. ↑ A Silverer's Penny, Fallen London "The lands behind the glass have been explored – unknowingly – by poets, fools and visionaries for centuries. Each week another bundle of their texts arrives, stamped with the seal of the Ministry for Public Decency. Accompanying them are black candles, good for seeing without being seen."
  4. ↑ Set of Cosmogone Spectacles, Fallen London "The lenses are the colour of remembered sunshine, which the things behind mirrors find irresistible. It is unwise to look the wearer in the eye, for the lenses reflect both pleasing fancies and unkind truths."
  5. ↑ The Business of a Silverer, Fallen London "A Silverer's office: jars of honey of different qualities, timbres, levels of toxicity, each labelled and sealed with wax. Dream journals and atlases of Parabolan geography. And, of course, mirrors. Mirrors everywhere. Not one would be so pedestrian as to show you your face."
  6. ↑ Guide a gaggle of Bohemians through Parabola, Fallen London "They follow you on a leisurely hike through the winding ways of Parabola. They gasp and delight at the sights: the Smoking Shore, the Skin of the Sun, the distant Waswood. It is all too beautiful – from a safe distance."
  7. ↑ Lead an expedition to the Sea of Spines, Fallen London "You commandeer a swift sloop from a Faded Admiral's dreams. Your diving bell is seized from the steeple of a ruined cathedral. You sail over banks of apocyan coral, far from any shore. And then, in a place where the Skin of the Sun has entirely receded beneath the horizon, where there is no distinction between the black water below and the starless sky above, you descend. Your client, an enthusiast of Rubbery studies, follows you into the diving bell."
  8. ↑ Accept a commission from a mysterious client, Fallen London "You are only aiding in setting the scene. A carefully-angled mirror gives the audience a direct view of the Skin of the Sun, ringing the Magician in cosmogone light."
  9. ↑ Extricate a half-lost memory, Fallen London "Up on the canopy of a massive tree in the Waswood, you find an attic [...] There they are – their faces, blushing in Surface sunlight. You hardly recognise your client without the bandages on his face. You don't recognise his companion at all."
  10. ↑ Recover an infernal artifact, Fallen London "A single glove, made of a fine brass mesh; too rigid to wear, unless one's skin is so hot as to soften the metal. The pattern on the hem references the names and lineage of an infernal aristocrat long deposed."
  11. ↑ Lance a persistent anxiety, Fallen London "In the recurring dream, her mother has grown additional mouths to criticize her with, additional eyes to scrutinize her with, additional lungs to sigh ever louder until her disapproval is a roar. You puncture this boil with a golden needle, letting out the pus inside."
  12. ↑ Destroy an errant nightmare, Fallen London "It resides – where else – in a dark forest. A chitinous thing that lurks in the corner of your eyes and opens it numerous jaws to scream with a human voice. The knife doesn't so much cut as deflate it, letting out the empty air inside."
  13. ↑ Become a Silverer, Fallen London "When you find the Writhing River, you plot a parallel course against the direction of its flow. You keep a good few somniofathoms of distance between you and it – the hissing along the bank is too loud to bear, and the poison mists are a dangerous inconvenience."
  14. ↑ Reinforce what is not real, Fallen London "You will become an Ontological Cartographer, one who charts the boundary between Is and Is-Not."
  15. ↑ Uncover a dark secret, Fallen London "He has many regrets, and they weigh on his reflection: undreamt or unborn selves, piled high like a jumble of discarded penny novels. Many are unsavoury. But there is one rumoured crime that he does not count among his could-have-beens."
  16. ↑ Chart the edge of the Is-Not, Fallen London "It is as much art as science. The infinite can bound the finite only by process of elimination. You stalk a suspect's reflection and find all the safe-houses where he did not hide, all the contacts he did not reach out to, all the telegrams he did not send."
  17. ↑ Enclose her dreams, Fallen London "You will become an Oneirotect, a manufacturer of dream-spaces."
  18. ↑ Enclose her dreams, Fallen London "You quarry banal notions [...] and use it to build a palace. You design it as a maze of chambers and sliding doors, where all corridors eventually lead back to the central atrium garden. The walls are high, and the terrain slanted – in her dreams, the Magician's Sister may be lit by the Skin of the Sun, but she will be sheltered from nostalgic ideas."
  19. ↑ Repair a Memory Palace, Fallen London "Fix the roof to stop stray notions from leaking in. Mend curtains so that the galleries of texture and scent remain dark as they should be. Lay down poisoned pills to drive off the vermin. So much disrepair, so little time."
  20. ↑ Engineer a fortification, Fallen London "The armies that fight over dreams sometimes make special requests."
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