Sorrow-Spiders

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"These little charmers sneak into the bedrooms of sleepers and bite their eyes off. They take them back to their nests and do...what? No-one's actually seen them eating the stolen eyes."[1]

The story goes that spiders drink from your eyes while you sleep. Sorrow-spiders bite off a whole eye. They get their name from the tears that flow from the remaining eye.[2]

Sorrow-spiders are eye-stealing arachnids that have notoriously infested almost every corner of Fallen London, and a truly enormous number of them can be found in Saviour's Rocks, where they act as the rulers of the human settlement there.


Burn the Whole City Down[edit | edit source]

"Sorrow-spiders. Disgusting or lovable? Objects of worship, entertainment, or mere silk-producing machines? Opinion is divided."[3]

Sorrow-spiders prey specifically on eyes.[4] They do not, normally, eat them;[5] instead, they use the intact eye as a nursery, laying eggs inside to hatch new spiders.[6][7] They are ambush predators: a lone sorrow-spider strikes only when its target is asleep or otherwise helpless, but in larger numbers they coordinate and can overwhelm an awake victim.[8] Their size varies enormously. Most are as large as a cat or dog,[9][10] though some grow to half the height of a human;[11] the oldest individuals reach the size of horses.[12]

Sorrow-spider venom is both caustic[13][14] and paralytic;[15] a dose of their venom can render a person unconscious within minutes.[16] They can dream and travel through mirrors to and from Parabola,[17][18] where they have woven immense forests of silk and city-sized eyeballs.[19] They use these dream-routes to transport stolen eyes back to their lairs.[20] They regenerate quickly, lost limbs can be regrown within days.[21] Ironically, they have poor eyesight and instead "see" through vibrations sensed in their feet.[22] Their silk is surprisingly fashionable[23][24] and valuable enough that harvesters brave infested regions wearing goggles and carrying hatchets to clear webs and deter attacks.[25] Their blood is variously described as a sticky grey substance,[26] bluish and copper-smelling,[27] or yellow-green and fruity-rotting.[28] They resort to cannibalism when food is scarce. Despite claims that they are unsafe to eat,[29] sorrow-spiders are edible once properly cleaned of venom sacs,[30] and their meat is a delicacy in Wolfstack Docks.[31]

They infest many corners of London, to the point that the Department of Menace Eradication often pays handsomely for sacks filled with their legs.[32] Rooms full of sorrow-spiders are sometimes used for executions, especially for unfortunate players of the Great Game.[33] In the caverns under the Singing Mandrake, the Spider Symposium endlessly debate over the nature of language and its relationship to their sapience,[10] which should it ever end will lead to thousands of hungry sorrow spiders to descend and feast upon the inhabitants of London.[34] Wolfstack Docks hosts a thriving population, and an illegal spider-fighting pit at the Blinds Helmsman.[35] Furthermore, the Observatory near Watchmaker's Hill is home to a blind cult of astronomers, who seem to worship the spiders as some sort of idol.[36] Despite their passing similarities, sorrow-spiders are unrelated to the famed silk-spiders of Vesture.[37]

Though usually non-verbal,[38] some sorrow-spiders speak, scheme, and display notable intelligence and ambition.[39][40] They dislike eating eyes,[41] though they will do so on some rare occasions.[42] Consuming a victim's eye grants the sorrow-spiders the knowledge the victim possesses.[43] Sorrow-spiders can even be tamed.[44] Wealthy Londoners maintain colonies as a form of living home security.[45]

Spider-Councils[edit | edit source]

"Sorrow-spiders are already repulsive. Spider-councils are what happens when sorrow-spiders go bad."[46]

"You find the beast in a vast dark space of tumbled basalt columns tangled in silk – a temple in an earlier city, perhaps. It fills the darkness with its own corrupt and nacreous glow. It can only be the horror they speak of in the Medusa's Head... a spider-council. You were half expecting a giant spider. This is... something else. A dozen big spiders fused together like softened wax figures. Legs run into thoraxes. Eyes sit next to spinnerets. All studded with fangs like chitinous jewellery. It must weigh as much as a rhinoceros."[47]

“...hull-down on the horizon. But as we drew closer, we all grew puzzled: it was like no ship we had ever seen, a curious congeries of multiple hulls and jointed... limbs? Then we knew it had sighted us, for thick smoke rose as it roused its engines and gave chase. Its limbs bristled. Through the glass now I could see what lay at the meeting-point of its faces: thousands upon thousands of spider-eyes, champing spider-fangs, fused together like wax. A spider-council! but one of unprecedented size, and crammed strangely into a hybrid ship. It could only be the Tree of Ages: and the first day of our flight began...”[48]

A spider-council.

Occasionally, a cluster of twelve to forty sorrow-spiders merges into a single hulking entity known as a spider-council.[49][7] These creatures are not merely large spiders but grotesque composites: bodies fused like softened wax, legs running into thoraxes, eyes nestled beside spinnerets, all studded with fangs arranged like chitinous jewellery. They often grow larger than horses and commonly fester in the crypts of abandoned structures.[49] A spider-council speaks with a single smooth, silken contralto voice.[50] Despite their immense bulk and awkward movements, they are remarkably swift, and their chitin is tough enough to deflect bullets.[51] Wealthy patrons occasionally capture spider-councils and employ them as colossal guardians. One such entity, elephantine in size, attended by its own brood of sorrow-spiders, guards the Grand Sanatorium.[52][53]

Lesser spiders bring stolen eyes as tribute, and the council uses these eyes as nurseries for its eggs.[54] They place particular value on eyes "blessed" with the Correspondence,[55] for only spiders hatched from the eyes of those who have witnessed the language of the stars can contribute to the making of a spider-council.[56][57] The spider birthed from a Correspondence-marked eye act as the core of a spider-council, the point around which the others may be knotted.[58] This weaving is literal: sorrow-spiders are stitched together, thread by thread, as though composing a living tapestry of legs, eyes, and mind.[59]

If the process of conjoining is akin to marriage, a kind of love between spiders,[60] then there is a process similar to divorce as well. Councils sometimes fracture internally in what is known as a spider-schism.[61] This can arise from a bungled weaving or a failed melding of minds. A schism may be "cured" by physically splitting the council along the seam of disagreement, producing two separate councils.[62] A council may also divide itself intentionally, though this is regarded as apostasy; the resulting councils inevitably become rivals.[63] As collective intellects, spider-councils are particularly susceptible to thought-diseases and memetic corruption.[64]

Among their worshippers, a spider-council is revered as a Tree, and the eyes they collect are called "'apples";[65][66] eyes taken from those who have viewed the Correspondence are "marked apples."[57] The notorious Tree of Seasons rules Saviour's Rocks,[67] while the even vaster Tree of Ages prowls the Eastern waters of Gossamer's Way.[68] Together, they scheme to create the greatest spider-council the Neath has ever known, a titan that would span the entire cavern: the Tree of Epochs.[69]

Spider Cults[edit | edit source]

"There is no chanting and no singing. There is just a low-pitched noise from the cultists' throats as a sorrow-spider climbs up the initiate's body. He quivers as it reaches his face, drips of excited poison dripping into his lips. Strong, caring, but above all else, firm fingers peel back his eyelids and hold them wide. A scream. A mouth silenced with bundled cloth. An embrace. A note raised high and loud, until the Tree of Seasons itself seems to shake in the cacophony. A Widow gently kisses his new brother on the forehead, wrapping a silk blindfold around his hollow eyes."[70]

The Emissary of Spiders.

The sorrow-spiders do more than steal eyes, they can persuade people to surrender them willingly.[71][72] These human servants then work to spread and nurture sorrow-spider infestations throughout the city.[73] The spiders communicate with their blinded followers by whispering commands directly to them.[74][75] They can even grant these servants a form of vision by inserting their appendages into the empty sockets where the eyes once were.[76][77] This creates a mind link, allowing the servants to perceive through the spiders.[78]

Senatorial Gauze.

Historically, the most formidable spider-cults originated in the High Wilderness, where they once infested, and ultimately slew, a star.[79] After descending into the Neath, sorrow-spiders continued to employ human agents in their schemes. During the era of the Fourth City, they rose to prominence as the Motherlings, one of the three clandestine cults that manipulated the city from the shadows. In the Fifth City, their influence waned but never vanished; remnants survive among the astronomers of the Observatory. Their followers have also infiltrated London's municipal government and converted sections of the city's sewers into an enormous lair.[80][81]

Gallery[edit | edit source]

  • Millie, the Moloch Street Mangler.
    Millie, the Moloch Street Mangler.
  • Florence, the Stackside Spinner.
    Florence, the Stackside Spinner.
  • Alonzo, Scourge of the Marshes.
    Alonzo, Scourge of the Marshes.
  • Daphne, The Graveside Creeper.
    Daphne, The Graveside Creeper.
  • Luxuriantly Coiffed Sorrow-Spider.
    Luxuriantly Coiffed Sorrow-Spider.
  • Tree Of Ages.
    Tree Of Ages.
  • Tree of Seasons.
    Tree of Seasons.

A Web Hung Between the Stars[edit | edit source]

This section contains spoilers for the following Exceptional Stories and Sunless Skies content: Web of the Motherlings and Ambition: The Truth. Proceed at your own risk.

You can find out more about our spoiler policy here.


"It depicts a star infested with spiders, that cleave to each other like fish caught in a net. On the reverse, an azure regent prepares for war, in his chariot of hateful radiance."[82]

"Soon I will shuck this place like a skin."[83]

A Spider-Senate.

Sorrow-spiders originated in the High Wilderness.[84][85] They traverse the vastness of space on enormous webs called the Woven Wind, which are the size of cities.[86] Millennia ago, the Bazaar drifted past one such web; several spiders clung to its flanks and hitched a ride as it descended into the Neath.[87][88]

Sorrow-spiders are considered vermin in violation of the great laws that govern the heavens.[89] Even the Judgements, the suns themselves, regard them with fear.[90] Their dread is not misplaced: there is no true upper limit to the size of a spider-council. Given time and prey, these conglomerations can grow until they threaten the stars. The largest of all are the spider-senates, planet-sized agglomerations consisting of billions of spiders acting as one.[7] Long ago, a spider-senate was formed by laying an egg in a star, but was defeated by the Sapphir'd King.[91] After defeating it, he imprisoned the spider-senate in the frozen White Well.[90]

The Motherlings are attempting to create another spider-senate. They know the art of knitting two spider-councils into a bigger one, and with this process they tried to create a spider-council large enough to lay an egg on the Sun.[92] In the Sunless Skies timeline, when the Khanate, the remnants of the Fourth City, took to the skies, the Motherlings followed them to Eagle's Empyrean.[93]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Sidebar Snippets: What do sorrow-spiders eat?, Fallen London
  2. ↑ Sidebar Snippets: Why are they called sorrow-spiders?, Fallen London
  3. ↑ Spiders and flies, Fallen London
  4. ↑ Wait for a scream and pursue, Fallen London "The first scream of the evening isn't long in coming. You follow the spider away from the drunk zailor clutching his empty, bleeding socket. The spider scuttles through narrow alleys and takes its damp prize to a long-abandoned chapel barely visible beneath the webs."
  5. ↑ What do sorrow-spiders eat?, Fallen London "These little charmers sneak into the bedrooms of sleepers and bite their eyes off. They take them back to their nests and do...what? No-one's actually seen them eating the stolen eyes."
  6. ↑ Laughing in the fangs of fear, Fallen London "In the lightless depths below the chapel, eyes are embedded in the silk-tunnel walls. Numberless human eyes. Movement! Before your fascinated gaze, a juvenile sorrow-spider pokes the tip of its leg out of the white of the eye. Sorrow-spiders are hatching from the eyeballs! Reeling from this horror, you are surrounded by hissing arachnids. What happens next is a blur, but you make it back to the surface in one piece, covered in clinging silk."
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 A Web of Intrigue, Sunless Skies "Sorrow-spiders were a plague on old London, due to their custom of stealing eyeballs to lay their young in. Sometimes, they would become knotted into a spider-council, but no council you ever heard of comprised more than forty or so. The thing in the well is billions. A spider-senate. Its voice is soft. "And who is this? A creature of ambition. A creature of imagination. A creature prepared to do what others would not."
  8. ↑ Contract: destroy an infestation of sorrow-spiders, Sunless Sea "These little charmers sneak into rooms at night and bite the eyes off sleepers. Apparently they don't attack when you're awake. Unless there's dozens of them. An infestation, for example."
  9. ↑ A straightforward approach... Squash the filthy things!, Fallen London "Sorrow-spiders are the size of a small cat, and both armoured and poisonous. The best way to deal with them, although not the tidiest approach, is to hit them as hard as you can with a hammer."
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Sides in a Debate, Fallen London "A sorrow spider the size of a Great Dane sidles up to you. "Are you refreshments? [...] We are long overdue a break. [...] The subject is language, and its relationship to our sapience. We're meant to be agreeing conclusions. And I'm not allowed to scuttle out for an eyeball till we have.""
  11. ↑ Bet on Millie, the Moloch Street Mangler, Sunless Sea "A gargantuan beast, half the height of a man and twice as hairy. She lumbers into the ring on seven bristling legs. The eighth is a mere stump, capped with a steel hook."
  12. ↑ Align with the isolated titan, Sunless Sea "It is the size of a shire horse, and holds prime position on the centre of the ceiling. But its eyes are milky with age, and its limbs creak as it waves a leg to punctuate its point."
  13. ↑ Bet on Alonzo, Scourge of the Marshes, Fallen London "He doesn't look like much. If a beer-mug fell on him, that would probably be it for the night. But they say his venom can burn holes in lead."
  14. ↑ The final enemy, Fallen London "The spider-council is too big, too fast, too savage. Too bloody poisonous. You're forced back into the safety of the Flowstone Forest, smoking in a half-dozen places where its venom caught you. More tomb-colonists boil out of the Sanatorium gates."
  15. ↑ Choose the vial of sorrow-spider toxin, Fallen London "Having a counter to its immobilising effects might save you an eyeball or two."
  16. ↑ Choose the vial of sorrow-spider toxin, Fallen London "Down the hatch, before you can consider the wisdom of the act. Your mind recedes into darkness as your limbs crumple beneath you, refusing to move. The floor of Mr Treats' shop approaches in slow motion, from the opposite end of the darkening well through which you now tumble. Oblivion hits you before the floor does."
  17. ↑ The great work? (Luminous), Fallen London "[…] "In the next room, we have a large mirror […] we shall release our sorrow-spiders into the mirrored boxes you see here. [...]" [...] Then — the spider in box four is gone! There is a scream from the next room, and a sound like fangs dragging across reinforced glass. It worked! You have shown that arachno-speculative travel is a reality!"
  18. ↑ Ask her for help with Parabolan research, Fallen London "There are very specific portions of Parabola that she knows extremely well. She sketches out where you might enter the dreams of spiders, and you make a note never ever to do so."
  19. ↑ Ask her for help with Parabolan research, Fallen London "She has been to Parabola many times in honey-dreams. She does not know how to walk through the mirror, but she has quite a lot to say about what can be found on the other side. She speaks of forests where every tree is densely wrapped in spider-silk, and eyeballs as large as cities, and fish that swim in the air; of a desert floor covered with top hats; of a life-sized Chessboard where she pretended several days to be a bishop before she was exposed, to everyone's embarrassment."
  20. ↑ An inquisitive spider, Fallen London "A sorrow-spider the size of a large kitten […] carrying a human eyeball.[…] With a horrid start, you realise the eyeball looks very like your own! You reach up to your face to confirm that you still have a full complement of eyeballs… and wake up.[…]"
  21. ↑ Bet on Daphne, The Graveside Creeper, Fallen London "She might be impossible to kill, but no-one said anything about dismemberment. Those legs will grow back in a day or two, but Daphne is out of the game for now."
  22. ↑ Creep past them, Fallen London "Sorrow-spiders, perhaps ironically, have weak eyesight. They sense vibrations through their feet, and those vibrations form the picture they use to understand the world. But an expert like you can tiptoe [...] through the gaps in their perception."
  23. ↑ A bolt of fabric, Sunless Sea "You can find spider-silk in London, of course. There are troubles there with sorrow-spider infestation, like anywhere in the Neath. But for the real quality, you need to go east, to the Khanate, or to the fang-bristling fastness of Saviour's Rocks..."
  24. ↑ Haggle with a silk trader, Sunless Sea "The silk of Saviour's Rocks is beloved throughout the Neath. Most do however try not to give too much thought to where it originally comes from."
  25. ↑ Into the rookery with goggles and hatchets, Fallen London "Locals cheer the expedition as the tools of the harvester are distributed. A scarred, one-eyed veteran harvester beckons you over and proffers goggles."
  26. ↑ Kill the horrid thing, Fallen London "You seize your chance and leap upon the back of the hissing monster. Legs bend upward and grab you, but you are too quick. Again and again you strike, covering yourself in sticky grey ichor. […]"
  27. ↑ Learn, Sunless Sea "You skirt a slick of stinking, dying spider-flesh awash with bluish, copper-smelling blood. Faces form in the bubbles at its edges. Voices cry out in the languages spoken between the stars. The sorrow-spiders have come far, to lair in this place, and now you have ended their fierce lives. There will be more. There will always be more."
  28. ↑ A straightforward approach... Squash the filthy things!, Fallen London "Squashing a sorrow-spider sends yellow-green ichor everywhere. It smells like badly rotting fruit. And they keep wriggling for hours. Still, one down."
  29. ↑ Scrounge what you can find, Fallen London "You secure what you can find; your greatest prize is a disquieting jar of pickled eggs, which the sorrow-spiders seemingly took for eyes at first glance. It's a pity sorrow-spiders aren't edible."
  30. ↑ Hospitality of the sorrow-spiders, Sunless Sea "The sorrow-spiders often resort to cannibalism when food is low. It is on occasion the Weavers and Widows' privilege to share that bounty, that they may be a greater part of the whole. At least the poison has been removed, and the legs are surprisingly effective when pressed into duty as impromptu toothpicks."
  31. ↑ Trade a sack of glim, Fallen London "I need all this for a great feast we're having down the docks. We're havin' a great glim-pyre, all the better to roast a fine brace o' spider-councils! Come an' grab yerself a leg!"
  32. ↑ Resolution: turn in a sack of sorrow-spider legs, Fallen London "The unattractive but vital proof of your success."
  33. ↑ Eavesdrop at the church, Fallen London ""
  34. ↑ Return the Symposium to Deadlock, Fallen London "It's all very well winning the esteem of one of the groups or another – but if they all finally come to an agreement, then they will break for 'lunch'. A many-thousand-strong spider gathering would require a prodigious banquet to be sated. For the sake of the Londoners living above, you'd best [...] reduce their advantage and ensure that they face a sizeable opposition from their peers [...]"
  35. ↑ A Night at the Spider Pits, Fallen London "The landlord of The Blind Helmsman runs an illegal spider pit in his beer cellar. The place is packed with zailors, Clay Men and thrill-seeking aristocrats. The room smells of mud, beer, sweat... and money."
  36. ↑ Infiltrate the Observatory as the procession is getting ready, Fallen London "You […] blend into the courtyard's activity. […] A mahogany casket has slipped […] sending dozens of eyeballs bouncing across the floor. "Don't step on the apples!" someone screams […]"
  37. ↑ Ask the Injurious Princess to speak to your Fairly Tame Sorrow-Spider, Fallen London "The Injurious Princess coos when she sees your spider. "How darling! We have silk spiders in my kingdom. Yours is nothing like them, of course—" She bends down to look eye to eyes with your spider. "But perhaps I can teach it a thing or three.""
  38. ↑ Send a Fairly Tame Sorrow-Spider out scouting, Fallen London "Your spider returns days later. It is missing a limb but it has gained an eye, which it hides in its nest beneath the chaise-lounge. Judging by the frantic motion of its mandibles, it has managed to breach further into the Bazaar than most have ever dared. Through a frantic series of dances, it attempts to convey its route. Perhaps another companion might succeed in the work the spider has begun."
  39. ↑ Arrange an interview with your Senatorial Spider, Fallen London "They get along famously. Mr Huffam is entirely charmed by your spider's excellent manners, concerned pity for its fellow arachnids, and knowledge of ancient Roman law and custom. It's plans for collective mobilisation cause him concern, however, as does its passion for direct action to gain popular attention. In particular, he notes, an 'eye tax' is unlikely to gain public support."
  40. ↑ The Unexpurgated Gazette: Hallowmas Edition of 1896, Fallen London "'Votes for spiders?' the article asks, with a picture of your spider looking very dignifed indeed. 'There are no limits to what an ambitious spider can achieve', the article concludes."
  41. ↑ Bet on your own spider... using a secret weapon, Fallen London "The spider looks at you, then the rat-eyes, then back at you. […] It's hard to be certain, […] You must be imagining the distaste you see in the hesitant movement of its chelicerae. Have you really just done something a sorrow-spider finds repulsive?"
  42. ↑ Bet on your own spider... using a secret weapon, Fallen London "[…] And they say sorrow-spiders don't actually eat eyes. It might just be chance, but it seems to grow in cunning with every handful it devours. You're just a little worried now, when you wake in the night and find it watching you rather too intently"
  43. ↑ Memories of Mozart, Fallen London "Once, we were whole, [...] All of us, together as one. We ate a scientist's eyes and we learned about Laplace, about the great work he proposed, the web to connect the universe. This grew into our obsession. Then we learned his brain was to be found in London!"
  44. ↑ Fairly Tame Sorrow-Spider, Fallen London "You are reasonably certain that this spider will only climb legs and bite eyes when so instructed by its owner."
  45. ↑ Sleeping... Dogs?, Fallen London "Dark lumps sleeping in the rug, about the right size for a lapdog – no, a small colony of sorrow-spiders. Sorrow-spiders! Wealthy Londoners must be desperate to keep out burglars. Surely this is worse than the alternative."
  46. ↑ Sidebar Snippets: What is a Spider-council?, Fallen London
  47. ↑ You need to know!!, Fallen London
  48. ↑ Mortal remains, Sunless Sea
  49. ↑ 49.0 49.1 You need to know!!, Fallen London "You find the beast in a vast dark space of tumbled basalt columns tangled in silk – a temple in an earlier city, perhaps. It fills the darkness with its own corrupt and nacreous glow. It can only be the horror they speak of in the Medusa's Head... a spider-council. You were half expecting a giant spider. This is... something else. A dozen big spiders fused together like softened wax figures. Legs run into thoraxes. Eyes sit next to spinnerets. All studded with fangs like chitinous jewellery. It must weigh as much as a rhinoceros."
  50. ↑ Below the Silken Chapel: The Spider-Council, Fallen London "Appropriately perhaps, its tones are silken. Pleasant, even. Contralto. […]"
  51. ↑ Kill the horrid thing, Fallen London "The spider-council is heavy and awkward, but surprisingly quick […] Bullets ricochet from chitinous armour. Knives are knocked aside by bristling legs. Fangs like daggers glisten with blood. Your blood. How can you expect to defeat such a monstrosity?"
  52. ↑ Ambition: Nemesis – the Grand Sanatorium, Fallen London "The Sanatorium's walls are as smooth as ice and colder than they have a right to be, even this far underground. And windowless, of course. The entrance is guarded by six determined dead men with gleaming Martini-Henry rifles... and a chained spider-council! As you watch, attendant sorrow-spiders scuttle obediently around it. They scrupulously avoid the rifle-bearing tomb-colonists."
  53. ↑ The final enemy, Fallen London "Bullets barely tickle the spider-council. You'll have to carve it up at close quarters! It's like fighting an elephant. A poisonous elephant. A poisonous elephant which can spit spiders. Again and again you leap aside as it lurches down, cracking the rock. Again and again you slice off a limb, puncture an eye, unleash a spurt of fluid from some unnamable conjoined organ. But finally it is down."
  54. ↑ You need to know!!, Fallen London "Lesser spiders approach with a sidling, respectful gait, bringing eyeballs to its multiple ovipositors. Ten mouths hiss these words at you: "Good evening. May we compliment you on your charming eyes?""
  55. ↑ Below the Silken Chapel: The Spider-Council, Fallen London "The spider-council regards you with a hundred eyes. Ten inhuman mouths intone, "Now then. Have your eyes been blessed with the Correspondence?""
  56. ↑ Send a Luxuriantly Coiffed Sorrow-Spider, Fallen London ""Hatched," the Gnomic Spider-Breeder assured you, "from an eye that has perceived the rarest symbols. The language that stars speak, eh? The language of love in the endless night. It can express that love for you. Or that endless night. Perfect for the Feast of the Rose.""
  57. ↑ 57.0 57.1 Learning from a Silk-Clad Expert, Fallen London "Finally she admits what she has learned. The spider-council, she believes, can only grow from a "marked apple" – that is, the eye of someone scarred and maddened by the Correspondence. She never says it directly, but you have the impression that she considers you a prime candidate for just such an honour."
  58. ↑ Spying: On the subject of eyes, Sunless Sea "But what is it that truly births the masters of sorrow? A thing of the jelly... or the soul?" "They speak of the secret origins of councils; of apples blinded by Correspondence becoming cores. They speak of the grand council that is, and the greater council that is to come; the Tree of Epochs that will turn joy into sorrow and from that sorrow hatch eschaton."
  59. ↑ The Tomb of the Silken Thread, Fallen London "Drawing it out into the light of your lantern, it unfolds to reveal a tapestry. It resembles drawings you've seen of the Khan's wife's work. Judging from the illustrations it's a guide to tapestry-making; specifically, how to knot spiders together. The details are meticulous and vivid. You put it away."
  60. ↑ Learning from a Silk-Clad Expert, Fallen London "With a little work, you tease out of her what it's like to be a spider-council fully gathered. The blurred perception of self and other. The strange type of – would we call that love? – that makes one mind of a thousand smaller beings."
  61. ↑ Untangle an ancient web, Fallen London "Spider-schisms are the botched folly of the Motherlings, fractured minds locked in violent internal conflict. Your eyeless clients wish this one to be 'cured'."
  62. ↑ Untangle an ancient web, Fallen London "There – a convergence of pain, the ragged scar where a zealous seamster wove together beings of incompatible desires. You witness the flight of your harpoon through a hundred eightfold eyes, and spear the spider-schism in two. Silence. And then: new futures bloom in the viscera. A pair of new-split spider-councils whisper warily in the Observatory basement."
  63. ↑ Memories of Mozart, Fallen London "We split and fled the greater whole, [...] It was the only way to survive. Like severing a leg to prevent the spread of infection, except we were the leg. But such an act is apostasy. The original council would have devoured us if we ever returned. And we had to finish the great work... That's why we planned the heist."
  64. ↑ Memories of Mozart, Fallen London "We researched our condition, [...] We discovered a Greek concept. It was called... Called... [...] Mimema, [...] A thought that spreads like a disease, [...] Thanks to that curator's fixations spreading to our own m-m-mind. Now we see it everywhere. Its arched legs, its pointed body..."
  65. ↑ This will take work, Fallen London "[...] The spider-council is known to appear at the Watchmaker's Hill observatory at certain times. Consultation with scholars of occult events confirms that the next visit will be tonight! There is no time for elaborate preparation, so you simply hire a company of men with stout cudgels. The blind men of the observatory are out in force for the visit. Not only are they expecting the spider-council, they are furious when your shambolic hunting party descends on the beast. "Defend the Tree!" one shouts. What?"
  66. ↑ Infiltrate the Observatory as the procession is getting ready, Fallen London "You […] blend into the courtyard's activity. […] A mahogany casket has slipped […] sending dozens of eyeballs bouncing across the floor. "Don't step on the apples!" someone screams […]"
  67. ↑ Behold the Tree of Seasons, Sunless Sea "The heart of the spider-council. Few have laid eyes upon it, and most of those have had said eyes ritually removed to birth new sorrow-spiders shortly afterwards."
  68. ↑ Spying: On the Tree of Ages, Sunless Sea "They speak of a ship sent forth from Saviour's Rocks to catch secrets in its webs. They speak of its triumph, stealing a star-blinded eye of the deep. They speak of a greater eye still; unseen, unseeing, finally attainable."
  69. ↑ Spying: On the grand spider-council, Sunless Sea "They speak of a chaos brought under control by a spider-council formed from the blinded eye of a great zee-beast. They speak of the strained partnership it maintains with those who could so easily be enslaved. They speak of a Tree of Epochs, to be birthed in forbidden light, its branches stretching through the Neath to become the perfect geometry of sorrow."
  70. ↑ A new initiate, Sunless Sea
  71. ↑ Speak with the Emissary of Spiders, Sunless Sea "He gently bids rather than drives the elderly horse to a faster walk. He speaks of following the perfect geometry of a spider's web to its natural conclusion, and of the day his mind was ensnared by one as effortlessly as it might have caught a fly. "I confess however, it did still take a while to be talked into the harvesting," he adds, gesturing to his empty eye sockets. He chuckles to himself. "Ah, the ignorance of youth. Oh my...""
  72. ↑ A new initiate, Sunless Sea "There is no chanting and no singing. There is just a low-pitched noise from the cultists' throats as a sorrow-spider climbs up the initiate's body. He quivers as it reaches his face, drips of excited poison dripping into his lips. Strong, caring, but above all else, firm fingers peel back his eyelids and hold them wide. A scream. A mouth silenced with bundled cloth. An embrace. A note raised high and loud, until the Tree of Seasons itself seems to shake in the cacophony. A Widow gently kisses his new brother on the forehead, wrapping a silk blindfold around his hollow eyes."
  73. ↑ This might be faster... Track them to their nests, Fallen London "Back in the building the swarm has lost much of its coherence. Individual spiders are scuttling away, though a couple of more determined knots may remain. You wonder how many other infestations like this one are no accident, and how many other ragged beggars are whispering significantly near them..."
  74. ↑ This might be faster... Track them to their nests, Fallen London "With your ear to the floorboards, listening to the sound of the nests, an improbable truth presents itself. The rhythm of the sorrow-spiders' whisperings is the same as the muttering of that blind beggar outside! You race to the half-boarded window as the spiders' susurrus takes on a warning tone. There he is – vanishing down an alley that leads to a busy thoroughfare. He left his meagre begging bowl, though. It holds a chipped relic: a donation from a kind passer-by? Part of his cover? Or something else?"
  75. ↑ Summoned by the spider-council, Sunless Sea "From the eyes of the statue pours a poisonous conclave, a thousand lesser sorrow-spiders perching on every rock, brick and outcropping. The Emissary of Spiders rises from his meditation at the base, his robe festooned with the most senior members of the council that they might whisper their will in his ear. They speak, of course. Most eloquently, in fact. That does not mean they will lower themselves to speak to you. Not directly."
  76. ↑ The Great Crossing, Sunless Sea "The Emissary of Spiders carefully undoes his blindfold, revealing two hollow, scabbed eyes. Unbidden, the sorrow-spider on his shoulder crawls across his face, stabbing one leg into each with a squelch. Just for a moment, the Emissary's face flickers with the euphoria of a new disciple of prisoner's honey, but only for as long as it takes to shiver. His normal, polite countenance returns as the cart rolls onto the webbed bridge, taking you high above the black zee."
  77. ↑ Memories of Mozart, Fallen London "Once you reach the bottom, the Mytacist lights a lamp. A sorrow-spider is now perched atop his bald head; its jagged forelimbs are plunged deep into his eye-sockets. "Marvellous," says the Mytacist, seeing you for the first time as the spider grants him sight. His movements now are surer, more certain, as he busies himself lighting more lamps."
  78. ↑ Memories of Mozart, Fallen London "The issues began when we linked our consciousnesses with the curator's, to fleetingly return the gift of sight. He was... infected. An obsession of his own that took root in our brains."
  79. ↑ Required Repairs, Fallen London "What you see here is nothing. Out there, the spiders have seized a star. Did you ever see Second City etchings? The Aten sun-disk? It is no fantasy. Once we complete the symbol in these tunnels, the golden ray will descend to bathe us all. Think of it! The cavern roof incinerated, and the starlight streaming in."
  80. ↑ Required Repairs, Fallen London "I think it started a couple of years ago. Found a way into the office through the cellars. One by one it took them. You might think their workmates would notice a change in behaviour. But this is the Borough Council."
  81. ↑ Required Repairs, Fallen London "Hordes of people work within. It looks like the entire Borough Council. Each one wears an eyepatch, or a blindfold. They move in loose synchronisation, some redrawing sewer schematics, some marching off with excavation tools. And at the centre of the room towers a massive cluster of sorrow-spiders, supported on a ziggurat of legs. Hundreds of eyes supervise the process."
  82. ↑ The Tomb of the Silken Thread, Sunless Skies
  83. ↑ A voice in your head, Sunless Skies
  84. ↑ The Tree of Ages Uprooted, Sunless Sea "You skirt a slick of stinking, dying spider-flesh awash with bluish, copper-smelling blood. Faces form in the bubbles at its edges. Voices cry out in the languages spoken between the stars. The sorrow-spiders have come far, to lair in this place, and now you have ended their fierce lives. There will be more. There will always be more."
  85. ↑ "Something silky.", Sunless Sea "Spiders. Spiders... they are the first to know the speech of stars. I will be the last. But I need something more..."
  86. ↑ The Woven Wind, Fallen London ""Not a true Wind," protests Wines, "just sorrow-spiders flying from worldlet to worldlet. A plague." The exact nature of the phenomenon aside, it is unnerving to see a mass of spiderwebs floating gently in the air towards you."
  87. ↑ Weave your way through gaps in the silk, Fallen London "Spiderwebs as big as cities, woven from silk strands as long as battleships. The Bazaar will be covered in spiders for weeks, of course, but it won't be bothered by them – it has had worse millennia. You and your companions are a different matter. You narrow your wings, shooting through the gaps in the webs, keeping yourself spider-free. Pages is not so fortunate; it lets out a terrible yelp at one point, which will supply all of you with amusement for weeks."
  88. ↑ Frosted Debenture, Fallen London "The Mellifluous Custodian takes the blindfold in her pale, pale hands. "A relic of an old rebellion, long before our host's current commission. Its connection to the senate of old is broken, now, but a few servants escaped the pull of the Well.""
  89. ↑ Engage in a little sport, Fallen London "A sorry prey. But they live in breach of the laws of the sky – every day is spider-hunting day."
  90. ↑ 90.0 90.1 Ambition: Descend into the Well to form an alliance with the thing interred within, Sunless Skies "The suns feared it, and imprisoned it here. Perhaps you and it can help each other..."
  91. ↑ The Tomb of the Silken Thread, Fallen London "It depicts a star infested with spiders, that cleave to each other like fish caught in a net. On the reverse, an azure regent prepares for war, in his chariot of hateful radiance."
  92. ↑ The Web of the Motherlings, Fallen London "She recites a prayer, or poem, describing the "Eye of Heaven", which "sees and burns and judges." Spiders scuttle excitedly around her. The prayer suggests that the blessed will lay an egg in the Eye of Heaven, which will hatch into a "Spider-Senate, to hang its webs from the stars.""
  93. ↑ Ambition: Establish a spider-council, Sunless Skies "You watch your spider scurry into the hard neon shadows with some trepidation. You feel a connection with it. You did, after all, carry it in in the now-useless husk of your left eye when it was young. You needn't have worried. It returns a week later, having located a secret spider-cult in the recesses of the city. They call themselves the Motherlings, are expert in the knitting of spider-councils, and are fully supportive of your endeavour."
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