The Department of Menace Eradication

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"A venerable institution necessary to the proper functioning of the Fifth City. The Department of Menace Eradication subcontracts the adventurous to deal with the things that slither out of Bugsby's Marshes."[1]

The Department of Menace Eradication is a goverment institution dedicated to keeping London safe from the monsters of the Neath.

The Shield and Buckler of the City[edit | edit source]

"The Department's chief office is an incongruously handsome seventeenth-century building, though the years and Fall have taken their toll. Its white walls have darkened to a shade between nicotine and ivory. It lies between the Hill and the River. Its officers and contracted agents deal with inconsiderate hazards from rats to sorrow-spiders, and Unfinished Men to marsh-things."[2]

Inside the Department.

The Department of Menace Eradication occupies an ageing seventeenth-century building situated between Watchmaker's Hill and the Stolen River.[3] Its interior is as dilapidated as its exterior, and reeks sharply of tanned rat leather.[4] Within these crumbling walls, monster-hunters, rat-catchers, and other adventurous sorts gather to trade stories,[5] seek partners for upcoming hunts,[6] and peruse the bounty notices pinned to the central board.[7][8]

Sophia Kincaid, licensed Eradication Officer 442-A.

The Department regularly engages professional monster-hunters for training purposes,[9] and Special Constables are also assigned to assist its operations.[10][11] Despite its importance, the Department operates on a meagre budget, leaving its aging head and his staff struggling to hold back the tide of monstrosities besetting London.[12]

To encourage civic participation, the Department sponsors a contest for hunters to prove they have eradicated the city's most dangerous creatures.[13] Aspirants submit trophies from their hunts, which the Supervising Clerk evaluates by the originating creature's size and ferocity. Beasts under five feet and six inches do not qualify as monstrous under Department guidelines;[14] venomous beasts yields bonus points; furred ones results in demerits.[15] After evaluation, the Clerk updates each hunter's position on the official board,[16] divided into weekly,[17] monthly (presumably), and annual standings.[18] Those who surpass a high threshold of confirmed kills earn the title Defender of the Public Safety of the Year, along with a medal and an ornate breastplate.[19]

Contracts and Bounties[edit | edit source]

"The Department of Menace Eradication offers a standing reward of four million Echoes for the head of the mysterious creature known as 'the Vake'. Four million Echoes."[20]

The Notice Board.

When the Department learns of a threat to public safety, it posts an open contract for any interested party to resolve the issue.[21] Members of the public may also fund their own contracts for display on the board.[22][23] Those who take up these tasks are known as Eradication Contractors, while those permanently employed by the Department are Eradication Officers.[24][25] The threats they confront range from oversized rats[26] and sorrow-spider infestations,[27] to living toys,[22] incarnations of Jack-of-Smiles,[28] and, ever since the Prelapsarian Exhibition, the animate funerary statues of the Second City.[29]

Bounties are paid in Rostygold, typically in the hundreds,[21] occasionally rising into the thousands.[30] The largest contract ever posted is a staggering four million echoes for the head of the legendary Vake,[31] offered by none other than Mr Veils, whose motives for encouraging its hunters remain curious.[32]

Of Rats and Rat-Catchers[edit | edit source]

"They breed, the rats of London, like...well, there's nothing else to compare them to. Nothing breeds like the rat of Fallen London. They have a hundred cities to humanity's one. And what, you might wonder, does the Department do with all the corpses?"[33]

The Dour Eradicator, wearing the hide of her foes.

After the Fall of London, the city was overwhelmed by the horrors of the Neath. The matter was brought before the Masters,[34] and Mr Pages proposed the creation of an institution dedicated to eradicating these threats.[35] Thus the Department of Menace Eradication was founded.

Rattus Faber, threat or menace?

One of the earliest and most urgent issues facing the new Department was the explosive boom in vermin populations.[36][37] Rats, in particular, multiplied at such speed that the calamity became known as the Great Rat Flood.[38][39] To prevent another such event, the Department maintains an open bounty on all rats,[40][41] including the sapient Rattus Faber.[42][43] The standard rate is eleven Rostygold per ten rat corpses.[44] All carcasses received, rat or otherwise, are processed for use by Eradicators, cooked and eaten,[45] or taxidermied for display.[46]

Given the hazards of their work, Department rat-catchers often operate in teams[6] and have been known to deploy Gatling guns against their troublesome foes.[47] They are profoundly superstitious: many of their quarries lair beneath churches, and they consume torn pages of the Bible for luck.[48][49] They observe a stern taboo against killing anything that flies, claiming such creatures "smell of Eden,” and that a rat-catcher who kills one will never breathe the airs of Heaven.[50] A popular tale recounts a rat-catcher who violated this taboo and lost his face as a consequence.[51] Another superstition warns that "walk too far into the Prickfinger Wastes, pay with your blood,”[52] where they believe a beast of ten-thousand teeth resides.[53] The taboo against killing flying things is the same as the prohibition followed in the Presbyterate,[54][55] and the ten-thousand teeth beast whom the Eradicators revere is actually a servant of the Prester, all of which suggests the Department holds a connection to the Elder Continent.

Real-Life Location[edit | edit source]

The Department of Menace Eradication is housed in a white, 17th-century building between Watchmaker's Hill (Greenwich) and the Stolen River (River Thames). There is a structure which fits this description located in Greenwich, called the Queen's House. A picture posted by Alexis Kennedy confirms it as the structure in which the Department of Menace Eradication occupies.[56]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Dept. of Menace Eradication, Fallen London
  2. ↑ Regarding The Department of Menace Eradication, Failbetter Games
  3. ↑ The Department of Menace Eradication, Fallen London "The Department's chief office is an incongruously handsome seventeenth-century building, though the years and Fall have taken their toll. Its white walls have darkened to a shade between nicotine and ivory. It lies between the Hill and the River. Step carefully in the entrance hall. The tiles tilt."
  4. ↑ The Rat-Catcher, Fallen London "Doors stretch down the corridors, flaking last century's paint. Dilapidated stairs keep their own notions of what constitutes a step. When you inhale, that sting at your throat's back is like a whipcrack and a black pudding and cyanide combined: tanned rat leather."
  5. ↑ Buy their drinks, and listen to them reveal their secrets, Fallen London "A one-eyed contractor recounts her costly encounter with a sorrow-spider. Another whispers […] about the aberrations […] in the Palace cellars[…] a whiskered old soldier bares the scar on his chest, and wonders if he truly did escape the Heart-Taker that found him […]"
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Find a rat-catcher to work with in the Marshes, Fallen London "Hardy, leather-faced women and men lurk in the Department grounds, waiting for partners or assistants. It's dangerous work."
  7. ↑ Visit the Department of Menace Eradication, Fallen London "They post bounties for serious dangers. An excellent way for a new arrival to begin building a reputation."
  8. ↑ The Rat-Catcher, Fallen London "Meanwhile, you step upstairs. Chaos rises through the Department like hairs along a cat's arched spine. A new contract's stuck to the board. Officers jostle to read the bounty."
  9. ↑ Provide Training at the Department of Menace Eradication, Fallen London "You're quite a seasoned monster-hunter now. The Department of Menace Eradication would like to engage your services for training purposes."
  10. ↑ Bring a gun and a stern expression, Fallen London "The Special Constables attached to the Department stand in neat and shiny rows in the gravelled front yard. Every button is perfectly polished."
  11. ↑ Bring a gun and a stern expression, Fallen London "You chill the Special Constables' blood with tales of […] monstrosities you've encountered. You exhibit your scars and describe in detail how you got them. Unfortunately one in four of them request reassignment […]. Your employers are not pleased […]."
  12. ↑ Accept your due, Fallen London "A moment's wait, and the whole staff of the Department surrounds you. There are handshakes; there are tears. A portly older man informs you, with tears in his eyes, that he has run this department on a desperately small budget for many years, struggling against all odds, and it is only persons like yourself who make it possible to protect London at all from the ravening tooth and claw of the Beast."
  13. ↑ Defender of the Public Safety, Fallen London "In order to spur Londoners to greater heights of mutual protection, the Department of Menace Eradication has announced a new title: Defender of the Public Safety. A Clerk supervises the applicants and considers who might be worthy of recognition."
  14. ↑ Fish in the stream, Sunless Sea "The strangling horror that emerges from the water is - you learn later - four feet eight inches in length. Consequently it falls short of the five feet six inches which would qualify it as a monstrosity under Department of Menace Eradication guidelines. This is little comfort to the screaming seaman in whom it embeds its many mouths. You extinguish its horrid life with a flurry of gaff-hooks, but too late for him..."
  15. ↑ Present evidence of your activities, Fallen London "The Supervising Clerk sorts your trophies by the size and ferocity of the source animal. Anything with venom obtains additional points; anything with soft and pleasing fur counts as a demerit. "I believe a large cat may be hard to kill," he says loftily, when you protest. "But the Department of Menace Eradication cares only about genuine threats to the population.""
  16. ↑ Present evidence of your activities, Fallen London "At the end of the investigation, he moves you up several ranks on the official board. Who is succeeding more with the Venomous Creatures than you, then?"
  17. ↑ Present evidence of your activities, Fallen London "He spends a good ten minutes measuring its teeth and capturing the weight of the paws. "This has to put you to the top of the weekly list," he says, shaking his head. "Brilliant.""
  18. ↑ Defender of the Public Safety, Fallen London "The Department of Menace Eradication acknowledges one especially prolific Defender of the Public Safety each year."
  19. ↑ Accept your due, Fallen London "The Clerk calculates your ranking. He is unsurprised by the result. [...] The papers carry your name, and Constables doff their helmets when you walk by. A medal is cast especially for you, together with an ornate and frankly unwearable breastplate with gilt decorations. You will have to find someplace suitable to hang it, such as the back of a dark closet."
  20. ↑ To revel in the joy of the hunt, Fallen London
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 The Rat-Catcher, Fallen London "Contract: A Deranged Drownie in Spite. A Quick-Fingered Urchin has reported thefts at the Pickpocket's Promenade. 150 Rostygold. Contract: An Invasive Viper in Veilgarden. The Anxious Proprietress at the Somnolent Stray has submitted a complaint. 200 Rostygold. Contract: An Incarnadine Caprine in Ladybones Road. At Moloch Street Station, a Familiar Deviless has requested expert services. 250 Rostygold. [...]"
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Contract: a Miniature Menace, Fallen London "A committee of concerned parents has banded together to fund a Menace Eradication contract. This particular menace is a tiny imp or monkey masquerading as a doll. It scales walls, sneaks into nurseries and inflicts festering bites on horrified children. Can you find and destroy it?"
  23. ↑ The bounty for a Malicious Ushabti, Fallen London "The Department accommodates the delivery of stone rather than flesh. The Grinning Functionary seems more subdued than normal as he makes tally of your contract. Payment, he says, will be provided by F.F. Gebrandt."
  24. ↑ A Rambunctious Celebration, Fallen London "A gaggle of Eradication Contractors await you on the Department's steps. "You're one of us now," grins a one-legged hunter, her skin criss-crossed with scars. "Come and get drunk.""
  25. ↑ A Monster-Hunting Academic, Fallen London "The lady in the sensible green dress and the sensible black shoes rounds the corner of Lacewhisper Street at foolhardy speed. The collision knocks you both to the ground, where a strand of her auburn hair tickles your cheek. "Sorry," she says, scrambling up. "Can't stop. Monsters." She rushes off. In her haste, she has forgotten her umbrella. Department-issue. The label reads: 'Property of the D.M.E., allocated to licensed Eradication Officer 442-A: Kincaid, Sophia'."
  26. ↑ Making Your Name: A Contract for a Worryingly Large Rat, Fallen London "A rat! […] of frankly offensive size. A number of them came ashore in the wreck of the Matilda Briggs. This one has been making a nuisance […] up and down Bugsby's Reach. Attacking terriers. Carrying off small children. Can you sort the d__ned thing out?"
  27. ↑ Making your Name: the Infestation, Fallen London "Screams in the night! A Scabby Foreman went to sleep with two eyes and woke up with one. Sorrow-spiders! The Department of Menace Eradication has issued an emergency contract."
  28. ↑ Find and deal with the latest edition of Smiles, Fallen London "Jack-of-Smiles changes bodies; or else there are dozens of murderous time-wasters who adopt his modus operandi. No-one's quite sure. But the Department wants him put down."
  29. ↑ Contract: A Malicious Ushabti, Fallen London "London still plays host to a number of limestone menaces – rogue ushabtiu who escaped the events at the museum. Help the Department clean up the stragglers."
  30. ↑ The Rat-Catcher, Fallen London "Contract: A Patchwork Rat in the Prickfinger Wastes. Outside Mrs Plenty's Carnival. ERADICATE ON SIGHT. 6,250 Rostygold. "They're calling the rat a traitor," giggles the Grinning Functionary. "Can you believe that? Last time we offered a bounty this high, it took me days to count the gold. Granted, someone with all their fingers still intact might fare better.""
  31. ↑ To revel in the joy of the hunt, Fallen London "The Department of Menace Eradication offers a standing reward of four million Echoes for the head of the mysterious creature known as 'the Vake'. Four million Echoes."
  32. ↑ Put your trophy on the clerk's desk, Fallen London "It has been years since we posted the reward, [...] We had some funds set aside, but they were used, when no one stepped forward... and of course that was never the full amount, as the rest was to be paid by the Bazaar and backed by Mr Veils... [...] Yes, Mr Veils was very interested in... encouraging hunters of the Vake, [...] At any rate, since we heard the Vake was no longer a concern, we have been trying to reach Mr Veils to see whether it was ready to assist us should there be a claimant, but unfortunately..."
  33. ↑ Claim bounty for dead rats, Fallen London
  34. ↑ The News, Mask of the Rose "Griz: I asked Mr Pages why the Masters let monsters within the city limits. I did not get the impression the question had occurred to him before."
  35. ↑ The News, Mask of the Rose "Mr Pages: I am contemplating a new Ministry to paciferate the hungrier creatures. Or to hire persons who will do so."
  36. ↑ Morning Papers, Mask of the Rose "POPULATION OF RATS AND SPIDERS IN LONDON SAID TO HAVE TRIPLED OVERNIGHT"
  37. ↑ Mention the explosion of verminous population, Mask of the Rose "I recount the newspaper story: there are more and more vermin in London."
  38. ↑ Claim bounty for dead rats, Fallen London "They breed, the rats of London, like...well, there's nothing else to compare them to. Nothing breeds like the rat of Fallen London. They have a hundred cities to humanity's one. And what, you might wonder, does the Department do with all the corpses?"
  39. ↑ The Rat-Catcher's Reward, Fallen London "It's dirty, bloody work, but without men and women like you, London would see another Great Rat Flood. Or worse."
  40. ↑ Watch and wait, Fallen London "Rat corpses lie littered along the shore of the Stolen River like filthy furry confetti. You string their bodies on a pole. When you have enough, take them back to the Department of Menace Eradication for your bounty."
  41. ↑ Make your Name: the reward for a Worryingly Large Rat, Fallen London "A hundred hearty thank-yous! I cannot tell you just how much I dislike rats. I wonder sometimes if I should find other employment. So many rats in this city. I hear London had rats above: well, perhaps so. But it can be as nothing to this tide of festering cunning that daily assails us. The Department will not rest until every rat in this city has been converted to leathery trophy-skin."
  42. ↑ The Rat-Catcher, Fallen London "...which brings us to one-hundred and fifty. That's for the drownie, you understand. We don't pay for live rats. Hang that L.B. on a string and we'll talk again. Meanwhile, if you're looking to squeeze it for secrets, may I suggest cheese deprivation? Rodents always crack when you deprive their cheese."
  43. ↑ The Venge-Rat Waders, Fallen London "The Maundering Rat is solemn as he parcels up the heavy boots. "The skins are real," he says. "Canaries in the sewers those lads. They go first, the rest of us follow. Without the cunning of our volunteers, the Department would be shelling out for a lot more of our tails.""
  44. ↑ Claim bounty for dead rats, Fallen London "This will turn in all your rats on a string. The current rate is eleven Rostygold for ten rats."
  45. ↑ The Rat-Catcher, Fallen London "At a long table draped in snakeskin, Eradication Officers feast on freshly-cut fillets. The bones they toss over their shoulders are bigger than you'd find inside an average fish. Belches fill the chamber. The Grinning Functionary lifts a glass to you, reclining in a chair whose arms and legs are fashioned from enormous horns."
  46. ↑ The Rat-Catcher, Fallen London "Rat heads gaze down from walls in the hundreds. Their black eyes are glass beads. A few larger specimens have been stuffed whole, and posed to suggest scenes from life."
  47. ↑ Assist a rat-catcher, Fallen London "Better-paid than you'd think. The rat-catchers of Fallen London have been known to use Gatling guns."
  48. ↑ Ask the Chandleress about the rat-catchers' traditions, Fallen London "[...] Rat-catchers are superstitious... religious, even. And they have something. Have you noticed how many of their quarries lair under churches? Have you noticed that they tear pages from the Bible for luck? The Good Book is an uncertain guide down here, but the Church is... working on that. [...]"
  49. ↑ The Rat-Catcher, Fallen London "Eradication Officers pile weapons onto a table draped in snakeskin: cleavers, pistols, cricket bats. One stands atop a chair fashioned from horns, reading pages from a Bible before ripping them out and devouring them. Small, vicious dogs fight for bones on the floor. "Personally," says the Grinning Functionary, "if I wanted good luck before a hunt, I'd eat something more digestible. Maybe a penny dreadful.""
  50. ↑ Ask the Chandleress about the rat-catchers' traditions, Fallen London "They say they smell of Eden. [...] they say that the rat-catcher who kills a flying thing will never taste the airs of Heaven."
  51. ↑ Claim bounty for dead rats, Fallen London "Rat-catchers gossip worse than laundresses. This one is telling a popular story: a catcher who broke the taboo of the trade, and killed moths that fluttered round his candles. After a time, his candles began to disappear, one by one, until he was forced to eat his supper in the dark. He paid to have his cottage connected to the gas mains, and did away with candles. All was well for three days... and on the morning of the third day, the teller says with relish, "he was found without a face!"."
  52. ↑ The Rat-Catcher, Fallen London "Until you came along, nobody would join me. Walk too far into the Wastes, pay with your blood. Department superstition. I tend to agree. But I can't turn a blind eye anymore. Now she's on a rampage in the city. Someone needs to drag her back to her senses – if she's got any left."
  53. ↑ The Rat-Catcher, Fallen London "Eradication Officers rally with pistols and flasks. One hiccups and shoots a lamp-post. Another tears reams from a Bible, swallows them for luck. They chant about spilling their blood for the ten-thousand teeth. "No thing that flies!" they cry. "Only the rat!""
  54. ↑ Order Vespertine, Perilous, Fallen London "THE PRESBYTER SAITH: you shall harm no thing that flies, for they carry with them the airs of the Garden. No bee, no bird, no bat. Only to my servants is it given to hunt them, and that only for my table. Yet I am generous: all shall feast."
  55. ↑ The Last Night: Record her memoirs about her homeland, Sunless Sea "... it's true: we eat the flesh of the beasts we hunt, as do you. But we will kill nothing that flies. The story is that they carry the airs of the Garden, that permit us to live forever. But I think it's sentiment. I think the Mountain dreams of flight..."
  56. ↑ Alexis Kennedy, Twitter "Department of Menace Eradication, 07:24 GMT, right on the Meridian, #sunlesssea launch day" [Editor's Note: The picture posted is a wide shot of the National Maritime Heritage Complex, with the Queen's House in front and the Old Royal Naval College at the back.]
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