Editing The Gant Pole

''"The leathery carcasses of hollowed-out beasts line the ventricles of this stone heart. Ancient blubber bubbles up around paths of bone and hide that squelch with every step. A distant drip carves eternity into hours."''<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/Gant_Pole|Gant Pole|Sunless Sea}}</ref></blockquote>'''The Gant Pole''' is a gigantic calcified heart, and the place where the creatures of the [[Unterzee]] go to die.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/Gant_Pole|Where the Zee Goes to Die|Sunless Sea}}</ref>

The Pole possesses a powerful attractive force that calls out to any being nearing the end of its life, from the largest of [[The Chelonate#The Glory's Story|behemoths]]<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/Irem|You heard the Glory's story|Sunless Sea}}</ref> to the simple humans.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Old_Zailors|The Old Zailors|Sunless Sea}}</ref> The Pole's pull extends beyond the [[Neath]], and can even attract people from the [[Surface]].<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Old_Zailors|Bring Recent News to the Old Zailors|Sunless Sea}}</ref>

The humans that have followed the call tend to congregate at the very center of the stone heart that makes up the Pole, inside a big pool of [[gant]].<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Gant_Chamber|The Gant Chamber|Sunless Sea}}</ref> These old zailors only leave the pool to feed on the [[Bestiary#Deep Zee-Monsters|zee-beasts]] that have just arrived at the Pole.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Gant_Chamber|Attempt to speak with the Old Zailors|Sunless Sea}}</ref>  While all of the pool's zailors are elderly, some of them are truly ancient, and might even date back to the [[First City]].<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Old_Zailors|Share your secrets|Sunless Sea}}</ref>

A notable exception to the Pole's usual inhabitants is a group of haruspices, who divine answers to questions from the last moments of the dying [[Bestiary#Deep Zee-Monsters|zee-beasts]]. They are led by an old [[The Fallen Cities|Third City]] woman called '''the Fading Haruspex''',<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Fading_Haruspex|The Fading Haruspex|Sunless Sea}}</ref> who was exiled from [[Whither]] for breaking its laws to spare a child's tears. She wishes to find an answer to a fabled Question that can only be answered with truth.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Fading_Haruspex|Ask what she seeks down here|Sunless Sea}}</ref>

This giant stone heart once belonged to an enormous '''[[The Shames|Shame]]''', a defilement of The Great Chain.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Leviathan|Leviathan|Fallen London}}''"The heart once belonged to a Shame(...)A creature that should not be. A defilement of the Great Chain."''</ref> The Gant Pole was created when the Shame fell in love; its advances were spurned, and the lovelorn Shame tore out its own heart.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Leviathan|Leviathan|Fallen London}}''"It was spurned by its beloved and tore out its own heart"''</ref> The organ sunk beneath the zee-waves, and began to emit sadness and melancholy, which was mistaken by the various zee-monsters for a sense of peace that could comfort them in their dying days.<ref>{{Citation|https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Leviathan|Leviathan|Fallen London}}''"Now the heart emits sadness, and beings at the end of their lives mistake it for peace"''</ref>