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Facets are one of the defining characteristics of your Captain and the primary way of increasing your Skills.

Overview[ | ]

There are 20 facets you can take, including the Origin that you take at the character creation. At each level, the choice you make for each facet will increase your captains skills differently.

Once you gain enough Experience, your captain's portrait be highlighted. Clicking on it will take you to the A Moment of Reflection page, and you will be able to choose an option for that level.

Choosing a facet increases the number of Experience icon Facets Taken, which tracks how many facets you have selected (including Origins). Raising it unlocks more facets to choose from.

Origin[ | ]

Each of your four stats will start off at level 10. However, at the start of a new game, you will be prompted to choose your captain's origin, which will grant a bonus in a particular skill.

Who were you?

Today, London lies between the stars. Her new empire unfolds across the heavens.
But ten years ago - before the northern gate was opened; before the Enduring Empress led her people into the skies - it lay in a vast cavern far beneath the earth. Deep. Dark. Marvellous.
Who were you, then?

Group Name Description Bonus
Originurchin icon A street urchin No parents! No laws! No Masters! But also no roof over your head, no money, and often no dinner. Freedom comes at a price.
Originsoldier icon A soldier Yours was not to reason why. Yours was but to do and die.
Originpoet icon A poet The pen. The Ink. The blank, monstrous page.
Originacademic icon An academic A student of the sciences, the arts, of philosophy.
Originpriest icon A priest You preached the word, and brought the needs of the world before the Church in intercession.
Originzeecaptain icon A zailor You roved the mournful, merciless waters of the Unterzee.
Ministryliterature icon A Ministry auditor For a time, you served at the Ministry of Public Decency, which has become her Majesty's preferred instrument.
Flag icon A revolutionary The world is broken. One way for the rich, another for the poor. You decided to do something about it.

Once you have chosen one of the above options, you will be prompted to choose a subgroup. This will give you a second, smaller bonus on top of what you have already gained.

Those subgroups depend on what you chose before, and are as follows:

You were a street urchin[ | ]

You raced, barefoot, across the chimneyed rooftops. You stole wigs, wallets, and purses. You made offerings to forgotten gods.
The urchins of Old London organise into gangs.
Which did you belong to?

You were a street urchin.
The Knotted Sock The Fisher-Kings The Regiment
A close-knit band that occupied a haunted rookery in the worst part of the city.
The rookery was riddled with woodworm. Its windows were broken, and admitted unkind draughts. But the hearths blazed, the floorboards creaked fondly, and there was laughter in the dining-hall.
Every Fisher-King bears an old wound. Every Fisher-King talks to the wind. Every Fisher-King knows things they should not know.
If the urchins had priests (they do not), those priests would have been the Fisher-Kings (they are not). You were one such rooftop-seer, and you have not lost your sharp-sightedness, nor your quick mind. Sometimes, you still dream of old, forgotten thunder.
The most militaristic of the gangs, in their blue jackets and bright buttons. You attained the rank of corporal.
Among your other duties, you tended the Regiment's stolen cannon, 'Algernon,'which was mostly reserved for ceremonial purposes. And occasionally to frighten bats.

You were a soldier[ | ]

You served in Her Majesty's military.
But how, exactly?

You were a soldier.
In the Royal Horse Guards In the Corps of Royal Engineers In the Commissariat
You served in the Blues, conducting labyrinthine ceremonial duties and defending Her Majesty's person.
It was a life of exactness: of timing, of posture, of formation, of demeanour. You were the face of the Empire's military, and the stern guardians of its heart.
You were a sapper, a mechanic, an architect, an inventor – all while shells fell and bullets flew.
You made and maintained the engines of war. You built the roads and the rails they thundered along. You raised fortifications to protect your comrades. And you tumbled the walls of the enemy, with mines below and shells from above.
An army marches on its stomach. You had to find supplies by whatever means necessary.
The troops needed feeding, clothing, arming, billeting, training. Your methods had to be imaginative. Your contacts were not respectable. As long as the regiment was able to fight, few questions were asked.

You were a poet[ | ]

Poetry was popular in Old London. Some poets sought fame, others art. Some simply enjoyed Bohemian company.
Three pre-eminent artistic movements have come to prominence.
Which are your works most associated with?

You were a poet
The Celestials The Nocturnals The Sovereign School
In Old London, they wrote nostalgically of the Surface and the Sun. Now, they write of the Stars, and the Treasures of Heaven.
The Celestials revere the complexities of the natural order. All things have a place – from highest to high, from lower to least. They favour the intricate; the tranquil; the reflective.
A radical, outlawed school that delights in freedoms found in the dark.
Their sentiments are revolutionary, so to avoid the censorious ink of the Ministry of Public Decency, they conceal their message in code and in margins: liberation!


A new tradition, born in the Empress' Court. Their works are patriotic, bombastic, and occupied with the iconography of time: clocks and seasons and sand and so forth.
Members of the Sovereign School can find wealthy patrons. The dream is to catch the attention of the Empress herself. Some of her own children are luminaries of the school.

You were an academic[ | ]

Perhaps you were educated at one of the esteemed colleges of Benthic or Somerset.
Perhaps you taught yourself, through trial and error and grit.
But what was your field of study?

You were an academic
The practical sciences The language of the heavens Literature
Engineering. Chemistry. Anatomy. Everything you need to break something apart and put it back together again.
The Empire values ingenuity. "The sciences," her Majesty has claimed, "will bridge the heavens."
They call it the Correspondence, the oldest of alphabets. It is maddening, revelatory, and occasionally inflammatory.
Since London moved to the stars, understanding the celestial tongues has gone from a reckless indulgence to an urgent necessity. The risks, however – madness and combustion – are substantial.
Once the most indulgent of studies, now the most seditious. The Ministry of Public Decency has gutted the libraries.
Many classics have not made the Ministry's list of Improving Literature. Therefore, scholars of literature trade disguised copies back and forth. Perhaps January's edition of the Transactions of the South Wales Institute of Engineers is just that. Or perhaps within its sombre covers hides a Cervantes, a Wilde, or a Shelley.

You were a priest[ | ]

You preached the word, and brought the needs of the world before the Church in intercession.
But besides God Almighty, to whom did you answer?

You were a priest.
A Bright-Eyed Sequencer The Bishop of Southwark Your parishioners
The New Sequence was a young creed, then. Now it has spread to the highest offices of the Church, with Her Majesty's blessing.
She was uncannily persuasive. But is that a surprise? The New Sequence promises to bring light to the dark, to break chains that have bound us since before we were born. Who wouldn't desire that?
It was illegal to hunt or harass devils. They were citizens of London, like you. But the Bishop did not care.
He founded a secret office to investigate, monitor and hinder the infernal. You were an agent. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to kill a devil. But with enough imagination, they can be profoundly inconvenienced.
Sisyphus had it easy. He never had to contend with Mrs Quigg.
Daily you untangled a new crisis among your flock. You bore the widow Quigg's pitiless dissection of your sermons. Like the saints of old, you endured hideous torments in the form of Mr Gadgery's organ-playing.

You were a zee-captain[ | ]

You remember bats winging across the still, black sea. The distant lights of London, calling you home. Salty prayers offered to heedless gods.
It was a hard life, and often a short one, but you made your mark.
What were you known for?

You were a zee-captain.
You smuggled You explored You bought and you sold
Her Majesty's navy had a great many opinions on what should and shouldn't be sold in her territories. Your own opinions were rather different. You ran souls and sunlight to Gaider's Mourn and the Isle of Cats. You sailed, lampless, through the concealing dark. You lurked in hidden coves while the excisemen passed by.
Yours were far, lonely journeys. You endured nameless hardships. You rallied your crew in the face of utmost uncertainty.
You sought the edges of maps and sailed beyond them, into unknown domains where everything you knew proved false. What new discoveries might the sky hold for you?
You were a merchant. A precarious life, lived on the knife-edge between fortune and ruin.
It took a keen mind to coax a profit from the hungry waters, and keener eyes to spot the pirates and monsters drawn to your precious cargo. After a good haul, you made sure to enjoy the finer things.

You were an auditor[ | ]

The Ministry is responsible for the promotion and preservation of British culture.
It is a sprawling, many-branched institution.
To which department were you appointed?

You were an Auditor.
The Information Office The Department of Sensibility The Department of Corrections
The Office ingests raw information before it can reach vulnerable citizens, then regurgitates it in terms they should find less distressing.
Silent and subtle, the Office maintains extensive networks of informants. They are also tasked with auditing new books and publication to ensure they don't contain anything unnecessary.
Their task is to determine what constitutes 'Britishness', and identify threats to it.
The Department of Sensibility is considered the heart of the Ministry. It was a solemn place to work: its employees take their responsibilities very seriously indeed.
Why censor when you can correct? A revised word here; an omitted sentence there. Now the whole page says something different; something less troublesome.
Even quintessentially British works like the King James Bible have been found to include unpalatable errors. The Department amends them. More recently, it sometimes amends people, too.

You were a revolutionary[ | ]

The law offered you no protection.
The engines of the state were set against that which you knew to be just.
So how did you resist?

You were a revolutionary.
With your feet and your fists With your mind With your art
You marched. And when marching wasn't enough, you fought.
You held the line at pickets. You burned factories. You bled on the cobblestones when the police came with truncheons and horses to break the strikes. You made sure they bled too.
Lies are the tools of tyrants. You published research to expose those lies, and illuminate injustice.
Your arguments found receptive ears. They were cited amongst firebrand students, and graced the hastily-printed pages of subversive pamphlets.
Art travels swiftly. It cannot be imprisoned. It cannot be hanged.
You exposed. You lampooned. You inspired those who needed it most. Your pseudonym became famous in one half of London, and infamous in the other.

Past Facets[ | ]

Starting from level 2, you can choose a new facet per level. All but one (A Mentor) haves two sub-choices. Each time you level-up, you are randomly given 5 facets to choose from, but the main facet you choose will be removed from the next level's selection. For example, if you choose "Scarred" and "An engine accident" at level 2, the other "Scarred" facet will be removed from your options at level 3.

Scarred[ | ]

Available from the start.

Scarred
You came close, that day, to death. It left its mark.

What was it that nearly killed you?

Iron icon +5 x Iron

An attempt on your life An engine accident
There is a bullet-scar beside your heart. You have learned, since, to be more judicious in your choice of friends.
A breached pipe. A jet of scalding steam. You spent a week on the brink, trapped in boiling dreams. The scars are still livid on your skin.

A Spell in Prison[ | ]

Available from the start.

A Spell in Prison
The judge, stony-faced, condemned you to New Newgate, the stalactite-prison of Old London.

Its dark was thick as tar. Its cells were small as pantries. How did you spend your days there?

Veils icon +5 x Veils

You served your time quietly Better the wolf than the lamb
You notched each dismal day onto the cell wall. You steered clear of the monsters and the meek they preyed upon. You dreamed of the day of your release.
You ruled your corridor like a robber-king. Even the guards knew better than to push you: your punishments were less than you deserved.

An Interlude in Red and Gold[ | ]

Available from the start.

An Interlude in Red and Gold
You lost your mind, once. They put you in a splendid hotel managed by a Cheery Gentleman who would determine when you could leave.

How colourful the other guests were! How red the curtains! How gold the fittings! How secure the locks! Eventually, you were allowed to leave. But was your recovery genuine?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

Yes. You're feeling much better, thank you No. You just learned to lie
Through trial and error and determination, you learned to tell what is from what is not. The Manager said he was sad to see you go.
You said what you had to, and they sent you home. Even now, your world is red and gold and splendid.

A Scandal[ | ]

Available from the start.

A Scandal
You were the gossip of London's salons, and the target of blistering editorials in the Gazette. Mad, they said. Bad, they said. Dangerous to know.

What was the incident that exposed you to the buffeting winds of public opinion?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts
A torrid affair A parade of debauchery
Secret letters, warm and yearning. Furtive assignations, where desires (among other things) could be unlaced. The reports were salacious.
Absinthe. Wantonness. More absinthe. Brawling, gambling, blasphemy and slander. Absinthe and Prisoner's Honey. Prisoner's Honey alone. Prisoner's Honey in company. Is there a vice you haven't explored? It's possible: there are only so many hours in the day.

An Unlikely Haul[ | ]

Available from the start. Exclusives to Origin: Urchin.

An Unlikely Haul
A week before your thirteenth birthday, when you would be driven from the urchin-gang, you took part in a daring heist, which scored an unusual haul...

Silent as cats, you burgled one of the grand, gloomy mansions of Old London. In a hidden attic, accessed by a stair concealed in the back of a rosewood wardrobe, you made your discovery of...

Veils icon +5 x Veils

...a forbidden laboratory ...a trove of disgraceful secrets
It was crammed with clattering machinery. A chipped workbench was streaked with ruddy stains. Something coiled, miserably, in the oily contents of a bell-jar.
His lordship wouldn't want the contents of these letters to be revealed. In return for them, he'll pull some strings. Once.

The Battlefield[ | ]

Available from the start. Exclusives to Origin: Soldier

The Battlefield
'Hold the line,' your orders said. So you fought and bled on a foreign field, far from home.

Shells drummed the broken earth. Bullets whistled and bayonets clashed. Screams sang out. When silence fell, how did the day end?

Iron icon +5 x Iron

In defeat In victory
Concealed among the dead, you were spared. On your return to London, you found few had even heard of the battle. London does not discuss its defeats.
Returning to London, you were paraded as exemplars of British pluck. A music-hall song was even written about the battle. The events it described were not familiar.

Fifteen minutes of fame[ | ]

Available from the start. Exclusives to Origin: Poet.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame
One of your works propelled you to brief, sudden fame. You heard that even the Captivating Princess said something offhand and complimentary about it at a salon.

Gushing articles in the Gazette. Breathless flattery in the salons. You were showered with attention and gifts. You had admirers. How did you take to fame?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts

You flourished, like a rose in the sun You withered and fled
Some said it went to your head; that it changed you. Of course it did! Isn't that the point? You blossomed in fame, and when it went away, you withered.
Fame was never the goal. Celebrity only interfered with your work. You became a recluse, spurning the invitations and ignoring the doorbell.

Your masterpiece[ | ]

Available from the start. Exclusives to Origin: Academic.

Your Masterpiece
You would not let your education go to waste. You poured years of sleepless nights, setbacks and research into one great work. They called you brilliant, eccentric, and obsessive.

They said it was a waste of time. They said it was impossible. You proved them wrong. What were the fruits of your labour?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

A marvel of engineering A scathing critique of the New Astronomy
A revolutionary invention! Its possibilities are thrilling, but have yet to be realised by lesser minds. At least your peers appreciate your ingenuity.
And concealed within its three comprehensive and erudite volumes – which are approvingly stamped by the Ministry of Public Decency – is an encrypted, but spirited, call to revolution.

An Hour in Gethsemane[ | ]

Available from the start. Exclusives to Origin: Priest.

An Hour in Gethsemane
You doubted. You had good reason. But the bishop called it a 'crisis of faith.'

When you found your way from that twilit valley, from its uncertain paths and its snaring briars, were you the same person who had entered it?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts

Your faith was confirmed You lost faith
Even Christ doubted. 'O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.' If it was good enough for him...
The scales fell from your eyes. Doubt is not weakness, it is reason. And once you began asking questions, it was impossible to stop.

Worse Things Happen at Zee[ | ]

Available from the start. Exclusives to Origin: Zailor.

Worse Things Happen at Zee
The sea does not forgive. It did not forgive you.

The Unterzee demands a price from all who zail her. What did they demand from you?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts

A year of your life Your home
You were lost overboard. But the drownies bore you to their city beneath the waves, to cavort and delight. After a year and a day you awoke on the mudbanks of London, and wept.
You returned from a voyage to find your home occupied by strangers. You knew their names and their faces. But the place they once held in your heart had been filled by the sea.

Your Letter of Resignation[ | ]

Available from the start. Exclusives to Origin: Auditor.

Your Letter of Resignation
One day, you were informed that your services at the Ministry were no longer required.

They required your immediate resignation. They wouldn't fire you, of course. The Ministry does not make mistakes. What had led to your sudden departure?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

Office politics Your compromised allegiances
A change in management higher up the chain. For one star to rise, another must fall. But someone there still owes you a favour for your quiet departure.
You had been instructed to censor a work and deliver the unexpurgated copies to the furnace. You did not. Perhaps it was not the first time.

The Liberation of Night[ | ]

Available from the start. Exclusives to Origin: Revolutionary.

The Liberation of Night
You began to hear of a secret sect or philosophy among the most extreme anarchist cells: the Liberation of Night.

The Liberation advocated revolt not only on earth, but in heaven. It claimed light was law, and that we would only be free in the dark. When a masked fanatic tried to convert you, how did you respond?

Veils icon +5 x Veils

Your eyes were opened You sent him packing
No one will be free until the stars – greatest of all tyrants – are shaken from their thrones. Existence itself is a chain.
His words smacked of religion. Which, as the Very Reverend Kingsley said, is too often an opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they are being overloaded.

A Lost Love[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 2

A Lost Love
Love. The gradual erosion of that which separates you from someone else. The fitting together of two lives, as intricately and intimately as the threads in a tapestry or the cells in your skin. And when one of those lives ends? What remains of the other?

You loved. You lost. How badly does it hurt, now?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts
Momentofinspiration icon +1 x Moment of Inspiration

Like a gnawing ache, a hole in the heart Like a fresh wound, as red now as it was then
You feel, always, that something is missing. In the middle of other things you will look up, and around, and then remember that they will never be there.
Sometimes the grief is raw, ravaging; a wolf-howl in a midwinter's night. At other times it sullenly slinks, waiting for a reason – any reason – to lift its head and howl again.

A Mentor[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 2

A Mentor
For a time, you enjoyed the favour and protection of a mentor; someone who saw your potential and decided to nurture it.

Who took you under their wing?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts
A Blind Bruiser
His attempts to distance himself from his larcenous past were of mixed success. His guests were scarred and rough-spoken, and told bloody tales of smuggling and thief-oaths, and nameless murders.

Below Stairs[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 2.

Below Stairs
The comforts of every well-to-do household rely upon the scurrying, grinding work of its servants. You know this firsthand.

You dealt with the matters your masters couldn't be troubled with, like cleaning, and cooking, and parenting. But how loyal were you?

Veils icon +5 x Veils

You kept their secrets You took them for all they were worth

Every family had them – some grander or darker than others. Your silence had value.

You skimmed from the silverware and palmed the odd half-sovereign. Once, you helped yourself to a pair of gloves and a silk scarf. They had so much that they never noticed.

The August Avenues[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 2. Mutually exclusives with 'The Smoggy Streets'.

The August Avenues
You spent your youth in stuffy sitting-rooms and chandeliered parlours. Hush, and you can still hear the delicate sound of silver spoons on china cups.

You were not ungrateful, but your life was hedged by bounds of civility and expectation. You had to disobey sometimes, to discover who you were. When you had to rebel, how did you do it?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

Secretly and occasionally Openly and frequently
You wouldn't bring shame to your household. You kept your disobediences modest and discreet. No one was any the wiser.
A cage is a cage, whether it's gilded or not. You were punished, of course. It didn't stop you.

The Smoggy Streets[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 2. Mutually exclusives with 'The August Avenues'.

The Smoggy Streets
You spent much of your youth in the hard end of London, where the gaslamps are scarce, the prospects bleak, and the people as flinty as the cobbles.

How did you like it there?

Veils icon +5 x Veils

You were at home You despised it
The smog painted your lungs black. Your knuckles were scarred. But it was honest. There were diamonds in the dirt.
Only your dreams of something better kept you going. As soon as you saw an opportunity to make a new life for yourself, you jumped at it. You haven't looked back.

Sunday Dinners[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3 and having a previous captain that had Unaccountablypeckish icon Unaccountably Peckish ≥ 5.

Sunday Dinners
On Sundays, your household dined with the curtains closed. Candles lit plates piled with red meat. It was not fish. It was not chicken. It was not pork. It was not beef.

"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." – Matthew, 15:11. That was the grace spoken beforehand. It meant there were two rules: eat everything on your plate, and never speak of it.

You ate your fill You did not eat
It was rich and it was red, and there is power in deeds that others fear to do.
Even though you would be beaten, afterwards. Your mouth remained closed. No meat went in; no secrets came out.

A Metamorphosis[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 4

A Metamorphosis
You could no longer be the person you were told to be.

Your old life would have ground you beneath it. You had to change; but was the change slow or sudden?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts

A gradual growth A blank slate
You changed by inches, your new self growing from roots in the old. It was only after, when you looked back, that you saw how far you'd come.
In order to become what you needed to be, you abandoned your old life. You cast it aside, as a snake must shed its skin.

Family Footsteps[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 4

Family Footsteps
The apple did not fall far from the tree.

The way you turned out came as little surprise to those around you. Cast from a mould, they said. But which of your family's qualities do you embody?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts

Their virtues Their vices
Some inherit wealth; you inherited character. "Good breeding," people said. Well. Perhaps. But you've always been a keen observer, and learn quickly.
"Blood will out," they said, darkly. It certainly does, with a little help and a sharp knife.

The Black Sheep[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 4

The Black Sheep
You never fitted in – you were a piece from another puzzle. You came to revel in your family's disappointment. Their disapproval was a trophy; their condemnation a commendation.

Why did they resent you?

Iron icon +5 x Iron

For your successes For your failures
That which you deemed a virtue, they deemed a vice. What you adored, they despised. The things they revered, you mocked. You were a stranger to the people who knew you best.
What a disappointment you were. And how often and lengthily they informed you of it. But the things that mattered to them were unimportant to you. You would find your own path.

The Great Game[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 4

The Great Game
Once, London crawled with agents of Paris, Vienna, Istanbul. Now, in the heavens, the old players must find a new purpose, and new enemies.

Much espionage was amateur, or at best semi-professional; there were few trained agents. Instead, you were an asset, recruited for your temperament and position. Who was your target?

Veils icon +5 x Veils

Foreign Powers Domestic Threats
You worked, secretly, to keep London free from the machinations of her ancient, jealous rivals.
The state was increasingly concerned with ideological threats: revolutionaries, with their hidden printing presses and their homemade bombs.

Steam & Soot[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 4

Steam & Soot
You spent much of your time at the engine-yards, watching locomotives being built, repaired, and decommissioned.

They were iron behemoths: their bones steel, their breath steam, their innards intricate as a pocket-watch. How did you spend your time among them?

Iron icon +5 x Iron

Eavesdropping on skyfarers' stories Learning how engines worked
They boasted, loudly, of horrors and wonders. And when they thought no one else was listening, they whispered their fears.
You appropriated a workbench and tools, and set to work: dismantling obscure machinery and putting it back together again.

A Promise of Days[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 6

A Promise of Days
Her Majesty offered the earliest pioneers to enter the heavens a grant of thirty years if they would build houses and necessities for those who would follow.

You were one of the first through the doors to the sky, and accepted the offer. How did you spend the Queen's hours?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

Skystory icon +1 x Sky-Story

In toil Gallivanting
You helped lay the foundations of London. You dug its sewers; laid its streets. Thirty short years, to forge an Empire from nothing.
You took the offered time and fled, leaving your crimes and past behind. While London grew you explored the wide sky, untroubled by laws or horizons.

A Seance[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 6.

A Seance
London was obsessed with the occult. A flamboyant army of mediums claimed to be able to pierce the veil and commune with the dead.

Your hands held those of the guests to either side, clammy in the dark. The medium's voice was raw and yearning. Why were you there?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

You were a plant You were a believer

You used a concealed device to contribute eery knocks and groans to the ambience. Everyone there wanted proof of the impossible. You merely obliged.

The medium spoke, and the dead answered. You got to speak, one final time, with someone who had passed. You needed it to be true.

Haunted[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 6

Haunted
You are plagued by the past; by some guilt or sin or old ordeal that will not let you rest.

What is the nature of the haunting?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts

Taleofterror icon +1 x Tale of Terror

A ghostly presence Nightmarish visitations
A chill on the window. A breeze, when the window is closed. A pressure on the edge of the bed, as if someone was sat there as you slept. You are not alone.
You find no respite in sleep. When your eyes close, your nightmares climb down from their spidery loft. And if – in the morning – the crew won't meet your eye, you know you must have cried out in the night.

Spirifered![ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 6.

Spirifered!
Once upon a time, someone took your soul. He drew it out of your mouth with a delicate silver fork.

Spirifage, the unlicensed trade in souls, is a blight on London. Yours was a fortunate case, and you managed to recover your soul some years later. But how?

Iron icon +5 x Iron

Through a deal with a devil By blind chance

All itinerant souls eventually find themselves in the possession of Hell's children. Devils do not, traditionally, part with souls. But you were very clever, or very persuasive.

You happened across your soul at a jumble sale, curdling in a chipped wine bottle. At least, you are fairly sure it's yours.

A Settler[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 8

A Settler
For a time, you lived the hand-to-mouth existence of a homesteader, carving a home on the frontier of the Reach.

A hardscrabble existence, scratched from the sky a month at a time. The Reach is verdant, but its homesteads cling to tiny, exposed sky-rocks; most fail. In the end, what drove you back to the skies?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

Predators One bad season
Marauders. Monsters. The merciless tides of the Winchester War. You fought as long as you could.
That's all it takes. One harvest where the crops grow weeping tumours or venomous nodules. One bad wind that rips a house from its mooring.

Pestilence[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 8. Must have visited Albion at least once.

Pestilence
Since arriving in the heavens through the Avid Horizon you have contracted an unlikely illness. You are turning – imperceptibly slowly – into glass.

The progress of the disease has halted for now. But where has it taken root?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts

In your lungs Beside your heart
You suffer from a perpetual, hoarse cough, and occasionally expel clouds of emerald sand into your handkerchief.
Your breast has become translucent, and allows an educational – if distressing – view of your coursing veins and thumping heart. You take pains to conceal it.

The Bell Tolls[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 8

The Bell Tolls
You have foreseen your own death. It did not please you.

Perhaps you saw it in a dream. Perhaps a medium read it on your palm, or in your tea leaves. When death comes, where will he find you?

Veils icon +5 x Veils

Taleofterror icon +1 x Tale of Terror

In bed In the cold skies
An insipid death! A death for bankers and labourers, not for one who rode the winds! You defy it!
An early death and a cruel one. Sometimes, you dream of hoarfrost gathering in your lungs. It is not the death you chose – you will elude it!

The Blockade of New Winchester[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 8

The Blockade of New Winchester
You fought in the greatest battle of the Winchester War, when the regional Governor – appointed by Her Majesty – was driven from the Reach.

The independent Tacketies besieged the port; the loyalist Stovepipes hoped to hold out until reinforcements led by the Imperial dreadnought Her Majesty's Displeasure could arrive. Which side did you fight on?

Iron icon +5 x Iron

The Stovepipes The Tacketies
You braved the blockade, secretly running supplies to the beleaguered troops. It was not enough to turn the tide.
You were part of the blockade, hunting for engines trying to supply the defenders, and scouting for the inevitable reinforcements from London.

A Correspondent[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 11

A Correspondent
Once, letters only had to travel from Harrow to Hackney. Now, they have to cross the vast sky. Still, the postie does his best

You live a life of letters. Each evening you sit at your desk, ink and paper to one side, stamps and envelopes to the other. Who do you write to?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

Your pen-friends The newspapers
You maintain a web of friends across the heavens, with whom you share your news, your thoughts, and your well wishes.
Under an array of aliases (including 'Despairing, of Worlebury' and 'Disgusted, of Tooting Bec') you pepper the letters pages with outrageous opinions. Do you believe any of them? Well, that's hardly the point, is it?

A House of Cards[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 11

A House of Cards
You've always been a gambler. You'll risk it all on the throw of a dice or the turn of a card.

Life is sweetest on the knife-edge between fortune and failure. And anyway, you win more than you lose. Why?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

Because you cheat Because you never back down
Loaded dice. Marked cards. A sleeve full of tricks and a head full of schemes.
When you raise, they fold. Because you take the risks others shy from. After all, every shot you don't take is a miss.

An Exercise Regimen[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 11

An Exercise Regimen
You have always kept yourself in peak condition via a regime of relentless physical improvement.

Determination is crucial: once a day, every day, regardless of mood or circumstance. What is the nature of your regime?

Iron icon +5 x Iron

A programme of calisthenics Evening constitutionals
You have a helpfully-illustrated manual of exercises to improve your flexibility, your carriage, and an erect bearing.
A brisk walk clears the lungs and the mind. Fresh air is best, of course, but when away from port you must content yourself with a sprightly turn around the locomotive.

A Kinship with Rats[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 12

A Kinship with Rats
London's rats are persistent and ingenious. They are not well-spoken, but they are at least spoken. They are also marvellously skilled engineers.

The relationship between humans and rats has always been fraught. The plague. Exterminators. That ill-conceived cricket league in '86. So why do the rats accept you?

A professional respect You suspect you were their mascot
They admired the determination with which you wielded a spanner; the firm twist of your screwdriver; your comprehensive knowledge of pistons and gauges.
They were always very kind. Sometimes they left you little squares of cheese.

Rubbery Inclinations[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 12

Rubbery Inclinations
The Rubbery Men are the least fortunate of London's citizens. Squid-faced, mournful, incomprehensible, despised.

They clustered in rookeries and alleys, singing in gloomy, fluting voices of Axile, their lost home. Why did you associate with them?

For charity's sake To learn their shapeling arts
Their poverty was brutal, their habits repellent. You needed a cast-iron stomach to help them, but somebody had to.
It is said the Rubbery Men can knead flesh, knit cartilage, and bend bones. They have not always looked like this.

The Devil you Know[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 12

The Devil you Know
It would be arrogant to say that devils have friends. So what were you? A curiosity, perhaps? An exception?

Devils, with their ageless eyes and their excellent hats. Their fondness for brass and their knowing smiles. Why did you seek out their company?

For the power Their parties
Devils know secrets. Devils keep souls. Devils can fold the laws of the world as neatly as napkins at the dinner table.
You were a regular guest at the Brass Embassy. Such opulence! Such sophistication! Such wit, razored as scalpels!

The Long Arm of the Law[ | ]

Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 12

The Long Arm of the Law
Truncheon and helmet; whistle and boots.

Depending on your point of view, the police are: (a) the line that separates us from anarchy, (b) a merciless instrument of the state, or (c) the worst gang in London. How were you connected to them?

A special constable An informant
You were a temporary recruit, to help maintain order during London's perilous exodus to the sky.
You had many friends in the criminal underworld. A certain detective found that useful.

Deeds[ | ]

Deeds are special facet that can only be available in the progression page by having a certain accomplishment.

A Narrow Escape[ | ]

Unlocked after your Hull fell below 10 points once. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3

A Narrow Escape
Your engine was nearly destroyed, but you lived to fight another day.

You unlocked this when you survived your locomotive being reduced to less than 10 Hull.

You walked through the valley of the shadow of death. How has it changed you?

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts
Visionoftheheavens icon +1 x Vision of the Heavens
Taleofterror icon +1 x Tale of Terror

You have learned to be cautious It has emboldened you
Death waits in the sky, kept at bay only by a few inches of plating and the fires in your engine.
Carpe diem! It is death's shadow that gives life its lustre.

Far-Travelled[ | ]

Unlocked after visiting all four region in the game (The Reach, Albion, Eleutheria, The Blue Kingdom). Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3

Far-Travelled
You have journeyed to every corner of the heavens.

Your accounts of your travels are in great demand. When your avid audience ask what the sky holds, what do you answer?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

Terrors! Wonders!
Humanity was never invited to the heavens. You are intruders in a grand house, and you have learned to tread carefully.
If, that is, you are bold enough to tread in places others fear, and sturdy enough to weather the winds.

An Esteemed Predecessor[ | ]

Unlocked by having another captain preceded you. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3

This facet is mutually exclusive with 'A Disgraced Predecessor.'

An Esteemed Predecessor
An earlier captain in your lineage is held in high regard.

This is unlocked because another captain preceded you.

Some of your predecessor's shine rubbed off on you. It opened doors. Expensive doors, with bright, brass knockers and servants to answer them. Where did those doors lead?

Iron icon +5 x Iron

To the parlours of the privileged To the halls of academe
Where you drank tea and glasses of port, and ate delicate triangular sandwiches – but had to endure their endless questions about your forebear.
Where it was determined you should make something of yourself and, who knows, perhaps even follow in the illustrious footsteps of your forebear.

A Disgraced Predecessor[ | ]

Unlocked by having another captain preceded you. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3

This facet is mutually exclusive with 'An Esteemed Predecessor.'

A Disgraced Predecessor
An earlier captain in your lineage is the subject of ridicule and rebuke.

This is unlocked because another captain preceded you.

Tarred with your predecessor's brush, many doors were closed to you. Where did you turn to find acceptance?

Veils icon +5 x Veils

To villains To romantics
Since you were already condemned, you decided that you might as well do something unquestionably worth condemning.
The tale of your predecessor appealed to them. "Misunderstood," they said. "Ahead of their time," they said. "Tragic," they said.

A Seasoned Smuggler[ | ]

Unlocked by completing enough Smuggling Prospects (Increasing Reputation: Smugglers to 3). Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3

A Seasoned Smuggler
You have carried contraband from one corner of the sky to the other. You are the bane of the Revenue Men.

You unlocked this by completing smuggling prospects.

You've carried starlight, and forbidden books, and honey that opens the heart like a key in a lock. When a novice of the sky-roads asked you what virtue a smuggler needs, what did you answer?

Veils icon +5 x Veils
Unlicensedchart icon +1 x Unlicensed Chart

Boldness Caution
Seize opportunities, and do not waver. A good smuggler roves like a wolf, strikes like a serpent, and laughs like a jackal.
Be watchful. Be judicious. Dump contraband rather than risk capture. The most successful smuggler is the one nobody has heard of.

The Keeper of the Clocks[ | ]

Unlocked after substantially helping The Royal Horological Office (Increasing Royal Horological Office to 3). Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3

The Keeper of the Clocks
You are a proven agent of the Horological Office.

You are a shepherd of hours. A scourge of the late and the early. Why is it important that the clocks run on time?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

For neatness' sake For the Empire's sake
To impose reason on an unreasonable universe. To bring sense to the senseless. So that something is reliable, wherever you go.
You are a small but necessary cog in a grand, complex machine. You do your part.

The Call of the Sea[ | ]

Unlocked by helping the cult in Worlebury-juxta-Mare. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3

The Call of the Sea
The mist-sea surrounding Worlebury contains many secrets. One has touched you – or someone near to you who passed it on. There is a slight plasticity to your flesh. Enough to make subtle changes to your appearance with the aid of a mirror and some patience.

There are dreams, too: of unearthly choirs, and a purple-black sky propped with pillars of lightning. What do you do, when the dreams come?

Veils icon +5 x Veils

Revel in them Deny them
In those moments – when the tireless storms sing – you feel you are home. You wake weeping, your tears as silver as mercury where they slide from your eyes and from the hidden ducts on the palms of your hands.
You wake with a cry, and seek any means to erase the inhuman, improper visions. Work, excess, pain, drink – anything to remind you that you are human. Human!

A Knight in the Brazen Brigade[ | ]

Unlocked by climbing the ranks of The Brazen Brigade. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3

A Knight in the Brazen Brigade
You climbed the ranks of the Brazen Brigade. You parlayed with the Piper in her idol of Adamant and lived to tell the tale. How many can say the same?

The Brazen Brigade break with the conventions of Hell and exalt their fallen aristocracy. They worship them as saints, and plot to free them. What did you make of this unholy legion?

Iron icon +5 x Iron

You share their ideals Mad, bad, and dangerous to know
Or at least profess to. You raise your cup to hell's saints, and offer toasts to the day when they'll come marching in.
Your association was unwise. Perhaps you seek atonement; perhaps just to be more careful in the future. Still, it's an excellent story at parties.

The Witness[ | ]

Unlocked by serving the Heart-Cathers. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3

The Witness
You served the Heart-Catchers. You drank from the tears of the Second Storyteller, and saw a sun turn to night.

It is said that those who bear witness to the treachery of a sun are thereafter either afflicted with poetry or the profane. Which did you receive?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

Poetry Profanity
What recourse is left, after seeing the impossible and the unthinkable? What the mind cannot encompass, the poet makes palatable.
Nothing is sacred, nothing abides. There is no law that cannot be broken, no house that cannot be brought to ruin, no promise that cannot be a lie.

Dining with December[ | ]

Unlocked by allying with Winter's Reside. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 3

Dining with December
You have earned the gratitude of December, founder of the revolutionary Calendar Council.

All who exist under the stars have been harmed. The Revolutionaries say all have grounds for vengeance against the enforcers of the Law. But why did you seek kinship with them?

Iron icon +5 x Iron
Taleofterror icon +1 x Tale of Terror
Affiliationvillainy icon +1 x Affiliation: Villainy

For the hope of a better future For the sake of revenge
With the Judgements overthrown and their Chain broken, there would be nothing to limit the heights every being could reach.
You were wronged, and those ultimately responsible must be held to account. Whoever, or whatever, they are. It is just.

A Coterie[ | ]

Unlocked by having Affiliation: Bohemia at 2 or more. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 10

A Coterie
Along with some dear friends and acquaintances you have formed a tightly-bound clique of free spirits.

You unlocked this by having Affiliation: Bohemia at 2 or more.

Finding the prevailing opinions of society stifling, you sought solace among more congenial company. What shared interest brought you together?

This will reduce your Nightmares.

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors
Condition icon -1 x Nightmares

A love of art A thirst for adventure
Poetry, painting, music, sculpture – you mean to add to the beauty in the world. You are one another's fiercest critics and most dedicated supporters.
You are all captivated by the unlikely, the unwise, and the unnecessary. "Why did they do it?" people ask, of your latest antics. The answer is simple: because you could.

A Secret Symposium[ | ]

Unlocked by having Affiliation: Academe at 2 or more. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 10

A Secret Symposium
In a midnight lecture hall, a cadre of masked experts gathered to present papers on a subject the Ministry had forbidden.

You unlocked this by having Affiliation: Academic at 2 or more.

Prohibited theories were shared; research partnerships born. You continue to correspond, in code, on the matters debated. What was the topic of the symposium?

This will reduce your Nightmares.

Veils icon +5 x Veils
Condition icon -1 x Nightmares

'A Forensic Assessment of the Sun's Remains' 'The Condemned Classics: an International Perspective'
Following London's relocation, the New Astronomy has become a crucial, well-funded discipline. But the fate and physiology of Albion's dead sun are strictly barred from study.
Deep in the Ministry, native-speaking scribes translate their nations' literature into editions palatable to the Auditors. But you studied both the uncensored originals and those unprinted works deemed 'hazardous to British sentiment'.

A Thief-Oath[ | ]

Unlocked by having Affiliation: Villainy at 2 or more. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 10

A Thief-Oath
They say there is no honour among thieves. They are wrong.

You unlocked this by having Affiliation: Villainy at 2 or more.

In a lightless cellar, you and your closest collaborators spoke a solemn promise that was invented in the dark. You mingled your blood. What did you swear?

This will reduce your Nightmares.

Iron icon +5 x Iron
Condition icon -1 x Nightmares

An oath of solace An oath of silence
To shelter and safeguard one another, however dire the circumstances. To forgive each other all debts. To name the foe of one of you as the foe of you all.
To know and keep one another's secrets – to the grave and beyond. You are siblings in larceny, now. A coterie of crime.

Your Club[ | ]

Unlocked by having Affiliation: Establishment at 2 or more. Available with Experience icon Facets Taken ≥ 10

Your Club
You belong to one of London's illustrious private members' clubs. Fine food, understanding companionship, and no riff-raff.

You unlocked this by having Affiliation: Establishment at 2 or more.

Admittance was a hurdle, but your letter of acceptance declared you to be 'the right sort'. Of which club are you a member?

This will reduce your Nightmares.

Hearts icon +5 x Hearts
Condition icon -1 x Nightmares

The Dilmun Club The Parthenaeum
An august group of explorers and immortality-hunters. Perhaps the quest itself is a folly. But everyone needs a hobby.
Don't be deceived by the gentlemen dozing by the fire and the civilised click of billiards. The affairs of the realm are decided here.

A Jar with your Death in it[ | ]

Unlocked via storylet in the Heart-Catcher Gardens Platform. This facets requires Terror icon Past: The Bell Tolls and will replaces it along with its Skills benefit.

If Terror icon Past: The Bell Tolls = 10 [It has been foretold that you will die in bed](Veils icon +5, Iron icon +3):

Keep it on your bedside cabinet

You buried it deep
Where you can keep an eye on it.
This will increase your Hearts and your Bohemian affiliations.
A death is a dangerous thing to keep nearby.
This will preserve some of the Veils you gained from A Bell Tolls and increase your villainous affiliations.

If Terror icon Past: The Bell Tolls = 20 [It has been foretold that you will die in the cold skies](Veils icon +5, Mirrors icon +3):

Keep it on your bedside cabinet

You buried it deep
Where you can keep an eye on it.
This will increase your Hearts and your Bohemian affiliations.
A death is a dangerous thing to keep nearby.
This will preserve some of the Veils you gained from A Bell Tolls and increase your villainous affiliations.

Ambition Facets[ | ]

Completing an ambition will also unlock a unique facet. All of them are available from level 3.

Your Inheritance[ | ]

Unlocked by completing Ambition: Wealth(quality).

Your Inheritance
A prior captain in your lineage arranged for you to receive a considerable endowment.

What motivated the bequest? Charity? Duty? Guilt? Regardless, the sum involved was generous without being unseemly. What did you do with it?

Iron icon +5 x Iron

You squandered it You invested it wisely
And enjoyed every moment. Life is the prize. Gold and jewels are only fuel.
You will gain enough experience to grant another level.
And those investments have recently borne fruit. Shiny, clinking fruit.

Your Inspiration[ | ]

Unlocked by completing Ambition: The Song of the Sky.

Your Inspiration
You are never without your copy of the Song of the Sky.

Some call it the Skyfarer's Bible. The pages of your own copy are well-thumbed, and its spine is comfortably cracked. Why are you never without it?

Mirrors icon +5 x Mirrors

It gives you solace It gives you purpose
When you set it down, it falls open at the passage you've read a hundred times. You pull up your chair, and make it a hundred and one.
Reading about your predecessor's triumphs and tribulations, you are confident on one truth: that you could do better.
You will gain enough experience to grant another level.

A Secret of the Stars[ | ]

Unlocked by completing Ambition: the Truth.

A Secret of the Stars
Someone in your lineage learned something they should never have known.

Hints of a secret that the stars hide have been whispered to you. Shepherd your thoughts. Pursue the knowledge no further than this: the stars are dying.

Veils icon +5 x Veils

You sought no further You asked more questions
You swore yourself to silence, and built a sanctuary of ignorance. Some truths are too terrible to countenance.
Until you learned the fate of the captain who learned the whole secret. Then you stopped asking questions, and learned to watch for the Fire that Follows.

A Quester in your Lineage[ | ]

Unlocked by completing Ambition: The Martyr-King's Cup

A Quester in your Lineage
One of your predecessors vanished while searching for the Martyr-King's Cup. Everyone assumed they'd failed, but one day an extravagant cup appeared on your doorstep.

The Cup is chiselled from weighty stone, engraved with intricate symbols that burn in the mind. It doesn't grant immortal life, but it makes an excellent conversation piece. Who do you think sent it to you?

Veils icon +5 x Veils

An enigmatic admirer Your immortal predecessor
The Cup was sent to you by a powerful and mysterious entity whose interests were served by your predecessor. Ever since, your dreams have been wracked by moonlight.
You will gain a 4 Visions of the Heavens.
They took the Cup's power and gained life eternal. Now they travel the skies, keeping a friendly eye on their heir from afar.
You will gain a Cryptic Benefactor.

Choosing origin in table[ | ]

Who Were You?
Portgeneric ambience
Category Story Event
Type Story
Data ID 271197


Who Were You?[ | ]

Today, London lies between the stars. Her new empire unfolds across the heavens.

But ten years ago – before the northern gate was opened; before the Renewed Empress led her people into the skies – it lay in a vast cavern far beneath the Earth. Deep. Dark. Marvellous.

Who were you, then?


Interactions

Past Past Effects Sub-past Sub-past Effects
A street urchin
No parents! No laws! No Masters! But also no roof over your head, no money, and often no dinner. Freedom comes at a price. You will begin with high Veils, the skill of evading and deceiving.
You were a street urchin.
You raced, barefoot, across the chimneyed rooftops. You stole wigs, wallets, and purses. You made offerings to forgotten gods.

The urchins of Old London organise into gangs.

Which did you belong to?
The Knotted Sock
A close-knit band that occupied a haunted rookery in the worst part of the city. Increases your Hearts, the skill of convincing and enduring, and affiliates you with Villainy.
The rookery was riddled with woodworm. Its windows were broken, and admitted unkind draughts. But the hearths blazed, the floorboards creaked fondly, and there was laughter in the dining-hall.
    • Hearts icon Hearts = 17

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Originurchin icon Origin: Urchin = 10 [You ran with the Knotted Sock]

    • Affiliationvillainy icon +1 x Affiliation: Villainy

    • Hunger icon Fermented = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as pungent, febrile and unappetising.]

    • Fire icon Curdled = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as sickly, cloying and unappetisingly crawling. ]

The Fisher-Kings
Every Fisher-King bears an old wound. Every Fisher-King talks to the wind. Every Fisher-King knows things they should not know. Increases your Mirrors, the skill of deducing and observing, and affiliates you with Villainy.
If the urchins had priests (they do not), those priests would have been the Fisher-Kings (they are not). You were one such rooftop-seer, and you have not lost your sharp-sightedness, nor your quick mind. Sometimes, you still dream of old, forgotten thunder.
    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 17

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 10

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Originurchin icon Origin: Urchin = 20 [You ran with the Fisher Kings]

    • Affiliationvillainy icon +1 x Affiliation: Villainy

    • Drink icon Stained = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as over-rich, cindered and irrevocably damaged.]

    • Fire icon Curdled = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as sickly, cloying and unappetisingly crawling. ]

The Regiment
The most militaristic of the gangs, in their blue jackets and bright buttons. You attained the rank of corporal. Increases your Iron, the skill of confronting and overcoming, and affiliates you with Villainy.
Among your other duties, you tended the Regiment's stolen cannon, 'Algernon,'which was mostly reserved for ceremonial purposes. And occasionally to frighten bats.
    • Iron icon Iron = 17

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 10

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Originurchin icon Origin: Urchin = 30 [You ran with the Regiment]

    • Affiliationvillainy icon +1 x Affiliation: Villainy

    • Mirrors icon Lightless = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as distressingly bland, inoffensive and liable to dissatisfaction.]

    • Fire icon Curdled = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as sickly, cloying and unappetisingly crawling. ]

A soldier
Yours was not to reason why. Yours was but to do and die. You will begin with high Iron, the skill of confronting and overcoming.
You were a soldier.
You served in Her Majesty's military. But how, exactly?
In the Royal Horse Guards
You served in the Blues, conducting labyrinthine ceremonial duties and defending Her Majesty's person. Increases your Hearts, the skill of convincing and enduring, and affiliates you with Bohemia.
It was a life of exactness: of timing, of posture, of formation, of demeanour. You were the face of the Empire's military, and the stern guardians of its heart.
    • Hearts icon Hearts = 17

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Affiliationbohemia icon +1 x Affiliation: Bohemia

    • Originsoldier icon Origin: Soldier = 10 [You served in the Royal Horse Guards]

    • Iron icon Clear = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as disappointingly clear; almost transparent.]

    • Mirrors icon Lightless = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as distressingly bland, inoffensive and liable to dissatisfaction.]

In the Commissariat
An army marches on its stomach. You had to find supplies by whatever means necessary. Increases your Veils, the skill of deceiving and evading, and affiliates you with Villainy.
The troops needed feeding, clothing, arming, billeting, training. Your methods had to be imaginative. Your contacts were not respectable. As long as the regiment was able to fight, few questions were asked.
In the Corps of Royal Engineers
You were a sapper, a mechanic, an architect, an inventor – all while shells fell and bullets flew. Increases your Mirrors, the skill of investigating and deducing, and affiliates you with Establishment.
You made and maintained the engines of war. You built the roads and the rails they thundered along. You raised fortifications to protect your comrades. And you tumbled the walls of the enemy, with mines below and shells from above.
A poet
The pen. The ink. The blank, monstrous page. You will begin with high Hearts, the skill of convincing and enduring.
You were a poet.
Poetry was popular in Old London. Some poets sought fame, others art. Some simply enjoyed Bohemian company.

Three pre-eminent artistic movements have come to prominence.

Which are your works most associated with?
The Celestials
In Old London, they wrote nostalgically of the Surface and the Sun. Now, they write of the Stars, and the Treasures of Heaven. Increases your Mirrors, the skill of investigating and deducing, and affiliates you with Bohemia.
The Celestials revere the complexities of the natural order. All things have a place – from highest to high, from lower to least. They favour the intricate; the tranquil; the reflective.
    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 17

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Originpoet icon Origin: Poet = 10 [You belonged to the Celestial school]

    • Affiliationbohemia icon +1 x Affiliation: Bohemia

    • Pastscandal icon Flickering = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as intermittently tantalising with an aftertaste of disappointment.]

    • Iron icon Clear = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as disappointingly clear; almost transparent.]

The Nocturnals
A radical, outlawed school that delights in freedoms found in the dark. Increases your Veils, the skill of deceiving and evading, and affiliates you with Bohemia.
Their sentiments are revolutionary, so to avoid the censorious ink of the Ministry of Public Decency, they conceal their message in code and in margins: liberation!
    • Veils icon Veils = 17

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Originpoet icon Origin: Poet = 20 [You belonged to the Nocturnal school]

    • Affiliationbohemia icon +1 x Affiliation: Bohemia

    • Hunger icon Fermented = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as pungent, febrile and unappetising.]

    • Pastscandal icon Flickering = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as intermittently tantalising with an aftertaste of disappointment.]

The Sovereign School
A new tradition, born in the Empress' Court. Their works are patriotic, bombastic, and occupied with the iconography of time: clocks and seasons and sand and so forth. Increases your Iron, the skill of confronting and overcoming, and affiliates you with Bohemia.
Members of the Sovereign School can find wealthy patrons. The dream is to catch the attention of the Empress herself. Some of her own children are luminaries of the school.
    • Iron icon Iron = 17

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Originpoet icon Origin: Poet = 30 [You belonged to the Sovereign school]

    • Affiliationbohemia icon +1 x Affiliation: Bohemia

    • Pastscandal icon Flickering = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as intermittently tantalising with an aftertaste of disappointment.]

    • Fire icon Curdled = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as sickly, cloying and unappetisingly crawling. ]

An academic
A student of the sciences, the arts, of philosophy. You will begin with high Mirrors, the skill of investigating and deducing.
You were an academic.
Perhaps you were educated at one of the esteemed colleges of Benthic or Somerset.

Perhaps you taught yourself, through trial and error and grit.

But what was your field of study?
The practical sciences
Engineering. Chemistry. Anatomy. Everything you need to break something apart and put it back together again. Increases your Iron, the skill of confronting and overcoming, and affiliates you with Academe.
The Empire values ingenuity. "The sciences," her Majesty has claimed, "will bridge the heavens."
    • Iron icon Iron = 17

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 10

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Originacademic icon Origin: Academic = 10 [You studied the practical sciences]

    • Affiliationacadame icon +1 x Affiliation: Academe

    • Bloody icon Cold = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as still, pale and chilly to the palate..]

    • Mirrors icon Lightless = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as distressingly bland, inoffensive and liable to dissatisfaction.]

The language of the heavens
They call it the Correspondence, the oldest of alphabets. It is maddening, revelatory, and occasionally inflammatory. Increases your Hearts, the skill of convincing and enduring, and affiliates you with Academe.
Since London moved to the stars, understanding the celestial tongues has gone from a reckless indulgence to an urgent necessity. The risks, however – madness and combustion – are substantial.
    • Hearts icon Hearts = 17

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Originacademic icon Origin: Academic = 20 [You studied the Correspondence]

    • Affiliationacadame icon +1 x Affiliation: Academe

    • Drink icon Stained = 1 (if ≤ 0) [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as over-rich, cindered and irrevocably damaged.]

    • Bloody icon Cold = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as still, pale and chilly to the palate..]

Literature
Once the most indulgent of studies, now the most seditious. The Ministry of Public Decency has gutted the libraries. Increases your Veils, the skill of deceiving and evading, and affiliates you with Academe.
Many classics have not made the Ministry's list of Improving Literature. Therefore, scholars of literature trade disguised copies back and forth. Perhaps January's edition of the Transactions of the South Wales Institute of Engineers is just that. Or perhaps within its sombre covers hides a Cervantes, a Wilde, or a Shelley.
    • Veils icon Veils = 17

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 10

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Originacademic icon Origin: Academic = 30 [You studied Literature]

    • Affiliationacadame icon +1 x Affiliation: Academe

    • Bloody icon Cold = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as still, pale and chilly to the palate..]

    • Pastscandal icon Flickering = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as intermittently tantalising with an aftertaste of disappointment.]

A priest
Hymns and hymnals, Sundays and sermons. You will begin with high Hearts, the skill of convincing and enduring.
You were a priest.
You preached the word, and brought the needs of the world before the Church in intercession. But besides God Almighty, to whom did you answer?
A Bright-Eyed Sequencer
The New Sequence was a young creed, then. Now it has spread to the highest offices of the Church, with Her Majesty's blessing. Increases your Mirrors, the skill of investigating and deducing, and affiliates you with Establishment.
She was uncannily persuasive. But is that a surprise? The New Sequence promises to bring light to the dark, to break chains that have bound us since before we were born. Who wouldn't desire that?
    • Originpriest icon Origin: Priest = 10 [You followed the creed of the New Sequence]

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 17

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Affiliationestablishment icon +1 x Affiliation: Establishment

    • Iron icon Clear = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as disappointingly clear; almost transparent.]

    • Drink icon Stained = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as over-rich, cindered and irrevocably damaged.]

The Bishop of Southwark
It was illegal to hunt or harass devils. They were citizens of London, like you. But the Bishop did not care. Increases your Veils, the skill of deceiving and evading, and affiliates you with Villainy.
He founded a secret office to investigate, monitor and hinder the infernal. You were an agent. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to kill a devil. But with enough imagination, they can be profoundly inconvenienced.
    • Originpriest icon Origin: Priest = 20 [You helped the Bishop of Southwark hunt devils]

    • Veils icon Veils = 17

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Affiliationvillainy icon +1 x Affiliation: Villainy

    • Iron icon Clear = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as disappointingly clear; almost transparent.]

    • Bloody icon Cold = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as still, pale and chilly to the palate..]

Your parishioners
Sisyphus had it easy. He never had to contend with Mrs Quigg. Increases your Iron, the skill of confronting and overcoming, and affiliates you with Bohemia.
Daily you untangled a new crisis among your flock. You bore the widow Quigg's pitiless dissection of your sermons. Like the saints of old, you endured hideous torments in the form of Mr Gadgery's organ-playing.
    • Originpriest icon Origin: Priest = 30 [You were a parish priest]

    • Iron icon Iron = 17

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Affiliationbohemia icon +1 x Affiliation: Bohemia

    • Iron icon Clear = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as disappointingly clear; almost transparent.]

    • Fire icon Curdled = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as sickly, cloying and unappetisingly crawling. ]

A zailor
You roved the mournful, merciless waters of the Unterzee. You will begin with high Iron, the skill of confronting and overcoming.
You were a zee-captain.
You remember bats winging across the still, black sea. The distant lights of London, calling you home. Salty prayers offered to heedless gods.

It was a hard life, and often a short one, but you made your mark.

What were you known for?
You smuggled
Her Majesty's navy had a great many opinions on what should and shouldn't be sold in her territories. Your own opinions were rather different. Increases your Veils, the skill of deceiving and evading, and affiliates you with Villainy.
You ran souls and sunlight to Gaider's Mourn and the Isle of Cats. You sailed, lampless, through the concealing dark. You lurked in hidden coves while the excisemen passed by.
    • Originzeecaptain icon Origin: Zailor = 10 [You were a smuggler]

    • Veils icon Veils = 17

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 10

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Affiliationvillainy icon +1 x Affiliation: Villainy

    • Hunger icon Fermented = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as pungent, febrile and unappetising.]

    • Pastscandal icon Flickering = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as intermittently tantalising with an aftertaste of disappointment.]

You explored
Yours were far, lonely journeys. You endured nameless hardships. You rallied your crew in the face of utmost uncertainty. Increases your Hearts, the skill of convincing and enduring, and affiliates you with Academe.
You sought the edges of maps and sailed beyond them, into unknown domains where everything you knew proved false. What new discoveries might the sky hold for you?
    • Originzeecaptain icon Origin: Zailor = 20 [You were an explorer]

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 17

    • Affiliationacadame icon +1 x Affiliation: Academe

    • Hunger icon Fermented = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as pungent, febrile and unappetising.]

    • Drink icon Stained = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as over-rich, cindered and irrevocably damaged.]

You bought and you sold
You were a merchant. A precarious life, lived on the knife-edge between fortune and ruin. Increases your Mirrors, the skill of investigating and deducing, and affiliates you with Bohemia.
It took a keen mind to coax a profit from the hungry waters, and keener eyes to spot the pirates and monsters drawn to your precious cargo. After a good haul, you made sure to enjoy the finer things.
    • Originzeecaptain icon Origin: Zailor = 30 [You were a merchant]

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 17

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 10

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Affiliationbohemia icon +1 x Affiliation: Bohemia

    • Hunger icon Fermented = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as pungent, febrile and unappetising.]

    • Mirrors icon Lightless = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as distressingly bland, inoffensive and liable to dissatisfaction.]

A Ministry Auditor
For a time, you served at the Ministry of Public Decency, which has become Her Majesty's preferred instrument. You will begin with high Mirrors, the skill of investigating and deducing.
You were an Auditor.
The Ministry is responsible for the promotion and preservation of British culture.

It is a sprawling, many-branched institution.

To which department were you appointed?
The Information Office
The Office ingests raw information before it can reach vulnerable citizens, then regurgitates it in terms they should find less distressing. Increases your Veils, the skill of deceiving and evading, and affiliates you with Establishment.
Silent and subtle, the Office maintains extensive networks of informants. They are also tasked with auditing new books and publication to ensure they don't contain anything unnecessary.
    • Ministryliterature icon Origin: Auditor = 10 [You were appointed to the Information Office]

    • Veils icon Veils = 17

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 10

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Affiliationestablishment icon +1 x Affiliation: Establishment

    • Bloody icon Cold = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as still, pale and chilly to the palate..]

    • Iron icon Clear = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as disappointingly clear; almost transparent.]

The Department of Sensibility
Their task is to determine what constitutes 'Britishness', and identify threats to it. Increases your Hearts, the skill of convincing and enduring, and affiliates you with Establishment.
The Department of Sensibility is considered the heart of the Ministry. It was a solemn place to work: its employees take their responsibilities very seriously indeed.
    • Ministryliterature icon Origin: Auditor = 20 [You were appointed to the Department of Sensibility]

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 17

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Affiliationestablishment icon +1 x Affiliation: Establishment

    • Bloody icon Cold = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as still, pale and chilly to the palate..]

    • Fire icon Curdled = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as sickly, cloying and unappetisingly crawling. ]

The Department of Corrections
Why censor when you can correct? A revised word here; an omitted sentence there. Now the whole page says something different; something less troublesome. Increases your Iron, the skill of confronting and overcoming, and affiliates you with Establishment.
Even quintessentially British works like the King James Bible have been found to include unpalatable errors. The Department amends them. More recently, it sometimes amends people, too.
    • Ministryliterature icon Origin: Auditor = 30 [You were appointed to the Department of Corrections]

    • Iron icon Iron = 17

    • Veils icon Veils = 10

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 10

    • Affiliationestablishment icon +1 x Affiliation: Establishment

    • Bloody icon Cold = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as still, pale and chilly to the palate..]

    • Mirrors icon Lightless = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as distressingly bland, inoffensive and liable to dissatisfaction.]

A revolutionary
The world is broken. One way for the rich, another for the poor. You decided to do something about it. You will begin with high Veils, the skill of evading and deceiving.
You were a revolutionary.
The law offered you no protection.

The engines of the state were set against that which you knew to be just.

So how did you resist?
With your feet and your fists
You marched. And when marching wasn't enough, you fought. Increases your Iron, the skill of confronting and overcoming, and affiliates you with Villainy.
You held the line at pickets. You burned factories. You bled on the cobblestones when the police came with truncheons and horses to break the strikes. You made sure they bled too.
    • Flag icon Origin: Revolutionary = 10 [You resisted with your feet and your fists]

    • Iron icon Iron = 17

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 10

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Affiliationvillainy icon +1 x Affiliation: Villainy

    • Drink icon Stained = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as over-rich, cindered and irrevocably damaged.]

    • Mirrors icon Lightless = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as distressingly bland, inoffensive and liable to dissatisfaction.]

With your art
Art travels swiftly. It cannot be imprisoned. It cannot be hanged. Increases your Hearts, the skill of convincing and enduring, and affiliates you with Bohemia.
You exposed. You lampooned. You inspired those who needed it most. Your pseudonym became famous in one half of London, and infamous in the other.
    • Flag icon Origin: Revolutionary = 30 [You resisted with your art]

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 17

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 10

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Affiliationbohemia icon +1 x Affiliation: Bohemia

    • Drink icon Stained = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as over-rich, cindered and irrevocably damaged.]

    • Hunger icon Fermented = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as pungent, febrile and unappetising.]

With your mind
Lies are the tools of tyrants. You published research to expose those lies, and illuminate injustice. Increases your Mirrors, the skill of investigating and deducing, and affiliates you with Academe.
Your arguments found receptive ears. They were cited amongst firebrand students, and graced the hastily-printed pages of subversive pamphlets.
    • Flag icon Origin: Revolutionary = 20 [You resisted with research and arguments]

    • Mirrors icon Mirrors = 17

    • Iron icon Iron = 10

    • Hearts icon Hearts = 10

    • Affiliationacadame icon +1 x Affiliation: Academe

    • Drink icon Stained = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as over-rich, cindered and irrevocably damaged.]

    • Bloody icon Cold = 1 [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as still, pale and chilly to the palate..]

Facets in table[ | ]

Pasts
Default ambience
Category Story Event
Type Story
Data ID 271312


Pasts[ | ]

You remember...

Interactions

Actions Requirements Effects
Scarred
You came close, that day, to death. It left its mark.
What was it that nearly killed you?
An attempt on your life
There is a bullet-scar beside your heart. You have learned, since, to be more judicious in your choice of friends.
An engine accident
A breached pipe. A jet of scalding steam. You spent a week on the brink, trapped in boiling dreams. The scars are still livid on your skin.
    • Pastscarred icon Past: Scarred = 20 [A breached pipe. A jet of scalding steam. You spent a week on the brink, trapped in boiling dreams]

    • Hearts icon +3 x Hearts

A Spell in Prison
The judge, stony-faced, condemned you to New Newgate, the stalactite-prison of Old London.
undefined
Its dark was thick as tar. Its cells were small as pantries. How did you spend your days there?
You served your time quietly
You notched each dismal day onto the cell wall. You steered clear of the monsters and the meek they preyed upon. You dreamed of the day of your release.
Better the wolf than the lamb
You ruled your corridor like a robber-king. Even the guards knew better than to push you: your punishments were less than you deserved.
    • Iron icon +3 x Iron

    • Pastspellinprison icon Past: A Spell in Prison = 20 [You ruled your prison corridor like a robber-king. Your punishments were less than you deserved]

An Interlude in Red and Gold
You lost your mind, once. They put you in a splendid hotel managed by a Cheery Gentleman who would determine when you could leave.
undefined
How colourful the other guests were! How red the curtains! How gold the fittings! How secure the locks! Eventually, you were allowed to leave. But was your recovery genuine?
Yes. You're feeling much better, thank you
Through trial and error and determination, you learned to tell what is from what is not. The Manager said he was sad to see you go.
No. You just learned to lie
You said what you had to, and they sent you home. Even now, your world is red and gold and splendid.
A Scandal
You were the gossip of London's salons, and the target of blistering editorials in the Gazette. Mad, they said. Bad, they said. Dangerous to know.
undefined
What was the incident that exposed you to the buffeting winds of public opinion?
A torrid affair
Secret letters, warm and yearning. Furtive assignations, where desires (among other things) could be unlaced. The reports were salacious.
A parade of debauchery
Absinthe. Wantonness. More absinthe. Brawling, gambling, blasphemy and slander. Absinthe and Prisoner's Honey. Prisoner's Honey alone. Prisoner's Honey in company. Is there a vice you haven't explored? It's possible: there are only so many hours in the day.
A Masterpiece
You would not let your education go to waste. You poured years of sleepless nights, setbacks and research into one great work. They called you brilliant, eccentric, and obsessive.
undefined
They said it was a waste of time. They said it was impossible. You proved them wrong. What were the fruits of your labour?
A marvel of engineering
A revolutionary invention! Its possibilities are thrilling, but have yet to be realised by lesser minds. At least your peers appreciate your ingenuity.
A scathing critique of the New Astronomy
And concealed within its three comprehensive and erudite volumes – which are approvingly stamped by the Ministry of Public Decency – is an encrypted, but spirited, call to revolution.
A Battlefield
'Hold the line,' your orders said. So you fought and bled on a foreign field, far from home.
undefined
Shells drummed the broken earth. Bullets whistled and bayonets clashed. Screams sang out. When silence fell, how did the day end?
In defeat
Concealed among the dead, you were spared. On your return to London, you found few had even heard of the battle. London does not discuss its defeats.
In victory
Returning to London, you were paraded as exemplars of British pluck. A music-hall song was even written about the battle. The events it described were not familiar.
Fifteen Minutes of Fame
One of your works propelled you to brief, sudden fame. You heard that even the Captivating Princess said something offhand and complimentary about it at a salon.
undefined
Gushing articles in the Gazette. Breathless flattery in the salons. You were showered with attention and gifts. You had admirers. How did you take to fame?
You flourished, like a rose in the sun
Some said it went to your head; that it changed you. Of course it did! Isn't that the point? You blossomed in fame, and when it went away, you withered.
You withered and fled
Fame was never the goal. Celebrity only interfered with your work. You became a recluse, spurning the invitations and ignoring the doorbell.
An Unlikely Haul
A week before your thirteenth birthday, when you would be driven from the urchin-gang, you took part in a daring heist, which scored an unusual haul...
undefined
Silent as cats, you burgled one of the grand, gloomy mansions of Old London. In a hidden attic, accessed by a stair concealed in the back of a rosewood wardrobe, you made your discovery of...
...a forbidden laboratory
It was crammed with clattering machinery. A chipped workbench was streaked with ruddy stains. Something coiled, miserably, in the oily contents of a bell-jar.
...a trove of disgraceful secrets
His lordship wouldn't want the contents of these letters to be revealed. In return for them, he'll pull some strings. Once.
An Hour in Gethsemane
You doubted. You had good reason. But the bishop called it a 'crisis of faith.'
undefined
When you found your way from that twilit valley, from its uncertain paths and its snaring briars, were you the same person who had entered it?
Your faith was confirmed
Even Christ doubted. 'O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.' If it was good enough for him...
You lost faith
The scales fell from your eyes. Doubt is not weakness, it is reason. And once you began asking questions, it was impossible to stop.
Worse Things Happen at Zee
The sea does not forgive. It did not forgive you.
undefined
The Unterzee demands a price from all who zail her. What did they demand from you?
A year of your life
You were lost overboard. But the drownies bore you to their city beneath the waves, to cavort and delight. After a year and a day you awoke on the mudbanks of London, and wept.
Your home
You returned from a voyage to find your home occupied by strangers. You knew their names and their faces. But the place they once held in your heart had been filled by the sea.
The Liberation of Night
You began to hear of a secret sect or philosophy among the most extreme anarchist cells: the Liberation of Night.
undefined
The Liberation advocated revolt not only on earth, but in heaven. It claimed light was law, and that we would only be free in the dark. When a masked fanatic tried to convert you, how did you respond?
Your eyes were opened
No one will be free until the stars – greatest of all tyrants – are shaken from their thrones. Existence itself is a chain.
You sent him packing
His words smacked of religion. Which, as the Reverend Kingsley said, is too often an opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they are being overloaded.
Your Letter of Resignation
One day, you were informed that your services at the Ministry were no longer required.
undefined
They required your immediate resignation. They wouldn't fire you, of course. The Ministry does not make mistakes. What had led to your sudden departure?
Office politics
A change in management higher up the chain. For one star to rise, another must fall. But someone there still owes you a favour for your quiet departure.
Your compromised allegiances
You had been instructed to censor a work and deliver the unexpurgated copies to the furnace. You did not. Perhaps it was not the first time.
A Mentor
For a time, you enjoyed the favour and protection of a mentor; someone who saw your potential and decided to nurture it.
undefined
Who took you under their wing?
A Blind Bruiser
His attempts to distance himself from his larcenous past were of mixed success. His guests were scarred and rough-spoken, and told bloody tales of smuggling and thief-oaths, and nameless murders.
A Lost Love
Love. The gradual erosion of that which separates you from someone else. The fitting together of two lives, as intricately and intimately as the threads in a tapestry or the cells in your skin. And when one of those lives ends? What remains of the other?
undefined
You loved. You lost. How badly does it hurt, now?
Like a gnawing ache, a hole in the heart
You feel, always, that something is missing. In the middle of other things you will look up, and around, and then remember that they will never be there.
    • Mirrors icon +3 x Mirrors

    • Stainedglass icon Past: Lost Love = 10 [In the middle of other things you will look up, and around, and then remember that they will never be there]

Like a fresh wound, as red now as it was then
Sometimes the grief is raw, ravaging; a wolf-howl in a midwinter's night. At other times it sullenly slinks, waiting for a reason – any reason – to lift its head and howl again.
    • Iron icon +3 x Iron

    • Stainedglass icon Past: Lost Love = 20 [Sometimes the grief is raw, ravaging; a wolf-howl in a midwinter's night. At other times it sullenly slinks, waiting for a reason to lift its head and howl again]

Smoggy Streets
You spent much of your youth in the hard end of London, where the gaslamps are scarce, the prospects bleak, and the people as flinty as the cobbles.
undefined
How did you like it there?
You were at home
The smog painted your lungs black. Your knuckles were scarred. But it was honest. There were diamonds in the dirt.
You despised it
Only your dreams of something better kept you going. As soon as you saw an opportunity to make a new life for yourself, you jumped at it. You haven't looked back.
August Avenues
You spent your youth in stuffy sitting-rooms and chandeliered parlours. Hush, and you can still hear the delicate sound of silver spoons on china cups.
undefined
You were not ungrateful, but your life was hedged by bounds of civility and expectation. You had to disobey sometimes, to discover who you were. When you had to rebel, how did you do it?
Secretly and occasionally
You wouldn't bring shame to your household. You kept your disobediences modest and discreet. No one was any the wiser.
Openly and frequently
A cage is a cage, whether it's gilded or not. You were punished, of course. It didn't stop you.
Below stairs
The comforts of every well-to-do household rely upon the scurrying, grinding work of its servants. You know this firsthand.
undefined
You dealt with the matters your masters couldn't be troubled with, like cleaning, and cooking, and parenting. But how loyal were you?
You kept their secrets
Every family had them – some grander or darker than others. Your silence had value.
You took them for all they were worth
You skimmed from the silverware and palmed the odd half-sovereign. Once, you helped yourself to a pair of gloves and a silk scarf. They had so much that they never noticed.
Far Travelled
You have journeyed to every corner of the heavens. You unlocked this by visiting each of the four regions of the sky.
undefined
Your accounts of your travels are in great demand. When your avid audience ask what the sky holds, what do you answer?
Terrors!
Humanity was never invited to the heavens. You are intruders in a grand house, and you have learned to tread carefully.
Wonders!
If, that is, you are bold enough to tread in places others fear, and sturdy enough to weather the winds.
A Narrow Escape
Your engine was nearly destroyed, but you lived to fight another day. You unlocked this when you survived your locomotive being reduced to less than 10 Hull.
undefined
You walked through the valley of the shadow of death. How has it changed you?
You have learned to be cautious
Death waits in the sky, kept at bay only by a few inches of plating and the fires in your engine.
It has emboldened you
Carpe diem! It is death's shadow that gives life its lustre.
A Seasoned Smuggler
You have carried contraband from one corner of the sky to the other. You are the bane of the Revenue Men. You unlocked this by completing smuggling prospects.
undefined
You've carried starlight, and forbidden books, and honey that opens the heart like a key in a lock. When a novice of the sky-roads asked you what virtue a smuggler needs, what did you answer?
Boldness
Seize opportunities, and do not waver. A good smuggler roves like a wolf, strikes like a serpent, and laughs like a jackal.
Caution
Be watchful. Be judicious. Dump contraband rather than risk capture. The most successful smuggler is the one nobody has heard of.
A Keeper of the Clocks
You are a proven agent of the Horological Office. You unlocked this by serving the Horological Office.
undefined
You are a shepherd of hours. A scourge of the late and the early. Why is it important that the clocks run on time?
For neatness' sake
To impose reason on an unreasonable universe. To bring sense to the senseless. So that something is reliable, wherever you go.
For the Empire's sake
You are a small but necessary cog in a grand, complex machine. You do your part.
The Call of the Sea
The mist-sea surrounding Worlebury contains many secrets. One has touched you – or someone near to you who passed it on. There is a slight plasticity to your flesh. Enough to make subtle changes to your appearance with the aid of a mirror and some patience.
undefined
There are dreams, too: of unearthly choirs, and a purple-black sky propped with pillars of lightning. What do you do, when the dreams come?
Revel in them
In those moments – when the tireless storms sing – you feel you are home. You wake weeping, your tears as silver as mercury where they slide from your eyes and from the hidden ducts on the palms of your hands.
Deny them
You wake with a cry, and seek any means to erase the inhuman, improper visions. Work, excess, pain, drink – anything to remind you that you are human. Human!
Sunday Dinners
On Sundays, your household dined with the curtains closed. Candles lit plates piled with red meat. It was not fish. It was not chicken. It was not pork. It was not beef.
undefined
"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." – Matthew, 15:11. That was the grace spoken beforehand. It meant there were two rules: eat everything on your plate, and never speak of it.
You ate your fill
It was rich and it was red, and there is power in deeds that others fear to do.
    • Mirrors icon +3 x Mirrors

    • Unaccountablypeckish icon Unaccountably Peckish = 5 (if ≤ 4) [The people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother]

    • Hunger icon Past: Sunday Dinners = 10 [There is power in deeds that others fear to do]

    • Drink icon Stained = 1 (if ≤ 0) [The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as over-rich, cindered and irrevocably damaged.]

You did not eat
Even though you would be beaten, afterwards. Your mouth remained closed. No meat went in; no secrets came out.
An Esteemed Predecessor
An earlier captain in your lineage is held in high regard. This is unlocked because another captain preceded you.
undefined
Some of your predecessor's shine rubbed off on you. It opened doors. Expensive doors, with bright, brass knockers and servants to answer them. Where did those doors lead?
To the parlours of the privileged
Where you drank tea and glasses of port, and ate delicate triangular sandwiches – but had to endure their endless questions about your forebear.
To the halls of academe
Where it was determined you should make something of yourself and, who knows, perhaps even follow in the illustrious footsteps of your forebear.
A Disgraced Predecessor
An earlier captain in your lineage is the subject of ridicule and rebuke. This is unlocked because another captain preceded you.
undefined
Tarred with your predecessor's brush, many doors were closed to you. Where did you turn to find acceptance?
To villains
Since you were already condemned, you decided that you might as well do something unquestionably worth condemning.
To romantics
The tale of your predecessor appealed to them. "Misunderstood," they said. "Ahead of their time," they said. "Tragic," they said.
Dining with December
You have earned the gratitude of December, founder of the revolutionary Calendar Council.
undefined
All who exist under the stars have been harmed. The Revolutionaries say all have grounds for vengeance against the enforcers of the Law. But why did you seek kinship with them?
For the hope of a better future
With the Judgements overthrown and their Chain broken, there would be nothing to limit the heights every being could reach.
For the sake of revenge
You were wronged, and those ultimately responsible must be held to account. Whoever, or whatever, they are. It is just.
A Knight in the Brazen Brigade
You climbed the ranks of the Brazen Brigade. You parlayed with the Piper in her idol of Adamant and lived to tell the tale. How many can say the same?
undefined
The Brazen Brigade break with the conventions of Hell and exalt their fallen aristocracy. They worship them as saints, and plot to free them. What did you make of this unholy legion?
You share their ideals
Or at least profess to. You raise your cup to hell's saints, and offer toasts to the day when they'll come marching in.
Mad, bad, and dangerous to know
Your association was unwise. Perhaps you seek atonement; perhaps just to be more careful in the future. Still, it's an excellent story at parties.
Bearing Witness
You served the Heart-Catchers. You drank from the tears of the Second Storyteller, and saw a sun turn to night.
undefined
It is said that those who bear witness to the treachery of a sun are thereafter either afflicted with poetry or the profane. Which did you receive?
Poetry
What recourse is left, after seeing the impossible and the unthinkable? What the mind cannot encompass, the poet makes palatable.
Profanity
Nothing is sacred, nothing abides. There is no law that cannot be broken, no house that cannot be brought to ruin, no promise that cannot be a lie.
An Inheritance
A prior captain in your lineage arranged for you to receive a considerable endowment. You unlocked this by completing the Wealth ambition.
undefined
What motivated the bequest? Charity? Duty? Guilt? Regardless, the sum involved was generous without being unseemly. What did you do with it?
You squandered it
And enjoyed every moment. Life is the prize. Gold and jewels are only fuel. You will gain enough experience to grant another level.
You invested it wisely
And those investments have recently borne fruit. Shiny, clinking fruit.
An Inspiration
You are never without your copy of the Song of the Sky. You unlocked this by completing the Fame ambition.
undefined
Some call it the Skyfarer's Bible. The pages of your own copy are well-thumbed, and its spine is comfortably cracked. Why are you never without it?
It gives you solace
When you set it down, it falls open at the passage you've read a hundred times. You pull up your chair, and make it a hundred and one.
It gives you purpose
Reading about your predecessor's triumphs and tribulations, you are confident on one truth: that you could do better. You will gain enough experience to grant another level.
A Secret of the Stars
Someone in your lineage learned something they should never have known. You unlocked this by completing the Truth ambition.
undefined
Hints of a secret that the stars hide have been whispered to you. Shepherd your thoughts. Pursue the knowledge no further than this: the stars are dying.
You sought no further
You swore yourself to silence, and built a sanctuary of ignorance. Some truths are too terrible to countenance.
You asked more questions
Until you learned the fate of the captain who learned the whole secret. Then you stopped asking questions, and learned to watch for the Fire that Follows.
A Quester in your Lineage
One of your predecessors vanished while searching for the Martyr-King's Cup. Everyone assumed they'd failed, but one day an extravagant cup appeared on your doorstep. You unlocked this by completing the Martyr-King's Cup ambition.
undefined
The Cup is chiselled from weighty stone, engraved with intricate symbols that burn in the mind. It doesn't grant immortal life, but it makes an excellent conversation piece. Who do you think sent it to you?
An enigmatic admirer
The Cup was sent to you by a powerful and mysterious entity whose interests were served by your predecessor. Ever since, your dreams have been wracked by moonlight.
Your immortal predecessor
They took the Cup's power and gained life eternal. Now they travel the skies, keeping a friendly eye on their heir from afar.
A Metamorphosis
You could no longer be the person you were told to be.
undefined
Your old life would have ground you beneath it. You had to change; but was the change slow or sudden?
A gradual growth
You changed by inches, your new self growing from roots in the old. It was only after, when you looked back, that you saw how far you'd come.
A blank slate
In order to become what you needed to be, you abandoned your old life. You cast it aside, as a snake must shed its skin.
Steam & Soot
You spent much of your time at the engine-yards, watching locomotives being built, repaired, and decommissioned.
undefined
They were iron behemoths: their bones steel, their breath steam, their innards intricate as a pocket-watch. How did you spend your time among them?
Eavesdropping on skyfarers' stories
They boasted, loudly, of horrors and wonders. And when they thought no one else was listening, they whispered their fears.
Learning how engines worked
You appropriated a workbench and tools, and set to work: dismantling obscure machinery and putting it back together again.
A Black Sheep
You never fitted in – you were a piece from another puzzle. You came to revel in your family's disappointment. Their disapproval was a trophy; their condemnation a commendation.
undefined
Why did they resent you?
For your successes
That which you deemed a virtue, they deemed a vice. What you adored, they despised. The things they revered, you mocked. You were a stranger to the people who knew you best.
    • Hearts icon +3 x Hearts

    • Drink icon Past: Black Sheep = 10 [They resented you for your successes. You were a stranger to the people who knew you best]

For your failures
What a disappointment you were. And how often and lengthily they informed you of it. But the things that mattered to them were unimportant to you. You would find your own path.
Family Footsteps
The apple did not fall far from the tree.
undefined
The way you turned out came as little surprise to those around you. Cast from a mould, they said. But which of your family's qualities do you embody?
Their virtues
Some inherit wealth; you inherited character. "Good breeding," people said. Well. Perhaps. But you've always been a keen observer, and learn quickly.
Their vices
"Blood will out," they said, darkly. It certainly does, with a little help and a sharp knife.
The Great Game
Once, London crawled with agents of Paris, Vienna, Istanbul. Now, in the heavens, the old players must find a new purpose, and new enemies.
undefined
Much espionage was amateur, or at best semi-professional; there were few trained agents. Instead, you were an asset, recruited for your temperament and position. Who was your target?
Foreign powers
You worked, secretly, to keep London free from the machinations of her ancient, jealous rivals.
Domestic threats
The state was increasingly concerned with ideological threats: revolutionaries, with their hidden printing presses and their homemade bombs.
Haunted
You are plagued by the past; by some guilt or sin or old ordeal that will not let you rest.
undefined
What is the nature of the haunting?
A ghostly presence
A chill on the window. A breeze, when the window is closed. A pressure on the edge of the bed, as if someone was sat there as you slept. You are not alone.
Nightmarish visitations
You find no respite in sleep. When your eyes close, your nightmares climb down from their spidery loft. And if – in the morning – the crew won't meet your eye, you know you must have cried out in the night.
A Promise of Days
Her Majesty offered the earliest pioneers to enter the heavens a grant of thirty years if they would build houses and necessities for those who would follow.
undefined
You were one of the first through the doors to the sky, and accepted the offer. How did you spend the Queen's hours?
In toil
You helped lay the foundations of London. You dug its sewers; laid its streets. Thirty short years, to forge an Empire from nothing.
Gallivanting
You took the offered time and fled, leaving your crimes and past behind. While London grew you explored the wide sky, untroubled by laws or horizons.
Spirifered!
Once upon a time, someone took your soul. He drew it out of your mouth with a delicate silver fork.
undefined
Spirifage, the unlicensed trade in souls, is a blight on London. Yours was a fortunate case, and you managed to recover your soul some years later. But how?
Through a deal with a devil
All itinerant souls eventually find themselves in the possession of Hell's children. Devils do not, traditionally, part with souls. But you were very clever, or very persuasive.
By blind chance
You happened across your soul at a jumble sale, curdling in a chipped wine bottle. At least, you are fairly sure it's yours.
A Seance
London was obsessed with the occult. A flamboyant army of mediums claimed to be able to pierce the veil and commune with the dead.
undefined
Your hands held those of the guests to either side, clammy in the dark. The medium's voice was raw and yearning. Why were you there?
You were a plant
You used a concealed device to contribute eery knocks and groans to the ambience. Everyone there wanted proof of the impossible. You merely obliged.
You were a believer
The medium spoke, and the dead answered. You got to speak, one final time, with someone who had passed. You needed it to be true.
Pestilence
Since arriving in the heavens through the Avid Horizon you have contracted an unlikely illness. You are turning – imperceptibly slowly – into glass.
undefined
The progress of the disease has halted for now. But where has it taken root?
Beside your heart
Your breast has become translucent, and allows an educational – if distressing – view of your coursing veins and thumping heart. You take pains to conceal it.
    • Amberblue icon Past: Pestilence = 20 [Your breast has become translucent, and allows an educational – if distressing – view of your coursing veins and thumping heart]

    • Veils icon +3 x Veils

In your lungs
You suffer from a perpetual, hoarse cough, and occasionally expel clouds of emerald sand into your handkerchief.
    • Iron icon +3 x Iron

    • Amberblue icon Past: Pestilence = 10 [You suffer from a perpetual, hoarse cough, and occasionally expel clouds of emerald sand into your handkerchief]

The Bell Tolls
You have foreseen your own death. It did not please you.
undefined
Perhaps you saw it in a dream. Perhaps a medium read it on your palm, or in your tea leaves. When death comes, where will he find you?
In bed
An insipid death! A death for bankers and labourers, not for one who rode the winds! You defy it!
In the cold skies
An early death and a cruel one. Sometimes, you dream of hoarfrost gathering in your lungs. It is not the death you chose – you will elude it!
The Blockade of New Winchester
You fought in the greatest battle of the Winchester War, when the regional Governor – appointed by Her Majesty – was driven from the Reach.
undefined
The independent Tacketies besieged the port; the loyalist Stovepipes hoped to hold out until reinforcements led by the Imperial dreadnought Her Majesty's Displeasure could arrive. Which side did you fight on?
The Stovepipes
You braved the blockade, secretly running supplies to the beleaguered troops. It was not enough to turn the tide.
The Tacketies
You were part of the blockade, hunting for engines trying to supply the defenders, and scouting for the inevitable reinforcements from London.
A Settler
For a time, you lived the hand-to-mouth existence of a homesteader, carving a home on the frontier of the Reach.
undefined
A hardscrabble existence, scratched from the sky a month at a time. The Reach is verdant, but its homesteads cling to tiny, exposed sky-rocks; most fail. In the end, what drove you back to the skies?
Predators
Marauders. Monsters. The merciless tides of the Winchester War. You fought as long as you could.
    • Iron icon +3 x Iron

    • Homestead icon Past: a Settler = 10 [You were driven from your homestead by the predators that prowl the Reach]

One bad season
That's all it takes. One harvest where the crops grow weeping tumours or venomous nodules. One bad wind that rips a house from its mooring.
A Coterie
Along with some dear friends and acquaintances you have formed a tightly-bound clique of free spirits. You unlocked this by having Affiliation: Bohemia at 2 or more.
undefined
Finding the prevailing opinions of society stifling, you sought solace among more congenial company. What shared interest brought you together? This will reduce your Nightmares.
A love of art
Poetry, painting, music, sculpture – you mean to add to the beauty in the world. You are one another's fiercest critics and most dedicated supporters.
A thirst for adventure
You are all captivated by the unlikely, the unwise, and the unnecessary. "Why did they do it?" people ask, of your latest antics. The answer is simple: because you could.
A Thief-Oath
They say there is no honour among thieves. They are wrong. You unlocked this by having Affiliation: Villainy at 2 or more.
undefined
In a lightless cellar, you and your closest collaborators spoke a solemn promise that was invented in the dark. You mingled your blood. What did you swear? This will reduce your Nightmares.
An oath of solace
To shelter and safeguard one another, however dire the circumstances. To forgive each other all debts. To name the foe of one of you as the foe of you all.
An oath of silence
To know and keep one another's secrets – to the grave and beyond. You are siblings in larceny, now. A coterie of crime.
Your Club
You belong to one of London's illustrious private members' clubs. Fine food, understanding companionship, and no riff-raff. You unlocked this by having Affiliation: Establishment at 2 or more.
undefined
Admittance was a hurdle, but your letter of acceptance declared you to be 'the right sort'. Of which club are you a member? This will reduce your Nightmares.
The Dilmun Club
An august group of explorers and immortality-hunters. Perhaps the quest itself is a folly. But everyone needs a hobby.
The Parthenaeum
Don't be deceived by the gentlemen dozing by the fire and the civilised click of billiards. The affairs of the realm are decided here.
    • Veils icon +3 x Veils

    • Affiliationestablishment icon Deed: Your Club = 20 [You belong to the Parthenaeum, where the wheels of empire are turned]

A Secret Symposium
In a midnight lecture hall, a cadre of masked experts gathered to present papers on a subject the Ministry had forbidden. You unlocked this by having Affiliation: Academic at 2 or more.
undefined
Prohibited theories were shared; research partnerships born. You continue to correspond, in code, on the matters debated. What was the topic of the symposium? This will reduce your Nightmares.
'A Forensic Assessment of the Sun's Remains'
Following London's relocation, the New Astronomy has become a crucial, well-funded discipline. But the fate and physiology of Albion's dead sun are strictly barred from study.
'The Condemned Classics: an International Perspective'
Deep in the Ministry, native-speaking scribes translate their nations' literature into editions palatable to the Auditors. But you studied both the uncensored originals and those unprinted works deemed 'hazardous to British sentiment'.
A House of Cards
You've always been a gambler. You'll risk it all on the throw of a dice or the turn of a card.
undefined
Life is sweetest on the knife-edge between fortune and failure. And anyway, you win more than you lose. Why?
Because you cheat
Loaded dice. Marked cards. A sleeve full of tricks and a head full of schemes.
Because you never back down
When you raise, they fold. Because you take the risks others shy from. After all, every shot you don't take is a miss.
A Correspondent
Once, letters only had to travel from Harrow to Hackney. Now, they have to cross the vast sky. Still, the postie does his best
undefined
You live a life of letters. Each evening you sit at your desk, ink and paper to one side, stamps and envelopes to the other. Who do you write to?
Your pen-friends
You maintain a web of friends across the heavens, with whom you share your news, your thoughts, and your well wishes.
The newspapers
Under an array of aliases (including 'Despairing, of Worlebury' and 'Disgusted, of Tooting Bec') you pepper the letters pages with outrageous opinions. Do you believe any of them? Well, that's hardly the point, is it?
An Exercise Regimen
You have always kept yourself in peak condition via a regime of relentless physical improvement.
undefined
Determination is crucial: once a day, every day, regardless of mood or circumstance. What is the nature of your regime?
A programme of calisthenics
You have a helpfully-illustrated manual of exercises to improve your flexibility, your carriage, and an erect bearing.
Evening constitutionals
A brisk walk clears the lungs and the mind. Fresh air is best, of course, but when away from port you must content yourself with a sprightly turn around the locomotive.
The Devil you Know
It would be arrogant to say that devils have friends. So what were you? A curiosity, perhaps? An exception?
undefined
Devils, with their ageless eyes and their excellent hats. Their fondness for brass and their knowing smiles. Why did you seek out their company?
For the power
Devils know secrets. Devils keep souls. Devils can fold the laws of the world as neatly as napkins at the dinner table.
Their parties
You were a regular guest at the Brass Embassy. Such opulence! Such sophistication! Such wit, razored as scalpels!
The Long Arm of the Law
Truncheon and helmet; whistle and boots.
undefined
Depending on your point of view, the police are: (a) the line that separates us from anarchy, (b) a merciless instrument of the state, or (c) the worst gang in London. How were you connected to them?
A special constable
You were a temporary recruit, to help maintain order during London's perilous exodus to the sky.
An informant
You had many friends in the criminal underworld. A certain detective found that useful.
Rubbery Inclinations
The Rubbery Men are the least fortunate of London's citizens. Squid-faced, mournful, incomprehensible, despised.
undefined
They clustered in rookeries and alleys, singing in gloomy, fluting voices of Axile, their lost home. Why did you associate with them?
For charity's sake
Their poverty was brutal, their habits repellent. You needed a cast-iron stomach to help them, but somebody had to.
To learn their shapeling arts
It is said the Rubbery Men can knead flesh, knit cartilage, and bend bones. They have not always looked like this.
A Kinship with Rats
London's rats are persistent and ingenious. They are not well-spoken, but they are at least spoken. They are also marvellously skilled engineers.
undefined
The relationship between humans and rats has always been fraught. The plague. Exterminators. That ill-conceived cricket league in '86. So why do the rats accept you?
A professional respect
They admired the determination with which you wielded a spanner; the firm twist of your screwdriver; your comprehensive knowledge of pistons and gauges.
You suspect you were their mascot
They were always very kind. Sometimes they left you little squares of cheese.


Facets
Type
Origins Originpoet icon Origin: Poet
Originpriest icon Origin: Priest
Originurchin icon Origin: Urchin
Flag icon Origin: Revolutionary
Originsoldier icon Origin: Soldier
Originzeecaptain icon Origin: Zailor
Originacademic icon Origin: Academic
Searingenigma icon Origin: Auditor
Past Book icon Past: Fifteen Minutes of Fame
Momentofinspiration icon Past: An Hour in Gethsemane
Pastunlikelyhaul icon Past: An Unlikely Haul
Genericcharacter icon Past: The Liberation of Night
Smokinggun icon Past: The Battlefield
Porthole icon Past: Worse Things Happen at Zee
Unlicensedchart icon Past: Your Masterpiece
Searingenigma icon Past: A Letter of Resignation
Pastscandal icon Past: Scandal
Stainedglass icon Past: Lost Love
Pastmentor icon Past: Mentor
Bronzewood icon Past: Family Footsteps
Amberblue icon Past: Pestilence
Youarenotalone icon Past: Haunted
Key icon Past: a Metamorphosis
Pastspellinprison icon Past: A Spell in Prison
CrateofNostalgicCrockery icon Past: Below Stairs
Pastsmoggystreets icon Past: The Smoggy Streets
Cobwebs icon Past: the Great Game
Terror icon Past: The Bell Tolls
Rubberyman icon Past: Rubbery Inclinations
Repentantdevil icon Past: the Devil you Know
Pastscarred icon Past: Scarred
Drink icon Past: Black Sheep
Fire icon Past: the Blockade of New Winchester
Locomotive icon Past: Steam & Soot
Hunger icon Past: Sunday Dinners
Undistinguishedsouls icon Past: Spirifered
Wind icon Past: An Exercise Regimen
Boot icon Past: the Long Arm of the Law
Ratronaut icon Past: an Honorary Rat
Pastinterlude icon Past: An Interlude in Red and Gold
Stovepipe icon Past: The August Avenues
BarrelofUnseasonedHours icon Past: A Promise of Days
Homestead icon Past: a Settler
Stormthatspeaks icon Past: the Seance
Envelope icon Past: Correspondent
Ringmaster icon Past: a House of Cards
Deeds Hull icon Deed: a Narrow Escape
Transitrelay icon Deed: Far-Travelled
Wreckgeneric icon Deed: an Esteemed Predecessor
Wreckgeneric icon Deed: a Disgraced Predecessor
Affiliationacadame icon Deed: a Secret Symposium
Affiliationbohemia icon Deed: a Coterie
Affiliationestablishment icon Deed: Your Club
Affiliationvillainy icon Deed: a Thief-Oath
Clock icon Deed: the Keeper of the Clocks
Smuggling icon Deed: Seasoned Smuggler
Originzeecaptain icon Deed: the Call of the Sea
Maskedshade icon Deed: A Jar with your Death in it
Devilshell icon Deed: A Knight of the Brazen Brigade
Mirrors icon Deed: the Witness
Bloody icon Deed: The Final Month
Ambition Heirloomwealth icon Past: Your Inheritance Heirloomsongofthesky icon Past: the Song of the Sky Unaccountablypeckish icon Past: a Terrible Secret Martyrkingscup icon Past: the Martyr-King's Cup
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