"There are some things we were not meant to know, they say. But you wouldn't be down here if you took that seriously."
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"The Rubbery Men are the ones who resemble squids, a little. They trade deep amber for the tiny blind fish that they eat, and for human music. They seem sad, anxious and very polite. But they are terribly menacing. Faces like squid! Occasionally one is stoned to death in an episode of civic high spirits. (They're actually very nice. Almost certainly.)"[1]
"Do you recall how they came to that place? And we sang of our lightnings and shapeful disgrace? They tilted their vanes and ennobled their spires. We welcomed them then and commingled all choirs. If we could remember those days. If only we could remember."[2]
Rubbery Men are mysterious squid-faced humanoids, who for the most part cannot speak English.
Rubberies deal a brisk trade in amber; they are also eager to take their amber back.[3] Despite their apparent harmlessness, they still face xenophobia in London - devils refuse to take Rubbery souls[4] and display active hostility to any manifestation of their powers,[5][6] and they are frequently assaulted[7][8] and even lynched.[9] Despite everything, at least one of them, the Tentacled Entrepreneur, has become a somewhat successful businessman and risen high enough in society to run for Mayor of London.
The lemon-scented slime that the Rubbery Men exude appears to have healing properties, but it's best for the desperate;[10] use of the substance as a restorative may result in mild side effects, like spasms, hair growth, a slight change in the shape of the affected body part, and nightmares.[11]
The Rubbery Men, though outcasts in society themselves, have also turned away one of their number: the Nacreous Outcast.
Helicon House[]
"Interlocked tentacles: a gathering place. Soothing bubbling noise: an invitation, hesitantly extended. An explanatory writhing: humans are only sometimes permitted."[12]
Faced with hostility in London, any Rubbery Men have settled in Ealing Gardens,[13] outside the city. They have built an artistic community at Helicon House,[14] where they are free to express themselves[15] and present their ideas to a wider audience,[16] in the company of accepting humans.[17] The basement of Helicon is a lab for the Shapeling Arts.[18]
Flute Street[]
"Are you quite sure you want to know this?"
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You can find out more about our spoiler policy here.
"Flute Street, the home of the Rubbery Men. It's a cavern. Nothing like the size of the Neath, but still huge."[19]
The Rubbery Men who do not live in London or Ealing Gardens largely reside in Flute Street, a cavern that lies beneath London and is big enough to hold thousands.[20] This is the only other place besides Helicon where the Rubberies can practice the Shapeling Arts in peace; however, the Rubberies who live and work in Flute Street are in service to the Flukes.[21]
The individuals who travel between Flute Street and London were made into their current form by the Flukes to interact with human beings,[22] though there are less humanoid Rubberies who remain in Flute Street.[23] Part of their interaction with humans involves the circulation of amber, which absorbs Vital Essences that may be used to alter a being's place on the Great Chain.[24] This amber is brought back to Flute Street, and used to experiment with the Shapeling Arts[25] and commune with the Flukes that live there.[26]
The Rubberies both envy and pity their Fluke overlords: they long for their ancient forms and are jealous of the fact that they don't have to face the ire of xenophobic humans, but feel badly for how much it takes to allow them to survive in the Neath.[27] The Flukes, for their part, simply cannot comprehend the struggles that their creations face in London, making them rather annoyed.[28][29]
Interestingly, the culture that thrives at Helicon House does not appear to be as present in Flute Street,[30] but there is music every once in a while.[31]
The Rubberies hail from the planet Axile, and were brought to the Neath by the Bazaar. This was a part of a failed deal between the inhabitants of Axile and the Bazaar[32] - upended because someone or something shouted Correspondence from the heavens, scorching Axile and dooming all its creatures.[33] Despite their failings, they uphold and enforce their end of the bargain, which was to never love.[34][35]
During their time on Axile, the ancestors of the Rubbery Men may have possessed malleable and boneless bodies.[36] They used moon-misers as mounts to traverse the terrain of Axile, and relied on creatures called eye-scuttlers to do menial tasks for them.[37] The ancient Rubbery Men sculpted many-roomed structures within their pools made out of black coral that contained contraptions, such as musical instruments.[38]
When Rubbery Men dream, they dream of Axile, in a place called the Sea of Spines.[39][40] Rubberies also have a distinct experience of death, as they can perceive a color woven into the veil between life and death[41] that humans cannot.[42] They call it slobgollion - or at least, that is the closest human approximation of the word.[43]
The Rubbery Men consider themselves to be cousins of the Thief-of-Faces, making them by extension slightly more distant cousins of the Snuffers.[44]
↑Give it some Amber, Fallen London"It points one gloved hand at the pocket where you're keeping the Warm Amber, and burbles a mucus-filled question. Does it want it back?"
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"The Miserable Deviless clenches her fist until the silver ring she wears starts to melt. "But it's at least peaceful down here. When there are no... opportunities to be had, one doesn't need to spend time chasing them.""
↑"What about this?", Fallen London"The devil sighs and closes his briefcase with an unnecessarily emphatic click. "Well, in that case, I don't think we can be of any use to each other. If you've gone and infused yourself with—" he spits the word, "Essences, it's hardly worth my while to come here.""
↑"What about this?", Fallen London"There's something about this devil. And now you think of it, the other devils you've seen since you returned from Flute Street. Something wrong with them, beyond the usual. It's their Vital Essences. They're venomous. More like a nettle than a scorpion, but no use for... hang on. When did you start thinking like this?"
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"Flukes don't understand things like breathing air or having cobblestones thrown at one's head by irate humans."
↑Save a Rubbery Flophouse, Fallen London"Frantic honking draws you outside to a Rubbery-occupied tenement. Cut-purses grumble about the decline in the area's character. Local authorities are involved. Torches light in anticipation."
↑Can you be so unwise?, Fallen London"The wretched, the forgotten and the truly desperate sometimes turn to the vile lemon-scented slime of the Rubbery Men to cure their ills."
↑Can you be so unwise?, Fallen London"You can't take the spasming any more. You scrape the amber slime off your arm. The hair is gone, but more alarming is the slight change in shape. Is this your arm? What have they done to you?"
↑Rubbery Observances, Fallen London"Saving Flute Street, nowhere in London could really be called a home for Rubbery Men. Even here, they are subject to stares and unflattering comment. But they are more numerous in these parts than elsewhere."
↑Pay in the currency of perishable wealth, Fallen London"The Keen-eyed Clay Doorkeeper takes the payments, and collects hats and coats from the human guests. [...] he supplies a hand towel and a [...] guide to etiquette. [...] how to exchange greetings with a tentacled individual. [...]"
↑Below-Stairs, Fallen London"... down an unadvertised staircase, there is a room where extraordinary changes are performed – Shapeling alterations of flesh and bone."
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"The things in the pools [...] are called Flukes: something of Rubbery kind. A Rubbery Man enters the pool carefully, and remains under the water for a good twenty minutes. He scurries off, perhaps to do the Fluke's bidding. [...] How can a thing that resembles an oversized sea urchin hold such sway over the near-human Rubbery Men?"
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"They hate London. People throw things and hurt them. And humans don't understand. They hate that they were shaped to talk to humans and that they can't even... [...] What do they want to do that they can't?"
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"The Rubbery Men one sees in London are the most human of their kind. There are others. Ones who have more legs, or are twice the size of a man."
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"Every day, a few Rubbery Men are dispatched towards the surface in twos and threes. They're hard to read, but the mournful gurgles and frightened twitching lead you to believe that they don't relish the duty. Perhaps once a week, a Rubbery Man returns with handfuls of amber."
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"Enough. You must know. You stride into the cave. Inside, there are... devices. Constructions of amber and coral and steel and glass. [...] you deduce their function. The Rubbery Men use amber to capture something... some Vital Essence of those who handle it. With these Essences, they grow, they change, they warp flesh into patterns that please them. [...] are they making new shapes down here?"
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"The Rubbery Man flops carefully into the Fluke's pool. The Fluke exudes a viscous substance reminiscent of honey [...]"
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"The Rubbery Men both envy and pity the Flukes. At least you think that's it. [...] The form the Flukes take is... old? [...] The Rubbery Men don't question their leadership, but the Flukes aren't suited to life in Flute Street. It's a constant battle to keep them alive. And the Flukes don't understand things like breathing air or having cobblestones thrown at one's head by irate humans."
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"The Fluke is exasperated with its minions. Why can't they gather Vital Essences faster? Why can't they make a steam engine? Haven't they been given every adaptation to pass unseen in human society? Don't they appreciate how many Vital Essences were spent in their enhancement? Ungrateful wretches."
↑The tunnel branches, Sunless Sea"The Rubbery Men do not do what they are supposed to do. (We try to improve them.) Among humans, they are sad. (We should have made them with more teeth.) Among Flukes, they disobey. (We should pierce them with more spines.) "
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"Where is the Rubbery music? The Rubbery painting? The Rubbery theatre? When not occupied with the necessities of life, the Rubbery Men flop about listlessly. Have they no culture to call their own?"
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"The throbbing noise resolves into the resonant tones of a vast organ. [...] you make out great stalagmites [...] rising from the cave floor. Rubbery shapes bearing hammers gather round these formations. They strike the pallid pillars [...] creating a sound like the smashing of a great tolling bell. The Rubbery Men begin to hoot, but no sound comes out."
↑Give the Principles an Ambiguous Eolith, Sunless Sea"The Bazaar brought me; brought us all, all us shapelings, Axiles. The Flukes, the misers, even my Emissary. Why? Too deep a secret for me, my friend. Even here, too deep for me. Perhaps when you end me..."
↑Consent to a potentially depraved union, Fallen London"The Rubbery Men have no ceremonies of commitment. No marks of betrothal. Such things were lost to them when the black spires came to them, and failed to find a price."
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"The Rubbery Men were once something quite different. The changes are gradual, but here they were four-winged and four-legged. There they were something like a vertebrate octopus. In the deepest tunnels, there are no pseudo-bones. Were they without bones, in their original form? Or without bodies altogether?"
↑Flute Street, Fallen London"Built [...] from black coral. [..] look at the supports! Another liquid – something more viscous. [...] This building isn't from the Earth at all. [...] The building is arranged in rooms [...] At the centre [...] could be a musical instrument [...]"
↑The Upstairs Honey Den, Fallen London"They say that honey-sippers in Helicon House can find their way into the dream-places of Rubbery Men – not by the Viric Jungle, but by the Sea of Spines."
↑Look into the glassy water, Fallen London"You stare across the water mirror – not into the water, but into some deep recess of the Is-Not. There, you see no dreams, only memories. Memories of warmth and song, of contentment and joy, of a sea more sunless that welcomes the body like a familial embrace. Each memory is a spiralling body of delicate colours – flayed and stuck on violant spines of bitter anger."
↑Slobgollion, Fallen London"It's that colour again – that eye-blistering, uncanny colour! Every light-beam bends, stretching into a spectrum: green, viric, blue, apocyan, and all the radiant rest. But there – right there! – somewhere between irrigo and oblivion, another colour floods through the net-of-the-world."
↑Slobgollion, Fallen London"Most humans will never perceive it, but for the first time, you're aware when you cross the threshold. Death's Country is always right here, cloaked by a colour that no living mind can fathom."
↑Slobgollion, Fallen London"It sounds like 'slobgollion' to me, but somehow I doubt that our friend is referring to clumps of spermaceti. If that's even the word he's attempting to pronounce, then it must mean something else."
