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"I found myself dreaming of the Stone Pigs. They're, oh, I don't entirely understand, still. But they're how the Bazaar travels between stars. (Did you know they did that?) And they sleep."[1]
The Stone Pigs, which are not actually pigs, are the engines of the Echo Bazaar.[1]
Sleeping Beasts[]
The Pigs once propelled the Bazaar through the High Wilderness, but they have been grounded for quite a long time by now. They are responsible for the creation of the Cumaean Canal,[2] and they also churn and grind a city into nothing whenever a new one is about to Fall.[3] Fortunately, however, they spend most of their time asleep these days; lacre is used to keep them sedated.[4]
The Stone Pigs are some of the most bizarre and eldritch creatures in the Neath, and describing them is quite taxing. They are vast and hairy, but they are not pigs.[5] They do, however, consume fungi like pigs (pigs love truffles after all).[6] The Pigs will never drown in lacre, only slumber in it,[4] and they obey no master when they are hungry; if they are starved, they will seek out food on their own.[7] If a creature, or perhaps specifically an ordinary pig, is fed what the Stone Pigs eat, it may become one itself.[8] (Neathy taxonomy is weird.)
The Stone Pigs do not have hearts of their own. Their shared heart is a fungus - a living thing - that was once greater than a city. But this has been butchered and consumed over the course of eons,[9] and it is more like a fuel core than a fungus.[10] The current one is bloated with the memories of the five Fallen Cities;[11] it is dead, but it will live on through its poetry.[12]
The Tireless Mechanic managed to cheat a secret of the Stone Pigs from the Fingerkings, and stored it within Frostfound.[1] Through an esoteric combination of ingredients, including a heart (as this is destiny's engine), he created the Fulgent Impeller, an extremely powerful engine that runs as hot as the forces that drive the Bazaar.[10]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Ask the Mechanic to explain exactly what the hell is going on, Sunless Sea
- ↑ Travel to the Surface, Sunless Sea
- ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, Fallen London "Some people call them Stone Pigs. When the Fifth City fell, they awoke. That's why the Fourth City doesn't exist anymore. They churned it into the ground."
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Putting the Pieces Together: the Taste of Lacre, Fallen London
- ↑ Flute Street, Fallen London "The hairy stone wall goes for a hundred yards in each direction. The edges are fast against the stone [...] the hairy stone is pierced and crumbling. Is this a Stone Pig? If it is, what happens here?"
- ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, Fallen London "If something looks like a mushroom, call it a mushroom. If something wants to eat mushrooms, call it a pig."
- ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, Fallen London "[...] their hungers must be satisfied again, or they will break away to feed themselves. They will obey no master without food."
- ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, Fallen London "Her pupils are wider than pies, and her whites milky-blue. She isn't stone. Perhaps she's not a pig either. Taxonomy, in the Neath, slips like a snake in your hands: even if you get a grip, you might get bitten too."
- ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, Fallen London "The Stone Pigs do not have a heart. The heart they do not have is here. It speaks to you. It is a fungus too. Once greater than a city, now butchered and shrunken and small. Only a quivering lump smeared on the altar and skewered."
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Construct the Fulgent Impeller, Sunless Sea
- ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, Fallen London "What was lost still echoes here. Thoughts that rumble and congeal. Material for me to weave [...] Cataclysms when five cities fell [...] when they were crushed [...] here underground. My memories. They are mine now. Soaked into my mycelium."
- ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, Fallen London "They will not die. A memory, their poetry, survives."