"Most people think that the hard part of surgery is finding what's wrong and taking it out, but any fool could do that. A ship's cook with a cleaver can have that part of the job. The hard part is cutting so you can sew it all back up again afterwards."[1]
The Cladery Heir is a surgeon of unusual parentage.
"I specialize in amputations. It's easy to acquire unwanted appendages at zee."[2]
The Cladery Heir is a skilled surgeon who specializes in amputation.[3] By cutting out bits of skin or flesh,[4][5] or sometimes a whole toe or earlobe,[6][7] she can excise a person's worst impulses and desires.[4] These include tendencies towards adultery,[4] thoughts of vengeful murder,[6] or even cravings for sunlight.[5] Most patients suffer no ill effects afterwards barring some scars,[4][8] and the Heir likes to preserve the body parts she extracts as souvenirs.[9] The Heir uses special knives and tools for her work,[10] and her skills also work on cadavers[11] and non-human creatures.[12][13] However, it is implied that her operations are never completely effective.[14]
The Cladery Heir has a roguish and lackadaisical personality,[15][16] and believes that the real challenge of surgery is operating carefully enough so that the patient may be closed up again.[17] Her bedside manner is brisk and blunt,[18] but she genuinely cares for her clients[19][20] and refuses to perform dangerous operations.[21] Though her practice focuses on excising obsessions, she herself is terrified of them; she often tries to appear dispassionate,[22] and is willing to operate on herself to remove sentiments that trouble her.[23][7]
A Matter of Parentage[]
"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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"My mother was the child of a surgeon in the First City. You might say that knifework runs in the family. Then there are the rumours about my father. She would deny there's any truth in those."[24]
"There's more difficult work I could be doing. Did you know my mother operated on the Bazaar itself? She cut away its cladent lobe so that it would be at peace and not have to wander on and on. But the operation changed her. She got some of the ichor on her skin."[25]
Under the knife.
The Cladery Heir is a member of the House of the Knife,[26] a family that originates from the First City.[27] Her mother, the Surgeon's Child,[28] was the daughter of a First City surgeon,[27] and the Heir can speak the First City's ancient language.[29] As for her father, the Cladery Heir believes him to be none other than Mr Iron, one of the Masters of the Bazaar.[30] Her mother dismissed the idea and claimed Iron was only her sponsor,[31][32] but the Heir believes this to be a lie as her mother would surely never settle for an ordinary partner.[33] However, the Cladery Heir's father was ordinary: he was an engineer, and the Surgeon's Child operated on his voice so that he would not look for their daughter. He is now a destitute tomb-colonist, but the operation did not entirely remove his desire to know of his daughter's safety and fortunes.[34]
During the First City, the Surgeon's Child amputated the Echo Bazaar's "cladent lobe" to remove its urge to wander.[35] This exposed her to the Bazaar's ichor,[35] and she was over three thousand years old when she bore her child.[36] The Surgeon's Child experimented on the lobe and fashioned it into a living, autonomous ship called the Cladery Heart, but eventually lost track of it.[37] The Cladery Heir now wants to find the Heart in her mother's memory, but she is conflicted by this desire due to her distaste for passion and obsession.[38][39]
↑ 4.04.14.24.3Explore her Surgery, Sunless Sea"Here's the patch of skin from the palm of a woman's hand. I took it from her in order to cure her of the urge to adultery. Now she wears gloves, but she's kept her marriage."
↑ 5.05.1Have the Cladery Heir perform an urgent intervention, Sunless Sea"A [...] zailor is trying to gain passage to the Surface. He must stop desiring it. [...] The Cladery Heir extracts something from the zailor. It gleams with its own light. [...] The zailor curses you [...] "Now there's nothing but zailing in the dark [...]"
↑ 6.06.1Give the Cladery Heir a Prisoner to cut open, Sunless Sea"The Cladery Heir comes out of the surgery with an earlobe. The prisoner goes back to their cell, [...] not a day [...] they haven't thought of killing a certain person," says the Heir. "Now they don't have to think of it any more.""
↑ 7.07.1Push her about meeting her father, Sunless Sea"[...] she goes into her operating room with a scalpel and a mirror. [...] she has her small toe preserved in a whiskey jar, and a happy indifference to the question of her parentage."
↑Refer a patient to the Cladery Heir, Sunless Sea"The Cladery Heir offers her a consultation. Afterward, the patient has a curious crescent scar on her forehead, [...] "I can wear a hat. It's no matter." She buries the pelts with honours, and buys a ticket for the next ship back to London."
↑Explore her Surgery, Sunless Sea"On her shelf she keeps things preserved in alcohol or packed in oil. Things she cut from patients. [...] "These are souvenirs," she says."
↑Employ the Cladery Heir, Sunless Sea"She comes with a bag full of knives and her own personal sharpening stone. "Don't touch these. Don't let anyone else touch them.""
↑Let the Cladery Heir have a Blemmigan, Sunless Sea"She has expressed interest in discovering how it works. Why does it propagate? Where is its obsession located? [...] She works [...] the blemmigan is gone and she has a vial [...] cosmogone powder. "I would advise against eating any of this, unless you fancy a very altered state of mind.""
↑A bandaged funger, Sunless Sea"Her mother cut my voice. Hoped to fix it so I wouldn't be able to look for my daughter. So I wouldn't want to." He wheezes. "Didn't work. Operations never... completely effective. Need to know my daughter's well."
↑Give the Cladery Heir a Prisoner to cut open, Sunless Sea"The Cladery Heir emerges from her surgery in a curiously light mood. The body is wrapped [...] for disposal. "This is happier than living would have been." [...] "The prisoner would have died in a month or two. The difference is, I took out the pain.""
↑Increase your Hearts, Sunless Sea"Most people think that the hard part of surgery is finding what's wrong and taking it out, but any fool could do that. [...] The hard part is cutting so you can sew it all back up again afterwards."
↑Give the Cladery Heir a Prisoner to cut open, Sunless Sea"The Cladery Heir emerges from her surgery in a depressed mood. The body is wrapped in linen for disposal. "There was nothing wrong with the technique," she tells you. "If they'd been willing, it might have cured them of certain ailments... but they fought back under the knife. And what I extracted wouldn't be fit to stuff a sausage.""
↑Seek the Cladery Heart among the abandoned hulls, Sunless Sea"The Cladery Heir [...] moves slowly, so that she doesn't look too eager. "We probably won't find her here," the Heir says. "I don't expect to. I don't believe in clinging to specific hopes and expectations of that kind; it's just the sort of obsession that ruins lives, just the kind of thing I'm always having to repair..." [...] "It doesn't matter," [...] "I don't mind." [...]"
↑Where is the Cladery Heart now?, Sunless Sea""I avoid obsessions, myself. But I know one of these days I'll have to operate on myself. Remove some desire that has gotten too unwieldy.""
↑The Surgeon's Child, Fallen London"[...] the Fellow sold the majority of his possessions in order to fund expeditions – in search of 'the Heart, the chiefest treasure of the House of the Knife'."
↑Her father...?, Sunless Sea"Perhaps you can get her to say more about her father. [...] "I get my proficiency with metal from both sides of the family," [...] "Mother was a favourite with Mr Iron. [...]"
↑Invite her to dine with you, Sunless Sea"My mother was the child of a surgeon in the First City. [...] there are the rumours about my father. She would deny there's any truth in those."
↑Her father...?, Sunless Sea"Mother was a favourite with Mr Iron. She says that they only worked together, that Mr Iron sponsored her work and provided her with tools."
↑Mr Iron? Truly?, Sunless Sea"[...] I have not met anyone who shares my particular skills. And I know my mother. I cannot see her in any ordinary liaison with an ordinary man, much less a husband."
↑A bandaged funger, Sunless Sea"The Tomb Colonist draws you a little way away from the Cladery Heir. "Don't tell her you met me," he says, in hoarse rasp. "Her mother cut my voice. Hoped to fix it so I wouldn't be able to look for my daughter. So I wouldn't want to." [...] "Didn't work. Operations never... completely effective. Need to know my daughter's well. Happy. Finding enough patients. Getting enough to eat [...] "I'm her father," he says. "Ordinary engineer. Not the sort of parent she would want.""
↑ 35.035.1Explore her Surgery, Sunless Sea"Did you know my mother operated on the Bazaar itself? She cut away its cladent lobe so that it would be at peace and not have to wander on and on. But the operation changed her. She got some of the ichor on her skin."
↑What happened to the cladent lobe?, Sunless Sea"Mother experimented on the lobe, [...] It wanted to be on the move, however, and in the end she put it on a ship, or built a ship around it: the Cladery Heart. But it got away from her."
↑Keep the Cladery Heart, Sunless Sea""It doesn't matter to me," [...] Then she says, "Or... it shouldn't matter to me. The Cladery Heart is all I have of my mother, but I learned not to need her. [...]"
