The First City

The First City
Location	The Neath

"Only two things are known to remain of the First City: the name, the Crossroads Shaded By Cedars, and the saying: even the First City was young when Babylon fell." "The first taught restraint..."

The First City, known as the Crossroads Shaded By Cedars, was originally located in Ancient Mesopotamia and dates back to the third millennium BCE. The remnants of this city live on in Polythreme; ruins and artifacts of the First City can also be found in the Hinterlands, especially under the Magistracy of the Evenlode.

There are a few confirmed living survivors of the fall of the First City:

• The Manager of the Royal Bethlehem Hotel, who was once its priest-king.

• Polythreme's King with a Hundred Hearts, the lover of the Manager and once a merchant from China. The merchant was dying of "fits," so the Manager brokered a deal with the Masters of the Bazaar to save his life. They accomplished the task by shoving a large jewel from the Mountain of Light into his chest, creating his current form.

• The Capering Relicker, who was the first to brew Hesperidean Cider. He is the Manager’s uncle.

• The Cladery Heir's mother is from the First City, and she is spoken of as if still alive. She was the surgeon responsible for lobotomizing the Bazaar, removing its urge to deliver messages.

• The Yearning Custodian, who was born in the First City and initiated the Marvellous in the Third. He now resides in the Root of Need in Parabola, and is the Keeper of the Marvellous and chronicler of its history and rulings.

There are also a number of rumors about other living survivors; a Salty Fabulist claims there is a priest living on an atoll, who challenges all those who encounter him to tell him a true lie. Those who cannot answer the riddle must stay on the atoll with him.

So-called First City coins, which apparently are recent fakes, are used in the Marvellous as a substitute for ’fragments of a primal power’. They are traditionally exchanged in sets of thirty, the number of silver coins Judas was paid for betraying Jesus.

Historical Inspirations

From all available evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that the First City was the Sumerian city of Uruk. While there is an Eye Temple portrayed in Fallen London, the real-life Eye Temple located at Tell Brak in modern-day Syria is named after the thousands of eye figurines found within, rather than eyes in the walls as described in-game. As such, we believe this is a coincidental similarity given the sheer amount of evidence pointing toward Uruk.

This would mean that the Manager is Gilgamesh, from the famous Epic of Gilgamesh, due to the similarities between his tale and the epic (although there are differences). The King with a Hundred Hearts would be Enkidu, Gilgamesh's closest friend in the epic; however, in this story he was originally a merchant from China, rather than being a creature of clay the whole time like Enkidu. Additionally, the King's relationship with the Manager was explicitly romantic. Lastly, this would mean that the Capering Relicker is probably Utnapishtim, who in the epic was granted immortality by the Sumerian gods as a reward for preserving humankind through a great flood.