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The Fifth City: The Neath's Lore Wiki
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in: Places, The High Wilderness, Eleutheria

The House of Rods and Chains

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Appallingsecret

"Are you quite sure you want to know this?"

Beyond this point lie major spoilers for Fallen London, Sunless Sea, or Sunless Skies. This may include endgame or major Fate-locked spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.

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"The air tastes of salt and rot. Up close, the carcass of this ancient crustacean resembles a battlefield. Its carapace is pockmarked from the impacts of space detritus, and cracked open from the impact of six spires. Doors of Leather, Rubber, Chitin, Scale, Fur, Flesh and Feather lead inside, each of them carved and branded with a letter of the Correspondence."[1]

The House of Rods and Chains is a deceased Messenger located in Eleutheria.

Homely?[]

"Hm? Oh, sorry. It reminds me of old London, and the Echo Bazaar."[2]

An eye covered by stormy clouds.

The Halved

The House of Rods and Chains was once the favored Messenger of the Halved, but was slain for disobedience.[3][4] Its body now rots in the expanse of Eleutheria, and its structures and interior have fallen to ruin and decay.[5][6] It is unknown whether the House died before or after the Halved began suppressing its own light in favor of darkness.

The House has features reminiscent of the Echo Bazaar,[7] such as seven doors of differing materials,[8][9] and spires atop its body.[10] However, it has several distinguishing traits: firstly, the House's doors are marked with sigils of the Correspondence, and are made of leather, rubber, chitin, scale, fur, flesh, and feather.[11] Secondly, the House had seven spires made of obsidian,[12] but it is unclear how many spires the Bazaar has, or what material they are made of.

The House's spires have long collapsed, but one remains, called the Spire of Inches.[13] This spire is inhabited by Mr Barleycorn, who stayed loyal to the Halved after the House's death.[14] Within Barleycorn's study is a two-way portal to the Neath, which manifests in the High Wilderness as a rippling altar,[15] and below the Unterzee as a massive, glaring eye.[16][17]

The Curators of the House[]

"Correspondence is seared into this broken wax seal. One shard reads: 'Not to be forgot.' Another: 'What awaits. Why we must stay.' There are other words, hard to piece together: Pennies and Pipes; Barleycorn and Menagerie."[18]

The House of Rods and Chains once had a set of Curator servants,[19][20] similar to how the Echo Bazaar has its Masters.[21][22] However, all except Mr Barleycorn fled their duties after its death. Originally, the House had seven Curators,[14] but the identities of only four are known. All four were acquaintances of the Masters, but chose not to follow them to the Neath.[23][24]

The Rubbery Guests[]

"It takes every last drop of your strength, and the Chitin Door fights you all the way. It is as thick as armour plating, and almost as heavy. Inside, a hundred Rubbery Men carefully ignore your arrival. Refugee Londoners, you recognise, the giveaway being their hats on their tentacled faces and the yellowing copies of the Gazette under their clammy armpits. Such earnest social camouflage never helped them fit in with society back home, but it seems old habits die hard."[25]

"They came to this place in a ship forged from broken shells. They had followed your kind from the Neath. Perhaps they believed they would find their lost Axile here. It is fortunate that they are used to disappointment. I tolerate them. They cannot disturb the Messenger – its purpose is long served. And their amber is ever so pretty."[26]

A person wearing a suit with the face of a squid.

A Rubbery Man.

The House of Rods and Chains is home to a large colony of Rubbery Men,[27] who arrived on a vessel of broken shells after London's departure to the High Wilderness.[28] They gather in the Throat of Lamentation behind the Chitin Door, and retain some habits from their days in London, such as wearing hats or carrying newspapers.[27][29] The Rubberies here run a market to exchange amber for goods[30] and services,[31][32] and stave off the House's decay using embalming fluids and labor.[33] Mr Barleycorn does not think highly of them, but it appreciates the amber they donate as tribute.[34][35]

The Rubberies of the House seem desperate to find their home planet of Axile,[36] and Barleycorn suspects they traveled here in search of it.[28] Unfortunately, the Rubberies' explorations have been fruitless,[28] and their spirits are low.[37] To express their yearning and anguish, they congregate in the Throat of Lamentation to sing, using the room's acoustics to amplify their voices.[38]

The laments of the Rubberies are:

  • The Lament of the Old Sun: A song of the Rubberies' lost home and the sorrowful journey that brought them here.[39]
  • The Lament of London: An elegy that recalls the bells, bustle, and musical performances of old London.[40]
  • The Lament of False Hope: A performance where the Rubberies break into groups, such that one group orbits the other. The music is initially joyous, but ends in dejection.[41]
  • The Lament of Axile: Begins with a chorus to dream of home, then breaks into individual performances so every Rubbery Man's shames and losses are heard.[42] This lament is also performed on the House's surface: the Rubberies cry out to the skies in grief,[43] but bond over their shared homesickness and hope.[44]
A chunk of golden amber.

Golden amber.

Deep below the Throat are the Drowning Coils,[45] a network of waterlogged corridors and rooms, some of which store dross.[46][47] The Rubberies here do not abide by the civilities of those above,[48] and they tinker with the Shapeling Arts to combine amber with other materials to produce valuable golden amber.[49] Deeper still is the Sprawling Morass,[50] a cavern filled with noxious gasses that have rotted away its walls and hallways. The area is flooded with a foul, knee-deep liquid, and chunks of amber are littered throughout.[51] The Rubberies who gather here are described as "feral,"[52] and commingle in colonies and feed off weeds growing in pools of white ammonia.[53] The only lights in these depths are from apocyan pyres, attended to by Rubberies who howl in endless lament.[53]

Historical Inspirations[]

Rods and chains are units of length, equal to 16.5 feet and 22 yards respectively.

References[]

Curator gallery fanart by Feivelyn.

  1. ↑ The House of Rods and Chains, Sunless Skies
  2. ↑ Log Entries, Sunless Skies
  3. ↑ The House of Rods and Chains, Sunless Skies "You near the House of Rods and Chains, a ruined complex atop a great, dead beast. Once it was the favourite Messenger of the sun. Before it disobeyed."
  4. ↑ Talk with Mr Barleycorn, Sunless Skies "But the Messenger defied the Halved's command, and the Halved slew it."
  5. ↑ The House of Rods and Chains, Sunless Skies "The air tastes of salt and rot. Up close, the carcass of this ancient crustacean resembles a battlefield. Its carapace is pockmarked from the impacts of space detritus, and cracked open from the impact of six spires."
  6. ↑ The Drowning Coils, Sunless Skies "The House's arteries are the size of corridors, many of them filled with stagnant sweetwater and held open with arches of bone ivory. The walls are primarily polished chitin that resembles mahogany, though years of rot and decay have left many gaps to glimpse the dried out fat and muscles behind."
  7. ↑ The House of Rods and Chains, Sunless Skies "Your Aunt is lost in thought. "Hm? Oh, sorry. It reminds me of old London, and the Echo Bazaar.""
  8. ↑ Ambition: Nemesis - the Glistering Spires, Fallen London "The Bazaar has seven doors. The Copper Door opens to tales of blood and peril."
  9. ↑ Sidebar Snippets, Fallen London "The Bazaar has many doors. Copper, ivory, glass, ormolu, steel. If you must go in, choose your entrance carefully."
  10. ↑ Tiles and a Yacht, Fallen London "Mr Apples is holding court in a cramped and dripping cellar beneath the Bazaar spires."
  11. ↑ The House of Rods and Chains, Sunless Skies "Doors of Leather, Rubber, Chitin, Scale, Fur, Flesh and Feather lead inside, each of them carved and branded with a letter of the Correspondence."
  12. ↑ The Spire of Inches, Sunless Skies "Seven obsidian spires once stretched into this sky."
  13. ↑ The Spire of Inches, Sunless Skies "Seven obsidian spires once stretched into this sky. Only this one remains."
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Talk with Mr Barleycorn, Sunless Skies "There were seven of us, once. Outcasts, bound to this Messenger's service. But the Messenger defied the Halved's command, and the Halved slew it. We were free. My colleagues, fled. But I remained to serve the Halved."
  15. ↑ Examine the altar, Sunless Skies "Examine the altar [...] Its surface ripples oleaginously at your approach. [...] You touch the surface. The world twists and there is only darkness and water and cold and drowning. [...] The sky with its false-stars. [...] This is the Neath: the vast subterranean cavern in which London lay before climbing to the heavens! And the cold, black waters you are thrashing in are its Unterzee!"
  16. ↑ What's that?, Sunless Sea "Welcome, Trespasser, to the House of Rods and Chains. Your daring is notable, and rare."
  17. ↑ Dive into the pupil, Sunless Sea "You descend. The blackness of the pupil expands. There is no cornea to bar your way, no lens. The pupil is a tunnel, and your vessel plunges into it."
  18. ↑ Cloven Seal, Fallen London
  19. ↑ Introduce the Short-Sighted Cryptozoologist, Sunless Skies "She's travelled a long way to meet this particular Curator. [...] What do you call yourselves – I mean, it can't be 'Curator' in your own language, right? What's the difference between a Master and just a Mister, no offence? Ooh. What do you look like under that cloak? Are there female Curators?" She lifts the now terrified looking Mr Pennies' hood and squeals. "You're adorable! How do you fit those wings in there? And—" [...]"
  20. ↑ Give Mr Barleycorn the Seal of Mr Pennies, Sunless Skies "Give Mr Barleycorn the Seal of Mr Pennies [...] You have encountered another of its kind."
  21. ↑ Ask if it knows Mr Menagerie, Sunless Skies "Perhaps, the Curators are acquainted with each other."
  22. ↑ A secret about the Masters, Failbetter Games "Firstly, that the Masters' kind are denizens of the High Wilderness. [...] they accepted the position as emissaries of the Bazaar in order to escape misfortune, failure, and fruitlessness."
  23. ↑ Cloven Seal, Fallen London "One shard reads: 'Not to be forgot.' Another: 'What awaits. Why we must stay.' There are other words, hard to piece together: Pennies and Pipes; Barleycorn and Menagerie."
  24. ↑ Incarnadine Fur Robe, Fallen London "It is unquestionably a token from Mr Menagerie: a sometime acquaintance of ours who chose, disjudiciously, not to accompany us to the Neath."
  25. ↑ Attempt to open the Chitin Door, Sunless Skies
  26. ↑ Ask about the Rubbery Men, Sunless Skies
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Attempt to open the Chitin Door, Sunless Skies "[...] the Chitin Door fights you all the way. [...] Inside, a hundred Rubbery Men carefully ignore your arrival. Refugee Londoners, you recognise, the giveaway being their hats on their tentacled faces and the yellowing copies of the Gazette under their clammy armpits. Such earnest social camouflage never helped them fit in with society back home, but it seems old habits die hard."
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 Ask about the Rubbery Men, Sunless Skies "They came to this place in a ship forged from broken shells. They had followed your kind from the Neath. Perhaps they believed they would find their lost Axile here. It is fortunate that they are used to disappointment. I tolerate them. They cannot disturb the Messenger – its purpose is long served. And their amber is ever so pretty."
  29. ↑ The Throat of Lamentation, Sunless Skies "The Rubbery Men have taken over this spiral shaped atrium."
  30. ↑ Trade for fuel, Sunless Skies "The carbon from the House is hardly Hell-approved coal, but it burns."
  31. ↑ Pay for an evening's rest, Sunless Skies "A Rubbery Man stands guard in front of sleeping alcoves."
  32. ↑ Story description, Sunless Skies "Each has been appropriated by one or more Rubbery Men, squatting on hessian mats and running stalls inspired by their time in London. They trade in amber, a naturally exuded substance of their kind, making trade more ceremonial than commercial."
  33. ↑ Compile a Port Report, Sunless Skies "They shuffle around on their own business, polishing and cleaning and preserving the corpse of the House with equal parts elbow grease and embalming fluid."
  34. ↑ Ask about the Rubbery Men, Sunless Skies "I tolerate them. They cannot disturb the Messenger – its purpose is long served. And their amber is ever so pretty."
  35. ↑ Attend the Lament of the Old Sun, Sunless Skies "This is Mr Barleycorn, [...] One Rubbery dares approach, extending tribute: golden amber. The figure takes it between clawed appendages. Tastes it. Appears to approve."
  36. ↑ Commingling on the Carapace, Sunless Skies "Rubbery Men from within the House of Rods and Chains have gathered around a fallen Spire on the surface. They hold their heads high, staring out at the stars as if hoping to catch a glimpse of their lost Axile somewhere deep in the Eleutherian darkness."
  37. ↑ Witness the Lament of Axile, Sunless Skies "[...] a shared hope that one day, the suffering will be over. It just won't be today."
  38. ↑ The Throat of Lamentation, Sunless Skies "They gather here to trade amber and share songs of loss and regret. Its shape gives it excellent acoustics – the songs resonate from the walls, doubling the volume and timbre of their voices."
  39. ↑ Attend the Lament of the Old Sun, Sunless Skies "Words without language. Pain without end. They sing of their lost home and in waves of shared sorrow they remember how they came to this place. They sing and remember [...]"
  40. ↑ Attend the Lament of London, Sunless Skies "This Lament hangs heavy. The chime of once-great bells. A constant chattering of teeth that brings to mind boots pounding cobbled streets. Though there are lyrics to the Rubbery song, the wails often take on the form of tunes that once seeped out of London's musical halls."
  41. ↑ Attend the Lament of False Hope, Sunless Skies "The choir splits into two groups – the majority circled by a small number of Rubberies that shuffle around the rest like some counter-clockwise tick. The music is a roundelay of cheer that crashes down into a wailed grief."
  42. ↑ Attend the Lament of Axile, Sunless Skies "From every throat, the same ululating chord. It breaks. Splinters. From the shared dream of home to each individual shame and loss. Soon every Rubbery is singing their own song, as unique as the tentacles that hang from their faces. If there is any orchestration, it is impossible to make out in the cacophony. Even so, deep within the discordance there is the ghost of order – every sadness gets at least a moment to be heard."
  43. ↑ Commingling on the Carapace, Sunless Skies "Rubbery Men from within the House of Rods and Chains have gathered around a fallen Spire on the surface. They hold their heads high, staring out at the stars as if hoping to catch a glimpse of their lost Axile somewhere deep in the Eleutherian darkness. One by one, their warbling ululations rise."
  44. ↑ Witness the Lament of Axile, Sunless Skies "Comfort in homesickness [...] The Lament is low, its melodies impossible for any human tongue to capture. In their grief, however, at least the Rubbery Men have kinship; a shared hope that one day, the suffering will be over. It just won't be today."
  45. ↑ Descend deeper into the House, Sunless Skies "Spiral stairs run down into the darkness."
  46. ↑ The Drowning Coils, Sunless Skies "The House's arteries are the size of corridors, many of them filled with stagnant sweetwater and held open with arches of bone ivory."
  47. ↑ Explore the Drowning Coils, Sunless Skies "The rooms down here are bowl shaped, many half-filled with water or unrecognisable fluid. Their doors are as likely to lead to ceilings or high up on the concave walls as anywhere convenient for you. Most are empty or piled high with rubbery waste."
  48. ↑ Explore the Drowning Coils, Sunless Skies "The Rubbery Men here are less civilised than their topside brethren. They wear no hats and carry no newspapers. Eyes watch you from within the walls."
  49. ↑ Observe the Rubbery Men, Sunless Skies "Here, they experiment, combining it with other materials to transmute it. A few flute excitedly as golden amber pours from the vats. It is the rarest and most beloved flavour."
  50. ↑ Head deeper into the House, Sunless Skies "The air hangs with resentment that becomes less civil and more feral as the light fades away."
  51. ↑ Explore the vast cavern, Sunless Skies "The air down here is slowly melting the House's innards, collapsing lost rooms and corridors into one rank, endless cavity lined with calcified abscesses. The foul liquid regularly rises to your knees; an itchy rash develops where it touches. Occasionally your feet kick against chips of amber in the mire. There must be larger pieces here, [...]"
  52. ↑ Explore the vast cavern, Sunless Skies "The feral Rubberies stare at you from their nests."
  53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 Deep in the Spawning Morass, Sunless Skies "The alkali-infused darkness burns your eyes. Down here the Rubbery Men commingle in quivering colonies and leech from weeds that sprout from pools of viscous white ammonia. The only light comes from smouldering apocyan pyres, each attended by a rubbery chorus howling an endless lament."
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