What am I doing?
The Ligeian Medusa is long dead, as is well attested. It's nevertheless well-attested also that she walks the streets of Budapest by moonlight.
Throwing out a quick update post since picking up a couple new subs via Eigenrobot’s recommendation.
As alluded to in my previous post my contract with California Correctional Healthcare Services ended at the end of December. Still between jobs now, present outlook isn’t great but not emergent. There’s room for one more final post about my experience there, but, as with many things, once I’ve moved on it’s difficult to summon the desire to think about it too much.
Been deep diving into Book of Hours and one of the projects I have on the edge of my mind is a comprehensive exploration of the world’s lore. It’s related to Cultist Simulator in a world built by Alexis Kennedy filled with mysteries that seem to be begging to be teased out and there haven’t been very many good sources that I can find that have really done so. I’d like to make it a YouTube thing but before it’s a YouTube thing the writing process will make it first a Substack thing.
You can safely stop reading here, but here’s some of the no-context teasers for the sorts of thoughts I’ve been having:
I can clarify the Winding Stair bit just because I happened to go down that particular rabbit hole this morning trying to figure out where the Wheelocks fit into things.
The "Winding Stair" is likely the Grand Ascent, but Gregory Wheelock also probably replicated it's construction for a house in the bounds maintained by his family called Treowen. Treowen is described as "Roost-touched", and he marked the bricks of Treowen with Ramsund, the "speech of birds". My guess is that Treowen was built on the site of what was once a meeting places of the Roost, the Hours that occasionally meet as birds.
On the Winding Stair specifies that the Winding Stair was what Walter Dewulf hired Gregory Wheelock to construct (elsewhere this was famously the large main staircase that was fitted for busts of the Dewulf family): "Gregory Wheelock, the master mason and architect employed by Walter Dewulf to construct the Winding Stair and the guest chambers in Hush House, describes a more ambitious and dangerous project."
The Temptations of Architecture highlight how construction of either the Winding Stair or Treowen (or both) went awry: "No doubt they have come to regret the ambitions of their Winding Stair; even now in Treowen, a silver sea is unwisely visible from a rash window…' Westcott explains that the Wheelocks, the 'charge-holders of Treowen', have had recourse to dramatic measures to prevent oneiric encroachment., removing the entire top floor of the building. 'Nevertheless,' he writes, 'the business of the Moon-Hall has begun to touch the other business of the house...'"
I'm very much not 100% on this but I think the Baronial/Curia main central section of Hush House may have once had another entire top floor that's now gone, and that the Grand Ascent ends at the third floor without the stairs leading anywhere. The Abbey Church and the entire Solar Gothic section, being Solar Gothic, would have been built long before the Baronial and Curia parts of the mansion. There's basically nothing in game that backs this up though.
(There's two other Wheelocks mentioned in books, but it's unclear how related they all are: Detective-Ostiary Wheelock of the Suppression Bureau, who wrote An Exorcist's Field Manual, and Abraham Wheelock, Eva Dewulf's fiancé who died under extremely suspicious circumstances--notably that "his face is so badly pecked by birds that he is only identified by his belongings". It seems the Wheelocks very much ran afowl--opportunity for pun not missed--of the aviform Hours.)
As for the Back Stair, I'm not sure where to start there but it's possible it's as innocuous as leftovers from the description of the blocked room: "Someone has filled these stairs with baulks of timber and broken furniture. They've filled the timber and furniture with signs to bring shadow and despair. Did they want to prevent an intruder from passing, or a resident from leaving? Either way, it'll be difficult and careful work to open the stairs."
From what I understand/am guessing from several cryptic sources, the literal "Leashed Flame" was either a Forge Long or Name (or may be the process involving creating a Forge Name from a Forge Long) that was being kept in captivity, from which they were extracting an endless supply of iotic essence probably for the purposes of manufacturing Orpiment Exultant (or possibly they were extracting the ink directly), which is maybe how the Bronze King/Leashed Flame got their power; though this maybe begs some questions wrt how encaustum terminale are supposed to (not) be used. They may have just had conventional access to extremely advanced Ithastry ie pyrotechnics ie maybe proto-firearms? Something capable of "destroying or transforming their enemies". Only-slightly-whacky alternate interpretation here is that the Bronze King -was- the Forge Long/Name in question.
The High Traditions of the Noble Endeavour: "They claim to be heirs to the Leashed Flame, which gave the island of Britain such appalling power in some histories."
The Book of Cinders: "The text takes as its theme the motto of the Society of the Noble Endeavour, ALITUR PROPRIIS IGNIS CINERIBUS - 'a fire by its own ashes is nourished', and uses this as a way into discussions of alchemical techniques… A surprisingly casual final section mentions that iotic essence, 'the root of the Great and Exultant Ink Orpimental', can be refined with enough Forge from a variety of liquids."
Both editions of the Carmine Petal "proposed by 'Lionel' of the Society of the Noble Endeavour" describe alternately how one could "imprison" or "provide sanctuary for a fugitive Forge-Name. (It actually just occurred to me now that "the Disciplines of Scar and Hammer together would be necessary to create such a prison - but that either on its own would serve to release its occupant" is also describing the Oubliette Containment, though the one in Hush House is probably not the same one being used by the Leashed Flame.)
The History of Inks: "The History concludes with the admission that the encaustum named 'Orpiment Exultant' was once drawn from the veins of Forge-long."
Opus Magnum Caeruleum might be referencing all of this as a process of turning a Forge Long into a Forge Name but it also might just be referring to something else entirely.
The "Great Misfortune" is apparently popularly considered to be an event where Henry VIII suffered an injury from his horse falling on him during a joust, and the subsequent "Great Debasement" being his diminished health "affecting the coin of the realm" (Old Coppernose and the Softer Metal); we can maybe surmise that these aren't literal, but it's not clear what they were precisely.
From the descriptions of the War of the Roads 1451-1551, the Alloy of the White Rose, and the Amalgam of the Red Rose, plus a little real world historical context, we can guess the "War of the Roads" was either this history's version of, or a shadow war fought at the same time by the same parties as, the War of the Roses (the alchemical traditions of the Dawn Road and the Sunset Road of the houses of York and Lancaster respectively, the latter winning in both this history and irl history), which led to the establishment of the dynasty that included Henry VIII (the Bronze King). Thus it's probably not the outcome of the War of the Roads that determines the supremacy of the Leashed Flame, but rather whatever the Great Misfortune/Debasement actually were.
I can't say for sure without thinking about it a lot more but I don't get the sense that the Crime of the Sky was involved anywhere here.
Thinking on it, I suppose it might make sense that the destruction of the Dawn Road, resolving the Edge-dyad, might be the "Great Misfortune".
It's unclear to me whether literal incest is an apparent circumvention of the Crime of the Sky and I don't know enough British dynastic history to know how true to history that would be. Whatever they -were- doing to circumvent the Law could be the "Great Debasement" plus or minus how the Bronze King failed "his attempt to cheat the Forge". AFAICT one of the current Paramount Mysteries without a public answer is who actually enforces the Crime of the Sky since it's apparently -an- Hour but it would have to be one powerful enough such that the Hours themselves are subject to (and afraid of) the Law. In either case this may or may not be the Forge of Days.
Either of those could also be the Intercalate, which I hadn't realized until following this rabbit-hole just now apparently post-dates the War of the Roads.
For whatever reason I woke up recalling that the Hissing Key describes Echidna being involved in the conspiracy to slay the Seven-Coils (and subsequently to help the "Milk-Thief" ascend), her being a Ligean/alukite means (at least, the consequences of) the Crime of the Sky must be ancient. This points to the gods-from-stone, of whom only two remain.
So I think the most satisfying answer is that it's a domain of the Watchman, and thus the other Hours are bound by it by virtue of the "treaty" between the Calyptra and Chancel. "The Watchman's Tree is a compromise. If Calyptra could end it, they would. If the Watchman could end Calyptra, he might."
One of the heavily hinted at ways of "avoiding" the Crime of the Sky is to have children before ascending. This is probably how Eva's secret descendants are able to exist. AFAIK, the Crime of the Sky is, specifically, that two Long-or-greater cannot procreate (this may or may not also mean it's safe if only one Long is involved). It may also be sort of technically possible to "power through" as an alukite somehow; Echidna is known to have "birthed so many children, and some yet survive" (though, being the Mother of Monsters, the survivors may not be human anyways), and she's also known to be using another possible loophole whereby she simply "adopts" "children" (apparently, again, typically other monsters).
Did a quick "literature search" on adoption since I thought I recall that being involved in another context and yeah, the Queen's Turn: "A sixteenth-century translation of the Barrowchild's account of 'Lagiah's Turn' - when Lagiah, the Queen Unsated, was offered the opportunity to enter the service of the Hours of the Triple Knot, as long as she repudiated her brother-lover Antaios. Lagiah accepts, setting aside 'the arts of the low red sun' associated with Antaios. She bargains, however, for freedom for her daughters. The Hours of the Triple Knot accept casually, knowing that Lagiah has devoured her daughters - but wily Lagiah has decided, 'in the secret hollow of her heart', that she will adopt any who ask, if they can prove their fierceness." Though with some assumptions this seems to rule out incest as a method of avoiding the Crime of the Sky.
If you want to take a peek, here’s a copy of my public notes from 3/10.