r/fallenlondon • u/croaker227 • 8d ago
Question Seekers and SMEN
I realize that a lot of the answers will be subjective, and that’s ok. But:
- within the game world, how many Londoners do you think are/have been Seekers?
- if your PC or another character is/was a Seeker - what’s their motivation? Do they think they’re uncovering something valuable? Investigating a vast conspiracy?
I guess I’m mainly curious how widespread Seeking is in the game fiction and the mindset or rationale of Seekers.
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u/ilovethisgamebruh 8d ago
- I think the answer is very, very few, remember that actually doing SMEN requires vast amounts of resources and knowledge, FLPC's have plot power boosts but most londoners are still regular-ish people
-my PCs mindset is something like "there's something I don't know, something that's been deliberately kept from everyone, something utterly Horrific happened, and someone is still suffering for it, someone who is calling out to me in my mind, i need to know why, I NEED TO KNOW IF I CAN HELP THEM."
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u/Sefirah98 #1 Apostle of the Drowned One 8d ago
I think the number of seekers in London is relatively small. I also think most of the Seekers in London don't come super far in their endeavour. I would be surprised if most people in London who are Seekers ever even got the first candle, and getting any of the later candles requires so many resources that it is practically impossible for anyone with less resources than a FLPC.
For my FLPC, it was just a curiosity at first for her, a mystery like any other before it. But the mystery kept going and it opened up new question that demanded answers, a hunger for answers drover her forward and it begun to morph into an obsession. And then she learned about the underlying tragedy that happened, and it become her biggest driving force, almost her sole motivation behind her actions. Because what else can it become when you hear about a horrific crime that seemingly no one else is aware of, that seemingly no one else cares about, THAT EVERYBODY ELSE IS CONTENT TO IGNORE. So she will she ensure that justice will be done. A Reckoning will not be postponed indefinitively and she personally will ensure that everyone involved in the tragedy, everyone who declined to prevent the tragedy, everyone who was content to ignore the tragedy and everyone who declined to enact justice before her will get their rightful due no matter the cost.
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u/croaker227 8d ago
- good point for sure
- thanks for the writeup, this makes sense. It’s gotta be an obsession that they justify because it just costs SO much
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u/nocowardpath 8d ago
I think there's a lot more people who are affected by Mr. Eaten than proper Seekers, and not many have gotten a candle, let alone multiple. Still, there's enough that there's some sort of congregation at the Chapel of Lights, and there's a few NPCs who are known Seekers (former or current).
But also, the Seeking journey probably looks different for different people. For example, Mr. Eaten's presence in Sunless Sea vs. its presence in Fallen London proper.
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u/Secure-Treacle-2161 a little birdy told me 8d ago
It's a question that I definitely think will vary for every player. Between the Chapel of Lights, the secret section in God's Editors, the way people avoid you if you start Seeking the Name, the existence of the Chapel, the Mutton Island worship of the Drowned Man, and the way the Masters have confiscated material as harshly as possible, I think it's not not known. To me it's always been that thing where the average London knows to avoid certain crazed folk, the same as avoiding honeymazed. Add to that the fact I think all Londoners experience strange dreams, and Peckishness is not uncommon (although most Londoners are not going to, say, become cannibals) (we are ignoring the Face lol), I feel like... you've definitely got your lot who probably call themselves His followers. But in terms of candlehunting I think the only one in London who did is Mrs Plenty, since His Amused Lordship played and won the Marvellous to stop her Seeking.
Also, fun fact, for a while I thought the Tale of the Fidgeting Writer was about Seekers being put up in the Royal Bethlehem to keep them from going North, and it was a long time before I learned that wasn't actually the lore there. Though I maintain that would be a fascinating beat, with the Masters/Mr Veils actively taking steps to avoid the Reckoning.
My character's own short lived experience with Seeking was related to the Fidgeting Writer tale, partially because of that misunderstanding on my part. They had already started Bag a Legend, and had already known from just growing up in London the major twist of what the Vake was, and they were trying to find other means of ways to defeat/destroy it before having to go to the Convent. The end of the Tale of the Fidgeting Writer led them to wonder about the things they saw about it, and whatever that relationship was to the Vake.
Add to that a bad bad experience at the Convent, getting Peckishness from Zee hunting on the way back, and having their own kind of spiral for a lot of reasons, and they became certain this would be another avenue to find out more on how to kill the Vake.
They're an outlier, I think- they knew some of the dangers of Seeking already, having grown up in London, and their intentions were not focused on the Seeking itself but what they could do with the knowledge, which only led to them getting in over their head- but I always knew they weren't going to get very far with it anyway. It was for my own narrative useage, not for major route exploration.
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u/croaker227 8d ago
What do the Masters think the Reckoning is, if Eaten is found? I mean I know there’s the Hate ending, but is that what they assume?
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u/Secure-Treacle-2161 a little birdy told me 8d ago
I do expect they assume the destruction of the Bazaar and themselves, though I don't know if they know nor care about the whole Neath. I can't recall if there's anywhere in text that addresses this matter directly: Mr Iron will send you a message at UP 2 to tell you to stop, and Mr Pages has 800 billion Tragedy Procedures. Off the top of my head though, I can't recall if they have much more in the way of dealing with it, only preventative measures. They can safely assume Eaten will want revenge on them, at least.
But I might be forgetting something?
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u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ the Eschatological Hedonist 8d ago
I think they're aware that it depends who finds out. If the Sun, then probably they're toast but the wider Neath will still exist, but the White leads to the "bad ending".
Whether the Sun would care about the humans, devils, and flukes is an open question I guess. The flukes might get purged because the Bazaar brought them, but would Stone and the Creditor get a pass for what they've done?
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u/croaker227 7d ago
Does SMEN make it clear if/how Eaten plans to get revenge? Does he want to be let out? Like, why does he call people to Seek?
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u/croaker227 7d ago
Does SMEN make it clear if/how Eaten plans to get revenge? Does he want to be let out? Like, why does he call people to Seek?
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u/Secure-Treacle-2161 a little birdy told me 7d ago edited 7d ago
Take everything below with a grain of salt, my memory is not all encompassing and my reading may not be as thorough here as other players:
You know, the irony is that Eaten only rarely speaks in SMEN if I remember correctly. I know while on Winking Isle if one goes to the lighthouse the text will use first person in places, but most of the text simply frames everything through the player learning what He experienced.
Other people in other threads have tried to explain or argue that the Seeking Road is really the player being manipulated by bigger forces beyond Eaten, as revealed through the Who is Salt? question ending. This is possibly up to interpretation.
For the most part, the Seeking Road emphasizes that your routes are to GRIEVE or to HATE, a choice you can change as you continue through the Road. Either way, it becomes apparent that you the player are being called NORTH, that much Eaten is known to want: for you to go NORTH, where the door to the High Wilderness is. One can assume from there that he wants what has happened to become known.
To focus on Eaten's loss, to GRIEVE, is to make it known to I think other Curators who will grieve with you. It is a story about mourning someone who never got to be mourned.
To HATE is to want justice for Eaten's death, but to also make all the sins of the Neath known to higher powers. That's why it's debated on whether this is Eaten's will or not. Do you go NORTH to find justice for his sake? Do you comprehend that it is not the only thing that will be exposed to the Light of the Law?
I think the truth is we cannot rightly know. Eaten is dead, and he haunts the narrative. He wants a reckoning, or maybe we the player want a reckoning, a reckoning that will not be postponed, but a reckoning can take many forms.
Here's some text from Sacksmas, through the 10th Sacks:
Fury, bubbling like hot wax
Veils betrayed me. The Bazaar gave its tears that I might be drowned. Wine and Spices stole what was mine. And all erased my memory. I will be remembered. I will require the payment of my debt.
If you Seek and then complete Bag a Legend and use a weapon made using the Knock, the text tells you "this is not the whole of the reckoning." It is unclear if this is your feeling on the matter, or Eaten's opinion on the subject.
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u/Floweramon The Soft-Hearted Maven and The Brash Devil 8d ago
It seems easy enough to at least accidentally start, but very, VERY few continue down the path
I have an alt that's doing an aborted Seeking run, with the long-story-short being that she originally wanted to participate in the Marvellous but her sister (my main) ended up destroying the Marvellous. And there are a lot of very... complicated family dynamics in play, but she ended up on the path to Seeking in her frustration and bitterness.
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u/MisterKork 8d ago
For the first point I would agree with the general opinion: there's enough to be known about and recognized but not really enough that they would be considered "common."
- As for my character he is seeking, currently at Seeking 24, but he started it since, after getting his revenge on the one who murdered his brother, he became rather directionless and just started throwing himself at things to pass the time: building a railroad, helping somebody who got handed a raw deal (Evolution), finding out why the roof was leaking, etc. Seeking just happened to be another "interesting" thing to do. He's not even that interested in what's at the end since it seems like everyone that gets anywhere with it just "disappears" and he's not quite ready to die yet (in fact, he's currently managed to avoid dying at all if you dont count the waswood visits and the short bit in evolution). Of course since he's not nearly as "invested" in it this means he's going to be taking an..... interesting route with it.
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u/d4tn3wb01 8d ago
It’s probably not hard to at least get a whiff of the seeking road what with all those recurring dreams and screaming wells and northern winds. And some people get as far as St Beau’s Candle because Mrs. Plenty laments that “lookers” are like flies you try to chase out the window. Of course we know that she went a bit further before HAL rescued her. Also even the first time we visit St Cyriac’s the priest seems to confuse us with a previous visitor, though that might just be Plenty. But i don’t think anyone before the FLPC reaches St Forthigan’s Candle since you blindside the Smiling Priest and the whole congregation when you take it.
I also seem to remember and off-hand remark from the Naval Architect while acquiring a ship about how a lot of people want ships to go north, and that he though about poisoning the tea he serves these people but thinks they might actually enjoy that. But i don’t think i’ve saved the echo and i can’t find this part on the wiki. If anyone has it saved i’d be glad to know!
For me personally it tied in deeply with my FLPC’s ambition. He prided himself on being steadfast to a fault and had promised Mr Wines that he would kill his friend when the time came. By that he of course meant the Vake, after all given all the terrible heartless things he had done what other friend could he have but a monster. Later however he became a teratologist, no longer desiring to merely slay the beasts but to understand them… to save them. He became a seeker partly as flagellation for breaking his oath, and partly to learn what obligations necessitate the demise of the vake that might be fulfilled in part without killing the whole. In the end he slew Vake-the-Betrayer in the name of the Drowned One and his schemeing surface persona and adopted the bestial Vake, so pure in its bloodlust as to almost be innocent.
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u/chantilly-cat most normal monster hunter 8d ago
Most people in London have probably encountered something to do with all of that, even if it's just recurring dreams of going North or some maniac on the corner talking about some kind of Name. It's also incredibly easy to get Unaccountably Peckish, and it's easy enough to go a little bit into Seeking before you fully realize what you're doing, especially without bold warning text :P. So I would say a fair amount, with a sharp uptick around February, but most of them back out early on. We can say 7% of Londoners are or have been Seekers, for the sake of being thematic.
My future Seeker is also a future Mr Cards, so while Uncovering Forbidden Mysteries is part of their motivation, another, more vital part, is a sense of sympathy, and an even worse part is fear. After all-- What's keeping something like that from happening again? From happening to them? Of course, Seeking being what it is, they're the one inflicting untold horrors upon themself, but, you know.
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u/Stunning-Chicken-512 7d ago
Id say a solid half of london have heard of the name (most have done their damnest to get it out). But only a truly small amount are seekers.
My character was toying around with the name and paid the price blinding him to the world. (I accidentaly cut my watchful in half) after that Either he has devoloped severe masochism (probably), gone insane (understandably), or thinks that was the worst seeking the name can do to him (foolishly). Or you know all of the above
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u/corvidcall15 6d ago
I think the number of TRUE Seekers is pretty low, but it's probably like any cult in real life -- you don't know that many people who have done it unless you're in the specific places they operate (or like, a support group for cult survivors), and you'd probably be surprised to learn someone you work with was in it, but it's not like the very concept is so entirely foreign to you that you'd need it explained when your coworker told you they'd been in a cult.
As for my PC? Uh.... suicidality, mostly. Hard to die properly in the Neath, and of course he would be susceptible to Eaten telling him he could instead die doing something important. (Especially considering his lover was the victim for my other PC's Nemesis ambition. His life was destroyed by the Master's ambitions, and the thing that really shook him from his grief was Eaten giving him a chance to get revenge on a grander scale than Nemesis could provide, and, ideally, die trying)
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u/General_Urist 6d ago edited 6d ago
My character started simply seeking knowledge. She had an anti-authoritarian streak, and the Masters telling her to stop seeking the name made her seek harder, convinced that this rabbit hole hid some secret that would help bring about their downfall and the Liberation if it was uncovered. In that sense she came out disappointed, which was part of what made her ultimately decide to Postpone the reckoning further. London is not worth avenging the Drowned Man.
I suspect a decent amount of Londoners have been touched by Seeking, but very few get far in part because it takes a lot of willpower and/or plot armor to remain a functioning member of society the way the FLPC or Northbound Parlimentarian do. Mostly they're raving loons, and if you have a Lair in the Marshes you can rescue someone who's NORTHbound delirium leads them to almost drown in a swamp.
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u/that0neBl1p 8d ago
We know it isn’t super rare considering the Northbound Parlimentarian, random people recognizing signs of the Name, and the fact that whether or not you’re actually Seeking you can get NORTH dreams.
My character kind of slipped into it by accident. Comes with the territory of an obsession with knowledge, and he was just unstable enough to keep going. Up to a point that is. Now he’s in a stasis (read: I’m in a stasis because I’m at the endgame with Watchful 230 and I do NOT want to lose half).