Kingeater's Castle

Kingeater's Castle
Kingeater's Castle (Map)
Kingeater's Castle (Gazetteer)
Located in	Sea of Statues
Ports	Pennington
Shops	No
Shipyard	No

Kingeater's Castle is a half-ruined stone citadel surrounded by vast, mostly-sunken statues. It was made available in the Diamond release. The port is called Pennington.

Port description

An old voracity lives here, in the far reaches of the zee. The priests are long gone, but sacrifices are still made. Perhaps you have come here to make a sacrifice. Perhaps the sacrifice is you.

Interactions

Actions	Requirements	Effects	Notes
Compile a Port Report Silence. Desolation. The sense of an impending and terrible mistake.	A Port Report: Kingeater's Castle = 0	"Everything is horrible." It's not really an appropriate title for a formal report, is it? Let's find something a little more clinical. A Port Report: Kingeater's Castle = 1
An act of burning faith Which god holds sway here? Storm, Stone, Salt? Perhaps no god that is elsewhere named. But if you feed it, it will calm your mind.	1 x Fuel 1 x Supplies Terror ≥ 50 and ≤ 99	A red and roaring light At Kingeater's Castle, one finds unexpected words rising easily to the lips. You speak them, and so do your zailors, as they build the offering pyre. "The heart is destiny's engine," the bo'sun mumbles. He looks embarrassed. "We shall all return," you find yourself reply. You light the pyre and stand back. The flames warm you, warm your crew. The light plays on your faces and your outstretched hands. The darkness shrinks back. In crackling of the flames is the sound of home. -25 x Terror -1 x Supplies -1 x Fuel	Game note: This will expend Fuel and Supplies to lower your Terror.
Sacrifice three zailors The Castle is hungry, but it can heal your flesh.	Crew ≥ 4 Iron ≥ 50 Menaces: Wounds ≥ 1 [You have one Wound. At three Wounds, you'll die.] At Last: the Threshold ≤ 0	Echoing screams Your surviving zailor's eyes are wide, but here in this place, they dare not defy you. Next. And the next. -1 x Menaces: Wounds +20 x Terror -3 x Crew	Game note: This will decrease your Wounds by 1, and increase Terror.
Offer your stories, all of them What is one more departure among so many?	Luck challenge (50% to win) 1 x Zee-ztory	Failed event	Game note: This may take you elsewhere, at the cost of all your zee-ztories. Choose it only if you are desperate to be somewhere else.
		Into memory The isle will hear your story, and then it will be forgotten. When it is forgotten, so will you be. You will pass out of the memory of rock and into the memory of dawn. There is only one place where dawn remembers. Zee-ztory = 0 Goes to: Irem
		Successful event
		The rising of the lights With a grating shriek, the walls of blackened stone rise around you. Already they blot out the false-stars' light. No: the water is receding! Phosphorescent cliff-clingers gawp as the zee sinks. Monster-bones rise from the murk. The ship tilts violently sideways, with a sound like a reef's jaw closing. The zee, the zee! It rises, black-fisted, and falls on you with all its weight. You cling desperately to the helm. The waters drain away. Zailors lie coughing, or flopping like fish. Zeeweed drapes the railings. Around the ship, the lights of Wolfstack docks. Zee-ztory = 0 -5 x Hull -1 to -3 x Crew Goes to: Fallen London
Allow the Gall-Eyed Engineer to go ashore "This is the place! Please, Captain. My time is close."	Gall-Eyed Engineer ≥ 1	"There!" She rises on her feet like a dancer and darts towards the shadowed altar. "Oh, so much. I see so much. Red roses. Here! Look here! The dawn is bleeding. The stars are hungry. East - it went East when it was done. There are drums beneath my feet. Look where I rise. Look when I am gone! Oh, those colours, those colours. My heart - my heart - " She collapses. With a jubilant buzz, a cloud of red wasps bursts from her, circle once, and rise, disappear among the shadows of the column tops. High above, you hear an answering buzz. Where she indicated roses, you find a cache of fuel buried beneath the bones of sacrifices. Where she spoke of drums, you find Khanate religious treasures beneath a stone - world-stones, ivory cups, a hand-drum of shell. The zailors carry her corpse back to the ship. You spare a single glance for the ruined rags of her face. It's enough to see that she died smiling. -1 x Gall-Eyed Engineer +5 x Fuel +3 x Outlandish Artefact
Put a blemmigan ashore It's quivering.	1 x Docile Blemmigan Propagation: Not Kingeater's Castle ≤ 0	Gone The blemmigan creeps down the ramp, on to the stones of the Castle, past the litter of bones. It slows. It collapses, with a sigh like a deflating toy balloon. Even as you watch, its skin begins to shrivel and dry. No blemmigan will ever prosper here. -1 x Docile Blemmigan +1 x Propagation: Not Kingeater's Castle
Stand at the altar with the Gnomic Gallivant He has powdered one of his rubies, and is sprinkling it into a vial of wine. "It is time, Addressed As."	Ruby Writing = 15 [Bound for Kingeater's Castle]	A man out of time He downs the vial and begs your pardon. Before you can ask for what, he's bent double in a violent coughing fit. You kneel beside him. His eyes are wide but unseeing, his limbs trembling. He wretches. His teeth are stained vivid red. "Master Bourdain?" he croaks. "It is done. The College of Mortality is one less. We had help: a London captain." He pauses, listening. You hear nothing, but the Gallivant smiles. "Oh, that is very just. Is there anything -? Yes. Yes. I will anticipate them. I'll -" The Gallivant blinks, and laughs. He grins at you, his tongue cleaning the red from his teeth. "My master is a man guided by his principles: liberty, equality, eternity. If his plans are achieved, you will be among the first to receive immortality. I hope we'll meet again, then." Ruby Writing = 20 [The Gnomic Gallivant spoke to an invisible master. You have been promised liberty, equality, and eternity] +1 x Secret +1 x Extraordinary Implication
Construct the Fulgent Impeller Under directions from the Mechanic, your crew piece the slabs of black ivory together, as the ancients were said to assemble stone walls without mortar. Sometimes they must saw a piece in half, or abrade its sides to make it fit, but the work proceeds with surprising speed. The Impeller begins to take shape - a squat, heavy-shouldered shape, like a scarecrow built to resemble an engine. "I don't think this is engineering any more," the Mechanic confides. "Possibly it's witchcraft. But I don't really mind." He rubs his hands.	1 x Element of Dawn 40 x Stygian Ivory 1 x The Mechanic's Secret 1 x Unsettling Sage 1 x A Casket of Sapphires Objective: Materials for the Impeller ≥ 1 [Take one Element of Dawn, one Casket of Sapphires, and forty units of Stygian Ivory, along with the Mechanic's Secret and the Unsettling Sage, to Kingeater's Castle.] Crew ≥ 5	Destiny's Engine Now the Mechanic wraps ivory segments with wire and scalds them with acid. He stains them with blood. ("I'll need some of yours, too," he says apologetically. "You're the captain.") He studs the bones with sapphires. He has the sailors bring up his last two custom-made components: an assemblage of copper tubes (in which he places the Element of Dawn) and a steel capsule the size of a barrel (which he has the zailors lock into the Impeller's black bone core). "Almost ready," he affirms."It just needs a spark, and a heart." He looks to the Unsettling Sage. "Yes, I know," the Sage says, a little sadly. "The heart is destiny's engine." He climbs into the capsule at the Impeller's heart, and locks the framework into place behind him. The Mechanic strikes the tubes which contain the Element, and it spits forth a sizzle of rosy light. The ivory blazes instantly with energy! The capsule, instantly incandescent with heat, seals shut forever. With a ticking sound, it slowly begins to cool. The Impeller stands radiant and whole before you: a jigsaw of heatlessly blazing ivory, with a martyr at its core. "What a relief!" the Mechanic says. "I wasn't entirely sure that would work." He claps you on the shoulder. "My work is done. Thank you. Thank you!" -40 x Stygian Ivory -1 x Element of Dawn +1 x The Fulgent Impeller -1 x Unsettling Sage Objective: Materials for the Impeller = 0 +10 x Terror +1 x Searing Enigma -1 x A Casket of Sapphires Learning About: The Tireless Mechanic = 30 [You've learnt that the Mechanic stole a secret from the dreams of the Stone Pigs.]
Rid your Sigil-Ridden Navigator of his troublesome humanity He lies on the slab. He hands you the knife.	Learning About: The Sigil-Ridden Navigator = 70 [Your Sigil-Ridden Navigator wishes to retire. Speak with him to learn where he might find peace.] Menaces: Unaccountably Peckish ≥ 3	The rite The power that presides over Kingeater's Castle bears witness - your pact is not with it, but with your Navigator's sigil. You open him up and remove the parts he doesn't need anymore. He laughs in exultation as each one goes wetly into the stone basin. You carve six more copies of the sigil inside him, then close him up. He sits, smiles, stands, speaks. "Thank you, Addressed As. I am at home." The thing that follows you back to your ship is not the Navigator. But it has his skills, and his face (though the right half is blotted by the sprawling sigil). The crew edge away. Sigil-Ridden Navigator = 0 +1 x Sigil-Eaten Navigator Learning About: The Sigil-Ridden Navigator = 100 [At Kingeater's Castle, your Sigil-Ridden Navigator met his end. A Sigil-Eaten Navigator accompanies you, now.] +1 x Menaces: Unaccountably Peckish (if ≤ 4)
The Sixth Witness A woman in rags stands on the battlements, staring to the East.	Gant Pole: A Witness to Nothing ≤ 0 Gant Pole: The Fading Haruspex ≤ 5 [The Haruspex prepares to breathe her last] Under the Unterzee ≥ 1	Startled by your approach "I am sorry. I didn't expect anyone else to be here. Sit with me. No, do not look East. I only dare because I know I will see nothing, like the five before me. It is my first time at zee. We do not get out much. But you! You must have travelled far to end up here. Tell me your stories." You barely begin before she interrupts. "How about the Gant Pole? They say there they see the future. If you go, could you ask what the Seventh will witness? I happily give my life to prepare the ground, but to know would be the greatest of honours." Gant Pole: A Witness to Nothing = 1 [The Sixth Witness asked you to visit the Gant Pole]
The Sixth Witness She waits to hear what you learned at the Gant Pole.	Gant Pole: A Witness to Nothing = 2 [You have the answer for the Sixth Witness at Kingeater's Castle] Under the Unterzee ≥ 1	The rewards of curiosity You call to her, but she doesn't react. You touch her shoulder and it gives way. Salt. A sudden breeze blows into your eyes, whittling the statue down to just a small pile at your feet. Only the binoculars remain as they were, untouched and untransmuted. You pick them up and look to the East. Past the Deconstruction, where the known zee ends and the legends begin. Somewhere, in the deepest distance, a light flickers. You hear the splashing of a distant wake, getting closer. But it is gone as fast as any other passing fancy. The memory is already fading as you leave. The Gods of the Zee: Salt's Curse = 0 The Gods of the Zee: Salt's Attention = 1 Gant Pole: A Witness to Nothing = 3 [The Seventh Witness has looked East from Kingeater's Castle] +1 x Searing Enigma
Lose your mind Offer your thoughts at the altar.	Terror ≤ 20 [Wary]	Falling castles A dead wind which blew from the north. A hungry sun rode the wind. It made of memories a castle. There are mirrors in the ice. A thousand doors and none. The end of the chain is horizon's beginning. Horizon's beginning. Your throat is bleeding. +100 x Terror +7 x Fragment	Game note: Do not do this.
Eat your crew Not all of them will go easily.	Iron ≥ 150 Terror ≤ 99 [Haunted]	Alone alone all all alone Alone on a wide wide sea. Crew = 1 Nacreous Survivor = 0 Nacreous Outcast = 0 Maybe's Daughter = 0 Nobody's Daughter = 0 Maybe's Rival = 0 Presbyterate Adventuress = 0 Delightful Adventuress = 0 Genial Magician = 0 The Prudent Magician = 0 The Urbane Magician = 0 The Satisfied Magician = 0 Brisk Campaigner = 0 Indomitable Campaigner = 0 Carnelian Exile = 0 Determined Doctor = 0 Disillusioned Doctor = 0 Haunted Doctor = 0 A Chequered Character = 0 A Shady Sort = 0 Tomb-Colonist = 0 Gall-Eyed Engineer = 0 Longshanks Gunner = 0 Plausible Surgeon = 0 The Scarred Sister = 0 Shady Cook = 0 Sly Navigator = 0 Sigil-Ridden Navigator = 0 Irrepressible Cannoneer = 0 Your Father = 0 +50 x Terror +5 x Menaces: Unaccountably Peckish +1 x Menaces: Wounds Tireless Mechanic = 0 Bandaged Poissonnier = 0 Bandaged Chef-Paramount = 0 The Merciless Modiste = 0 The Pirate-Poet = 0 Gant Pole: The Fading Haruspex = 0 Cladery Heir = 0	Game note: Do not do this. This will destroy all your crew and any human, or near-human, Officers. The struggle will wound or even kill you.
What now? Drifts of bones. An empty altar. The Name burns beneath your breastbone.	Letters of the Name-Which-Burns ≥ 7 [Seven letters: the name is complete] Carnelian Exile ≤ 0 At Last: the Threshold ≤ 0	Knowledge You have the Name, you have the will, but there must be a ceremony, an assembly of witnesses.	Game note: Find the Carnelian Exile to continue.
What now? Drifts of bones. An empty altar. The Name burns beneath your breastbone. The Carnelian Exile knows. You've seen it in her face.	Letters of the Name-Which-Burns ≥ 7 [Seven letters: the name is complete] Carnelian Exile ≥ 1 Learning About: The Carnelian Exile ≤ 19 [You've visited the Exile in her cabin.] At Last: the Threshold ≤ 0	"Everything in its proper order. When we have broken bread and shared salt; when certain questions have been answered. My pattern is unalterable."
Speak your name The Carnelian Exile waits to bear witness, lips parted. Wind tugs a strand of her hair free from beneath her cap. Thunder growls softly overhead. Light flickers red-gold in the West, pale in the South. Waves prowl the isle's edge. The powers of the zee will bear witness, too. And Salt? Salt is silent.	Letters of the Name-Which-Burns ≥ 7 [Seven letters: the name is complete] Learning About: The Carnelian Exile ≥ 20 [You answered the Exile's question.] At Last: the Threshold ≤ 0 Menaces: Wounds ≤ 0	Seven letters The Name-Which-Burns is stitched in fire across the black air. The Exile falls to her knees. Without hesitation, your crew joins her. Your name bursts scalding from your throat. You will always bear the scars. -5 x Hearts +2 x Menaces: Wounds At Last: the Threshold = 1 [You spoke your burning name, at last]
Give up your past Now the wind is rising. The Exile raises her voice. "The Traveller comes! O my captain, give up the lessons of your life!"	At Last: the Threshold = 1 [You spoke your burning name, at last]	The sacrifice is made You don't even remember what you don't remember. But strength seeps from your limbs. The Dawn Machine's radiations crackle. The Mountain glows, across the Continent to the South. Flukes roil irrigo in the zee. The wind staggers you - you lean into it, and barely keep your feet - At Last: the Threshold = 2 [You sacrificed your mortal past] -25 x Iron -25 x Hearts -25 x Mirrors -25 x Pages -25 x Veils	Game note: This will reduce all your skills by 25.
Give up your past Or did she say "...of your love"?	At Last: the Threshold = 1 [You spoke your burning name, at last] Romance: Someone Back Home ≥ 1 [You have a sweetheart in London.]	The sacrifice is made One last time, you see your sweetheart's face, and then the memory is erased as by a wave. Even the name is gone. The Dawn Machine's radiations crackle. The Mountain glows, across the Continent to the South. Flukes roil irrigo in the zee. The wind staggers you - you lean into it, and barely keep your feet - At Last: the Threshold = 2 [You sacrificed your mortal past] Romance: a Child in London = 0 Romance: Someone Back Home = 100 [You had a sweetheart in London]	Game note: This will remove your sweetheart, and any child, permanently from your life.
Give up your future "Sacrifice what comes!" the Exile shouts. Her voice is almost lost in the wind. "Give up what you have cherished!"	At Last: the Threshold = 2 [You sacrificed your mortal past]	Homeless as the wind What was yours is yours no longer. Storm roars its approval. In the pulsing depths of his throne-pool, the Fathomking raises a wine-glass. At the summits of the columns around you, one by one, the stone hearts of the Castle wake to thunderous life. The Kingeater has accepted your sacrifice. At Last: the Threshold = 3 [You've unravelled all your fates] Memoirs: Quality of Lodgings = 1 [A Room above the Blind Helmsman] An Ironclad Will = 0 Heirloom = 0
Give up your future Or did she say "...who you have cherished"?	At Last: the Threshold = 2 [You sacrificed your mortal past] Scion ≥ 1	Rootless as the wind Your family will forget your face. Storm roars its approval. In the pulsing depths of his throne-pool, the Fathomking raises a wine-glass. At the summits of the columns around you, one by one, the stone hearts of the Castle wake to thunderous life. The Kingeater has accepted your sacrifice. Scion = 0 At Last: the Threshold = 3 [You've unravelled all your fates]	Game note: This will remove your Scion, and your dynasty.
After the sacrifice The wind drops. Your crew, and the Exile, rise to their feet. Waves sigh against the hull of your ship. You feel light; free; empty.	At Last: the Threshold = 3 [You've unravelled all your fates]	The last island So much emptiness - so much lost. That's good. No one travels East without a hole in the heart. But you need something more. Salt's Song will give you what you need. Travel to Irem, now, to claim it. At Last: the Threshold = 4 [In the Pillared City, Salt's Song waits]

Triggered Interactions

Your Father's Bones: at Kingeater's Castle

For this event to become available, you must have Your Father's Bones: A Cold Trail ≥ 50 (go to Kingeater's Castle), no Your Father's Bones (obviously) and Memoirs: Your Past = 4 (A Soldier).

All around the altar, bones lie in brown drifts, like naked fossils. If the Admiral is to believed, your father's bones are here among them. But which? Where?

Actions	Requirements	Effects	Notes
Sift through them The Castle is almost silent. Only far-off waves and the bamboo click of the bones. They are light in your hands. A little greasy to the touch.	Your Father's Bones: A Cold Trail = 50 - 99 (Go to Kingeater's Castle)	Tales bones tell A dozen or more of the bone-piles wear a knife in their rib-cages. Two of the knives are undistinguished tableware, and one is rosy glass, but most are of a similar type: flint hilts and blades of dark coral. These are the knives that Drownies bear, those unsleeping dead who lure sailors with their song. Their ruler is the Fathomking. Surely he must know something of what happened here. +50 x Your Father's Bones: A Cold Trail	Game note: Travel to the Fathomking's Hold to continue.
Too many bones A dozen or more of the bone-piles wear a knife in their rib-cages. Two of the knives are undistinguished tableware, and one is rosy glass, but most are of a similar type: flint hilts and blades of dark coral. These are the knives that Drownies bear, those unsleeping dead who lure sailors with their song. Their ruler is the Fathomking. Surely he must know something of what happened here.	Your Father's Bones: A Cold Trail = 100 -150 Your Father's Bones: The Fathomking's Key = 0	Tales bones tell	Game note: Find the Fathomking's Hold, somewhere in the south or central Unterzee, to continue. This will only trigger if you come back after speaking to the Fathomking, before completing his requests.
Match the knife to its twin The Fathomking gave you a knife. It is the exact twin of the one he gave to your father. If you can find and match it... there! There, that is the one!	Your Father's Bones: The Fathomking's Key ≥ 1	An unclean thing This is the knife that once lay in the heart of your father. When you take it up - gingerly - a dark and shouting joy rushes through you. Your bones tighten, your eyes sharpen, your blood pounds! Your zailors back away as you raise it, growling with feral energy. It fades. You are yourself again, though something remains - something that would devour kings. And this - this pitiable knot of brown bones, picked clean by zee-air and isle-rat - this is your father. Whatever unclean thing he came here for, he failed. Perhaps you can give him peace. +1 x Your Father's Bones Your Father's Bones: The Fathomking's Key = 0 +25 x Iron +5 x Terror +1 x Trophy: A Shattered Coral Knife	Game note: Return to London with your Father's Bones to complete the game.

Trivia

• The text "alone alone all all alone" which is the response for choosing to eat your crew is a quotation from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• The two choices of "Go insane" and "Eat your crew" are part of the taglines for Sunless Sea