The Roof of the Neath

Beyond this point lie **major spoilers** for *Fallen London*, *Sunless Sea*, or *Sunless Skies*. This may include **endgame** or **Fate-locked** content. **Proceed at your own risk**.
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## The Roof of the Neath

* Header
* Upwards
* Estival 2023

### Notable Figures

Starved Men
Moon-Misers

> *"The stalactites drip down all around. There is nary a bat, nor the faintest wind. Here is a peace which one can never know in London, where there is always the maddening crowd bustling by, or hawkers screeching the virtue of rotten meat, or marsh-wolves interrupting your afternoon picnic."*
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The **Roof of the Neath** is the boundary that separates the Neath from the Surface.

## Lofty

> *"The ceiling grows ever closer. The false-stars shine ever brighter. You are among stalactites which glisten with iridescent shine, and the unknown wonders of the upside down world!"*
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The roof of the Neath is made of rock said to be "unfathomably" deep. Its underside is dotted with stalactites, many of which are large enough to accommodate entire communities. Stalactites often fall from the roof to the lands down below; Godfall was one such stalactite that landed in the Unterzee. Falling stalactites are a known hazard in London, with **Smashtile Alley** and **Stonefall Copse** in the Forgotten Quarter being particularly infamous for this.

The roof can be accessed via dirigible, though London's dirigibles are managed by Mr Fires, and unsanctioned trips to the roof are forbidden. London's contact with the roof is largely minimal barring enterprising academics and failed expeditions; London's only known holding here is New Newgate Prison. While the roof is extremely resilient, it has a few breaches: the Travertine Spiral and the Cumaean Canal can be used to travel to the Surface, and Aestival is an island in the Unterzee lit by sunlight from a hole in the roof above.

## Inhabitants

> *"Bats flock around the dirigible as it rises toward the roof. The glimmer of the False-Stars becomes a glare. Stalactites hang like icicles of bone, the citadels of the Starved Men carved into them, empty windows like yawning eye sockets."*
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The roof may seem barren and remote, but it is in fact teeming with life. Moon-misers are large insectoids that emit a bright glow seen from the ground, known in London as "false-stars." They travel across the roof by digging their legs into rock, and shed their carapaces in a process called "glim-fall," raining down shards of glim for gatherers to collect. The roof is also inhabited by Starved Men, who use the Shapeling Arts to warp and transform themselves. They travel the roof via blimps, rope bridges, or by climbing "spider-like," and they carve and tunnel through stalactites to form massive citadels to reside in. The powerful zee-god Storm is said to be the "god in the roof", but the details of this are... unclear. Regardless, certain objects that fall from the roof are considered "gifts" from Storm by Urchins.

During the events surrounding the London Horticultural Show, a massive stalactite was dropped onto London by invading Starved Men, who sought to reshape the city to survive the Fall of the Sixth City. After these Starved were forced to surrender, the Starved Lithologer revealed that another group of Starved were planning on boring a hole in the roof to direct sunlight onto London. Their weapon was an oculus of shaped flesh through which they would focus sunlight, and though the roof was successfully breached, the weapon was ultimately thwarted. In the aftermath, Starved Men worked to repair the gap using the Shapeling Arts. However, according to the Lithologer, the roof would have healed on its own anyway; in their words, this is because the roof, and the Neath itself, are alive.

## References

2. ↑ Light Fingers: Intrusion, *Fallen London*
3. ↑ Launch!, *Fallen London*
4. ↑ Knife of Lost Sky, *Fallen London* *"Climb [...] to the roof of the Neath. Bore a shaft through uncountable fathoms of rock."*
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Light Fingers: Intrusion, *Fallen London* *"The stalactites drip down all around. There is nary a bat, nor the faintest wind."*
6. ↑ Attempt an emergency retreat!, *Fallen London* *"The citadels are full of eyes – and limbs, crawling down stalactites towards you."*
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"The Starved Men haul you [...] through slick-walled tunnels that squirm through the citadel like entrails."*
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Smashtile Alley, *Fallen London* *"Here the kiln-tenders bake brick, to feed the endless appetite for roof-tiles. One of the many perils of the Neath: stalactites that fall like god-flung stones [...]"*
9. ↑ Explore the Shattered Citadel, *Sunless Sea* *"Before the stalactite was a monastery - before it ever fell from the roof [...]"*
10. ↑ Stonefall Copse, *Fallen London* *"A stalactite-pocked crater on the fringes of the Forgotten Quarter. Previously a place to avoid, lest one get one's skull caved in [...]"*
11. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"It is forbidden to travel to the roof—" [...] "—Mr Fires oversees all dirigible traffic."*
12. ↑ Share your personal insights into the Starved Men, *Fallen London* *""You went to the Roof? Voluntarily?" [...] "But why? [...]"*
13. ↑ Upwards (Story), *Fallen London* *"A Probationary Professor is looking for assistants for a perilous venture. [...] she's looking to lead an expedition to the cavern roof."*
14. ↑ Wander as lonely as a cloud, *Fallen London* *"[...] a smaller experimental balloon from London, caught on the jagged edges of an unseen stalactite. It has been deserted for some time."*
15. ↑ Where is New Newgate Prison?, *Fallen London* *"They built the Fifth City's prison in a stalactite the size of a fair-sized village."*
16. ↑ Your beloved, *Fallen London* *"The ways to the surface – the Cumaean Canal, the Travertine Spiral [...]"*
17. ↑ Location description, *Sunless Sea* *"A great beam of sunlight bathes the island! [...] far above, there's a hole in the roof."*
18. ↑ Upwards (Story), *Fallen London*
19. ↑ Eminently respectable?, *Fallen London* *"I've not got overwhelming evidence yet, but I think that they've been purposefully bred. [...] part light fitting."*
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Eminently respectable?, *Fallen London* *"Do you know about moon-misers? They're the false-stars on the cavern roof. [...] they're like giant insects. Size of a cow [...] Glim is the bits of their carapaces they shuck off."*
21. ↑ Wander as lonely as a cloud, *Fallen London* *"A moon-miser crawls ahead [...] powerful legs splitting into the roof to keep it from falling."*
22. ↑ Glim-fall!, *Fallen London* *"Glim-fall! [...] The creaking and whistling from above presages a [...] fall of glim. Man the nets!"*
23. ↑ Advise Dr Vaughan to join the Starved Men (The Hybrid Speaks), *Fallen London* *"Push the boundaries of flesh. Transform, rather than conform. Shatter the Chain."*
24. ↑ Wander as lonely as a cloud, *Fallen London* *"The Starved Men have their own method of flight. Two oblong sacks are sewn tip to tip, [...] inflated [...] affixed with six slim rods, [...] a kind of cage the Starved Men fit into; they then propel themselves from stalactite to stalactite, floating across."*
25. ↑ Wander as lonely as a cloud, *Fallen London* *"Thick strands of rope [...] You have seen such ropes elsewhere, used as bridges by the Starved Men."*
26. ↑ Wander as lonely as a cloud, *Fallen London* *"A lone wandering Starved Man crawls 'spider-like' along the roof [...]"*
27. ↑ Upwards (Story), *Fallen London* *"Stalactites hang [...] the citadels of the Starved Men carved into them, empty windows like yawning eye sockets."*
28. ↑ A fallen stone#Story description, *Sunless Sea* *"The god in the roof! Storm is angry!"*
29. ↑ What's this? 1, *Fallen London* *"This is not what I expected at all. The cavern should be smooth, as befits the cradle of my mind."*
30. ↑ The Chimney Pot Wars, *Fallen London* *""Something fell from the roof," she tells you. "A gift from the old god that lives there. [...]"*
31. ↑ Stalactite, *Fallen London* *"Stalactite [...] A plunging eclipse. [...] Piercing pillar of rock. [...] A vasty knife to pierce London's skin."*
32. ↑ State of Emergence, *Fallen London* *"The inside of the stalactite drips with amber. A hand emerges [...] Another hand [...] A gangly figure [...] Another follows, then another [...] more figures extrude themselves from fissures in the rock. [...] Starved Men. You've seen them [...] on your expeditions to the roof."*
33. ↑ The War in London 2, *Fallen London* *"London is overrun. Buildings, their quoins and cornice stones made flesh, ripped open and left to bleed."*
34. ↑ Ask why the Starved Men attacked, *Fallen London* *""What is seen can be changed. All things can be changed. [...] this body, it has fared ill with past changes." [...] "This is not a body, it's a city," blusters the Commodore. [...] "Yes. We sought to reshape the city, to help it avert a greater change which it could not endure. [...] We were helping—" [...] "You were tearing down our homes and tearing up our people." [...] a flash of a very human expression. Shame. "We wished to prevent [...] The city's next great change, [...] How many has it been now? Four?" [...] there was no time – we had to act, before..." [...]"*
35. ↑ Give the order, *Fallen London* *"There. Walking out of the shadows. Six of them, [...] "Hold," says your gruff second. "I think... I think they're surrendering." [...] They cooperate as the monks of Godfall bind their many hands at the wrists. [...] they do their best to show willing, the hairy one generally guiding the others."*
36. ↑ Look up (What Lies Above), *Fallen London* *""They are preparing," says the Starved Lithologer. "We were not fast enough. We did not do enough." [...] "They have been digging upwards. They mean to... assist the city in a thorough metamorphosis." [...] "The sun," says the Commodore. "The b\_\_\_\_y sun.""*
37. ↑ Also Into You, *Fallen London* *"A great ocular mass. A distended cornea the size of the [airship] itself [...] Helping these things hold their strained shape as they prepare to channel inimical sunlight."*
38. ↑ Last Orders, *Fallen London* *"The skin on the ceiling parts, [...] a core of stone – falls from the roof. And what follows [...] Sunlight. A tiny beam [...] The light touches the rock [...] From being magnified and projected down, even as it burns out its channel."*
39. ↑ Fly the (Airship) straight into the Starved weapon, *Fallen London* *"You hold the course. You make yourself a dart. A missile of wood and flesh and fabric. A spear, thrown from London, to put one in the eye of those who would unmake it."*
40. ↑ An End, at Last, *Fallen London* *""I know what it looks like when a city ends. It looks worse than this from here." [...] "And better.""*
41. ↑ Inquire about the state of the Roof, *Fallen London* *"When last you saw it – in a blaze [...] golden light – it was in a state of [...] disrepair. [...] "The Roof is healing." [...] "It is like a body." [...] "The oculus was a wound. The light, an infection. We help, too," [...] "with amber from the forgetting-places, and arts of unscarring. But the wound would heal without us." [...] "The Neath lives. This is one of the things we know that you, perhaps, do not.""*