Moon-Misers

Beyond this point lie **spoilers** for *Fallen London*, *Sunless Sea*, or *Sunless Skies*. This may include **midgame** content. **Proceed with caution**.
You can find out more about our spoiler policy **here**.

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> Moon-Misers
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> A shard of glim, sheddings of a moon-miser.
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> ### Location
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> Axile (formerly)
> The Roof of the Neath
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> ### Affiliation
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> Independent
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> ### Aliases
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> False-Stars
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> ### Related
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> Flukes
> Rubbery Men
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> ### Notable Members
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> The Moon-Mother
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> *"You open the box, and something climbs out. Something has a glistening carapace the colour of smoked sapphires. Something is made almost entirely of legs. Too many legs."*
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**Moon-Misers**, or simply **Misers**, are insectoid creatures that reside on the roof of the Neath. Their bioluminescence is visible from London, which has led to Londoners calling them the **False-Stars**.

## Glim-Bugs

> *"A moon-miser! They live on the roof – you know, the false-stars. Shed their carapaces and glim falls. And on the roof they stay. Even the Masters understand that."*
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Moon-misers are crustacean-like creatures with several pairs of legs, hundreds of dark eyes, and blue, chitinous exoskeletons. Their legs can dig into the hard stone of the Neath, allowing them to scuttle across the cavern roof, and the blueish glow the misers produce is known as **moonish light**, which turns apocyan when reflected off the crests of the waves of the Unterzee.

Moon-misers shed their chitinous exoskeletons regularly, which then fall into the Unterzee in a process called **glim-fall**, heralded by an enthralling purple haze. The pieces they shed are called **glim**, which is used in crafts, as a trade good, or is burned to create **glimmering-lamps**, light sources that unfortunately also emit noxious fumes. Glim that is sourced directly from moon-misers is called **skyfire glim**, notable for its high quality, and **white glim** is highly sought-after and can be used in telescopes to reveal strange hidden sights.

## Biology

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You can find out more about our spoiler policy **here**.

> *"Not locals, the moon-misers. They don't share any biology with us worth speaking about. Internally, they're more like Rubbery Men. Now isn't that fascinating?"*
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The moon-misers hail from the planet Axile, where they were apparently purposefully bred as mounts, apothecaries, and light fixtures. Along with the Flukes and the Rubbery Men, they were brought to the Neath by the Bazaar as part of its mysterious schemes.

The misers are notably carnivorous, with a taste for human flesh. The Starved Men on the roof tend to their appetites and pay handsomely for sacrifices - willingness being optional.

### Moon-Milk

> *"Anyway, the moon-misers exude this stuff. Moon-milk. Acts like one of those love potions out of a silly romance tale. You come across that?"*
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The most valuable product produced by the moon-misers isn't glim; it's **moon-milk**, a sickly yellow liquid that oozes from their bodies like a venom or pus. This substance has a dangerous property: when a creature is exposed to it, it causes them to fall madly in love with the first thing they see, be it a person, an object, or even a color. This obsession eventually fades over the years; however, if a person exposed to moon-milk is separated from their object of desire for too long, they may go insane, die, or suffer from "avulsion".

Moon-milk is actually used by the moon-misers to ensnare their prey while hunting. The moon-miser spits its moon-milk at its quarry, and the poor target becomes infatuated with the moon-miser, leaving them vulnerable to its powerful jaws.

### The Moon-Mother

> *"You need to go up to the roof. Yes, the roof. I've been there before, but I'm not going back. You have to get up there somehow, and find a moon-miser brood mother. They're easy enough to spot, twice the size of the others and more legs."*
> *" – ALL CHILDREN SHE EMBRACES ALL CHILDREN SHE EMBRACES ALL CHILDREN SHE EMBRACES ALL CHILDREN SHE EMBRACES – "*
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Moon-misers have brood mothers, which are twice as large as their offspring and possess many more legs. One such matriarch is the **Moon-Mother**, also known as the **Static Star**, who is so large she may be confused for a great stalactite, and her glim carapace is the shade of a dark mirror. Starved Men have hollowed out her insides, practicing their Shapeling Arts within the **Amber Chamber** using her amber secretions, and they also act as servants of the Moon-Mother to tend to her well-being, revering the Moon-Mother as a highly sacred deity of sorts. The Moon-Mother is also capable of unfurling her carapace into a pair of gorgeous mirror-wings, and when those wings beat, a gateway to Parabola may open.

The Moon-Mother exudes a mysterious red strain of moon-milk in the chamber of the **Holy Passage**, a place of horror and madness that claims, asserts, *insists* that the Mother accepts all children and only wishes for them to be happy. Exposure to this substance can result in a strong desire to never leave the chamber of the Holy Passage, but its exact properties and purpose are unknown.

### The Birthing Ceremony

> *"A Moon-Miser can only be born when the stars align. It must also be coaxed from the womb with a Song of Birthing. Customarily sung by the Moon-Mother, of course."*
> *"Once the baby is born, we must have something to feed it and something in which to wrap it. Otherwise it will not survive."*
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The reproductive cycle of the moon-misers is as strange as everything else about them. One is born each decade or so, and to herald their birth, the false-stars align in a particular arrangement called the **Counterfeit Constellation**. The child is then coaxed from the womb using the **Song of Birthing**, customarily sung by the Moon-Mother and highly dangerous for human throats. The infant then feeds on a strange substance from the roof, possibly the jellied remains of some burrowing ceiling creature, called **Stalactite Nectar**, which usually extracted by its father, and must then be swaddled in its mother's silk, called **Moon-Silk**, while its carapace develops.

## The Masters and the Misers

> *"So. Box is opened. Our box. No more. Disappointed. Didn't need glim. Needed moon-milk. Devils interested. Valuable trade opportunity lost."*
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The value of the moon-misers and their myriad secretions has not escaped the attention of powerful parties in the Neath, including the Masters of the Bazaar. Some seek to use the power of moon-milk to further their own goals for London; others would do anything to stop them.

### Fires

> *"Since the very beginning, I have had the best interests of London at heart. In the longer term, the Hybrid's milk is the only thing that can save the city. Once seeded across the populace, all love stories will be rendered suspect. Any love, no matter how pure or moving, could simply be the symptoms of an aberration's venom. Love will be robbed of its allure. The Bazaar will not know which stories it can truly believe in."*
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Mr Fires has a particular use in mind for the moon-misers: as part of its many schemes to ensure that London remains in the Neath indefinitely, it planned to use moon-milk to taint London’s supply of love stories with artificial love, so that the Bazaar cannot extract any more usable stories from the city. Its plan was doomed to failure, however, as the effect of moon-milk is more akin to a shallow obsession than to real love.

For its plans to work, it required a more potent, but also palatable, strain of the milk, so it set up the Orphanage as a depraved lab and testing ground by trapping an unfortunate moon-miser in a contraption that restrained its limbs and brutally extracted its secretions. Fires then exposed many unfortunate prisoners in the Orphanage to moon-milk, driving them to near-madness as a result, and it has attempted to breed the moon-miser with a human host, hoping that the resulting **Hybrid** will produce a more potent milk, with an effect indistinguishable from true love.

### Stones

> *"...and Mr Stones is furious that its box has gone missing again. The Clay twins are tearing the place up looking for it. No box means no moon-milk. And that means our exiled captain won't provide it with the troops it wants. It'll just have to wait for its blessed Sixth City."*
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Another Master has a different potential use for the moon-milk; an Exiled Captain from Hell offered to trade the use of their army in exchange for a sample. Seeing an opportunity, Mr Stones abducted a small moon-miser from the roof and locked it inside a heavy iron box, along with a collection of Fourth City love letters from the Gracious Widow that Stones stole from Fires.

If Mr Stones' scheme were to come to fruition, Stones would gain an army and let the devils raze London to the ground, forcing the Bazaar to steal a Sixth City ahead of time and bring the Master closer to its ultimate goal: to presumably return to the High Wilderness. As would be expected, this plot has brought Stones in conflict with Mr Fires, who works tirelessly to sabotage its plans.

## Life Cycle and Astrology

> *"Surface astrologers believe that celestial bodies exert forces great enough to affect people's lives. That's why events can be predicted by observing their movements. Moon-misers must be doing something similar, but I'm not sure what. Perhaps they secrete something into the air?"*
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The Counterfeit Constellation is only one of the many peculiar arrangements that the moon-misers can take on. The newly-developed field of **entomological astrology** revolves around identifying these patterns, and using them to divine the future. The aptly titled **Entomological Astrologer** has identified four such patterns, which repeat in a regular cycle, and she believes that the stage of the cycle a person is born under can determine aspects of their personality, and that the movements of the false-stars can reflect present and future events. Regardless of any apparent effectiveness of the method, it enjoys little credibility, and is treated with outright hostility by more established fortune-tellers, such as Madame Shoshana.

As it turns out, moon-misers form colonies which operate as a larger entity, and have life cycles that develop in stages. Each stage of the moon-miser's life cycle has a special role in these colonies, and moon-misers of a similar age within a colony form constellations that have unique shapes.

The stages of the moon-misers' life cycle, and their constellations, are:

* **Eggs** are laid in large quantities by the colony's brood mother and are tended to by the adult members. Their constellations take on the form of a cluster, and the Astrologist describes those with the sign of the Egg as austere loners who can't live in the moment, as all of their focus and time goes into thinking about the future.

* **Larvae** are large enough to be viewed from a telescope on the ground. They apparently do little else but eat, and do not produce phosphorescent light. Their constellations take on the form of a line, and according to the Astrologist, those with the Larva sign enjoy life, enjoy company and new experiences, and leave themselves open and vulnerable to others.

* **Pupae** are silk-wrapped cocoons, waiting to emerge as adults. Their constellations take on the form of a circle, and according to the Astrologist, those with the Pupa sign are austere, but forward-thinking and ripe with potential for growth.

* **Imagoes** are the adult forms of the moon-misers and are commonly observed as the "false-stars". They form hive-minded colonies with each other and tend to the colony's eggs. Their constellations take on the form of a cross, and according to the Astrologist, those with the Imago sign are collaborative and utilitarian, and can achieve great things together, but often cannot enjoy life very much.

Other known constellations that the false-stars can assume include:
* The Cedar Tree
* The Beehive
* The Rose
* The Eating Bear
* The Forked Tree
* The Cask of False Drugs
* The Prison Gate
* The Debtor Asleep
* The Khan's Stallion
* The Sickle
* The Haymaker
* The Knotted Man
* The Fork with Twenty Tines
* The Dragon's Tongue
* The Lanced Pustule
* The Roving Headsman
* The Huntress and her Hounds
* The Cantigaster
* The King of Ways

## References

*Original article by HappiestIguana*

2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 An authority on the matter, *Fallen London*
3. ↑ Talk your way in, *Fallen London* *"[...] coated in [...] armour the colour of smoked sapphires. [...] You count a dozen clawed legs [...] dotted with hundreds of tiny black eyes."*
4. ↑ Light Fingers: Lonely as a Cloud, *Fallen London* *"A moon-miser crawls ahead, all gleaming glim, its powerful legs splitting into the roof to keep it from falling."*
5. ↑ What is 'moonish light'?, *Fallen London*
6. ↑ Echo Bazaar Facebook, *Facebook*
7. ↑ Glim-fall!, *Fallen London*
8. ↑ The Keen-Eyed Lapidary returns, *Fallen London*
9. ↑ Shard of Glim, *Fallen London*
10. ↑ What is a glimmering-lamp?, *Fallen London*
11. ↑ Open up, *Fallen London* *"Some of it is cracked and pitted, but the quality is extraordinary – what they call 'skyfire glim'."*
12. ↑ Snow in the Neath?, *Fallen London*
13. ↑ White Glim Telescope, *Fallen London*
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Eminently respectable?, *Fallen London*
15. ↑ A fellow spirit recognised, *Fallen London* *"You mount the glistening carapace of your miser and ride forth."*
16. ↑ Eminently respectable?, *Fallen London* *"I've not got overwhelming evidence yet, but I think that they've been purposefully bred. Part apothecary shop, part mount, part light fitting."*
17. ↑ Give the Principles an Ambiguous Eolith, *Sunless Sea*
18. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"The Moon-misersh draw closhe," [The Starved Man] expectorates. "They musht be fed. You have the honour of shlaking their lust for flesh."*
19. ↑ Sneak your way in, *Fallen London*
20. ↑ Join him at the table, *Fallen London*
21. ↑ Reassure her that the effects of the moon-milk are not permanent, *Fallen London*
22. ↑ Release as many prisoners as you can, *Fallen London* *"I just want to see the colour!"*
23. ↑ Eminently respectable?, *Fallen London* *"Anyway, the moon-misers exude this stuff. Moon-milk. Acts like one of those love potions out of a silly romance tale."*
24. ↑ Draw out as many answers as you can, *Fallen London* *"[Moon-milk] is not a convincing forgery; it creates only a shallow obsession that fades after a few years..."*
25. ↑ Charm offensive, *Fallen London* *"Sometimes, this involves separating the test subjects from their passions until they are insane or dead, or 'avulsed',"*
26. ↑ Provide something writhing and alive, *Fallen London*
27. ↑ The Hybrid's Moon-Misery , *Fallen London*
28. ↑ The list, *Fallen London*
29. ↑ Steel yourself for entering the Holy Passage, *Fallen London*
30. ↑ The list, *Fallen London* *"You have to get up there somehow, and find a moon-miser brood mother. They're easy enough to spot, twice the size of the others and more legs."*
31. ↑ Light Fingers: The Citadel, *Fallen London*
32. ↑ Light Fingers: The Citadel, *Fallen London* *"The Static Star is not a natural formation of stone, but of a darker, mirror-like glim. Indeed, it is not stone at all: it is the Moon-Mother."*
33. ↑ Peer in the Amber Chamber, *Fallen London*
34. ↑ Bring the Starved Men what they need, *Fallen London*
35. ↑ Bring the Starved Men what they need, *Fallen London* *"The moon-mother's carapace unfolds [...] you find yourself gazing upon a pair of mirror-wings [...] The wings beat. Between them opens a sliver of shining light. A gap thin enough to pass through [...]"'*
36. ↑ Steel yourself for entering the Holy Passage, *Fallen London*
37. ↑ Light Fingers: Mother Star, *Fallen London*
38. ↑ Milk the moon-mother, *Fallen London* *"[...] floor is slick with the red milk [...] Careful not to slip, [...] you'll never want to leave this place.""*
39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 Ask what she's found in her old research, *Fallen London*
40. ↑ What does she mean about the stars aligning?, *Fallen London*
41. ↑ Ask about the Song of Birthing, *Fallen London* *"The Moon-Mother sings the Song of Birthing to induce the larva to emerge. An otherworldly sound. I doubt a human throat could ever reproduce it."*
42. ↑ Rush to investigate (Rubbery Crew), *Fallen London*
43. ↑ Something to feed it?, *Fallen London*
44. ↑ Something to wrap it in?, *Fallen London* *"Unfortunately, Moon-Silk is only produced at the moment of birth,"*
45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 A tiny gift, *Fallen London*
46. ↑ Draw out as many answers as you can, *Fallen London*
47. ↑ Draw out as many answers as you can, *Fallen London* *"Since the very beginning, I have had the best interests of London at heart."*
48. ↑ Draw out as many answers as you can, *Fallen London* *"[Moon-milk] is not a convincing forgery; it creates only a shallow obsession..."*
49. ↑ Sneak your way in, *Fallen London*
50. ↑ Charm offensive, *Fallen London* *"Everyone here is in love with something. Their obsessions are generally violent, and the object of desire can be anything – a person, a piece of furniture, a tramp steamer."*
51. ↑ Ambition: Light Fingers! - Meeting Doctor Vaughan, *Fallen London*
52. ↑ Draw out as many answers as you can, *Fallen London* *"[The Hybrid's] milk is more suited to human ingestion. It will be be able to create something indistinguishable in all meaningful ways from true love..."*
53. ↑ The devil you don't know, *Fallen London*
54. ↑ 54.0 54.1 The devil you don't know, *Fallen London* *"No box means no moon-milk. And that means our exiled captain won't provide it with the troops it wants."*
55. ↑ Open up, *Fallen London* *"You open the box, and something climbs out. Something has a glistening carapace the colour of smoked sapphires. Something is made almost entirely of legs. Too many legs."*
56. ↑ Fires' next move, *Fallen London*
57. ↑ The devil you don't know, *Fallen London*
58. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London*
59. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *""They're false-star charts," [...] "Entomological astrology is a new study..." [...] "This is not a parlour trick. My predictions really work...""*
60. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"The Entomological Astrologer passes you a drink. [...] As they move, the false-stars on the cavern ceiling repeatedly form these four constellations. Each reflects one of the entomological signs."*
61. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"Surface astrologers believe that celestial bodies exert forces great enough to affect people's lives. That's why events can be predicted by observing their movements. Moon-misers must be doing something similar, but I'm not sure what. Perhaps they secrete something into the air? [...] Everyone's [...] birth corresponds to one of the signs, [...] I've only been tracking them for two years, I can't determine the sign of anyone older than that without a personality test."*
62. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *""I am not afraid," Shoshana says [...] "just concerned for those seeking an accurate prediction. Mrs Plenty won't have them led astray.""*
63. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"A circle-shaped pupa constellation moves haphazardly towards a seething mass of other false-stars. [...] they share certain traits with terrestrial insects. Their life-cycles, for one, and their societies for another. A colony, like this one, operates as a single organism..."*
64. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"There are two kinds of entomological sign," [...] "Those which are associated with the more solitary phases of an insect's life-cycle, and [...] the sociable ones."*
65. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"I believe moon-miser eggs are laid in great quantities by the colony's brood mother, and tended to by the imagoes"*
66. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"Eggs are prudent, restrained and solitary. All their energy is channelled into preparing for the future, so they seldom enjoy the experience of being alive. [...] Its constellation is a cluster."*
67. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"Larvae are big enough to see through my telescope, [...] they don't emit a phosphorescent glow. [...] they do little more than eat."*
68. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"Larvae revel in the sheer sensation of being alive, and feel uneasy on their own. [...] The larval constellation is a line."*
69. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"All the evidence points to a process by which larvae cocoon themselves and later emerge as an imago."*
70. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"Pupae are restrained and solitary, but forward-looking and alive with potential. [...] Its constellation is a circle."*
71. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"I believe moon-miser eggs are [...] tended to by the imagoes. [...] The Entomological Astrologer holds out a drawing of an adult insect. [...] The imago is [...] what we see when we look at the false-stars. [...] I believe they share a kind of hive mind."*
72. ↑ Written in the Glim, *Fallen London* *"An imago's defining characteristic is their incredible ability to co-operate with others to accomplish things they would never have achieved alone. They're utilitarian, and seldom savour life. [...] Its constellation is a cross."*
73. ↑ The Crawling Stars, *Sunless Sea*
74. ↑ 74.00 74.01 74.02 74.03 74.04 74.05 74.06 74.07 74.08 74.09 74.10 Map the constellations, *Fallen London*
75. ↑ 75.0 75.1 The Last Dog Society, *Fallen London* *"You learn the secret glimmer-constellations: the Sickle, [...] and the capricious Haymaker [...]"*
76. ↑ 76.0 76.1 76.2 76.3 My Kingdom for a Pig, *Fallen London* *"...you envision constellations in the alcohol. [...] the Knotted Man [...] the Fork with Twenty Tines [...] The Dragon's Tongue becomes the Lanced Pustule..."*
77. ↑ 77.0 77.1 77.2 Caveat Emptor, *Fallen London* *"[...] guides your gaze toward false-constellations. [...] the Roving Headsman [...] the Huntress [...] with her starry-eyed Hounds. [...] with the Dragon's Tongue glimmering faintly above the gas-lamps.*