The Skin of the Sun

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 Skin of the Sun
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> The Skin of the Sun, a reminder of sunset.
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> ### Location
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> Parabola
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> ### Alias
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> The Sun-in-the-Sky
> The Daughter's Dream
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> ### Affiliation
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> Fingerkings
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> ### Notable Figures
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> The Boil of Calamities
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> *"The light is blinding, blazing, familiar. As your eyes adjust, you realise that you are walking upon a great globe of shining glass. Far above you, there is no familiar stone ceiling... Nor even a sky. Just a dizzying verdant expanse of upside-down jungle."*
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The **Skin of the Sun** is an impression of the Sun that provides daylight to the skies of Parabola.

## Incandescent

> *"Beneath the skin of dreams, behind the faces of mirrors, an orange sun sails in a fervid sky."*
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The Skin of the Sun is a enormous, cosmogone bulb that sails across the glasslike skies of Parabola. It is forged of iron and glass, and it apparently bulges from the Parabolan skyscape itself, sometimes resembling a massive lens. As cosmogone is the color of remembered rather than true sunlight, the Skin of the Sun has an queasy, orange appearance, but it is still capable of lighting and heating almost all of the Parabolan landscape. Only certain locations like the Moonlit Chessboard are not touched by its light in any capacity.

Despite being in the realm of dream, the Skin of the Sun appears to follow a typical daylight cycle. As it sets, stars may appear in the Parabolan night sky, and a moon may rise to take its place. At first, the Parabolan moon might resemble a man, but at a second glance, it might resemble a sleeping, curled-up cat.

## The Coiling Spire

> *"The 'sky' around the sun appears to be glass, too. A giant glass dome from whose upper reaches the sun has bubbled forth. And above you - well, below you - an enormous, twisting stone spire stretches toward the ground, like an umbilical cord connecting the jungle and the sun."*
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The **Coiling Spire** is a massive stone structure that spans all the way from the Skin of the Sun to the ground. It has a winding ramp, with a groove carved within it from years upon years of serpentine transit and use. Cosmogone is a color that is irresistible to the denizens of Parabola, but the Skin of the Sun remains outside the reach of living Fingerkings, as they can never touch sunlight. Thus, Fingerkings who feel they are nearing their end embark on a pilgrimage of sorts to reach the Skin of the Sun, a journey which apparently kills them permanently.

### The Boiling Sky

> *"This is not your place. This is their domain. They may allow your kind to trespass across the rest of their kingdom, you slumbering oafs, you mortal morsels, but not here, not the hallowed spire. Insolence! Blasphemy!"*
> *"As suddenly as a stormcloud, a boiling stew of vast, interweaving coils has filled the sky from horizon to horizon. Somewhere in the boiling mass, fangs are drawn – long and sharp as winter."*
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The Skin of the Sun and the Coiling Spire are locations of great importance to the Fingerkings, who consider them sacred. As such, trespassing in these places without express permission from the Fingerkings can lead to serious trouble. Both locales are guarded by the aptly-named **Boil of Calamities**, an extremely powerful entity that appears as an enormous, spiraling serpent made of smaller, interwoven serpents, large enough to block out the sky. This being protects its territory with ferocity and zeal, and anyone who even steps within its purview unauthorized risks being hunted down with extreme prejudice.

The Boil's reasons for protecting the Parabolan sun so fiercely are many; after all, it laid the egg that would become the Skin of the Sun, though the egg itself was heavily modified before it became what it is now.

## Sunrise

> *"This is Parabola. We found it in dreams and brought light to it. The ushabti were built to construct a new home for the Second City, where we could live forever beneath the skin of the sun. The night was the bringer of dreams and thus sacred to us. But this Palace was never completed."*
> *"We will not see another day, for every day will be a night. Let every night, then, be a day, in dreams that stream with bright sunlight. Pray to the gods that rule the day. Pray to the gods that rule the night. Blow the glass, blow until it glows, and raise it high into the sky."*
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Before the Skin of the Sun was created, it is said that the lands of Parabola were quite dark. During the time of the Second City, the sisters of the Duchess sought refuge for themselves and the city's people in Parabola, away from the influence of the Bazaar, after trapping the Masters within a tomb flanked by the Salt Lions. The precise details of the Parabolan sun's construction are unclear, but it seems that the sisters modified the egg of the Boil of Calamities in its shell, resulting in the egg presumably hatching into an object made of glass. The citizens of the Second City then proceeded to construct and raise the Parabolan sun using a ritual involving glassblowing and prayer, and the newly-born sun scorched the Parabolan landscape and melted the colors of the sky itself.

Following the construction of the Skin of the Sun, the sisters then attempted to build a large palace for the citizens of the Second City in Parabola, so that they may live in sunlight once more. Unfortunately, their plans fell through and the sisters were forced to flee, leaving the whole project unfinished. Over time, the Parabolan sun began to break down with age, growing cracks that leak cosmogone vapor. Eventually, it may fail entirely, plunging Parabola into twilight once more.

## References

2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Mirror-Marches, *Sunless Sea*
3. ↑ Cosmogone-filled Mirrorcatch Box, *Fallen London*
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Climb the dome itself (Cats), *Fallen London*
5. ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, *Fallen London* *"Another sun rises inside your head. Iron and glass, [...]"*
6. ↑ The Affair of the Impatient Apprentice, *Fallen London* *"[...] up to the glassy, effulgent lens that passes for the sun."*
7. ↑ Items description, *Sunless Sea*
8. ↑ Fill your Mirrorcatch Box with the light of the cosmogone sun, *Fallen London*
9. ↑ Dream of Arbor in the company of the Injurious Princess, *Fallen London* *"[...] a queasy orange glow in the sky, [...]"*
10. ↑ Visit the Moonlit Chessboard, *Fallen London*
11. ↑ Night is falling, *Fallen London* *"Pinpricks of light [...] in the darkening sky. Stars! [...] a crescent moon rises. [...] don't resemble a man, or anything else so much as a cat, curled up asleep."*
12. ↑ Look at the moon, *Fallen London*
13. ↑ Contemplate your predicament, *Fallen London*
14. ↑ Descend the Coiling Spire (DO NOT TARRY), *Fallen London*
15. ↑ Contemplate your predicament, *Fallen London* *"[...] an enormous, twisting stone spire stretches toward the ground, "*
16. ↑ Light Fingers: Atop the Spire, *Fallen London* *"A groove that's been worn into the rock as though by [....] the passage of serpents)."*
17. ↑ Set of Cosmogone Spectacles, *Fallen London*
18. ↑ Sleep's fortress (Parabola-Linen Suit), *Fallen London*
19. ↑ Bargain for a Parabox, *Sunless Sea*
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 Light Fingers: The Boiling Sky, *Fallen London*
21. ↑ Be introduced to the enormous snake, *Fallen London*
22. ↑ Recognise an Ophidian Gentleman, *Fallen London* *"[...] they will grant you safe passage here only if you please them."*
23. ↑ Study the Boil of Calamities, *Fallen London*
24. ↑ Grab the bell from Poor Edward's hand, *Fallen London* *"[...] the Boil knots in anguish. [...] spiralling like an unravelling rope, it departs [...]"*
25. ↑ Recognise an Ophidian Gentleman, *Fallen London* *"[...] be careful of the Boil of Calamities. It is fierce about its territory."*
26. ↑ Make a convincing case to the Court of Cats, *Fallen London* *"[...] your intrusion on the Skin of the Sun, and your subsequent pursuit by the Boil of Calamities, [...]"*
27. ↑ Make a convincing case to the Court of Cats, *Fallen London* *""It also is the mother-father of the egg that is the Parabolan sun," [...] "Though others played a part in that, too.""*
28. ↑ The Attendants, *Fallen London*
29. ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, *Fallen London*
30. ↑ The Attendants, *Fallen London* *"We found it in dreams and brought light to it."*
31. ↑ The Attendants, *Fallen London* *"The Palace of the Rising was to be a refuge from the Masters and the Bazaar."*
32. ↑ Homecoming, *Fallen London* *"The jungle below is bathed in orange light [...] you see people basking in your glow. They are seeking refuge from something [...]"*
33. ↑ Homecoming, *Fallen London* *"[...] your immense basalt paws [...] Your twin is at your side. [...] you watch as a funerary procession makes its way towards a temple. A group of hooded creatures [...] are led inside, and do not emerge for centuries."*
34. ↑ Climb the dome itself (Fingerkings), *Fallen London* *""The sun was born," [...] "With certain modifications. Those women augmented it in the shell.""*
35. ↑ Study the Boil of Calamities, *Fallen London* *"[...] ("the Boil of Calamities, Lord of the Seething Sky, wept a drop of shining glass...") [...]"*
36. ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, *Fallen London* *"Pray to the gods [...] Blow the glass, blow until it glows, and raise it high into the sky."*
37. ↑ My Kingdom for a Pig, *Fallen London* *"Another sun rises inside your head. Iron and glass, smouldering in a dream [...] Palm trees bow and shrivel in the heat. [...] withering grass. Colours run down the sky's face [...]"*
38. ↑ The Attendants, *Fallen London* *"This is Parabola. We [...] brought light to it. The ushabti were built to construct a new home for the Second City, where we could live forever beneath the skin of the sun."*
39. ↑ The Attendants, *Fallen London* *"A new sun was raised in the sky so the citizens might walk in light again."*
40. ↑ The Attendants, *Fallen London* *"But the House of the Feather was opened before the Palace was completed. We four survivors fled."*
41. ↑ The Attendants, *Fallen London* *"But time conquers all. The sun here is failing, [...]"*
42. ↑ Flint, *Fallen London* *"A vast globe of cracked glass, embedded in the roof, leaks cosmogone vapour."*
43. ↑ The Attendants, *Fallen London* *"We found it in dreams and brought light to it. [...] The sisters found it in twilight and in dreams. [...] This was a twilight place that the Second City made brighter."*