The City of Keys

**The City of Keys** is a city in the House. It is one of the Seven Cities and as such is found near the center of the map.

The player character is a Citizen of Keys and the City is where their lodgings and many of their personal effects are located. The City is also well known as the House's most prolific producer of Keys, which can be used to unlock Doors. The Governor, however, has a tight grip on all of the City's Keys and therefore not many of them go beyond the city limits.

## Description

*You know the streets here, the accents, the looming skyline. Even the omnipresent sense of menace is, in its own way, comfortingly familiar.*

*This is a city of brimming possibilities, each stamped out as quickly as it forms. This is the city that opened a thousand Doors, that founded extracellular colonies. This is the most prolific producer of Keys in all the House.*

*But all things must be measured against their cost. Orphan's Town. The Howling Pits. And most of all the Factory, squatting vastly at the center of the city, a bloated concrete tumour swollen to the size of a dozen castles.*

*No matter how far you go, you will bring all this with you.*

## Interactions

### Visit your dwellings.

*This is, well, your home. Or at least that's what all the paperwork says.*

### Advertise for a new crewmember.

*The Seven Cities have no shortage of useful souls.*

### Visit 151 Withering Street

Requires: sellable Information

*If you have information he needs, the Governor's Man is waiting there. If you don't, you arrive and find just an innocent family home, children playing in the garden.*

### Gather news.

Requires: 0 Current Affairs: The City of Keys.

*Gaggles of hawkers can be found on every corner, spitting and fighting and yelling. A guinea is enough to buy several papers.*

-1 G

+1 Current Affairs: The City of Keys

### Repair your hull.

Requires: Hull damage

*You can have your engineers help out, but it'll still cost ya.*

-# G

Hull to max

### Rest and recover.

Requires: Sanity damage

*The darkness has been getting to all of you. Your crew want a few days to blow off steam.*

-15 G

+Sanity

### Attend a high-society ball.

Once per visit. Requires: 8+ Reputation: The City of Keys

*The envelope smells faintly of lilac.*

+1 Scandalous Gossip or +1 Unsettling Conjecture

### Wander the streets.

Once per visit

*Dull booms from inside the Factory. Screams from the Howling Pits. The City awaits you.*

Possible results:

* Gain access to The Howling Pits
* Gain access to The Black Market (confront your would-be mugger, and make a purchase)
* +Wound, +2 Reputation: The City of Keys
* +1 Thrilling Yarn
* +1 Thrilling Yarn, +1 Reputation: The City of Keys
* +1 Cultural Knowledge: Mycenae
* +2 Cultural Knowledge: Mycenae, +1 Reputation: Mycenae
* +1 Radical Sympathies (with Childhood: Orphan)

### The Howling Pits.

*You have a contact in the mines. You may be able to buy something illicit.*

Multiple results:

* +1 Fossil-ghost, -80 G
* +1 Primordial Oddity, -200 G

### The black market.

*You know someone in Sticky End. This could be a profitable arrangement.*

The black market is essentially an additional shop, except that the items for sale change each time you visit. However, you can visit an unlimited number of times without purchasing, so with patience, you can pick up everything you need.

### Distribute Radical Pamphlets on Broad Street.

Requires: 5 Radical Pamphlets, Vigilance check, The Unnamed Society 6

*And keep an eye out for patrolling watchmen. Political dissidents have a nasty habit of falling down the stairs on the way to the cell.*

Success: -5 Radical Pamphlets, The Unnamed Society 7

### Bomb the Society for Civean Purity.

Requires: 3 Gunpowder, The Unnamed Society 12

-3 Gunpowder

+1 Breathtaking Spectacle

-1 Stability: The City of Keys

The Unnamed Society 13

### Attend the miners' strike at the Howling Pits.

Requires: The Unnamed Society 1

*You can hear the chanting from here.*

The Unnamed Society 2

### Visit the [Captain name] Memorial Museum of Unnatural Curiosity

Requires: Have started The Museum of Unnatural Curiosity

Before completion: *You have an exhibit to donate, or just want to see how the Museum is progressing.*

After completion: *By all accounts, the Museum thrives.*

### Write a freelance article.

Requires: Have not signed on with a newspaper via the Journalism concerns.

1 Current Affairs from anywhere other than the City of Keys.

*You have returned with news from elsewhere. Time to write it down. Keep the flowery prose to a minimum.*

Results vary based on Current Affairs and publication.

### An intricate city-map catches your eye at the station.

Requires: Have not started the concern The City of Glass

*The wall is plastered with a hundred copies of the same poster.*

Begins The City of Glass

### Tell the Governor where the City of Glass is hiding.

Requires: finished The City of Glass

-1 Stability: The City of Keys

+15 Reputation: The City of Keys

-15 Spoiler

+20,000 G

+60 Apprehensions

### Repair your malfunctioning Heartlight.

Requires: The Heartless 2

+1 Horrifying Ordeal

Heartlight repaired

### Tybalt wants to confront his father.

Requires: Tybalt Balsamic IV on board, Concerns#Heir Apparent 5

*He's going to be a barber, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.*

+1 Lurid Tale

Additional results vary

### Ransack sets off to inflict some heroism on the unsuspecting public.

Requires: Ransack Morton on board, Ransack's Redemption 1

Ransack's Redemption 2

### Accompany Spire to see Dr. Grindylow

Requires: Spire on board, Third Eye 1

-3 Sack of Salt

-1 Warding Iron

-1 Occult Relic

Third Eye 2

### Dance in fungal dreams.

Requires: Jhang Ba Sho on board, Find-the-Lady 1 or 3, 1 Dreamsalve

-1 Dreamsalve

If Find-the-Lady 3, +1 Divine Favour: Wyl o'Pan

### Take Otto to his home.

Requires: Otto Van Hornbach on board, A Zoological Adventure 2

-1 Penguin

-1 Toxin Shark

-1 Optivore Hawk

-1 Pyrophile Ape

-1 Ichthyid Hound

-1 Otto Van Hornback (temporarily)

A Zoological Adventure 3

### Check in on Otto.

Requires: A Zoological Adventure 3, One month has passed.

*A month of more has passed. He should have finished his research.*

Always: A Zoological Adventure 4

Sometimes: +1 Haunted Penguin

### Help Jack search the Rag-Stacks for the Seventh Volume.

Requires: Jack of Quills on board, The Seventh Volume 1

To succeed: Childhood: Student, Former Profession: Scholar, 140 G, or Esoterica check

Success: +1 Arcane Codex, +1 Volume of Poetry, +1 Indecipherable Tome

Failure: +1 Horrifying Ordeal, -Sanity

### Hunt down the last of Valeria's recalcitrant ghosts.

Requires: Valeria Bell-Roberts on board, Chasing Phantoms 3

End Chasing Phantoms

### Ask Dr. Grindylow about curing Panorama's affliction.

Requires: Panorama Volt on board, A Walk Through the Dark 1

A Walk Through the Dark 2

-200 G

### Drop off Bradley and pay him his money.

Requires: Bradley Baggs on board, A Bet With Bradley 2

Always: -200 G

Options:

* -1 Bradley Baggs
* +1 Moment of Melancholy, A Bet With Bradley 3

### Drop Peter off at the station.

Requires: 1 Passenger: Peter McNally

Ends Heart and Mind (until/unless you hire him)

### Accompany Gladys to her meeting with Dr. Doscheki.

Requires: Gladys Skarter on board, An Inexorable Course 4

An Inexorable Course 5

### Take Cromlech to register as an ambassador.

Requires: Cromlech on board, The Rebellion of Stones 5, 7+ Reputation: The City of Keys, Former Profession: Lawyer, or Grit, Spirit, or Esoterica check.

Success: -2000 G, +3 Reputation: The City of Keys, +60 Apprehensions, End The Rebellion of Stones

### Accept Nicholas' invitation to the Unnamed Society.

Requires: Nicholas Verdant on board, Begging, Choosing 1

+2 Radical Sympathies

Begging, Choosing 2

### Visit the Beggar's God

Requires: Nicholas Verdant on board, Begging, Choosing 3

**When the Beggar's God asks "When did it all get so dark and serious?" any option other than "Probably when the City of Glass vanished" will cause the game to crash.**

+1 Moment of Melancholy

Begging, Choosing 4

### Tell the Governor's Men where to find the Beggar's God.

Requires: Begging, Choosing 4 or 5

-3 Stability: The City of Keys

+120 Apprehensions

End Begging, Choosing

### Plan the Factory heist.

Requires: The Factory Heist 1

-1 Fetch-mirror

## Shops

### Crossward's Intercellular Essentials

*A Factory-owned business, operated by the sharp-toothed and jovial Julius Crossward.*

+ only available after purchasing previous upgrade

### Skincandle Market

*The Market burst past the borders of Skincandle Square long ago. A shambling anarchy of stalls, tents, shopfronts, and thieves.*

*trader. "Not even if you want to!"*
 Ineffective Remedy | *"Cures all ills!" claims the trader. "Cured*
*my grandmother's lumbago and my*
*daughter's flu! I could be selling this for*
*ten times the price, but I'm a humanitarian*
*at heart."*
*monsters away!" he shouts. "Also you can*
*put it on food!"*
 Bestial Remnants | *"Getchor genuine meat!" The street-trader*
*is scabbed and toothless. He is selling*
*unappealing lumps of animal, some with*
*the skin still attached.*

### Gulbenkian Traders

*The Consortium is a trade conglomerate with influence throughout the Seven Cities. The huge trade-hall on Gulbenkian Street is its centre of operations here.*

### Dr. Grindylow's Exotic Goods

*Although this shop sprawls in one of the nastiest parts of Sticky End, superstition keeps thieves away.*