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Dahut

Revision as of 20:50, 19 February 2017 by Asterai (talk | contribs) (Put some info about clarity/enthralment interaction with rewards up front)
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This article is a stub. You can help Sunless Sea Wiki by expanding it.

Dahut
Dahut (Map)
SS Locations Dahut Map
Dahut (Gazetteer)
SS Locations Dahut
Located in Sea of Voices
Ports Dahut
Shops Dahut Exchange
Shipyard None
Data ID 238317

Dahut is a ghostly, underwater mirror of London, populated by the Drownies. Engaging most of the story of Dahut requires SS gossipsmallRecent News in conjunction with SS gamekeeper cottagesmallSomething Awaits You. Interactions with the Drownie events will then be limited by a maximum SS calendarsmallDahut: Length of stay of 10, effectively allowing you to attend 9 events while in the city. Each action will likely have effects on both SS keyhole2smallDahut: Clarity and SS rosesmall Dahut: Enthralment, with the former tracking a captain's ability to pierce the illusions of the city, and the latter tracking a captain's ability to engage with the illusions of the city. After a few days' stay, depending on Dahut: Clarity and Dahut: Enthralment, visitors may be able to attend one of four festivals to gain a reward and pass a further clarity or enthralment check to gain a greater reward.

Dahut: Enthralment is helpful in acquiring a SS drownie beardedsmallDrownie Love-song or SS drowniemalesmallDrownie Song in Counterpoint; Dahut: Clarity is helpful for acquiring Drownie Song in Counterpoint and Drownie Hymn.

Background

A town built by the Drownies, Dahut is a strange mirror of London.

Port description

Drownies built a copy of London as it never was: a cathedral, and houses, and fields of flowers, all underwater. The water is cool and luminous, and at the same time it is breathable air.

Interactions

Actions Requirements Effects Notes
The Fair King's Request
He asked you bury your gift of scintillack, to fulfil a rite they hold in Wrack.
Search for the Fierce Philanthropist's husband
Was he drawn here, to this sugar-spun facsimile of his former home?
 Failed event Game note: Check your journal for reminders about where the Philanthropist's husband might be.

No luck
Your enquiries are exhaustive - the Philanthropist's husband is not here. You can cross this port off your list.
Successful event
A promising lead!
A dapper Drownie remembers Lytton - his dark eyes, his delicate hands, a memorable, mournful sermon he delivered on the cathedral's steps. After a brief stay, he found passage to Low Barnet, the sunken church at London's feet.
Inspect a twinkling patch
Something gleams where you planted the Fair King's scintillack.
 A pretty miracle
From the one seed, many flowers. They are as blue as Surface seas - as Surface skies! They twinkle like the stars in dreams. You pluck a blossom and enjoy its lush perfume, but leave enough for the patch to replenish.
The last of the sapphire blossoms
The patch of gemstone flowers has not replenished, as in the past. If you pick them now, they will not grow again.
 A pretty miracle
From the one seed, many flowers. They are as blue as Surface seas - as Surface skies! They twinkle like the stars in dreams. You pluck a blossom and enjoy its lush perfume. No more will grow, but so it goes. They were beautiful, in their time.
Assemble a Port Report
Gather information for the Admiralty.
Failed event Game note: This will always generate a Port Report, but the contents of that report may vary.

Known Truths
The more you look, the more you see that you are perhaps not intended to. The Cathedral's crypt is a prison. The graveyard is larger than it looks, and the bones are not all buried. The border between the breathable water and the dangerous water is not marked clearly; some have drowned in crossing over, leaving their possessions scattered on the zeefloor.
Successful event
The City of Peace
You describe the Cathedral, its buttresses and its smooth-faced saints. You sketch the seaweed gardens and the fish that graze on them. You mention the clothing of the Drownies that live in this vicinity: clinging at the torso, swirling below the waist - regardless of whether the wearer is male or female. You write down the lyrics of a few of the songs.
Introduce a Blemmigan
Surely it would thrive in these fertile gardens.
 Failed event
Propagation of roses
The Blemmigan scampers over the seagrass. Here and there a little rosebush springs up from its spores, already budding with tiny furled cosmogone flowers. Drownies applaud your impromptu gardening. But a few minutes later, the bushes fade again, not really there at all.
Successful event
Contrasting hues
At first the whole island looks hospitable, but if you look more sharply you can see where the rock is stripped bare, and where the fish consume every fragment that drifts in from above. Only a few spots are proper homes for your Blemmigan. You set it in its place. It is truly bright and sets off the false colour of the Drownie blossoms and the Drownie fish. The flowers that grow here natively are red and gold and orchid-purple, but they fade to drab if you look at them from the corner of your eye.
Wander, look, make no commitments
You're only here as a visitor. You don't need a place to stay.
 Dahut, City of Peace
Water and air are the same thing here: a betrayal of nature, or a truce between opposites. Swim up the side of the Cathedral, if you like, and peer in through its rose windows. (You won't be able to make out anything inside.) Breathe deep. Fill your lungs with a substance cooler and more cleansing than ordinary air. Walk in the gardens with the fish around your knees. Do not ask questions about the King of this place: those will go unanswered.
Endure
Take in nothing. Do not be enthralled. Do not learn. Resist the enchantment of Dahut.
 Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Is it safe to see what is truly there?
If you won't see the glittering lights and the seaweed fields, then in their place are darkness and deep cold. When your courage gives way, the illusion rushes back in.
Successful event
Time passes
...and nothing else changes. The current does not shift you. The music does not enchant you. You are an anchor at rest.
Rare successful event (50%)
Time passes
With focus and will, you can avoid the allurements of the place. You do not have to smell the lilac in the air-water. You are not required to notice the unveiled limbs of the Drownies. You need not attend the feasts.
Observe the Bonfire
Mingle among the crowd. Learn from them. See if you can observe without being drawn into the dance.
 Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Flickering
When you extend your hand to the flames, they grow warmer, but not hot enough to burn or scald. The sensation is like dipping your hand into a cup of tea. Seeing your experiments, one of the Drownies makes a gesture. Three of them together push you fully into the bonfire. Your hair is crackling, and something like smoke is rising from your clothes, but when you scramble out again you feel whole just as before.
Rare failed event (50%)
Fear it
The bonfire is not a bonfire, but a sulphurous rent in the zee floor. The dancers are not dancing, but are drifting back and forth, so many corpses in a fickle current. The whole place is a play, a jest for the King of Drownies, a parody of the Surface.
Successful event
Gathering outside the Cathedral
There is a great water-bonfire. It does not crackle or smoke as a real fire might. But it is bright and hot, and it turns the Unterzee night into a warm bath. The flames ripple up gradually, in majesty, because they are made of water. And when the Drownies see you watching, they catch your hands and pull you towards the dance, into a current you cannot fight.
Rare successful event (50%)
Flags of light
Around the bonfire, the Drownies dance in shoals, all together in one direction, then reversing course at once. Their hair is gold and green in the firelight. Sometimes a pair will break off and depart into the shadows. The fire may be a phantom, imaginary flames in air fashioned from water. But the mutual affection of the Drownies is not entirely a performance.
Accept a place at the meal
Most of the Drownies' food may be eaten with impunity. You just need to remember which.
 Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Sated
There is a rhyme to tell you the safe from the unsafe, but how does it go? Eat the fruit, disdain the root? Chewy lump, something-something dump? Even if you remembered perfectly, the food defies categorisation. The potato mash enclosed in lemon rind. The cakes that bleed cinnamon syrup in the water-air. The cocoa-dusted crab, which is not the kind of chewy intended by the poem. Probably. But soon you're too full to think about these matters.
Successful event
How lovely it is
Cold collations of crab meat and ham. Fresh rolls that somehow are not soggy underwater. Mushroom cream soups. Liquors that curl up out of the brandy glass, smoke-gold. And what sort of creature lays these eggs? As for the things that might take away your clarity of mind - the effervescent giggling mandrake salad, the lobsters with kitten faces - you pass those dishes on untasted.
Rare successful event (50%)
How lovely it is
Ostrich steaks, seared on each side. Green herbs. Wedges of fruit that, even on the Surface, would grow far to the south. You have not eaten like this since... have you ever had such a meal? It is enough to drive away many past fancies and disturbing dreams.
Be fitted for clothes
Your ordinary garments don't fit in with the local style. If you're going to stay, you might as well blend in.
 Drownie Couturier
In a cluttered workshop, the Drownie Couturier copies fashion plates from London for the upper half of the garment. The set of the sleeves is as good as anything one could find at home. She takes pride in matching the weave of cloth, the buttons, the dyes and trim, so that nothing falls short of the original. As for the lower half, it swirls and floats as Drownie clothes do, though she has to modify her usual pattern in order to make it fit your legs. Not that there is anything wrong with that, she assures you.
 Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Ask after the prisoner you heard about in Wrack
Is she still here? Have any of the Drownies seen her?
 No
First they pretend not to have heard you speak, then they pretend not to know who you are talking about. Then they say that she was here, but that she has long since gone, and that of course she was never imprisoned. Then the story is that she was here, and she was imprisoned for trying to steal the mechanisms out of the Cathedral clock. Then it's that she died in the prison and there's no point looking for her now. All of these stories leave a shape in the middle, an outline of the unsaid truth.
Look for other visitors
Dahut is thriving. Perhaps there are humans here besides you and your crew.
 Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Unanswered questions
You ask among the Drownies, but they reply with reassurances and flattery. No no, you are the only ones here! Don't worry! You have no competition. No one could be like you. You are special, welcome, adored. If you think you have heard a strange human voice now and then, it is just a memory from your life before.
Successful event
Unmistakable traces
There are human voices, sometimes, even if you can't see the people speaking. There are footmarks on the ground, and disturbed seaweed on the stones, that must have been churned up by an unaccustomed swimmer. The Drownies are in their element here. They do not leave such marks.
Search for the secret places of Dahut
There are other humans here. You have heard voices and seen Zubmarines in dock. But where are the others kept?
 Failed event
The staircase under the Cathedral
It leads down, but it's hard to see where it goes. There are plaques to past Drownies, but the words do not hold their meaning from one moment to the next. There is a gate of latticed iron, tinged with rust. Beyond the gate, the water is murky and dim.
Successful event
The staircase under the Cathedral
If you stand at the bottom of the stairs and listen at the Crypt-gate, you hear sounds that do not come from the dead. At one moment they sound like songs, at the next like tears, and then after that like meditation. Some rattle their bars, but most do not. Where would one rather be imprisoned than here in Dahut?
Rare successful event (50%)
The staircase under the Cathedral
If you stand at the bottom of the stairs and listen at the Crypt-gate, you hear sounds that do not come from the dead. You hear sobbing, and the names of lost sweethearts, and expressions of anger. You hear regrets over decisions taken poorly. Today your fascination with Dahut does not increase.
Investigate the Crypt of the great Cathedral
Why isn't it quieter down there? Does it hold more than the dead?
 Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Asking leads to nothing
What is below? Why, the Drownies say, It is a Crypt! It is full of monuments to the past, and persons who are no longer able to move around. The ceilings are low and the smell is peculiar, but that only adds to its romance.
Successful event
Attend closely
Through a window in the stone, you once think you see a woman in a plain dress, sitting very upright. When you look again, she is gone. But twice a day, a Drownie goes into the Crypt with a basket of ordinary bread. Twice a day, a Drownie comes out with a slop bucket.
Rare successful event (25%)
Attend closely
Through a window in the stone, you see a woman in a plain dress, sitting very upright. Her hair streams around her in the water. She sees you and raises both hands in a peculiar double wave, because, as you see, her wrists are cuffed together. She smiles at you and then the light shifts and you can no longer see into her cell.
Investigate the Calendar
The dates in Dahut do not progress as they should. The seasons sometimes overlap. Sometimes it is no season at all.
 Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Do not be foolish
The Drownie in the vicar's collar peers at you. "You have been here since Janupril," he says, as though to a young child. "It will soon be the Feast of All Shrieks, and then Saint Aegidius' Day."
Successful event
It is every season, and none
Your crew-mates have different ideas from yours. One says it is October, another that you are just coming up on spring. Another points out that the roses are blooming, so it must be summer. But they've been blooming all year long. Haven't they? How long have you been here?
Rare successful event (25%)
Times and dates
Before you can investigate, you have to remember that you're underwater, because the illusion is so strong that it is tempting always to walk on the ground. But you can swim up to the clock face on the Cathedral, close enough to see the tertiary dial. You should bring a good lamp, because even when there is sunlight elsewhere in Dahut, it never illuminates this part of the clock. If you do that, you can see dials that indicate today's dates: one hand pointing to December, one to June, and a stubby shorter hand pointing to the last of October. That hand is growing longer.
Consume a Needle of Fortas
The point is sharp enough to end dreams.
Borrowed regrets
The Needle brings you the memory of a long-ago theft, an engagement ring stolen from a corpse as it lay in its coffin. Shame and jealousy, set in a dusty parlour. The recollection belongs to a time and place much more real than Dahut.
Game note: This will reduce both Enthralment and Clarity.

Sing a Song of Broken Hulls
Reveal this place as it is: a treason against the laws of breathing and swimming.
Fill your lungs
You sing, and the Drownies around turn, arrested, to stare at you. They do not want to hear this song. The Cathedral beams creak, and you see that the buttresses are also the bones of a wrecked clipper. The Zee-grass ripples, and you see the crabs hiding in it. The water-air shimmers under the weight of the ordinary Zee above.
Game note: Gain Clarity.

Rare event (40%)
Fill your lungs
You sing, and the Drownies around turn, arrested, to stare at you. They do not want to hear this song. The Cathedral beams creak, and you see that the buttresses are also the bones of a wrecked clipper. You recognise names inscribed by the door of the Crypt: an Admiralty woman lost at Zee, a well-known merchant. They are Drownies now, or parents of Drownies.
Sing a Drownie Hymn
It is full of praise and awe.
Gather, listen
You lift your voice, and the Drownies join in at once, filling the water with the familiar song. The Cathedral lights from within, casting rose and gold and nile-green beams outwards from its windows. The effect is immediate. Far above, there is a shriek of tearing metal. It begins to rain in Dahut: parts of a metal hull, chunks of engine, the bodies of Khanate sailors. The Drownies receive them with exultation and reverence. They lay the bodies in rows in the graveyard and search the pockets for anything curious.
 Game note: This will increase both Clarity and Enthralment, and sometimes gain something extra.

Rare event (50%)
Gather, listen
You lift your voice, and the Drownies join in at once, filling the water with the familiar song. The Cathedral lights from within, casting rose and gold and nile-green beams outwards from its windows. The effect is immediate. Far above, there is a shriek of tearing metal. It begins to rain in Dahut: parts of a metal hull, chunks of engine, drowned sailors from an Admiralty ship. You are the first to reach one particular item of cargo.
Sing the Drownie Counterpoint Song
It is a song of dark and light, of acclaim and infamy.
An interplay of opposites
Illusion and truth are really two sides of the same thing. The Drownies cannot invent anything; they can only suggest new ways to see what is already present.
Game note: This will average your Clarity and Enthralment.

Sing a Drownie Love-song
Express your longing.
Glittering
You cannot sing the song as well as its original singer, but it still captivates: the memory of seduction, the willingness to be seduced again, the glory of the Zee and its inhabitants. The air around you seems brighter than ever, the Drownies more beautiful. You fancy that the creatures of the surrounding Zee are gathering at the perimeter of Dahut to look in with wistful desire. In your song there are no pincers, no teeth, no calendars and no clocks.
 Advanced alteration value probably needs examination. Game note: Deepen your Enthralment.

Partake of the White Mollyflower
It will free you from any Enthralment to Dahut, though it will not prevent you becoming enthralled again in the future.
 Crush, bite
The light fades out of the air, the warmth from the sea. You can still breathe, but your lungs ache from the chill of what you are breathing in. It is difficult to see any of the buildings of Dahut in this dimness, but the Cathedral looks like a wrecked hull.
Read an Unread Log entry on Dahut
It might shed some light, or it might not.
Failed event Game note: The Log's effect on your Clarity and Enthralment is at the whim of fate.

Another visitor's tale
The log rhapsodises about a visit to Dahut: the foods, the dances, the affection and beauty of the Drownies, the roses that grow to the size of cabbages, the herds of fish. 'I would have stayed there all my life, except that my First Mate was afraid of the food in that place and refused to eat it. She pressed me again and again to take her somewhere else before she starved. So finally I agreed to take her away to another place, always intending to go back to Dahut... but my Zubmarine being damaged in the voyage, I could not return...'
Rare failed event (25%)
Another visitor's tale
The log tells of a ship saved by Dahut. The Zubmarine had been attacked and badly damaged; the fuel was nearly gone; they were being followed by something that tapped arrhythmically on their hull. The crew were too terrified to speak. When they emerged into the sunny-seeming gardens of Dahut, and swam to greet their hosts, they thought they had already died. The beast following them could be seen circling the spire of the Cathedral, but the Drownies said it could not trespass on the confines of Dahut and that there was nothing to fear.
Successful event
Another visitor's tale
The log tells of an alarming stay in Dahut. Food that looked like fruit but tasted like flesh; the disappearance of several crew members, without leave or explanation; the scent of mildew coming off a bonfire; a creaking noise from the Cathedral roof, and shouts from its Crypt; an obscure Liturgy involving a Bishop Drownie in cream-coloured robes. Now you consider it, you have smelled some of these smells, and tasted some of these tastes, even if you dismissed them at the time.
Rare successful event (25%)
Another visitor's tale
The log tells of a harrowing stay in Dahut: the writer could not see the enthralling visions of the Cathedral and the rose garden that fascinated all of her shipmates. The Drownies dragged her into the Cathedral Crypt and secured her there so that she could tell no one what she saw. There she remained for many months. Now and then new prisoners arrived. Occasionally the Drownies would take a few prisoners out to be turned into Drownies themselves. But she remained, unable to leave, until one of the Drownies took pity on her and left a key in her reach.
Consider attending the Spring Rites with a Drownie
Skin the colour of blue topaz, bones like the frame of a violin.
No one follows you, except with their eyes
What could be more expected, more inevitable, than two such persons as your lovely selves, withdrawing to enjoy one another's company?
 Game note: There will be a chance to back out if you find it is not for you.

Consider attending the Midsummer Festival
Beside the Cathedral is a green field, and on the field are dancers and ribbons and cakes with whole fruits baked inside.
A memory of a memory of the Surface
Everything is washed in light, though there is no sun. The air-water tastes of strawberries. The dancers are all around you. The pipes and the drum desire you to sing. And coming towards you are three especially tall and lithe Drownies. They are carrying trophies, and a crown of ivy and white berries, and a witty poem in your honour.
 Game note: There will be a chance to back out if you do not care for the ritual.

Consider attending the Midwinter Emptying of the Prison
The Drownies gather at the iron latticework gate. Will you join them?
Prisoners remain until they beg to be drowned
At Midwinter, the inhabitants of Dahut go below to see which prisoners are ready to leave the breathable water. They sing songs of failure and disgrace, and then the Drownies accept applications for escape.
 Game note: There will be a chance to back out if you do not care for the ritual.

Consider attending the Liturgy of Souls
The Drownies nibble sugar bones and the doors of the Cathedral are opened for the only time in the year.
The last of the Festivals
The Cathedral is dark, except for candles that do not nearly illuminate its upper reaches. The Drownies gather in the choir stalls to sing. They sing about graves they will never inhabit, about the renown of a good death. The floor is strewn with Drowning-pearls.
 Game note: There will be a chance to back out if you do not care for the ritual.

Goodbyes
You have been here long enough for your departure to be honoured with a farewell party.
Failed event Game note: This will end your stay unambitiously with a small reward.

As friends
You part on pleasant terms, with kind words on both sides. They give you a necklet of Drowning-pearls, and tell you to return when you have fresh news of London.
Successful event
As friends
You part on pleasant terms, with kind words on both sides. They give you a necklet of Drowning-pearls, and tell you to return when you have fresh news of London. Meanwhile, you keep a log of what you have learned. Memories of Dahut are said to fade when one leaves.
Investigate the Crypt of the great Cathedral
Can you see another Prisoner within?
 Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Asking leads to nothing
What is below? Why, the Drownies say, It is a Crypt! It is full of monuments to the past, and persons who are no longer able to move around. The ceilings are low and the smell is peculiar, but that only adds to its romance.
Successful event
Attend closely
Through a window in the stone, you see only an empty cell. But twice a day, a Drownie goes into the Crypt with a basket of ordinary bread. Twice a day, a Drownie comes out with a slop bucket.
Rare successful event (25%)
Attend closely
Through a window in the stone, you see someone pacing back and forth, but you can't make out anything about them: male or female, human or something other.
Investigate the Crypt of the great Cathedral
What is its purpose? Why isn't it quieter down there? Does it hold more than the dead?
 Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Asking leads to nothing
What is below? Why, the Drownies say, It is a Crypt! It is full of monuments to the past, and persons who are no longer able to move around. The ceilings are low and the smell is peculiar, but that only adds to its romance.
Successful event
Attend closely
Through a window in the stone, you see only an empty cell. But twice a day, a Drownie goes into the Crypt with a basket of ordinary bread. Twice a day, a Drownie comes out with a slop bucket.
Rare successful event (25%)
Attend closely
Through a window in the stone, you see someone pacing back and forth, but you can't make out anything about them: male or female, human or something other.
Stay a while
Bring the Drownies news of how London is now, and they will allow you to remain here for a time in exchange.
They call it the City of Peace
The Drownies make you welcome. They do not attack here. They do not even move quickly. They drift and sing and sometimes dance.
Game note: Note that it is easy to gain Terror in Dahut. Be careful.

Ask a Drownie for the latest news of Dahut
The town is thriving and full of events.
Stormless
"The weather has been dismal lately. Hardly a single wreck since Saint Aegidius' Day, and then it was only a little yacht with a few sailors aboard. And two of those were able to swim to shore, and didn't come to Dahut at all! We just have to hope for the spell to break."


Links

Links In

SS drownedsmall Away with a Drownie, SS sunsetsmall Dahut Midsummer Festival, SS churchsmall Liturgy of Souls, SS dahutsmall The Prison of Dahut

Links Out

SS sunsetsmall Dahut Midsummer Festival, SS dahutsmall The Prison of Dahut, SS drownedsmall Away with a Drownie, SS churchsmall Liturgy of Souls, SS scintillacksmall The Fair King's Request

Locations
Ports Abbey Rock • Adam's Way • Aestival • Aigul • Anthe • Avid Horizon • Chapel of Lights • Chelonate • Codex • Cumaean Canal Staging Area • Dahut • Demeaux Island • Empire of Hands • Fallen London • The Fathomking's Hold • Frostfound • Gaider's Mourn • Gant Pole • Godfall • Grand Geode • Hideaway • Hunter's Keep • Irem • Iron Republic • Isle of Cats • Khan's Glory • Khan's Heart • Khan's Shadow • Kingeater's Castle • Low Barnet • Mangrove College • Mount Palmerston • Mutton Island • Nook • Nuncio • Pigmote Isle • Polythreme • Port Carnelian • Port Cecil • Rosegate • Salt Lions • Scrimshander • Shepherd Isles • Station III • The Undercrow • The Uttershroom • Varchas • Venderbight • Visage • Whither • Wisdom • Wrack
Places of Interest An Abyss... • The Admiralty Survey Office • Avernus • The Brass Embassy • Dawn Machine • Drydock • The Eye • The Forgotten Quarter • The House of the Question • Light-Ship • Naples • Quaker's Haven • Roser's Wharf • Surface • The University • Vienna • Wolfstack Docks • The Wreck of the Nocturne • Your Lodgings
Characters Blind Bruiser • Merchant Venturer • The Dark-Spectacled Admiral • The Fathomking • The First Curator
Community content is available under CC BY-NC-SA unless otherwise noted.
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