Harlequin is a city in The Chimeric Empire.
Description[ | ]
A city of fools and jesters, but nothing about Harlequin is amusing.
Most of the citizens live outside the city walls in vast tent-slums, ragged and bright and teeming with disease.
Gaining Entry[ | ]
To gain entry to Harlequin, you will need one of the following:
- 4+ Reputation: Chimeric Empire
- 30 G + Stats#Guile check
- 1 Droll Recollection
Interactions[ | ]
Rest and recover.[ | ]
Requires: Sanity damage, Spirit check
This will recover some of your Sanity.
Success: +Sanity
Failure: -Sanity
Repair your hull.[ | ]
Requires: Hull damage
Sixteen raucous clowns pile into your kinetopede, waving wrenches and blow-torches with a gleeful lack of regard for each other's lives.
-# G
Hull to max
Gather news.[ | ]
Requires: 0 Current Affairs: Harlequin
The tannoys, of course, are useless for anything but propaganda and punning. You'll need to speak to the beggars, who won't be willing to talk for free.
-10 G
+1 Current Affairs: Harlequin
An audience with the Painted Queen.[ | ]
Once per visit
The Pasquinade Palace is hosting one of its games. You may petition the Queen if you wish, but try not to bore her.
+1 Lurid Tale
Violence in the tent-slums.[ | ]
Once per visit
You hear gunfire, and screams that could be laughter.
Possible results:
- +1 Lurid Tale
- +1 Unsettling Conjecture
You are invited to a Night of Revels in the Pasquinade Palace.[ | ]
Requires: 8+ Reputation: Chimeric Empire
The messenger is a blind old clown whose eyes have been replaced with plastic flowers.
+1 Disquieting Incident
Ascertain the loyalty of the Painted Queen.[ | ]
Requires: Empire's Overthrow 5
+2 Angelwine +1 Obscene Booklet
Accompany Harmony to the Grotesquerie.[ | ]
Requires: Harmony Ricketts on board, Beauty in Abomination 6, Vigilance check
Always: -2 Terrible Secret, +1 Disquieting Incident, +1 Horrifying Ordeal, -Sanity, Beauty in Abomination 7
Success: +1 Box of Terrifying Memories
Failure: +1 Disquieting Incident
Shops[ | ]
The Grotesquerie[ | ]
Clowns in white coats perform their craft upon willing and unwilling subjects, with vats and pins and scalpels. (Note: Although some of the descriptions suggest that items are available for sale, the Grotesquerie only ever purchases.)
| Name | Buy | Sell | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Box of Terrifying Memories | - | 100 G | The Humourists of the Grotesquerie often take their patients' memories, particularly the memories of their treatments. They review them at leisure, and sell them when bored. |
| Biological Anomaly | - | 215 G | "At the bottom of a mutagen vat it was, shrieking," one of the Humourists tells you. "Your guess is as good as ours, ha haha ha." |
| Primordial Oddity | - | 250 G | "It must be a relic of older times, ha haha ha! We must study it, give it to us. Can you imagine, can you imagine, can you even imagine?" |
| Deiform Scabmatter | - | 870 G | "Oh, godmatter - this is godmatter. Imagine a god-thing we made, and imagine it in torment. Oh, give it to us." |
Grueber's Sardonic Implements[ | ]
Grueber is not merely a merchant - he also offers his services as a prankster, musician and thief for hire. His shop is fashioned in the sickeningly colourful Harlequin style and filled with weaponry.
| Name | Buy | Sell | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gallows Candle | 60 G | - | "Plenty of killers around here," says Grueber, taking a drag on his cheap little cigarette. "Plenty of corpses, too." |
| Laudanum | 70 G | - | "Calms the mind, stiffens the nerves. Good if you want to survive here." |
| Embalmed Corpse | 70 G | - | "I got a job lot of these a while ago. Stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap, that's the way to do it." |
| Arms Consignment | 200 G | - | "Everybody's out to get you. Get them first." |