Promises Contracts and Clocks - Bookhounds of London

Sourced from Visiting London Guide

 ... we live in a world which is governed by promises and contracts and clocks. If there actually is any such thing as free will, aren't we the idiots to fetter it! The chances of doing things on impulse are being continually diminished. There are points in the city now where it is not possible to cross the street without the permission of the policeman.

Heywood Broun, Seeing Things at Night, 1921, Harcourt, Brace & Company

I recently loaned my copy of Bookhounds' Book of the Smoke to a friend, recently in this instance being pre-COVID. I just got it back yesterday and was thumbing its pages when I noticed this section (p32) about Green Park.

There is a tree in Green Park that has such an evil aura about it that birds will not nest in its branches and tramps will not sleep beneath it for fear they will not see light of morning.

That felt inspirational. I needed more material. I hopped across to Gutenberg, where useful tomes of all sorts can be found. I searched for Green Park, and came up with Heywood Broun. I don't know why. Google failed me, I suppose.

Still, Broun has something useful there. Governed by promises and contracts and clocks. A clever turn of phrase, yes. Something more?

Suppose there were parts of the world which weren't governed by promises, contracts and clocks. Where time had no meaning, and the immutable realities we take for granted no longer apply. A singular spot in space-time where there are no promises, contracts, or clocks. Where you could slip outside the fervent, febrile, onward-rushing beat of seconds. 

Green Park used to be swampland. Lepers were buried there, and highwaymen haunted its lonely lanes. Horace Walpole, Prime Minister and Gothic author of the Castle of Otranto, was once held up at pistol-point in what is now Green Park. Fireworks displays and famous duels were both seen at Green Park.

Broun is talking about a lack of liberty and free will, a world in which you can't do anything by impulse. Suppose Green Park is one of those places where you can get all the liberty you could wish for, where there is nothing but impulse.

Where would you find yourself?

I think the answer must be beyond London, in a place where all possible versions of Green Park can and do exist. Where nothing you do matters and time no longer applies.

You would walk arm-in-arm with Chaos and the Infinite.

In game terms I would treat Green Park as a kind of fane (Rough Magicks) capable of providing 1 potential point of Magic to those willing to go there at night and open themselves up to the possibilities. The precise terms of this encounter I leave to the Keeper. It might be limited by time of year, astrological conjunctions, or a willingness to listen to a particular shadow. 

I would further say that those doing so risk opening themselves up to Azathoth, with the appropriate penalties (+6 Stability, +5 SAN) - the killing blow that so many fell foul of. Coming to Green Park under these specific circumstances opens up reality; the student is skating on the skin of a soap bubble which at any moment might collapse in upon itself, revealing the nothingness at its core.

I would finally say that those who take advantage of this opportunity gain one of the following traits:

• Contracts are either ironclad or completely void. In game terms, those for whom contracts are ironclad must always fulfil contracts to the letter or suffer a potential 5 point Stability loss. The same in reverse for those to whom contracts mean nothing; they must break that contract or suffer the potential 5 point Stability loss.
• Promises are treated the same way as Contracts - ironclad, or void.
• Time is special. Time no longer applies to the supplicant, not in the way it does to mortals. At first this might seem a blessing - they never age. Then one morning they wake up fourteen years old, and stay that way for ... however long. The next, they wake up ninety-eight. Or perhaps they don't wake up, perhaps their dream-self steps out of bed and performs in their place, causing potential Stability losses for anyone dealing with them since their dream-self is ... odd ... and lacks cohesion. 

I would also say that anyone who takes advantage of this offer can never go to Green Park again. If they do, they risk vanishing into the London-that-Was and never getting out again. 

That's it for this week! Enjoy.