"Oh, let me look at you, let me look, my poor darling. Yes, it's just as I thought! You have the Lily-Tongue Sweats. Fascinating. Beautiful! Now, stick out your tongue."

The Curious Socialite is hosting a salon, and only Londoners with 'fashionable' maladies are invited. Are you coming down with something? Do your symptoms inspire envy? Investigate a burgeoning aesthetic movement that treats illness as art, help catalogue Neathy Diseases, and learn just how far some people will go for the sake of a radiant complexion.

- Writing: Jim Rossignol

- Editing and QA: Chandler Groover

- Art: Paul Arendt

EXCEPTIONAL FRIENDSHIP

Exceptional Friendship is the ideal way to support our work on Fallen London. In exchange for your coin, you receive:

- A new Exceptional Story every month

- Memories of a Tale from each story to spend on exclusive companions and items

- A second candle (up to 40 actions at once)

- An expanded opportunity deck: ten cards instead of six

- Four additional outfit slots

- The ability to run an additional concurrent plot, once Agents are unlocked

- Access to the House of Chimes including monthly gameplay perks

Enhanced Exceptional Friends receive all of the above, plus:

- A past story, or two resets of stories they've played from a monthly menu

- Memories of a Tale from every past story or reset

- Extra monthly perks in the House of Chimes

- Another two outfit slots

- Three seven-action refreshes per month

- The ability to run a further concurrent plot, once Agents are unlocked

The Fruits of the Zee Festival 

Fruits of the Zee is our free, annual festival of the bounty of the zee. The festival begins today, the 3rd of September, and ends on September the 17th. 

Supplicate the zee with sacrifices to turn Mutton Island's fortunes around. Dive beneath the waters of Shepherd's Wash and explore the wrecks that linger beneath that forlorn isle. Descend as deep as you dare, and unearth what treasures courage allows. Bargain with the King-in-Coral for ownership of the bounties you wrest from the zee. 

Encounter the island's visitors, trade your winnings, restore the festival to its former glory, and perhaps even meet the Green-Gilled Shipwright and see the works of his craft.

You don’t need to own a ship to participate: anyone can catch a ferry from Wolfstack Docks to Mutton Island to join the festivities. When you arrive at Mutton Island, playing the storylet 'Mutton Island, Barren' will unlock the festival's activities. 

Wreck-Diving

In the first week of the Festival, you'll be able to dive the wrecks off Mutton Island for treasures. To begin, you'll need to raise your Five-Fold Devotion by Supplicating the Shore-line. 

Once you begin diving, you'll be able to push your luck as far as you dare, before emerging with a treasure. These treasures can be traded in the second week of the Festival. You can check the value of your treasures by reading 'A Fruits of the Zee Primer', available throughout the Festival. 

The first week will conclude with, as is becoming tradition, a ceremonial drowning.

Trading

In the second week of the festival, you'll be able to trade your treasures for Thalassic Favour at the Fruits Market. You can then exchange Thalassic Favour for new items, items from previous Fruits of the Zee festivals, and economy items. 

Items from previous years, as well as this year, are also available for Fate from the Fruits Market. You may also trade several of the new items with visiting characters in exchange for cosmetic variants with identical statistics. 

Finally, if you own a ship, you can also trade high amounts of Thalassic Favour for new ships from the Green-Gilled Shipwright. These ships are also available at sporadic times during the year, but are cheapest during the Fruits of the Zee. Your ship’s value will be factored into the purchase – you may only have one ship at a time.

As always, those who have the Cladery Heart will need to stash it in London, but may trade in their other ship.

What's Different in 2026?

We've added a couple of new things to the festival this year!

A Penny for Eligius

It is not just humans and Drownies that worship at the well…

A Penny for Eligius is a vignette that adds new branches to cards in your zailing deck – provided you have the troublesome Cult of Eligius equipped as your Crew. Learn about this secretive ratty cult. Collect alms for their order, and make offerings to the well. Uncover the truth behind the sect of Saint Eligius – and, if you are unlucky, witness a miracle for yourself.

A Penny for Eligius costs 10 Fate, and requires that you own your own ship.

New Coral Beneath the Waves!

Uncover a new type of coral while Wreck-Diving – Rust-Eaten Rations! These can later be traded for one of three brand new items of Luggage.

Lastly, Destinies 

Those without a Destiny, or wishing to change their Destiny, may travel to Irem during the Fruits of the Zee Festival and do so via 'The Riddlefishers: Matters of Destiny'.

Those without a Destiny may also acquire one from the Drowning Feast, once the Fruits of the Zee Festival is back in full swing during the second week.

The Impetuous Linguist's research into the poetics of the Correspondence is turning heads: the wrong kind of heads. When the Linguist goes missing, the Prudent Professor beseeches you to search for her. Wrestle with her research, disturb those who would disturb her. Any good translator knows that translation is an art unto itself.

- Writing: Anna Anthropy

- Editing and QA: Luke van den Barselaar

- Art: Paul Arendt

EXCEPTIONAL FRIENDSHIP

Exceptional Friendship is the ideal way to support our work on Fallen London. In exchange for your coin, you receive:

- A new Exceptional Story every month

- Memories of a Tale from each story to spend on exclusive companions and items

- A second candle (up to 40 actions at once)

- An expanded opportunity deck: ten cards instead of six

- Four additional outfit slots

- The ability to run an additional concurrent plot, once Agents are unlocked

- Access to the House of Chimes including monthly gameplay perks

Enhanced Exceptional Friends receive all of the above, plus:

- A past story, or two resets of stories they've played from a monthly menu

- Memories of a Tale from every past story or reset

- Extra monthly perks in the House of Chimes

- Another two outfit slots

- Three seven-action refreshes per month

- The ability to run a further concurrent plot, once Agents are unlocked

Here, where the rain falls like a sigh, where the raging maelstrom all around is quieted. Here – on fresh, sodden earth, on an island in the dreams of a dead god – you are gathered.

The Finale of Firmament will arrive on Tuesday 1st September 2026. The greatest peril still awaits you, your officers, and the Neath. Board your airship. Follow fire, one last time. Storm awaits you in the Roof: what – and who – can still be saved?

Firmament is Fallen London’s current major expansion, a main story arc that’s free to all players. It begins once you have progressed the Railway as far as Ealing Gardens, although requires more progress in the Railway as chapters progress. As part of this chapter, you’ll also unlock permanent access to a new location, Procession.

The Missing Candle is a reliably quiet pub in Veilgarden – the drinks are cheap, the food is... extant. These days it is best known as the meeting place of a very exclusive club – one that happens to include you.

The Candlefinder Society – the five greatest detectives in London – regularly meet to talk shop. Sometimes, you join forces to unravel the city’s most unusual mysteries. Today we're releasing another new case for you to solve: the Case of the Stolen Sceptre, written by Michael Bunning.

The Urchin Detective has – at long last – found herself a willing pet. The Unkempt Collie is small, hyperactive, and riddled with fleas; the perfect companion for the diminutive sleuth. Provided, of course, that you can prove his innocence and clear his name of the charges levelled against him by one of the city's haughtiest cats.

This case is available for free.

Getting Started

Candlefinder mysteries are episodic stories set in London, available from the midgame onwards. To unlock the Candlefinder Society:

• Complete ‘A Name in Seven Secret Alphabets’ (raise that quality to 7)
• Complete ‘A Name Whispered in Darkness’ (raise that quality to 7)
• Raise your unmodified Watchful to 90 or more

If you meet those conditions, you can gain access to the Candlefinder Society by drawing a guaranteed card in London. Once started, cases must be finished before you can start another one or replay a past case. Some, like this one, require additional progress in other storylines, or higher stats, to begin. Cases can be replayed; Fate cases don’t cost anything to replay. The reward for completing a given case for the first time is more substantial.

Unusually for our games, in Mandrake a number of things are already determined about your character. You're always a Mandrake, the last descendant of the aristocratic family that once ruled the region. You're always a gardener-sorcerer, resuming arts long-forgotten and long-forbidden. And you're always a newcomer to Penhallion and the village of Chandley, having been born and raised in a far-off land.

But that still leaves plenty of room to decide things about your character: name, appearance, history. We don't want character creation in Mandrake to be complex or time-consuming – after all, you'll have plenty of opportunities to define your character with your choices throughout the game. But we do want to give you the chance to make some basic decisions about their past, to provide an initial glimpse of the world beyond Chandley, and to provide more variety for future playthroughs.

(I’ve used some screenshots to illustrate the choices. Please bear in mind all these are in-progress; they contain placeholder icons, and are subject to change!)

Presentation

The first thing you'll see when you create a new character is this set of options:

Here, you'll make a number of simple choices about your character's presentation: body type, skin and hair colour, facial hair, gender, and the colour of your starter clothes. None of these choices are dependent on others -- all of them can be mixed and matched.

In some of our previous games we've asked you to choose how NPCs address your character, but you don't get to choose a title this time around – that's already fixed: you're a Mandrake, and most NPCs will either call you that or by your first name (which defaults to 'Morgan', but you can change to whatever you prefer). The 'Gender' field allows you to choose male, female, or non-binary. If all goes well, we hope to translate Mandrake into other languages, not all of which share English's approach to pronouns, so a choice of gender which can then inform localisation techniques made the most sense this time around.

After you've made your Mandrake, we move on to a short set of narrative choices which determine some things about their past, and set your initial Traits.

Traits

Traits are facets of your character's personality: the way they see the world and the things they are attuned to. There are five of them, including Neighbour, Magnate, and Romantic. Neighbour represents your sense of community, of the benefits and compromises of being part of Chandley. Magnate, on the other hand, represents your affinity with your Mandrake heritage: your sense of familial pride or responsibility. While your Romantic trait describes your ability to see what might have been, your sense of optimism and tragedy, your poetic streak.

Occasionally, having a Trait at a certain level or above will unlock a new conversation option. But most of the time, what they do is provide Insights: interjections as you're talking to an NPC that provide context and interpretations of their opinions and behaviour. A high Romantic Trait might help you understand a character's regrets. A high Neighbour helps you know what's expected of you at a village festival. (Traits aren't the only things that can provide Insights, either, but that's a topic for another time…)

A specific Trait level will never be required to complete a story, but they might help you find another path through it, or provide additional perspective, or allow you to bond more quickly with certain characters. You'll be able to increase your Traits in play, but your narrative choices in character creation provide you with an initial spread of them when you start the game. And the first choice you'll make is…

Your Homeland

After the Mandrakes fell, their heirs scattered far and wide, their ancestry forgotten. Generations later, you were born and raised in a distant land. But which one?

Perhaps you come from the sea-swept Leeward Isles, to the east? Perhaps you were born in the marshy Heartlands of the old Sophoi Republic – that same Republic whose ambitions grew so great that the laws of the world were changed to overthrow it – and grew up amongst its ruined bones. Or perhaps you hail from the High Eld: a distant northern land in thrall to the winter-gods...

NPCs might occasionally react to your homeland, or it might give you experience to draw on. A newcomer from the Leeward Isles is likely familiar with boating and its terminology. An arrival from the High Eld might have opinions about the mild winters in Penhallion.

Conclusion

After you've chosen your homeland, you'll also choose the profession you were raised in, and the motive that led you to abandon your old life and take up this new one, each decision giving you another bonus to one of your Traits.

We want your Mandrake character to feel like a part of the world (even if they're new to this little corner of it), and to enter play with perspectives that help them make sense of their new home and new situation. The bulk of customisation will come about in play: through the stories you pursue, the choices you make, and the relationships you form – but in character creation you'll take the first step into a world we hope you'll be spending a lot of time in.

We'll be a featured game in the live stream, talking to some characters in Chandley and giving you a first look at character creation. It'll be 25 minutes of Mandrake that you won't have seen before!

We hope you'll come by; more details and links will be forthcoming closer to the point of broadcast. Stick around for many of the other games which may interest you! (For example we're very excited for the Esoteric Ebb retrospective.)

A missing person, an absconded tomb-colonist, a high-speed beach cruise and a daring attempt to escape the confines of the everyday. How far would you go to flee a suffocating life? What would you leave behind? And what is the price of a complete transformation? Begin a voyage of discovery in the pleasure beaches of the tomb-colonies. Once begun, there may be no turning back.

• Writing: Giada Zavarise
• Editing: James Chew
• QA: Michael Bunning
• Art: Paul Arendt

EXCEPTIONAL FRIENDSHIP

Exceptional Friendship is the ideal way to support our work on Fallen London. In exchange for your coin, you receive:

- A new Exceptional Story every month

- Memories of a Tale from each story to spend on exclusive companions and items

- A second candle (up to 40 actions at once)

- An expanded opportunity deck: ten cards instead of six

- Four additional outfit slots

- The ability to run an additional concurrent plot, once Agents are unlocked

- Access to the House of Chimes including monthly gameplay perks

Enhanced Exceptional Friends receive all of the above, plus:

- A past story, or two resets of stories they've played from a monthly menu

- Memories of a Tale from every past story or reset

- Extra monthly perks in the House of Chimes

- Another two outfit slots

- Three seven-action refreshes per month

- The ability to run a further concurrent plot, once Agents are unlocked

London is prepared for any conceivable disaster. And nothing happens. 

It's going to be a quiet summer in Fallen London; the first in a long time. At this time of year, some disruptive event typically hits the Neath, requiring citizens to band together and restore (relative) peace and quiet. However, this year we need a break from this most intensive of events to devote some extra time and attention to Mandrake. 

But! Even a quiet summer can distract and delight. This year, we're putting on a bonanza of previous Estivals in the Waswood, starting today, the 27th of July, and running until Monday the 17th of August.

All previous Estivals are available to replay without the usual timing restrictions, and we're granting all characters – regardless of how far they have progressed through the game – access to the Waswood for the duration. 

Reliving past Estivals will help unlock various goodies and rewards for all players. You’ll also gain Estival Tokens as usual, and be able to spend them on items of equipment from previous years. There are even a handful of new items to collect! 

The debut of 'Hell is Missing!' 

As part of the festivities, we’ve just made Hell is Missing available in the Waswood for the first time. Last year’s law-bending, clue-hunting festival has a somewhat different shape in memory, but if you missed it at the time, this is the closest you’ll get.

After the 17th of August, the Waswood schedule will go back to normal, slightly adjusted to add Hell is Missing to the rotation.

I've been trying to start up a new enterprise for a while now. A research body." The Focused Resurrectionist lets out a short, barking laugh. "And not the kind I procure for the doctors and dentists, if you catch my drift."

Today we're releasing new Agents for Fallen London, focused on the Shapeling Arts and the Neath's monstrous anatomies! Save a 'colleague' of F.F. Gebrandt from the law's overzealous attention, and establish a new bastion of scientific innovation. There is much yet to be learned about the bodies of the Neath…

This is a basic set of Plots to introduce the characters and concepts; like with previous concerns, we expect to expand and complicate the opportunities available to these Agents in future releases.

Agents are capable retainers who will gladly take care of business on your behalf. Engage agents of different types, with their own skills; equip them with your second best gear and send them on various Plots.

Once you’ve unlocked Agents, you can run a single Plot at a time, and unlock the ability to run a second through gameplay. Exceptional Friends can run a further Plot – and Enhanced Exceptional Friends another still! – provided they have enough Agents to assign.

Players who have attained ‘A Person of Some Importance’ at tier-two status, and who have University laboratories with at least 25 Prestige, can begin this endeavour from 'A Scientist at the Door' in your Lodgings.