[WIP] How To Enter The House of the Moon Other Than The Summit Gate
The following contains major spoilers for Cultist Simulator, Book of Hours, and other Secret Histories/Weather Factory content.
The following assumes you’ve played Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours, that you’ve read all content available for those works, and that you understand the basics of the Secret Histories world.
Introduction
Getting to the House of the Moon can happen two ways in Cultist Simulator. Morgen is said to hold the Key of David that can sometimes open the Summit Gate when ‘housed in Black Sapphire.’
Dancer Legacy: IN THE HOUSE OF THE MOON is a minor moth victory achievable in the Dancer Legacy in which the reflection of the Dancer in a mirror is said to enter the House of the Moon through the Summit Gate.
Exile Legacy: The Velvet victory involves offering Morgen pentiments to get through the Summit Gate.
However, just as there are many ways to the Mansus, there are potentially other ways to access the House of the Moon.
My theory:
Sunken Ys is the House of the Moon and is currently accessible if you can get to it underwater.
You can enter the House of the Moon if you revert/evolve into Carapace Cross of the Seglaz-kind and swim to the House of the Moon.
The endings about the city of black sapphire/City Unbuilt/Ys rising into the rest of the world or into the Mansus imply Ys is currently underwater but that it exists. The Sky versions of the Back in the Balance endings imply that Ys will rise in Port Noon.
Currently, Ys is inhabited by the Seglaz-kind.
When the Carapace Cross return, the Egg (humanity) will unhatch (return to a Carapace Cross state.)
The best ending is for the Twice-Born to become thrice-born: becoming Carapace Cross and entering the House of the Moon as their ‘third choice,’ by using Loopholes and Moon to establish a history. This is already explicitly stated as the Twice-Born’s ending if they make that choice. It makes narrative sense that they’d regress from immortal to human to Carapace Cross in a sort of Benjamin Button way.
Humanity lost the ability to access the House of the Moon easily when the Carapace Cross ‘passed within’ when they removed their Carapace features to blend into humanity. By returning to a Carapace Cross state, one is able to regain access to the House of the Moon, because the House of the Moon is difficult to access physically.
I believe that one way to access the House of the Moon involves using the ocean as a mirror. The ocean is a mirror someone can physically enter. While the Mansus is usually entered mentally, in dreams, the House of the Moon can be entered physically, while awake.
Humans cannot breathe underwater usually, but humans have the potential to do so when they return to the Carapace Cross state, specifically, the Selgaz-kind, which many/most humans have some descended from The Carapace Cross are described multiple times as having diverged into different subtypes. It’s explicitly stated in the Numen Back into Balance that ‘When the travelling Carapace-kinds passed beyond the wave and the sky, they made arrangements for their return.’ We know from the Revolutionary’s Sky version of the Back into Balance ending that the Carapace Cross that went into the ocean are still alive: ‘The day the Cross came, the sky above Port Noon was dark with returning wings, and the sea boiled with their shapes.’ We know from the Heart versions of the Back in the Balance endings that the return of the Carapace Cross causes people to change, perhaps not just mentally, but physically. In the Executioner’s heart version of the Back into Balance ending, they state that they have ‘begun to long for rain.’ We know from the Cucurbit Prison Records 1927 that Coller was able to revert two prisoners back into ocean-dwelling Carapace Cross types, described as ‘Seglaz-kind ('sickle-formed pseudocrustacea').’ Any human capable of language arguably has Seglaz-kind lineage, because the flavor text for a journal dedicated to Scale is labeled ‘We Hatched from Shell’ and reads, ‘The Carapace Cross are a hybrid race, and once we were the Carapace Cross. From the Seglaz-kind, we inherited what now we call language. We long for what we were; and History too is hybrid.’ Interestingly, the Scale determination is not called ‘Scale Origin’: it’s called ‘Shell Origin.’ My argument is that the human body is the shell, and inside is the Selgaz-kind (among others) Carapace Cross.
Morgen/Mme Mautine is associated strongly with both the House of the Moon and the ocean
Morgen has a boat called the Sapphire
Morgen’s name is a reference to a siren-type being
Morgen is associated with the Sea Stories skill in Book of Hours.
Moon
Ocean
What We Know About Black Sapphire
Black Sapphire Wash is an ink described as a ‘potent Moon-pigment’ and ‘The colour, perhaps, of the doors of the House of the Moon.’
Black Sapphire Wash is said to be an ink reveals ‘Moon-truths.’
Black Sapphire is made from Asimel, ‘A silver ink that can only be made and used in dreams. An Ink of Revelation.’ Asimel is in turn crafted a variety of ways. Of note is that the flavor text when creating Asimel utilizing a lens, Moon, and Ouranoscopy reads, ‘Focus the light of the heavens to enliven a silvery Moon-ink.’ In contrast, the flavor text when creating Asimel by the other means (including a lens with Winter) simply read, ‘Brew a silvery Moon-ink.’
Black sapphire as a material features in all four of the Origin-specific Moon endings.
What We Know about Ys
Ys is sometimes referred to as The City Unbuilt.
Ys features in all three of the Moon history aspects of the endings. For Loopholes, Great Counterfeit, and Weaving the World, if you choose to complete your journal using the Moon principle, the flavor text reads, ‘I have recorded a History in which the City Unbuilt rises in the Mansus, through the Numen [whatever].’
The Great Counterfeit: The Sun-in-Splendour and the Forge of the Days could not be joined. But Sunset Celia and the Swan King could. This secret is the trick of it.
Weaving the World: The Histories, they say, are braided like hair - or tangled like roots. What is the shape of that knot? Funny you should ask…
Serpent-Root
‘A mass of root-stock, shiny with age but still somehow viable. Tiny spidery scratchings, marked with embedded egg-shell shards, encode a cryptic message.
‘Sea-born, tide-drawn, Meniscate-sister, Witch-lover. The House of the Moon will always have its messenger, though its messenger is different each time, in eye and flesh and heart…'
Feits, feats, posterns, loopholes, set down against the advent of Eternity by powers favouring imperfection and impermanence. [Any Librarian can use this to establish a History and complete the game - but the Twice-Born can win a particular victory.]’
The Egg Unhatching is humanity returning to the Carapace Cross state
Dedicating a journal to Scale states that is labeled ‘We Hatched from Shell.’
A return to the Carapace Cross state can be seen as an unhatching.
What keywords do we glean from this?
Moon
Mirror
Sea
The Velvet
The Witch-and-Sister
The Sister-and-Witch
Moth
David
Morgen
Black Sapphire
Pentiments
Conclusion
