The Reach

This article is a stub. You can help Sunless Skies Wiki by expanding it.

A possible chart of The Reach

The Reach is one of the four regions in the High Wilderness. It was the first region introduced, and is where new Captains will begin.

Overview

The Reach is an untamed region that Albion has begun to colonize. Long ago, it was ruled and carefully cultivated by a Judgement known as The Garden-King, but upon his death, it grew wild and dangerous. Despite the lack of a sun, The Reach still remains lit thanks to an abundance of luminous plants and fungi.

After London's conquest of Albion, it looked to The Reach to expand its frontiers. The Parzifal, the first locomotive to pass through the Avid Horizon, was sent on an expedition to chart The Reach, but was never seen again. This did not deter the British, however, and after the establishment of Port Prosper and its Transit Relay, the region was soon awash with agents of the Empire-backed Windward Company, settlers seeking a fresh start, and miners in search of new sources of hours. The early settlement of New Winchester at The Reach's core rapidly grew into the region's de facto capital, and additional Transit Relays transformed it into a hub linking Albion to Eleutheria and The Blue Kingdom.

Unfortunately, the euphoria of claiming a new land eventually gave way to political frictions as the settlers began to disagree about The Reach's future. The Windward Company and supporters of Her Enduring Majesty, the Stovepipes, wanted The Reach to remain part of the New British Empire, while numerous independence-minded settlers, the Tacketies, wanted to establish a new, egalitarian state, free of Albion's dreaded workworlds and the crushing apathy of its bureaucracy. These tensions exploded into open conflict over control of New Winchester and The Reach that became known as the Winchester War. Following a series of bloody, large-scale locomotive battles, both sides fell into a stalemate. With the outcome of the war unclear, skirmishes between the Stovepipes and Tacketies continue throughout the region apart from New Winchester, which serves as a neutral ground that, for the time being, hosts both the headquarters of Windward Company and the Tacketies' Colonial Assembly.

Map

The Reach consists of six segments. The central Port of New Winchester is always in a fixed direction in the middle, the other five are randomly placed around it. 120 different combinations are therefore possible, however disregarding the relative orientation to New Winchester there are only 24 different map compositions.

The outer segments are:

• Port Avon and Traitors Wood; A Signalbox (Cudllescomb); The Wreck of the Parzifal; Regent's Tears and Regent's Grave
• Magdalene's and Port Prosper; A Signalbox (Addison Wick); The Albion Transit Relay; The Memorial of the unknown Rat and Braley Rock
• Carillon and Lustrum; A Signalbox (Whelping Rest); The Desolation of Saliba and the Grave of the Silent Saint
• Polmeare & Plenty's and Hybras; The Eleutheria Transit Relay and Faith's Fall
• Titania and Leadbeater & Stainrod's Nature Reserve; A Signalbox (Elinor Green); Old Tom's Well; The Apoidean Gardens and Tiggelaar's Haunt

The edges of the segments are not consistently out of Rock/Obstacles and therefore allow passage between adjacent segments where two open spaces meet. However this can also lead to the creation of cul-de-sacks, most commonly around Hybras, which is mostly closed off by itself.

Ports

Name	Circle in the Reach	For Sale	Log Entries
New Winchester	Centre	Fuel, Supplies	A distant clamour of engine-yards. An accretion of smog on the windows. The taste of smog. The sound of iron on iron. We are home. Wispy condensation trails cross the sky; the ghosts of passing trains.
Company House	Centre	(none)	(none)
Victory Hall	Centre	(none)	(none)
Magdalene's	Outer 1	Fuel, Supplies, Souls	A carmine glow burns in the dark: Magdalene's, where you can buy comforting lies. "Can we stop at Magdalene's, Captain?" a stoker pleads. "We've been too long in the sky." The impertinence! Your bridge windows fog with recent steam-trails. This place is well-frequented.
Port Prosper	Outer 1	Fuel, Supplies, Hours	A rumble of far-off refineries. Distant searchlights rake the sky.
Port Avon	Outer 2	Fuel, Supplies, Souls	A new smell, behind the coal and the oil: the green, unlikely scent of apples. Ruins claw the sky, the work of giants. Today, the sky is as cool and blue as ice in a glass.
Traitor's Wood	Outer 2	Supplies, Bronzewood	A forest of towering bronzewoods. The wind is full of fallen leaves. They rattle at your engine's windows. A stoker sings, "I have nae home, nae love, nae gold. I have nae breath; my heart is cold. So fold my arms and raise my hood; and lay me down in Traitor's Wood." Beneath you stretches a wood as wide as a sea. The boughs groan. The leaves whisper.
Polmear & Plenty's Inconceivable Circus	Outer 3	Supplies, Bronzewood	A cluster of islands lie in the mists. Strings of bunting flutter, optimistically, between them. Coloured searchlights play across the clouds. They cast wild shadows, haloed in pink and green. "Hark!" a signaller cries. You do, and hear the oompah-oompah of distant circus music, perpetrated by a straining tuba.
Hybras	Outer 3	Supplies, Seeds	Drifting spores clog your engine's chimney. It splutters, then coughs, exunging them with a belch of steam. Fungus covers this place like a blanket. It sprouts - pallid white and angry red - on every outcropping and asteroid. The sky is quiet, here. "An ill-omened place," a crewman mutters.
Titania	Outer 4	Fuel, Supplies, Nectar, Red Honey	A heady pollen-scent permeates the bridge, fierce as blooming lilies. The sky-winds are calmer here. Lazy breezes, prickled with pollen. You hear a distant drone. A crewman grimaces. "Chorister-bees," he mutters.
Leadbeater & Stainrod's Nature Reserve	Outer 4	Fuel, Supplies, Seeds	Golden lights dance in the distance, bright and brief as dandelion seeds passing through a sunbeam. Here, the Reach's verdance runs rampant. You see knotted vines and lurid fungus, and orange flowers bright as polished trumpets. How deep the greens! How cold the stars! How wild the Reach has run, with no sun to govern it.
Carillon	Outer 5	Supplies, Nectar	How quiet it is. And what's that smell? Eggs? Sulphur? It is dark and peaceful, here. The stars are few. The silence is eery. A stoker tries to sing, to lighten the mood. His comrade hushes him.
Lustrum	Outer 5	Fuel, Supplies, Hours	A flurry of snow blows past the window. A crewman curses the cold. Frost filigrees the window. The crew shivers. A pipe splits in the cold. Snow-laden peaks rise from the mists. And dwarfing them all, the impossible immensity of the Mother of Mountains.

Discoveries and Spectacles

Name	Circle in the Reach	Spectacle Type	Explorable?	Log Entries	Notes
Old Tom's Well	Outer	Horror	Yes	"Careful, Captain," a signaller whispers. "Lest the well-winds take us." The well's depths are as black as a strangler's heart. Well-winds ravage the sky. Your hull groans. Someone is praying.	Shows on the map as a large vortex.
Wreck of the Parzifal	Outer	-	Yes	A once-proud engine drifts here, riven by a destructive growth of fungus.	Found near the forest of Traitor's Wood.
Apoidean Gardens	Outer	Wonder	Yes	Your navigator is entranced by the wash of flowers. '...and soon arrived in fields of asphodel,' they recite, 'the home of shadows who have been worn to weariness'.	Found near Leadbeater & Stainrod's Nature Reserve.
Braley Rock	Outer	Horror	Yes	Miners dug too deep into this worldlet, disturbing a disgruntlement of Cantankeri.	Found near Port Prosper
Desolation of Saliba	Outer	Horror	No	Sigils crawl on these ancient ruins like marching ants.
Faith's Fall	Outer	Horror	Yes	Behold. The remains of a celestial behemoth, rotting gently. "A Messenger of the Heavens", breathes a member of your crew. There are tears in his eyes.	Found near Hybras
Grave of the Silent Saint	Outer	Horror	Yes	How deeply do the dead sleep? Fly softly. HIC SVNT DRACONES. See! Even death may die.	Found near Lustrum
Memorial to the Unknown Rat	Outer	Wonder	No	You approach the Memorial to the Unknown Rat. One by one, your crew remove their hats.	Found near Port Prosper
Regent's Grave	Outer	Horror	Yes	You near the heart of the wood, silent and solemn.	Found near Traitor's Wood.
Regent's Tears	Outer	Wonder	Yes	A tremble in the air, which swells to a thunder. The falls cascade through the sky, alight with all the hues of heaven. "The Regent's Tears!" a crewman cries. The rest of the crew crowd to the windows, eager for a glance.	Found near Traitor's Wood.
Schwartz's Oath	Outer	Horror	No	The ruins of an ancient structure, once kissed by a long-dead sun.
Tiggelaar's Haunt	Outer	Horror	No	Sigils glow on these ruins, lambent in the mist.