#nary frummagem

[unsoundedcomic]

"Thus the fate of those who would defy Sette Frummagem." is the first time in the comic Duane spells out her name. Yet Nary spells it "Setty", because the name was vocally suggested to him, and he never asked (and likely didn't care) about the proper spelling. Duane instinctively spelled it correctly though... because it's Aldish in origin? We know the Man helped create Sette, and though you've stated he's not Ssael himself, does it still mean he's Aldish? Sorry if this is all obvious!

I think it's juuuust apparent enough, since you correctly sussed it all out :) Yes, Sette is a Tainish name, and it means "daughter of the chieftan/king." Or "princess," as Nary already calls her.

Lady Ilganyag's friend sure thought highly of himself. And when Duane was introduced to her, he thought of course this Sharteshanian narcissist named his daughter Princess. These people are maddening.

Sette has no idea about any of this and Nary only knows what it means because he asked an Aldish friend. He still never had the right spelling but eh. Close enough for Sharteshane.

[duperderedere]

Ok, now I’m sure that there’s new Sette lore on this page. Please believe me

Oh boy don’t I know it buddy!!!!!! Yeah brand new Sette lore here, a look at her actual BIRTH! Seems like while she came out of Lady Frummagem (whoever that was) the Black Tongues did something that caused her to be like this. Like Silverfish said, a Black Tongue Gift… she was born but has no navel/umbilical cord, which makes sense. It almost seems like whatever the BT did, it maybe… replaced the baby that was there originally?

Makes me think of a recent ask where Ashley talks about Lady I having to work in the margins of the Khert- how Ana was supposed to die in the Nevergreen, which is why she was used to carry the silver. Based on what Nary says here, it seems like the baby would’ve died without Black Tongue intervention… so maybe, like Ana, Sette is one of those pieces in the margins.

Also damn, Nary killing Sette’s mom because she wanted to kill Sette? Killed a woman he loved for the weird, tailed child she had. Because that’s his child, too… it makes his character more interesting, I think, even if I still want him to be gutted like a fish.

Also now his “if she’s mine” makes a lot more sense. Of COURSE there’s uncertainty here, look at the situation… I bet he’s wondered if Lady Frummagem was even telling him the truth that the baby was his. And then whatever the Black Tongue did… is Sette even his baby anymore?

Well, he decided she was. And here we are.

[duane-sette]

Sette, what is your absolute favourite memory of your father?

Sette: Sometimes I watch when the soldiers come in. The Sharteshanian soldiers as answer to the Beadmans and the King. They got a blood-darkness in their face, like they been sprayed so many times by the blokes they killed it don't wash off no more. They look at ya and ya know they're mebbe turnin' round and round behind their eyes how best t'separate your spirit from your skin.

Da is hard like that. Hard as a apple left out in the sun too long. He's blood-hard; blood-strong; but dried up and preserved so can't nawt touch him.

One time it mighta been that the Fingers

D.A.: Fingers?

Sette: Some bawlin' nursery school gang've coves as vex me time t'time for sore feelin's for how important I am. One time it mighta been they caught me unawares, doubled o'er doin' business with yawnin' Yerta

D.A.: Yawning Yerta?

Sette: Emptyin' me bowels, ya ignorant toff. They caught me out and jumped me and pummeled me 'til I couldn't walk a straight line. And worse, they took me most cherished bodkin, as Granny'd give me on me last birthday. They told all the town and I were shamed. They made up wicked lies about me and broke the blade in three pieces. I couldn't go to Da 'course 'cause he's hard and would laugh at me or tell me t'stop jawin' and get to the business of breakin' even and breakin' faces. I didn't have t'go to Da at all tho' for two days later he left a parcel of poison in me bed and there was all I needed t'make things right again.

D.A.: Don't tell me you poisoned these Finger fellows.

Sette: It weren't no lethal poison, but one've 'em went blind and the others were pukin' sick for a week! I lost me granny's knife but I got back me rogue's honour and that's worth a thousand-hundred knives. Da knew it and Da helped me do it and that's how I know forever that a rogue that for true TRIES will always have a place under Nary Frummagem. Lookit all he done for the least of us! Work always for Anadyne and her stoopid cousin and for Stockyard, settin' him up pretty in that town. Da is a great collector of talent but he takes care of it too, spit-polishes it and helps it be its best.

D.A.: You are not talent. You are his daughter.

Sette: Ay, that and a brass sem'll buy ya a pawful of lemon drops but you'll be hungry again an hour after.

D.A.: I didn’t like that story at all.

[unsoundedcomic]

Is there any particular reason Sette and Jac were born to Nary and, er, Lady Frummagem? Were Settes and Jacs randomly incarnated across Kasslyne or is there a Plot Relevant spoilery reason for their parentage? -AwkwardAnon

Lady Ilganyag weighed all the options, and Nary Frummagem's household was the best place for her twins to be born and raised. Of course her options were somewhat limited by her requirements. She needed a pair of twins that died in the womb so that she wouldn't be replacing other people in the timeline whose absence would cause overly disruptive ripples. She needed them to be in a place she could feasibly guide Duane to meet them at a certain point. And she needed it to be a relatively safe place for them, where they wouldn't be utterly crippled by poverty, warfare, or pick your trauma.

The Frummagem family was ideal. Nary even proved himself a laughably easy man to manipulate.

I don't think you can fault the bird for this one. Outside a few little surprise manoeuvres, Sette wound up exactly where Ilganyag wanted her, Duane in tow. A very competently lined up pool shot.

[unsoundedcomic]

Does the bird not understand spite? Defiance in the face of adversity? It's not exactly rare or indescribable emotions. Ilganyag watching humanity for millenia, did she not look at what life is like for the poor and downtrodden, and what pushes them forward despite everything?

Ilganyag would not agree with your characterization of these actions. At this point she has to diagnose Sette Frummagem as simply insane. Her action here is illogical, suicidal, harmful to the gang she professes to care about, will win her no esteem from Nary, and does nothing to help the ghosts or the befouled system she herself has agreed is unjust and troubling.

[unsoundedcomic]

What's up with the Frummagem naming conventions? Nary-a-Care, Stockyard, Knock-me-Down, are these names specific to Frummagem clan, to criminals who need aliases in general, or is it a Sharteshane thing?

It's a Sharteshane thing! That's just how they name their kids. Sometimes they go for more normal names, like Starfish's real name is Arctrit and then there was Ephsephin, which means "Unlucky" in Tainish, and Anadyne is a misspelling of Anodyne, or painkiller. But then also there's Jab, or Sette's little friend Lucky Puppy, or Darkest Paul's full first name of Tarpaulin.

They like really descriptive names for their kids. Something meaty that an infant can get its little fists around to anchor its soul to earth, so the smoke eels can't carry it away~

[unsoundedcomic]

So now that we know Sette and Jac have been reincarnated several times, how come stories of them didn't eventually find their way to the current Sette? That feels like a strange enough occurrence that legends of a set of twins where one was a lion and one was a girl with a tail would eventually get passed around. Also, was she named Sette in all her incarnations? How come Nary didn't name her something else? Did the khert speak to him?

Most of this will be answered next page, but the Black Tongues suggested the name to Nary, he said as much in the comic. It would not have been a big deal if he'd gone with "Long Arse Frummagem" instead, but "Sette" was good enough for him, whatever.

[unsoundedcomic]

How competent is Bodkin? Will the gang hold together without Nary, or are they doomed to fall apart?

I honestly think the gang will be fine. Bodkin is competent, and actually much crueller and shittier than Nary. So it's a bad thing for New Tawhoque that Nary's pulling out, but as far as the gang goes, it could benefit them. Bodkin will do things like push into the cove for more territory, with a goal of cosying up to the pirates there and expanding to towns down the coast. Nary didn't have any interest in the sea nor in expansion; it all looked like more of the same to him.

I do think Granny Frummagem will be beating a hasty exit from town in the near future. She will not jive with Bodkin's way of doing things and he won't trust someone with such close ties to Nary. Granny will smell treachery in the wings, and is too smart an old lady to hang around to catch a knife. She'll leave a note to Sette with a trusted friend, then skedaddle to the countryside for a nice retirement. If Sette ever comes home maybe she'll get the note and go rejoin her. Lots of ways it could go :)

[unsoundedcomic]

You can get more cruel and shitty than Nary-A-Care Frummagem?

Pft, Nary had a reputation for being something of a softie. Let Anadyne and Knock defy him and leave town. Keeps Sette around even though she obviously has some kind of stunting disease. Takes care of his old mom. Was educated in the capital so you know he's lousy with book-learning and like, ethics.

Bodkin is the kind of guy who ties you spreadeagled on the top of a metal roof to bake in the summer sun for a week, so the whole city can hear you scream. Nary is a Sharteshanian; Bodkin is a demon. Very different sorts. He'd keep Sette's tail as a trophy. And claim it well before she was dead!

[unsoundedcomic]

If Sette went back home how easy would it be for her to take over Da's old gang? What would happen to her?

She'd be doomed. Nary put his second man in charge, Bodkin. Sette talked in earlier chapters about how much he hates her. He's got every Frummagem ordered to kill her on sight.

[unsoundedcomic]

Imagine not loving your children equally. What kind of a shit example of parenthood is Lady Ilganyag showing?!

She doesn't consider Sette Frummagem her daughter. Remember, it was the First who called her mother; Ilganyag never presumed to use the word and did not introduce herself in that way. Our Sette was raised by Nary, in Sharteshane. She's a product of that, through and through, and Lady Ilganyag expects that product. Hence why after the very thoughtful lore dump, she finished off with a few threats.

Lady Ilganyag expects no fealty from this little curb goblin, no curiosity, no altruism, no self-sacrifice. She moved the world to paint this criminal into a corner, disarming her of zombie and spider, crushing her beneath the weight of existential revelation, and threatening the only thing she values: her gang.

But she never said: "Do this because I'm your mother, or because you should love or respect me." No, no. Lady Ilganyag knows humans too well to be so naive.

[unsoundedcomic]

The Frummagem drama going on with my family over this suicide is something to behold. Nary now suspects the dead uncle's wife actually murdered him, and he has been hassling the cops for information into their "investigation." Everyone is scared he's going to go to this funeral and start dropping accusations on the grieving woman, so much so that he's declared he doesn't need anyone to drive him upstate to this thing - this is an 88 year old (evil, don't pity him) man missing part of his skull and frontal lobe after cancer surgery. He shouldn't drive on back streets much less a Florida interstate.

There's no cause to suspect foul play but he's so torn up over the idea there might have been something psychologically wrong with someone that popped out of his gonads that he can't stand it. But because he's rich and everyone wants their piece of the Frummagem pie when he goes into the ground, no one will dare confront him over what an absolute dick he's being and has always been.

Meanwhile my brother and his family have written all this off and won't even be attending. My dad's pretty hot over that but I can't really blame my brother? Would you want your kids around all these Sharteshanians? Yikes!

[unsoundedcomic]

Was doing some re-reading, looking for a panel in particular, and saw something I had to ask. Back in Chapter 13, when we met Beadman, he mentioned about Bell "Mad as a storm but even he don't sport with Efheby.". So, uh, how pissed will Beadman be to find out his intel on that subject isn't quite right? Heck, how's he like as to feel about everything going on with this mess, his lawyer dead, Bell all snakebitten and dead, etc?

Beadman's not fussed about the lawyer, there's a reason lawyers have a hard time securing life insurance in Sharteshane, but he'll be righteously pissed off about the Bell situation. Someone asked about this a while ago and I'm still pretty sure Jab will come down like hellfire on whatever moles and agents he has tailing Bell and his entourage. Someone really dropped the ball and the Beadmans don't react well to failure.

In the future, this will make him a little more attentive towards Nary Frummagem and his business in Alderode. Big changes are threatening the continent and Beadman does NOT want to be made a fool of again. So Nary better not cock up or get too big for his britches.

[unsoundedcomic]

You've said that Nary had other kids scattered about that all died young; did Sette ever meet any of them? Or were they all born before her time?

Nary has told her about them from time to time but he has always been very careful to keep his bastards away from his business and out of his life. He's paid for a lot of abortions in his day. Some of them very late term.

I think you can easily take this information, consider the rest of his behaviour, and come away with an understanding that Nary has no real interest in his biological legacy. He doesn't value what the Frummagems represent in his little town, and maintaining that isn't a priority. What he wants is a legacy WORTH maintaining. A freak like Sette is fine for New Tawhoque because sod that place. It's a hole. His power there is petty, filthy, small. But power under Beadman... that's something that deserves an heir that he allows to see its tenth birthday. That's something worth leaving to someone.

It's funny how Sette thinks so highly of the gang, and how she wants it so badly for herself. Stockyard thought it was funny too. She just doesn't understand how miserable it all is. Her love for it actually puts distance between herself and her dad. She loves it because she thinks it's important to him but she couldn't be more wrong.

[unsoundedcomic]

Let me be blunt for a sec here, but how do you cope (no pun intended) with the fact you set the bar extremely high with this book's main cast and now you will have to sell a brand new cast to your readers for the next book? Not going to diss the tanners yet, but God damn, Sette, Duane and co, we're all TOO great, the new cast has quite the big shoes to fill.

Oh, I'm not too worried. Some of the "new" cast we already know, like the Adeliers, Will Argenti, Nary Frummagem, and Bastion. Plenty of the old cast will still be around but I can't say which, as that would be a spoiler for the upcoming chapter :)

There are a handful of truly new characters that will have big roles. There's Regina Flask, Jivi's mother and a sadistic privateer who is waiting for Jivi to give her a reason to perform a relatively late term abortion. There's Elarosny Ficci, a nine foot tall Copper woman who is fed up with the status quo and intends to overthrow it via some strange alliances and some astonishingly bold attacks. There's Johfrit Jeffers, a Plat in the last year of his life who wants to take as many others with him to the grave as he can. There's Rebecca Bodie, the daughter of Councillor Bodie, who has spent most of her life shut up waiting for a husband her father will approve of. Then there's Tree, Blythe, Jeremy, Midmolil, and Aris - also known as the Tanners, a motley group of hitmen and outcasts who have learned to exploit Alderode's systems and make a bit of money off them.

Hopefully at least one of them will manage to entertain you :)