Carnival l'Morai

Depicted in the novel Carnival of Fear, Carnival l'Morai was a community of freaks and circus performers located in the land of L'Morai. The carnival folk lived segregated away from the people of the City of l'Morai yet were abused and preyed upon by the cityfolk. Formerly ruled by the Puppetmaster, the carnival folk eventually rebelled and abandoned L'Morai all together under the leadership of Hermos. Hermos and his flock eventually found a new carnival master in the form of Isolde and formed a new Carnival.

This article is for Carnival l'Morai as it existed in the domain of L'Morai. For details on the domain, see L'Morai. For details on the city of l'Morai, see City of l'Morai. For the new Carnival society that wanders the Demiplane of Dread under the leadership of Isolde, see Carnival (Society). Carnival l'Morai should not be confused with the Carnival of Karina, which is a totally separate thing.

The Location

Aside from the carnival arena, Carnival l'Morai was mostly comprised of a weather-beaten assortment of temporary fixtures: wagons, tents, booths, splayed across a nameless stretch of land referred to as the black heath or even simply the heath. A thorny row of hedges surrounded the perimeter, and an iron gate allowed the only entrance. The carnival folk lived in a section of the carnival known as the Performers Quarter.

The battles between the rebelling carnival folk and the soldiers of the City of l'Morai left much of Carnival l'Morai in ruins, burnt or overturned. The arena was still standing, if damaged, having been used by the rebels as a base of sorts in their last stand before eventually escaping.

Features and Attractions

Before the rebellion that functionally ended Carnival l'Morai's existence, Carnival l'Morai had several attractions that were in addition to or as components of the freak show, including:

• Acrobats
• A confectioner
• Harlequins
• Hermos the Man-Giant
• Marie the Blind Juggler
• Morcastle the Magician
• Pathway of Chance, a gambling establishment
• An (alleged) psychic
• The Rings of Combat, animal fighting and taming
• Multiple shops
• A tattooist
• Uri and His Dancing Bears
• The Vampiress

Relationship with the City of l'Morai

The people of Carnival l'Morai depended upon the people of the city of l'Morai for patronage and economic sustenance. However, the people of the city of l'Morai benefited much more from the relationship with the people of of the carnival than the other way around. First, Carnival l'Morai existed as a dumping ground for those who "seriously" violate the Statutes of l'Morai, for those people were punished with the mandatory sentence of the living death. This punishment was a particularly twisted form of exile, in that a citizen so punished was transformed into a freak, stripped of their previous identity and memories, and then banished to Carnival l'Morai.

The second, and perhaps darker, truth of the City is that (at least according to the Puppetmaster) the freaks of Carnival l'Morai exist to be the target of the city folk's loathing such that they don't turn on each other. As (according to the city folk) repulsive, degenerate, and subhuman beings, the carnies represented a sort of scourge to be abused and even murdered for the betterment of the City of l'Morai.

The laws of l'Morai existed to reinforce the strict delineation of rights between "citizens" (as in, residents of the city) and "freaks" (as in, residents of Carnival l'Morai.) Freaks were not recognized as people in the same way citizens were. Moreover, the Grand Charter of l'Morai forbid freaks from formally accusing citizens on their own. (Of course, Marie the Blind Juggler and Morcastle the Magician showed, through bringing Dominick the Butcher to court, that the Charter may not stop freaks from bringing citizens to trial and working up popular sentiment against them.) The reason for the deprivation of freak rights is a dark one, for the very existence of Carnival l'Morai is a conspiracy of exploitation against the Carnival's people.

History

The troubles of l'Morai are built upon a curse placed upon the ruby pendant of l'Morai some four hundred years before the in-world time at the start of the Carnival of Fear novel. At about the time of the founding of Carnival l'Morai, the two co-founders, the brothers Cygne, were at odds with each other. André Cygne kept the pendant, a family heirloom and a warder against disease, to himself while his brother, Juron Cygne, wasted away and became disfigured thanks to the Fever. The experienced blackened Juron's heart, and he poisoned his brother, stole the pendant, and entombed André inside the Cornerstone of Carnival l'Morai. Juron thus became the first master of Carnival l'Morai.

Juron's act of fratricide and betrayal did not go without repercussion. André cursed the pendant with his hatred, making it a magnet for hatred. The ruby gemstone became marked with the likenesses of Quince the Horse on one side and the Ear-Tied Hare on the other. The symbolism marks the carnival master, as the bearer of the stone of l'Morai, as l'Morai's most influential person and yet the lowest of its freaks. Any bearer of the pendant fell under the sway of L'Morai and become the avatar of its citizen's fear and hatred. The wearer was thus forced to never assist the people of Carnival l'Morai against the City's citizens. The pendant was passed down through the centuries from carnival master to carnival master, all the way down to the Puppetmaster and, briefly before her death, Marie the Blind Juggler. If the Puppetmaster is to be believed, the previous carnival masters live on as members of the Council of l'Morai, unable to die of old age.
Perhaps as a consequence of the curse, Carnival l'Morai existed as a focus for the City of l'Morai's wrath. One mark of the Ear-Tied Hare marked a citizen as a freak and another marked a freak for death, murder at the hands of the city's citizens. The carnival folk bore the abuse and hatred of the city folk as degenerate reprobates such that the city folk remain sharp and do not turn on each other.

Some sixty years before the current time at the start of Carnival of Fear, the Puppetmaster led a rebellion of the carnival folk against the then current lord of l'Morai. Although he drove out the lord of Carnival l'Morai, his rebellion was ultimately suppressed, and he was presented with the option of taking the cursed ruby pendant and becoming the new carnival leader or doom himself and the entire carnival to oblivion. He chose to accept the pendant. At least this way, so said the Puppetmaster, the carnival folk would only die one by one instead of by the dozens. The events this rebellion and corruption of the Puppetmaster occurred some 60 years prior to the events of Carnival of Fear, which the Carnival sourcebook places at 740 BC. Put together, the Puppetmaster's rebellion and transformation occurred in 680 BC.

Some sixty years later, Marie the Blind Juggler led a rebellion against the Puppetmaster, and the process repeated itself except for one thing. Marie was killed in secret by her second-in-command Hermos. He told the others her final order was to follow him out of l'Morai. Subsequently, Hermos and the former denizens of Carnival l'Morai fled that land and ran into the Mists, eventually arriving in Darkon. They later moved to Falkovnia. There they were attacked by the Falkovnian Army but were saved by Isolde, under whom they formed a new carnival, one this time for the protection of the freaks and troupers.

It is unclear how Carnival l'Morai becoming an effective ghost town affected the land and city of L'Morai. In the epilogue of Carnival of Fear, an unnamed cat-faced man finds the pendant and becomes enraptured by it as some blonde children begin bullying a black-haired boy. This may be taken to imply that Carnival l'Morai might somehow restart itself. What this possible development might leave the extant Council, the Puppetmaster, and indeed the City of l'Morai is unknown.