Amiable Vagabond

"I admit it, I forged the letter from Quivers. And many years ago, I made up the Sugarspun Garden and wrote the hidden code into the skylark signs, knowing it would lure curious folk to seek me out. After all, don't I know more about the signs than anybody? And weren't there rumours that I was Old Tom himself, connected to the very place those signs led? So people came to me seeking answers. Or I'd befriend them first, and steer them toward the questions. Either way, the same outcome: kindly, wisely, jollying them along with characteristic good humour and charm, I led them on a merry dance until they found themselves... here. And though you discovered my secret... You came here, too. To my well."

- The Amiable Vagabond, gloating over having ensnared you

The Amiable Vagabond is a minor villain in the 2019 game Sunless Skies, one of many potential officers available to the player. A jovial old man with a long history in the skies, he gladly accepts a position on board the locomotive in exchange for a few sky stories, and proves immediately popular with your crew. However, as time goes on, it soon becomes clear that the Vagabond is on board the train for reasons of his own, and may not have the best of intentions when it comes to your health...

The Legend
As he later reveals, the Vagabond started out as a prospector known in history and folklore as Old Tom. Though much of his past is still unknown, it can be assumed that he began as one of the many inhabitants of the Neath, the vast underground realm in which Fallen London and Sunless Sea take place. As a citizen of Fallen London, he was most likely one of the many subjects of the Traitor Empress who followed his monarch through the gates of the Avid Horizon and into space.

With the British Empire rebuilding London in the skies and the Empress exalting in her victory over one of the legendary Judgements, the new society of Albion soon found a new resource: Hours, a crystallized form of time itself. Through the use of this substance, production could be accelerated, travel could be improved, and wealthy members of Albion's society could achieve immortality of a sort. Though the lower classes were quickly put to use in refining it into usable forms, actually finding this resource was a different story: Hours could only be found on asteroids floating across the High Wilderness, and with an entire Empire needing more of them, prospectors like Old Tom set out to make their fortunes.

Old Tom had no luck, however: for years on end, he combed the skies in search of the strike that would make him rich, but always turned up empty. Luckless, penniless and with nothing to his name, Old Tom journeyed deep into the Reach, a lush, wild realm of the High Wilderness with no sun of its own to enforce the law of reality, venturing beyond the areas that Albion had colonized - and finally stumbled upon a Well.

Essentially a black hole, the Well was a vast, unending whirlpool in reality orbited by ledges of black ice. Here, with no other option, Old Tom made a wish, begging anyone who was listening for riches... and to his surprise, something answered him. There in the darkness, he saw a glint of gold amidst a gathering of pale trees at the very bottom of the Well, and a voice "like lightning striking an oak" made him an offer. His wish would be granted... but only if the old prospector would pledge his life to it.

The next month, Old Tom found the Mother of Mountains, a colossal landmass floating in a cold and inhospitable region of the Reach. He lost four toes to frostbite while journeying across the icy wastes, but in the process, he found that the mountain was riddled with veins of Hours. In a single stroke, Old Tom became the richest man in the Reach and founded the mining town of Lustrum, which serves as a hub of activity for prospectors to this day.

For a year, the once-penniless wanderer was staggeringly wealthy, living in a luxurious mansion on the slopes of the Mother of Mountains and emulated by thousands of eager young fortune-seekers across the High Wilderness. Then without warning, Old Tom inexplicably vanished; nobody was able to explain what had happened and nobody ever learned what became of him, for though he'd happily shared the tale of making a wish on the edge of the Well and earning riches as a result, he had not told them of what had answered him, nor did he mention the price he would have to pay in return.

This disappearance was enough to cement Old Tom's place in legend, and from then on, the Well that he had made his wish before was known as "Old Tom's Well." Despite the danger, countless other skyfarers have landed on the black ice ledges, hoping that their wishes might come true as well.

The Truth
Unknown to all, Old Tom had discarded his old identity and returned to the skies, this time as a homeless "skylark." By this time, he understood the price he would have to pay for his granted wish: