…Wow. Knocking a Name into a negative roll is really impressive. Even taking away the Silky debuff it would still be negative. Granted, Baldomare still had her reroll, but still. A -150 is… fifteen levels worth of Lore defense. That's wild.
…Hey, wasn't this the Grail/Heart check? Probably a good thing Marinette wasn't around with that roll.
There is, perhaps, an irony in both the easiest and hardest rolls both being the ones that actually used DoA's rolls.
…Well now. That is certainly an interesting statement. Especially when the following explanation seems to be more about DoA's request being more the cause of her own solution. Especially since it's worth noting that she… doesn't actually know that her request is the path to the Key, or she wouldn't be running around in the Wake trying to find it.
If we're bargaining the Frangiclave in exchange for her loyalty, friendship doesn't come into the equation either. "Be loyal to me or I won't free you from your eons-long imprisonment" isn't a gesture of friendship, it's coercion.
And it's not even good coercion. Because if we give her the Franciglave with that kind of deal, she'll tell us to fuck off afterwards. If we don't give her the Franciglave, she'll be dragged back to her cave again, so there goes one big mechanical benefit of the 'friendship' in question.
And yet, you explicitly used the word "bargain" in your post. A thing that is only done if a deal is being made.
Why not? Form the way Bird (Alukite? Lady?) described it, that's exactly how it works for Baldomare. We give her books in exchange for her staying longer, and it will turn into friendship eventually because we gave her books.
My dude, you are the one who stated we'd be bargaining the Frangiclave. If that is not actually what you meant, you have no one to blame but yourself for your poor choice of words. I am not a mind-reader.
Makes you wonder what the anti-scrying wards around Discord are made of and if they'd be even stronger
Why wouldn't she? Why would Bird say "the conditions to keep the Names in the Wake are the same as the conditions to befriend them" and then go "haha actually that's for every other Name besides DoA. Even though you found the Frangiclave (which I explicitly said you have to do if you wanted DoA to stick around) it doesn't count because you didn't do it in this weird, convoluted double-Sacrament method".
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention my opinion on this.
...no. Just... no.
I understand your frustration , but Velvet's own Knock sacrament was mostly the lost cause since that time when Bird stated that he greatly preferred Axe's sacrament. Better to focus on things that we can still influence.
Necromancy would be much more tolerable to the player base if it was not angry Wolf touched spirits. If anything we should focus on how to calm those spirits and send them where they where supposed to go. Would also deny them to other cultists. Exorcist Velvet for the win! If we learn how to call on normal spirits of dead in the process even better.
In order:
Necromancy isn't the problem, it's the fact that the sacrifices have to still be alive when you sacrifice them for it to work. If we just had to sacrifice dead bodies to summon them, it'd be (mostly) fine! Inconvenient, but fine.
So our roll should look something like X + 14 (Learning) + 5 (Well Read) + 20 (Lantern 4) + 7 to 15 (Artifact) - 30 (One Era Old) without a AotT (total X + 16 to 24), or X + 15 (Learning, Lantern doubled) + 5 (Well Read) + 40 (Lantern 4, doubled) + 7 to 15 (Artifact) - 30 (One Era Old) with one (total X + 37 to 45).
Thanks. I did not consider reading the same book multiple times was a option. We definitely should be able to get a Knock Scrap from it next turn then.
By calming spirits I mostly meant sending them to correct afterlife, so you just kill them until no one left. Perhaps assault rival expedition would work with spirits as target. Now it is entirely possible that Velvet does not have means to kill them, or they would be too much for her.
I think it was mentioned that highter lvl books are better to progress Baldomare friendship or something along those lines. We can send someone after book and if they are successful have Velvet read Moth book with slot available.
I was more thinking for the end of the next summoning period. Since it is... pretty likely that after we give her a Level 6 book, we're going to need a Level 7 book for the next/final? relationship step. And we might not have the time or resources to commit to getting a EXTRA SUPER SPECIAL book, as Level 7 books apparently are, in the three months after.
Though I guess we could also do a Calling of Influence on T21 instead of asking DoA for one? It'd be more likely to end up at a +30 than +40, even with a Level 4 (and it would be expensive), but it would leave DoA's action free to make more Wrong Keys.
but more importantly, I'm worried that the next threat is coming fast and we need as much power as we can.
We have Canterlot part 3 expedition, that almost certainly will grant us either really high level artifact or book, so it is 50/50 chance plus there is no indication that we must immediately follow lvl 6 with lvl7 instead of say giving Baldomare lvl 5 to keep her until we have lvl 7 book available.
Yes, we don't have to give her a Level 7 book right away. That was... exactly my point? That, depending on what our schedule and resources look like, we might want to hold on to the Moth book for now instead of trying to read it next turn because we might end up needing to refresh Baldomare's timer before we can get a Level 7 book, and we just don't know if we're going to get a new Level 5+ book by then?
Bird probably accidentally copy/pasted it into there when he was moving Beneath the Royal Castle Part 2.
I mean now that we started doing expeditions level 5 books likely would not be a big problem. Plus unlike many other lores we don't have a teacher to give us lessons in Moth Lore and we can't get Moth scraps in Woods since woods are dust, so Moth book is more important than almost any Lore for our studies. Better to spend actions on expeditions than give it away. So yes I think contents of other lvl 5 books would be less useful for us.
Then if we do get another Level 5 book later, it's not actually a problem anymore and we can read the Moth 5 book and sacrifice the new one. But reading it right now is a bad idea. If we find a new Level 5 book in the meantime, then we can read the Moth book and still get our +1 Moth scrap. If we don't, then we can prevent Baldomare from being desummoned. If we read it now, and don't get a new Level 5 book, Baldomare gets desummoned for 3 turns and we'll have to spend a bunch of bits resummoning her.