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Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

[X] There has been an attempt against the Commissioner's life.

[X] Time

d81.jpg
"My Princess, they hit the second Love's Chosen."

Edit: Cadance will not react well.
Also! We heard a crack as the thug kicked Velvet's skull and history loves repetition.

How much do you wanna bet it broke her horn?
 
[X] There has been an attempt against the Commissioner's life.

[X] Time

Also! We heard a crack as the thug kicked Velvet's skull and history loves repetition.

How much do you wanna bet it broke her horn?
This should have shown up as a Wound or Affliction if it actually happened, but agree that it was terrifyingly likely in this circumstance.
 
Like talking to Twilight? After seeing that 180 she should be able to do something to help her, and yes, i know, Mareinette, but i don't think that leaving Twilight to rot is the best course of action.
We can't do anything about Twilight because Velvet refuses to act on it, but I think we had a few clues that she has a chance of recovering. It has still only been 1 month since Cadance's visit, she needs a little more time.
 
Edit: I mean, if we are going to solve the Copper situation on our own, discreetly, I don't think it is worth it to announce that we were attacked because as far as Celestia, the public and the Bureau are concerned, the attackers will get away with it. I am not sure I like the benefits of it more than I dislike the possible consequences.
My thought is that WE deal with Copper , the manuscripts, and maybe the Windigoes, while the bureau would deal with the rank and file after we removed the most important stuff.

Basically they clean up after we leave.

We do need to spend one action to roll two healing dice (even if we spend the bits to make sure they auto succeed).

Without an action we can only heal one wound.
Oh, right.

So, from 4 actions to 3.

You can gain scraps of Lore just fine.

Of course, getting the scraps will be harder because you don't have the high lantern to study and stuff. But if you gain scraps, they go into your character sheet as normal. You just won't benefit from them until you stop dancing with death.

EDIT: You also write manifests if you read books. Narratively, you will just circle back and commit your lessons into writing later, after you get better. But this is specifically the effect of "books you read enter your Library". You still can't write manifests on your own, because you have no Lores.
Good to know.

Still, with how inefficient it would be to study know, between NOT ONLY the (relative) -20 from not having Lantern 4, the lost re-roll, AND the fact we can only study 2 books / 1 artifact INSTEAD of 3 books, 2 artifacts or 1+1, I'd rather go heavy social instead.

Give us the Grail Influence from Mareinette, and we turn her single +90 action with reroll (general +60 with grail 6) into basically 3 +56 actions. (11 diplo, +40 grail influence, + 5 "beautiful")

We can probably get three different ponies to good friends this way, and get to know them enough that we'd understand what it takes to bring them to confidant if we wanted to (like if Mayor Mare has some very specific problem we can solve, same for Cherilee. Imagine if, for example, we could convince Pride to make a donation to the local school for new supplies as a way to win favour with the locals...)

Otherwise as I said before we can try to go book hunting, but that means giving up something else that would use bits. And really, sending our servants to do that would probably be enough.


Say you have DoA, Comet, and Rarity. It is perfectly fine to do this:

Short expedition 1: DoA leads, Comet and Rarity follow for free.
Short expedition 2: Comet leads, DoA and Rarity follow for free.
Short expedition 3: Rarity leads, DoA and Comet follows for free.

And in all three expeditions, DoA would "take over" with her generalistic +50 bonus, because the best suited pony is the one trying the rolls. And everyone else chips in with their added Lores (unless something like combat or a very specific situation arises).

Granted, if you try to do FIVE short expeditions on the same turn I might start imposing restrictions. Because narrative is still a thing, and a month is still only a month.
But having a pony accompany a short expedition without spending their actions is intentional, so stuff like this can happen. That is why assaulting an opponent is a short expedition.

And of course, when I say "follow for free" I refer to action points. You still need the bits for this to happen.

It's a bit overkill, but I imagine that just adding Axe or Mareinette as followers for general expeditions raises the bonus by so much that they'd probably save us a day or two. Which means we're probably spending the same or very little over what a single pony would take, but are also much safer.

so... yeah, I think I've been convinced to send Axe or Mareinette in addition to Comet leader for grave expedition.

and to do something kinda like that for Copper search as well.

and maybe for Winter too.

though having a scrying attempt done the same turn to give them a better starting point would probably be even better.

3 - Comet dispelled his Influence after you two were done talking. No free influence for you.
you see, that's why Biedde would have marked him as a failure! He gave up a perfectly good influence! :eek:

Two books, OR one artifact. That's the old, non Lantern 3 studying action.

But I agree, that is also very little. And I'm not trying to sell any course of actions, you can all do what you want here.

In fact, from my point of view, this will be a very interesting "follower-centric" turn. An engine-check, if you will, of what you are capable of doing without your Velvet powerhouse.
funny enough this might be the first and only turn in which we don't WANT to use "Cover your bases".

...then again, IF we give Velvet a grail influence and go do social, MAYBE it's still worth doing it at least once... but what would we give up (in addition to servants) for it?

EDIT: Seriously, even I get baffled about this sometimes. You only get one freaking Bureau action per turn, and considering how many options you can choose from that is not a lot. The way this is set up, you REALLY need to pick your fights well, with the Bureau.
how would further expansion of the Bureau work, by the way? what would it take for us to get a chance to recruit more agents?

Also in regards to studying the artifacts, keep in mind that artifacts are, effectively, always DC50 because they provide a bonus proportional to their own Lore level (which is also what determines the DC, iirc).

For example. when we studied our SH3 artifact:

It was a DC80 check, but we were getting a flat +30 because it was a Level 3 artifact. So we really only actually needed to roll a total of 50 using our own die and bonuses.

So if we're trying to study our artifacts with a max Lantern Influence, we should autosucceed because between our Learning, the SH3 artifact, and the +40 from the Influence, that's definitely over +50 even without our Lantern levels.
mh... that's a good point.

Honestly I'd STILL favour grail over Lantern...

except there's ONE thing that changes the relative value of the two options.

The most important one is that... @OurLadyOfWires if we study an artifact, can we have it used by our followers in the same turn?

If so spending two actions to research Lantern 4 and Knock 2 artifacts means we can then have some of our followers try and summon Mares with pretty good odds. Which we can then use for more guarding, for attacking Copper, for Cover your bases and so on.

We also get 2 lantern scraps we need to get closer to Lantern Sacrament.


So, here's my question: what is more valuable to us right now, unlocking Lantern and Knock Artifacts and studying either the Moth or Knock book...

or getting potentially up to 3 2 more good friends/ confidants, which can help a bit in Ponyville AND are nice emergency Moth-sacrament fuel?



[X] There has been an attempt against the Commissioner's life.

[X] Time


uh, just noticed... 4 actions. -1 to heal 2 wounds. -1 for Mareinette.

we ONLY have 2 Velvet actions unless we do Cover your Bases, which we have little incentive to.

Oh, that's really nice. So we can have DoA bulldoze the grave expedition if we want, at the price of some extra bits. (I'm fine sending Luna solo, I'm not fine sending Comet who rolls +0 on almost every check)
I think Mareinette is a better combination with Comet for the better social rolls usually.

The other is less so. Setting the Bureau on Copper does seem potent. It also seems like it would make things pretty messy. Hm.
[X] Nothing happened. You are just ill.
honestly 90% of why I'm voting for alerting the Bureau is that I want to see Cadance's reaction.

It's just... I want to see just how much she cares for Velvet. I like those scenes.

According to AnyDice, btw, we'd have a 94% chance of finishing the Knock book with 1 AP (i.e. two study slots) with two minimum artifact bonuses, and ~99% with two maximum artifact bonuses. Average is 97%. So if we have Baldomare channel a Lantern Influence for us, we have a very, very good chance to both finish reading the Knock book, getting us the last Knock scrap we need so we can try and speedrun DoA's Sacrament on T21, and also study the Lantern artifact, which gets us a Lantern scrap (1 away from letting us take Baldomare's Sacrament), lets our other mortal Confidants not named Jade actually be able to cast RotT, and then whatever specific use bonus it gives.
I think it might be better to go

1)Study Lantern artifact.
2)if succeed above, study Knock artifact

we have no more actions, as we should go 4 - 1 (Mareinette) - 1 (spent on getting a second healing dice. They both autosucceed if we pay 60 bits).

and for the knock scrap, we just have Axe give us a lesson instead. We've JUST been told we CAN gain scraps normally, after all, which I assume applies to lessons as well as influence-ones and book-ones.

And if we're allowed to use the artifacts immediately, then we can have our followers summon Mares in the Light as well. Or do scrying rituals boosted by Lantern and SH artifacts.

Like talking to Twilight? After seeing that 180 she should be able to do something to help her, and yes, i know, Mareinette, but i don't think that leaving Twilight to rot is the best course of action.
I think Velvet resolved herself to staying out of Twilight life, as she basically begged us to do.

Best we could and DID do at this point was pointing someone better equipped to her. Namely Cadance.

We can't do anything about Twilight because Velvet refuses to act on it, but I think we had a few clues that she has a chance of recovering. It has still only been 1 month since Cadance's visit, she needs a little more time.
also we're probably about to tell Cadance about the redemption of the forge ritual.

She'll likely tell Shining.

and Shining will likely tell Twilight.
 
and for the knock scrap, we just have Axe give us a lesson instead. We've JUST been told we CAN gain scraps normally, after all, which I assume applies to lessons as well as influence-ones and book-ones.
If we get it from the book this turn though (and have DoA make Wrong Keys instead of a lesson), that means on T21 we can try to bulldoze through DoA's Sacrament while she's channeling a max Knock Influence on us. If she gives us a lesson this turn, we have to have her make Wrong Keys T21.

Edit: Also keep in mind MitLs are 55 bits per attempt. Two MitL attempts of bits could be better spent dealing with the actual root of our problem, i.e Copper, via Name hit squad.
 
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Like talking to Twilight? After seeing that 180 she should be able to do something to help her, and yes, i know, Mareinette, but i don't think that leaving Twilight to rot is the best course of action.
We can't do anything about Twilight because Velvet refuses to act on it, but I think we had a few clues that she has a chance of recovering. It has still only been 1 month since Cadance's visit, she needs a little more time.
Twilight: "Please just leave me alone."

Velvet: "Ah, but she never said the terrifying Foal-eating monster should leave her alone!" :V
 
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Considering Velvet is (expected) to only have two personal actions, -1 from Mareinnete, and -1 from healing, I would recommend we don't focus on influences on her this turn.

Baldomare is more helpful searching for the Outsider, and Mareinnete is more helpful as a powerful social ally this turn. Remember,,a good number of early social actions didn't really have dice rolls involved, so if Velvet is just talking with Cheerilee or Mayor Mare or similar, the dice bonus from a Grail influence might not be as helpful. And for the more difficult and rigorous social exercises... We have Mareinnete for that.

While we could have Baldomare give a Lantern influence, and then focus on learning our Artifacts, we really need to get on that Outsider Search. Yes Baldomare can do it well, so we just need her to do it already. Axe will be busy either with a Lesson or an expedition most likely. Or Keys. And Biedde.... Well, a Resolution is nice, but I doubt we will have need of Edge this turn, unless Copper Doubles down on the attack.

Which, she might to be fair.

Edit:
If we get it from the book this turn though (and have DoA make Wrong Keys instead of a lesson), that means on T21 we can try to bulldoze through DoA's Sacrament while she's channeling a max Knock Influence on us. If she gives us a lesson this turn, we have to have her make Wrong Keys T21.



Edit: Also keep in mind MitLs are 55 bits per attempt. Two MitL attempts of bits could be better spent dealing with the actual root of our problem, i.e Copper, via Name hit squad.

This.... Gegh. This makes me want to swap to that Lantern Influence, focus on books and Artifacts then. I don't like it because it delays the Outsider Search, but still. This is a good plan, curse you.
 
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If we get it from the book this turn though (and have DoA make Wrong Keys instead of a lesson), that means on T21 we can try to bulldoze through DoA's Sacrament while she's channeling a max Knock Influence on us. If she gives us a lesson this turn, we have to have her make Wrong Keys T21.

Edit: Also keep in mind MitLs are 55 bits per attempt. Two MitL attempts of bits could be better spent dealing with the actual root of our problem, i.e Copper, via Name hit squad.
fair on Axe use.

And it seems like a fair assumption that Knock influence will help during knock sacrament, though, just in case... @OurLadyOfWires is Axe willing to confirm or deny if a Knock Influence would help when doing her Sacrament/errant?

Because if it's about "finding something", there's an argument that maybe Secret History (which is all about finding items) might be more useful.

Considering she has an interest in us completing this, I'd expect her to be willing to tell us enough that we might better prepare.

In short: is the errant to find an item? Would a Knock Influence help at all, or do we just need enough Knock to "survive" the portal, and an influence doesn't help with that?


About the summoning vs Copper, it admittedly also depends on how many bits we have.

Considering Velvet is (expected) to only have two personal actions, -1 from Mareinnete, and -1 from healing, I would recommend we don't focus on influences on her this turn.

Baldomare is more helpful searching for the Outsider, and Mareinnete is more helpful as a powerful social ally this turn. Remember,,a good number of early social actions didn't really have dice rolls involved, so if Velvet is just talking with Cheerilee or Mayor Mare or similar, the dice bonus from a Grail influence might not be as helpful. And for the more difficult and rigorous social exercises... We have Mareinnete for that.

While we could have Baldomare give a Lantern influence, and then focus on learning our Artifacts, we really need to get on that Outsider Search. Yes Baldomare can do it well, so we just need her to do it already. Axe will be busy either with a Lesson or an expedition most likely. Or Keys. And Biedde.... Well, a Resolution is nice, but I doubt we will have need of Edge this turn, unless Copper Doubles down on the attack.

Which, she might to be fair.
thing is, if we do Lantern influence now we can study the artifacts and have them available either the same turn or, if that's not how it works, the turn after.

and knock and lantern artifacts allow for summoning rituals, while Knock book would have us ready for Axe's sacrament/frangiclave search on turn 21, and Moth book (which we're most likely not going for now) would have us ready for Moth Sacrament.

though...

REMINDER TO EVERYONE: STUDYING HIGH LEVEL BOOKS IS DANGEROUS. THERE'S ALWAYS A RISK OF FASCINATION/DREAD, REMEMBER?

Knock 2 artifact is most likely safe. Lantern 4 artifact... probably safe too? Moth 5 sounds like something that could cause Fascination though. No idea about Knock 5.


That said, Baldomare on scrying or Outsider Search is also fairly tempting.
 
Why I see it we want to have, Baldomare scout Copper.

Then send in Biedde, Mareinette, and Comet to just destroy Copper. Luna can go get the book. And Daughter-of-Axes can teach a lesson in Knock.

I wonder if we could ask Baldomare to give her Lantern Sacrament to Jade?
The answer is no, Velvet has to teach the confidants nobody else.
 
This.... Gegh. This makes me want to swap to that Lantern Influence, focus on books and Artifacts then. I don't like it because it delays the Outsider Search, but still. This is a good plan, curse you.
Two risks we can take are:
  1. That Jade can successfully scry for Copper's location on her own.
  2. That the Level 6 Book will also reset Baldomare's summoning period.
This allows us to use the Lantern Influence to study the Knock 5 Book, have DoA make some Wrong Keys, and have Mareinette social Spoiled Rich to make progress towards the Moth Sacrament.

Also, I assumed that the Under the Royal Castle Expedition would result in finding an Outsider?
 
Two risks we can take are:
  1. That Jade can successfully scry for Copper's location on her own.
  2. That the Level 6 Book will also reset Baldomare's summoning period.
Do we even need to scry Copper beforehand? If we're sending a full Name hit squad, Baldomare will be there too. +80 to finding stuff is nothing to sneeze at, especially with rerolls.

Also, I assumed that the Under the Royal Castle Expedition would result in finding an Outsider?
Nah, it's a separate thing. Probably.
 
Do we even need to scry Copper beforehand? If we're sending a full Name hit squad, Baldomare will be there too. +80 to finding stuff is nothing to sneeze at, especially with rerolls.
I'm in a similar vein of thought in not needing a scry for it. But, mostly because the Detectives will be on it this turn.
 
If we're sending a full Name hit squad, Baldomare will be there too. +80 to finding stuff is nothing to sneeze at, especially with rerolls.
I was thinking Baldomare would scry for our manuscripts/Copper rather than sending her. She doesn't seem like the kind of Mare to go in a hit squad, eg that 2 HP.
 
I was thinking Baldomare would scry for our manuscripts/Copper rather than sending her. She doesn't seem like the kind of Mare to go in a hit squad, eg that 2 HP.
Why not? Her going along on the assault expedition doesn't necessarily mean she'd be getting involved in the combat, just that her bonuses will be available for use. Especially since I'd imagine most of the intelligence-gathering would be before they kick the door down. And if she's a tag-along on the expedition, that leaves her AP available to do something else too (like Lantern Influence).

Like we could do:

-[] Assault an opponent (Copper Secateur) (Biedde)
--[] Priorities:
---[] 1) Locate and destroy any evidence or witnesses that could possibly incriminate us
---[] 2) Eliminate Copper and Neighnia
--[] Participants: Mareinette, DoA, Baldomare, Biedde, Selene(?)

Since Bird has said we can give multiple goals by priority.
 
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Didn't the Lantern book come with an explicit "minor chance of causing Fascination" warning, though? I don't see anything like that on either of the books.
probably because it was the first high level book we got.

Also didn't Bird recently EXPLICITLY tell us, when we were talking of using influences to make Velvet's action worth using, that "remember that studying high level books can be risky, and you don't have Winter to defend yourself"?

not those exact words, but something close to it.

I wonder if we could ask Baldomare to give her Lantern Sacrament to Jade?
maybe? We once were told something along the lines of "This is between Baldomare and Jade" when we asked Baldomare in that "the many questions you ask Baldomare" update (not the precise title).

We were also more generally told that bringing followers to lvl 5 requires something "special", and that Velvet is not good enough to teach that as she is not "One who is Very Great".

that said, we also don't know if our followers get personal sacraments or not, so who knows.

The answer is no, Velvet has to teach the confidants nobody else.
It MIGHT work differently for Sacraments. We KNOW Velvet can't share her own Sacrament, as she's not "One who is very great", and she most likely won't gain that trait from JUST becoming sacramented (though... maybe passing through the Tricuspid, if it's not game end, might be enough?)

@OurLadyOfWires I don't suppose you're willing to comment on how to bring up people to lvl 5, now that we have one follower at lvl 4 and might soon get a few Sacraments, AND have suitable Names around?

Baldomare and Jade, Biedde and Comet... Mareinette and Rarity, I suppose, though I can't imagine us ever pushing for that.

Also, I assumed that the Under the Royal Castle Expedition would result in finding an Outsider?
near certainly not.

Outsider Search is searching for what we're 99% certain is Discord's petrified self. PROBABLY hidden somewhere by Celestia, because I can't imagine anyone else moving them around unless the Master somehow did it, or Discord freed himself and FOR SOME REASON didn't go on a rampage.

Both feel fairly unlikely.

the Canterlot expedition is instead more about exploring ancient tunnels under the castle, and our current assumption is that the diary we found at the end of part 1 was from Starswhirl the Bearded, the former teacher and mentor of the Royal Sisters, one of the unicorns responsible in the past to move the sun and moon, and PROBABLY one of the last occultists.

It SEEMS like he explicitly allowed knowledge of the Lores to be forgotten by NOT passing it on to his students, Celestia and Luna.

Do we even need to scry Copper beforehand? If we're sending a full Name hit squad, Baldomare will be there too. +80 to finding stuff is nothing to sneeze at, especially with rerolls.
it would help.

What if Copper moved, say, to Las Pegasus or any other city? it's possible that at the end of the 5 days we'll find out that Copper simply isn't in Manehattan anymore. Though we ARE likely to find something no matter what.

I was thinking Baldomare would scry for our manuscripts/Copper rather than sending her. She doesn't seem like the kind of Mare to go in a hit squad, eg that 2 HP.
To be fair if we also sent Biedde and someone else as Bodyguards it would be doable. She'd just have to avoid any 1v1.
 
While this option seems the least-horrible, it is personally dangerous and is likely to at least change how Velvet perceives the world. I just hope one talk with Marinette wouldn't be enough to convince her to eat her children.
[X] Time
I would prefer not to inform Celestia about Copper. If only so Velvet could get everything she can from her.
But we need to deal with her ASAP.
[X] Nothing happened. You are just ill.
 
True, I'm totally forgetting that's basically what she did on the Changeling Hive assault!

-[] Assault an opponent (Copper Secateur) (Biedde)
--[] Priorities:
---[] 1) Locate and destroy any evidence or witnesses that could possibly incriminate us
---[] 2) Eliminate Copper and Neighnia
--[] Participants: Mareinette, DoA, Baldomare, Biedde, Selene(?)
Fuck it we ball. I kind of love this.
 
Do we even need to scry Copper beforehand? If we're sending a full Name hit squad, Baldomare will be there too. +80 to finding stuff is nothing to sneeze at, especially with rerolls.
it would help.

What if Copper moved, say, to Las Pegasus or any other city? it's possible that at the end of the 5 days we'll find out that Copper simply isn't in Manehattan anymore. Though we ARE likely to find something no matter what.
That's exactly what I'm worried about. It seems unlikely that Copper would stay in Manehatten since she knew that we knew that the original cult was making inroads there. So it's more to confirm her location and then send an Intercontinental Biedde Missile (+ assorted Names) at her and just end her from ever attacking our family ever again.
 
Copper's cult is definitely in Manehattan. And it's hard to run a cult -- especially run it like the below -- when you're not there.
So, you don't care how she goes about everypony else. You don't care what she promises them, who she fucks, or who she promises to fuck if they just do one more thing for her. What matters to you is that she knows that, as long as she keeps the bits coming, you will do what she wants.
 
-[] Assault an opponent (Copper Secateur) (Biedde)
--[] Priorities:
---[] 1) Locate and destroy any evidence or witnesses that could possibly incriminate us
---[] 2) Eliminate Copper and Neighnia
--[] Participants: Mareinette, DoA, Baldomare, Biedde, Selene(?)
Copper Secatour sent four thugs and a Windigo to kill Velvet. Velvet sends four Names and an Alicorn to kill Copper. I like this symmetry. :V
 

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