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

[Portec]

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

I may remember it wrong but was the highest intensity of a law not +60? So Covers normal combat 29 (9 base + 20 edge knowledge) + 60 intensity should be 89 here instead of 69? Through very unlikly that the GM has it wrong.

I have no idea what to vote for for Marinette...

 

[Paintmaster]

I do have a concern about the currently winning option of Time, namely that we are spending time with Marinette without any Grail lore in our corner. On the other hand we are already likely to take a Heart influence from her to recover our wounds, so that may be a moot point.

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Same, if anything the way I see it is that 'Time' isn't just that, because Bird doesn't make obvious better options. Its Velvet choosing to take the burden of whatever Marinette wants/does onto herself. And given Marinette's character, the context of the other options, and wants....I suspect at minimum its going to make it harder to keep her out of the house going forward.

 

[Iustus Vitea]

I'm busy so I can't really take part in the discussion but I would like to point out a couple of things;

1. Hour a velvet can still walk the wake freely. The other Hours have done so after all, hell the Vagabound practically lives in the wake.

2. Marinette decided to throw down with 3 attackers (mortals or not that's a collective 9 HP if not more) and she killed them all in three turns with her basically nonexistent combat bonus? Yeah not buying it, either the combat auto resolved or she has some funky ass traits that let her hit way way above her martial weight class.

3. Selene completing her training sooner means she starts working on the Daybreaker issue sooner and that countdown began literally this turn. Celestia has Lantern 0 sure but let's not go betting on us beating her in this race. Remember NPCs use a way simpler system to level up Lore and she's going to have more resources and AP to throw at the problem then our fellow council members did and even they reached 3 fast. The sooner Daybreaker is not an issue the sooner we get more resource and freedom.

Pitt you keep begging Bird to have Candace give us cash but if Celestia is on our side we can freely use Bureau resources if not more.


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

[X] Freedom

 

[Greymere]

Same, if anything the way I see it is that 'Time' isn't just that, because Bird doesn't make obvious better options. Its Velvet choosing to take the burden of whatever Marinette wants/does onto herself. And given Marinette's character, the context of the other options, and wants....I suspect at minimum its going to make it harder to keep her out of the house going forward.

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Keep in mind that 1 AP is usually extremely valuable, because of Velvet's absurd Lore levels. Just not right now, because of Dancing With Death. So I wouldn't say it's an "obviously better" choice at all, under normal circumstances where we didn't get incredibly unlucky getting wounded twice in one turn.

And next time, it'll probably be 2 AP!

 

[Paintmaster]

Keep in mind that 1 AP is usually extremely valuable, because of Velvet's absurd Lore levels. Just not right now, because of Dancing With Death. So I wouldn't say it's an "obviously better" choice at all, under normal circumstances where we didn't get incredibly unlucky getting wounded twice in one turn.

And next time, it'll probably be 2 AP!

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That implies that Bird, or rather Marinette, didn't take into account our current status, which is doesn't make sense to me. On paper it looks like we lucked out but this is HoS, lucking out doesn't happen on major choices. Because they are major choices.

So yeah no I stand by my opinion that there is more to the time option than just costing AP. Because that would be too easy and transparent.

 

[Pittauro]

I may remember it wrong but was the highest intensity of a law not +60?

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Nope, there's four different intensities, +10 per tier, max +40

Pitt you keep begging Bird to have Candace give us cash but if Celestia is on our side we can freely use Bureau resources if not more.

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Cadance is on our side NOW, Celestia Is a "maybe later) possibility.

That implies that Bird, or rather Marinette, didn't take into account our current status, which is doesn't make sense to me. On paper it looks like we lucked out but this is HoS, lucking out doesn't happen on major choices. Because they are major choices.

So yeah no I stand by my opinion that there is more to the time option than just costing AP. Because that would be too easy and transparent.

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It just implies that what Mareinette wants from us is not depending on our lore levels or health.

She likely wants a chance to influence us, to bring us around her (monstrous) point of view.

That's problematic, but it's also expected. velvet will be ong uard and has the advantage of KNOWING what Mareinette is and is all about.

Best defense against emotion manipulation is being aware of it. It doesn't nullify it, but there's a limit to how much Mareinette can push us

 

[Iustus Vitea]

Cadance is on our side NOW, Celestia Is a "maybe later) possibility.

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She doesn't need to be a Confidante equivalent to recognise the value of our work and lend us resources. Hell just having her not explode sooner is good enough to give up a Selene AP if we don't need it and personally I don't think we do.

 

[jason1stlegion]

Best defense against emotion manipulation is being aware of it. It doesn't nullify it, but there's a limit to how much Mareinette can push us

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This assumes she can't [GRAIL] us. Do we have confirmation that's the case, given we lost all our Lore levels this turn?

 

[DelightedOne]

I'm hoping the bindings are enough, it stopped her from eating Silky and made her unable to go inside our home so it has some heavy power over that monster.

Velvet is not dumb, she knows Mareinette will take advantage of her being without her lores if she can, so it is not hard to think she can just order our resident Criminal to just not.

I guess we could also give Mareinette's bindings to Selene if Velvet feels she is too vulnerable to deal with her.

 

[Greymere]

This assumes she can't [GRAIL] us. Do we have confirmation that's the case, given we lost all our Lore levels this turn?

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I'm pretty sure Bird has said before that it doesn't work like that for us. It was iirc in the context of Copper trying to Grail us though, I think.

 

[Sveta08]

She doesn't need to be a Confidante equivalent to recognise the value of our work and lend us resources. Hell just having her not explode sooner is good enough to give up a Selene AP if we don't need it and personally I don't think we do.

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I would imagine, should that be an option, it would be revealed or offered as a follower actions when that phase comes.
If Cadence is beyond that reach, or not controlled in that manner, then it's all in QM's hands. So...

Shrug? We will see if that happens.

 

[Shaper47]

If you meant the Wolf's(knowing you that is actually more likely to be true) then yes we could have, but we still wouldn't have gotten Edge 5

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Errr, yes we would have. We're at 4/4 for edge. So going to the wolf would have put us at Edge 5.

How do you mean? Velvet still would have most likely been at one wound, and an extra level of Edge wouldn't have fixed that last roll.

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Yes it would have.

5 Edge give a +5 personal combat compared to 4 Edge.

The invaders overflow was 54, so having Velvet's combat be 5 higher would have resulted in an overflow of 49.

So Velvet would not have been wounded in combat and still have been on 1/2 health.

 

[Sveta08]

Errr, yes we would have. We're at 4/4 for edge. So going to the wolf would have put us at Edge 5.

5 Edge give a +5 personal combat compared to 4 Edge.

The invaders overflow was 54, so having Velvet's combat be 5 higher would have resulted in an overflow of 49.

So Velvet would not have been wounded in combat and still have been on 1/2 health.

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"Cut off the nose to spite the face. It's a reasonable exchange I hear."

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Instead of Wolf Sacrament, we should have simply not poked the most hazardous mansus location we know of on a turn we were strongly suspecting an attack.

 

[DelightedOne]

Errr, yes we would have. We're at 4/4 for edge. So going to the wolf would have put us at Edge 5.

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Oh, you're right, forgot about A Resolution. But nothing good comes from the Wolf.

 

[spiderhellian]

So unlucky...

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Yeah I did a quick simulation and I think it was less than 10% chance of a wound? Pretty rough.

Same, if anything the way I see it is that 'Time' isn't just that, because Bird doesn't make obvious better options. Its Velvet choosing to take the burden of whatever Marinette wants/does onto herself. And given Marinette's character, the context of the other options, and wants....I suspect at minimum its going to make it harder to keep her out of the house going forward.

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Bird decided the binding costs a while back, basically when we first summoned Mareinette iirc.

Oh, you're right, forgot about A Resolution. But nothing good comes from the Wolf.

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Well we weren't guaranteed summoning Biedde or that we'd take a Resolution, so it would have had to be a hell of a conditional plan (and one made not even knowing his Sacrament requirements).

 

[Shaper47]

Well we weren't guaranteed summoning Biedde or that we'd take a Resolution, so it would have had to be a hell of a conditional plan (and one made not even knowing his Sacrament requirements).

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Not really, Wolf sacrament doesn't require the same scrap requirements as other sacraments.

Instead of Wolf Sacrament, we should have simply not poked the most hazardous mansus location we know of on a turn we were strongly suspecting an attack.

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Such a plan would have used the free mansus ap for the sacrament instead of the expedition.


You know I really want to discuss this with Selene and Cadance. The thought of them disapproving is a major sticking point of the thread from taking the wolf sacrament. We should find out if that's just fear mongering or a real issue.

 

[Pittauro]

The invaders overflow was 54, so having Velvet's combat be 5 higher would have resulted in an overflow of 49.

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well, technically speaking something something butterfly effect.

If we did anything different, Bird would have rolled the dice at a different moment, and gotten a different result

Instead of Wolf Sacrament, we should have simply not poked the most hazardous mansus location we know of on a turn we were strongly suspecting an attack.

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I already said I'm sorry

You I really want to discuss this with Selene and Cadance. The thought of them disapproving is a major sticking point of the thread from taking the wolf sacrament. We should find out if that's just fear mongering or a real issue.

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Shaper, you're being intentionally obtuse.

NOBODY will EVER approve of Velvet going to the Wolf (except maybe in the most desperate of situations, and even then it would be LITERALLY a deal with the Devil), because the Wolf is probably the closest thing we've ever met to pure evil outside of the Worms.

If they agreed to us doing ANYTHING for the Worms, they

1) don't understand what the Wolf is about

or

2) the alternative is something that they personally just can't accept, like Velvet can't accept the death of her family members.

Even that is not an objective or even subjective judgement on the wolf. It's just an admission that Velvet (or anyone ever willing to deal with the Wolf) would rather damn the world that give up on some very specific things.

ANY choice to go to the Wolf is inherently very selfish, basically. Sometimes understandable (see the Regrettable Actions Velvet took. I'd argue they're ALL understandable), but NEVER really justifiable.


With Evil, Velvet put her own life above raising the level of suffering in Equestria/the world.

With Paranoia, Velvet put "moral outrage" at the door implying that she had to prove unicorns were above pegasi and Earth Ponies to resort to the most evil power she had to destroy it. I'd call it temporary insanity, basically. Out of Character we judged the inconvenience and time-resource costs of getting through that door another way a price we were just not willing to pay, for a variety of reasons.

with Ash, we decided that better the world suffer than Cadance, basically.

In all three cases I'd say it's selfish, but understandable. They're very human reactions/decisions all things considered.

That does not make them ok. There's a REASON if Velvet regrets all such choices and they're basically the ONLY thing she has not admitted to Stormchaser and Selene, when she told them quite literally everything else.

 

[Shaper47]

2) the alternative is something that they personally just can't accept, like Velvet can't accept the death of her family members.

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Basically this, they love Velvet more then Harmony's world.

Also going Wolf does help prevent any worm infestation. So it's kinda a choice between if they want a world of Harmony above all or are willing to damn the world to the worms.

Besides there's a way to deal... with a child of the Wolf if we're all prepared beforehand. To delay any suffering and shape the son.

 

[DelightedOne]

Also going Wolf does help prevent any worm infestation.

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So does reaching Harmony and that doesn't require we make the World a place so bad to live in that even the Worms have no interest in it.

So it's kinda a choice between if they want a world of Harmony above all or are willing to damn the world to the worms.

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A World of Harmony above all would be the Harmony Victory, so the World would NOT be damned to the Worms.

 

[Shaper47]

So does reaching Harmony and that doesn't require we make the World a place so bad to live in that even the Worms have no interest in it.

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Due to prior choices and the whims of the dice we've pretty much locked ourselves for Glory.

A World of Harmony above all would be the Harmony Victory, so the World would NOT be damned to the Worms.

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In some ideal world yes.

But in this one they'd be risking the world going to the worms.

The question is if they're willing to take that risk. Remember Twilight, they don't have plot armor. To go to the wolf is to sacrifice, to make the world a darker colder place but it makes the world safer from the worms.

Remember that even a lessor worm can defeat an alicorn. What could they do about greater ones coming?

 

[Zxzx24]

[X] Time

 

[DelightedOne]

Due to prior choices and the whims of the dice we've pretty much locked ourselves for Glory.

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My mind knows that... but my heart still has hopeof something going so wrong with Glory people go running to Harmony again of Harmony having a chance.

In some ideal world yes.

But in this one they'd be risking the world going to the worms.

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I think there is some kind of misunderstanding here, because it is been confirmed by Baldomare that something(most likely Harmony) put some type of wards in place to stop the Worms after the ones from the Hours were broken because the Wake would have been infested already if there wasn't anything protecting it.

So the Worms in the Harmony path would still be kept away. The "risk" of the Worms getting the World is us losing the Quest.

 

[Gyldir]

SHaper has become a verb!

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In the quote it was being used as an adjective.

What Bird said before was "Because mechanically, the target of your personal Moth Sacrament would simply stop interacting with you and become a non-factor in the quest."

I think the relationship is shattered, the person is not. Pretty bad, but not Twilight-level, I think.

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Its guesswork on interpreting the word of the bird.
It might be possible we shatter the relationship but the person is guaranteed to be a non-issue without harming the person... but I don't believe it.

The bottom line is, no. You won't "have" to do anything if it's not clearly stated.

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Was about if sic-ing the bureau on Copper based on the attack would be a pseudo fleeting opportunity or if it could be delayed a turn.
Gonna assume we can delay it. (Within reason)

 

[Iustus Vitea]

I would imagine, should that be an option, it would be revealed or offered as a follower actions when that phase comes.
If Cadence is beyond that reach, or not controlled in that manner, then it's all in QM's hands. So...

Shrug? We will see if that happens.

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…I don't get what you're talking about here. Cadance doesn't have anything to do with Celestia theoretically giving us more resources/free reign with present resources after we de-Daybreaker her. To which we need Selene to act sooner hence giving up on an AP this turn.

 

[Shaper47]

I think there is some kind of misunderstanding here, because it is been confirmed by Baldomare that something(most likely Harmony) put some type of wards in place to stop the Worms after the ones from the Hours were broken because the Wake would have been infested already if there wasn't anything protecting it.

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I think we've got different interpretations here.

The wards from the Hours are what Baldomare was taking about stopping the worms. With the implication being that when they had their death fights they took precautions against the worms getting in.

I'm not sure where you are getting the wards from the Hours being broken from?

There is however pretty convincing contextual evidence that implies that Harmony is degrading such wards as part of its efforts to replace the lores.

Harmony's efforts from what we know to protect the world against the worms was to put Luna on it. And that turned into an instant loss meme in part because Luna had no clue that the worms were a thing.

So the Worms in the Harmony path would still be kept away. The "risk" of the Worms getting the World is us losing the Quest.

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Like maybe in some history if Harmony wins.

But like our entire Harmony victory involves teaching it how to protect the world from the worms. Which has the implication that it's current methods are lacking.

Going Wolf reduces Harmony's power in the world but it directly reduces the current threat of the worms. Giving us more time to reach Glory.

 

[spiderhellian]

It might be possible we shatter the relationship but the person is guaranteed to be a non-issue without harming the person... but I don't believe it.

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Hmmm, I think there is a level of harm to "This person you trusted intimately shows you it was all a mask" — but it's much less than Twilight-level. Maybe if the Moth sacrament target was also then stuffed in a jar, and left to rot in a prison for months…

 

[DelightedOne]

I'm not sure where you are getting the wards from the Hours being broken from?

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It came straight from the Lantern Name's muzzle right here:

"Ah, yes. The Worms. Worrying about them is a tale as old as time, Velvet, trust me. I'll have to look around the Wake for a little bit, but I can tell at a glance that things are... different, than they were back then. I won't say that they were simpler, quite on the contrary, but at least it was a system that I was used to. But now? Well, the fact that the Wake still exists shows us that something must have put a ward in place, or taken some action about it. But I admit I know as little about it as you do, right now. Still... if what you told me about Selene is true, then... well, a Worm nearly making its way in is the very definition of an apocalyptic close call. It is good, then, that there is finally somepony doing something about it. They don't really care about the passage of time, you see, so if we are in a situation that it's only a matter of 'when' they will make it in here, then we have already lost. Well, not lost lost, but we really should work something out to make sure that 'when' turns into a 'never'!"

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Old wards are gone, something else is in place. My current theory is that the Dreamlands were supposed to be used as a Worm trap with Luna killing them until Harmony developed enough to subvert the Mansus and create something better... but Nightmare Moon happened and that plan went to Nowhere.

Also, it is not Harmony's fault the old wards are gone, it is because no one was doing anything at all to maintain them working.

But like our entire Harmony victory involves teaching it how to protect the world from the worms. Which has the implication that it's current methods are lacking.

Going Wolf reduces Harmony's power in the world but it directly reduces the current threat of the worms. Giving us more time to reach Glory.

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The Harmony Victory is teaching Harmony how to hide its light to not attract more Worms, not exactly protection, but close enough.

Dousing the lights does not give us more time to reach Glory, we either reach it first or not.

But for the sake of ending the"We need to minimize the threat of the Worms to get more time to reach Glory" I'll ask. @OurLadyOfWires are the Worms a long-term threat(post-quest) or are they a short-term threat(during Quest)?In the sense of them eating the World if we take too long to win.

 

[Shaper47]

@OurLadyOfWires

Velvet Covers if she got Cadence and Shinning's consent could theoretically pull off a variation of the Master's plan with a future son right?

Just arrange things so Velvet visits the father and comes back with her child while Cadence and Shinning are doing the act with Mareinette's help.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Or
Hear me out here
We don't go to the Wolf for an Edge Sacrament since, in all likelihood, some assholes that count as a worthy opponent will come knocking.

Also if we have investigators sniffing out Copper's cult we could have Jade scry us a weapon or something instead. Having some sort of stabbing implement can only be useful!