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

[spiderhellian]

That is good to know. I still think we should befriend Mareinette, but it's nice to not have to worry about that.

 

[ses]

It is very silly that we're paying 60 bits for Biedde to go on a short monster hunting expedition when Velvet is also going on a short monster hunting expedition.

 

[Pittauro]

I don't think Velvet did, but the thread did vote for Canterlot to burn, no judgement, that was the less bad option of a bunch of bad choices.

Click to shrink...

yeah, but that's not Velvet, it doesn't really count. and as you said, all options sucked. Cadance dying or guards dying... long term it would have probably been worse, I think.

Cadance was also basically one of the very last few ponies Celestia cares about, AND Shining Armor was the one pony Cadance cared about all else. it might have been devastating to all of Equestria indirectly if we picked those options.

Though admittedly if guards + Shining died, it would have been even EASIER to gain influence over Cadance, I suppose.

But yes put me down as "Personal Winter is morally worse than Invitation to Dinner. Maybe even worse than three times as bad considering how disproportionate the reward we'd be getting in the respective "do bad thing for power" payoffs." Turning a potential powerful Name enemy into a friend is so much bigger a payoff than +1 Winter level and access to the Sun-In-Rags Expedition. We can just scry for a level 7 winter artifact instead of taking the Sacrament. It'll probably actually be more action efficient tbh all things considered. Maybe Winter 6 to be extra sure that we dont get screwed by no winter 7 artifacts existing in the Wake. Either way gets us MORE winter bonus to the Malleary expedition than Personal Winter does.

Click to shrink...

I think I disagree.

it's 3 "seemingly natural, likely painless" deaths vs "eating someone". Admittedly though we can't pick an "acceptable" target, so there's that too.

I think you're underestimating Sun-in-Rags expedition though. It's very possible that a lvl 7 book or artifact is in there, and who knows what else.

out of curiosity, and I don't think we ever asked... @OurLadyOfWires is "A source of X Sacrament" a valid target for scrying? Admittedly finding "Ones who are Very Great" in the Wake is probably not going to be simple at all. I suppose there might be a few Longs in other parts of the world who would qualify though.

...Just you wait for us to try to scry a Moth Sacrament source, and we get pointed at King Sombra... or for another lore maybe we're pointed out at Ponhenge (if Starswhirl was a Long).

Well, there were the guards who were guarding Twilight on the rescue mission. Which, I think Velvet could very easily rationalize away.

But past that? Yeah. The Royal Guard. If memory serves, there were some number that still died after we knew where Luna was.

But, that aside, I quite like the whole discussion of Sacramental planning. I agree with up through turn 23... and past that it doesn't really matter I think.
Best laid plans of mice and men and all that.

Click to shrink...

yeah, turn 22 and 23 are reliable, and I think Personal SH on turn 24 is also viable.

But turn 25 and onwards is at best an educated guess of what we could do. Especially considering if we're unlucky we might not even GET a turn 25 due to Celestia Countdown.

And yeah, I know about the guards... nothing we could do about that.

As a writer, I would like you guys to summon all the Names, and possibly befriend them, because (to put it very simply) I put a lot of thought into the Names and their individual circumstances. After all, more certain than meeting the Mane 6, or the Inner Circle, or any other mortal character in the Wake, I was sure you guys would bump into the Names because scaling the Mansus is almost mandatory in a quest about Cultist Simulator.

Click to shrink...

It's kinda funny we could have in theory achieved Harmony and House of the Moon ending without ever going beyond Blank Door though.

Baldomare for SH Sacrament was in Blank Plains. books and expeditions, as well as Mares in the Light and Percussiponies were all available there too.

Ignoring the Glory WAS technically an option, though it would mean giving up Mareinette, Biedde, Axe and Forge-Name, which presumably would have been found by our rivals.

To that end, let me be very clear: unbefriended Names will not be "side-bosses" on the All In expedition. There are individual reasons for that, but unbefriended Names won't be waiting for you guys in the Summit with latin-chanting boss music starting the moment they say "can't let you do that, Velvet Covers".

I have created mechanical encouragements to befriend Names. And you can look at DoA to (finally) see what a befriended Name can look like. But again, you guys don't need to do it.

That's... basically it.

Click to shrink...

That's definitely reassuring.

and yeah, befriended Axe shows the advantages of a befriended Name.

Compared to NOT befriended ones, they seem to offer

1) 2 actions per turn instead of 1. It's not QUITE double value on its own because some expeditions could still use multiple actions, but it's close.
2) they'll try harder, using their own influences more often to help us
3) no countdown on summoning, partial healing, means we don't need to pay to renew them.
4) will refuse summons from other factions
5) Can be resummoned immediately if, say, we use them as sacrifices or they die in an expedition. It can be a way to accelerate their healing too, sacrificing them before resummoning at full health.

In summary, a befriended Name seem to be 2 to 3 times as valuable, really.

with Mareinette presumably all of the above will apply except the resummoning, as she's PERMANENTLY in the Wake. Side note, I'm guessing she has a "heal all wounds in a turn" trait hidden somewhere.


As for why the Names won't stop us from All In...

1)Biedde can't leave the Museum
2)Baldomare probably can't climb, as she's wounded, and if not that she apparently decided to support us.
3)Axe was chained. Now she's with "family"
4)Master was the Woods. Trees can't climb, presumably, and I'm not sure Moth has it in it to STOP someone from reaching Glory.
5)Neighnia is in the Wake, not the Mansus (presumably). Also I don't think she'd care from what I know of canon?
6)that leaves the Edge Dyad... but we know nothing of that


In any case this has me seriously wonder if it's too late to get and/or befriend Neighnia. scrying + expedition is technically viable...

I was never a believer in "Enemy mareinette even if we All In within 4 turns" anyway, but I personally dont want to commit to All In within the next 4 turns regardless, let alone without Mareinette. Malleary hurdles are CD 120, which means that we're running non-trivial failure rates even with Sacrament plus Name Influence. Without name influences or actually doing endgame expeditions for endgame artifacts we're looking at sheer fucking hubris that our Ruined Church 1 luck will repeat and not our Ruined Church 2 luck, despite the odds. We lucksacked Ruined Church massively the first time, our lores have not actually increased very much since then, and 120 is 20 higher than 100.

Click to shrink...

To be fair we also have 1 more health this time, and we'd basically tank any consequence short of 0 health/sanity even if we needed multiple rolls to pass.

We don't NEED to pass all obstacles on first attempt. We CAN succeed an expedition even when failing a few rolls.

That said yeah, Name Influences, Sacraments, artifacts... they'd all help massively.

as for "not in 4 turns", we might not really get a choice.

Turn 25 Celestia COULD in theory get Lantern 5. We will PROBABLY get a turn or two more, I imagine, but we DON'T KNOW THAT, so we need to plan as if we won't. Get all the bonuses we can, and the MOMENT we're told "Next turn Celestia reaches your level" is the moment we go "fuck it, time to All In".

As it happens in between turns, I imagine we'd get to have all our Names give us Influences right then and there, so at least we shouldn't need to worry about that.

And potentially we could get Edge (from Biedde), Heart + Grail (if Mareinette befriended), Knock (+ moth tier 2?) from axe, Lantern + SH from Baldomare, Forge from new Forge Name...

that's... 7 out of 9 tier four influences, a tier 2 influence for Moth, and then we'd likely get Winter from a ritual (unless we somehow get Neighnia).

...uh. we might ACTUALLY go into All In and Mansus with influences for all 9 lores, of which 7 to 8 will be tier 4.

THAT'S TERRIFYING. ALSO AWESOME.

@OurLadyOfWires Will Velvet be fine using influences from not-befriended Names in All In and Malleary? I imagine the Names wouldn't know about what use she has for the Outsider, so she might be fine risking them seeing through the influence...

It may have taken us absurdly long to hit the [OUR RISE BEGINS] message, but QM was responding to questions about cult infrastructure with "talk to me again when you hit 5/9" in a way that does not fill me with confidence that we're past the point where investments have run out of time to pay off. Our options may be narrowing as we move into endgame, but this is the beginning of the end, not the end of the end.

Click to shrink...

eh, he also said the ending is around the corner.

So either he's lying or misleading about the quest/story ending after Tricuspid, or he's lying/misleading about us getting a chance to ask later about cult infrastructure.

And actually didn't we get a similar answer to "having followers research artifacts" and "having followers get sacraments"? The answer has been "we'll see later" for both, which presumes we WILL get to such a "later"...

in any case, no matter what happens AFTER Tricuspid, it's very likely we will get there on turn 25 (worst case) to a few turns later at the latest, depending on Celestia's luck and if we try to get moth artifacts or Moth 6 to buy time.

" The result of this battle of wills "

It's pretty well spelled out that the Daybreaker/Celestia battle is kind of by definition not decided yet, and can still have either one come out on top. Therefore if we invest in tipping the scales with Selene defusing her is absolutely on the table. If it wasn't a possible outcome it wouldn't have been described as "a battle"

Click to shrink...

that is fair. There IS a chance we might pacify Celestia by dealing with Daybreaker, in which case we might get more time to work.

Keep in mind there's a potential second SECRET countdown though, which makes waiting risky.

Discord could get free at some point. I'm expecting that while we can "juice him" while he's a statue, if he gets free it might be beyond us.

Discord was EXPLICITLY stronger than Celestia and Luna.

Now, ADMITTEDLY that's 1000 years ago Celestia and Luna, and modern day ones didn't fight him all out, so MAYBE between Luna's "going all out" edge trait and training, Celestia having had a 1000 years to grow stronger, Velvet, Biedde, Mareinette and Axe added to this it MIGHT be possible we could beat him, and that Discord is not as overwhelmingly strong as I fear him to be.

Though we don't know how dangerous he actually is once unbound, and we can't rely on being able to fight him in a situation that favours us.



All of this to say that the longer we go without doing All In, the more it's likely Discord will get Free, or Sombra will come back, or Tirek will get free, or some other crisis will happen.

(then again if Tirek gets free we can probably scry him and then send a dream team of a mix of Biedde, Selene, Mareinette and Axe to kill him, because I'm definitely not letting him do his thing).

It is very silly that we're paying 60 bits for Biedde to go on a short monster hunting expedition when Velvet is also going on a short monster hunting expedition.

Click to shrink...

it's a bit funny, but

1) Biedde likely has a different target in mind. Be they criminals, or ACTUAL monsters. some ponies can be monsters too, after all.
2) Do we really want Biedde to tear through Tall Tale while the Bureau is doing their thing?

 

[Sveta08]

Discord was EXPLICITLY stronger than Celestia and Luna.

Click to shrink...

Well, yeah.
Discord was the first Outsider. And while Celestia and and Luna are the... embodyment? Champions? Things, of Harmony, Harmony was the outsider. Not them.

I'll repeat that just to be a little emphatic.
Discord, themselves, is the Outsider. The first to breach Equestria. He's... big.

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

[X] Plan Exact Spending

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

It is very silly that we're paying 60 bits for Biedde to go on a short monster hunting expedition when Velvet is also going on a short monster hunting expedition.

Click to shrink...

Sadly, "Invite Biedde on your monster hunting expedition," was not an option.

 

[Flaregamer82253]

[X] Plan Exact Spending

I like Biedde and Mareinette. And given that we need to wait for the Baldomare expedition now anyways, I'm entirely up for summoning the Forge name.

Of note, we will be unable to get a friendly Mareinette before we have to renew the bindings, so account for having to do something about that at the end of the turn. On a similar topic, let's ensure that one way or another we have Spoiled Rich prepped for our sacraments next turn.

Yes, sacraments. I understand that between Leashing, Mothing, and then Grailing her we are being very cruel, but something about it just feels so incredibly right and in line with embodying both lores.

Starting to think it'd be a good idea to get to work on that prison too, just in case...

 

[LieutenantSpirit]

[X] Plan Knife, Name, and Candle

 

[OurLadyOfWires]

@OurLadyOfWires Theoretically, if we send her out to Cadance before doing Moth/Grail combo on earliest opportunity, how would she take it?

Click to shrink...

This entire issue arises from your lack of interest in committing to her. So committing to your relationship to her would, well, make the whole issue moot.

oh, that's not a bad idea. @OurLadyOfWires would having Mareinette sell our unused (or unstudied) artifacts allowed?

and in general, how would selling artifacts work? Do we get to auction them, roll for payoff, is it a fixed price, can we do it in the first place?

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't mind making the sale of artifacts be a simple free action. Or at most a follower action, or something "quick and easy" enough.

We have never explored that mechanic before, so I can't tell how balanced my notes from... years ago still hold up for this mechanic.

But, uh... just a small thing. Getting all excited to "Have [Name] do X" as if expecting the Name to perform it better is...

You guys don't want to commit crimes or do morally reprehensible actions, but you are excited to have Mareinette sell goods? How would Mareinette do it in a way that is exceptionally advantageous without doing something reprehensible or manipulative?

I don't want to get into the discussion of "is Grail manipulation is always mind control?" But really. If you want a Name to generate funds, either commit to it entirely or don't do it at all.

So I just thought of this, but @OurLadyOfWires is leveling up Cadance's lores now going to be an option we can take, or is anything more than just initiation still too risky because of Celestia?

Click to shrink...

Velvet wants to do it herself, and Cadance isn't a regular follower you can order around. So, those two factors encourage me to make Cadance advancement something that happens on the background or without action point expenditure.

Which is to say, there is nothing to actively do right now. Let's see how that ball rolls.

@OurLadyOfWires Apologies if it is too soon or not enough people are displaying interest, but as Greymere quoted, you mentioned that you'd consider the double-Sacrament option once enough people were willing to do the Grail sacrament. From what I've seen over the least several pages, numerous people are willing, and there are even plans being made to try and figure out the optimal way to find a prisoner to use for it, while few if any people are arguing against doing the Grail Sacrament- even if only out of a begrudging acknowledgement of the necessity of it.

Click to shrink...

Thank you kindly! Words like these are always motivating.

And to answer your main question. I remember during the Luna search how you took Rarity to Manehattan in a big clump of personalized actions.

If you are interested in it, and you have most of the prerequisites to do your Sacraments when Velvet's phase arrive, we can negotiate something on the grounds of "spend two action points to do everything", with me waiving the need for a prison and whatnot.

out of curiosity, and I don't think we ever asked... @OurLadyOfWires is "A source of X Sacrament" a valid target for scrying? Admittedly finding "Ones who are Very Great" in the Wake is probably not going to be simple at all. I suppose there might be a few Longs in other parts of the world who would qualify though.

Click to shrink...

Nothing in the game has suggested that anything other than the Names can offer Sacrament invitation. So I don't see why you should try that scrying.

@OurLadyOfWires Will Velvet be fine using influences from not-befriended Names in All In and Malleary? I imagine the Names wouldn't know about what use she has for the Outsider, so she might be fine risking them seeing through the influence..

Click to shrink...

Name-given influences fade at the end of the turn.

That is a small and intentional way for you to not be able to take Name-given influences to All In.

Plus, as you said, narratively Velvet would fear said unbefriended Name would have their eyes on her during the expedition, if she tried.

So no unbefriended-Names aid during All In.



That seems to be all. I hope you are all doing well!

 

[ses]

This entire issue arises from your lack of interest in committing to her. So committing to your relationship to her would, well, make the whole issue moot.

Click to shrink...

Ok that's really nice to hear that taking the sacrament renders this vote moot.

The big issue then, is her 2nd rebinding.

Because it sounds like it's a case of.
Take Cadance option: slightly more expensive 2nd rebinding, 3rd is painful but possible, and forget about getting any more freebies like she's been giving you occassionally until you tie the knot
Take Interest option: slightly less expensive 2nd rebinding, 3rd rebinding will make you cry, and Mareinette will continue to act semi-quarter-befriended-when-she's-in-a-good-mood like when she did a bit of free healing on turn 20.

If the girldinner contingent gets a vote off the ground that captures a prisoner this turn, the vote is completely irrelevant. If the thread plans on doing Grail Sacrament on turn 23... taking the cadance option is probably going to end up costing us next turn's rebind unnecessarily.

Honestly kinda considering ditching the Edge Sacrament in favor of a 3rd study action now that QM has shown warmth towards selling low-level artifacts. Getting that Moth 3 artifact would be very nice, and it leaves a leftover study slot for either retrying a failed roll or 40ish bits from studying and selling a level 1 artifact. Which is well worth a half-AP left over after useful stuff is accomplished with the other half.

I've been rolling Biedde combats all day and man do we lose a LOT. I'm genuinely not sure if that 21% is accurate now. Or if that 21% just feels like so much more when rolling them out personally. We could very easily just scry an Artifact Weapon expedition instead and save multiple follower actions for other stuff this turn instead. Plus Axe is kinda spinning her wheels due to the failed scry, so we can actually have AXE do two scries next turn, freeing Selene's AP back up for unique actions like Knock-Spy on Windy or "Go find a 3circle site hint hint castle of the sisters hint hint" Forgot about Proud trait

 

[spiderhellian]

"Girldinner"

Okay, that does clarify things a bit, thanks Bird. If we are doing it with Spoiled... huh, we don't even need to pay the second Binding? We could have her as "Minion" level next turn (Mareinette social, plus/minus a Leash). And then in that end-of-turn decision, take the "Accept her "Invitation to Dinner"" option.

If we're making a prison, that takes a (Forge name?) build-prison action and then a capture prisoner action. And we have to pay the second binding.

...Honestly, that's a pretty substantial difference. If we're going Grail Sacrament, I think we should do the Spoiled plan. And do it turn-after-next, combined with Moth.

 

[ses]

Okay, that does clarify things a bit, thanks Bird. If we are doing it with Spoiled... huh, we don't even need to pay the second Binding? We could have her as "Minion" level next turn (Mareinette social, plus/minus a Leash). And then in that end-of-turn decision, take the "Accept her "Invitation to Dinner"" option.

Click to shrink...

If we take that route that prevents us from Moth sacramenting, since it's impossible for us to Moth Sacrament on turn 22, and we must have the scraps at the start of the turn. Only way to dodge the 2nd rebinding is to put the Forge Name on building a prison and have Axe grab somepony, and assume that "The literal actual Name of Forge is doing this" convinces QM to allow those to happen on the same turn.

2nd rebinding is at the end of this coming turn.

 

[spiderhellian]

If we take that route that prevents us from Moth sacramenting, since it's impossible for us to Moth Sacrament on turn 22, and we must have the scraps at the start of the turn. Only way to dodge the 2nd rebinding is to put the Forge Name on building a prison and have Axe grab somepony, and assume that "The literal actual Name of Forge is doing this" convinces QM to allow those to happen on the same turn.

Click to shrink...

I don't think so? Ah, I guess I'm confused since the Mareinette rebinding happens "between" turns. We could eat Spoiled, we couldn't Moth -> Spoiled? Like we have to do it at "start of turn", as it were?

I guess I should ask to clarify. @OurLadyOfWires How does the Sacrament-rebinding of Mareinette work? Is it "You must use your first action of the next turn on the Sacrament"? "You must do the Sacrament next turn, at some point?" Basically if we do have a Minion-level character ready, does the Mareinette Sacrament-rebinding allow for Moth sacrament-ing first, or nah?

 

[Cochimetl]

From what I've seen over the least several pages, numerous people are willing, and there are even plans being made to try and figure out the optimal way to find a prisoner to use for it, while few if any people are arguing against doing the Grail Sacrament- even if only out of a begrudging acknowledgement of the necessity of it.

Click to shrink...

We're still here. Personally, I just get so tired at the thought of having to argue against eating people. It should be the absolute minimum of moral standards. It's vile, it would be wildly out of character for Velvet in my opinion, and as @OurLadyOfWires pointed out, it isn't necesarry.

We'll see how it turns out if it comes to the actual vote, because it might well be that the Cannibalists, like the Lupines, are merely a very loud minority.

 

[Nevermort]

Ok that's really nice to hear that taking the sacrament renders this vote moot.

The big issue then, is her 2nd rebinding.

Because it sounds like it's a case of.
Take Cadance option: slightly more expensive 2nd rebinding, 3rd is painful but possible, and forget about getting any more freebies like she's been giving you occassionally until you tie the knot
Take Interest option: slightly less expensive 2nd rebinding, 3rd rebinding will make you cry, and Mareinette will continue to act semi-quarter-befriended-when-she's-in-a-good-mood like when she did a bit of free healing on turn 20.

Click to shrink...

I don't agree. If we say Mareinette that we are interested in her she would want Velvet to show commitment to it. If anything Take Interest will have more expensive rebindings. After all if we are interested why not commit immediately?

More importantly I think that if we take Cadance option after Cadance learns some more lores we would get option to pass Mareinette bindings to her. We were able to do it with Luna after all. And before people start shouting about how dare I contemplate losing Name actions remember about Fluttershy/Comet deal. If Cadance is our friend no reason she can't let us borrow Mareinetee for a time. Or alternatively Mareinetee can sit on Canterlot throne while Cadance spends her time with Velvet.

It may be not enough for letting Mareinette into All-in expedition but solves issue of her 3rd rebinding.

And then we marry Cadance as there is no written rules for Alicorn marriages and we know that Name befriended by family member counts as available for All-in.

 

[Greymere]

Plus Axe is kinda spinning her wheels due to the failed scry, so we can actually have AXE do two scries next turn, freeing Selene's AP back up for unique actions like Knock-Spy on Windy or "Go find a 3circle site hint hint castle of the sisters hint hint"

Click to shrink...

DoA can't actually perform RotT cause she (like most Names) has the "Proud" trait, so unless it has at least some Knock in it she's not casting it.

 

[Greymere]

I wouldn't mind making the sale of artifacts be a simple free action. Or at most a follower action, or something "quick and easy" enough.

Click to shrink...

More reasons to send DoA out on expeditions, I suppose, even/especially if they're easy ones. @OurLadyOfWires I assume they have to be studied first, since we don't know the appraised cost until we do?

 

[ses]

DoA can't actually perform RotT cause she (like most Names) has the "Proud" trait, so unless it has at least some Knock in it she's not casting it.

Click to shrink...

Whoops, good call. I totally forgot about that trait since it doesn't actually come up much.

Also, level 1 artifacts do have value, since they're essentially free Lore levels for All-in and any other expedition where we're sending multiple ponies. So I wouldn't be too eager to liquidate them. But assuming 50 bits a pop it's certainly something to do a little as a treat. 100 bits is actually something that we'd consider spending a Velvet AP on sometimes.

 

[Greymere]

Name-given influences fade at the end of the turn.

That is a small and intentional way for you to not be able to take Name-given influences to All In.

Plus, as you said, narratively Velvet would fear said unbefriended Name would have their eyes on her during the expedition, if she tried.

So no unbefriended-Names aid during All In.

Click to shrink...

Biedde continues to be the WORST Name ever. Every new piece of information only grows my desire to find his dyad partner and make friends with them instead.

 

[ses]

We can take his influence to the Malleary though! That counts for something. Also the, y'know, saving our asses with a well timed max Edge influence and deleting a Windigo for us with a free guard action in the same turn. If Biedde had been Comet Feet instead we would have fucking died, not just ended up dancing with death. The Windigo would have obliterated him and moved on to obliterate us while the thugs kept Mareinette busy. We would have died even if we were at full hp if we only had Mareinette and Comet guarding and had delayed Biedde an extra turn. We would have died if we had done FR and done that.