Well technically, it could be anywhere from third to sixth depending on what order Forge, Grail, Moth, and SH would resolve.
Because we only have one befriended Name, no supporting artifacts or lesser spirits, and only a single Sacrament?
Hmmmm, an idle thought…
Among the "things we don't know": What on earth Biedde defines as a 'monster'.
…Yes, possibly and perhaps even plausibly.
Yes, he did a lot during the one incident. Which is some ways his main problem: he is very useful when we actually expect to be attacked and have foes to kill, and an expensive walking stat stick when we don't, which is most of the time. He's a Name specialized for combat and most of the stuff we want done is... not combat. Not being able to be befriended is also a pretty big downside; it means that he is entirely useless for the endgame dungeons even in the scenario where we manage to befriend every single befriendable Name, that we can never convince or trust him to act in our interests or at least take them into consideration, and there are no conditions under which his renewal cost will stop being a concern which is either a bit more than third of our base income every month or letting him perform religious service to the god of inescapable servitude, which, see above re: can't be trusted to take our interests into account when acting outside the bounds of our direct orders.
We also didn't know the conditions for All In/Glory Victory until a couple of turns ago. Up until that point, befriending Names was "a thing that removes their timer", which is useful but nowhere near indispensable. Now, befriending Names means "can be used in the endgame dungeon (and also removes the timer and +1 AP)". We've also gotten a couple of examples since then of exactly just how potent a Name interested in us personally can be, via Mareinette's complete control of the assault narrative and subsequent removal of severe narrative penalties on the next turn due to being legally dead.
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.
Actually no?
I mean, I don't think we'd care if she charmed a noble out of their funds. Nobles are wealthy enough they wouldn't even NOTICE a few THOUSAND bits missing usually.
hope for an alternative?
I suppose that a friendly Name would just... use the Influence themselves for All In, and then maybe give it to us for Malleary instead.
I get the frustration, though the absolute minimum of moral standards should be about not causing gratuitous pain, which includes not killing innocents when necessary.
well, you then have a pony walk on it and suddenly the magic is working.
oh, but if we're talking of Tapestry ritual, that explicitly does NOT work in the Mansus (and House of the Moon IS in the Mansus "dimension"), so this source would have to be in the Wake.
not a bad point, though of course the Forge Sacrament potentially being usable for Edge bonuses through potions is just a guess, if a reasonable one.
yeah, this.
Fluttershy will get sad
Honestly if we get the Sacrament I think I'd be fine taking the 100 bits option next turn, or at least on the first turn we don't plan to send him on an expedition or to use him to get a prisoner.
mh... @OurLadyOfWires how does the wrong keys countdown work? Can we already ask for 3 keys as we're in a new "3-turns" timespan, or do we need to wait 3 turns since the last time we asked?
Nah. Was doing a bit of digging the day before. Can't speak to if Luna and Celestia are an outsider split in half or whatnot.
Discord came first from this, and Celestia and Luna fought him after the fact. (Uniquely, these are also the only two times in the story Discord is mentioned by name. Nifty huh?)
I think I'm willing to potentially lose out on reading a random low level book if it makes sure that the Moth 5 book and Lantern 4 artifact are definitely going to be studied come hell or unlucky dice.
Jade Whistle's vision confirmed they are half of an Outsider.
So yeah we're pretty sure of it at this point.
Those are just guesses from the Master. He was not around at the time, presumably.
Do we roll for Manehattan book? Is that higher priority than the artifacts?
I don't know, but if it does require a roll it's probably not going to stand up very well to a +74 Lantern-shaped sledgehammer, so I'm not particularly concerned about it. And I would say that the Lantern 4 artifact, specifically, is higher priority, because studying the Lantern artifact is what lets Selene perform as a very good scryer (+30 general, +40 from artifact) and later summon MitLs, and there's always something that we could scry. The Winter artifact is more debatable, but if nothing else we can give it to Mareinette (assuming we don't rush the Grail Sacrament-renewal) so that we don't have to shell out AP, money, or let her go wandering around doing Hours knows what.
Pretty well only on the first point do I disagree. The rest? Yeah, agreed. Thanks for the reminder on where we got the info of split Outsiders! Both you and the DelightedOne
No, that was in fact kind of my point. Unless we rush it now by acquiring a prisoner to use at the end of the turn, we will still have to pay the normal cost because she wouldn't be befriended yet, and "using Spoiled Rich for Dinner" is fundamentally incompatible with "rush Grail Sacrament at the end-of-turn renewal on T22" without compromising our Moth Sacrament. So either we don't do the Grail Sacrament at all and pay up, we do it on T23 with Spoiled and still have to pay something for the EoT22 renewal, or we do it with someone else captured this turn at EoT22 and dodge having to actually pay by instead accepting Mareinette's invitation.