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

[ses]

Wait lol I hadn't even noticed that, why did we decide to sell it?

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We have the Great Book Hunt and the Quest for Iotic Essence next turn and we want to be certain we can afford the tickets if they end up being Long expeditions.

Plus we have Biedde to pay for, and possible MITL, and the Edge 3 artifact wasn't exactly useful for anything (Mareinette can autopass IotH with a torn risen sac and we've gotten over our hesitance to raise one every turn so there's no shortage of expiring Edge 2 sacrifices)

 

[spiderhellian]

Fair!

 

[Pittauro]

We have the Great Book Hunt and the Quest for Iotic Essence next turn and we want to be certain we can afford the tickets if they end up being Long expeditions.

Plus we have Biedde to pay for, and possible MITL, and the Edge 3 artifact wasn't exactly useful for anything (Mareinette can autopass IotH with a torn risen sac and we've gotten over our hesitance to raise one every turn so there's no shortage of expiring Edge 2 sacrifices)

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well, it was somewhat useful for Windigo/MitL summons, and of course the escape effect was a nice extra bit of insurance...

but the truth is, we're in a rapid growth phase, and we need bits to fund it.

Bits for Sacraments, Bits for Name friendships, Bits for expeditions giving us more books and artifacts...


If it comes down to it, none of our artifacts is really beyond being sold for money, really. Though hopefully we won't have to, each sacrament will be extra bonuses in All In... though sadly they don't help in the follow-up in the Mansus.

 

[ses]

well, it was somewhat useful for Windigo/MitL summons, and of course the escape effect was a nice extra bit of insurance...

but the truth is, we're in a rapid growth phase, and we need bits to fund it.

Bits for Sacraments, Bits for Name friendships, Bits for expeditions giving us more books and artifacts...


If it comes down to it, none of our artifacts is really beyond being sold for money, really. Though hopefully we won't have to, each sacrament will be extra bonuses in All In... though sadly they don't help in the follow-up in the Mansus.

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Baldomare is the only potential summoner that would have benefited from the Edge artifact. Axe, Biedde and Selene all autopass Edge and Marinette can't summon MITLs.

There is no chance she tries to summon Mares regardless: she has SO MUCH of her AP spoken for, for our Sacraments. It was never going to happen anyway: SH influence for personal SH, Baldomare SH, possible Lantern lesson to hit 4/4, and Baldomare Lantern. Selene already more than covers all the summoner AP we'd want.

(And if we wanted windigoes for some reason Selene already handles that as well.)

 

[Pittauro]

true.

actually, let us check our STUDIED artifacts and what they're particularly useful for (beside generic expedition bonus, which is always valuable)

The assumption is that we'll basically NEVER let our Names expire, so their summons are not relevant

HEART Level 3 (STUDIED)
"The skin of a furred animal worked into a large blanket, or perhaps a thick carpet. The salespony insists that whoever sleeps under it (or over it) will wake up feeling refreshed."
Appraised cost: 200 bits
Special properties: +30 on tests to recuperate health or cure lasting debuffs. Applies on contact.

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All in all not actually that useful? We usually bypass healing rolls by just paying for better medicine, and in terms of rituals it only helps with Incision... but we'll likely want to use either Velvet or Mareinette for those, so it's mostly irrelevant there.

SECRET HISTORIES Level 3 (STUDIED)
"A large hardcover book, or perhaps a grimoire, that displays the content of a different book every time its pages are turned. Some of the things written on it, you are pretty sure, are not true, or never happened."
Appraised cost: 200 bits
Special properties: Gives a variable bonus (from +5 to +15) for any rolls that involve "research" or "study", of any subject.

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A small bonus to research, which helps with all our book and artifact studying, among other things.

ALSO it helps with scrying, particularly for Jade, but in combination with the Lantern 4 artifact allows basically anyone to do that.

LANTERN Level 4 (STUDIED)
"A many-pronged instrument that can fold onto itself like a switchblade. You believe it is a measuring instrument, but you have no idea what it is meant to measure. And for some reason, it seems to work better, or at least its joints seem to yield more fluidly, when used in utter darkness."
Appraised cost: 500 bits
Special properties: This artifact is particularly well-crafted, even by modern pony standards. It can be sold for 100 bits more than the usual rate of 400 bits.

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Potentially useful for Biedde (or Axe) to summon MitLs (LANTERN 80, KNOCK 60, EDGE 60) for us. Even better if we can study the knock 2 (for Biedde) artifact too.

Other than that, though, it makes more or less anyone a viable scryer. Selene in particular, but with the +40 from it and the +30 from the SH one even our weaker followers have decent-ish odds for the not-peak-difficulty attempts.

That said, it's worth 500 Bits, so... yeah. It might be worth it at some point, especially if we get a place for Jade to do rituals from safely

WINTER Level 4 (STUDIED) (CURSED!)
"An old, but well kept, candle snuffer.
Appraised cost: 100 bits (cursed!)
Special properties: Any character who uses this artifact (either on a ritual, or as a Lore-level during an expedition) will be cursed with "bad luck". That character will have one random dice roll on the following turn be rolled under a "roll two dice, keep worst result" rule.

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sadly it doesn't sell for much. Honestly my best idea for how to use it, all things considered (and beside the "give it to summon that expires that turn) would be to use it as a ritual sacrifice to get a winter influence, IF and only if it being destroyed negates the curse.

If so it could allow us to get the tier 3 or 4 influence, get scraps from it, and then take advantage of that high winter for mansus expeditions and other stuff.

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CONCLUSION: the first artifact I'd sell is PROBABLY the Heart one if we need more bits in the short term. Of course if we can keep them all that's better, but 200 bits could come in handy. It's basically the cost of multiple expeditions, or of an expensive sacrament, or multiple reagents to create, and so on.

 

[ses]

All in all not actually that useful? We usually bypass healing rolls by just paying for better medicine, and in terms of rituals it only helps with Incision... but we'll likely want to use either Velvet or Mareinette for those, so it's mostly irrelevant there.

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Heartifact is a fan favorite and we've used it multiple times when our followers get wounded, also we're more likely to take the Heart roll now that we're at 3 max health these days. I recall we used the Heartifact to heal without paying bits a couple of times as well. Pretty sure we just rolled for it for the wound we took from [Moods of Mareinette]

Edit: I checked. We received one Wound on turn 12 from Evil, which we paid to heal, one wound from [Moods of Mareinette] on turn 15 which we rolled for with Heartifact bonus and succeeded, and 2 Wounds from Turn 19 which we spent bits to heal (plus Mareinette giving a freebie to lift us out of being completely bedridden for the month). Rarity and Comet were both wounded while on missions on our behalf and were lent the heartifact to help heal (Selene hunt and Outsider search)

Heartifact bonus was very helpful on Turn 16 to allow us to spend zero bits or AP on healing and still recover.

A small bonus to research, which helps with all our book and artifact studying, among other things.

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Small bonus my ass, it's an average of 2 effective Lantern levels for studying.

sadly it doesn't sell for much. Honestly my best idea for how to use it, all things considered (and beside the "give it to summon that expires that turn) would be to use it as a ritual sacrifice to get a winter influence, IF and only if it being destroyed negates the curse.

If so it could allow us to get the tier 3 or 4 influence, get scraps from it, and then take advantage of that high winter for mansus expeditions and other stuff.

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We can make a Winter 4 Reagent for 80 bits and sell the artifact as a free action for 100 bits. 20 bits is a good payoff for a free reagent craft a lot of the time.

Also with the Lantern artifact and the Winter artifact, a Torn Risen sacrificing itself can toss a +65 End is Beautiful if we ever have someone we dislike enough to murder but not enough to handle it with extreme overkill.

Cough cough Windy.

Also funny thought, but is it possible that the one who cursed the artifact was Velvet? We know that the Master tossed a PtN at Copper on turn 16 and Velvet may have rolled badly on her own PtN but it was still a 99, and we saw no indication that Copper was suffering crippling mental maluses from the two PtNs and having Ash stalk her on turn 19. She probably used that Winter 4 artifact to defend herself.

I know you're going to respond "Velvet said it was cursed by pony magic, not the Lores!" but she considered it perfectly viable an explanation that it got cursed because of Copper meeting an unfortunate end, so it's not necessarily a result of a unicorn casting Curse Object on it with their horn.

 

[Sveta08]

I mean, if you really want to Tempt the Genie, just hold onto the Winter artifact for All In.

Either we win, in which there is (likely?) no next turn. Or we die, so there is (likely?) no next turn.

 

[spiderhellian]

Eh, All In may play out as having one last turn afterwards? There is the whole Juicing yet to be done

 

[Sveta08]

Eh, All In may play out as having one last turn afterwards? There is the whole Juicing yet to be done

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There is a reason I called it "Tempting the Genie" and not pulling one over on them.


On the other hand! Oh how fitting that would be!
Velvet having to made it and claimed the reward from All In
Only to be brought low not by something drenched in lore or ancient arts. But a humble, quiet curse. Pony magic. Not something...
Well.
Not something more.

 

[ses]

There is a reason I called it "Tempting the Genie" and not pulling one over on them.


On the other hand! Oh how fitting that would be!
Velvet having to made it and claimed the reward from All In
Only to be brought low not by something drenched in lore or ancient arts. But a humble, quiet curse. Pony magic. Not something...
Well.
Not something more.

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Velvet can't even use the Winter 4 artifact. That's dumb. She already has winter 4. And the only relevant actions the turn after All In would be Befriended Names using their influences on Velvet for the Malleary which doesn't involve dierolls. So it'd be impossible for whoever used the winter 4 artifact during all-in to be screwed by it afterwards.

 

[Sveta08]

So it'd be impossible for whoever used the winter 4 artifact during all-in to be screwed by it afterwards.

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Never. Impossible. Always.

Dangerous words those!

 

[Pittauro]

We can make a Winter 4 Reagent for 80 bits and sell the artifact as a free action for 100 bits. 20 bits is a good payoff for a free reagent craft a lot of the time.

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Good point, though we might need a different type of reagent that turn, which makes the artifact as is still potentially useful.

Also with the Lantern artifact and the Winter artifact, a Torn Risen sacrificing itself can toss a +65 End is Beautiful if we ever have someone we dislike enough to murder but not enough to handle it with extreme overkill.

Cough cough Windy.

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Fair point

 

[spiderhellian]

I'm sure Windy isn't up to anything, probably he's gone back into the ice cream business, or perhaps he's started a small art gallery?

 

[Arrkhon]

Now I think about it didn't we end up turning Velvet into a tsundere for Mareinette? She's all mean to her, keeps her in a dirty basement and tells her to never approach her but then she's also doing her best to keep her close, invites her to her home, depends on her a lot and is even planning a romantic dinner with her!

 

[jelloloaf]

@jelloloaf

I managed to track down this piece of paper. Very interesting, but I cannot figure out what all this talk of mirrors and Morse-code is. Worse, I suspect I am on the wrong tack to discover these other pages... or at least, I cannot understand what I seem to have missed. Is there any hint you could offer me to help in my chase?

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Sorry for not responding earlier, have been quite busy.

I don't want to give away too much of this step, as my intention is for it to be a bit of a puzzle. Still, if you've found the paper, you are in the right place. I know several other people have shared advice for this page; they may be of some help.

The hint has not helped much- yet- but I am finally getting the general mindset of a frantic and mildly crazed cultist as I pore over this document trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong and what I'm supposed to do. I didn't expect to dive back into the bible or start making actual connections to Lores within it, but... here we are. X3

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The intended experience jejejeje :3

Spoiler

They're not relevant to finding more pages, they're just kinda interesting. The Morse Code is basically an in-character tips list to how to play CS

I low-key cheated (Jellolaf said it doesn't count as cheating in his opinion though) to find page 4, but then I got stuck.

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I'll say it again, no wrong ways to go through this. Skip everything and get the answers off someone else or spend a month reading through every post I've ever made for hidden clues, whatever you like. If you're having fun, you're doing it right.

And how could you say that the SIGMA CULTIST GRINDET isn't always relevant to absolutely everything all of the time?

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In Which Winter Thaws

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Holy shit, this is incredible. I love the way you work with negative space; very fitting for Winter. And the language is so lovely as well.

Till Glory or Grave take us

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I could make this post five times as long with picking out specific bits I loved, but my favorite is this, no period on the ending line is

I am seriously going to have to sit down and do a line by line analysis at some point, absolutely incredible work Sveta.

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she considered it perfectly viable an explanation that it got cursed because of Copper meeting an unfortunate end

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Lack of Copper is inherently a curse, it makes sense that her death would taint an artifact like that. (Legal disclaimer that I am normal about The Character and any illegal activity regarding desecration of corpses is purely performative for entertainment purposes) Rereading the turns with her in it whenever the Copper flame begins to dim call that horse rewormer

I'm sure Windy isn't up to anything, probably he's gone back into the ice cream business, or perhaps he's started a small art gallery?

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Neighnia galery perfec t size for put painting in to d\isplay! inside very Cold and Stark painting hung safely put painting in Neighnia Gallery. Put paining in Neighnia Gallery. no problems ever in Neighnia gallery because good Walls and curation for painting canvas of painting paint yes. Theneighnia Gallery yes a place for painting put painting in Neighnia gallery can trust Neighnia for giveing good love to painting. friend Neighnia

 

[Pittauro]

And how could you say that the SIGMA CULTIST GRINDET isn't always relevant to absolutely everything all of the time?

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...I was going to say I don't have books to study, but... maybe I could try the "cut the lock of hair" thing and see if I get the Dream™.

It's by far the easiest method... now I'm kinda tempted...

 

[jelloloaf]

...I was going to say I don't have books to study, but... maybe I could try the "cut the lock of hair" thing and see if I get the Dream™.

It's by far the easiest method... now I'm kinda tempted...

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We could even start a church! (for tax reasons of course, remember rule 1 )

 

[Greymere]

That said, it's worth 500 Bits, so... yeah. It might be worth it at some point, especially if we get a place for Jade to do rituals from safely

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Or if we find another Lantern 4+ artifact somewhere. Unlikely to happen, but you never know.

 

[Pittauro]

We could even start a church! (for tax reasons of course, remember rule 1 )

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I mean, if it worked for Scientology....

Or if we find another Lantern 4+ artifact somewhere. Unlikely to happen, but you never know.

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extremely unlikely, but sure

 

[ses]

Hmm. If we reach the end of this turn unwounded do we want to consider doing Ruined Church 2 again next turn? An Imminence gets us past the first hurdle with 80% odds after all, and every non-Heart lore will have rerolls and such. Plus we'd get 2 Heart scraps from the Influence. We'd have level 5 in Knock, Moth, SH, and Edge in that scenario plus a Name influence in Heart. We'd also possibly have Level 6 Forge assuming that we miniaturize Forge Name and are allowed to bring him into the Mansus as a normal artifact at the end of the turn when we do the Mansus Expedition after he goes on the great book hunt for free. That leaves our only "weaknesses" as Winter, Lantern, and Grail, all of which would still be level 4 with re-rolls available.

(Plus having +40 Heart might be useful in Beyond the Map's Edge.)

The Grail Heirloom is almost certainly at the end of the expedition, and likely 2 scraps if it's the same scrap rewards as Ruined Church 1.

 

[Pittauro]

If we waited one more turn, we could add two heart lessons from Mareinette too though.

That said, Ruined Church is definitely an option. Or, if we do the SH Sacrament, we could give the Tower That Reaches The Moon a try.

and really... we can AFFORD to fail the expedition, in the worst case.

 

[ses]

If we waited one more turn, we could add two heart lessons from Mareinette too though.

That said, Ruined Church is definitely an option. Or, if we do the SH Sacrament, we could give the Tower That Reaches The Moon a try.

and really... we can AFFORD to fail the expedition, in the worst case.

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Come on, Mareinette AP is too valuable to spend handholding us to Heart 4 regardless. Honestly just taking the Imminence already kind of stings (As it means no Mareinette on any medium/long expeditions) let alone two whole Name AP that could be used on tons of other things (Social actions! Getting us to Grail 5 instead! Doing that plan to have Mareinette do a social action aimed at boosting Rarity's income! Tons of stuff)

The only way we hit Heart 4 is by finding high level Heart books and artifacts, which means expeditions.

But yeah it's way too early to talk seriously about it. I just wanted to raise the possibility if this turn goes well.

 

[DelightedOne]

If we reach the end of this turn unwounded do we want to consider doing Ruined Church 2 again next turn? An Imminence gets us past the first hurdle with 80% odds after all, and every non-Heart lore will have rerolls and such.

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I would be fine with going to the Church if we had at maximum 1 wound this turn, An Imminence would even be helpful to heal from it.

But there is also that small(read big) feeling of impending doom going there always gives me... and that tends to be right considering going there made us lose the Element of Magic and die. And also call a monster to terrorize the Wake.

You know what, better stay lower and go to the church when we can't avoid the inevitable Restlessness anymore.

We'd also possibly have Level 6 Forge assuming that we miniaturize Forge Name and are allowed to bring him into the Mansus as a normal artifact at the end of the turn when we do the Mansus Expedition after he goes on the great book hunt for free.

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Uuh, I always forget Cherenkolt can do that, it is so nice having a helpful son instead of a Son.
I'm totally going to sound like a hypocrite later, aren't I?

 

[Pittauro]

Come on, Mareinette AP is too valuable to spend handholding us to Heart 4 regardless. Honestly just taking the Imminence already kind of stings (As it means no Mareinette on any medium/long expeditions) let alone two whole Name AP that could be used on tons of other things (Social actions! Getting us to Grail 5 instead! Doing that plan to have Mareinette do a social action aimed at boosting Rarity's income! Tons of stuff)

The only way we hit Heart 4 is by finding high level Heart books and artifacts, which means expeditions.

But yeah it's way too early to talk seriously about it. I just wanted to raise the possibility if this turn goes well.

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I think we can't take an Imminence next turn anyway, I imagine it takes on of her APs for the "Feast" Sacrament after all.

and I don't think it's a waste. Heart 4 would mean we're all 4, which allows for the lesson to our family (Raising Stormchaser and having unknown but existing effects on Soft Sweeps). It also means we get one more reroll on the kind of challenges that are likely to give us wounds if failed, AND it makes Incisions safer if we for some reason don't want to use Mareinette for them.

But there is also that small(read big) feeling of impending doom going there always gives me... and that tends to be right considering going there made us lose the Element of Magic and die. And also call a monster to terrorize the Wake.

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eh, we were unlucky. It happens.

It was a series of unfortunate choices and rolls all piling up together.

As a general rule we've actually been too conservative in terms of risks taken, I think. At least in terms of expeditions/Mansus.

Though hey, it worked out fairly well for us so far, so I'm not exactly complaining. I'm just saying sometimes failure IS an acceptable outcome.

 

[DelightedOne]

eh, we were unlucky. It happens.

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Bad luck is one thing, going to the same place 2 times and leaving it fucked up and with bad consequences both times is another. If we go there again and lose for the third time I will start thinking Grail just hates Velvet.

 

[Wise Wolf]

It took me about 6 hours of work to find all the pages, but it was worth it.

For those stuck looking for Book 5

Spoiler: Hint

Your search may take you to exotic lands that you've never visited before.

 

[Pittauro]

Bad luck is one thing, going to the same place 2 times and leaving it fucked up and with bad consequences both times is another. If we go there again and lose for the third time I will start thinking Grail just hates Velvet.

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Impossible. I have it on good authority that GRAIL! (or at least the highest Grail authority left) LOVES Velvet!

 

[Pittauro]

It took me about 6 hours of work to find all the pages, but it was worth it.

For those stuck looking for Book 5

Spoiler: Hint

Your search may take you to exotic lands that you've never visited before.

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...wait... I think I might know!

Let me check...


YES, IT'S THERE!

I really didn't expect it to end up there, but in hindsight I should have known.

I'll read it all and then try for the last page!

 

[ses]

I think we can't take an Imminence next turn anyway, I imagine it takes on of her APs for the "Feast" Sacrament after all.

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My guy, our Sacraments page spells out what sacraments take what AP. Invitation to Dinner doesn't take Mareinette AP.

I would be fine with going to the Church if we had at maximum 1 wound this turn, An Imminence would even be helpful to heal from it.

But there is also that small(read big) feeling of impending doom going there always gives me... and that tends to be right considering going there made us lose the Element of Magic and die. And also call a monster to terrorize the Wake.

You know what, better stay lower and go to the church when we can't avoid the inevitable Restlessness anymore.

Uuh, I always forget Cherenkolt can do that, it is so nice having a helpful son instead of a Son.
I'm totally going to sound like a hypocrite later, aren't I?

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Ruined Church is like... not even top 5 reasons we lost Twilight. There were a dozen different reasons and turning points that could have changed that outcome. If she had been at Confidante instead of Good Friend we could have Leashed her, if we hadn't treated the Cult as enemies we would have openly talked about recruiting her to them and therefore no jar, if if if. None of that is relevant to a challenge that we know the DCs of and can do probability math with. A DC 100 Heart challenge followed by 3 or so more DC 100 challenges of various lores.

Ruined Church 1 allowed "choice of 2 lores" for its core challenges with a "choice of 6" for the final one, which may or may not have been slightly higher DC. Ruined Church 2 blindsided us with its first hurdle being mono-Lore, since we expected having one weakness to not be an issue due to "choice of 2 lores" and we ended up getting hit in exactly it, but an Imminence fixes that issue even if the later hurdles in RC2 are also mono-Lore.

(Also technically Mareinette encounter was not actually part of the Mansus expedition)

And most of the Mansus hurdles after the Heart hurdle are probably Fascination risks rather than Health risks, which is annoying but not too threatening since Mareinette can autopass IotH with a torn risen sac and 20 bits.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Screw the Grail Church, every time we go there it slurps up some of our Scraps, and replacing those takes way too much effort.