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

[spiderhellian]

Have we heard about Watchman so far? He is important Mansus climbing related Hour and Velvet climbed to the top without encountering even a trace of him. This is suspicious. Or at least I would say so, if I decide to wear my conspiracy hat today

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Hey, we've met Baldomare (who swears by him, at least)! Who navigates, is not merciful, and illuminates.

(EDIT: Wait, that Apocrypha if she had been summoned by Copper... she was incredibly merciful. Huh.)

We know he did have more Names, and they were present when the Forge did Her thing.

"I remember when it happened. The Mansus had a lot more denizens, back then. Five of my fellow Names from our shared patron were still around, even. And while several ponies, mortal adepts or not, were killed by the debris… well, most of them were not. The Mansus was swarmed right after that. By the hopeful, and the greedy, and everypony else who knew even a smidge of the Lores. Dreadfully turbulent times, Velvet. Which was why I kept to myself in my Lodge."

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But yes, the Watchpony is fairly absent. And we don't have much in the way of clues as to where he's gone.

Peculiarly, we kinda-sorta know the Lantern heirloom is not "The Watchman's Heirloom"?

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If the Second Dawn happened then the Pilgrimage happened too, maybe when The Door in the Eye went to Glory History repeated itself and he had the same fate as The Egg Unhatching, it would make semsd when you remember their connection.

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Does the Pilgrimage involve the Door in the Eye going to the Glory?

 

[Solace2117]

Unlikely. What we were told is that Dreamlands would subsume Woods first, so Master would be gone. Other Names would potentially follow as things of the past should make way for the new. Wolf is interesting obstacle, since agony does not have place in Harmony world, but there is no effective way to deal with him except for maybe resurrecting Sun-in-Splendor but Harmony probably does not wish to have such competitor. Unless it plans to become part of new one as final power

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Honest question. When were we told that and how does that imply it's a good thing. Just seems like it's more likely to attract Worms. And Velvet hijacking's Harmony seems just as likely as everything turning more like Canon MLP.

 

[Iustus Vitea]

Huh... I'm confused. I didn't understand much of this. Did you mean to say Harmony would take Glory and make it disappear or that it would stop ponies from reaching it(even though they can't reach it already)?

Because its not what I had in mind for this ending, it feels more like what the Forge of Days did(reshaping the Mansus) than it being destroyed it would change yes but it wouldn't disappear, it would become the Dreamlands.

One of THE rules we know is that there must always be a way to Glory and if the Dreamlands become the new Mansus then there would be a way to Glory there too, because Harmony can't reach Glory at all since it came from this world.
There is also the matter of Glory being unchangeable or else it wouldn't be Glory.

The Lores would most likely remain as they are, since only Hours have been able to change them and Harmony isn't an Hour, and there was no obvious subverting in all those years but rather a substitution with Honesty, Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Kindness and Magic being Harmony's version of the lores.

Huh, Harmony is sounding more and more like a god who was born after everything that happened in the Mansus and is just trying to make the world a better place with limited power.

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I mean that's what I thought you had in mind, that Harmony would replace the Mansus and the Glory entirely, the Dreamlands aren't encroaching on the Woods they're encroaching on the Mansus. I believe Velvet makes a comment to the effect that had nothing happened and the Dreamlands were allowed to expand they would one day grow up to the Tricuspid gate. Or was it the White Door? Regardless in a way replacing the Mansus, Glory and the Lores does seem to Harmony's goal. Also it's only one of the rules of the Mansus that there must be a path to the Glory and that need not be the case for the Dreamlands. Plus the Glory is not unchangeable, discarding BoH Lore there are beings that can/are believed to be able/have plans to change the Glory. The Crowned Growth seeks a twisted unity of being, the Worms wish to consume it and the Wolf wants it to go dark so that it may finally die. The SiS was the best at wielding it's Light but one can argue that isn't really changing the Glory.

I don't believe Harmony can replace the Lores short of sealing away the Glory and or outright taking it's place. The Lores aren't changed by an Hour on a whim they're changed when an Hour ascends or does something completely insane that upsets the old paradigm, when the Wheel was usurped by the Moth it took the proto-Moth aspect and made it what we know today. However it was the Velvet that got the proto-Heart and it probably didn't truly become Heart until the Thunderskin was flayed and sacrificed. The Hour-that-would-become-the-Forge descended and consumed the Flint to become the Forge of Days. I could go on but you get the point.

Does the Pilgrimage involve the Door in the Eye going to the Glory?

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I mean he is the one leading the procession so he is at least going as far as it.

 

[Greymere]

Does the Pilgrimage involve the Door in the Eye going to the Glory?

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Ehhh, sort of? It involves him permitting the Pilgrims to pass closer to the Glory than even Lantern Long/Names get during their ascension (which is Really Damn Close). No comment on what happens to him, though.

 

[DelightedOne]

Does the Pilgrimage involve the Door in the Eye going to the Glory?

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He was the one that let the Pilgrims in so he was at least at the entrance, but yeah that is more theory than fact.

 

[angelsadvocate666]

New solution. Feed Glory to Harmony so it can evolve into super saiyan mode and use its power to annihilate the Worms en masse.

 

[Iustus Vitea]

Ehhh, sort of? It involves him permitting the Pilgrims to pass closer to the Glory than even Lantern Long/Names get during their ascension (which is Really Damn Close). No comment on what happens to him, though.

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He was the one that let the Pilgrims in so he was at least at the entrance, but yeah that is more theory than fact.

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I mean:

'The Watchman goes before; none but seven may go after.' - Kalle, The Sky, the Soul

That he opens the way is more rock solid but that he goes too has evidence as well.

 

[spiderhellian]

Man I do love thinking about what happened in the Mansus all those Eras ago.

The thing that always gets me is that if it wasn't for the Pronoun "His" in IN GIRUM, and perhaps some of the other stuff at the very start,

It would all totally work with just the Forge's actions! She with the "ugly ideas, and [a] proposal for the future"...

 

[Iustus Vitea]

It's always the bloody Forge isn't it?

 

[DelightedOne]

I mean that's what I thought you had in mind, that Harmony would replace the Mansus and the Glory entirely, the Dreamlands aren't encroaching on the Woods they're encroaching on the Mansus. I believe Velvet makes a comment to the effect that had nothing happened and the Dreamlands were allowed to expand they would one day grow up to the Tricuspid gate. Or was it the White Door? Regardless in a way replacing the Mansus, Glory and the Lores does seem to Harmony's goal. Also it's only one of the rules of the Mansus that there must be a path to the Glory and that need not be the case for the Dreamlands. Plus the Glory is not unchangeable, discarding BoH Lore there are beings that can/are believed to be able/have plans to change the Glory. The Crowned Growth seeks a twisted unity of being, the Worms wish to consume it and the Wolf wants it to go dark so that it may finally die. The SiS was the best at wielding it's Light but one can argue that isn't really changing the Glory.

I don't believe Harmony can replace the Lores short of sealing away the Glory and or outright taking it's place. The Lores aren't changed by an Hour on a whim they're changed when an Hour ascends or does something completely insane that upsets the old paradigm, when the Wheel was usurped by the Moth it took the proto-Moth aspect and made it what we know today. However it was the Velvet that got the proto-Heart and it probably didn't truly become Heart until the Thunderskin was flayed and sacrificed. The Hour-that-would-become-the-Forge descended and consumed the Flint to become the Forge of Days. I could go on but you get the point.

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Okay, got it now. Nah, my theory is this:
Harmony reaches the House of the Sun, it is an empty, broken realm... There is no love, no friendship and the creatures that are here are what is left of a hierarchy of beings who decided the rules of reality, who weaved the future... It can make things better here, it can bring its light and heal the wounds of the Mansus(including the ones made by a regretful mare), healing the ones that are mirrored in the Wake as a result, reshape the doors and ways so that peace and friendship can truly be thread on both sides of the World.

Velvet actually thought it and it was "Turn the Mansus into itself" not exactly replacing, but taking it over and changing it... radically.

I think Bird's canon has the Glory as the immutable reality thing, Baldomare and Velvet mentioned it quite a few times if my memory is correct.

Harmony's plan is less "replacing" and more "providing an alternative" when it comes to the lores, at the moment that is what it looks like to me at least. After it reaches the Mansus I guess it could do like The Forge of Days, The Moth and the Red Grail and change the interpretations of the Principles to more harmonious versions, but there is no guarantee since it isn't an Hour.

 

[Pittauro]

I will be entirely fair and point out that, yes, we have basically a seventy five percent chance of passing DC100s with rerolls, maybe a little higher, and even higher if the multiple lore options for one roll means we get even more rerolls if one lore fails completely. That's… honestly, a better chance than we had for doing stuff like finding the Blank Door. And with the wide spread, it's not like that chance will change for each roll. The only real problem is that there's multiple rolls at all, and we've seen that before too.

Like, I'm not gonna pretend that we're doing something extremely stupid, but it's still a little wild that we can look at a high level Mansus expedition and legitimately think YOLO-ing isn't that big a deal.

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To be fair there's not much we can do to improve our odds.

Raise our lores? We're at the point that's extremely time consuming, as we need to work on Sacraments for everything except Heart.

Better Artifacts? We need lvl 5 or more, and that basically takes Expeditions, which are expensive and time consuming.

Influences? They consume actions, and we can never be sure WHICH ones we'll need. And one influence alone doesn't help THAT much, we'd need MANY... which feels like a bit of a waste. I'd rather risk failing some rolls, we can deal with some negative conditions. It would take 3 health damage to actually kill us, and I expect we'll retreat after 1 in the worst case.

Other problems we can deal with.

I agree that we're quite strong -- we only have a roughly 20% chance of failure on a given roll, assuming DC 100, rolling +53 with reroll (Winning 3 of those in a row is roughly 50-50). What gets me is that was also ~the same odds we had in failing to summon Biedde with only an Edge 3 reagent, which there was substantial opposition to!

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Wounds can be shaken off. Bits spent are gone forever.

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yeah, that! Name summoning is expensive! Especially when we add reagent costs!

Huh, Harmony is sounding more and more like a god who was born after everything that happened in the Mansus and is just trying to make the world a better place with limited power.

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I called it, I'm calling it again: Harmony is either a fragment of Glory forged by Forge of Days into something else (my earliest theory I think), OR it's the child of Forge-of-Days and Sun-in-Splendor.

Ehhh, sort of? It involves him permitting the Pilgrims to pass closer to the Glory than even Lantern Long/Names get during their ascension (which is Really Damn Close). No comment on what happens to him, though.

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Close is relative.

To me it felt like beyond the Tricuspid it's basically the roof of the House of the Sun... but the Sun (the Glory) Is still far above.

Basically you're close to the Glory in the sense that there's now nothing between you and its light except empty skies (or, well, the Mansus equivalent. After all you can't just fly up. Not normally.

 

[angelsadvocate666]

Basically you're close to the Glory in the sense that there's now nothing between you and its light except empty skies (or, well, the Mansus equivalent. After all you can't just fly up. Not normally.

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*Laughs in pegasus and Moth*

 

[DelightedOne]

I called it, I'm calling it again: Harmony is either a fragment of Glory forged by Forge of Days into something else (my earliest theory I think), OR it's the child of Forge-of-Days and Sun-in-Splendor.

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The first one kinda loses coherency if we know nothing can really damage/change Glory and the second is scary as fuck because there is also the theory The Forge-of-Days and Sun-in-Splendor being behind the Glory-lock, if they got out(since Glory seems to be the most popular path) and managed to eat Harmony, we would have at least one(or Glory forbid it TWO) Hour-Alukites AND Harmony would be dead... Velvet would need a time machine even more than she does now.

 

[spiderhellian]

yeah, that! Name summoning is expensive! Especially when we add reagent costs!

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I totally agree that 145 bits is a lot of bits. But this is where I think obvious costs (bits) are being weighed way, way, more heavily over severe, non-obvious costs (the Expedition's downside risks).

Fascination is 2 AP if we don't want it to severely impact everything else we do, or 20 bits + Mareinette AP, or 55 bits + AP with a MitL.

Dread is probably roughly as bad.

(Okay, Mareinette with the Edge artefact making IotH easy does make them a little less scary.)

But we have 2 HP!!!

we know nothing can really damage/change Glory

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We knew that nothing could block the way to the Glory, because the very point of the Mansus is the climb. And yet...

 

[DelightedOne]

We knew that nothing could block the way to the Glory, because the very point of the Mansus is the climb. And yet...

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We know there always needs to be a way to climb, and there is, it is just locked.
The Mansus always had obstacles, that lock is just a super-ultra-mega-master-deluxe-extreme-hard one and since it can be broken Glory can still be reached, it just requires a lot more work and luck than any other ascension.

It is the famous loophole in the rules.

 

[spiderhellian]

We know there always needs to be a way to climb, and there is, it is just locked.
The Mansus always had obstacles, that lock is just a super-ultra-mega-master-deluxe-extreme-hard one and since it can be broken Glory can still be reached, it just requires a lot more work and luck than any other ascension.

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Eh.

It requires a power beyond this World. Beyond the bounds of the Mansus. An era's worth of practioners, and Names, and probably Hours, threw themselves at that lock and made naught a scratch. Baldomare was stunned when she realized there actually was a way to overcome it.

I don't think the Forge's lock "leaves a way to climb" -- getting around it requires doing something fundementally beyond the system of climbing.

 

[Pittauro]

*Laughs in pegasus and Moth*

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Well, I said normally.

I doubt a pegasus would be enough. The Moth explicitly burns once reaching for the Glory.

...an ALICORN, though...

The first one kinda loses coherency if we know nothing can really damage/change Glory and the second is scary as fuck because there is also the theory The Forge-of-Days and Sun-in-Splendor being behind the Glory-lock, if they got out(since Glory seems to be the most popular path) and managed to eat Harmony, we would have at least one(or Glory forbid it TWO) Hour-Alukites AND Harmony would be dead... Velvet would need a time machine even more than she does now.

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To be fair we don't KNOW for certain that nothing can damage/change Glory.

What would mortal cultists know of that? The only ones who might have an actual idea of if that's possible would be, in my opinion, the Egg Unhatching and, most of all, The Sun In Splendor, who explicitly "came from the Glory".

and, to be fair, if anyone could do it, the FORGE Hour whose whole thing is destruction, creation and change would be the best equipped to do it. Especially if helped by the Hour closest to the Glory.

So, yeah, I could see it being possible from the Sun in Splendor, the Forge of Days, or more likely both working together.

As for the Hours-Alukites thing... That's one of my guesses about why they sealed themselves behind the Tricuspid. To stop themselves from eating Harmony, potentially their "child".

That said... I never really understood WHY an Alukite Hour would be that dangerous.

Mareinette doesn't seem significantly worse than some other Names. Sure, she's a monster, but she's a monster from an age of monsters.

In any case, I doubt that the moment we open the Tricuspid we get a "game-over" from these two hours running out and eating Glory... but then that has me wonder what happened to them.

Did they "Beat" the compulsion that leads to the Crime of the Sky? It's been a long time, and if no other Hour is alive, and that Law as all others is the Will of the Hours... couldn't they have managed to change it?

Did they die? Did they become weak enough that they can no longer gather the power needed to do it?

I totally agree that 145 bits is a lot of bits. But this is where I think obvious costs (bits) are being weighed way, way, more heavily over severe, non-obvious costs (the Expedition's downside risks).

Fascination is 2 AP if we don't want it to severely impact everything else we do, or 20 bits + Mareinette AP, or 55 bits + AP with a MitL.

Dread is probably roughly as bad.

(Okay, Mareinette being OP at IotH with the Edge artefact does make them a little less scary.)

But we have 2 HP!!!

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Keep in mind that even failing at an obstacle does not necessarily mean we instantly suffer.

Sometimes that triggers a SECOND roll for negative consequences I think.

We can probably tank Fascinations and Dreads to some extent, rolling enough to avoid them, and as you said Mareinette (or to some extent even Selene with an Heartifact) are good at Incision.

Probably Biedde too, actually. Though Mareinette is still the best.

We knew that nothing could block the way to the Glory, because the very point of the Mansus is the climb. And yet...

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To be fair, there ARE ways. we know of "outsider blood trait", but that's very explicitly only ONE possible way.

It's just that NOBODY know any of the other possible ways, and finding them would likely be the life's work of a genius the likes of Velvet or more.

For all we know something like " a ritual with a country's worth of experienced cultists powering it" would also work, but nobody could ever manage to get THAT many people to a good enough level to help. That would make it "technically" possible too.

 

[Greymere]

What would mortal cultists know of that? The only ones who might have an actual idea of if that's possible would be, in my opinion, the Egg Unhatching and, most of all, The Sun In Splendor, who explicitly "came from the Glory".

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The Forge-of-Days was also a god-from-light (I.e. from Glory). So she would probably have a pretty good understanding of the Glory just on her own.

 

[angelsadvocate666]

Well, I said normally.

I doubt a pegasus would be enough. The Moth explicitly burns once reaching for the Glory.

...an ALICORN, though...

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Did the Moth burn because Glory was too bright, or did it burn because the Forge got their first and put her lock made of fire in the way?

No seriously, I genuinely can't remember if that was ever clarified.

 

[Alan975]

A new Woods would certainly hide all that Harmony-light. That's what it does/did for the Glory after all

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A yes, the woods hid Glory. You know, the Woods that we burned down. The Woods that are no longer hiding glory... Those woods.

Nothing bad will come of this, I hope

 

[Gyldir]

...I just had a funny idea.

So we've talked a bit before about replanting the Woods, right?

What if we replant it in the Dreamlands? A new Woods would certainly hide all that Harmony-light. That's what it does/did for the Glory after all

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Or have the dreamlands replace the ashlands.
With a lores empowered Luna fighting off the worms.

Replace agony with (hopes&)dreams as reason for learning and growth.

I called it, I'm calling it again: Harmony is either a fragment of Glory forged by Forge of Days into something else (my earliest theory I think), OR it's the child of Forge-of-Days and Sun-in-Splendor.

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The first one kinda loses coherency if we know nothing can really damage/change Glory and the second is scary as fuck because there is also the theory The Forge-of-Days and Sun-in-Splendor being behind the Glory-lock, if they got out(since Glory seems to be the most popular path) and managed to eat Harmony, we would have at least one(or Glory forbid it TWO) Hour-Alukites AND Harmony would be dead... Velvet would need a time machine even more than she does now.

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I'll re-offer my "Forge of Day forged herself + Sun in Splendor into a new being -> Harmony" conspiracy theory, which avoids the alukite issue by the parents not existing anymore.

 

[DelightedOne]

A yes, the woods hid Glory. You know, the Woods that we burned down. The Woods that are no longer hiding glory... Those woods.

Nothing bad will come of this, I hope

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The Wolf stuff could dim the light of Glory in a different way... But that is the best case scenario.

 

[Alan975]

It could be Velvet becoming an Alicorn and killing the others to keep it hiddenn.

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There can be no disharmony if there is no one else

 

[Solace2117]

There can be no disharmony if there is no one else

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I suppose she could just turn them all into fillies and hide them away.

 

[angelsadvocate666]

She's a third of the way there already!

 

[Iustus Vitea]

...an ALICORN, though...

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Would also probably burn, the Egg either burned in the Glory light, still hides there or was killed by SiS.

What would mortal cultists know of that? The only ones who might have an actual idea of if that's possible would be, in my opinion, the Egg Unhatching and, most of all, The Sun In Splendor, who explicitly "came from the Glory".

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The Watchman would know too, he was either (or maybe he is all of them at the same time) 1. A Name of the Egg and ascended when it died, 2. Ascended by taking a cast off part of the Egg and 3. The Egg went up to the Glory, was changed and came back as the Watchman or maybe it was only the Watchman that did.

Nothing bad will come of this, I hope

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Yep because now the ash hides the Glory, we were told this by Baldomare.

 

[Pittauro]

A yes, the woods hid Glory. You know, the Woods that we burned down. The Woods that are no longer hiding glory... Those woods.

Nothing bad will come of this, I hope

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Eh, Baldomare said it was fine (except for the wolf), and I believe her

Or have the dreamlands replace the ashlands.
With a lores empowered Luna fighting off the worms.

Replace agony with (hopes&)dreams as reason for learning and growth.



I'll re-offer my "Forge of Day forged herself + Sun in Splendor into a new being -> Harmony" conspiracy theory, which avoids the alukite issue by the parents not existing anymore.

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Certainly possible

 

[Greymere]

Or have the dreamlands replace the ashlands.
With a lores empowered Luna fighting off the worms.

Replace agony with (hopes&)dreams as reason for learning and growth.

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Tbf, the Woods didn't used to be all dark and spooky, it was the Moth usurping the Wheel that made them that way, at least in canon CS. Maybe growing them under the influence of Harmony would make them nicer while still keeping those important light-hiding properties. Keeping the Worms away in the first place will pretty much always be better than having to constantly fight them off, after all.

But uncertain information isn't the same as no information. We can probably guess that Winter (used twice before) would be useful, or Grail (which ~saved us against Mareinette, even if the expedition didn't use it). They are explicitly very dangerous dreams!

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I think Edge honestly would have been more useful against Mareinette than Grail. If we had been running a +40 Edge Influence during the chase (assuming same base rolls), while we still would have been wounded once, that's the same end result that happened with the Grail Influence soaking up the first two hits and we would have actually been able to wound Mareinette at least twice. Maybe three times, I didn't check the exact numbers for what our overflow would have been. If we had Edge 4 during the chase (which we would have if we had summoned a T4 Edge Influence because +2 scraps), the outcome would presumably be even better due to rerolls and the extra +5 personal combat.

 

[Steady Gaze]

Me the past few days before I found the OP email notification setting:

Spoiler: embed

View: https://youtu.be/3QzMz173GSY

Bird has spoiled us with the update frequency the past few weeks.

 

[Pittauro]

Me the past few days before I found the OP email notification setting:

Spoiler: embed

View: https://youtu.be/3QzMz173GSY

Bird has spoiled us with the update frequency the past few weeks.

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true. and we have so much interesting stuff to see!

We're summoning TWO names, we're doing our second MANSUS EXPEDITION, we get to see Axe's reaction to Selene being all grown up, there's Ash, we get to see the Forge Personal and Biedde Edge Sacraments...