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

[ses]

I'm a bit confused on the rules: Velvet should have +90 total combat while under Edge AOTL and A Resolution and +69 when under just A Resolution, right? I'm a little confused whether Edge AOTL is +20 or +21 because Edge AOTL is supposed to double the +1 Martial bonus or not? Was trying to get exact probability numbers on our Edge Sacrament, and I'm finding conflicting information going through the thread. Velvet was only rolling +89 during the attack on her home against the thug but QM said that popping the AOTL would have given +1 Martial at the end of the ruined church post.

 

[Zxzx24]

Axe has some family here already no?

And more importantly we have to find Axe ASAP.

Silky Streams Cute-ceñeara is coming up and Axe was directly involved in getting her mark!

She cant miss that!

 

[Pittauro]

Axe has some family here already no?

And more importantly we have to find Axe ASAP.

Silky Streams Cute-ceñeara is coming up and Axe was directly involved in getting her mark!

She cant miss that!

Click to shrink...

Unironically, that could work. Next turn we search for her in the Mansus if she has not come back, and try to deliver an invitation to silky's party on her behalf, and then we move from there.

Though... If we need to summon her again that might be a bit problematic unless we get a 3 circle ritual location NOW

 

[AuthorTransient]

I thought the update's title felt familiar...

Hmm, I wonder what the third chapter in DoA's story will be? The Velvet and the Axe? The Summoner and the Axe? The Murderer and the Axe?

It's on the tip of my tongue, just not quite there

Click to shrink...

The logical progression is the Mother and the Axe, but it could be a riff on loneliness as well.

There's a chance that we might have to go All-In without being friends with Mareinette, which is unfortunate.

By the way, do we still want to go to Heart 4? All that's really needed is a single book or lesson from Mareinette.

 

[DelightedOne]

Though... If we need to summon her again that might be a bit problematic unless we get a 3 circle ritual location NOW

Click to shrink...

All Turn 22 Velvet's Phase plans will need this then.

There's a chance that we might have to go All-In without being friends with Mareinette, which is unfortunate.

By the way, do we still want to go to Heart 4? All that's really needed is a single book or lesson from Mareinette.

Click to shrink...

On the bright side we might get to see a Biedde, Daughter-of-Axes, Selene, Comet Feet and Velvet(ideally with Edge 5) fight to death against the monster of Grail(and maybe Baldomare if we heal her and the Forge Name if we find them).

Yes, we need All-4 to teach our family, for the obvious pratical reasons(+20/+40 in Heart rolls, the reroll, Sacrament access) and as others said to see if we can befriend Mareinette by appealing to her Heart side.

Oh and also no we actually need 4 scraps(so An Imminence and 2 scraps from elsewhere) because the Ruined Church was too thirsty for Velvet.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Oh and also no we actually need 4 scraps(so An Imminence and 2 scraps from elsewhere) because the Ruined Church was too thirsty for Velvet.

Click to shrink...

CURSE YOU GRAIL!!!!* (church)

*to be read in the voice of Igon cursing Bayle in Elden Ring

 

[Pittauro]

On a side note, Axe was set to expire this turn, right? So mechanically speaking we didn't lose anything. We were HOPING we'd get to prolong her summonining after freeing her, but we didn't know if/how that would go.

@OurLadyOfWires the answer is probably "we don't know", but I might as well ask: Do we have any idea if Axe, once the chains are removed/dealt with, would be able to come and go from The Mansus to the Wake on her own?


We know MORTALS can't normally go PHYSICALLY in the Mansus, as we only explore it in our dreams.

And we know that Mareinette SOMEHOW went from the Wake to the Mansus, but could NOT leave it on her own. Which at least implies that even for a Name it's not exactly easy.

But then again, Axe is a name of KNOCK. If ANY Name would be capable of doing this, it would be her. Especially considering that in CS the Knock ascension was effectively "become a door to the Mansus" (and I really wonder what happened to the people that crossed it... The Mansus is not exactly hospitable to Mortals. It sounds a lot like "Wish Gone Horribly Right").

 

[ses]

I know we're feeling very burned by the Ruined Church expedition having nearly gotten us killed, but I want to bring up that we actually probably need to beat Ruined Church before All In if the thread doesn't want to [BEFRIEND] Mareinette? The Ruined Church likely has the Grail Heirloom considering that the Woods contained the Moth and Heart heirlooms, likely at the end of their respective Expeditions. All In was created specifically to be the final dungeon and a test of our Name Befriending.

I wouldn't be surprised if we needed something like All-12 in combined lore levels to even start tangoing with it. Selene+Velvet gives our faction tons of Moth/Knock/Edge/Winter, Baldomare plus our current artifacts gives us 14 in Lantern and 14 in SH post SH-sacrament, and the Heart Heirloom is destroyed so we probably need to figure out where to find an extra Heart artifact on top of the heartifact we already have to not get obliterated by whatever Heart challenges are in All In if we don't Befriend Mareinette.

I think getting all the Sacraments we're close to is going to be important for our actual turns in the world, and we should absolutely do them, but I also think we're no where near as ready for All In's actual challenges as people think we are and that becoming ready involves artifacts and expeditions more than it does Sacraments (Although I agree sacraments are super important because they make us more powerful for gaining power and doing stuff and getting good artifacts)

Also we really really really need to explore the Malleary and discover the Forge summon because I dont think we're going to be able to find the Forge name and befriend them in the time we have left. We really dropped the ball on the expected number of Name friends we were supposed to have and we need a way to get a bunch of Forge levels into our faction for All In via artifacts or summons.

 

[Pittauro]

We don't necessarily need heart 4 for ruined church. But we AT THE VERY LEAST Need the heart influence up while being at full health, which means reserving a Mareinette action for it.

[Pay the price, cd 100]

[Roll: 60 + 9 (Martial) + 30 (Heart Level 3) = 99]

[Failure]

Click to shrink...

Normally we have +39.

With a +40 from heart influence, +79 total, I'd be willing to give it a shot. Heart 4 giving us another +10 and a reroll would be even better, but it's not strictly speaking NECESSARY.

A heart artifact of higher levels could also make a difference, and we are about to do a few expeditions so options are not quite zero on that front.

 

[ses]

We don't necessarily need heart 4 for ruined church. But we AT THE VERY LEAST Need the heart influence up while being at full health, which means reserving a Mareinette action for it.




Normally we have +39.

With a +40 from heart influence, +79 total, I'd be willing to give it a shot. Heart 4 giving us another +10 and a reroll would be even better, but it's not strictly speaking NECESSARY.

A heart artifact of higher levels could also make a difference, and we are about to do a few expeditions so options are not quite zero on that front.

Click to shrink...

Oh yeah for sure I was talking about getting a Heart influence soon for the sake of Ruined Church.

In terms of turn planning... I think we're kind of locked into Edge Sacrament next turn plus Baldomare SH sacrament. Map's Edge uses up Baldomare's action for the turn so that means no access to SH or Lantern Influences. Which means no personal SH Sacrament actions. We're also locked into using Biedde's action for Edge Influence. Next turn would be a really good time to take a Heart Influence from Mareinette and do Ruined Church if we hit the 59.4% chance of winning Edge Sacrament with no wounds taken. Since we won't be progressing our Personal SH Sacrament, and Map's Edge is vanishingly unlikely to wound us especially if we walk into it wearing a Resolution and an Imminence as incidental splash zone (talk about overprepping!). What rituals if any are we planning for Velvet to do next turn? I'm pretty interested in doing a Calling of Influence for Winter. Get scraps, get an influence that will certainly be rolled during Ruined Church, get an influence for a lore that gets rolled a lot that lasts two full turns. Winter is one of the most common lore rolls during Mansus exploration.

Also, incidentally, I only just thought of this now but if comforting Axe next turn involves die rolls I'd expect Winter to be involved and not Grail. Just a showerthought that came after posting and edited in.

 

[Pittauro]

What rituals if any are we planning for Velvet to do next turn? I'm pretty interested in doing a Calling of Influence for Winter.

Click to shrink...

IF we did a Winter Influence there might be a good argument to take at least one of the 3 "winter sacrament" actions. They don't require us to be at 4/4, so if we did 1 next turn (and hopefully the reroll would ensure it succeeds) then we could do the other two on the following turn.

 

[Greymere]

In terms of turn planning... I think we're kind of locked into Edge Sacrament next turn plus Baldomare SH sacrament.

Click to shrink...

Not really. We can put our Edge Sacrament off until later, if we want to. Nothing's forcing our hand there.

There's no hard timer on when we need to hit Edge 5 and we're going to need multiple Edge AotLs for it. So yknow, it strikes me as better to challenge Biedde on a turn where we're not likely to also want several AotLs (Lantern ones for Moth book, maybe also a Grail one) in order to keep our Moth Sacrament on schedule, which, unlike Edge, is on a (soft) timer counting down to sunplosion.

 

[ses]

Not really. We can put our Edge Sacrament off until later, if we want to. Nothing's forcing our hand there.

There's no hard timer on when we need to hit Edge 5 and we're going to need multiple Edge AotLs for it. So yknow, it strikes me as better to challenge Biedde on a turn where we're not likely to also want several AotLs (Lantern ones for Moth book, maybe also a Grail one) in order to keep our Moth Sacrament on schedule, which, unlike Edge, is on a (soft) timer counting down to sunplosion.

Click to shrink...

I for one will certainly be voting for Edge Sacrament. We wasted Biedde's action on graverobbing this turn! The fact we're not pumping him for [A Resolution] every turn like clockwork is a high crime. And we're nowhere near the Moth sacrament clock and the constant arguments about it are silly. We're miles ahead of that counter. We can do studying on the turn we're not doing Baldomare SH and can get a Lantern influence off her. I just hope we get Axe actions back soon so that we can start doing expeditions. I really really want to start doing more expeditions. Lantern AOTLs are such a waste of an AOTL compared to getting [A Splendor] on a turn where we have multiple AP worth of studying built up.

Though this makes me sad that there wasn't more of a push for Personal SH pt 2 with our action refund. We're not going to be able to get SH Influence from Baldomare again for a while.

IF we did a Winter Influence there might be a good argument to take at least one of the 3 "winter sacrament" actions. They don't require us to be at 4/4, so if we did 1 next turn (and hopefully the reroll would ensure it succeeds) then we could do the other two on the following turn.

Click to shrink...

Wait... if we manage to hit Perfect Frost that means that studying the Winter 4 artifact we got from the Gardeners puts us ready for Sacrament doesn't it? It's only like a 33/43% chance depending on how much cash we burn on a Reagent but if we get lucky I'd absolutely support doing the Winter sacrament turn after next. I'm not sure what our plan is for the final scrap if we only roll a +20 or +30 influence though. I doubt we want to spend the bits to shell out for a Winter 4 reagent though, that just seems like a bad investment to payoff ratio compared to cheaping out and making a level 2 or 3 reagent.

It would be kind of funny if we ended up wearing max level Edge-Winter-Heart influences at the same time, considering the subversion wheel.

 

[Greymere]

I for one will certainly be voting for Edge Sacrament. We wasted Biedde's action on graverobbing this turn! The fact we're not pumping him for [A Resolution] every turn like clockwork is a high crime. And we're nowhere near the Moth sacrament clock and the constant arguments about it are silly.

Click to shrink...

So having him go graverobbing (minor positive benefit) is worse than something we don't use the large majority of the time? Like, we don't actually get into combat that often (as in, three times total in the entire quest), so I don't really see why we would want to wring a max Edge Influence out of him every single turn unless we're actually expecting to use it, like for a Mansus expedition.

And my point was that Moth has a timer in the first place, but Edge does not. Nor does Edge 5 have some other use case that demands we get it asap, like a Sacrament barrier. Something that is somewhat urgent is still more urgent than something that isn't urgent at all, so yes. I'd rather make sure we have our Moth Sacrament lined up before we start getting into a fistfight with a Name.

 

[DelightedOne]

IF we did a Winter Influence there might be a good argument to take at least one of the 3 "winter sacrament" actions. They don't require us to be at 4/4, so if we did 1 next turn (and hopefully the reroll would ensure it succeeds) then we could do the other two on the following turn.

Click to shrink...

And of course there is always the chance we "incapacitate" another Element and fuck up the World even more. So Element hunting could be wise.

 

[Greymere]

And of course there is always the chance we "incapacitate" another Element and fuck up the World even more. So Element hunting could be wise.

Click to shrink...

We could also try to track down Neighnia and 'acquire' her. She presumably has something that she'd find an acceptable price for a binding. Gets us another Name, cleans up a loose thread, and gives us another Sacrament option.

I mean it might involve eating long-dead corpses for the memories buried in their bones, but it would be another option.

 

[ses]

So having him go graverobbing (minor positive benefit) is worse than something we don't use the large majority of the time? Like, we don't actually get into combat that often (as in, three times total in the entire quest), so I don't really see why we would want to wring a max Edge Influence out of him every single turn unless we're actually expecting to use it, like for a Mansus expedition.

And my point was that Moth has a timer in the first place, but Edge does not. Nor does Edge 5 have some other use case that demands we get it asap, like a Sacrament barrier. Something that is somewhat urgent is still more urgent than something that isn't urgent at all, so yes. I'd rather make sure we have our Moth Sacrament lined up before we start getting into a fistfight with a Name.

Click to shrink...

We have a Mansus Exploration action upcoming to "Explore the Summit" and we're been seeing a lot of Edge rolls on the top floors the same way that the Blank Plains were full of Winter rolls and the Branding floor had lots of Knock rolls and the Woods pre-Ash has lots of Moth rolls. Yes an Edge influence is valuable on any turn where we're exploring the upper floors of the Mansus.

It's certainly more of a benefit than burning an entire AP on deciphering one book that will take less than half an AP with a Lantern Influence. Heck, I'd even be okay with doing Calling of Influence: Lantern instead of Calling of Influence: Winter next turn if you really want study actions next turn. Not like we need it to be max level, a +30 influence would still halve the average actions needed to read the book, and Lantern rolls certainly aren't out of the question on Mansus exploration. And at least that way we can get Baldomare SH Influence on turn after next for Personal SH Sacrament rather than using her action for A Splendor

 

[DelightedOne]

We could also try to track down Neighnia and 'acquire' her. She presumably has something that she'd find an acceptable price for a binding. Gets us another Name, cleans up a loose thread, and gives us another Sacrament option.

I mean it might involve eating long-dead corpses for the memories buried in their bones, but it would be another option.

Click to shrink...

I almost forgot Neighnia existed one more to help kill the monster. Finding her should go on the list, I feel we have been negleting a lost Name a bit too much.

She also could ask us to make a painting or have a deep converstion with her about the nature of the End.

 

[Greymere]

We have a Mansus Exploration action upcoming to "Explore the Summit" and we're been seeing a lot of Edge rolls on the top floors the same way that the Blank Plains were full of Winter rolls and the Branding floor had lots of Knock rolls and the Woods pre-Ash has lots of Moth rolls. Yes an Edge influence is valuable on any turn where we're exploring the upper floors of the Mansus.

Click to shrink...

We were seeing Edge exploration rolls when we were exploring in the area past the Tribal Door, specifically. Considering that we're now both on a new floor entirely ("The Summit" vs. "Beyond the Tribal Door") and exploring a very Forge-aligned location (Malleary), I'm not expecting us to be using Edge as our main exploration Lore. Normally we'd get to see which Lore's going to predominate over a location based on the Door's aspect, but it was very broken.

Also the Wastes is still Moth btw, its exploration Lore hasn't changed post-Ashening.

It's certainly more of a benefit than burning an entire AP on deciphering one book that will take less than half an AP with a Lantern Influence. Heck, I'd even be okay with doing Calling of Influence: Lantern instead of Calling of Influence: Winter next turn if you really want study actions next turn. Not like we need it to be max level, and Lantern rolls certainly aren't out of the question on Mansus exploration.

Click to shrink...

I would be fine doing a Lantern CoI next turn in place of the Lantern AotLs. The problem though, is expecting the same people who would vote for a no-Lantern-AotL Follower Phase plan to also vote for a Lantern CoI plan and not a "Velvet does something else" plan, when we're already next-to-guaranteed to have three of our five AP already locked in, with a fourth also being locked if we go for Edge Sacrament, and Glory knows Bird loves to throw Fleeting Opportunities and curveballs at us all the time.

(Edit: also even with a max Lantern Influence it might not be "less than half" of an AP, but that's just semantics)

Finding her should go on the list, I feel we have been negleting a lost Name a bit too much.

Click to shrink...

We have been a bit busy recovering from being dead and speedrunning DoA's Sacrament, so I don't think the thread's been dangling for too long. Still, it'd be nice to acquire a new Name, especially one that may or may not be rebuilding a cult. Or possibly founding an institution of art. It's 50/50 with Neighnia

 

[spiderhellian]

I almost forgot Neighnia existed one more to help kill the monster. Finding her should go on the list, I feel we have been negleting a lost Name a bit too much.

She also could ask us to make a painting or have a deep converstion with her about the nature of the End.

Click to shrink...

No no, ignoring Neighnea and Windy will only have positive dividends, think of our precious AP!

 

[Flaregamer82253]

Haven't had much time to pop in this week, but I've seen the arguments for each plan to make my vote. Cheers fellow cultists.

[X] Plan mafia Uncles are Family too
[X] Plan Half Light/Half Shadow
[X] Plan: To Find a Gate