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

Reader mode
I had a Moth sacrament theory.

What if it gives us something that's kind of the opposite of [Honored Guest]? [Honored Guest] essentially allows Mareienette to take our place; to weave with our thread through the tapestry of history, such that noone can say Velvet did not do the social.

Moth Sacrament could give Velvet a [Dishonored Guest]. A Mr. Hyde-like persona, equally impenetrable to [Honored Guest.] We make a brand new thread with which we can weave through the tapestry of history, that simply is not Velvet, even if it acts with Velvet's body. We'd get +1 AP that has to be spent as our Dishonored Guest. The Dishonored Guest cannot do Social actions for us, since it's not us. And we'd have limited control over our alter-ego in much the same way that we lose control of mid-action choices with Mareienette.

And if generating a Dishonored Guest is the end, perhaps the thing we reveal to our victim in the process of building it in the Sacrament is all of the nasty and unpleasant parts of Velvet that we shove into the Dishonored Guest. They see that we have taken the evil in the heart of ponykind, built an unaccountable agent with it, and set it loose with all of our resources.

It'd also be very like the QM to make it a vague-horror-mine, instilling paranoia about exactly what our alterego is doing...
 
Earth-Destroyer said:
3 AP on Celetia is already to much in my opinion. 2 is already almost a full week of work on Celetia if she not out of the death spiral by then then it beyond Velvet's ablity to affect.
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No way that something directly compared to halting a nuclear meltdown takes less effort than the Knock Sacrament.
 
I don't see how the Tower is even the slightest bit relevant. It's explicitly labeled as "Gives a SH scrap" because it's a special location that requires you to reach SH sacrament to make progress on one of the quest's Endings. The other locations are normal mansus locations, that might give reagents or low-level influences or Dreads or whatever completely random nonsense, and only gives scraps on a highroll. We are not going to reach Moth Mastery via mansus scraps unless we find a bunch of moth scrap studyables on expeditions and need to highroll to get the last one or two.

Normal mansus locations are "Roll on a random table to get something." At best it's 20% of a scrap if we're lucky, and then divide further since it may be any of like 4 different kinds of scraps potentially. They're explicitly more random and less rewarding than new locations for a reason.
 
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ses said:
The other locations are normal mansus locations,
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Your explicitly ignoring the Wolf in room here.

As it has clearly been pointed out by the QM befriended higher powers can do a lot to aid Velvet. An example of this can be seen in Mareinette making it so that Velvet doesn't loose all her personal actions due to dancing with death.

Getting lessons from visiting a higher power repeatability during a turn and asking for lessons was a valid option for most of the quest.
 
Shaper47 said:
As it has clearly been pointed out by the QM befriended higher powers can do a lot to aid Velvet. An example of this can be seen in Mareinette making it so that Velvet doesn't loose all her personal actions due to dancing with death.
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mechanically speaking, dancing with death was never meant to have you lose all actions though. So that's more narrative flavouring than a mechanical advantage.
 
Wise Wolf said:
I had a Moth sacrament theory.

What if it gives us something that's kind of the opposite of [Honored Guest]? [Honored Guest] essentially allows Mareienette to take our place; to weave with our thread through the tapestry of history, such that noone can say Velvet did not do the social.

Moth Sacrament could give Velvet a [Dishonored Guest]. A Mr. Hyde-like persona, equally impenetrable to [Honored Guest.]

...

We'd get +1 AP that has to be spent as our Dishonored Guest. The Dishonored Guest cannot do Social actions for us, since it's not us. And we'd have limited control over our alter-ego in much the same way that we lose control of mid-action choices with Mareienette.
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Cool theory, I highly doubt that's how it's going to work but cool theory.

Seems way to much like some sort of SH Sacrament though.

It's probably something like the Changelings trick.

So more like:

Skin-Walker - Muder someone and steal/wear their skin allowing Velvet to impersonate that person.

So for example murder Spoiled Rich and then pretend to be her. Doing stuff like shattering Filthy Rich's heart by taking a bunch of bits while dumbing him so she can make it big at a city.

Pittauro said:
mechanically speaking, dancing with death was never meant to have you lose all actions though. So that's more narrative flavouring than a mechanical advantage.
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I mean, we never actually got to try out the basic dancing with death without intervention so don't really know.

So maybe, maybe not.

It does narratively support the idea of the Master's replacement filling in their roll for this though*.

*Regarding moth and edge at least, so trade bredth for depth.
 
dcoconeo said:
I'm not sure our son(s) are the Moth type given their origin though? Hour > Name, so it's more likely to be Edge + Winter as usual.
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Probably depends on the context of their creation.

Ash usurped the Woods and stole its secrets so it got Moth the power of the Woods Chaos.

Stalking i.e. playing hide and seek, implies moth lessons i.e. moth scraps.

The Hunting Grounds imply edge lessons/scraps.

Not really seeing any Winter for Ash so far.

There was also that option to pick one of our Wolf child's lores. Grail (blood), Lantern (blindness), Winter (ice), Wolf-Divided (AGONY) so it's not exactly pre-determined.

Like, the first son was edge and Winter yes and he gave edge and Winter lessons (he even helped out by giving an Edge lesson to his sister while the two where playing together). But the following children haven't come directly so much as from the Wolf-Divided but from Velvet's actions.
 
Shaper47 said:
Probably depends on the context of their creation.
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That does make sense, I suppose. I would say that they can't really communicate to teach, but that might not actually matter in practice?

Regardless, it has always been my opinion that T25 should be our deadline regardless of whether delaying works (unknown unknowns and all that), so Moth Mastery does not really shift any needles to me - if the game is even winnable which I am assuming it is, having almost all the Name friendships we can possibly have should be more than enough, especially considering how the QM outright stated Mareinette Friendship was not quite needed to win the game?
 
Talon Tiger Dino said:
I see no reason to set a deadline independent of Velvet's circumstances.
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Here's our list of spinning plates:

1) Random Occultists finding Ash or other similar 'goodies' and deciding to summon them.
2) Windy and Neighnia (inactive??)
3) Sunny Doom Clock (mitigating?)
4) Eclipse getting a Brand, and then spotting us.
5) Biedde getting summoned and then attacking us.
6) Wolf Cult doing Wolf Things.
7) Us lending Baldomare, and then the Bureau/Celestia scrying us instead (or just spamming the relevant ritual themselves until they hit something).
8) Bureau needs to make progress on Changelings, which needs Name investment to get anywhere.
9) Good ol' Unknown Unknowns.

Moth Mastery only helps with 3 out of all of these, and we can't sit on all of these potential bombs even if we have Baldomare scry twice a month.
Or, we could finish our preparations, win Glory, and make these bombs irrelevant.
 
1. Random occultists finding Ash does not affect Velvet, and I doubt Velvet's victory will stop occultists from finding Ash. Because the Wolf Divided still lives, and gets a vote when it comes to its progeny.
2. Windy and Neighnia might not even be a problem, we don't know.
3. The Sun Clock might be handled, might not be, we don't know.
4. Well I guess we could just eat the Eclipse member that does that, if push comes to shove, the votes regarding Mareinette's Sacrament.
5. That is concerning, but it would be Biedde vs 5 other Names, so I don't think we'll auto-lose.
6. The Wolf Cult is going to Wolf Cult no matter what, Velvet passed up the chance to steer them any other way, leaving them to Silky. Who still doesn't know that she has a cult. And they are on our side.
7. They'd have to create their own scrying ritual first, it's not a ritual you find in the Mansus.
8. The Bureau can get away with a lot of poking around and investigating the Changelings before making any big moves, Tall Tale was proof of that.
9. Until the unknown pops up, we don't know about it.

In short, none of these factors make me want to set down an arbitrary turn deadline we must adhere to. If circumstances force us to All-In sooner, so be it. If circumstances allow us to prepare more, we accept them. Flexible and fluid, our plots should be.
 
Also

4) Moth Mastery can probably deal with it
5) Smiles with some wrong keys can handle it, so just scry and send him in
8) Alicorn All Out is also an option
9) Let's not underestimate Velvet here, she's not that likely to be specifically targeted and is good at running away
 
Shaper47 said:
5) Smiles with some wrong keys can handle it, so just scry and send him in
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QM already mentioned that Smiles is not the logical type that would use these resources like that though, when it was floated above?

Regarding 8), yeah, it could work, though I'm not sure if it would risk Celestia asking questions about where all this force came from if she was looking in the correct location at that time.
 
dcoconeo said:
QM already mentioned that Smiles is not the logical type that would use these resources like that though, when it was floated above?
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Huh, really?

Could probably just send Mareinette along then to carry the wrong keys. She waits in the background till Smiles gets a wound in then uses the three wrong keys.
 
Shaper47 said:
Could probably just send Mareinette along then to carry the wrong keys. She waits in the background till Smiles gets a wound in then uses the three wrong keys.
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No can do.
OurLadyOfWires said:
[OH HATED FOE]: If Smiles and Biedde ever meet, under any circumstances, the two of them will battle to the death in single combat (no interruptions will be allowed or accepted).
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That only works if Biedde kills Smiles, so we would need to lose a Name to get rid of another Name.
 
DelightedOne said:
No can do.

That only works if Biedde kills Smiles, so we would need to lose a Name to get rid of another Name.
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Huh, good catch.

Well loosing Smiles to kill Biedde isn't really that much of a loss given how presumably it would also involve dismantling Biedde's summoning apparatus.

Just need to summon Smiles again afterwards.

A pain but a manageable one.
 
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