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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Dear reader! Whether you are new here, archive-reading and whatnot, or you are already someone who has been with us for quite a while, I would like to say a few words that I believe are best kept close to mind.

-This is an MLP quest. And more importantly, none of us are gratuitously cruel. So good things will happen on this quest, and I hope that enough good things have already happened to prove that.
-This is also a horror quest, so bad things will happen. Bad things might happen to good characters if you are not able to protect them, and you most certainly will not be able to intervene if you lack the tools to do so.
-And finally, this is a quest in which you jostle with powers greater than yourself, with all that it entails.

Please, do keep those things in mind as you go forward. But ultimately, this is also a quest in which it is hoped we all have fun! So if any of the above points is not exactly your cup of tea, or somehow make the experience as a whole "not worth it", then this quest might not be for you. Which is fine! Individual tastes are a thing, so don't think any more about it if you don't want to read anymore. And regardless, I hope you have a lovely day!

Kaelor said:
PSA for whoever needs to hear it:

Readers should take their own mental health into consideration when voting and not subject themselves to triggering narrative elements like rape or constant mental torture of a friend just for the Greatest Good of a world that doesn't exist.

If those are fine for you or Regrettable is even more triggering, then GREAT! More power to you. But you aren't a bad or selfish person for picking the option that keeps the characters you've emotionally connected with safe. [REDACTED for spoiler warning]

This is a high intensity quest that doesn't hold back when it comes to horror and negative consequences. Take care of yourself.
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(Quote slightly edited to avoid spoilers)
 
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Earth-Destroyer said:
PTSD is a permanent change/scar to the brain chemistry. People get better at dealing with it, and working around it. But it never goes away.
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Very true, but IIRC Bird said… a while ago that it was possible to deal with it without rituals. Which probably was, yes, learning to manage and work around it enough that it no longer gave a massive debuff.
 
Pittauro said:
True, and other significant narrative developments could have similar results.

Take Moth: it's basically "I don't like myself, so I'll wear a mask and become the mask" sacrament. If Velvet started to liking herself, her moth sacrament might change as well.

Of course we don't know how easy or likely this is supposed to be. Technically speaking it should be in theory possible to recover from Frightened debuff even WITHOUT a ritual, but if it's possible we have no idea how we'd go about it.
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Don't count on it. Bird never actually said that yes, our personal sacrament could change. He said maybe. Counting on some miraculous shift in perspectives so we don't have to deal with icky Sacrament actions is just begging to be disappointed later down the road.

And Velvet's self-hatred isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Not with the Stains on her soul and not after everything we've done and been complicit in.
 
Greymere said:
Don't count on it. Bird never actually said that yes, our personal sacrament could change. He said maybe. Counting on some miraculous shift in perspectives so we don't have to deal with icky Sacrament actions is just begging to be disappointed later down the road.

And Velvet's self-hatred isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Not with the Stains on her soul and not after everything we've done and been complicit in.
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I'm absolutely NOT counting on it. I'm HOPING for it, but as a general rule I'll plan as if this is not going to happen.

we already have a backup plan for Moth though, if we really have to: We make a "good friend" from a "random" pony, we leash them into a confidant, and then we proceed.

Honestly if I didn't expect our Leash to be on Twilight next turn I'd consider doing it next turn, while we still have the grail influence helping doing so.
 
Aranfan said:
Meh, dump 2 ap into filthy rich and sac him to the sacrament.
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Do we even want it to be Filthy Rich? with grail influence I think there's a decent chance we could literally take a random person off the street, and bring them to good friend in one action. Or we could do Cherilee.

The main problem is that I expect Our Leash will be on Twilight for the next few turns unless we're REALLY lucky.
 
Aranfan said:
Meh, dump 2 ap into filthy rich and sac him to the sacrament.
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Or Cherilee. They're at the same friendship level, currently.

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Pittauro said:
Do we even want it to be Filthy Rich? with grail influence I think there's a decent chance we could literally take a random person off the street, and bring them to good friend in one action.
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That seems like a waste of our Incarnadesence, at the moment. Maybe later. Maybe we'll even have found the Grail Name by then.
 
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Pittauro said:
Do we even want it to be Filthy Rich? with grail influence I think there's a decent chance we could literally take a random person off the street, and bring them to good friend in one action. Or we could do Cherilee.

The main problem is that I expect Our Leash will be on Twilight for the next few turns unless we're REALLY lucky.
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They're already a friend, so it'll be less actions to get them up, and will actually cost us a friend to do. Likeis, you know, narratively The Point.

I would also accept cheerilee.

Edit: hell id do jade if it wouldn't kill her, or rarity if it didn't stand a chance of leading to us getting carbonized.
 
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We at least have some ideaof what lever to use with filthy Rich (his wife) even if not the specifics.
 
Aranfan said:
Which, again, is The Point.
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Let me clarify. Why would get get rid of Jade (aka our ability to delegate RotT) or Rarity (aka extra bit source and ability to delegate some social actions) when we could instead get rid of Cherilee or Filthy Rich (aka currently provides no mechanical or narrative benefits)?

Like, whatever the Moth Sacrament is, I don't think it's worth losing the ability to offload RotT onto Jade, or the extra income from Rarity considering how expensive rituals and expeditions are.
 
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Greymere said:
Let me clarify. Why would get get rid of Jade (aka our ability to delegate RotT) or Rarity (aka extra bit source and ability to delegate some social actions) when we could instead get rid of Cherilee or Filthy Rich (aka currently provides no mechanical or narrative benefits)?

Like, whatever the Moth Sacrament is, I don't think it's worth losing the ability to offload RotT onto Jade, or the extra income from Rarity considering how expensive rituals and expeditions are.
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I have no doubt that they will have some mechanical advantage just like the other confidants we have. If nothing else, the ability to offload an action onto them.
 
Aranfan said:
They're already a friend, so it'll be less actions to get them up, and will actually cost us a friend to do. Likeis, you know, narratively The Point.

I would also accept cheerilee.

Edit: hell id do jade if it wouldn't kill her, or rarity if it didn't stand a chance of leading to us getting carbonized.
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that's not really the point.

As in, the point isn't to "sacrifice a friend". The point is that "someone has to be there to notice the difference, for the difference to have meaning". But technically speaking it doesn't have to be someone we care about.

THEY have to consider us a confidant, it doesn't have to be reciprocal. Which is why we can basically "cultivate" a friend, cheat with the leash, and then "sacrifice them" like that.

Also I'd NEVER sacrifice Jade, or Rarity, or generally speaking an ACTUAL confidant. if it wasn't for the leash's cheat I'd probably not consider it, both because I enjoy our current confidants too much, and because mechanically confidants are REALLY useful.
 
Given we have max grail it should only take a single AP to social a minor character into confident, level. And then get the sacrament. Spoiled milk, would be fine, Cherilee also fine. Filthy Rich is to valuable as a potential source of badly needed income. A lot of problems go away with an extra 100-200 bits a turn.

Thou spending an action of Training Rarity so she goes to Grail 4 Forge 2 and starts really becoming famous is also something that can help fix the money problems.
 
Pittauro said:
Do we even want it to be Filthy Rich? with grail influence I think there's a decent chance we could literally take a random person off the street, and bring them to good friend in one action. Or we could do Cherilee.

The main problem is that I expect Our Leash will be on Twilight for the next few turns unless we're REALLY lucky.
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Ah we truly are our Hill's child becoming the closest friend someone just for their use to us, and sacrificing them for more power. Truly we have learned his teachings :V
 
Earth-Destroyer said:
Given we have max grail it should only take a single AP to social a minor character into confident, level. And then get the sacrament. Spoiled milk, would be fine, Cherilee also fine. Filthy Rich is to valuable as a potential source of badly needed income. Lot a problems go away with an extra 100-200 bits a turn.
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I think you're vastly overestimating the effects of the Incarnadesence. There is no way that Bird would let us skip straight to Confidant. Cherilee or Filthy Rich would technically be possible in one action if you get the Leash involved, but that's only because they're already at Friend level.
 
StormySky said:
She'd still be significantly behind us at level 3 in four lores. It is possible that her personal sacraments are less unpleasant/more achievable than ours, but it'd take her quite a while to get to level 5, during which we'd be scrap-capped.
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I believe Talon is suggesting as an Alicorn Luna may not have the usual rules apply. It's quite unlikely but possible she will be able to hand out sacraments immediately, basically.
 
I believe "somehow" was the key word to my statement. The unlikeliness of it according to the rules as we understand them is why such an occurrence would make me laugh.
 
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