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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Byzantine said:
Ironically our edge sacrament currently could probably be fulfilled by a random thug, Velvet's combat is so (relatively) poor.
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Not really. You need a "worthy opponent" from the perspective of Edge, not from your own point of view. The Lores need a worthy battle to take place, not for you to say you worked hard so yo deserve a prize. Otherwise (and I realize this is an absurd, extreme example) a fight between two children would count, because both are "evenly matched" from each other's point of view.

That's why you need Edge 4 to even recognize worthiness. And so far, the only two worthy characters we saw were Comet and Shining, as per the pegasus' perspective.

Also, good night. Update is going along nicely so far, but it's time to go.
 
BirdBodhisattva said:
Not really. You need a "worthy opponent" from the perspective of Edge, not from your own point of view. The Lores need a worthy battle to take place, not for you to say you worked hard so yo deserve a prize. Otherwise (and I realize this is an absurd, extreme example) a fight between two children would count, because both are "evenly matched" from each other's point of view.
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Does it imply a fair battle or we can stack chances? After all, if you are not cheating, you are not really trying.
Also, our nose reacted to being followed, so maybe, just maybe, there are other activities beyond personal physical combat that might count?
 
Byzantine said:
Ironically our edge sacrament currently could probably be fulfilled by a random thug, Velvet's combat is so (relatively) poor.
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yeah, I doubt it would be that simple :rofl:

BirdBodhisattva said:
Not really. You need a "worthy opponent" from the perspective of Edge, not from your own point of view. The Lores need a worthy battle to take place, not for you to say you worked hard so yo deserve a prize. Otherwise (and I realize this is an absurd, extreme example) a fight between two children would count, because both are "evenly matched" from each other's point of view.

That's why you need Edge 4 to even recognize worthiness. And so far, the only two worthy characters we saw were Comet and Shining, as per the pegasus' perspective.

Also, good night. Update is going along nicely so far, but it's time to go.
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So it's a MOSTLY objective judgement of worthiness. Good to know

permeakra said:
Does it imply a fair battle or we can stack chances? After all, if you are not cheating, you are not really trying.
Also, our nose reacted to being followed, so maybe, just maybe, there are other activities beyond personal physical combat that might count?
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nah, the sacrament EXPLICITLY says:

BirdBodhisattva said:
Actions of your own: "There is only one way a pony, anypony, may proceed further without an invitation from above. He must reach higher by slaying a worthy foe. That is the truth of Edge, which applies to all ponies. Since Issus they have striven so."
-You must reach at least 3/4 scraps of Edge before taking this action.
-You must kill a "worthy opponent" in battle.
-Velvet Covers will recognize a worthy opponent when she sees one, provided she is Level 4 in Edge.
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We MUST Kill a worthy someone in battle.

I suspect a sufficiently dangerous monster might count, as conflict with a monster is still conflict, and in MLP it kinda looked like most animals (and monsters) were sapient anyway. Something like a Manticore, a Chimera, a Hydra, BugBear and so on might be suitable, for example.

Bird, would you mind commenting on this?

In regards to cheating... well, I imagine the only real requirement is that it has to be a 1v1 without external help, and a certain level of "fairness" likely has to be respected, in the "we can't attack a weakened opponent, or someone in their sleep". it HAS to be a fight.


That said, we can most likely "cheat" by having edge artifact weapons, edge influence, edge Attention of the Laws, and the other PERSONAL powers, as long as we don't have allies helping us.

For example winter-based coolness in battle, or Heart's extra health level when at 0 though if we get to that point we have probably lost already. Didn't the Dance with Death mean we lose all not-heart lore bonuses until we heal?

My main doubt would be on the winter bonus. Would we be allowed to bring the Risen in battle, or would that count as interference?
 
Pittauro said:
I suspect a sufficiently dangerous monster might count, as conflict with a monster is still conflict, and in MLP it kinda looked like most animals (and monsters) were sapient anyway. Something like a Manticore, a Chimera, a Hydra, BugBear and so on might be suitable, for example.
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Well didn't work for Comet so I'm not to hopeful on that front.

BirdBodhisattva said:
Because despite everything he had fought so far, this one had been the only one he had found worthy to be deemed a foe rather than just prey. The only one who was worthy, and who could also be killed.
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Toboe said:
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that its a subjective judgement of worthiness from edges pov?
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a judgement according to an underying rule of reality is as close as objective as you can get.

Shaper47 said:
Well didn't work for Comet so I'm not to hopeful on that front.
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Fair point, though he might not have found anything strong enough. Still, Manticores are obviously not enough, but a hydra might be and he just didn't find one.

Or maybe we'll face a Skaptodon or something on an expedition, who knows.
 
Pittauro said:
We MUST Kill a worthy someone in battle.
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I did read the description, you know.

To begin with, it says nothing about fair battle. The truth of history of conflicts is that stacking chances is what you must do.

Also, I opened dictionary and read that
Battle (noun)
a fight between armies, ships or planes, especially during a war; a violent fight between groups of people
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(c) Oxford English dictionary.

So, a clarification is in order.
 
permeakra said:
I did read the description, you know.

To begin with, it says nothing about fair battle. The truth of history of conflicts is that stacking chances is what you must do.

Also, I opened dictionary and read that

(c) Oxford English dictionary.

So, a clarification is in order.
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Well, I agree with the part where you talk about stacking our chances, at least in terms of weapons, bonuses and so on (I still have doubts about Risen assistance, though they're basically only good to absorb a bit of damage). But I think it's near-obvious that bringing outside help would betray the spirit of the challenge at the very least.

I THINK Assassination might not count either, but I could easily be wrong about that. But seeing how Comet first showed himself and issued a challenge, I'd expect it has to be clear to Both sides that they are in a battle to the death before it begins at the very least.
 
The Comet vs Shinning interlude mentioned that the duel was a duel and that in battle ponies would avoid interfering. So we probably have to do it alone.
 
Pittauro said:
But I think it's near-obvious that bringing outside help would betray the spirit of the challenge at the very least.
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It is not. Look, Mansus is not about being honest and it certainly isn't about being fair.

Pittauro said:
But seeing how Comet first showed himself and issued a challenge, I'd expect it has to be clear to Both sides that they are in a battle to the death before it begins at the very least.
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Shaper47 said:
The Comet vs Shinning interlude mentioned that the duel was a duel and that in battle ponies would avoid interfering. So we probably have to do it alone.
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Personal Sacraments are personal. Comet's and Velvet's personalities are very, very different.
 
Skelm said:
The Edge "personal" sacrament explicitly applies to everyone
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Even assuming it to be the case (and since we CAN go for Wolf's sacrament, the part "there is no other way" is wrong) it leaves a lot of details unspecified and those might be different for different ponies. So, my questions

- Does it require a fair battle?
- Does it require a one-to-one combat?
 
The specifics might change but I don't think the overall thing we do is. Both of the examples we have for personal Sacrements show that we get the same thing just different flavours. So even the Wolf Edge might be combat against another. Or maybe it's more focused on the killing a worthy opponent part just needs to be a horrific and agonising death.
 
permeakra said:
Even assuming it to be the case (and since we CAN go for Wolf's sacrament, the part "there is no other way" is wrong) it leaves a lot of details unspecified and those might be different for different ponies. So, my questions

- Does it require a fair battle?
- Does it require a one-to-one combat?
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There is no other way for the personal sacrament.

It's a universal PERSONAL sacrament

The Wolf is a sacrament offered by someone else, it's basically the equivalent of what Baldomare/The Master offered.
 
Iustus Vitae said:
So even the Wolf Edge might be combat against another. Or maybe it's more focused on the killing a worthy opponent part just needs to be a horrific and agonising death.
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???

Where are you pulling this from?

The Wolf Sacrament is for both Edge and Winter and doesn't involve Velvet personally killing anyone. All it involves is talking to the Wolf.
 
You know, I was thinking about expeditions. Specifically the probably-Frangiclave probably-expedition, when should we get that ball rolling, etc. And I had a thought...

How the heck do Velvet-led expeditions work now?? Like, even for the shortest ones (5 days) that's 3 days out-of-office, if it fully overlaps with a weekend. How are 2 or even 3 AP expeditions supposed to work, since those are 10 or 15 days, respectively?? I guess vacation time is a thing, but tbh it also doesn't really seem like a job where we can just fuck off for a couple of weeks, at least for right now.
 
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Greymere said:
You know, I was thinking about expeditions. Specifically the probably-Frangiclave probably-expedition, when should we get that ball rolling, etc. And I had a thought...
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Which Expedition is this? And also they should work like normal right? We can send people in them and not go ourself. Only the important ones i.e plot dependent and Sacrement ones that require us have to be put on hold until we get the Lores out and accepted even then it's probably going to be iffy.
 
Shaper47 said:
The Wolf Sacrament is for both Edge and Winter and doesn't involve Velvet personally killing anyone. All it involves is talking to the Wolf.
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Which, reminder, is a regrettable action that will add one more wolf-son to the world and make the world a significantly worse place. Can't forget that

Greymere said:
How the heck do Velvet-led expeditions work now?? Like, even for the shortest ones (5 days) that's 3 days out-of-office, if it fully overlaps with a weekend. How are 2 or even 3 AP expeditions supposed to work, since those are 10 or 15 days, respectively?? I guess vacation time is a thing, but tbh it also doesn't really seem like a job where we can just fuck off for a couple of weeks, at least for right now.
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I imagine it's us using our vacation time, yes. Presumably we should not NARRATIVELY be able to do too many of them, but to be fair by the same reason it would have attracted attention if we did a lot of them normally.


but yeah, we'll mostly want to limit our expeditions to our summons and confidants except when REALLY important.

Maybe the Canterlot expedition could be an exception though, as we could in theory progressively explore the tunnels during the weekends
 
Iustus Vitae said:
Which Expedition is this? And also they should work like normal right? We can send people in them and not go ourself. Only the important ones i.e plot dependent and Sacrement ones that require us have to be put on hold until we get the Lores out and accepted even then it's probably going to be iffy.
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It has been heavily speculated that the key that the DoA wants is the Frangiclave, as it is only capable of opening things (compare to the Wrong Keys, which only close). Seeing as Frangiclave would be a Knock 6 Artifact in this system, it is likely that it would be locked behind a fairly difficult expedition.

Seeing as it has been implied that gaining the friendship of our Names means they'll stay permanently summoned, and probably-Frangiclave is the only thing the DoA has expressed any desire or interest in, the general consensus is that getting Frangiclave -> DoA sticks around permanently. Which would be a Very Good Thing, for a number of reasons. Making the theoretical Frangiclave expedition fairly important to do.
 
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Greymere said:
You know, I was thinking about expeditions. Specifically the probably-Frangiclave probably-expedition, when should we get that ball rolling, etc. And I had a thought...

How the heck do Velvet-led expeditions work now?? Like, even for the shortest ones (5 days) that's 3 days out-of-office, if it fully overlaps with a weekend. How are 2 or even 3 AP expeditions supposed to work, since those are 10 or 15 days, respectively?? I guess vacation time is a thing, but tbh it also doesn't really seem like a job where we can just fuck off for a couple of weeks, at least for right now.
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We explicitly do not need to always be in Canterlot, while a lot of stuff will be done in the capital, a lot of the routine stuff will be done from home with postal service. Velvet would have never even considered the job if it took up more family time then it already does.
 
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