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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Kaelor said:
Kill will automatically do more collective harm
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Assuming this is true (not unlikely, but not guaranteed), there are ...many types of harm, and some types are easier to brace against than others if you are aware of them (not that the Master will let us find out what to brace against if they made any decisions to do harm as we see it)?

For instance, Paranoia applies a -5 to all forms of cooperation, but the Master used 2 actions to all-but-guaranteed splinter apart two Cultists and get them to kill each other just because (Wolf cannot cast EiB and PtN, but the Master can), and only Bird knows what else they decided to do?
 
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lurker9875 said:
I disagree with this opinion, because if we could Bird would not have decided to point out that this could poison our epilogue (if the Master acts in bad ways) with all the powers our epilogue state would imply?

(It is also easier to resist the Wolf because of its monofocus or counteract through dedicated effort in the same direction, than to resist the Master because of their subtlety and willingness to change tacks every which when as this update literally demonstrates to us)
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Why wouldn't Bird point it out? He gives players a lot of agency in how to act, and it's entirely possible that for some reason or another Velvet could decide that having a Name-Alicorn as a backup plan is fine, actually. Or, in a more hopeful scenario, the birth into a Harmony-infused body will gradually turn the Master more Harmony-aligned if the dice allow it, in which case no poisoning. There's a bunch of things that could happen in between, which is why Accept only says it might, not will, negatively affect the epilogue. It's a long time from pregnancy to birth and to adulthood - I find it more likely the Master will get influenced by Harmony or Love at some point, especially since he'll be a literal child for a good amount of time.
 
Lykantos said:
Why wouldn't Bird point it out? He gives players a lot of agency in how to act, and it's entirely possible that for some reason or another Velvet could decide that having a Name-Alicorn as a backup plan is fine, actually. Or, in a more hopeful scenario, the birth into a Harmony-infused body will gradually turn the Master more Harmony-aligned if the dice allow it, in which case no poisoning. There's a bunch of things that could happen in between, which is why Accept only says it might, not will, negatively affect the epilogue. It's a long time from pregnancy to birth and to adulthood - I find it more likely the Master will get influenced by Harmony or Love at some point, especially since he'll be a literal child for a good amount of time.
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Just to clarify, we have no guarantee that they would be born in a Harmony infused body. It is possible, but it is equally as likely that they will have to use lores to guarantee that the Master is born with horn and wings. It is an unprecedent situation, even if we know that in canon Flurry Heart was born an Alicorn, we don't know if that is normal or if Harmony pulled a miracle so that an alicorn could have a filly alicorn (it probably was not like that in canon but we don't know here). After all, since the Master is ok with possessing Shining and us then he seems more interested on the influence that will come with being a Prince than in a possible subversion of Harmony.
 
The Master is a Moth Name with Level 7 as their Lore level. That is, beyond just being a Name and so by definition, as close to being an Hour as one can get. That's the point at which you are privy to the secrets of the Hours their personal techniques. Now does that mean that they are the equivalent of an Hour? No but if, as some of you were quick to point out, the Wolf could single handedly overrule Harmony what could a Moth Name, the Lore known for parasitism and internal usurpation, do when born as an Alicorn-Name with the total support of the other Alicorns as long as they don't fail in an impossible for them way? As for the arguments for Love effecting them? Grail is subverted by Moth you know and while Love and Grail aren't the same they rhyme.

The Master will be a cancerous blight upon Equestria and the only reason you guys are fine with it is because you assume we'll win and be in a position to counter them to which I will once again repeat; you assume we will be an Hour that cares, you assume we will be an Hour that can act and finally you assume that power will matter all that much in what seems to be an intrigue war set to go on for millennia. Oh it'll help I'm sure but near as much as you guys hope? No I don't think so. As to the second argument that the Master is a back up plan; what is Luna chopped liver? If we die and then Luna takes over as the leader in the fight against the Worms then she probably has the best odds of all of the players on the board. If she can't manage to win by the time the Master can actually act or the situation has deteriorated to the point both her and any contingencies she has come up with have failed then the situation is so FUBAR I don't see how it could be turned around.
 
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Lykantos said:
Why wouldn't Bird point it out? He gives players a lot of agency in how to act, and it's entirely possible that for some reason or another Velvet could decide that having a Name-Alicorn as a backup plan is fine, actually. Or, in a more hopeful scenario, the birth into a Harmony-infused body will gradually turn the Master more Harmony-aligned if the dice allow it, in which case no poisoning. There's a bunch of things that could happen in between, which is why Accept only says it might, not will, negatively affect the epilogue. It's a long time from pregnancy to birth and to adulthood - I find it more likely the Master will get influenced by Harmony or Love at some point, especially since he'll be a literal child for a good amount of time.
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Has Harmony ever pulled out a Deus ex machina win before in this quest? It didn't save Luna, it didn't stop the Changelings, why are you expecting it to work now?

Moth is one of the Lores most associated with corruption. It eats things from within. It is far more likely that the Master will corrupt Harmony than the reverse. Even if Harmony does infect them with Feelings, Moth is the Lore of self-mutilation.

"Am I feeling...love? Is this what that is? How interesting. Sadly, it's in my way." SNIPSNIPSNIPSNIPSNIP...
 
Besides, if we want to pull the meta card, all options here give us an L.
But morals aside, Accept just gives us a Gift and puts the Master out of commission, then where is the L in this option if not in the epilogue?


Also. Let's steelman the argument for Accept and assume the best case scenario: The Master is in fact redeemed by Harmony in the Epilogue. Great!

Except for the aforementioned reasons Hour!Velvet will not trust that things are as they appear. And since even the arguing of Hours can decide what the Secret Histories are like, wouldn't Hour!Velvet's eternal suspicion of the Master make the Master evil again or make related bad things happen?

And Harmony can't convince Velvet directly that the Master is actually redeemed, because Harmony kwabs against Hours like the Mother of Wolves ending amply shows?
 
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The question to consider is whether the principle of birth that constrained the original Outsider-That-Became-the-Sisters applies solely to Outsiders in particular, or anything that wishes to take this path wholly into the world. Because the Princesses remember nothing, and that would certainly be a remedy of sorts.

As to motivations, we must also remember that before Starry happened to Dream her way to the Wood there had been no one for an uncountable span of years, neither dead not living crossed the bounds. The Moth Name spent ages without changing or witnessing change, they couldn't even consider leaving/escaping without someone on the other side to open a door. Now the cult's fractured again, the Lores are far from commonplace, and it's very possible that everything will return to the old empty status quo in a generation or so.

Less than a year of freedom (which the Moth craves second only to Glory) and now the threat of choking isolation looms again.

This could very well be a desperation play, certainly the Worms must be fought, but more than anything else the Master wants out.
 
Venerable Ro said:
The question to consider is whether the principle of birth that constrained the original Outsider-That-Became-the-Sisters applies solely to Outsiders in particular, or anything that wishes to take this path wholly into the world. Because the Princesses remember nothing, and that would certainly be a remedy of sorts.

As to motivations, we must also remember that before Starry happened to Dream her way to the Wood there had been no one for an uncountable span of years, neither dead not living crossed the bounds.
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Bird mentioned that while the Master will be lessened in the Lore terms they'll gain power and remember who they are. This may be like the Rite of Birth used to get the Outsiders into Equestria but it is fundamentally different.

Also it was Jade that half-died to get into the Woods in one of her suicide attempts.
 
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One thing to note is that while the master has alien morals they are not sadistic. Their goals are reaching the glory, being entertained and stopping the worms. This means that if they succeed they have no reason to maximise suffering and the only reason they would have to act really evil is if they still think dousing the lights is the only way (which means we lost the quest considering how long it will take before the master is active again). The master has no reason to kill the other Alicorns since they will buy virtue of their position have near unlimited political power anyway and would probably focus more on convincing or deceiving them. As an hour Velvet would be able to prevent anything too bad happening. Furthermore if we win I see no reason we wouldn't sill be in contact with and likely still friends with Cadance. (If we reach hourhood) Which means the ability to influence and warn against anything blatant the master would do. In the end the masters success here might (not will) lead to a level of harm that Velvet will struggle to prevent in likely 15 or so years. The wolf will create massive amounts of harm for every second of those years and every second after. In terms of harm or evil the wolf will be worse.
 
lurker9875 said:
Assuming this is true (not unlikely, but not guaranteed), there are ...many types of harm, and some types are easier to brace against than others if you are aware of them (not that the Master will let us find out what to brace against if they made any decisions to do harm as we see it)?

For instance, Paranoia applies a -5 to all forms of cooperation, but the Master used 2 actions to all-but-guaranteed splinter apart two Cultists and get them to kill each other just because (Wolf cannot cast EiB and PtN, but the Master can), and only Bird knows what else they decided to do?
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Oh, that was just me playing devil's advocate for the sake of the argument.

My personal opinion is that the worst non-Wolf options will inflict as much eventual harm (if not more harm) than Kill is going to, but I get that not everyone agrees.
 
Since the Master, as far as we know, is the highest Moth aligned being left, would using the Wolf to kill them mess with Moth as a lore? Like, you can no longer hide from what's hunting you in the dark?
 
Kaelor said:
Those other options are terrible, true, but all our options are terrible.
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So the only question is which of the is least terrible, i.e. has less potential to inflict suffering. It certainaly isn't Kill, because it make the world as a whole objectively worse and it certainly isn't conflict, because it dooms Shining and pushes us into conflict with Master with unknown, but potentially large collateral damage. So, what is the choice?
 
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Venerable Ro said:
remember nothing, and that would certainly be a remedy of sorts.
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Unfortunately, in-Quest the Master has already shown the feat of forgetting their very self, what they were doing and why they were doing it and later on remembering their self again after getting everything they wanted so this doesn't do much?

A Fae Cat said:
they would have to act really evil
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> Starting an Occult War just because
> Has a perspective that is incompatible with normal ponies
Perhaps you don't need to be evil from your own perspective to be a harm to society?

A Fae Cat said:
The wolf will create massive amounts of harm for every second of those years and every second after.
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Yes.
However, it is easier for Velvet to mitigate the actions of fragments of an Hour when she knows exactly what their efforts are aimed at, than mitigating the harm a Name Alicorn (imagine a Alicorn general bonus getting further buffed by a Name's general bonus) can cause through an intrigue war, when Velvet may not even be able to find out their actions begin with and they have all the Wake influence?

permeakra said:
It certainaly isn't Kill, because it make the world as a whole objectively worse
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There are many types of worse, and I think a RA's worse will be far easier to combat than a Moth Name Alicorn's type of worse?
 
lurker9875 said:
For instance, Paranoia applies a -5 to all forms of cooperation, but the Master used 2 actions to all-but-guaranteed splinter apart two Cultists and get them to kill each other just because (Wolf cannot cast EiB and PtN, but the Master can), and only Bird knows what else they decided to do?
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It's -15 and actually that's quite huge. This affects EVERYONE, which means Bureau (when whe not around), Sun Court, these little lore research group whose head gave us candle dust, alicorn subordinates, etc

As it was point out the +10 bonus is a experienced lvl, so that makes is beyond that. Which means, all of our allies suffer a lot, unless we literally chain them to us, which is not possible, I am afraid.
 
jelloloaf said:
In the spirit of betraying the Master, who remembers back when we completely blew off our Loremaster work of writing manuscripts in order to climb higher in the Mansus? Good times.
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As any truly great adept should :V

BattleOoze said:
It's -15 and actually that's quite huge. This affects EVERYONE, which means Bureau (when whe not around), Sun Court, these little lore research group whose head gave us candle dust, alicorn subordinates, etc

As it was point out the +10 bonus is a experienced lvl, so that makes is beyond that. Which means, all of our allies suffer a lot, unless we literally chain them to us, which is not possible, I am afraid.
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Paranoia is explicitly a -5 penalty. I don't know where you're getting -15 from.
 
lurker9875 said:
However, it is easier for Velvet to mitigate the actions of fragments of an Hour when she knows exactly what their efforts are aimed at
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She can't do shit. We are baby lores compared even to simple high lvl cultist from cs, we already being humbled by Names twice (Baldomare could literally deleted us, lol) and can literally do nothing to hours or their business


Wolves are permanent. Period. Even if we are will become a Hour themselves the Wolf might just protect his children and we even then wouldn't do anything, since, you know, the whole pantheon were not able to do anything to him. What makes you think Velvet alone can?
 
lurker9875 said:
She struck with all the (ritual) means at her disposal, then we struck back with all the (ritual) means at our disposals, that's all there is to things.
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...It is much easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.

Once the mind accepts something as reality/fact it holds onto that information doggedly.

Even when the person who fooled them deliberately rubs it in their face that they have been deceived, it is human nature to try and invent a way that the information incorporated is still valid.

lurker9875 said:
Could we have discovered the first EiB was the Master's? Doubt so, given her Moth.
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Yes but speaking with Copper for even a few seconds would have informed both of us that the first attack wasn't from her.

This is the cultist brain on occult war. Magical ritual isn't just a useful tool, it is the only tool.

Dialogue isn't just not a tool in tool box. It is outright unthinkable. Inconceivable even.
 
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I voted for The Wolf because I don't want Velvet to become the type of person who lets her friends get assaulted and impregnated for the greater good. Remember, Burd said that this vote is telling HIM, who Velvet is. What decisions she will make.

I've always seen Velvet as Someone who puts family and friends first before all. Accepting the Masters Offer is a horrific act against her, idk how Velvet could ever look Cadance in the face after that betrayal on her wedding day.
 
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