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

BirdBodhisattva · Jul 9, 2021

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.

(Quote slightly edited to avoid spoilers)

Talon TigerDino · Jan 13, 2024

Fuck it we Harmonize

[x] "Cadance, both you and Shining sent invitations to Twilight. But maybe we should… check on her in person?" (???)
[x] "But none of them are nobles. Are you sure I can invite them?" (Increase all non-locked ponies in your Contacts list to Good Friends)
[x] "Cadance, do you mind if I put a few Names on the list…?" (Invite all Names who are summoned on Turn 19 / ???)

The Names can get a face full of Heart Songs and Love too.

Pittauro · Jan 13, 2024

Earth-Destroyer said:
Getting the 4 up to good friends is basically needed, that turns having to spend AP to get their help. Into instantly having them be able to generate AP for us. And while a bit out of date Good Friends where/are at the point where introducing them to the cult/our Friend circle was an option. And since the cult is gone introducing them to lores will be much easier.

we'd still need special actions and AT LEAST one AP each (possibly more) to turn them into confidants, and they don't give action until then.

We also have our already gained confidants needing actions to level up. Better to have fewer but higher levels, all things considered.

I don't see us actually finding a use for Cherilee in the short-medium term, we don't need Filthy Rich if we're going to take either the 500 bits or Rarity dressmaker, and while I'd like to gain one more element and the mayor as confidant, I'd much rather prefer upgrading Rarity, Jade and Fluttershy instead.

Dutch said:
I kinda want to see what an Edge wedding looks like, even if Heart is the more viable option.

keep in mind it might not be "do an edge wedding", but more like "while searching for ancient wedding traditions in the royal archives, you find an edge lvl ? book".

Still valuable, maybe more so. but it doesn't necessarily mean that the wedding will have lore undertones.

Earth-Destroyer · Jan 13, 2024

Pittauro said:
we'd still need special actions and AT LEAST one AP each (possibly more) to turn them into confidants, and they don't give action until then..

True but unneeded for the most part they can be introduced and start learning the lores while at just Good Friend level.

Pittauro said:
We also have our already gained confidants needing actions to level up. Better to have fewer but higher levels, all things considered.

And? they can learn from the library for both the 0 level, and the 1 level part. That is at least a full turn where they do not need Velvet help to level up, possibly two turns even.

And frankly not everything they can helps us with requires or even involves the lores. Mayor Mare, and Filthy Rich, are not going to be wasting actions casting rituals, when they can be directing the towns growth in building lore projects that benefit the town itself.

Edit: And frankly if we have Mareinette aid Velvet in getting them up to confidant level we can do it in a single action each.

Toboe · Jan 13, 2024

Solace2117 said:
I get the appeal of inviting our contact list. The mechanical advantage of moving them up is a big AP saver in theory. From a narrative perspective it's a little weird though to just invite a bunch of people she doesn't know that well instead of focusing on those she's close to. Let's also be real honest here, considering everything going on are we really going to utilize them or focus them. Probably one, maybe two of them if we're lucky. Frankly there are much more important things going on and if so, the real AP saving is much less. If you really wanted to save AP you'd be much better off focusing on the Solar Court who I think are much more relevant to our future goals. Also I think Velvet does a lot of her best work on a one on one basis. Yes she's a great administrator, but a lot of that narratively seems to come from her ability to identify talent and properly delegate. I think we're better off going with the flow and focusing on quality investments instead of quantity.

We could also see it as everyone on our contact list being Velvet vetted talent that can be useful if we make good use of it.

Meeting Solar court is good, but can also be done with comissioner actions.

Earth-Destroyer said:
True but unneeded for the most part they can be introduced and start learning the lores while at just Good Friend level.

They can?

Limabot · Jan 13, 2024

Dutch said:
I kinda want to see what an Edge wedding looks like, even if Heart is the more viable option.

I am more interested in what a Forge Wedding is like, especially in the context of the Forge of Day's romance with the Sun-in-Splendour possibly being part of the reason why the Mansus is empty.

Solace2117 · Jan 13, 2024

Introducing them to lores requires actions I doubt we'll take. Getting them to Confidant requires great effort and/or great actions which I doubt we have time for outside of one of them. Frankly at this point in the Quest I'm skeptical about how useful they really are. We didn't take the time to develop them when we had more AP because there were more important things to worry about. Applejack may be worth it as one of the Elements, but we still have the members of the Bureau to focus on, plus others we'll meet along the way.

Toboe said:
We could also see it as everyone on our contact list being Velvet vetted talent that can be useful if we make good use of it.

Meeting Solar court is good, but can also be done with comissioner actions.

Ones we can only make use of outside of limited situations unless we're willing to invest more into it. Something always comes up so I doubt it. Also by the same note, raising our contacts can be done with personal actions. Sure we get one specific Bureau meeting, but it saves us actions to meet people who are arguably much more important at this stage. At a certain point continually spreading Velvet out becomes a time sink where we don't gain as much as we would focusing on something else.

Earth-Destroyer · Jan 13, 2024

Toboe said:
They can?

BirdBodhisattva said:
Good friends – ponies that will come to your aid if you ask, who you can trust that you could introduce into your cult, or who wouldn't completely cut ties with you if said attempt went horribly wrong.

-Currently none

Yes that was always the case it just had not come up before, since Rarity, jade, and Fluttershy went straight to confidant do to all the actions we took to help them. Skipping the in-between levels of trust.

Pittauro · Jan 13, 2024

Earth-Destroyer said:
True but unneeded for the most part they can be introduced and start learning the lores while at just Good Friend level.

we near certainly won't do it, because I doubt we're willing to risk teaching Lores to anyone but our closest friends (confidants) in this situation.

Earth-Destroyer said:
And? they can learn from the library for both the 0 level, and the 1 level part. That is at least a full turn where they do not need Velvet help to level up, possibly two turns even.

And frankly not everything they can helps us with requires or even involves the lores. Mayor Mare, and Filthy Rich, are not going to be wasting actions casting rituals, when they can be directing the towns growth in building lore projects that benefit the town itself.

Edit: And frankly if we have Mareinette aid Velvet in getting them up to confidant level we can do it in a single action each.

I'm pretty sure lvl 0 actually requires our direct involvement, because we need to actually find out what is their affinity so they'd know what to study on their own.

and really, I don't think they'd be that useful as good friends, AND I don't think we have the time for raising them to confidants.

no, the 5 AP saved on them are a nice-sounding trap in our situation. Or at least a suboptimal option.

Quality over quantity. I'd rather focus on Cadance, Rarity and Twilight for the 3 picks, and in terms of confidants/social actions I'd rather teach the ones we already have.

Earth-Destroyer · Jan 13, 2024

Pittauro said:
Quality over quantity. I'd rather focus on Cadance, Rarity and Twilight for the 3 picks, and in terms of confidants/social actions I'd rather teach the ones we already have.

Cadance we pretty much have on lock.

Rarity I was pushing to improve her for the last 4-5 turns, and nobody took the option, if she had been Grail 4 for at least a turn or even better 2 turns it would be useful. But at this point Rarity job is an opportunity we missed, the dress option is throwing money after a chance that has already passed us by, Rarity just does not measure up, and It Velvet's fault for not teaching her sooner.

And Twilight absolutely hates Velvet we will get nothing from her, and frankly Velvet's presence would sabotage any attempt that Cadance and shining make to reconnect.

While I can see the opportunity to work on introducing Cadance to the Lore's. Both the Rartity and Twilight options, are sunk cost options that get us nothing.

While inviting Applejack, Filthy Rich, Mayor Mare and Cheerilee, going to Good Friends. Is at least 5 AP spend on them saved, and also nearly going plus 4 AP. Not everything the 4 could do for use needs or requires them to be confidants, or even to know the lores. And if we have Velvet spend 2 AP next turn on working on raising them to confidant with Mareinette assisting the action the + 60 rerolling should be able to handle any event to get them as confidants.

Spector29 · Jan 13, 2024

[X] "I would be honored to be the maid of honor." (Become closer to Cadance)
[X] You will spend a long time with Cadance. Whisper a few Lore-secrets, here and there. (???)
[X] "Your dress is good. But it could be better. I know a mare..." (Involve Rarity in dressmaking. Applies Rarity's Lore levels)

Pittauro · Jan 13, 2024

Earth-Destroyer said:
Rarity I was pushing to improve her for the last 4-5 turns, and nobody took the option, if she had been Grail 4 for at least a turn or even better 2 turns it would be useful. But at this point Rarity job is an opportunity we missed, the dress option is throwing money after a chance that has already passed us by, Rarity just does not measure up, and It Velvet's fault for not teaching her sooner.

that's... so wrong I have no words to say how wrong you are.

She's 3/1. She was already an incredibly talented normal dress-maker, and now she has her Realization to help, and we KNOW it has to do with clothes due to the last update.

Sure, she's not at 4/2, but she's still really good.

Earth-Destroyer said:
And Twilight absolutely hates Velvet we will get nothing from her, and frankly Velvet's presence would sabotage any attempt that Cadance and shining make to reconnect.

Again, not quite true.

Twilight is done with us and with life in general as of right now. She doesn't really have enough left in her to actually hate us, I think, not as things stand.

And it's not even clear if we'll be there or if we're just sending Shining and Cadance alone.

It's DEFINITELY not going to be "Velvet's presence will sabotage this". The options are at best net neutral, but that still means that there's going to be a change in the current situation. Something gets better and something else gets worse.

I imagine Twilight's situation WILL improve. It's definitely possible that her relationship will Velvet will not, but this is more about Twilight herself than the social link.

Also, possibly, it might be about removing the Leash from Shining as well.

Earth-Destroyer said:
While I can see the opportunity to work on introducing Cadance to the Lore's. Both the Rartity and Twilight options, are sunk cost options that get us nothing.

While inviting Applejack, Filthy Rich, Mayor Mare and Cheerilee, going to Good Friends. Is at least 5 AP spend on them saved, and also nearly going plus 4 AP. Not everything the 4 could needs or requires them to be confidants, or even to know the lores. And if we have Velvet spend 2 AP next turn on working on raising them to confidant with Mareinette assisting the action the + 60 rerolling should be able any event to get them as confidants.

Rarity is not a sunk cost option. It's an option that WILL give us more bits, BUT is mechanically speaking inferior to the 500 bits in exchange for having positive narrative implications (Rarity's career will soar, she'll be happy, Velvet will be happy she helped a friend, Cadance will have a better dress).

Twilight... eh, it could go either way. It won't get WORSE, and I expect we'll still get something out of it, be the chance to remove the Leash in safety, or Twilight coming out of her apathy state. I easily admit it's unlikely we'll become friends again, at least not immediately.

and the +4 net AP from the good friends can easily be seen as a trap and false reward unless we actually commit to heavy investment in at least one or two of them, and I have no interest in them compared to doubling down on Rarity, Jade and Fluttershy first. And I'm very much against having Mareinette replacing Velvet in socials with her closest friends. It's just too icky for me to consider, and tells me bad things about what Velvet thinks about them and their time spent together.

BattleOoze · Jan 13, 2024

[X] You will spend a long time with Cadance. Whisper a few Lore-secrets, here and there. (???)

[X] Are they a couple? Are they just friends? You don't really know what Comet Feet and Fluttershy are. But ever since you invited them to the wedding, Fluttershy has been having… ideas. (???)

[X] "Yes, they are nobles, but… I am not sure I want to invite them." (Invite the Velvet family / ???)

[X] Everypony who is important enough is involved in some way. Get to know your co-equals better, from the Solar Court and elsewhere. (???)

[X] "Cadance, both you and Shining sent invitations to Twilight. But maybe we should… check on her in person?" (???)

[X] "Cadance, do you mind if I put a few Names on the list…?" (Invite all Names who are summoned on Turn 19 / ???)

[X] "What do you mean you want a traditional wedding? Cadance, you are literally writing tradition right now. You are a Princess for-…! Alright, fine, I'll check the Royal Archives." (Moth Lore / ???)

Earth-Destroyer · Jan 13, 2024

Pittauro said:
And I'm very much against having Mareinette replacing Velvet in socials with her closest friends. It's just too icky for me to consider, and tells me bad things about what Velvet thinks about them and their time spent together.

Did you read what I wrote, I want Velvet to raise them to confidant with Mareinette Assisting with her massive +40. Total +60 between the two of them to handle the hurdle of raising them to confidant.

Toboe · Jan 13, 2024

Earth-Destroyer said:
Rarity I was pushing to improve her for the last 4-5 turns, and nobody took the option, if she had been Grail 4 for at least a turn or even better 2 turns it would be useful. But at this point Rarity job is an opportunity we missed, the dress option is throwing money after a chance that has already passed us by, Rarity just does not measure up, and It Velvet's fault for not teaching her sooner.

Rarity is an awesome dressmaker in canon, with 0 Lores. And now she has her realization ability helping her and general 3/1 stuff.
Rarity does measure up.

Pittauro · Jan 13, 2024

Earth-Destroyer said:
Did you read what I wrote, I want Velvet to raise them to confidant with Mareinette Assisting with her massive +40. Total +60 between the two of them to handle the hurdle of raising them to confidant.

probably irrelevant. It's not just a mechanical matter, it's not "roll high enough to make them confidant".

Bringing someone to confidant tier means doing something MASSIVE for them, something that will have them trust us and cherish us over nearly everyone else.

Rarity: we made her dream come true
Jade: we restored her from her apathy, gave her a reason to live again
Fluttershy: We helped her save the one she loves.

Mareinette COULD, as an example, have helped with Rarity. She could NOT have helped with the other ones, not really.

And, again, I'm uninterested in those potential confidants, at least not to the point of spending a wedding pick.

If we ONLY want one of them, then we can just invest one action on them later on to bring them to good friend.

Let's be honest: we will NOT work on all 4 of them. Not in the next 5 turns.

In my opinion unless we're working on 2 or 3 of them minimum, the upgrade pick is wasted.

spiderhellian · Jan 13, 2024

These are the only two I'd quite like to see, though I'll think through what else would be interesting in a bit. Definitely agree with Pittauro -- it is so many turns, and possibly AP, before those Good Friends actually become useful Confidants.

(I do think Mareinette's +100 on social actions can probably take Good Friend -> Confidant with an action. Iirc @BirdBodhisattva mentioned something like "let me worry about the narrative piece of it".)

[x] "I would be honored to be the maid of honor." (Become closer to Cadance)
[x] "Cadance, what do you mean keep the change? What do you mean that I should keep the change?! " (Gain 500 bits)

Earth-Destroyer · Jan 13, 2024

Toboe said:
Rarity is an awesome dressmaker in canon, with 0 Lores. And now she has her realization ability helping her and general 3/1 stuff.
Rarity does measure up.

And it took Rarity 5 season to for her career to really take off, And that was with being a major hero of the nation, and having several massive events to show of her skills. Yes we gave a boost but a single year or so of faster then cannon but still very slow does not equal 5 years of work.

Ego_Discite · Jan 13, 2024

[X] "Cadance, both you and Shining sent invitations to Twilight. But maybe we should… check on her in person?" (???)
[x] "I would be honored to be the maid of honor." (Become closer to Cadance)
[x] "Cadance, what do you mean keep the change? What do you mean that I should keep the change?! " (Gain 500 bits)
[X] Everypony who is important enough is involved in some way. Get to know your co-equals better, from the Solar Court and elsewhere. (???)

permeakra · Jan 13, 2024

[x] "But none of them are nobles. Are you sure I can invite them?" (Increase all non-locked ponies in your Contacts list to Good Friends)
[x] "Cadance, both you and Shining sent invitations to Twilight. But maybe we should… check on her in person?" (???)
[x] "Cadance, do you mind if I put a few Names on the list…?" (Invite all Names who are summoned on Turn 19 / ???)

I'm fairly certain it will be a train wreck. I want a train wreck.

BirdBodhisattva · Jan 13, 2024

Oh God... my last catch-up was maybe fifteen pages ago...

Also, I see those votes. On a completely unrelated note, anyone ever heard of the sunk cost fallacy?

Anyhow, regular terror-spreading jokes aside. Let me catch up.

By the way, vote period set to 48 hours-ish.

reborn214 · Jan 13, 2024

Pittauro said:
Twilight... eh, it could go either way. It won't get WORSE, and I expect we'll still get something out of it, be the chance to remove the Leash in safety, or Twilight coming out of her apathy state. I easily admit it's unlikely we'll become friends again, at least not immediately.

Personally, I do not really want to take Twilight options as even if it doesn't get worse. I do not see our involvement improving Twilight's personal life in anyway. Let's say Twilight accepts that we aren't party to her suffering (which is a bit of a lie). Does this actually change Twilight's current predicament.

For example, I can imagine a point where we fix Shining's horn through hidden magic and then fix other things later in life, but I can not imagine a point where we can directly improve Twilight's life at this point in time. The best we can hope for is someone in the bureau fixes Twilight's horn after it is shown to work on Shining who is not us.

I am fine working with Rarity as our involvement will improve both Rarity's and our life, but Twilight it feels rather one-sided from Velvet rather than anything mutual.

Gurrent · Jan 13, 2024

[x] "But none of them are nobles. Are you sure I can invite them?" (Increase all non-locked ponies in your Contacts list to Good Friends)
[X] You will spend a long time with Cadance. Whisper a few Lore-secrets, here and there. (???)
[x] "I would be honored to be the maid of honor." (Become closer to Cadance)

Shogeton · Jan 13, 2024

Dutch said:
I kinda want to see what an Edge wedding looks like, even if Heart is the more viable option.

For a proper Edge wedding you need to figure out who's the Colonel and who's the Lionsmith. And 'Till Death do us Part' gets a bit of a different vibe to it.

Pittauro · Jan 13, 2024

Earth-Destroyer said:
And it took Rarity 5 season to for her career to really take off, And that was with being a major hero of the nation, and having several massive events to show of her skills. Yes we gave a boost but a single year or so of faster then cannon but still very slow does not equal 5 years of work.

BirdBodhisattva said:
Also, I see those votes. On a completely unrelated note, anyone ever heard of the sunk cost fallacy?

Anyhow, regular terror-spreading jokes aside. Let me catch up.

He's JOKING guys, he's admitting it too! Ignore him, please!

reborn214 said:
Personally, I do not really want to take Twilight options as even if it doesn't get worse. I do not see our involvement improving Twilight's personal life in anyway. Let's say Twilight accepts that we aren't party to her suffering (which is a bit of a lie). Does this actually change Twilight's current predicament.

For example, I can imagine a point where we fix Shining's horn through hidden magic and then fix other things later in life, but I can not imagine a point where we can directly improve Twilight's life at this point in time. The best we can hope for is someone in the bureau fixes Twilight's horn after it is shown to work on Shining who is not us.

I am fine working with Rarity as our involvement will improve both Rarity's and our life, but Twilight it feels rather one-sided from Velvet rather than anything mutual.

Twilight is currently, from what we know, an empty shell. She showed SOME emotion when Cadance and Shining were in ponyville last, and that was kinda it.

This isn't really Velvet fixing Twilight. It's Velvet nudging things so CADANCE might have a shot at fixing Twilight.

Velvet can't do nothing more, at least directly. But sending a Cadance in her full love-aura self... if this doesn't help, then I'm just giving up, because I can't think of anything else, at least until such a time as we're actually allowed to restore her horn.

If anything I think this is one-sided in Twilight's favor, because I suspect her opinion of Velvet won't change, but her hopes for the future might, assuming Shining and Cadance stop ignoring her.

The best I expect for Velvet specifically in the short term is allowing us to remove Shining's Leash without risking Twilight accusing us again.

zxzx24 · Jan 13, 2024

[x] "Cadance, both you and Shining sent invitations to Twilight. But maybe we should… check on her in person?" (???)

More to come later perhaps

BirdBodhisattva said:
Oh God... my last catch-up was maybe fifteen pages ago...

Also, I see those votes. On a completely unrelated note, anyone ever heard of the sunk cost fallacy?

Anyhow, regular terror-spreading jokes aside. Let me catch up.

By the way, vote period set to 48 hours-ish.

Regarding the current leading votes.

~~In matters of Harmony look to friendship.~~

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

A bodhisattva, by definition, must die to move on.

It Only Gets Worse From Here

A bodhisattva, by definition, must die to move on.

Deep in thought