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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Steady Gaze said:
(I was kinda tempted to attempt to write this scenario myself first, but that might be stepping on Bird's toes too much. But yeah, I might write an alternate history if it goes horribly. But Bird, this is not an incentive to make something terrible happen! :V)
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Oh, don't worry. The terrible comes later.
 
I'm generally in favor of intangibles, can't judge characters purely based on AP and culty potential, got to consider the benefits of general popularity.

[x] "I would be honored to be the maid of honor." (Become closer to Cadance)
[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 / ???)
 
[x] "I would be honored to be the maid of honor." (Become closer to Cadance)
[x] "Your dress is good. But it could be better. I know a mare..." (Involve Rarity in dressmaking. Applies Rarity's Lore levels)
[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)
 
I just want a good potential set of Elements in place. Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack are of course themselves, Mayor Mare probably fits Loyalty, or maybe Rich—he does remain loyal to his wife despite her really shitty nature, IIRC—and Cherilee would probably make a fair Laughter. Not quite Pinky level, but still.
 
Ericwinter said:
I just want a good potential set of Elements in place. Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack are of course themselves, Mayor Mare probably fits Loyalty, or maybe Rich—he does remain loyal to his wife despite her really shitty nature, IIRC—and Cherilee would probably make a fair Laughter. Not quite Pinky level, but still.
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We can get Rainbowdash as confidant by healing Scoots once we have an excuse for knowing the lores.
 
Toboe said:
We can get Rainbowdash as confidant by healing Scoots once we have an excuse for knowing the lores.
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Sure, but until that point it's good to have options. We also don't actually know Rainbow Dash IC. Stormchaser does, but we don't. I don't believe it was ever confirmed that using the Redemption ritual would actually work, either. All Bird ever said was that in the theoretical circumstances in which it did, it would definitely be Confidante worthy.

Unless I'm forgetting a newer WoG anyways.
Venerable Ro said:
Can't get Pinkie though, I personally want no part of that.
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Let's be honest, if we got all the others she would probably just show up and act like she belonged with no questions asked.
 
Ericwinter said:
Sure, but until that point it's good to have options. We also don't actually know Rainbow Dash IC. Stormchaser does, but we don't.
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True, but if possible without the risk of releasing dangerous secrets Velvet would want to do it just for the reason of her being Silkys friend.
Ericwinter said:
I don't believe it was ever confirmed that using the Redemption ritual would actually work, either. All Bird ever said was that in the theoretical circumstances in which it did, it would definitely be Confidante worthy.

Unless I'm forgetting a newer WoG anyways.
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Uhh...
That could actually be true.

Ericwinter said:
Let's be honest, if we got all the others she would probably just show up and act like she belonged with no questions asked.
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The moment we befriended the last non-pinky-pie element she'll just be there and throw a "congratulations on befriending the elements of harmony" party and count herself as our friend.
 
Pittauro said:
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.
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Eh, we've got a free social per turn to work on them, and they're all so low in Lore levels they can probably passively improve from our library. Also since Good Friends can be inducted into a cult without worry of it going wrong, we can use the lot of them to kickstart a cult of our own! Where we effectively already own the town! Which of course means we get to flex on the Master endlessly for making a better cult faster than her. It's very important to flex.

I do have to contemplate dropping the Name In ite for guaranteed Book though. Because guaranteed Baldomare Extension is RIGHT. THERE. MOCKING ME. AGH
 
Talon TigerDino said:
Eh, we've got a free social per turn to work on them, and they're all so low in Lore levels they can probably passively improve from our library. Also since Good Friends can be inducted into a cult without worry of it going wrong, we can use the lot of them to kickstart a cult of our own! Where we effectively already own the town! Which of course means we get to flex on the Master endlessly for making a better cult faster than her. It's very important to flex.

I do have to contemplate dropping the Name In ite for guaranteed Book though. Because guaranteed Baldomare Extension is RIGHT. THERE. MOCKING ME. AGH
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It's also worth noting, we never touched the local expeditions, all that entry-level stuff meant to get an ambitious new cultist off the ground is just lying around for the taking. We could easily get Rarity to run ponies through some simple early game experiences as a way to train/acclimate them to the concept. Remember that one episode where Rarity bamboozled Applejack into helping her mine gemstones? Imagine that but it's the Forgotten Mithraeum instead.
 
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Talon TigerDino said:
Eh, we've got a free social per turn to work on them, and they're all so low in Lore levels they can probably passively improve from our library. Also since Good Friends can be inducted into a cult without worry of it going wrong, we can use the lot of them to kickstart a cult of our own! Where we effectively already own the town! Which of course means we get to flex on the Master endlessly for making a better cult faster than her. It's very important to flex.
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If we do this and Lunar bureau cult, we could flex by having 2 separate better cults.
 
Talon TigerDino said:
Eh, we've got a free social per turn to work on them, and they're all so low in Lore levels they can probably passively improve from our library. Also since Good Friends can be inducted into a cult without worry of it going wrong, we can use the lot of them to kickstart a cult of our own! Where we effectively already own the town! Which of course means we get to flex on the Master endlessly for making a better cult faster than her. It's very important to flex.

I do have to contemplate dropping the Name In ite for guaranteed Book though. Because guaranteed Baldomare Extension is RIGHT. THERE. MOCKING ME. AGH
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keep in mind the context of "introduce a pony to the lore" has changed a bit.

Celestia is far more unstable. There's shapeshifting monsters around. and Velvet has to pretend to not know the lores in front of the Alicorns until she finds a way to safely introduce them (hopefully through Luna, alternatively through the Manehattan Cult or by hiding lore books in the Canterlot Caves and making it seem like it was a former cult base)

Also sure, we have 1 social AP per turn, BUT we need 4 more actions to reach the cap on Rarity, Fluttershy and Jade, AND we're also sort of working on Pride, and keep in mind that while lvl 0 and 1s can be found in the library, we still need to discover our new "good friends" affinities ourselves, and then it still uses their actions first and ours later on to rank them up.

There's also a non zero chance that in a few turns we'll have a few sacraments, so we might need social actions for our confidants to go up to Exalted (lvl 5).

Comet through Biedde. Jade with Baldomare's Lantern sacrament.

Rarity and Fluttershy are admittedly less likely, as our sacrament options are pretty distasteful.

and then we might end up needing social actions for, say, our peers under the Alicorns, or possibly with Celestia and Cadance and Luna, and so on.

so, all in all, I see the "rank up 4 ponies to good friends" pick as a bit of a trap, because on its own it doesn't help us THAT much, and it soft-commits us into investing a BUNCH more effort into them to actually make them useful.


At that point, beside my 3 main picks (dress, closer to cadance, twilight), I'd rather go for the book instead. or Cadance lores.
 
Venerable Ro said:
Personally, I'm very wary of the Twilight thing, considering how every other interaction with her was botched I'm pretty sure she's just dice-cursed this time around. Probably traumatize her into becoming a Rival, and then what would we do?
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Didn't the update say that the worst results for each of these is merely neutral? This would mean that either something proportionally good to how Rival Twilight is bad would also happen, or that (more likely in my opinion) she rebuffs everyone and nothing changes.
 
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Venerable Ro said:
It's also worth noting, we never touched the local expeditions, all that entry-level stuff meant to get an ambitious new cultist off the ground is just lying around for the taking. We could easily get Rarity to run ponies through some simple early game experiences as a way to train/acclimate them to the concept. Remember that one episode where Rarity bamboozled Applejack into helping her mine gemstones? Imagine that but it's the Forgotten Mithraeum instead.
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not really worth doing. Expeditions are expensive.
our best bet with most low to mid tier expeditions would be to send Axe (+50 base bonus to all expedition challenges except social which gets a +10 only, and then her knock and edge bonuses) OR Mareinette (+40 base bonus to all expedition challenges, except +60 to social ones, and then her heart and grail bonuses).

They can basically pass most rolls on their own of the first or at worst second attempt, they're pretty strong in a fight if it comes down to it, and are ONE single being on an expedition, which means we can save bits and potentially send them on two different expeditions at the same time.

My one exception to this would be super-difficult expeditions, or narratively important ones (Frangiclave), in which case I'd also add Velvet to it (which with her soon to be all-4 would add +20 and rerolls to basically all challenges, AND a Shining-Armor-tier fighter in case of combat)

Limabot said:
Didn't the update say that the worst results for each of these is merely neutral. This would mean that either something proportionally good to how Rival Twilight is bad would also happen, or that (more likely in my opinion) she rebuffs everyone and nothing changes.
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It's possible. We don't know if we'll get rolls, or if the result is already predetermined, but it's definitely possible.

Then again, this is also the last reasonable chance I think we'll have at Twilight until the lores are formally introduced and we can justify being able to cast a mostly safe Redemption of the Forge ritual. And really, IC Velvet's mistakes with Twilight have been possibly our greatest failure, so while it might look like sunk cost fallacy, I think like we should still try.

We can reasonably presume that CADANCE won't make things worse at least. The worst that can happen, in my opinion, is that we waste the pick... but it might also change things for Twilight for the better. Give her a new start.

Not necessarily go back to friends with Velvet, but maybe at least interact more often and normally with her family (Cadance and Shining. the only family she has left) while ALSO not being a threat to us anymore.

That's my hope.
 
Pittauro said:
It's possible. We don't know if we'll get rolls, or if the result is already predetermined, but it's definitely possible.

Then again, this is also the last reasonable chance I think we'll have at Twilight until the lores are formally introduced and we can justify being able to cast a mostly safe Redemption of the Forge ritual. And really, IC Velvet's mistakes with Twilight have been possibly our greatest failure, so while it might look like sunk cost fallacy, I think like we should still try.

We can reasonably presume that CADANCE won't make things worse at least. The worst that can happen, in my opinion, is that we waste the pick... but it might also change things for Twilight for the better. Give her a new start.

Not necessarily go back to friends with Velvet, but maybe at least interact more often and normally with her family (Cadance and Shining. the only family she has left) while ALSO not being a threat to us anymore.

That's my hope.
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I support visiting Twilight too, and I think (if nothing else) it can get her to do something other than wallow in despair. I was just trying to point out to Verneable Ro that their worst-case scenario isn't something we should worry too much about.
 
Pittauro said:
Also sure, we have 1 social AP per turn, BUT we need 4 more actions to reach the cap on Rarity, Fluttershy and Jade, AND we're also sort of working on Pride, and keep in mind that while lvl 0 and 1s can be found in the library, we still need to discover our new "good friends" affinities ourselves, and then it still uses their actions first and ours later on to rank them up.
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They can roll to advance without dedicating any actions of their own if the relevant texts are available.
 
I think your forgetting the secret library which will soon have a bunch of books, being added to it regularly. Both from high level expedition to retrieve the rank 6 artifacts, but also from raiding the dozen splitter cults popping up all over the kingdom. It pretty easy to get enough books to let out friends level to the third level, doubly so since names provide a full rank so the library only needs to have books enough for level 2 for most lores with all our names summons. Only missing Winter, Forge, and Moth.
 
[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)

And then even thought I think it might be a mistake...

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

If this either removes the lock on Twilight's contact level or allows us to safely remove the leash, it's a win in my book. While I don't think the Twilight option is the best use of our time, I do feel that we'll regret it later if we don't take it.
 
Oh, boy, are we again going for Twilight, huh? This is sooooo not gonna blow up in our face.

Well, good thing that I'm always for a good drama (in fiction). Also, why are we sending to Twilight Cadence with Shining? What if alicorn notices the leash? Or maybe actually listens to Twi words and starts asking questions to us?

There's so many ways this could go wrong, I love it.
 
The problem is the opportunity cost of nothing happening with Twilight is 500 bits/ 5 socialising actions (or other valuable mystery boxes). So if this really is just sunk cost and doesn't achieve anything then it comes at the expense of the potential for extra confidant ap every turn (with a little effort) and/or the moth sacrament being much easier (if we invite friends). Net neutral can mean nothing happening after all, or something good and bad happening and equaling out.
 
BattleOoze said:
Well, good thing that I'm always for a good drama (in fiction). Also, why are we sending to Twilight Cadence with Shining? What if alicorn notices the leash? Or maybe actually listens to Twi words and starts asking questions to us?
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I believe the vote is means Cadence and Velvet are going, not Shining. The way it's written I think Twilight was sent an invitation by both, but Velvet is just hanging out with Cadence.
 
What I think could happen is Cadance manages to get Twilight back on her feet, but she still doesn't trust us worth a gorram and is still focused on the Lores we so cleverly introduced her to. So then we have adept Twilight pursuing her own goals and since Friendship is Magic she involves her friends/loved ones. How could Twilight trying to pull Rarity or Cadance back out of our influence ever go any way but poorly? Because we absolutely couldn't move against her openly if she decided she needed to become a problem.
 
[x] "Cadance, what do you mean keep the change? What do you mean that I should keep the change?! " (Gain 500 bits)
 
Talon TigerDino said:
They can roll to advance without dedicating any actions of their own if the relevant texts are available.
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only for the low levels, only if they know their affinities, and low levels on their own are still not worth that much AND good friends are not that useful compared to confidants, and bringing them to confidant WILL require work I don't think we're really willing to put on.

Seriously, we can just... work on ONE of them if we really care for it. I really don't expect us to work on all 4 of them if this option wins. I don't expect us to work on even TWO of them. MAYBE one. In which case the pick goes half to waste.

BattleOoze said:
Oh, boy, are we again going for Twilight, huh? This is sooooo not gonna blow up in our face.

Well, good thing that I'm always for a good drama (in fiction). Also, why are we sending to Twilight Cadence with Shining? What if alicorn notices the leash? Or maybe actually listens to Twi words and starts asking questions to us?

There's so many ways this could go wrong, I love it.
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Because Twilight sort of gave up convincing Shining, so there's not much worry there. and Cadance trusts Velvet completely, and Shining is still under the Leash currently, so I very much doubt there's any risk to Velvet here.

Seriously, at worst I think this option accomplishes nothing. At best, Twilight goes on the road to recovery and we can remove the Leash.

This is very much a narrative pick more than a mechanical one. Mechanical benefits might be present, but they'll likely be negligible to moderate at best when compared to other options. But maybe, just maybe... we can help Twilight heal. And that's worth it.

Who knows, she might still become an Alicorn today if she recovers...

A Fae Cat said:
The problem is the opportunity cost of nothing happening with Twilight is 500 bits/ 5 socialising actions (or other valuable mystery boxes). So if this really is just sunk cost and doesn't achieve anything then it comes at the expense of the potential for extra confidant ap every turn (with a little effort) and/or the moth sacrament being much easier (if we invite friends). Net neutral can mean nothing happening after all, or something good and bad happening and equaling out.
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with a LOT of effort, for the confidants. effort that would NOT be going to our already available confidants, presumably. And that's if we actually work on them at all, which I don't believe we'll do beside MAYBE one or two of them at best.

The 500 bits can't be denied, obviously. Though if we go for Rarity dress we WILL get a raise to our income, which while not as immediately impressive will still help our budget, so it's not that bad.


and for Moth... If we really end up sacrificing a confidant for it, I'd rather it be someone we don't care about at all. In which case I'd just have Mareinette rank them up on her own. She could already do it with, say, Cherilee for example. or just go to a random pony and work on them for us. She's so good I can see her skipping from zero to Good Friend in one action, and to confidant in another potentially.

Venerable Ro said:
What I think could happen is Cadance manages to get Twilight back on her feet, but she still doesn't trust us worth a gorram and is still focused on the Lores we so cleverly introduced her to. So then we have adept Twilight pursuing her own goals and since Friendship is Magic she involves her friends/loved ones. How could Twilight trying to pull Rarity or Cadance back out of our influence ever go any way but poorly? Because we absolutely couldn't move against her openly if she decided she needed to become a problem.
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I'm not sure many of us would call that net neutral though.
 
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