Completing our cult task would require FOUR (4) actions, crammed into next turn.
1) Read Forge 3 (x2), Lantern 6
2) Forge manuscript
3) Lantern/Knock manuscript
4) Lantern/Knock manuscript
Which is most of a turn doing nothing but writing manuscripts for our soon-to-be enemy.
Maybe that could be dropped down to three if DoA finds a Forge or Knock book in the caves, but that's still just under half of our action # this turn. The total action count next turn could be anywhere from 5 to 8.
The idea was to only do Forge, and stay one month behind. I'm still mostly against it though.
By god, a huge argument every time we consider leveling up grail would be much, much worse.
not really, we'd just have to commit to give a single lesson to Rarity soon after. it's an inconvenience, but one we COULD deal with if we had to.
That said, I'd still go for the last option. I don't expect us to abuse her (more than we did thus far, at least, and we TRIED to not abuse her. the worst we did to her is the leash, and we had a pretty good excuse in the "stop her from committing suicide via Comet Feet)
Relying on secrets in dealing with a moth Master...
Maybe if they were anything but moth that would work but we have a moth master. Dangling secrets in front of them like that is only going to get them invested in finding out what we're hiding.
more like relying on them being whimsical and not instantly laser-focused on acting against us. It's not like the Master has ever done the obvious or rational thing.
To the Lionsmiths great joy I'm sure.
I just hope we can betray the cult at the end of turn 17 instead of turn 16.
Still even betraying on turn 16 will let us get our moth sacrament we just have to prioritise it.
as Bird just said, plan with the expectation that next turn is our last turn with access to cult resources.
It would take a LOT of luck for us to last another turn. Or actions we're not really willing to take.
We decided to betray, so betray we shall.
MAYBE we can squeeze in that moth sacrament, but that's pretty unlikely. we need 3 more scraps, so unless we get most of them from mansus and expedition this turn, it's just not going to happen. Next turn, after all, we'll want to take advantage of Grail influence as much as we can, and we might want to go with a few rituals (Twilight horn healing, Velvet healing physical and maybe even mental...)
Grail could even give us a shot at turning at least the Hintseekers to our side, I think.
The Moth Sacrament is nowhere near important enough to put on the priority list compared to actually preparing for the betrayal, considering that, at the moment, that would require 3 Moth lessons + the actual Sacrament action; that's way, way too many actions for one (1) benefit. Like, we have our own option for Moth Sacrament. It's not even that difficult! People just don't like it. We're not going to be stuck at Moth 4 4/4 forever if we don't get the Master's Sacrament now.
We're still doing an expedition, a mansus expedition, and then whatever we do next turn. It's not impossible for us to reach the required scraps, just unlikely.
With that said, there's always the chance of, like we considered before, raising someone we actually dislike to Good Friend status, then leashing them, and then using them for the sacrament. That's still a bit distasteful, but still much better than giving up Rarity, Jade, or Twilight.
If we leave Ponyville we could even use Filthy Rich or Cheerilee for this... or, even better, Filthy Rich's wife, Spoiled Rich/MIlk (
who even named her that!?)
I think your underestimating both how useful the Master's Moth Sacrament would be for us and how distressful we find our personal sacrament.
What more did you want to do to prepare for the betrayal anyway?
Besides getting the Master Moth Sacrament is preparing for our betrayal. I would like to have enough moth to be able to prevent the Master from just forcefully summoning us again in the event we betray them.
If I had to guess, Lantern would help more in defending from the Master than moth. Especially HIS moth sacrament, which he'll perfectly know the strengths and weaknesses of.
Still, it WOULD give us an idea of what they're capable of too, I suppose... except that the sacrament would be our (current) peak in Moth, while they are FAR above it.
We're the Loremaster, the Lore Polymath. If we challenge someone, we have to do it in their weakness, not their strength.
...on that note, actually.
@BirdBodhisattva beyond the explicit bonuses, do we get some kind of situational bonus from the "superior" lore against someone else's one?
Like, if we had to fight Comet, would our Winter (the lore that subvers Edge) help any? or our Lantern against the Master, or... well, there's nothing subverting Knock now that I think about it.
damn you Velvet Axe!
4) Moving. I know Bird has said that staying in Ponyville is his preferred option, but staying in the home base of a hostile cult just. Seems like such a bad idea to me. Preferably Canterlot, but Soft might veto that. This would probably be multiple actions, not just one, but they'd all fall under the same category.
This is unlikely. The way I see it, If Soft Sweeps vetoes Canterlot AND we listen to her, then we're not moving. Ponyville is not really THAT much less safe, really. random cultists are not really a threat, and summons or the Master wouldn't have that much of a problem in moving to a different town to strike at us.
mechanically speaking, you can probably look at the cult bonus for ponyville actions as a measure of how bad it would be to stay here, and all things considered it's pretty low.
