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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Starlit Horizon said:
These calculations do not include opportunity costs of selling them if the latter consumes any AP.
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That's really the thing. Selling all books, assuming we can do it without using a full action (have servants do it) might maybe give us back half their purchase cost, I imagine, if it's allowed.

That would be...

BirdBodhisattva said:
BOOK, HEART Level 1. "A small book that covers a particular kind of elegant dancing".
BOOK EDGE Level 1. "The title is self-explanatory: 'Four self-defense spells every unicorn should know'. You doubt they are anything more than different variations of concentrated telekinesis."
BOOK, FORGE Level 1. "A small handbook on camping, explaining the basics of how to build a tent and start a small fire".
BOOK KNOCK Level 2. "A fairly recent, and short, book about dream interpretation. You know it is recent because it was dedicated to Princess Luna's return".
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7+7+7+15= they're worth 36 bits. so if we sold them... maybe 18? I imagine we'd do it through our servants, because a full option is NOT worth only 18 bits. I don't even think it's worth a SERVANT action.

Yeah, I think we might as well keep them from padding, but mostly because selling them is likely not worth the time spent.

BirdBodhisattva said:
You are only partially right. But receiving an Influence won't give you a "scrap of Level X". Otherwise, a Level 4 Influence would give you "one scrap of level 7.5", and by book-reading logic that would translate to being worth two (or more) scraps of the lower level you are on.

So Influences follow their own rules. Level 4 gives you one scrap, Level 3 gives you one scrap of you have not yet Sacrament'd.
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:(

BirdBodhisattva said:
Yes. Through other means that still exist, but are cumbersome.

Jade managed to sneak her way into researching that thanks to her Nat100 on Selene.
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if it's no longer relevant can you tell us? I'd guess it's through Baldomare.

BirdBodhisattva said:
Buying a book and then selling them without reading is just sad. So no.
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eh, the game allows it. but the low level books we have are so cheap that there's really no point.

maybe if/when we get Lantern Sacrament we'll get an automatic studying action. It would make sense, considering our Realization actions gives us touch-reading and even allowed us to go through our work papers faster.

Greymere said:
Geez, you're acting like we're never going to summon Mareinette ever. It's probably going to end up happening T17 anyway.
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and if not then, definitely by turn 20 anyway. we WILL summon her at some point, as there's always a risk of Copper getting to her at some point... it's a question of when.

...well, we might not summon her if we find an "alternative" to remove her from the church, maybe... but Heart and Grail sacraments and her lessons and influences are REALLY tempting.
 
Well, if we could just get a Max influence, remove our Frightened trait, add an Attentikn of the Laws and get to Level Four first we only need a +50 from somewhere to get to +140. At that point Marinette can't hurt Velvet unless she has some other combat advantage. Given the massive disparity in health, I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to fight her without something in that general area of bullshit.
 
You know talking about health, how about that hert ritual im CN that adds a health card. It translates well to giving one more HP.
 
It should be noted that while the Mareinette isn't a Name, and likely more comparable to Name summon, her demonstrated capability wasn't demonstrated in a battle, but rather during a dialogue.

I would not be at all surprised if Mareinette can pull another +20 or so to personal combat, or maybe debuff her opponent by a similar amount by distracting tgem with Grail.

Or maybe even both of those things if things get really serious.

You can't survive as a Ligeian if you are only upper heroic mortal tier combatant and have no tricks in your sleeves, otherwise you would have been murdered a long time ago.

That's still low end, even.
 
Eh… it is notable that, in canon CS, even mortals can take on Names and win. One of the Exile victories has you becoming an assassin capable of beating King Crucible. Heroic Mortal tier isn't actually that bad.

And Ligeians probably get by on making most people not want to kill them, or at least not kill enough that someone actually puts in the necessary effort.
 
So, who else is really excited to see how Selene's Winter 3 lesson goes?

I kind of hope they all end up being as eerie and eldritch as the Moth one was :V
 
All Key-holders are at very lucrative position, yes, but there's a reason only Medusa is still around from the times of Lithomachy, all other Ligeians are explicitly younger.

A part of that can be due to collective action of the club, and that can be quite significant, but it doesn't mean that Keys aren't highly sought after, nor will it save you if someone accepts the risks and wants to try anyway.

After all, if you hold it, then all the benefits of the position go to you, and with literally every other path up in ranks closed for you, do you even have an alternative way to climb or "climb"?

All members of Ligeia Club must be, by necessarity, at least capable of surviving. Sure, 1470 or so Long isn't that much, and amount of them fallen is even less, but it is bound to be enough to at least sometime try to get the Keys.

Plus, again, Mareinette survived when even most Hours have perished. Every other Name we know of has very simple way of surviving.

Baldomare isn't your rank-and-file Lantern Name. We don't know the exact timetable, but in CS canon Teresa has managed to earn Name status in about 11 years, if not less. Under 20 for sure. IIRC, in 1929 she is still with Illopoly and during the game, which is somewhere in the 1930s she is already up there. Plus, daughter of a Lantern Long. She is serious business, even by the standards of her status.

Neighnia is a Winter Name, and while we don't know the details, Winter Long are known to be ultra immortal until the date of their death arrives. If she wasn't destined to die, she shouldn't have died.

Doa is a bit of outlier, but she simply was in her room the entire time, being bound and all.

Mareinette? She isn't some reclusive figure. She isn't forgettable, either, as in-between shit starting going down (which opens positions in the ranks of Names and even Hours) and everyone dying, there must have been those trying to grab power. That's simply occultists for you.

Thus, it is highly unlikely that Our Lady of Wires has missed action.

And yet, Mareinette has survived the Apocalypse.
 
Starlit Horizon said:
Mareinette? She isn't some reclusive figure. She isn't forgettable, either, as in-between shit starting going down (which opens positions in the ranks of Names and even Hours) and everyone dying, there must have been those trying to grab power. That's simply occultists for you.

Thus, it is highly unlikely that Our Lady of Wires has missed action.

And yet, Mareinette has survived the Apocalypse.
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more than that, even, Mareinette is physically present in the Mansus, AND at the same time she can physically leave it.

I think that's a first. if I remember right the Lantern Ascension has you become a bodyless being, made of thought, that lives ONLY in the Mansus, but most other options have you still live in the Wake, don't they?

And all the Names we currently know about live in the Mansus and we can only summon a part of them into the Wake.

And yet, Mareinette breaks that rule. Then again, Mareinette, as an Alukite AND a Ligeian breaks a LOT of rules...
 
To be honest, there's a record of Wake dwelling Hours (the Seven Coils and the Vagabond), so a "reverse situation" has sort of happened before?

Also, there's a record of a Long physically travel to and through the Nowhere (and then back). On a ship.
 
Eh... At least in some cases, some Names may be unable to enter the Wake, sort of?

We know that morphologically, Lantern Long and Lantern Names are very similar, if not identical. Lantern Long, we also know, lack body but can enter a mirror, lens or light-source in the physical world, called scrine, and have limited, but present effect on the world, and even risk to die if scrine is destroyed.

Does it count as "entering the Wake" proper is debatable.

Edit: thinking about it, spoilered the info, it uses worldbuilding from TLA.
Glau said:
Oh. I figured the enormous amount of keys she kept making had something to do with it.
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Eh, I think you wrong? Because we basically know why Wrong Keys are wrong - they don't open, not Doa's bindings, but she keeps the work going.

She just wants to free herself.
 
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  • Voting
    • Scheduled vote count started by BirdBodhisattva on Jun 11, 2023 at 3:39 PM, finished with 398 posts and 37 votes.
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    • Starlit Horizon said:
    Eh, I think you wrong? Because we basically know why Wrong Keys are wrong - they don't open, not Doa's bindings, but she keeps the work going.

    She just wants to free herself.
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    More specifically, they close.

    They're wrong because they do the OPPOSITE of what a knock key is supposed to do. They're keys that only "close" the opened path between the caster of a ritual and its target.
     
    Pittauro said:
    They're wrong because they do the OPPOSITE of what a knock key is supposed to do. They're keys that only "close" the opened path between the caster of a ritual and its target.
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    Seems like the knock went somewhere else during the creation process then. Like, to DoA, leaving the produced keys empty of it.
     
    BirdBodhisattva said:
    Scheduled vote count started by BirdBodhisattva on Jun 11, 2023 at 3:39 PM, finished with 398 posts and 37 votes.
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    See sad bird.
     
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