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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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!

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)
 
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EDIT 2: Wait, what do you mean we tried that during the Changeling Attack?
-Ordering Baldomare to "go to the expedition, and obey the Master as if she was you" is just empty talk. Baldomare will either go as your minion, or as the Master's minion. The certainty of an eldritch contract of binding is the crucial difference between those two things. (That is the difference between "Obey" and "Object").
So that plan died before it even began sadly
 
I'm upset that every counter has been logical, so I'm going to sit in the toilet and think about even more out there solutions.

I believe this was asked of Bird and he basically said "What if Marinette doesnt want to stop the master?" which implies that no, she would 100% go along with it.

We would still be commanding her to do it, but I admit that she can still up and Second Birth. There's no 100% success option I can see so far.

EDIT:
So that plan died before it even began sadly

No, actually. What I'm saying here is that we keep Marienette as our minion, instead of handing the reins over to the Master.
 
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To doing the PROPER ritual, which requires a whole ton a set up with Stormy.
Actually, it's happening very soon the proper way, but otherwise the other considerations still remain so that doesn't make any difference

No, actually. What I'm saying here is that we keep Marienette as our minion, instead of handing the reins over to the Master.
Master: "No. Give me the Name".

At best:
Mareinettte: "Psss, Master, just agree and pretend to be reasonable, I'll go ahead with your plan anyway because I like it and Velvet won't find out to countermand me LOL"
 
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I've said this before a BUNCH of times so I won't waffle on about the geopolitical or moral ramifications of Accept, so I'll go with personal reasons why I would rather kill the Master than give him what he wants.

• As I said before, the Master does not care for us, we are a tool, a very interesting tool, a tool that is entertaining to watch work, but a tool nonetheless, and we will forever be worrying about the day when we STOP being interesting and he deems us to be more of an annoyance than a tool.

To the people who say "He's amoral! He doesn't cause evil on purpose unlike the Wolf!"

Being amoral does not mean that you don't have the capacity to inflict harm upon another person, he might think it's common sense to him, but to us it's utterly morally disgusting, but to US specifically, to ME specifically, I believe he is evil, his own confession of a "Greater Good" or not is irrelevant, he inflicts harm on us and our folks, therefore he is a danger to be removed.

• I personally do not like the Master and I want to exert control over the situation, prevent a tragedy from unfolding when we are in the perfect position to stop it, and having Velvet being complicit in it is... I don't know if I can stomach Velvet trying to gaslight herself into thinking that this is okay, or that the needs of the faceless masses are more important than her folks, she is often said to be a selfish person deep down and what's more selfish than helping her friend at the consequence of hurting strangers?

I think ultimately, I am selfish, I will not hide that, and killing the Master isn't just based off of narrative and factual logic, but emotion.

But I urge you, and everyone who is reading this:

We can account for the Wolf, but the Master is - by his nature - unpredictable and near impossible to plan around, he will be a COLOSSAL pain in the ass if we let him live, and so far, we benefit more from the Wolf than we will from the Master.

Victory can be attained in two ways that I can list off the top of my head:

1): Achieving objectives.

2): Denying others the chance to win.

To translate, we can win a race by either being faster, or by tripping up (killing) the other contestants.

Killing the Master accomplishes #2 and therefore allows us to continue pursuing Glory (and by proxy, victory), whereas Accept ensures that the Master (A force we have aligned ourselves against) is allowed to continue working towards his victory condition with a headstart on everything he will need.

Vote for Wolf, if not because of a desire to save our friend or pragmatic logic with removing a rival, then because you Hate the Master and want to deny him a victory, because you don't want the catalyst for so much suffering and grief that we have seen and experienced to just get off scott-free.

Vote Wolf, because we don't want this scumbag to have his cake and eat it too.
 
Right now we have, functionally, TWO options (well more yes but..)

We either A: Accept the Masters Offer, giving him Marionette, assisting in the assault of a dear friend on the greatest day of her life. This will end the life of Flurry Heart (the canonical daughter) before it even began, replacing her with an alicorn colt of The Master. We dont know how they will be, maybe they remember everything, maybe they dont, it honestly doesnt matter for this quest except it will effect our epilogue and the action of allowing "the greater good" for Cadance to be raped.

This is a pivotal POINT in her character, Velvet consigns the sanctity and trust of a dear friend for the greater good. As previously stated by Bird, this effects how Velvet see and views the world.

Or, option B. We call upon the Wolf-Divided and his regrettable deeds and excise The Master from the fate of all Histories with his power. We choose to disallow the rape of Cadance and The Master; whom thus far has shown themselves to be a capricious entity with little that aligns to us morally, to gain possibly immense power and a immensely powerful protector. This will cause havoc and maybe we regrets. But i dont think Velvet would ever regret protecting a friend and her family from such devious actions. I know i wouldnt.

I voted Wolf for these reasons. It is in Velvets character to sacrifice for those she loves, but she isnt a saint and we shouldnt expect her to be. Marionette, a user of GRAIL, whom eats CHILDREN would have immense dirt on us and we would be horrifically betraying a friend right after we had a lovely conversation about never leaving her.

Edit:
The Master has been a pain in our ass for so long and we have regretted helping them at many a turn. I know that us Accepting her offer will only tie but back when we were sO CLOSE TO FINALLY BEING FREE (we thought we were free of her, in our foolishness)

I say its time she is wiped from the board. For the good of our friends and family and luna/selene our beloved daughter and Cadance's child.
 
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Master: "No. Give me the Name".

At best:
Mareinettte: "Psss, Master, just agree and pretend to be reasonable, I'll go ahead with your plan anyway because I like it and Velvet won't find out to countermand me LOL"

Following Plan 1 could be considered a 'Refuse' vote, to be honest. But I honestly do not believe that's the at best possibility. Ludicrously, we could perv and enter the wedding chamber as well to 'make sure'.

Which is to say, I do not believe that's the at best possibility. I think there would be a roll or something, or possibly the utilisation of a mechanic like Second Birth or some negative trait, but I'll say it again: I do not believe that's the at best possibility.

This is a fictional quest, full of the art of words. Accepting does not mean we are amenable to it, but rather that Velvet Covers is amenable to it. Whatever choice in the end, it will be a choice Velvet Covers will have to live with. Also, nice meme!
 
Ludicrously, we could perv and enter the wedding chamber as well to 'make sure'.
Master: "And why would I spend the effort to hide you as well during an already finicky operation?"

selfish person deep down and what's more selfish than helping her friend at the consequence of hurting strangers
To be fair, while I agree with the (most of?) the rest of the post, isn't dooming the world further for the sake of your friends more selfish?

(Refer to my other posts as to why the calculations aren't that simple given Epilogue considerations and how I think the RA is better because of such)
 
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To those who aren't voting for Kill because "Nothing good ever comes from the Wolf", that's not necessarily always true:
[CONTESTED SUMMONING]



[SECRET HISTORIES]

[VELVET ROLL: 27 + 13 (Magic) + 40 (SECRET HISTORIES, Level 4) = 80]

[OPPONENT ROLL: 37 + 26 (Act?) + 20 (Blood?) -10 (Paranoia) = 73]

[VELVET COVERS VICTORY]



[KNOCK]

[VELVET ROLL: 3 51 (Re-roll invoked) + 13 (Magic) + 40 (KNOCK, Level 4) + 20 (Reagents) = 124]

[OPPONENT ROLL: 48 + 28 (Act?) + 40 (Blood?) – 10 (Paranoia) = 106]

[VELVET COVERS VICTORY]



[LANTERN]

[VELVET ROLL: 65 + 13 (Magic) + 40 (LANTERN, Level 4) + 40 (Reagents) = 158]

[OPPONENT ROLL: 93 + 46 (Act?) + 30 (Blood?) -10 (Paranoia) = 159]

[OPPONENT VICTORY]
The contested Baldomare summoning had Paranoia directly helping us by taking away from our opponent's rolls, and presumably will continue to do so for any other rolls Copper or Windy(Or anyone else!) make in the future. We would have actually lost that Secret Histories roll without Paranoia, and while we did have a Re-roll for it, the Moth roll for the PtN against Copper shows that we easily could have rolled low again.

So while yes, another Wolf like Treachery or Murder would be bad for any random pony out in Equestria, it's also true for our enemies. Our Sons don't seem to punish us specifically or the ponies that are closest to us, and in certain ways the Wolf Sons can actually help Velvet.
 
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I don't actually mind the Wolf action that much, but the number of stains are really getting up there. Wish we hadn't wasted one on some dinky little door, being a cultist without murder is really just a hobby club.
 
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we've got nearly ninety pages of discussion by now
Ngl, any new points in this discussion have mostly tapered out ages ago, and right now we are basically just collating points from N, N+1 pages ago so that the latest voters will hopefully see them before voting and consider them properly

and then the other side does the same thing for the same reason

and then there are replies and counterarguments and then and then and then another 10 pages have been used...
 
One, her lover wasn't being actively puppeted until just right now.
Two, Luna has the Lores as well as us directing her towards Shining Armor.

EDIT: I refuse to believe that there isn't a way out.
There is a way out. That way is the Wolf.
It's there because we managed to fool the Master about our loyalties to the point where they let themselves be vulnerable in front of us.

As Bird said, there are three criteria for the availability of a Regrettable Action: Velvet must be willing to do it, the Wolf must be able to do it, and it must be Wolf-Aligned in some manner.

That a Regrettable Action is even available to use against the Master is unique. We didn't get the option during the Cult Meetings where the Master was present, even while we were preparing our escape (fullfilling criteria one and three). My conclusion is that it was not possible, that the Wolf could not kill the Master during those Meetings. Maybe they weren't actually there? Maybe a Summon is too small a part of the greater being? I don't know.

There is something special about the transfer process that makes using a Wrong Key during it impossible, but allows the use of the Wolf. This was not confirmed by Bird, but I believe that we couldn't use a RA to kill the Master while they possess Shining (or us). Maybe the Master needs to be present itself (and thus in biting range of the Wolf) for the transfer process, maybe it's something else.

Whatever the exact mechanics behind it, our subterfuge has left the Master open to a single, treacherous, fatal strike. That this strike can only be done through the Wolf is a consequence of the power disparity between the Master and us. We simply can't kill the Master by ourselves.

Any possible way out after Accept is chosen still has to deal with that power disparity in addition to Mareinette now being on the Master's leash. It won't happen. It is a cope how we didn't really want to help the Master rape Cadence, there just wasn't a way out of it after choosing Accept.

We have our best way out of this, if we're willing to pay the price. Frankly, I think it's a bargain.
 
I really think permanently killing a Name with the Wolf will have very far reaching consequences tbh. I at least will expect other Names to be much more wary and much less friendly to Velvet.
 
I've said this before a BUNCH of times so I won't waffle on about the geopolitical or moral ramifications of Accept, so I'll go with personal reasons why I would rather kill the Master than give him what he wants.

• As I said before, the Master does not care for us, we are a tool, a very interesting tool, a tool that is entertaining to watch work, but a tool nonetheless, and we will forever be worrying about the day when we STOP being interesting and he deems us to be more of an annoyance than a tool.

To the people who say "He's amoral! He doesn't cause evil on purpose unlike the Wolf!"

Being amoral does not mean that you don't have the capacity to inflict harm upon another person, he might think it's common sense to him, but to us it's utterly morally disgusting, but to US specifically, to ME specifically, I believe he is evil, his own confession of a "Greater Good" or not is irrelevant, he inflicts harm on us and our folks, therefore he is a danger to be removed.

• I personally do not like the Master and I want to exert control over the situation, prevent a tragedy from unfolding when we are in the perfect position to stop it, and having Velvet being complicit in it is... I don't know if I can stomach Velvet trying to gaslight herself into thinking that this is okay, or that the needs of the faceless masses are more important than her folks, she is often said to be a selfish person deep down and what's more selfish than helping her friend at the consequence of hurting strangers?

I think ultimately, I am selfish, I will not hide that, and killing the Master isn't just based off of narrative and factual logic, but emotion.

But I urge you, and everyone who is reading this:

We can account for the Wolf, but the Master is - by his nature - unpredictable and near impossible to plan around, he will be a COLOSSAL pain in the ass if we let him live, and so far, we benefit more from the Wolf than we will from the Master.

Victory can be attained in two ways that I can list off the top of my head:

1): Achieving objectives.

2): Denying others the chance to win.

To translate, we can win a race by either being faster, or by tripping up (killing) the other contestants.

Killing the Master accomplishes #2 and therefore allows us to continue pursuing Glory (and by proxy, victory), whereas Accept ensures that the Master (A force we have aligned ourselves against) is allowed to continue working towards his victory condition with a headstart on everything he will need.

Vote for Wolf, if not because of a desire to save our friend or pragmatic logic with removing a rival, then because you Hate the Master and want to deny him a victory, because you don't want the catalyst for so much suffering and grief that we have seen and experienced to just get off scott-free.

Vote Wolf, because we don't want this scumbag to have his cake and eat it too.

Accept takes the Master out of the Quest, full stop. I don't like the option, and am not voting for it, but it does remove the Master from the quest. They will stop bothering us, interfering with our plans, and so on because they will be too busy gestating. He will be in the epilogue, but that's all.

Heck, for all we know, killing the Master could even give us a Moth sacrament for such a level of deception/trickery, could be that killing him gives more benefit than the gift.

Such a benefit would be listed in the mechanical benefits. Also the Wolf is doing the killing, not us.

Now that I'm thinking about it, as far as we know the Master's current plan is to Snuff the Lights.

What if the reason he wants to have an Alicorn body isn't for the authority it would grant him in the Wake, but to have a strong, direct, and personal connection to Harmony, so that he can use the Lores to Strangle it to death.

Master's current plan is all of the plans. Because if he can reach Harmony, he can teach it. If it won't learn, he can snuff it. If he can take a measure of it's power, he could open the door to Glory.

Or he could Moth and throw himself into the shining core of the world and be incinerated like the smaller worms around alicorns. They are a capricious creature.

technically he said a few ways he MIGHT behave, not his exact approach.

But we have good reasons to NOT be optimistic about it.


I don't think I agree.

I think it's more like the Master is a tyrant (or would-be-tyrant), while the Wolf is a plague.

They both have the potential to be extremely bad. Spanish Flu was devastating, but WW2 (arguably started off mostly by the actions of a tyrant) caused a comparable amount of deaths.

And, all the same, we have less deadly diseases just like we have less "deadly" tyrants.


The Hope is that by then we'll have done enough that he'll no longer be a superior, but we'll either be a peer or superior ourselves, possibly after having empowered other beings to be our allies too, or made more allies (Names, confidants who might ascend too, the other Alicorns, Harmony...)

we admittedly do NOT know how bad of a problem he'll be in the Epilogue.


You know, I'm tempted to have Mareinette's action next turn (especially if the Master died) to be her delivering a letter to Copper.

Explaining how the first ritual was from the Master, that we were both tricked, and that as a gesture of good faith we will NOT send another ritual or openly act against her again as long as she doesn't do it first. And also that we won't direct the Bureau against her (though we won't be able to STOP IT from looking her way, so she might want to keep her head down..

and then we add a note that we PUNISHED the Master for playing this trick on us, and she doesn't have to worry about them trying it ever again.
you know, our usual attempt to be reassuring while actually scaring someone else shitless!

Oh, and maybe add a note that we reached the top of the mansus, and it's a dead end, that the Master was lying to us about Glory being available, and she might as well give up and settle down. She'll never believe us, but it will be funny when she reaches that point and realizes we were not lying about having reached the top already.


emphasys on "could". not "will".

I imagine it will depend on the specific epilogue we reach. If we got Moon ending alone, for example, that's probably the most promising scenario for the Master. Wolf ending too, actually, he could lead the few survivors left after all.

with Harmony or especially Glory... who knows.

and I still wonder what happens if we satisfy the conditions for multiple endings.


That's a fair point.

There is such a thing as "becoming the mask" though...


Well, we'd be the ONLY Hour (except for Wolf), so yeah, I assume we'd be able and willing to act.

That said, we admittedly do not know if reaching Glory = Hourhood.

It's been a common assumption, but we just don't know what happens at that point.
for the rest, you have good points. I suppose our best hope would be that the Master would be not-malignant tumor rather than a cancer, to keep to that theme.


I think the implication was it applied twice, for Cadre and for Copper/Main Ritualist.


Possession is the naive, giving-up option where we accept the Master deciding they know best while making a last desperate deal to spare a single friend from suffering.

If you want the MORAL choice, that's Banish. It creates suffering, but as a consequence of "doing what's right instead of what is easy".

I don't WANT that option to win, but it's hard to argue that's the "morally superior" option, at least if you're not willing to give up/compromise (which is basically Accept)


Definitely true.

This has been by far the most controversial vote thus far, with the most pages of discussion (WE'RE AT 80 PAGES) and it's not even over yet!

it HAS been tiring AND for many also stressfull to follow. There's no shame in sticking to your first decision, or to just bow out.


well, not really.

Wolf is Global. Banish is at least country-wide effects (Equestria Morale goes down), and Alicorn Master is country or global... eventually.

and Offer yourself is also country-wide. possibly global in that it makes the Master's position better immediately.


and yet it's also not that uncommon for those people to come back!

...and sometimes then leave again, admittedly.


no, you see, they had recently acquired that warehouse, they stored animals they sold to gryphons for meat there!
and/or
No, you see, that's where the MOB kept the prisoners, we just recently took it from them!
IT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!
:V



To be fair there was a nat100 escape roll involved, then us taking Selene for ourselves, and finally the Changeling taking the chance of missing Luna to act.


MECHANICALLY correct.

narratively, of course...


well, if the Master is the LAST great being of Moth, I COULD see something happening with is death. Maybe the Woods will dry, or the Moth lore will become weaker? It's really just a baseless guess though


True.

I mean, literally everyone is saying that ALL OPTIONS SUCK.

We're arguing about which we PERSONALLY believe sucks less. And that's deeply subjective.


Agreed to a point. We NEED more power, this update showed it. And Sacraments are a source of great power.

As of right now the Only sacrament i'm kind of heavily against is... probably personal grail, which to be fair is really hard to get for us anyway.


mh... probably not a hiatus, unless the mods actually went against Bird. But in this case the fault would I think mostly be on the players for the misunderstandment. I expect there would have been quite a few X-days threadbans.

Probably we would have frozen for a week or two though. I could see that.


It's a weird kind of Mercy.

He spared Comet when he had decided to kill him after he game him an excuse.

He didn't force his cultists to watch the truth of the Worms, all that time ago.

He's technically allowing Velvet to refuse (though that's not really merciful).

he's... weird.


Side note, I think that if we REALLY wanted to "fix" the Wolf, our best bet would be to do it BEFORE the Epilogue.

right now we're a mortal. a sufficiently powerful and targeted ritual COULD probably "repair" the wounds in our soul.

But once we become an Hour (if that's actually what happens when we reach Glory) then I imagine our soul becomes more solid, more difficult to change.

I suspect the stains we'll have then will be there to stay, until at least the time (if it ever comes) that the Wolf dies or is healed.


Arguably we could just go for a lvl 7 at that poin
note: he was NOT going to become a confidant. That WOULD have required extra actions.

As a good friend the best I can see was him granting us discounts on purchases of artifacts and/or reagents and/or books, but not an actual source of income.

Though I'll admit an action as a marriage counselor (maybe done by Mareinette) would have likely been enough.


I'M TIRED, WHEN DOES IT END?!

oh, 4 more pages, I'm almost there!
Yes, and we'd also be getting another 3 ponies up to good friend at the same time. Rarity just went from minion to minion with an undetermined presumed increase to bits for us.
He would need 2 turns just get back to the wake, and even then it is unlikely the odds of anybody making the rolls is bad. And Moth name openly attacking is quite impossible for him, moving openly is literally sacrilege to him. He would move in the hidden corners of the world if at all. Reminder Velvet is not important to the master, frankly Velvet even as an enemy is not worth the Master's time to fight. Especially when the Master has a ton of stuff that matters. Reminder climbing is better then sabotaging the competition, the Master knows that.
You keep saying the Master will need 2 turns to return when Bird has expressly said that we do not know if they have a cooldown or not.
"I could lampoon my foe with a certain very ancient mocking gesture... leaving myself open to attack. Perhaps the Hour called Lionsmith would enjoy my audacity." :V

"Imagine only being able to crush worms rather than deleting them so thoroughly you don't need a prison that is both inside and outside your home for their corpses." - Luna, at the end of this turn
 
I really think permanently killing a Name with the Wolf will have very far reaching consequences tbh. I at least will expect other Names to be much more wary and much less friendly to Velvet.
I think you are right, and we are about to lose the chance to befriend Names like Baldomare and Axe. Marinette and Biedde probably don't care.
 
I think you are right, and we are about to lose the chance to befriend Names like Baldomare and Axe. Marinette and Biedde probably don't care.
I really think permanently killing a Name with the Wolf will have very far reaching consequences tbh. I at least will expect other Names to be much more wary and much less friendly to Velvet.
In regards for other names disliking us for wolfing, Bird had this to say iirc "I like the ideas BUT decided against it, it won't happen"
 
Honestly, showing that we're willing to Wolf a Name when backed into a corner might work as a good deterrent for keeping Mareinette from pushing her luck too far.
 
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