Well, yeah.
Discord was the first Outsider. And while Celestia and and Luna are the... embodyment? Champions? Things, of Harmony, Harmony was the outsider. Not them.
I'll repeat that just to be a little emphatic.
Discord, themselves, is the Outsider. The first to breach Equestria. He's... big.
Actually no?
We don't KNOW if Harmony is an Outsider or not. We KNOW that Luna and Celestia are HALF of an Outsider each, who entered the world by birth by decree of Harmony.
and Luna and Celestia are implied in canon to have come BEFORE Discord, so there's an argument to be made that they MIGHT be the first Outsiders, and Discord came later.
All of this is irrelevant to their strenght though. Who ever said that the first Outsider has to be stronger than the second one? and presumably Celestia and Luna are weaker by virtue of being half of the original being each.
That said, it's been a thousand years. It's possible they're now stronger, and that if they fought together going all out they MIGHT be able to challenge Discord.
In canon we actually see Tirek absorbing Discord's magic, and Twilight channeling the strenght of 4 Alicorns actually is at a stalemate with him. Which implies that 4 Alicorns = Discord + Tirek + lots of pony magic.
Then again, admittedly Tirek doesn't use CHAOS powers, only raw strenght and energy blasts, so he's probably weaker than the sum of the magic he absorbed.
You guys don't want to commit crimes or do morally reprehensible actions, but you are excited to have Mareinette sell goods? How would Mareinette do it in a way that is exceptionally advantageous without doing something reprehensible or manipulative?
I don't want to get into the discussion of "is Grail manipulation is always mind control?" But really. If you want a Name to generate funds, either commit to it entirely or don't do it at all.
I mean, I don't think we'd care if she charmed a noble out of their funds. Nobles are wealthy enough they wouldn't even NOTICE a few THOUSAND bits missing usually.
We mostly want to avoid totally ruining someone's live and/or killing them. Selling for 1000 a trinker that's only worth 100 at best is not really ruining someone that wealthy.
Nothing in the game has suggested that anything other than the Names can offer Sacrament invitation. So I don't see why you should try that scrying.
hope for an alternative?
The implication that there's literally no source of Moth Sacrament left in the world is kinda sad.
Name-given influences fade at the end of the turn.
That is a small and intentional way for you to not be able to take Name-given influences to All In.
Plus, as you said, narratively Velvet would fear said unbefriended Name would have their eyes on her during the expedition, if she tried.
So no unbefriended-Names aid during All In.
I suppose that a friendly Name would just... use the Influence themselves for All In, and then maybe give it to us for Malleary instead.
We're still here. Personally, I just get so tired at the thought of having to argue against
eating people. It should be the absolute minimum of moral standards. It's vile, it would be wildly out of character for Velvet in my opinion, and as
@OurLadyOfWires pointed out, it
isn't necesarry.
We'll see how it turns out if it comes to the actual vote, because it might well be that the Cannibalists, like the Lupines, are merely a very loud minority.
I get the frustration, though the absolute minimum of moral standards should be about not causing gratuitous pain, which includes not killing innocents when necessary.
Is it really that different eating someone vs KILLING someone? they're dead either way.
I'm more concerned about the WHO. It's one thing to use a foal peddler/serial killer for the Grail Sacrament, it's completely different to use Spoiled Rich, and it would be far FAR worse to use, say, Cherilee or Scootaloo for it.
We can get more if we indicate that follower is allowed to use illegal means to sell them. And least this is how I understood QM post. As for studying artifact I am not sure if it actually helps with selling them to mundane ponies. I mean claiming that this clearly non magical carpet would heal you during selling looks somewhat shady.
well, you then have a pony walk on it and suddenly the magic is working.
Most ponies would likely just assume it's a different kind of magic. Like, maybe the carpet was made by another race in another country and they have different magics there.
Actually not true. We know that Hours give Sacraments too. And while we have found only one in Mansus there is still Mansus reflection on the Moon. I even remember line form the game that Wheel still turns in the House of the Moon . And Moon ending mentions returning old hours to live so meeting some echoes of them beforehand is not out of question.
oh, but if we're talking of Tapestry ritual, that explicitly does NOT work in the Mansus (and House of the Moon IS in the Mansus "dimension"), so this source would have to be in the Wake.
Either a Long who has the "very great" trait, or a Name that's physically in the Wake (like Neighnia maybe? Or Mareinette), or an HOUR which is physically in the Wake (Vagabond?).
Unless there's something else that can, like some kind of super-artifact whose whole power is "can unlock Sacraments".
Actually, thinking about this a little further, I'm going to argue for this harder. Our current issue with challenging Biedde is that we have limited ways to boost our combat rolls, and it's pretty much just max Influence + Edge AotL which still only get us to a 1-in-5 chance (edit: of failure) at best. However. If our Forge Sacrament power works the way we suspect it will, making potions to give reagent-like boosts to other actions, then doing our Forge Sacrament before challenging Biedde actually could give us a way to make our Edge Sacrament more reliable, and the how of it is pretty straightforward. Do a Forge lesson + unboosted Sacrament attempt this turn, then Forge Influence + two boosted Sacrament attempts next turn; or vice versa, with two attempts + Influence this turn and one attempt + lesson next turn, though that would require taking Rarity's commission action again to get enough bits and sacrificing a bit of Name AP (edit: aka probably Biedde's, lmao) to wring an additional AP slot out of the ether.
Edit: And, of course, if the Forge Name effectively starts out befriended due to the whole (re)building them from scratch with love thing the ritual narrative has going on, then "building a prison" and "getting the ball rolling on the Forge Sacrament" are not mutually exclusive either, Or we could take a Forge lesson in addition to the Influence just in case we do hit the ~55% chance with only two Influence-boosted attempts.
not a bad point, though of course the Forge Sacrament potentially being usable for Edge bonuses through potions is just a guess, if a reasonable one.
I THINK 80% is high enough I'm willing to risk it, personally. As long as we don't start Dancing with Death we can recover from this if we're THAT unlucky, and 80% is still all things considered good odds.
I've come back around to wanting to do Bieddes invitation this turn. Blood can be replenished. Time cannot. I'm really really glad that personal Forge was pointed out as an option, as we can simply rely on it for the rematch if we need it and can abandon the idea to scry for a weapon. At risk of hubris we aren't planning on anything personally dangerous on T23 anyway, so we can just play with potions while we recover if we fail, and rematch on T25 or so.
Plus getting Edge sacrament now means we finally get access back to the ability to ask Biedde for lessons. A Sacrament this turn makes Edge 6 at least possible.
Man if we beat the Edge duel and win the forge coin flip on next turn as well as grailmoth, Secret Histories would end up being our sixth sacrament. That's absolutely pathetic for a supposed SH-Branded
yeah, this.
Though Edge 6 is probably unlikely. 6 scraps means potentially 6 lessons necessary... I don't think we have that much time due to Celestia, unless we get really lucky.
The Everfree Forest is right next to our town and contains both Manticores and Hydras. I really dont think we need to worry about that. Biedde is going to do the world a favor. Maybe he might gank a dragon if we pick a long monster hunt, but there is absolutely no way he isn't going to stack manticores and hydras like cordwood considering how the Colonel feels about those things.
Seriously, the Colonel takes monster hunting seriously, and it doesn't refer to crimefighting when he does it. Dude killed the Seven-Coiled.
A
canon CS example of a Colonel servant going off on a short monster hunt in the Exile legacy.
Fluttershy will get sad
Agreed on Biedde being either indispensable or use-impaired depending on context though. That's why I think the long-monster-hunt really wasn't appreciated as an option as much as it should have been. It's not just that it's marginally cheaper per AP, it means we can get him to fuck off and not have us pay for an AP on a turn where we aren't going to need him without committing to him being unreachable for 3 whole turns. Of course, if we pass his Sacrament then he can do Edge lessons, which are well worth the 60 bits to try and hit Edge 6 on top of the free Guard bundled in.
Honestly if we get the Sacrament I think I'd be fine taking the 100 bits option next turn, or at least on the first turn we don't plan to send him on an expedition or to use him to get a prisoner.
60 bits for an edge lesson IN A VACUUM is a good deal. Problem is that we need SIX to reach Edge 6, and I don't think we have the time for that, so it might just be better to give up on it, especially if we're short on bits for expeditions and other stuff.
DoA (2) - Search for intermediate expeditions (x2)
mh...
@OurLadyOfWires how does the wrong keys countdown work? Can we already ask for 3 keys as we're in a new "3-turns" timespan, or do we need to wait 3 turns since the last time we asked?
Depending on the answer we might want to get more keys now.
1+2) Study: Moth 5 book, Lantern 4 artifact, Winter 4 artifact, Manehattan book
just a reminder, but 1 study action is either 3 books OR 2 artifacts OR 1 book + 1 artifact. If we somehow finished both moth 5 in one action we'd probably want Manehattan Book to come first before the artifacts in the order, otherwise it's basically a "lost" study point.
and if we finish moth + manehattan in 2 points, that leaves a third point for one of the otherwise never-going-to-be-studied low level books.
