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

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Any thoughts on the Mansus option? It COULD be the best high-paced option. Hard to know. Even Celestia can't climb the Mansus instantly.

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I really don't want the person who could decide to burn the world meeting the entity that would highly recommend burning the whole world. Just seems like a recipe for a lot of unnecessary burning.

Just let her turn up the heat in the Castle and allow Cadance to reach through to her with a one-time Deposit of AP, we will hit her with concerned Alicorns on two fronts!

 

[ses]

[] Outsiders are forbidden from entering the House of the Sun. What did she do? What. Did. She. Do?
-Princess Celestia will have the Dream.
-This will only be possible due to a scandalous violation.
-This option will have additional negative consequences you cannot predict at this moment. (This is your "fair warning" for exceptional unpredictability.)

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I really don't want the person who could decide to burn the world meeting the entity that would highly recommend burning the whole world. Just seems like a recipe for a lot of unnecessary burning.

Just let her turn up the heat in the Castle and allow Cadance to reach through to her with a one-time Deposit of AP, we will hit her with concerned Alicorns on two fronts!

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>Ash and Daybreaker mood kindreds
>scandalous violation

KNOTTED

This is your moment shippers

 

[spiderhellian]

I, for one, have been curious about Hyperthermia mechanics for eons and would be fascinated to see what they entail!

 

[Sintonir]

Do we actually have anything time-sensitive other than a prisoner for the next turn?
Surely we can commit to the damage control for one turn, right?

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Do we actually have anything time-sensitive other than a prisoner for the next turn?
Surely we can commit to the damage control for one turn, right?

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If by "commit" you mean spend slightly over half Velvet's AP while her Names and friends still all work to further her cause, then yes.

 

[ses]

Do we actually have anything time-sensitive other than a prisoner for the next turn?
Surely we can commit to the damage control for one turn, right?

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We'd need to decide if we're okay with Mayor Mare getting SHOVEL'd in exchange for better odds on the Sun Monster not deciding to burninate the countryside. Other than that we've got Moth Sacrament, Invitation to Dinner, SH Sacrament and possibly Forge Reagent purification if we want to not take the risk on the Choked City. We can afford 4 or so Velvet AP on Cadance help depending on our choices.

2 cover your bases, social action, and Constables AP gets us 4 Velvet AP if we do triple sacraments and Forge Reagent purification. We could drop one AP for saving mayor mare, or we could get one more by having followers do the Choked City expedition.

 

[spiderhellian]

Do we actually have anything time-sensitive other than a prisoner for the next turn?
Surely we can commit to the damage control for one turn, right?

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Moth Sacrament or else we risk immolation if Celestia reaches Lantern 4 next turn.

Grail Sacrament with Mareinette unless we want to pay her binding price.

Probably we can argue over whether we can afford to scrape one more extra personal action our, and could put that to idk, Smiles or Cherenkolt befriending or a social thing.

 

[ses]

Technically we could have Baldomare give us a Lantern lesson instead of doing SH sacrament, and then after befriending her we do SH(Baldomare)+Lantern(Baldomare) on turn 24? That'd get us an extra 40 bits and 1 Velvet AP next turn for Cadance but it'd mean delaying SH progression again

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Really we should just get Mareinette, Cherenkolt, and Smiles together to devise a ritual where we reforge Celestia into a filly and adopt her, skipping all of this nonsense. Our track record for therapeutic rechilding is flawless!

 

[Sveta08]

Any thoughts on the Mansus option? It COULD be the best high-paced option. Hard to know. Even Celestia can't climb the Mansus instantly.

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No.

I will dispense with what theatrics I can. I am about 80% certain that is having Celestia kinda... divorce herself from Harmony. Some of you might find that interesting. The consequences of which are too too far reaching.

No.

 

[Greymere]

@OurLadyOfWires is the Cadance situation like how DoA's Sacrament was? In that, the number of necessary AP is unknown, but if we overshoot it we can reassign the extra AP afterwards?

 

[DelightedOne]

[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

May Harmony guide us.

Editing a new vote to avoid bad option.

[X] Princess Celestia has spoken once more, at last. She decrees that her sister be found. Equestria moves to obey.

 

[Sk1lz3r]

We need to fix this, and this seems to be the best choice.

[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

 

[dcoconeo]

[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

 

[Shaper47]

[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

We have Mareinette to throw at this problem.


[X] Outsiders are forbidden from entering the House of the Sun. What did she do? What. Did. She. Do?
-This will only be possible due to a scandalous violation.

To interesting to not pick even if it probably won't win.

The Lionsmith compelles this option to be picked.

 

[Greymere]

[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

Edit: Approval vote

[X] Princess Celestia has spoken once more, at last. She decrees that her sister be found. Equestria moves to obey.

 

[DelightedOne]

Oh my glob! I just found a half done omake about Cadance leveling up to All-1 that I forgot I had written.

This is perfect if Apartment wins!

 

[Greymere]

Oh my glob! I just found a half done omake about Cadance leveling up to All-1 that I forgot I had written.

This is perfect if Apartment wins!

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I'd be pretty surprised if it doesn't, tbh. The Bureau option's AP efficiency over the next two turns just doesn't work in our favor, Glare actively hampers our sprint to the finish line, and Mansus might as well have This Is a Bad Idea scrawled on it in red marker.

 

[dcoconeo]

Also, imagine us "looking" for the Princess when part of the Bureau "knows" where she is, how would we even explain that without causing undue issues?

 

[Waela]

[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

Yikes, gotta fix this.

 

[Greymere]

Technically we could have Baldomare give us a Lantern lesson instead of doing SH sacrament, and then after befriending her we do SH(Baldomare)+Lantern(Baldomare) on turn 24? That'd get us an extra 40 bits and 1 Velvet AP next turn for Cadance but it'd mean delaying SH progression again

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Mostly, I still want to do it next turn because a) in the unlikely event we get wounded, we'd be guaranteed to have a turn to heal, and b) I want us to at least have a chance of actually being able to use the Sacrament power before we rush off into All In

But it does make some sense to do SH + Lantern on T24, since I doubt we're going to bother with trying to scry All In. At that point, whatever we've got prepared is what we've got.

 

[Pittauro]

So, both the filly and the alicorn inside of you came to a consensus, that "acting decisively" and "running to your mother" can both happen at the same time.

Perhaps in another Era you would have been embarrassed by the thought of "decisively running to your mother for help." But you remember enough to know that pride, and a refusal to ask for assistance, was what caused your downfall in your previous life. And you cannot, will not, squander this second chance you were given.

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lessons learned, yeah.

Sure, act decisively, but try to keep a contingency plan. If Celestia had known, MAYBE Nightmare Moon wouldn't have happened.

Also ouch seems that things are truly dire!

But your eyes are burning and your throat is seizing up and why is your mom putting down her tea and looking at you like that?

"… I don't know what to do," you cough out.

And before you realize it, your mother's horn lights up, you are quickly brought between her forelegs, and you begin to tell her what happened.

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Here is the secret, Selene: We don't know either

But we're good at faking it until we make it (or crash and burn)

At the very top of the skies, glaring down at the endless desert, is a red and wrathful sun. Its oppressive light reaching every corner of this dream, and its disdain burning anything that dares to leave the sands where they are meant to grovel.

The symbolism is obvious.

In this dream, the Monster is the sun. And although it is trapped in the skies, it will do everything in its power to make your sister languish under its gaze.

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Truly terrible dreams, and harrowing prisons that hurt the prisoner as much as the prison guard (and prison herself)

She was a pony, but only that. She had no wings on her back, no horn on her head, and no cutie mark on her flank. She was not an earth pony either. Instead, she was the bare minimum a pony could ever be while still being called such, a husk stripped down to its bare components.

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I'm reminded of what's left after passing the Blank Door.

And then, Celestia was gone. All that was left of her were the clumps of sand on your hoofs, damp from the liquid leaking from your eyes, and the pain you FELT she is going through, during the split second you were together.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!​

Moments later, the sun began to swell in the sky, the water in the oasis evaporated, and the sands began to heat up as if they were burning coals.

And there was nothing you could do but leave.

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...task succesfully failed?

Regardless of the option you pick, Selene has informed you that Celestia will reach Lantern 3 by the beginning of Turn 23.

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We should assume, for safety, that she'll continue to gain one level per turn.

That means beginning turn 25 would be Lantern 5, and our current deadline.

[Soothe the night, breakpoints variable]

[Roll: 2]

[Winter-related Realization. Re-roll invoked.]

[Roll: 7]

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...Damn it Selene, you had one job!

[] One day the sun stopped moving, and everypony swore that it was looking directly at them. It is very hard to live a normal life when the sun no longer sets.
-All actions that involve the Lore of Lantern will receive a "+10 (Glare)" bonus.
-All actions that do not involve the Lore of Lantern will instead receive a "-10 (Glare)" malus.
-All actions that involve the Lore of Moth will receive a further "-10" penalty, to a total of "-20 (Glare)" malus.

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Eternal Day. the dice malus is the LEAST of everyone's problems here, and mostly just a representation of "eternal day makes everything worse".

I mean, damn, this is worse than the effect of Paranoia on the world!

I suppose the upside is that Changeling would find it harder to hide, and we'd find it easier to find them? That's kinda it.

[] Princess Celestia has spoken once more, at last. She decrees that her sister be found. Equestria moves to obey.
-Both your "Investigator" and "Constable" actions will be unavailable for Turn 23.
-From Turn 24 onwards, you will have to dedicate one of your Bureau actions (either "Investigator" or "Constable") to placate Princess Celestia.
-Due to your increased workload, your "Social" free action will no longer be available for the foreseeable future.

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Waste of Bureau action, loss of free social action, and then at least one action per turn from the bureau again wasted on calming Celestia.

Considering all we have to do, this is obviously bad.

[] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.
-You will gain the Fleeting Opportunity "Help Cadance." You will be allowed to dedicate as many Personal Actions (and Social Actions) to address it as you wish. You will not be informed of how many actions you "should" dedicate to it.
-If Cadance succeeds on her efforts, she will "disarm" the current crisis. If Cadance only succeeds "partway," this situation will be delayed for another turn and the Fleeting Opportunity will be offered once more.
-If Princess Cadance fails on her efforts, Princess Celestia will go one "step" down on her previously-rolled reaction scale.

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We can probably afford 2 to 3 actions on her, though that probably comes at the cost of Smiles progress.

Maybe 4 if we go all out.

This is a bet on being able to pay now to fully disarm her... it might be our best option.

[-] Princess Celestia has not responded to hails at her door for several weeks. The next time she was seen, ponies could swear she could look into their very soul.
-Princess Celestia will receive an extra "level up" on her Lantern Lore.
-Due to insufficient Moth Lore on your part, you may NOT pick this option.

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Yeah, no. Right now it's

beginning of turn 23: lantern 3

with worst case turn 25 being lantern 5. Which means we might have to do All In end of turn 24 worst case. in two turns.

[] Outsiders are forbidden from entering the House of the Sun. What did she do? What. Did. She. Do?
-Princess Celestia will have the Dream.
-This will only be possible due to a scandalous violation.
-This option will have additional negative consequences you cannot predict at this moment. (This is your "fair warning" for exceptional unpredictability.)

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a true wild card.

I don't want her to meet Ash and learn of the Ash Ghouls. I ESPECIALLY don't want to risk her reaching the Wolf or Biedde.

Okay, on the subject of our options and Math....

Celestia levels Lantern every turn unless Selene soothes her with "A sweet dream"
We can only afford one more levelup... which means Selene MUST get a good outcome on her Soothe the Night roll next turn in order to let us have enough time to All-In even if we bumrush Name Befriendings. Otherwise we have to kick off the boogaloo with only Axe and Mareinette and Baldomare. No Smiles or Cherenkolt.

Our odds on Soothing the Night are actually pretty decent due to Selene's reroll... but we know for a fact that Selene rolled badly last turn because Celestia leveled Lantern and we weren't given a positive vote. Which means we're not fixing this issue with "Progress" points. We need to just roll a 96+ using the winter reroll to fix the issue.

52%+ for a Sweet Dream or better every turn she Soothes the Night. 2% chance of fixing the problem entirely. 10% chance of being out of the Daybreaker danger zone, which frankly is close enough to fixing the problem entirely I dont understand the distinction.

I want to say THE THREAD FUCKED UP by not voting for Royal Guest when they had the chance. We should have just invested in finding the Outsider ourselves. Selene's odds on fixing Daybreaker were frankly great despite the rolls that actually happened.



So what are our options?

Glare, Bureau, Mansus, or Cadance?

Cadance means we're giving up on bumrushing Smiles entirely, but has the best chance of fixing this issue with only a turn of damage control.
Glare lets us split the difference, as we can work on Smiles while rolling the dice on Selene's Soothe the Night next turn.
Mansus or Bureau seems like we MUST commit to bumrushing All In because we're doing yet another Magical Mansus Reform Service. Again. Or crippling our long term eco.


Bureau costs us over 2 Velvet AP next turn and quickly adding up from there... we should just take Cadance instead of Bureau unless we really want to commit to bumrushing Glory and are afraid of Mansus consequences. It'll be net-negative on AP compared to Cadance for all but the most extremespeed Glory plans.

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I'm leaning 3 actions Velvet on helping Cadance fix Celestia, delaying Smiles by a turn.

If possible, we use Mareinette Grail influence to help.

and we give two more Sooth The Night actions to Selene next turn, so she gets 2 rolls with a reroll to help and try and make things better.

If we manage to defuse her enough, maybe we can even gain more turns for our preparations.

We have two actions, potentially three, which are absolutely critical and can't be delayed. 1) Grail Sacrament, 2) Moth Sacrament, and 3) Purifying a Forge 6 reagent.

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No.

It's Grail Sacrament, Moth Sacrament, and that's it.

We should do the Forge 6 expeditions, and probably send Axe + Cherenkolt on it. Less expensive and it doesn't require Velvet actions.

as for Lantern 7, maybe we send Smiles with Cherenkolt, if we can use Mareinette to help with Celestia.

That leaves two spare AP, and one social AP. If we commit to doing our SH Sacrament, that leaves us with two total AP that we could fling at Cadance, but Constables can balance that out leaving us back at three total. If we eat up Smiles's, Jade's, and presumably Filthy Rich's AP, we can add one more AP for a total action count of:

4 AP (Base) + 2 AP (Cover Your Bases x2) + 1 AP (Constables) -> 7 AP + Social

- Grail Sacrament
- Moth Sacrament
- Secret Histories Sacrament
- Purify Forge 6 reagent
- Help Cadance (x4; 3 AP + Social)

Edit: @ses what's the math on Selene rolling well enough to halt Lore progression with a +30 Winter Influence?

Edit 2: Wait, fuck, nevermind. If Winter applied, she wouldn't have been able to roll single digits.

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It might be better to do Baldomare SH Sacrament first, using Baldomare and ONE Velvet action, instead of two Velvet ones.

Errr, where are you pulling this from?

Sure a 70 or higher from Selene delays Celestia's Lore learning for one turn but that doesn't necessarily mean that Celestia raises it one higher every turn.

Higher level of lores are harder to raise.

So I can see raising the lower level by one every turn but the higher levels logically will take increasing amounts of time to learn. Especially without a teacher.

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We HAVE to be cautious.

It's been one level per turn so far. We can't risk assuming it will be slower than that.




I'll catch up with the rest later.

 

[Greymere]

No.

It's Grail Sacrament, Moth Sacrament, and that's it.

We should do the Forge 6 expeditions, and probably send Axe + Cherenkolt on it. Less expensive and it doesn't require Velvet actions.

as for Lantern 7, maybe we send Smiles with Cherenkolt, if we can use Mareinette to help with Celestia.

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We need to prepare with the expectation that we're going to have to go for All In at the end of Turn 24. There is no room for error here. The bits we would save do not matter in the timeframe that is important right now. What matters is making sure that Baldomare and Cherenkolt (and Smiles) are fully befriended by the end of Turn 24, and Mareinette + DoA duoing the quarry while we make the Forge 6 reagent is hands-down the most reliable way of making that happen.

We cannot afford to make a mistake here regarding how difficult of an expedition a solo Name can handle.

It might be better to do Baldomare SH Sacrament first, using Baldomare and ONE Velvet action, instead of two Velvet ones.

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I was talking about Baldomare's SH Sacrament there, yes. Which is why it was only occupying one AP slot and not two.

Edit: Also like, if 4 AP doesn't end up being enough to defuse Celestia, at that point we're just going to have to get our flank up to Glory and come back to deal with the Daybreaker situation better equipped to handle dealing with a mad immortal. Presumably as an Hour, but as the very least as a Long.

 

[Solace2117]

[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

 

[Alan975]

[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

More Cadance or something fun


[X] Outsiders are forbidden from entering the House of the Sun. What did she do? What. Did. She. Do?
-This will only be possible due to a scandalous violation.

 

[ses]

I just checked, and there's a 31% chance of Selene fixing Daybreaker completely, without accounting for the "Progress" mechanic at all, since we know we're at most at -3 right now anyway.

77.3% chance we aren't forced All In at end of turn 24. 31% that Selene manages to hit a 96 or higher before our Lantern clock runs out even without taking into account Celestia Progress. It's unlikely that Soothe the Sun can build up sufficient Celestia Progress before we win regardless, so I only cared about "Fix daybreaker" or "run out of time"


[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

Alright Cadance, it's up to Celestia's two favorite Mares to get her to self-regulate. We got the Winter, we got the Grail. You've got the Love, and I brought us a pair of shades as well. Hit it.

 

[DelightedOne]

[] Outsiders are forbidden from entering the House of the Sun. What did she do? What. Did. She. Do?
-Princess Celestia will have the Dream.
-This will only be possible due to a scandalous violation.
-This option will have additional negative consequences you cannot predict at this moment. (This is your "fair warning" for exceptional unpredictability.)

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You know, after a while I started thinking this was Celestia killing Discord. And getting Blood of the Outsider.

It would have given Velvet a Scrap of every lore and it is a Trait. An unknown trait, hard to tell what else it would do or what killing Discord could mean.

If that is true then this option is way worse than just having Daybreaker as a rival.

 

[spiderhellian]

77.3% chance we aren't forced All In at end of turn 24

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FWIW I wouldn't assume that Celestia going 4>5 will follow the cadence of her growth so far. But I accept that it might, and thanks for doing the math.

 

[Rafuki22]

[X] The Royal Apartment has become distressingly hot, to the point that even Princess Celestia's guards (ceremonial as they were) have been prohibited from approaching it. This has become the most crucial issue on Princess Cadance's agenda.

Wait and hope.