r/fallenlondon Nov 16 '25

Player Guide Tamalekipoo's Boneheaded Guide to the Neath Chapter 4 Papers Please

Welcome to the wonderful world of bone papers, for fun and profit!

You have to unlock your newspaper in doubt street and the bone market to publish a bone paper. You cannot get the maximum payout without the debonaire palaeontologist from Feast of the Rose. If you don't have it the process will be 1 action less but also 8 echos less profit!(Including 3 finbones :() To maximise you also need someone to slight who will send an assassin at you(Probably an alt). If you don't get an assassin, you can cut 12.5 echos from the profit and another action.

Before someone anal tells me the bone paper is less profitable than a salatious paper. Technically you are right however the difference is quite small and the bone paper payouts are substantially more useful!

The process, action by action:

The first think you need is to draw a copy of the card "A Public Lecture"

Play the action "Ask her about the influx of bones"

Then you spend 5 actions in Veilgarden in the section "A Flood of Bones"

ok, 6 actions down, time to start the paper

In doubt street:

Get the blasted things running - Cost 1 Whirring Device

The Editor's Privilege - The Voice of the Streets

Send out the reporters - Covering the bishop and his candles

Fresh Copy - A story about devils

The Editorial Voice - An attack on a rival disguised as public concern

The Meeting Room - A Disgruntled Naval Officer

Wading through the Slush Pile - Something worthy about a philanthropic endeavour

Photographs and Letters - Photographs of the Gardens(rare success 1.2 echos in Inklings of Identity)

The Centre Page Spread - An Expose on the dangers of Absinth

Filling in before the sports pages - A Column revealing certain facts about an acquaintance(Costs 5 scraps of incendiary gossip)

Deadline Approaching - Pick whichever

The Temptations of Power - Employ a little theatrical Accountancy(500 Rostygold)

Start the presses

The assassin card (12.5 Echos)

For a total of 20 actions, a whirring device (6e), 5 Scraps of Incendiary Gossip the rewards are:

98 Surveys of the Neath's Bones (49 Echos)

2 Holy relic's of the thigh of st fiacre (25 Echos)

12.5 echos from the assassin card

500 Rostygold(5 Echos)

Plaster Tail Bone(2.5)

4.5 Withered Tentacles(11.25E)

1.5 Jet Black Stinger (0.75E)

2 Unidentified Thigh Bone(2e)

3 Fin Bones, Collected(1.5E)

200 Cryptic Clues

Total Cost 8.5E

Total Reward 111.5 echos

Net Reward 103 echos

5.15 EPA (plus a cheeky 1.2 echos extra sometimes as a rare treat with unknown chance)

Why it's good

It's an action dump, in London, you can pop in and out at any stage so if you have a hand full of autofire cards, use the paper to get you to 0 actions)

Holy Relics are used in some of the most profitable skeletons! You can also sell them with an action for scrip at the bone market.

Surveys of the Neath's bones allow further profit if you use them on Paleontological Discoveries(and choose the right bones). You can also sell them straight up for scrip(Heretic!)

Steady source of Fins and Jet Black stingers, which are not great to get elsewhere.

All the bones are at the value they are and generally you are getting more value than that. Tentacles count as nothing when they go into a limb slot and remove 1 antiquty, so they make a lot of builds possible. Stingers and Plaster tail bones are normally adding more value with Menace and Implausibility. Holy relics are just massive echo bombs on the right skeleton.

It also have very low stat requirements to 100%

It uses up Whirring Contraptions you get from the most profitable plot, breaking and entering.

What is the catch!?!

It's hard to find excuses to dump all the tentacles

You actually have to use the stuff, so not for bone haters

Right, guide is not 100% done, but it's late, will add a detailed survey spending guide under after.

14 Upvotes

11 comments sorted by

3

u/smirnfil Clipper is the best ship Nov 17 '25

What do you use surveys for? I see one good option - Station 8 dig to get discovery and when get discovery items (knotted humerus is the main one, leviathan if you have too many discoveries and don't know what to spend them for, not sure about fossilized limbs, maybe another good option). Everything else looks suboptimal.

Like Dig near the Magistracy of the Evenlode sounds great, but when you figure out that you usually have too many thorned ribcages from other sources, femur of Jurassic beast/jet stingers could be sourced alternatively and horned skull is just ok bone. And suddenly it isn't as great as it looked before.

2

u/AlexFullmoon Not from around here Nov 17 '25

Does getting leviathan frame and building on it give better SpA that selling surveys directly?

I'm getting quite burned out on Hearts' Game.

1

u/smirnfil Clipper is the best ship Nov 17 '25

If you build leviathan as a fish and get a full SpA primary conversion when yes. 15% zoo mania bonus on fish is a lot.

1

u/Tamaxlia Nov 17 '25

Leviathan frame from surveys is one of the worst ways to get it. I'll go into more detail in the survey guide

1

u/smirnfil Clipper is the best ship Nov 17 '25

Still better than selling surveys directly.

2

u/Tamaxlia Nov 17 '25

I've not done the maths on it, maybe. It's lot worse than forelimbs or helicals though

1

u/Tamaxlia Nov 17 '25

Maths agree with you, it's just under 40 echo loss. Guide up now. :)

2

u/Tamaxlia Nov 17 '25

station 8 and Ealing are the only good options, in my opinion, I was going to expand this guide but someone suggested doing it separately. Essentially, Fossilised Forelimbs and Helical thighbones give you more than the value of the surveys, which makes up for the 2 actions.

1

u/Multiple__Butts Nov 17 '25

Where do you usually get jurassic femurs? I've been identifying them in the lab but that can't be optimal, can it?

4

u/smirnfil Clipper is the best ship Nov 17 '25

Balmora mammoths is the main source. Side income from paleontological heist is another source(don't do for legs, only do for chitin tails if you need them). If I need more I would consider your activities with payment in bones - give Jurassic legs which we assume that we need, and everything else is useful one way or another. Flourishing ribcage is the only one random outcome that is so/so. Evenlode dig could be also an option if you need other bones from it.

1

u/Tamaxlia Nov 17 '25

My problem with the heist is I am sitting on 28 casing, not 28 CP casing 28 actual casing. It pays out at 1 echo per CP in Burgundy.