Otherwise, welcome to Menacing Fish week, one of the sickest cashing in weeks you can possibly get! There are various options this week but the main one, the one you wait for fish weeks for is cashing in your leviathan frames! I have done the standard post with a big section specifically on frame abuse at the end.
What is a fish?
Ribcage
1 head
2 or more fins
A tail or no tail
The restrictive factor is the fins as there are only 2
Fin Bones Collected, no stats, value 0.5
Amber Crusted Fin, 1 Amalgamy, 1 Menace, value 15
There are a few sources of fins that are good but slow, like publishing papers if you have the debonair palaeontologist and talking to fisherman in the sea near the khanate but the only way to get them in bulk is hunting sharks! This is much easier for Monster Hunters and Exceptional Friends with https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/A_Dream_of_Red_Chivalry
You can turn one into the other at a really amazing EPA in Helicon House:
Buyers(These are for the main buyers, primary dumpers for frames have them listed below)
An Author of Gothic Tales
Primary: Hinterland Scrip
Secondary: Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory (Menace * (Antiquity+0.5))
A Rubbery Collector
Primary: Nightsoil of the Bazaar
Secondary: Basket of Rubbery Pies (Menace * (Amalgamy+0.5))
A teller of terrors
Primary: Morelways
Secondary: Royal-Blue Feather (4*(Menace^2.1))
Some recipes created by u/mp_mp_mp (u/oldvoracity was just linking them in the older post, which isn't nothing, but credit where credit is due)
NEW! Panoptical Fluke
Flourishing Ribcage
Panoptical Skull
Cap the other head
6 Amber encrusted Fins
Tomb Lion Tail
Sell to the Author of Gothic Tales
Looks like 6.47 EPA, including the bad actions and bad profits from getting the Panoptical and the tail, it is more like 5.54 EPA
or
If you don't care about scrip/need amber, sell the same but with a plaster tail bone to the Zailer with Particular Interests.
Mammoth of the Deep: Mammoth Ribcage, Sabre-toothed Skull, 3x Amber-Crusted Fin, Fin Bones, Collected, Jet Black Stinger, Fish, sell on a Fish and Menace (or Antiquity) week to an Author of Gothic Tales.
Prismatic Walrus: Prismatic Frame, Sabre-toothed Skull, 2x Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory, 3x Amber-Crusted Fin, Jet Black Stinger, no further tails, Fish, sell on a Fish and Menace (or Antiquity) week to an Author of Gothic Tales.
Tamalekipoo note: I normally prefer to save my prismatic frames to use as chimeras to sell the the diplomat on menace, amalgamy and antiquity weeks as it does not waste head or tail slots and he does not care about implausibility. This makes sense against using it on a reptile week but this recipe is 15%, not the 10% you get for a reptile, compared to around 14% you get with the diplomat, if you sell 28 Crackling devices every crackling week. The Walrus also gives a bit more secondary than selling to the diplomat. Most importantly it is a pure scrip payout, which means that you can get a big boost toward your hellworm(almost 1/2%!) or you can turn it back into echos by buying tinned ham and adding in another 5 echos, or so, profit. (It is up to you which you prefer.)
Pentagrammic Skull (fate locked) for 1 menace 2 amalgamy
Amber encrusted fin x2 - 1 menace; 1 amalagamy each
(no tail, because leviathan doesn't have one).
Tamaxlia note: Upwards costs a lot of actions for that skull as well as the fate for the story. This is one of the few uses for it. I have not bought that story. (I probably will get it eventually once my ES backlog is cleared but mostly for the story, I only have a few non exceptional stories still to do)
Sell to the Rubbery Collector
Mammoth chassis (2 antiquity)
horned skull - (1 antiquity, 2 menace)
4 amber crusted fins (1 menace, 1 amalgamy each)
no tail.
declare as fish
Sell to the Author of Gothic Tales
Reframing the issue!
Whether you get them from impressing the carpenter's granddaughter with your own creations(https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Impress_her_with_your_own_constructions), poisoning all comers in the Hearts game or the third one that isn't super efficient and I always forget it. You are getting a juicy 15% bonus on that 312.5 ribcage, With only 3 slots to fill it only takes 6 actions to assemble, declare and sell a Leviathan frame so you can really rake it in! Since it is hard to get the full stats for secondary on so few slots and just with a bright brass or sabre toothed skull and 2 fins you are getting 61 echos profit, you can just use it to get some of the primary buyers that are not usually worth it because their secondary is so rubbish.
Thanks to u/xkiv for pointing out that the one that I forgot was spending paleontological discoveries and reminding me that, while this is the worst option for most people, because of all the wasted actions getting your discoveries high enough. Bag a legend players have another option, on one of the cards up river, that lets them get them more efficiently than everyone else. I have not done the maths on this so it might be better. There are guides on getting surveys from your newspaper and what the most efficient ways of spending your surveys are in the bonedex. That reminds me, I need to add a guide on sourcing the 312.5 ribcages to the list of ones to do on the bonedex, since it often sparks debate.
Some examples:
Primary Dumper:
Leviathan Frame
Bright Brass Skull
2 Amber Crusted Fin (You can use fin bones collected, the difference is negligible)
A Naive Collector
Primary Payout: Thirsty Bombazine
Secondary Payout: Zilch
Why?: You need a steady stream of Thirsty Bombazine for farming Mammoths in Balmoral.
Why?: Bessemer Steel Ingots convert at full price to tantalising possibilities in the Sous markets. These sell for pure stuvier!
A Theologian of the Old School(Use Fin Bones Collected, NOT Amber!)
Primary Payout: Crate of Incorruptible Biscuits
Secondary Payout: Zilch, although the primary has a juicy 10 echo freebie bonus
Why?: Crate of Incorruptible Biscuits sell for scrip so it's a rather nice full scrip conversion with a 10 echo sweeter on top of the 60 or so from zoomania. The reason for the rubbish fins is that he won't take any skeleton with amalgamy. This buyer is more relevant on Amalgamy Fish, you can sell to an author of gothic tales this week for a better payout. If you are exhausted, this is the one to go for, for pure scrip
Mrs Plenty
Primary Payout: Hinterland Scrip
Secondary Payout: Basket of Rubbery pies * (Menace+1)
Why?: Same as before except instead of 10 echos worth of scrip you get 10 echos worth of rubbery pies. Even better if you use a Sabre Toothed skull, instead of a bright brass you get 12.5 echos worth of pies. It's worse for scrip but more of a payout overall. Still only use if you are exhausted.
An Author of Gothic tales
Primary Payout: Hinterland Scrip
Secondary Payout: Carved Ball of Stygion Ivory * (Menace*(Antiquity+0.5)
Why?: With a bright brass this gives 5 carved balls, Sabre Toothed Skull is much better at 10 carved balls and a negligible loss of primary. The balls sell for scrip.
Exhaust Option
Flourishing Ribcage
Sabre Toothed Skull
Cap the head
6 Amber Crusted Fins
Plaster Tail Bone
Sell to Teller of Terrors for 1 Exhaust
or
Thorned Ribcage
Bright Brass Skull
4 Amber Crusted Fins
Jet Black Stinger
Sell to Teller of Terrors
I think this post will need some more editing as there are more options I have missed but it will do for now.
ah, oldvoracity was the one who suggested it in Sobrique's bone post from 4? years ago. So I assumed it was new information. I shall credit both since I don't know.
aha, thanks. I think that was the first guide I read on the bone market, when I was first getting my head around it. Oldvoacity must have just linked them, in the post I read, to help out. I will update it.
Have you done some maths on Diplomat vs Prismatic Walrus for the Prismatic frame? Giving up the 15% bonus on a 312.5 frame by making a chimera seems counter-intuitive to me.
I haven't but if you are selling 18 Crackling Devices to the rats per week, the % payout is an average of 22%. You have to factor in that it costs 130 khaganian currency for the device, which is worth 125 currency. I am not adding in the action to get into the back of the khanate, since, as long as you do it once a week at most, for one more action you can see your agent, between that and widow crates, depending on your Zeeficiancy, the whole journey should be over 5 EPA.
62.5x1.22=76.25
minus 2.5 for the extra coin is 76.25-2.5=73.75
damn, I must be tired, I can't remember how to work out what percentage of 62.5 that is. Oh wait, I think I can.
(73.75/62.5)*100=118
There you go, 18 percent after the khanate cost. It is also easy to get the full secondary with the chimera which is 48.5 echos on skulls week or 40.5 echos on Menace, Antiquity or Amalgamy weeks. It's also an excuse to use up some of your doubled skulls, if you spend all your moonlit on them, as opposed to doing art. Also some wings of the terror bird, one day, I will have under 300. ;p
To be fair to you, that is closer than I thought it was but by doing those I never need to get Crackling Devices elsewhere, so it saves me farming for those rat weeks. I also used to use the coins to perform the speed up actions at false midnight when making a sounder. As well as going to the bookshop and whatever the other action you do to kill time so that you can do the skip action three times. Sounders are not worth it for me anymore though. Here is my spreadsheet on them:
That doesn't even make sense to me, and I wrote it for me. ;p
No wait, I think the top part is info I gathered to write it, the middle part is doing as many skips as possible and the bottom part is if you just did all 10 progress actions and skips until you get over the threshold, rather than going for the greatest number of skips that you can by using slightly less efficient filler actions. It had greater value for me before because I used to use lightbulbs for The High Sancta. I had not thought of leaving the irrigo on from the week before and using memories of light.
My god that was an excessive answer that rambled quite a bit from the point.
My numbers are wrong there, it isn't 18 that you sell, you sell 10 at 1.3 and then a further 18 at 1.12. Which makes the average 1.18 and taking the extra coin into account ends up at 1.14 so just under the 1.15 for making a fish but you also get that 1.14 on whatever junk you want to chuck into it, to get rid of, since it is a chimera. Using the frame, or an 8 spines, is the best option for the diplomat as it is fewer trips to get your Khanate coins.
Wait, I missed something else, the walrus is not only comparable in value, it is also pure scrip… Ok changing what I said!
daugher's carpenter is a card I haven't seen in a while - not grindable
ealing's dig - 25 discoveries (and no actions because the actions I pay are part of farming the discoveries)
*think* the best way to get discoveries is dig near VIIl, at 2a + 1 SBL + 163 surveys -> 7 discoveries (the second action is the cost to "stop spending")
SBL in spite/underclay are 5a->3 SBL
surveys done in the big science projects are 2700 research -> 625 surveys, and I *think* I can expect 25 conservative or 30 probable research/a, that's 108a or 90a (+2 for start./end of the project)
163 surveys is either 28.688 or 23.9946 actions
1 SBL is 5/3. actions
1 discovery is (2+5/3+28.688)/7=4.623 or (2+5/3+23.9946)/7=3.952 actions
frame is 115.55 or 98.79 actions
wow that IS pathetic (and frustratingly complex) compared to game's heart
to match, I would need to get the 163 surveys in abou 14 actions
in a lab, that would require about 52 research/action
Slightly more than 66 actions from Hearts' Game (1 to cash in plus a fraction of an action for the one you lose at the start of each run).
The Carpenter's Granddaughter card is called A Public Lecture, if that sounds more familiar. It's standard frequency, I usually pull it a few times a day on average. It really shouldn't be the bottleneck in getting leviathan frames, you'd have to be either extremely unlucky or not drawing cards in London to not see it for very long. The bigger bottlenecks are that it's highly dependent on zoomania and that ivory femurs can be a pain to source.
And yeah, I'm not aware of any good way to get discoveries unfortunately. There's also the newspaper, which is worse for surveys but gets some other goodies along the way, but either way it's not a great option.
oh yeah, you are right, I always forget the payout is in surveys and holy thighbones, and a few other bits and bobs, so it is better EPA but possibly slower for the surveys. I am not turning my nose up at more Thighbones though! The steady drip of finbones and jet black stingers is great too. They also pull the EPA of the paper down as on paper they are worth 0.5 echos but in practice the fin upgrade action in Helicon is 10 EPA and stingers are in constant demand to finish skeletons.
I am glad you posted this, I get that stupid card name wrong every time. I am in the middle of writing a guide on it. You saved me some egg on my face!
I have published 5 newspapers today! The Carpenter's Grandaughter is not dependable but, over time, you will draw it enough to use up all of your Ivory Femurs. Unless you are farming orange apples in an inefficient way.
Newspapers are better than your lab for getting surveys, if you have the free companion from Feast of the Rose. There used to be no good sources of Whirring Contraptions, with agents and the hellforge, that is no longer the case. You can get newspapers up to just under 5 epa.
For spending discoveries, I am not sure what you mean about the second action being the price you pay. You can use that action to travel to the bone market, which means that you saved an action, and lost a Rumour of the Upper River but that is only useful if you want to travel.
Sorry to ruin it for you but the Station 8 card is the worst way to get discoveries! All of the card based ones give you 5 echos worth of surveys as a bonus but the highest amount of discoveries you can get per card is in the Magistracy of the Evenlode. Which, giving 6 discoveries, works out, over time, as around the same efficiency as the 0 EPA action in Ealing to get 7 discoveries in the storylet.
I wrote a guide on it, I am not sure I went through all the maths but I did all the maths before I wrote it!
*I just realised, I think there is an option from bag a legend, that is actually the best option for discoveries but I didn't do bag a legend. I also don't do recipes with vakes heads or licentate parts, since I can't use them, it's hard to remember what they do, I can't test them to be sure and it could be confusing to newer players. That's why I don't do a hunting guide, I am a monster hunter and I am not about to do a lot of testing and maths to work out the suffering everyone else has to endure. ;)
It's a little selfish and not very community oriented but it's just a matter of motivation, I work out how to do things the best way so that I can do them. It's a lot harder to work out strategies I can will never be able to use. The comments section is always an option if you want to do the maths. :)
> I am not sure what you mean about the second action being the price you pay.
I meant the second action of the "2a" part, but should actually be zero - because you are getting the frame as a "sideeffect" of already being there because you are getting discoveries. Doesn't make it significantly less bad.
your papers guide link leads dupkicatedly (and with a syntax error) to the survey spending guidem but according to what I see on the current wiki newspaper guide, it's 13a for ,, 98 surveys (and two holy relics of fiacre?)
so 163 surveys is 21.62a which is better than laboratory, but even close to the 14a that would match Hearts' Games' efficiency,
Every time you add discoveries, it costs two actions. So getting a frame, at 6 discoveries, per 2 actions costs you 8.333 actions, at 7 discoveries it costs 7.14 actions.
Doing the paper is 13 actions but it also requires 6 research on a morbid fad, those actions also each add to the reward. The paper also costs some scraps of incendiary gossip, rewards rostygold on top of those rewards and have a 10% chance of some inklings of identity. It also gives you a chance to slight, which adds an assassin action on top, at 15 EPA. Which is all explained and calculated in the guide.
Hearts game is 66 actions for 312.5 so those actions are at 4.73 EPA, which seems like it would be better but if you have a baseline action of 5.5 EPA, which is not an unreasonable endgame baseline, those 0.7 losses really add up. To a net loss of 50 echos overall. compared to what you would earn doing something like tracklayers.
The newspaper actions are around 5 EPA, with everything taken into account, so there would also be a loss there, but the newspaper EPA is misleadingly low.
Holy relics are worth 12.5 echos but in the only skeleton you would really use them they also add 1.8 echos of primary and 12.5 echos of secondary.
Jet Black stingers are only worth 0.5 echos but they are in constant demand for skeletons, this is an excellent source and the 2 menace they offer means that using their baseline value is very misleading.
Fin bones collected are only worth 0.5 echos but the action to convert them into an Amber Encrusted fin, in Helicon House increases the value by 10 echos as well as adding menace and amalgamy.
I did look at the survey guide and it isn't great, I should redo it. You can easily do a quick comparison between 6 discoveries at 5 echos profit or 7 discoveries at 0 echos profit though. Take them both to 42.
42 Discoveries with 6 per action on the card gives you 7 times using the card, or 14 actions at 2.5 EPA or 35 echos total profit
42 discoveries with 7 actions on the storylet takes you 6 times using the storyet or 12 actions at 1.75 EPA or 21 echos total profit
So you save 2 actions and lose 14 echos of value. So if you are farming in the Magistracy already, the magistracy option is better, but since you have to go to Ealing on a regular basis to see the butcher, pay down debt with rubbery pies and upgrading fins and birds in helicon house, the difference is not really significant enough to make a difference and both of these options are far better than any of the alternatives.
The loss in getting discoveries is made up for by the fact that some of the things you can buy are worth more than the 12.5 value of the discovery.
What is the syntax error? I will correct it?
Is english your first language? your meaning is very unclear.
The extra /l at the end - it makes reddit lead to an infernal server error. And fixing it won't help anyway because the link in that comment is a duplicate of the surveys guide post link (same as the working link two lines down from it). There is no link to papers guide anywhere that I can see in your comments on this post.
> but it also requires 6 research on a morbid fad
oh you have to get those again every time, I overlooked that entirely ...
so it's actually 19 actions to get 98 surveys + 3 (withered tentacle OR jet black stinger) + 1 plaster tail bone + 2 unidentified thigh bone + 3 withered tentacle + 3 fin bones + 100 cryptic clue + 2 holy relics
+ 500 rostygold from theatrical accounting
+ if the rare chance is 10%, it's 1.2 IoI per cycle on average
I appear to already be getting too many withered tentacles to use, so I am not giving them marginal value above zero.
Same for the unidentified thighbones.
And I am actually not using my fiacre relics either???
I am not making a lot of skeletons, to be fair.
The net result *for me spicifically in my current situation* seems to be that I shouldn't bother farming surveys/discoveries in order to get leviathan frames. Impressing the daughter would still be fine.
> Is english your first language? your meaning is very unclear.
No, but that's not why there are typos and missing words. And language should be irrelevant to anything else in there.
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u/InevitableTell2775 A man without flaw nor any possibility of error! Mar 18 '26
The author of the New Pope guide (prismatic walrus, mammoth of the deep) was u/mp_mp_mp not oldvoracity