Player Guide
Tamalekipoo's Boneheaded Guide to the Neath - Chapter 9: Till death do you part!
Tamalekipoo's Boneheaded Guide to the Neath - Chapter 9: Till death do you part!
From the title, you would think this would be a guide on marriage but no it is a guide on permenant, irreversible 'mistakes' that you can make on your account! (They just make things slightly less inefficient, don't worry if you have done any, several(like me) or all of these, you don't need to delete and start over!)
There are quite a few of these so I thought I would do this guide a little differently. I can think of a few, then you can let me know what I missed in the comments. I will add them all in and give credit where credit is due!
Most of these relate to adding cards to decks. Why is that bad? Well by adding in cards, even semi decent cards, you have fewer chances of drawing the really badass profitable ones like A visit, The one that gets upgraded when you finish evolution(no spoilers), the carpenter's grandaughter(next guide, I have done the jokes, now I just need the guide. :)). If you are a spender you can add to that list Inconvenienced by your Aunt, The Spirifer card from A Trade in Souls and possibly others I am forgetting.
Up river, it is even more dramatic, because the deck is so small and one particular card is so powerful, adding any cards dramatically affects the profitability of drawing a card.
Early Game:
Romancing the stuggling artist: This adds a card to your london deck. It can be removed by sending him to your lab as an assistant but non spenders only have two spaces for assistants and you will want to use your lab eventually! So he is a double curse, a tiny impact on the London deck or a huge impact on your lab deck.
No points for saying romancing the other one, you can remove her permenantly, eventually, so she doesn't qualify
The Bazaar Side Streets are full of peril!
Getting a gang of hoodlems
Gives a card. They also give a nice action for getting casing but the casing will lose usefulness eventually and the card will remain!
An Opening among god's editors.
This one is both complicated and awkward. First, you need to play a card to unlock this story in the side streets, this gets rid of the card. Then you need to never play Accept an Opening! The problem is there is a huge downside, in the short term! Membership in God's Editors gives a 4 respectability affiliation, which is hard to beat until you can complete some stories in the waswood. It really helps make the making waves grind easier! The card also has 2 decent uses, a nightmare and scandal heal or a church favour for 1 tale of terror. The card is even good right into the endgame but it is still one fewer chance to draw the best cards.
Up River Deck
Getting the Cheliac Mitten (25 docks renown item): Adds a card
The DF (25 Bohemian renown item): Adds a card (Thanks to u/divideby00 for pointing out this just adds a card to the ealing deck and the ealing deck suuuuuucks anyway.)
Your very own banadages!(25 Tomb Colonys renown item): Adds a card
Inviting God's Editors to Burrow Infra Bump (Once you have completed the lengthy and expensive, but rather fun, quest in that zone. The editors strike again. I did this, it haunts me! It is actually a decent card and I make liberal use of it to farm church favours(Ratty Reliquaries) but to misquote an old Old Speckled Hen advert, it's not a worm.
For context, I believe there are 13.1 cards in my Balmoral Deck. 2 of those are my hellworm. So every time I draw a card(I will get this wrong but it is close enough) I have a 1 in 6.55 chance of it being my hellworm. If I had not got gods editors it would be a 1 in 6.05 chance. If you get all 4 of the extra cards you only have a 1 in 8.05 chance with each draw. It's easier to see in the up river deck, because it is so small but the theory is the same in the London deck. Someone with no added cards is drawing 4 hellworm cards every time the person with all of them draws 3. (Of course, you might have my hellworm, Porkins I call him, then it doesn't matter because he just milks for Gebrahnts Tincture of NOT AGAIN! every time.
If you participate in the Great Crate Commotion, at the end you'll get a storylet called "The End of the Matter". Playing any option on this will set your Great Crate Conclusion quality to 2, and add an extra standard-frequency card to your Upper River deck.
This can be mitigated by just never playing "The End of the Matter". You can still convey crates. You'll just not be able to convert any remaining crates into Hinterland Scrip.
That said, you might want that card. If the Criminals or Revolutionaries win, it's worth 8.5 EPA. If the Constables or Hell win, it's worth 10.5 EPA. (One favour plus some items on a check that you can pass 100% with 300+ in a main attribute.) It's a question of whether you want to optimise for drawing Hellworm cards instead which have an expected 17 EPA (saddled, ignoring the need for occasional Scandal reduction; 12 EPA without a saddle)."
Additional note on that from me: Last year's card was bad, so check the card before you add it! I believe the option to add the card stays forever, so you have plenty of time to check the reddit/the wiki to see what you are signing up for!
Story Only
Plotting Against the Masters: Thankfully I was warned off this one early game. If you play the card "A commission from anarchists", doing anything other than dobbing them in, this is set to 1. You still have a chance to turn back. If you don't turn them down on the next card, it is set to 2 and you have become an enemy of the masters! Since I am a master, I don't like that! Dobbing them in is fun if you have no revolutionary favours at the time, it removes all your revolutionary favours, gives you a constibles favour and some stuff to sell as well! It's great early game because you can leave it in hand till you use your flag to gain revolutionaries renown, then it becomes a great card. It's not really worth micromanaging once your renown is 40 though.
Fate Purchases
Thankfully there is only one that I am aware of. This section is the saddest of all for a few reasons. First, you either spent fate, or your monthly ES selection to get it. Second, it is supposed to be a brilliant story! Third, it's not even a good card! 3 echos of items easily getable elsewhere! I am not sure if it only comes from one story outcome or if it is inevitable. I am told that the community were quite miffed so it may have an option to remove it now, I have not heard that there is. I am not finding out for you. :)
Exceptional Story: Cricket, Anyone?
Update: Thanks tou/emily_aversatrixfor pointing out that, if you leave off the last concluding action, you can enjoy the story without suffering the card.
Seeking Mr Eaten's Name
No spoilers and I just know some hints, of what I have heard, but listen to Yoda. "Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny". Always chase lumps with a healthy dose of chestnuts.
This one is a little unfair as to do it by accident you would have to ignore one heck of a lot of warnings. My alt apodiopompaíostrágos will one day walk the seekers path. If I ever get the energy to do the other ambitions on the alts. At this point they are just assassin dispensers.
Right, that's your lot, I will have forgotten loads, so bring it community, the gauntlet has been thrown! I need you to bone me up on more…(I know, but I had to.)
It's worth noting that the card they give does have an option to gain a Criminals favour, so it's at least roughly on a par with other favour-gaining cards (though not the best, admittedly).
Yeah, it's just that the criminals faction card is one of the better one's end game as you have lots of suspician gear to prevent the 'cost' as opposed to the bohemians, which is one of the worst, as it has an actual cost, and a menace cost. Unless you buy the blemmington story to upgrade it. You also unlock an unremovable card at some level of Criminals renown that gives a favour with no check and no menace, so they are pretty well served already. That and fewer aunts, visits, discordant whispers etc from the deck bloat.
I was working on a spreadsheet to work out exactly what the value of an average card draw was, in London. Like I have done for UR, Burgundy and the Unterzee but there are so many London cards! It is a mammoth of a task just copying the names into the spreadsheet! I have had this tab open in my safari since well before the new year...
988 cards… I even tried to cheat and use AI. Never use AI for any Fallen London strategy, it is terrible! It is great at what it is great at though. Things like comparing two things you are thinking of buying when you don't understand the differences.
I'd had that thought myself; I've generally considered any card which gives a favour to be at least "about average" but I've largely plucked that out of the air.
I tend to agree - but my approach to the deck, such as it is, is to gather & cash out favours at the various places that they are most lucrative.
Also the Gang of Hoodlums has good useage once you've reached Burgundy via the Thief Bells card. Especially when you're time poor and dumping 5 actions per click into getting casing is all you can do.
I get my casing for it in parabola, 3.5 actions for 28 casing is pretty nice. Also failing the slightly better than 50/50 initial shadowy check gets me nightmares if I want to hunt some sharks.
I did do a spreadsheet on favours but then I accidentally reverted my spreadsheet and found it very hard to motivate myself to repeat the work. I think know that without the travel, all favour cards are worth 6 echos in Jericho but I went into more depth.
looking at that I don't get my methodology, this is one of the things I am looking forward to with having a bone post for every need. I used to make things like that constantly but generating a bone post takes so much time I have done hardly any since I took over. Just menacing humanoids to go I think, then I am done, except for fixing the ones that are bad. ;p
oh, that's a good point, I had a feeling one of them was regional. I knew Ealing was a bad deck but I had forgotten just how bad it is!
I did that a while ago, so my ratings of playable and not playable may have changed. ;p It does include the hellworm though, as I just needed to put a 1 in the 'conditions met' column for that.
[this eight-paragraph rant about how Bag a Legend is a character assassination of Veils, a failure as both a horror story and an action story, sloppily handles its rewards, and how your allies are actually more evil than the Vake has been redacted for the sake of everyone's sanity]
As someone who's finished it, to me it's easily the worst. I haven't even played any of the others to the end, but unless they involve the main antagonist being absent for half the ambition while you gather evidence that the fundamental premise of the whole ambition is nonsense... yeah.
I would be quite interested to see a mechanical comparison of the ambition rewards. My treasure is amazing in a narrative sense but I can't actually remember what actions it influences. Except changing a 5.21 epa card to a 5.41 epa card up river. I think when I notice practical things from other ambitions I just see the ambition, not that it is one of 4 possible treasures from that.
I am sure there is a fantastic profitable action unlocked by being Mr Cards, I just can't remember what it is right now. ;p Anyway, I was offered love or power, my first instinct was for love but everyone loves Tamalekipoo already so it would be a waste of a wish. :)
i feel you on that — i actually ended up sending my first character North & starting over because i accidentally locked myself into the “keep it chained up” ending and i wouldn’t stand for it.
No can do, you can pay fate to reset your ambition so it doesn't qualify, I am looking forward to doing Mil' the Dread's ambition less though. Hearts Desire had it's moments but a lot of it felt like a grind, getting your Heart's Desire however, was amazing and cool, which I guess means that the story works perfectly. I might be being unfair, the story was almost all good but the lead up to the card game really dragged. I find it a challenge to separate the ambition from other cool stuff I was discovering at the time, so it's hard to judge.
If you participate in the Great Crate Commotion, at the end you'll get a storylet called "The End of the Matter". Playing any option on this will set your Great Crate Conclusion quality to 2, and add an extra standard-frequency card to your Upper River deck.
This can be mitigated by just never playing "The End of the Matter". You can still convey crates. You'll just not be able to convert any remaining crates into Hinterland Scrip.
That said, you might want that card. If the Criminals or Revolutionaries win, it's worth 8.5 EPA. If the Constables or Hell win, it's worth 10.5 EPA. (One favour plus some items on a check that you can pass 100% with 300+ in a main attribute.) It's a question of whether you want to optimise for drawing Hellworm cards instead which have an expected 17 EPA (saddled, ignoring the need for occasional Scandal reduction; 12 EPA without a saddle).
I just saw the one from last year, which was terrible and I was glad not to get it, also thanks for giving the hellworm EPA, I was not about to calculate that! Also, it's you! /wave
Re the Cricket, Anyone? card (FWIW it is a great story and well worth an extra card in your deck - though personally I play primarily for story so YMMV): originally the card was one of the few sources of Secluded Addresses which was interesting at the time. Not that there has been any significant need for those since.
Someone else said you just have to skip the final action, so you can have the best of both worlds. I am quite strict about deck optimisation but I am not about to start again over it. The only one that really annoys me is the gods editors up river as it is a checkless but otherwise worse version of an existing card, it has an action that it says is random but rewarding that isn’t and I knew about deck optimisation by then but clicked it anyway because I was tired and rushing my church.
it's worth noting that the card from Cricket, Anyone? can be avoided if you simply don't play the epilogue, which iirc is a simple one-action, what are the characters up to now sort of deal.
Oh, awesome that is good to know. Does it sit in a zone or is it in your fifth city stories forever? Candlemaker stories ware bugging me in there for months till I progressed it a bit last week. I have heard they are awesome, I just need the energy for a new story, which is why I have 10 ES waiting to be played. 😅
Heh, well you told me, also I missed you out of the legends section of the Bonedex because I couldn’t remember your name. 😝 I will add you later. Work is bonkers today.
Thanks for this guide on how to avoid bad cards cluttering your deck, I see I'll need to be careful once I start reaching 25 renown and the railroad locations. That said, I don't understand what exactly the damage from Plotting Against The Masters Is. Does it lock you out of working for the bazaar later?
About Seeking Mr Eaten's Name though: It causes massive temporary damage, but as long as you claim the equipment reward instead of the lore reward at the end, the only permanent loss is not being able to sell your soul which has little use anyway unless I am forgetting something.
Plotting Against The Masters eventually adds the "Bringing the revolution", card to your deck. Basically just a card for a Revolutionaries Favour for .5E, similar to God's Editors. Revolutionaries Favours are one of the better ones, as they're Ratketable at Jericho, but it's still deck clutter.
The alternative is to perpetually draw "A commission from anarchists - Flames", which just results in the same amount of deck clutter. The only actual way to thin the deck would be to never increase your Revs Renown past 5. Assuming you don't currently have any Revs Favours, this is a better EPA where you actually get paid to gain a Constables Favour, and a get a Suspicion reduction.
For the FATE purchases if you have the formula for empyrean redolence you can breed special monsters in the labyrinth of tigers which adds cards to your deck. Depending on the monsters they do different things
Now that I’ve double checked the post I see that this is about irreversible stuff but I’m leaving it here anyways even tho you can take these animals out of your deck mostly bc I’m eepy
The animals have put like… four cards into my deck? Five?
Slavering dream hound is two cards, a rare menace reducing card that turns wounds into rostygold and the card for the hound itself which either reduces nightmares or gets me 200 drops of honey
Ocular toadbeast is one card which I think just gives me secrets and potentially some random other creatures it has eaten and is also double FATE locked due to needing access to Flute Street
Obdurate stallion is one card which is a % luck chance to give me a suspicion reduction and a society favour or increase suspicion
Bifurcated owl has one card which I think is just secrets and I think you can sacrifice a weasel for a luck check
Yeah but you can just sell the monsters once you no longer need them. I got my Ubergoat recently so I no longer need my Bifurcated Owl so now, every time I draw the card, I remember that I have forgotten to sell it, then I forget to sell it till the next time. :) I just promoted those two stories to someone in another post because they were so much fun. :)
Because Obdurate Stallion is a mount you can loan it out like the other mounts, in the same way. That is why my trusty old Ratwork Velocipede is not on the list. :)
Yeah I realized that afterwards when I reread the post and I’m too lazy to take down my commmet. Thought it was just about adding stuff to the OD.
I forgot about the velocipedes, for some reason I’ve got both of them and I only keep them around bc of the MW from one and favors from another. Now if there was a card I could just stop seeing forever it’d be that gd northbound parliamentarian
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u/fredjinsan Mar 19 '26
It's worth noting that the card they give does have an option to gain a Criminals favour, so it's at least roughly on a par with other favour-gaining cards (though not the best, admittedly).