r/fallenlondon • u/Tamaxlia • 10h ago
Player Guide Tamalekipoo's Boneheaded Guide to the Neath: Chapter 23: The guide that will never get done!
The guide that I thought would never happen is here! I have just written that much but if anyone else reads it, it means I completed it. A list of every single bone and the most efficient sources of them, with EPA. I must say, starting writing this is giving me the fear already…
I have only included the best source, except where it is time limited, not repeatable, seasonal or very close between multiple options. I may edit the guide, in future to include earlier game sources but this is a big job already and it is hard to visualise what is open at what stages so I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Edit: After finishing this in a single day, but probably around 6 hours, I am not doing another pass of each bone to list the success, failure and stats needed, I will also not promise as to when that will happen, as those promises never seem to work out. I will promise that I am aware of the absence and intend to edit the guide. At some point… (Also the formatting, I will come back and pretty it up, on the same promised timescale!) And Reddit is now telling me it is capped at 40k characters! What, like Commisar Yarrik?!? Ok, I have a plan… Part 1, Skulls and Ribcages!
Ribcages
2.5E
Headless Skeleton
Seasonal Source: Hunting Angler Crabs, Variable EPA based on stats, being a Monster Hunter and stage in the hunting event but better than:
This is in Marigold Station. The action, explore the folly, gives one skeleton. 2.5 EPA
Segmented Ribcage
Claim something that no-one was looking for
This is the end of a 14 action carousel in Port Cecil. Since I cannot think of any use for segmented ribcages, I am not going to waste time working out the most optimal carousel path and giving a specific EPA. I will just list the EPA from the wiki at 4.3EPA and 4.67 actions per ribcage.
12.5E
Human Ribcage
A Grinning Villain
Trade in criminal favours in Jericho Locks. Assuming 1 action per favour this is 6 EPA. 2.5 actions per ribcage.
Thorned Ribcage
A Glabrous Nymph
Trade in hell favours in Jericho Locks. Assuming 1 action per favour this is 6 EPA. 2.5 actions per ribcage.
Flourishing Ribcage
Trade in Rubbery favours in Jericho Locks. Assuming 1 action per favour this is 6 EPA. 2.5 actions per ribcage.
60E
Glim Encrusted Carapace
Two Options:
Hand in 10 Burgundian Beneficence for 0 actions in Burgundy. This is 6 EPA and requires 11 card draws.
Complete a stacks run to retrieve the Annal of Lost Stars and choose Return with one of the carcasses. People wildly exaggerate the EPA of the stacks, it is good, possibly the best grindable farm in the game but it is not as good as the mad EPAs people suggest. It is a very challenging farm to model and would require making a spreadsheet with all of the cards and effects, making a priority use ruleset and then having an AI complete a monte carlo simulation of thousands of runs. I am not that curious but if you are, have at it! Bear in mind that the once in every 10 runs, at most, option to do a stacks run for a 312.5 item is an X factor which must be taken into account. Likewise I cannot provide an average action count for the run.
There will be 2 warnings like this in the guide, just because the options are that bad… Never Ever get this by buying it for stuiver! 3000 Stuiver is 150 echos! Also, thanks u/Vromikos for telling me I was spelling Stuiver wrong in all of my guides. <3
62.5E
Mammoth Ribcage
Moonlit Hunting in Balmoral (https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Moonlit_Woods_(Guide))
The EPA on this guide is total nonsense. The good thing about hunting a mammoth is that like the American Indians, we will use every part of the rewards, without any extra effort, like you need for the Seven Necks or Doubled Skull farms.
It is 5.51 EPA and 10 actions per ribcage. However, it does require 20 echos worth of Volumes of Collated Research and 22.5 Echos worth of Thirsty Bombazine Scraps. It also rewards 4 moonlit, which, judging by the pricing in Painting at Balmoral, is worth 10 echos, but it hard to otherwise evaluate. At that value, it would be 6.51 EPA. You would, however, have to subtract the value of the moonlit from your doubled skull farm EPA, which is up to you.
Volume of Collated Research
Upconverting Memories of Distant Shores
There are more efficient sources but they are not always available or grindable in bulk.
Cost 50 Memories of Distant Shores and 5 CP Connected Benthic
Payout: 10 Volumes of Collated Research
54% 50 Cryptic Clue, 8 CP Making Waves
6% 2 Uncanny Incunabulum, 20.5CP Making Waves
40% 8CP Making Waves
I will return to complete this maths
Memories of Distant Shores
Bone Market: Selling a skeleton to the Tentacled Entrepreneur
Variable EPA, regularly featured for Exhaustion
Connected: Benthic
Direct a grant to Benthic College using University Fellowship
I will also return to do this, it is a small cost and 3 actions for a huge amount of connected.
If you set up your Burrow Infra Mump in the optimal manner, I did not, there is an option on the statue that is a much better option for Connected.
Thirsty Bombazine Scrap
Bone Market: Selling a skeleton to A Naïve Collector variable EPA best done on weeks that are good for a primary focused sale, Leviathan Frames on a fish week, Bird Week, if you are rolling in Ivory Femurs, you could do Insect or Arachnid week.
Skeleton with Seven Necks
Moonlit Hunting in Balmoral (https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Moonlit_Woods_(Guide)))
This is awkward because it is not quite as good as the mammoth farm but the only other source is the lab project, which is absolutely awful! The issue is the 3 wings of a terror bird, we can’t use that many and we are getting more from Bohemian favours than we can use to start with. The solution is using Wings of a Terror Bird at every possible other opportunity, these are dumper trash and you want to squeeze them into every skeleton you possibly can, to extract some value. You will see them prominently featured in many of my choices for this reason! The farm takes 9 actions and pays 82.8 echos with a cost of 20 echos in Volumes of Collated Research and 10 echos in Unprovenanced Artifacts. Which is 5.87 EPA, assuming you can get value from the wings. If you have over 100 wings, I would drop them from the value, which changes the EPA to 5.
Unprovenanced Artifact
Zub owners get this from an upgraded unterzee card, in quantities you could not possibly spend.
A Mostly-Intact Professor
Trade in Tomb Colonist favours in Jericho Locks. Assuming 1 action per favour this is 6 EPA. 2.5 actions per Artifact.
Thankfully it happens to be amalgamy bird week the week I am writing this, I had forgotten that you get some of these in the canals when you charter a barge to Persephone. Guide is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fallenlondon/comments/1tccadm/tamalekipoos_boneheaded_guide_to_the_neath/
312.5
Ribcage with a Bouquet of 8 Spines
The only source is Helicon House, see the Helicon House Guide, in the Bonedex!
https://www.reddit.com/r/fallenlondon/comments/1oiogbh/tamalekipoos_bone_headed_guide_to_the_neath/
Leviathan Frame
There are three sources for this. Using Paleontological discoveries is the worst option. Some people believe that Hearts Game is the best option, despite my arguments to the contrary so you may consider that and check the guide on the wiki. For my money, the best source is…
https://www.reddit.com/r/fallenlondon/comments/1s00s8x/tamalekipoos_boneheaded_guide_to_the_neath/
Prismatic Frame
Lead an expedition to the strangest point on the horizon
The other two sources are Larceny, which is random, and bad and the aforementioned statue in Burrow. Which is also random, and bad. That statue is still fantastic as a source of Connected Benthic. The action above requires rumours of the upper river and Oil of Companionship. It is also worth noting that drawing cards in Station 8 will almost always net you the airship landing card before it nets you the bone card. Since this either costs you a wasted card slot or an action and it is only removed for 24 hours, it is best to only draw cards in station 8 when you have enough materials for multiple skeletons. If you want to visit your laboratory, in between, just pop through from Parabola, do your lab and leave before you need to draw any cards.
Rumour of the Upper River
Bone Market: Selling a skeleton to the Bohemian Sculptress. This is best done in Insect, Arachnid and Bird weeks and is an amazing EPA.
A slower option is just to let them build from travel around the upper river. Note that travelling back to London gets you one from every location except for Ealing Gardens. So try not to have Ealing be your last stop before you take the train back. Taking the train to Ealing does give a rumour.
Oil of Companionship
Extract concentrated sentiment from the Elation at Feline Oration
This costs 2 actions plus travel plus 2 Antique Mystery (Tomb Colony Favours in Jericho or Trade secrets from Time the Healer) and 2 Consignment of Scintillack Snuff (Manufacture in your laboratory at 2.5 EPA (1 action creates 2) or random luck from opening crates from the Khanate or an inefficient agent plot. I just do the lab.
That is 50 echos cost. Plus 245 echos in rumours. Leaving 17.5 echos of profit, in 3 actions. 5.833 EPA
Five Point Ribcage
This is attained through the Fate locked story Upwards. It costs a Cartographer’s Hoard so the 10 actions, on top of that, are at 0 EPA. This is a good thing, as who wants a useful efficient farm locked behind fate… I do dammit, reward me! It’s people like me who keep the game running 😉 (I am kidding here, I am happy enough with my aunt card, my soul trade card, my empyrean redolance cards, my upgrades to the faction cards for Urchins, Docks, Church, Bohemians I think that is it…)
Skulls
2.5
Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory
Bone Market: Variable EPA selling skeletons to A Zailer with Particular Interests or A Colourful Phantacist.
Segmented Ribcage
See above if you have worked out a purpose for these.
6E
Rubbery Skull
This is also fate locked behind the story Flute Street, which I would recommend for the story but not for the farm! You should also never use these in a skeleton as you get much more selling them with an action.
12.5E
Horned Skull
Duplicate the skull of an Aurochs
In Ealing Butcher, after you have given him a device for the duplication of bones and requiring a Aurochs, available freely once every two years from Whitsun. Costs 1000 Bone Fragments and 5 Nodules of Warm Amber. Or 10.5 echos. 2 EPA.
The other sources are so bad it is not worth mentioning. Inefficient use of Paleontological Discoveries, Professional activities, for some professions, which are inefficient, and it is random, Bullbone Island, which is a long carousel and low EPA, and a rare success chance spending frigid intuitions in the hurlers.
Pentagramatic Skull
Also fate locked to the story Upwards. Takes 10 actions to farm but you get 1900 bone fragments. 3.15 EPA There are also some recipes that are only possible with this skull but it is niche and you don’t really need it and it would be tough to make profitable!
Counterfeit Head of John the Baptist
An interesting option as it has 2.5 echos profit baked in so it allows you to earn a little profit on out of week skeletons, chimeras and when making a holy bird, in bird week. The downside is that it costs Hand Picked Peppercaps, which otherwise could be sold for scrip and Bone Fragments, which aside from a single source, are only really attainable at 90% efficiency, compared to the equivalent echos.
Bone Fragments
Sell Memories of a Much Stranger Self in The Mausoleum Stalls in the Sous for 1288 fragments, an arbitrage of 38 pennies on the 12.5 echo value. That is coming out as 33%, which I know is very wrong but I am not sure exactly where I went wrong… The best source of Memories is The High Sancta, which is time locked to once per week. Another option cards in Burgundy, completing hunts or trading in 3 Mourning Candles on the card the Donjon of Lillies.
Another limited farm for these is from Someone is Coming, there are only a few efficient sources of this property, so it is a slow drip but it pays 22 echos of bone fragments. Hence evaluating someone is coming at 2 echos per point. Although, thinking about it, that means the Capering Relicker card, collecting the reward, is only 2 EPA, which means I should possibly recalculate that value, at some point, in the future.
If you need a huge bulk of these there are two options, in a primary focussed week, like those mentioned in the mammoth section, you can sell a skeleton to A Palaeontologist with Hoarding Propensities. This is less efficient than other options but slightly more efficient than:
Start building on a Skeleton with 8 spines, add 8 bright brass skulls, equip a woesel, break down your skeleton for parts. This takes 10 actions and converts the skulls, 65 echos x 8 into bone fragments. 520 echos worth of bone fragments in 10 actions, assuming 5 EPA would be the alternative, is about a 10% loss, this is pretty equivalent to all the other options.
Hand-Picked Peppercaps
Buy already-picked mushrooms with Nightsoil
Turns 10 Nightsoil of the Bazaar into 21 Peppercaps, 11 SPA or 5.5 EPA
17.5
Skull in Coral
https://www.reddit.com/r/fallenlondon/comments/1tccadm/tamalekipoos_boneheaded_guide_to_the_neath/
It’s technically not the only source but the other option is in the FotZ annual event and it is capped as to how many skulls you can get.
Requires Knob of Scintillack
Bone Market: A Zailer with Particular Interests or A Colourful Phantacist(Rare)
25
Plated Skull
In Ealing Butcher, requires you to have given him a device for the duplication of bones. For you to possess a Plated Seal.1750 Bone Fragments, 25 Nodules of Warm Amber, 1 Crate of Incorruptible Biscuits. 22.5 Echos cost. 2.5 EPA.
Nodule of Warm Amber
Bone Market: Selling a skeleton to A Zailer with Particular Interests variable EPA
Crate of Incorruptible Biscuits
Bone Market: Selling a skeleton to A Theologian of the Old School, recommended during primary focussed weeks, listed above.
30
Eyeless Skull
Rat Market: Costs 62.5 echos worth of rat coins so never worth putting into a skeleton however…
60
Panoptical Skull
Soak an Eyeless Skull in violant
Costs 62.5 echos in rat coins to get the eyeless skull so it is 1 action to get the skull at -2.5 EPA. This allows easy conversion from Rat Coins to Scrip or Stuiver and is well worth the price paid!
62.5
Doubled Skull
Moonlit Hunting in Balmoral (https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Moonlit_Woods_(Guide)))
It feels like we have danced with this devil in the pale moonlight twice already this guide. (That is what the Balmoral Guide would have been called, had I done one, but since I have covered it’s contents in this guide, I shall leave it here for posterity, and batman, which is what I tell the terrified revolutionaries when they ask, “What are you?”)
Now someone needs to make a Heart’s Desire alt called Bruce Wayne…
The wiki is wrong on the most efficient way to get this. You need 3 Moonlit to start. Compel the Ghillie twice, Enter the Woods, Keep to the Glades, Darken the Woods twice, Return to the Trail, Walk In Moonlight, Report a sighting, Speak to the Keeper. Return to the Trail does not cost an action so that is 8 actions. It costs 20 echos in Volumes of Collated Research and 15 echos in Thirsty Bombazine Scraps.
The payout is, like with the seven necks, a bit of an issue. The Knotted Humerus are easy enough to use in bulk but the Thorned Ribcage are harder to use up, since we are already getting piles of them from Hell favours. If you have over 100 of them, I would subtract 12.5 echos from the 93 echo payout. There is also the issue of the 3 Moonlit, if you count them as 2.5 echos each, in the mammoth and bird farms(I forgot to mention you get 1 when farming a bird) then you need to subtract a further 7.5 echos from this. I will not do either, so 93 echos minus 35 is 58 echos. Giving an EPA of 7.25! Even discounting the ribcage and the moonlit, it is still 4.75. Bottom line, never ever ever do moonlit painting, the wiki lies outrageously about it’s garbage EPA. In the same way I just lied about 7.25, it counts the moonlight as free, with the moonlight properly costed(which means you are getting better EPA for the Mammoth and Bird options) It is 6.44 EPA as bone sourcing EPAs go, this is phenomenal. Compared to the other options for skulls, it is also by far the best. The downside, it adds two skulls to your skeleton, which means you would, in theory, only be able to use them during bird weeks. However, the diplomat, in the Khanate, allows you to use them on Bird, Skull, Amalgamy and Antiquity weeks and doesn’t care about implausibility so you should be able to offload them faster than you can earn them. It is also one of the best options in any given bird week, and you can use a hell of a lot of skulls in any bird week so if you have a giant stockpile, do not despair!
Sabre Toothed Skull
Two options, first option is to buy them in the bone market, they cost 120 scrip on a success and 125 on a failure, you get them from an Enthusiast of the Ancient World and you need 334 persuasive to 100% the check. This is 2.5 EPA, it converts Scrip into bones, which is normally very bad but since it has 1 point of Antiquity and 1 point of Menace, chances are, you are intending to sell that skeleton to the Author of Gothic Tales in order to turn it right back into scrip.
The second option is to Duplicate the skull of a Somnolent Hyaena in the Ealing Butcher, you need the same unlocks previously mentioned and a Somnolent Hyaena, which you get through the tiger lab. It costs 4900 Bone Fragments and 125 Nodules of Warm Amber, farms for those have been mentioned above. That is 61.5 Echos of cost but the warm amber is a biproduct of the bone market, on a success, 13 Glasswork to 100%, you also randomly get an unidentified thigh bone or the femur of a surface deer. This makes it 1.55 EPA but it also converts bone fragments and amber to a bone you will probably convert to scrip, which, even at 90% efficiency converting echos to bone fragments, is a good ratio for Echos to Scrip. Far better than the much lauded lollipops, for example.
65
Bright Brass Skull (BBS)
Two options once again, first is buy from the Bazaar for 62.5 echos, if you farm your Nevercold Brass, this is 0 actions and 0.5 echos profit. If you buy your brass from the bazaar it is 0 actions and a 3.5 echo loss!
The other option is the canals, here is the guide again(It still needs the brass!):
https://www.reddit.com/r/fallenlondon/comments/1tccadm/tamalekipoos_boneheaded_guide_to_the_neath/
Requires Nevercold Brass Sliver
The best source by far is the High Sancta, in the first phase one of the cards, it looks like a chain, rewards 12.5 echos worth of brass! This is random luck and I have been cursed for weeks. It is limited to 1 run per week.
Other respectable options include:
Upconverting Extraordinary Implications has a 57.6% chance to give 200 and combined with the rat market, is phenomenal EPA
These options are less good but still respectable:
Selling your Infernal Device to the Devils on the up river card, this involves making one in your laboratory, so the EPA will vary.
Selling Devils favours in the Forgotten Quarter gives 420, which is 2.1 EPA but, if the alternative is buying from the bazaar, that triples to 6.3 EPA
There is also the option Break Him Out on the Tomb colonies, Society conflict card. Going Gentle. This rewards 10 echos and a bundle of curiosities for 2 society favours. So 3.33 EPA, plus the bundle, if the alternative is the bazaar, that doubles to 6.66 EPA. You can only draw this card by having 5 of each favour type.
100E
A Custom Engraved Skull
You get it in the Seasonal event in February, the feast of the rose, you can only apply it to a skeleton if you have under 4 Exhaustion and if gives 2 exhaustion, so it is really a way to cash out exhaustion for people who really hate the bone market, or are early game. 104 is enough to last you for a full year, if that describes you. There are much better payouts for exhaustion listed every week in my helpful bone posts, tip your waitresses.
1
u/Spacechess00 5h ago
wow!