A Fascinating Question

Fallen London
1

Under the Feast of the Rose card, there’s an option under ‘Scandal and Intrigue’ to ‘Send a Romantic Note to one you admire’. This allows you to send a social invite to another player; unfortunately, it’s only available if you have at least one point of the ‘Fascinating…’ quality. As a late-game player who’s been banned from the Empress’ Court, getting any Fascinating is proving to be a challenge, cutting me (and other late-game players) out of one of the Feast’s non-Fate-locked social actions. I know it’s still active because I recently received one of these invites from an acquaintance.

I’ve already finished with the Artist’s Model and the Heiress, and as far as I can tell, the only way for me to gain any Fascinating (outside of Polythreme) is to seduce the Struggling Artist at the Singing Mandrake in Veilgarden. However, I’m hesitant to do this, since I understand that it adds an irritating City Vices card to your deck which I am keen to avoid. So my question is twofold:

  1. Is there any other way for an end-game player to gain Fascinating?

  2. If I begin the ‘Seduce a Struggling Artist’ venture, can I then leave the storyline incomplete? Or does simply starting it put the annoying card in your deck? I’m fine with leaving the Artist in limbo as a endless generator for Fascinating. At least then he’d be useful…

I will be Fascinated by any answers to these questions.

2

You should be safe simply starting the seduction and not finishing it - IIRC the card requires the quality you get for spending the night with him, and I don’t think there are any cards unlocked mid-seduction.

3

Thanks! I’ve tried this and can confirm that it works. Once you begin the seduction venture, you can increase Fascinating as much as you want with the storylet &quotFlattery and Careless Charm&quot. It won’t progress any farther (and won’t give you the quality &quotAn Admirer of Art&quot, which adds the card to your deck) until you select &quotYou’ve hooked him!&quot (requires Fascinating 5) and choose one of the options there.

I look forward to exploiting the poor, struggling artist as a source of unlimited Fascinating.