A Guide to Lacre?

Don’t invite a friend to taste the lacre. It loses the lacre, gives a ton of nightmares, and a slight stat boost. Next time I should check the wiki before doing that.

Thank you! I wonder how many pails of snow one can get without purchasing from urchins… looks expensive

[quote=Gillsing][quote=zbr308]So my best chance is Examine * 2 + Wait for Mr. Sacks?[/quote]Last year one of the advent gifts was a level of Putting the Pieces Together: the Taste of Lacre, so if that one returns you might be able to add it to your calculation.

The second best thing to do with An Unusual Pail of So-Called Snow is to Dip a soul in it. Do that up to level 5, then get the rest of the points from the Mr Sacks story and it should be enough for at least one 5-card lodgings upgrade. Assuming that Mr Sacks is as generous with points as last year. I looked at my old screenshots, and I went from 15 to 20 by carefully studying the wiki before making my choices. Ain’t I a stinker? ;)

Another one of the advent gifts last year was a temporary return of the Smuggler’s Lamp code/story, which I played when I started out, as it was the Sunless Sea Kickstarter that brought me here. In that story you should be able to get a Dreadful Surmise, and then lose all your Hard-Earned Lessons (because failure is unacceptable) by trying to feed expensive pails of lacre to wild boars. Like I did to get to level 15. I didn’t know that getting that high level in Taste of Lacre was rather pointless, and that to maximise my points I should have kept those pails and examined them with my monocle after spending levels, and only fed a few to the boars to get to the necessary levels above 5-7.

And that’s why I only got two of the 5-card lodgings. And this year I’m not even sure if I want the third one, considering that I could perhaps get some Tears of the Bazaar instead. But what if there will be further upgrades that build on existing upgrades, but have stricter requirements that I might not be willing to fulfil for the two I have, but for the third I would? Better safe than sorry? Maybe…

EDIT: Turns out that upgrading to 5-card lodgings doesn’t just require Notability 3, but actually costs 3 levels of Notability. And my Notability is too high for me to throw away all those CPs of Making Waves just to be ‘safe’.


edited by Gillsing on 12/9/2014[/quote]

[quote=zbr308]Seeing it almost certainly has something to do with lacrima (latin for tears, we are probably more familiar with lacrimosa, latin for weeping), I’d guess it has a similar sound, &quotlakri&quot maybe.

edited by zbr308 on 12/9/2014[/quote]

I went and dug up the tweet I recalled explaining how to pronounce it. It is acre with an l.

It stuck with me mostly because when lacre was first introduced I looked it up and discovered that it was Spanish for sealing wax, so I had been pronouncing it accordingly. I was pretty surprised by the clarification tweet. It being pronounced like lacrima would have been really neat, though.

edited by Sara Hysaro on 12/9/2014

Oops… well, hopefully my friend will forgive me for that…

Thanks Sara! And thanks zbr308 for pointing out the lacrima connection!

[quote=Sara Hysaro][quote=zbr308]Seeing it almost certainly has something to do with lacrima (latin for tears, we are probably more familiar with lacrimosa, latin for weeping), I’d guess it has a similar sound, &quotlakri&quot maybe.

edited by zbr308 on 12/9/2014[/quote]

I went and dug up the tweet I recalled explaining how to pronounce it. It is acre with an l.

It stuck with me mostly because when lacre was first introduced I looked it up and discovered that it was Spanish for sealing wax, so I had been pronouncing it accordingly. I was pretty surprised by the clarification tweet. It being pronounced like lacrima would have been really neat, though.

edited by Sara Hysaro on 12/9/2014[/quote]

[li]

[color=#009900]I say lei-ker, to rhyme with nacre. But everyone else at Failbetter thinks it should be lacker. But neh the neh neh it was my word neh[/color]

If I lacquer with lacre would it cover an acre?

[color=#009900]Or a baker.[/color]

So female enthusiasts of the stuff would be the Lacre Girls?

[quote=Sara Hysaro][quote=zbr308]Seeing it almost certainly has something to do with lacrima (latin for tears, we are probably more familiar with lacrimosa, latin for weeping), I’d guess it has a similar sound, &quotlakri&quot maybe.

edited by zbr308 on 12/9/2014[/quote]

I went and dug up the tweet I recalled explaining how to pronounce it. It is acre with an l.

It stuck with me mostly because when lacre was first introduced I looked it up and discovered that it was Spanish for sealing wax, so I had been pronouncing it accordingly. I was pretty surprised by the clarification tweet. It being pronounced like lacrima would have been really neat, though.

edited by Sara Hysaro on 12/9/2014[/quote]

lacre is also portuguese for seal. I don’t think I will ever be able to pronouce it differently.

I also thought it was &quotlack-er&quot but now, everytime I see it I’ll think of Kobe Bryant and know.

You’re welcome. ;-)

I also thought it was &quotlack-er&quot but now, everytime I see it I’ll think of Kobe Bryant and know.[/quote]

[li]

Has anyone been able to acquire more lace?

We’ll probably be getting proper lacre acquisition options next week.

I am ready. Don’t know if this:

http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/"Ere,_you!_D'you_want_this%3F"_2

is going to happen again, but I’m building up urchin connections & resources just in case. So far I have casing->steal journals of infamy, convert to plaques->screams->threnodys.

Any other/better lacre-accumulating tips?

A Rookery Password will be helpful if you don’t already have one. Once you’re under 20 it’s a quick way to get back up again.

My preferred method is, while you still can do business in the Labyrinth of Tigers, build running battle and cash them in Flit.

Edit: my bad, it’s the Hunt is on, not running battle.
edited by zbr308 on 12/11/2014

[quote=zbr308]My preferred method is, while you still can do business in the Labyrinth of Tigers, build running battle and cash them in Flit. [/quote]Yes, The Hunt is On! gives Rostygold when acquired it in the Third Coil of the Labyrinth of Tigers, and then Primordial Shrieks when spent to kill the goat demon in the Flit. And while converting first tier resources takes a lot of time, it pays a bit better when converting the second tier to third. And third coil/goat demon certainly pays better than Thefts of Particular Character. It’s just that at least half that pay comes in Rostygold, so if time is of the essence, Thefts of Particular Character might still be the better option to buy lacre.

If they’re going to charge Nightwhispers though, then it’s off to the Forgotten Quarter for expeditions. Strong-Backed Labour from The Acacia and the Butterfly, or just Docks connection from the Engraved Pewter Tankard. Porters are important. Might get an annoying amount of Storm Threnodies from that too. During peace the Fallen London RNG prepares for war.

Also a question: is it a good idea to spend everything I have to get pails of snow? How many do I need? How many can I get for free? Shall I aim for, say, 10 pails?

Depends on what you want and what you can spend it on. If it’s the same as last year, you want taste of lacre.
Buying a noman cost 3 (off the top of my head: the price kept going up)
Remote dwellings cost 3 each
The fate-locked storyline completion cost 5, whichever option you chose
The five card lodgings (requires notability) cost: embassy = 7, hotel = 8, bazaar = 9
Plus you can use it to ‘search the shore’, which is a luck roll to spend whatever you’ve got left over.

If you really want to go all out, and try and get a noman to live until the end of the Feast of the Exceptional Rose in February, you’ll need an absolute mountain of the stuff (you’re probably better using tears of the bazaar if you want to try that, I spent about 3k echoes’ worth of them last year trying to do that, and failed).
edited by RandomWalker on 12/11/2014