CHRISTMAS IN THE NEATH: A GUIDE

Easter Egg?
The middle window of the House of Chimes on the Advent Calender provides a little message and closes the open windows.

So here’s a tricky question… can you get more than one Noman in a year? Let’s say you purchased one right away, as soon as the Wicket’s open, and you don’t do anything to help preserve it. It should melt away in 2-3 weeks, right? After that, are there any qualities that prevent you getting another (more expensive) Noman? I’m wondering because the Noman actually offers some other opportunities (besides tattoos and elemental secrets) that are only available once a year. (At least… as a repeatable action.)

No, the action at a Sundered Sea is only locked while you have 1x Noman… once your first one is gone, there’s nothing locking you out of another one! I’m not sure it really melts quickly enough though…
edited by Amélie Vaincœur on 12/3/2015

Ahh, wait – there are ways to hasten a Noman’s death, correct? For instance, you could choose “Listen” everytime you draw the abundant Noman’s Progress card, and drain a bit of Noman’s Friend. Or you could get yourself killed, perhaps via a Nephrite Lens or some other quick method (is there any method that doesn’t trigger the Horsehead Amulet?) – and then sacrifice the Noman instead. Unless I’m mistaken, that sets Noman’s Friend to 0 and should auto-trigger the Noman’s End card, letting you get another Noman.

I have a plan. I’m going to slaughter a dozen tiny lacre versions of myself in the cruelest grind ever. But I need… let’s see. 250 echoes and a whole lot of Dangerous christmas cards. Should be doable by January! Ohohohoh. This will be grand. Worst New Year’s resolution ever. Muahahhaaha. MUahhaahhahahahaahHAHAHAHAHAHAA

One theory is it’ll start on friday. another is that it’s a complete revamp of lacre. it’ll probably start friday, so there’s no one who gets an extra pail this winter.[/quote]
The former is most likely what’s occurring, since I doubt they would take an entire rehaul of the system without notifying everyone in the near past. Personally, I’m all for even distribution of lacre. It seems only fair, really.

Just out of curiosity, exactly how many people are attempting to preserve the Noman to get the Noman tattoo this winter? It seems like more and more players are shooting for it as their main goal this Sacksmas.

Also, does anyone know what it would take to preserve a Noman for a full year and if that is even theoretically possible? It would most likely take the echoes and time equivalent of an Ubergoat if not more, but I’d love to know if such a thing would be (though impractical) mechanically possible.
edited by Sir Joseph Marlen on 12/4/2015

Considering you start losing 200+ levels of noman’s friend every week in March, you’d be looking at some obscene grind, like 99 heptagoats worth of tears to do it the proper way (this is a massive exaggeration).

Maths time, a bottle of tears is like +9 noman’s friend average luck on direct application (+15 if used in december as part of a taste grind), so what 23 tears a week minimum assuming you get the minimum March rate for the rest of the year. There’s roughly 52 weeks in a year, so like 1196 tears (239 MB), which is like $6000 of fate expeditions on average plus the actions to actually run said expeditions. This is ballpark because ostensibly the noman is cheaper to keep alive in December/February than in later months.

That’s about as much cash as you might spend buying a cider with fate at the nadir. So I guess it’s possible if you prepare for a good number of years (or pay a lot of money) and the RNG loves you and FBG never increases the noman loss rate in later months.

There is one easy way though. Make the noman then never log in again for the rest of the year. The noman doesn’t technically die until you trigger the must storylet by being logged in with 0 noman’s friend. Never log in and you never trigger it, bam life hack.
edited by NiteBrite on 12/4/2015

Getting one and then not logging in feels like cheating to me but it would, technically, work

I’m not planning on getting a noman this year, I’ve got lodgings to get, so I’m not going to go for it myself but if anyone tries to go for the long haul keeping theirs alive I’d love to hear how it goes :)

By the way… Pails are here! :)

But nothing on the Urchins card…

The new advent code gives you a free pail of lacre.

[quote=Rupho Schartenhauer]

How much ToL do I need?

[ul][li]If you have only the Monocle, you can reach ToL 8 before Mr Sacks comes round. Again, the pails are always consumed, so you need at least four pails for this in total: use the Monocle on one to reach ToL 3, then dip a soul in lacre twice (ToL 4&5), then use the Monocle for the jump from 5 to 8 - you can’t use it at ToL 6! Note that this is A Scholar of the Correspondence challenge! You need SotC 6 to unlock it, it’s straightforward at SotC 10. If you’re below SotC 10 you might fail at the Monocle challenge, melting your Pail and giving you Wounds but no ToL… anyway, once you’re at 8, you can still put four or five levels on top of that from Sacks cards.[/li][li]
[/li][/ul][/quote]

Thanks for the guide, all of you who contributed to it!
Perhaps it was said on other pages in this post, but I wanted to correct (i think) the amount of Pails of Snow needed:
Instead of 4 Pails to reach level 8 ToL, as said above, you can have a good run at 2 pails:

  1. Wait until having 1 ToL and 2 Pails (1 ToL through the Advent or at the first day of Mr. Sacks. We already got 1 Pail today)
  2. Do not linger on until the second ToL arrives but use the Monocle twice right away - reaching 7 ToL. Thus, using only 2 Pails.
  3. Mr sacks will give another 4 ToL (5 if doctor or notaries) - so thats 11 (12) ToL.
  4. Buy the Bazaar 5 lodging with 9 ToL - left with 2 ToL
  5. Twice the Monocle - 8 ToL (lost 2 Pails of Snow)
  6. Buy Beth-Lehem’s Hotel with 8 ToL.
    Point being - need not spend 4 Pails but only 2 for the first prize. Another 2 for the second prize.
    Am I correct or got the calculations wrong?
    edited by Gonen on 12/5/2015
    edited by Gonen on 12/5/2015

Yep!

[quote=Robin Mask]Do ToL last until the next year?

I’m a bit dubious whether I can get the 9 I need for my desired lodgings; particularly as my ‘Scholar of the Correspondence’ is too low to worth risking that option, so I’m stuck with dunking souls, and not a doctor/notary to get the extra pail. If I can save the four I’ll definitely get, then add them onto the next year’s worth, at least I know I stand a chance at some point of getting the desired lodgings :) Assuming they save XD[/quote]

Well I used a ToL which I think was with my account since 2013 (I wasn’t active last 2014) so I guess you can keep ToL after the season.

You can bump SotC to 10 by crafting certain symphonies at the Shuttered Palace. You might want to check that out although I admit that that process costs lots of actions.

I HAVE EATEN THE LACRE

I REGRET EATING THE LACRE

Unfortunately for you, composing symphonies does indeed require access to the Court and not the Palace. How high is your SotC? If you can reach 5 taste by dunking souls/using Mr Sacks, you could always gamble a pail or two, which would take you to 8 taste, meaning you only need one more point from Mr Sacks to get the Spire Emporium.

A word to the wise, in case it isn’t clear: your ‘taste of lacre’ score persists after the holiday season (so you can transfer any spare levels to next year), but any pails you have not used by the end of January will melt into direful reflections. So you can hoard taste, but not buckets.

[quote=Robin Mask]
Thanks to yourself and Docteur for answering :)

And nope . . .

No one warned me that the Court would shut off, or that it was incredibly useful later on in the game. I raced through a particular storyline, and have never since been able to go back (a particular and sole gripe about the game, as I would love to go back and complete the things I never had the chance to do) . . . if you actually mean the Shuttered Palace, I just travelled there, but no such option exists. So with those cut off to me - I’m extremely limited as to where to raise SotC (I completed the university, so the things there that can raise it are also locked off, but less bitter about that one, as I did everything I needed to do and was aware it would vanish).[/quote]

Yeah, it’s the Empress’ Court, I’ve looked at the wikia and this is the storylet that I mentioned.

[quote=Gonen]Instead of 4 Pails to reach level 8 ToL, as said above, you can have a good run at 2 pails:

  1. Wait until having 1 ToL and 2 Pails (1 ToL through the Advent or at the first day of Mr. Sacks. We already got 1 Pail today)
  2. Do not linger on until the second ToL arrives but use the Monocle twice right away - reaching 7 ToL. Thus, using only 2 Pails.
  3. Mr sacks will give another 4 ToL (5 if doctor or notaries) - so thats 11 (12) ToL.
  4. Buy the Bazaar 5 lodging with 9 ToL - left with 2 ToL
  5. Twice the Monocle - 8 ToL (lost 2 Pails of Snow)
  6. Buy Bethlehem’s Hotel with 8 ToL.
    Point being - need not spend 4 Pails but only 2 for the first prize. Another 2 for the second prize.
    Am I correct or got the calculations wrong?
    [/quote]
    Your calculations are correct!

Also: fixed the info about the Dreadful Surmise option. It’s usable at ToL 5-15, not uncapped as I had thought…

[quote=Rupho Schartenhauer]
Your calculations are correct!

Also: fixed the info about the Dreadful Surmise option. It’s usable at ToL 5-15, not uncapped as I had thought…[/quote]

Great. Actually, not my idea but someone here suggested that method in last year’s posts. Don’t remember who, but I’ve saved that guide to a doc file for future (now present) reference. So credit goes to him/her/Xem (am I using it right?)

Also, I’ve noticed you fixed my spelling of Bethlehem. Kind of you to do this discreetly =)
I made that mistake because originally, Bethlehem is two words (Beit - house of, Lehem - bread) though indeed, that is not how one writes it in English.

So, if I were to want to buy The Brass Embassy Sanctom and the Royal Bethleham, what would be the best way?