Getting Books of Hidden Bodies?

I’d like to continue with the University Storyline past the Sneering Gentleman storylet. I already have the blackmail material (Being an author made that step easy), and the extraordinary implications are far less of an obstacle. The Books of Hidden Bodies, on the other hand, have proven difficult.

What’d be my best bet for getting the materials required to make a pair of the books in the Sidestreets? Grinding for frankly obscene amounts of proscribed materials? Something else? Is there a more direct approach to getting the BoHBs?

Alas, grinding is often one of the surest ways of getting Sidestreet items. For Proscribed Materials, your best bet by far is The Foreign Office. Each go around will get you 450.

Trading favour with the revolutionaries in the Flit will get you 720 every time you draw the card and have 120 CP of connection to spend. Advances the Liberation of Night, but that’s probably harmless.

If you can’t do the foreign office you can do unfinished business (“A Literary sort of fistfight” in watchmakers hill)

Winning the Tournament of Lilies can also get you a Book of Hidden Bodies, but the RNG monster can royally screw that plan on occasion…

Compiling it, winning the tournament of lillies, and a rare success from ‘Go Hunting for Caches’ (from the ‘A Fine Day in the Flit’ card) are the only ways to get this item.

Mahogany Hall, Variety is the spice of life! Steal props and goods from other theatres, then Bribe an orchestra to play for your show, and finally ‘Obtain’ licences from the Ministry of Public Decency. You’ll get 10 inklings of identity after it all. Or if you have a good way of getting Moonpearls you can skip the first two steps.

If you’re still in the early stages of the University, you can get Proscribed Materials from most stages of the Term Passing… carousel. Getting involved with the Stoats provides 21 per action and university connections until Term Passing 8, then Picking the Team will get you 22 until Term Passing 11. At that point, you can nab four London Street Signs and whatever end of term payout you want and start the whole thing over again. It’s slightly worse for materials than A literary sort of fist-fight, but the payouts at the end bring the overall profitability up.

Edit: Nevermind, I just reread your post and looked up where you are. In that case, I’ll second The Midnight Road: The Foreign Office provides your most efficient source of Proscribed Materials, which can be converted up wholesale to Inklings. If you have a good amount of Connected:Revolutionaries, flip cards in the Flit to call those favours in. Otherwise you’re grinding it out with Unfinished Business. I’d get Scraps of Incendiary Gossip from side conversions or buying refreshments in the Labyrinth of Tigers and then convert those to Identities Uncovered rather than convert up the Inklings, though.
edited by Kaigen on 11/1/2015

I just finished this, but I don’t think I would recommend the method. I must’ve robbed the Ministry of Public Decency a hundred times.