After a brief and near-apocalyptic summer fad, most of London agrees that gardening in the Fifth City is hazardous to the public health and best left alone. Not so the guerrilla gardeners of the True Horticultural Society, who have identified an opportunity that few have been brave – or foolhardy – enough to see. The rickety expanse of the Flit offers these hard-bitten horticulturalists two things that all good gardens require: unclaimed space, and easy access to the false-stars that suffice for illumination in the Neath.
Since London’s first (and only) Horticultural Show last year we’ve received a lot of requests to bring back the gardening activity. Today, it’s back – with a twist. Since last summer, the noble art of horticulture has been side-lined by the great and the good, and the burgeoning True Horticultural Society has been forced to the rooftops.
Nurture a friendship with London’s suspicious gardeners. Cultivate a Millennium Rose, or rescue a False-Cantigaster Hybrid from its own toxins. Overcome the challenges of gardening in a city where sunlight is not only absent, but frightfully illegal.
Rooftop horticulture is a repeatable activity situated in the Flit. It is available to all players once their ‘A Name Whispered in Darkness’ quality is four or higher; check difficulties and rewards are intended for players at that stage of game progression.
As well as marking the return of gardening to the Neath, this activity is intended to provide a little more variety of things to do at this stage of progression; to offer more applications for Shadowy that don’t (necessarily) involve larceny; and to make it easier to raise your Shadowy by offering a repeatable activity that actually uses Shadowy checks.
You can get involved in gardening from ‘Fingers Both Light and Green’, available in the Flit once your ‘A Name Whispered in Darkness’ quality is 4 or higher.
Oh good! And this looks like it’d be easy to expand on over time, too. I also hope there’s an item or two to be had - maybe something for Cthonosophy? Root sciences and all.
This is very very fun from a roleplaying perspective because yes my Melancholy 11, Surface nostalgia-entrenched PC would adore growing flowers- even if they aren’t the conventional sort.
So far, the only rewards available are some common economy items useful for early- and midgame, with a max profit somewhere around or below 1.5 EpA.
As a source of Strong-Backed labour, it’s almost competitive with Underclay.
Even if unique equipment items show up later, Chthonosophy seems unlikely: this is an activity for pre-PoSI players, while Chthonosophy becomes useful only after PoSI T2.
For an endgame player, the most “valuable” reward is potentially the “Engaged in Rooftop Horticulture” quality itself: anyone willing to spend around 7000 actions to find out if it’s a new 777 quality?
If I remember correctly (and my own experience around the pre-PoSI time), Shadowy often, if not always, lags behind the other stats in terms of getting it to 200, so another way for people to raise it can only be helpful.
After my weekly Nadir visits I usually take a visit to the Crowds of Spite - very useful for raising shadowy. The rewards might not be the best but as a weekly activity I quite enjoy it:)
This is charming, I like the concept of it being guerrilla gardening rather than the more respectable form we tried for Estival, and more mid-level Shadowy activities are definitely needed! Glad we got this in the end!
I really like this! It is indeed charming: very atmospheric, and I love the long descriptions of the plants and the varied ways they react to the different options, which makes grinding much more enjoyable. It reminds me a lot of the Summer Schoolmistress with her greenhouse and uh personal background, which is also very well-written. I’m a low-level PoSI and not as invested in maximizing or whatever its called, so i enjoyed this a lot, as well as agreeing that it’s great for earlier gameplay. Kudos to whoever wrote it! and the newish strategy? of combining set actions with different outcomes for different plants, so there’s much less repetition. At least, that’s new to me!
Back in my day there was a certain action in the Polythreme carousel that checked shadowy without giving suspicion on failure. I spent like 3 months straight in Polythreme and shadowy was the first stat I maxed if I remember correctly. My other base stats were in the 110-120 range.
D__n me. Finally, it’s come out, albeit a shame it’s mechanically stuck in midgame, nevertheless for good reason. And of course I’m 11 days late, it’s in the Flit-that-I-never-check-on.
