After around seven months of on-and-off effort, I’ve finally succeeded in a self-imposed goal: to breed every possible beast in the Labyrinth of Tigers. I don’t just mean the Hound of Heaven and the Fate-locked equipable monsters; no, I mean every possible combination of Treats, Discipline, Devils’ influence, and Empyrean Redolence with the four breedable beasts, and achieving both the Fortunate and Unlucky results. If we throw in the Bifurcated Owl, that’s a total of 61 possible combinations, with all results echoed in my journal over the past seven months.
Although I doubt I’m the first to breed all of these, it was well worth it. Why? Because each of the 61 results has unique outcome text. Many of them provide story snippets from everyone’s favourite wrasslin’ cleric and former candidate for mayor, the redoubtable Bishop of Southwark. This helps fill in some of his background, from his time in the disastrous invasion of Hell up to present-day events in London. Each result also creates a unique beast and reward description. For example, here are some of the beasts you can breed:
[ul][li]A giant, fire-breathing lobster[/li][li]A 20’-long, acid-spitting blue cobra with a Correspondence symbol on its head[/li][li]An enraged, carnivorous ape[/li][li]A young man who bears an uncanny resemblance to someone from the Bishop’s past…[/li][li]A self-destructing bird bomb[/li][li]A giant, five-legged emerald crab. A delicious, giant, five-legged emerald crab[/li][li]Malebogic scarabs[/li][li]A contemptuous cat (actually, that description is redundant, isn’t it?)[/li][li]A seemingly-ordinary bat. That is, until one of the Masters shows up…[/li][/ul]And here are some of the unique reward descriptions you can get (the actual rewards are all items you can get elsewhere):
[ul][li]An apocryphal book of the Life of St. Blethin (which explains why all promotions to Sainthood are now posthumous)[/li][li]Diaries from sinners[/li][li]A tale of the Lost Grammars[/li][li]Mysteries extracted from a secret hymn[/li][li]An account of the secret Fourteenth Crusade[/li][li]Robes intended for the previous Bishop of Southwark[/li][li]A crate of transcribed exchanges from Church confessionals (what, you didn’t think they write that stuff down?)[/li][/ul]The most difficult part of this project was getting the Unlucky results for each combination. At one point the RNG handed me a "fortunate" streak nine times in a row, which at least was profitable. And don’t get me started on acquiring all those Tomb-Lions…
Impressive! I had no idea that there was that much variety!
Does breeding these beasts actually give you any of them, or are they just described in the text?
edited by Pumpkinhead on 6/24/2017
You can only get some, a total of six (five of them requiring the Fate purchase of Empyrian Redolence, and of those two also require Flute Street). Hound of Heaven is the the only non-fatelocked one. There’s the four you get by breeding using Empyrian Redolence, and the unholy monstrosity you get by smashing together those previous five. So six total.
@ James Sinclair
Thank you for your efforts, sir. Indeed, you have encouraged me to return to the Labyrinth and make my own, fresh discoveries. The community is in your debt.
RD
For those interested in breeding their own beasts in the Labyrinth, here are some tips I learned through long experience:
Somnolent Hyaena
- These are easy to acquire; just get your Nightmares up to 5 (or 4 + Sporing Bonnet), and pick one up in the Third Coil of the Labyrinth. [/li][li]A round-trip from the Fourth Coil while catching a Hyaena requires only 5 actions and 100 Prisoner’s Honey.
Rubbery Hound
- Also easy to get, although far more action-consuming. Assuming you take the shortcut to Flute Street, pass all skill checks, and collect a Rubbery Hound while there, a round-trip from Mrs Plenty’s Carnival takes 39 actions and 100 Foxfire Candles.
- These are the most fun to get, since every zee voyage is a little different. It usually took me around 16-18 actions to get one and return to London.[/li][li]For maximum efficiency, you want to get Troubled Waters to 10 while getting Approaching Your Destination as close to 9 as possible, but not over that too much. This is because hunting a Seal reduces Approaching Your Destination to 9, making earlier higher progress there pointless. I suggest starting with the ‘Steam Boldly’ storylet a few times until both qualities around 8 or 9, then switching to cards.[/li][li]If your profession is Monster-Hunter, you can not only bypass the skill check to catch the Seal, but you also get an Antique Mystery. Since this is worth 12.5e, it makes breeding Seals quite profitable. I regularly got over 2 EPA on a Fortunate breeding result for a Seal.[/li][li]If you enjoy corresponding with fellow scholars while at zee (for research notes), don’t forget to bring plenty of Sulky Bats.
Tomb-Lion
- By far the most difficult of the four to get, because you’re at the whim of the RNG, both to increase Scandal go get to the Tomb-Colonies, and to draw the card ‘I met a curious creature’ while there. You’ll also need 1 Tincture of Vigor.[/li][li]If you have Hedonist 12+ and a nearly maxed-out Singular Plant, you can farm Counterfeit Heads of John the Baptist from the card ‘As big as your head’, and then use the Heads for 36 points of Scandal, sending you directly to the Tomb-Colonies. I did this at first, but found that it was easier to just get Scandal up to 6 from cards and then equip a Modish Bonnet and Scarlet Stockings. Once in the Tomb-Colonies, I would remove those items, lowering Scandal to 6. That’s less Scandal to reduce than 8, making it easier to exit the Tomb-Colonies.[/li][li]You can also ask acquaintances to betray you to increase Scandal, but spamming them with Scandal requests will get old fast.[/li][li]The fastest and most efficient way to leave the Tomb-Colonies is to use the storylet ‘A Letter to An Old Flame’, and write to the Bishop of St. Fiacre’s. However, this will probably become more difficult in the future once the Favours/Renown system is implemented for the Church faction…[/li][li]The Tomb-Colonies are the best place to pick up Favours: Tomb-Colonists, and you may be stuck there for a while looking/praying for the Tomb-Lion card. You may very well accumulate 7 favours during this time, so I suggest spending them all in London before you get sent out to the Colonies.