Is This How the Whitsun Holiday Works?

Fallen London
1

The upcoming Whitsun will be my first time participating in this holiday and I want to make sure I understand how it works. I have read the Wiki guide for this holiday but my understanding may still not be completely correct. Here is my understanding with the added caveats that I do NOT possess the highly illegal augmentation device and I have no fate to spend. Please correct me where my understanding is wrong. Thanks.

The main focus during Whitsun is to collect eggs, augment/upgrade them, and then exchange them for certain companions. While there are other things that can be done, this is the main focus. Some secondary foci are 1) Studying eggs to raise certain attributes (e.g. shapeling arts) and 2) Breaking open eggs to yield “prizes”.

You acquire eggs from the Reliable Eggmonger but where is he located? You can acquire as many eggs as you want or can afford. You may have multiple base eggs in your possession at the same time. However, you may only have one egg that is being upgraded in your possession at a time. In other words, once you start upgrading an egg via invigoration or enlightenment, you cannot begin upgrading another egg until your existing one has hatched.

There will be an unknown number of different egg types but some of them will cost a pittance and some will cost an amber ha’penny. You begin Whitsun by being given only three amber ha’pennies and you cannot acquire more unless you buy/spend Fate. How do you obtain the starting three amber ha’pennies?

The best way to approach egg upgrading is to determine which companions you want. This is hard to do since the list for Whitsun 2022 is not yet known for certain. I have interest in the following new companions listed in order from most to least interest to me:

  • Iron tooth terror bird – gain thorned ribcages in parabola[/li][li] Aurochs – source of horned skull[/li][li] Young terror bird – source of wing of a young terror bird[/li][li] Quizzical squirrel – gain emetic revelations from attar[/li][li] Spindlewolf – gain talk of the town at party[/li][li] Acicular squirrel – gain scouting in parabola[/li][li] Surveilling Spindlewolf – reduce cost of cover identities in Balmoral[/li][li] Dream-dwelling Carnivorous Aurochs – some gain to the church in Burrow-Infra-Mump (also can be used to upgrade parabola defenses but I have these at 3 already)

Any thoughts on the selection of companions listed above or the priority shown? I do not have an orphanage or Salon and have completed all my research projects to unlock all skeleton types.

Once you obtain an egg, it can be very quickly upgraded with minimal actions using fairly inexpensive items that I likely have in significant quantities. However, I should check this. I have:

  • Appalling secrets = 1655[/li][li] Intriguing snippets = 264[/li][li] Foxfire candle stub = 143[/li][li] Extraordinary implications = 243[/li][li] Correspondence plaque = 38[/li][li] Mourning candles = 43[/li][li] Compromising documents = 13[/li][li] Journals of infamy = 326[/li][li] Tales of terror = 35[/li][li] Visions of the surface = 188

I think I have enough of all of these except possible for compromising documents. I will buy 35 of them (2 fourth city echo’s worth) from the rat market next weekend.

After the egg is upgraded to the level desired, you begin the hatching process. Once you start this, it takes 24 hours for the egg to hatch and yield its prize. During this hatching, you cannot upgrade any other eggs although you can investigate/study eggs in your lab or break open base level eggs.

2

The broad strokes of your understanding is correct. The main event is hatching eggs for companions, you can only have one treated/augmented egg at a time, and each hatching takes 24 hours. This functionally limits the number of critters you can obtain. If you play every day that’s enough for 14 critters which is more than the full compliment of free ones, but if your playing time is restricted in some way you may need to hustle.

If I remember correctly, the Reliable Eggmonger is a Universal storylet available everywhere in London. At the least, he’s a Storylet and not a Card. The initial 3 ha’pennies come from an opening vignette that you get to play once. Note that the pennies persist from year to year; it’s possible to get a Device without Fate, but only if you conserve over the course of 2+ years.

The likelihood is that Scarlet (Lyrebird, Iguana) and Aged (Aurochs, Terror-Bird) eggs will cost a ha’penny each, and Percipient (Spindlewolf, Squirrel) will cost only regular items. And we expect one more egg type which will result in two more lines of critters. Based on your shopping list, you want four critters which will cost a ha’penny. The one I would cross off is the Dream-Dwelling Carnivorous Aurochs: the use at Burrow-Infra-Mump provides no permanent effects, and is neither better nor worse than appointing Mrs Frumple.

3

Awesome. Thank you PSGarak. I agree that the Dream-Dwelling Carnivorous Auroch is the least important. I just got a somnolent hyaena and have already changed the Ealing Garden butcher’s business model. Hence, I can get sabre tooth skulls although they are pretty expensive. The horned skull from the auroch is much cheaper to produce at the butcher but is worth only 1/5th the amount that the sabre tooth skull is. However, the horned skull can be 1/2 in antiq/menace vs. only 1/1 for the sabre tooth skull. In light of these pros/cons, what do people think is the relative merit of the horned vs. sabre tooth skull?

4

You can get sabre-toothed skulls by buying directly from the enthusiast of the ancient world for scrip. So you don’t have to get them from the butcher. (And I think the enthusiast is a better source anyway.)

Whereas for horned skulls, the butcher is the best source (after the butcher is upgraded). So I’d focus on getting access to that one.

5

Oh, blast-- Sort of off-topic, but my eyes drifted and I accidentally clicked the ‘Report to moderator’ link on (I believe) the initial post of the thread. Moderator(s), please ignore that!

6

It’s all about Ha’pennies and eggs. Ha’pennies, spend or save them for next year? Eggs, hatch them for pets. Some eggs are only for the Fate players.

7

I’d guess, since we’re expecting a new egg type, that it would make sense for people who are new to Witsun, like Vinish and me, to frontload the Percipient eggs, as those are expected to not require ha’pennies, and we may want to change priorities for how to spend them after folks who are adding on the new creatures to existing collections are able to report on their stats.

I also wanted to clarify about the hatching period. I saw a note on the wiki’s guide that eggs currently incubating will disappear at the end of the event, so just how tight is the timing if you want to get a full 14 creatures hatched?

Also, I’m pretty sure the answer is yes, but the Sartorial augmentations also need to be incubated for 24 hours right? For some reason I’d thought those opened instantly but I can’t find anything to back that up.

It also feels relatively safe to assume that if there are two new tier 3 creatures they’ll have +1 Player of Chess and +1 Zeefaring.

edits for better formatting, some typos, and the last paragraph.
edited by rngwrldngnr on 4/9/2022
edited by rngwrldngnr on 4/10/2022

8

The way it worked the first time, there was a three-day grace period. You couldn’t acquire more eggs, and couldn’t augment or begin incubation, but you could hatch an egg that was already started and could research or crack eggs in your inventory. Second year was a little weird, there was an extension because of server troubles.

Also I think Sartorial eggs actually hatch instantly, no 24-hour wait.

9

You’ve probably seen the update, but I thought it might be worth bumping this, since it turns out the entirety of your shopping list will require coins.

10

This is the FL update:

Are you sure you haven’t misread it? Or are you referring to a different aspect?

11

Nope, that’s clearly the part that rngwrldngnr was referring to. Specifically the Aged Eggs and Percipient Eggs will cost a ha’penny part, since every item in the OP’s list comes from an aged or Percipient egg.

12

There is a binary choice for the ha’pennies: do you spend them now or save them for next year’s Whitsun.

Last year was my first Whitsun and I had saved my ha’pennies. I vaguely remember saving them to buy some device this year.

13

Indeed. You’ll get three free ha’pennies, which combined with the three you had last year is enough to buy the illegal experimental augmentation device. Definitely a good use of them.

14

Thanks. I did see that the aged and percipient eggs will cost a ha’penny and all the critters that I want come from these two kinds of eggs. I am sad. I will have to prioritize which of the three critters I want.

15

It’ll also depend on what the new critters do. There’ll be a whole new (free) egg type, and some of those critters might substitute for the (currently) nonfree ones.

Also, now we know the rotation - that next year scarlet eggs will be free again, and then the year after that aged. Two years free and two years notfree for each egg type. So if you’re in this game for the long haul, you can always just wait and get all of the critters for free, and use the ha’pennies on an illegal augmentation device or sartorial augmentations.