I have been very unwise.
Oh dear, and I felt proud having been scorched once. Ôo
How does one go about scorching oneself? Through SMEN? And are all us Londoners vulnerable to sunlight? I thought we could return to the surface, unless we had died.
Yes, you can pay a chunk of fate at a point in SMEN to be scorched by the sun.
I can’t remember all the lore on sunlight’s effects but I think we are all vulnerable to different degrees. The Sun burns a way what is-not, leaving only what is. The neath is full of is-not and the longer you spend down there the more it works its way into your being (note the long life spans various characters). Dying and coming back is a very is-not thing to do so it’s going to mess you up pretty good but I think you’ll still get a pretty good sun burn if you’ve spent long enough down here.
edited by An Individual on 6/29/2016
What are the effects?
Hard, final, irrevocable death.
Or at least it used to be. That was when going on the Carousel to the Surface was a fate-cost option with no interesting text that perma-killed you. Heck, the quality was only given to people who went on the ride and weren’t deleted because Alexis didn’t expect anyone to be brave (or stupid) enough to actually do it. Now, if I’m correct, it doesn’t deliver permanent death. I’m not sure what exactly happens when you ride it, but I’m fairly certain the quality has no use and simply serves as a nod to the original Seekers to earn it and a way for Seekers to waste real world money to celebrate SMEN.
I still remember the old days, when many would seek, but none would dare touch that option. These days, it seems to be highly sought after, if not coveted. I find this dramatic shift in attitude towards it then versus now rather fascinating. It’s not what it once was and yet it still holds appeal. Or is it that it holds appeal because it doesn’t do what it once did?
I want to guess that its coveted status these days comes from the fact it has become a powerful symbol over the years since its discovery/implementation. It may not be the same, but it echos the old sentiment. To me in its current form it feels more like a memorial or a reference, a sort of declaration of "do you recall how they (seekers past) came to this place and were very -very- unwise? Same." But that is just my guess watching from the outside this time.
It would be interesting to hear from the newly scorched what drives this new generation of seekers to pursue it with such vigor.
edited by NiteBrite on 6/29/2016
Foolishness. Always foolishness.
Well, to me at least, when I started playing fallen london I was just bumbling all over the place, not really playing too much attention. To be honest, I couldn’t tell you how I made it as far into the game as I did, though it was probably just that I found the setting entertainingly quirky.
Then I stumbled across Space’s blog, and everything changed. I started to get learned on the deeper mysteries, learned about these things called judgements, about parabola, about the masters, and everything I thought was odd or slightly out of place, fell into place. But the bit I found the most fascinating was the old tales of Seeking, and I gobbled them up like I had never read a story of self destruction before. Mr Eaten’s tale just reeked to me of cool, the viciousness of the betrayal, the weird, dream-like writing of it, the cool concepts of what you had to do to yourself to advance. I really felt like it was a story I wanted to play, and I was slightly disappointed that it was gone, though all I had of it was old echoes and the occasional whistle of cold, dead winds.
But there were other stories and such and I got really into FL, and I read all these other stories and I was like, oh damn, theres like actually a lot of cool stuff to do in this game! Lots of cool secrets. And my now favourite type of secret is seeing the result of a rare item or quality unlocking a branch in another storyline. An example like choosing a tattoo, or picking your entry quality for the House of Chimes. Choices where having a lot of stuff gives you options you might not otherwise have had. But anyway, then seeking returned and all hell broke loose, as we all know.
I won’t say seeking is what I was born to do, I’ve only just recently come to terms with the fact that my main that I’ve poured about three years of progress into is going away forever once I finish the story. As you may be able to intuit, I’ve only just recently reached the carnival, and I saw the option to scorch myself.
Though, for all this preamble, I don’t really know why I did it, considering like you say Nitebrite, its allure is somewhat lost on me. If it did delete my character, I wouldn’t have done it. But there’s definitely something of a romance to that option, like a "Oh damn, this is really bad! I shouldn’t do it, but I’m gunna!". I imagine most of us know the story about how NiteBrite was scorched and gone, but came back. The option itself is basically nothing at this point. Pay 50 fate, die, get a nice little memento. I guess its really an exclusivity thing, in the end. We heard the tales of how about three people did it, and it left behind a cool story, and we want a part of it. To be able to show people that we went there, done that, got the quality to show for it. Well thats how I see it. Us(me?) newbies just want to be able to be on the frontier, to do the cool, unexpected stuff and get our own legend, or at least a part of one.
As for why I did it 7 times? Mainly stupidity, the faint hope something cool would happen, the desire to have something that few other people would have, I guess. We can’t all be pioneers.
edit: wow, wall of text. apologies for its potential unread-ability.
edited by Marcurious on 6/29/2016
Before you can progress to this part of Seeking, you have to kill yourself seven times. So going to the Surface should really kill you permanently, but there were some complaints about this in the old Seeking so it merely wastes fifty Fate and gives you a unique quality now.
No, it never actually deleted people’s characters, when people sent in bug reports that it DIDN’T Alexis created Scorched. Source.
I intend to be Scorched when it’s my time, and for me it’s a bit of whatever drives people to climb Everest. It’s a feat, certainly, but it’s no longer a way to make yourself a Legend. It’s merely following the now well-worn path of legends. A difficult path, to be sure, but not an impossible one. Still, it lets you feel like you’re Part of Something great and foolhardy and exciting, and even though it’s hardly what it once was and you get no true reward for it, still you climb the mountain.
Someone is eventually going to go through all of SMEN so they can have the Seven-Fold Knock and Scorched by the Sun be on their Mantlepiece.
Since being freed of the name doesn’t seem to do anything right now, what about 7 "Seven-Fold Knock’s"?
Since being freed of the name doesn’t seem to do anything right now, what about 7 "Seven-Fold Knock’s"?[/quote]
Hearsay: going to North requires not having any knocks?
No doubt. That’s my plan, since I don’t want to lose my main. It’s like getting a Noman’s tattoo, a hard grind.
Since being freed of the name doesn’t seem to do anything right now, what about 7 "Seven-Fold Knock’s"?[/quote]
Hearsay: going to North requires not having any knocks?[/quote]
Argh, I remembered now, doesn’t this mean that if someone went NORTH, didn’t destroy his character and started seeking again, he wouldn’t be able to finish seeking now? At least not until "Freed of the name" starts doing something.
No one knows, probably.
Similarly: One can acquire the Obscurity quality when getting candle E (preventing any further Notability). But if later you choose the wrong option on Winking isle, you lose candle D, for which the only current source requires 12 Notability.
We’ll learn at next Holiday season if the other paths to Destin are viable. If not, then it’s possible to be permanently stuck with Obscurity and no way to continue/finish Seeking.
You can’t actually sacrifice St Destins Candle if you’ve got Obscurity (the screenshot I used in my writeup is a little outdated)