Mirror Marches

Hello there, fellow Londoners! I have a question: I have reached Nightmaers 5 and I am usually quick to lower them, but now I have heard that Mirror Marches is not a bad place to visit. Should I let it reach 8? I do have many Memories of Light.

I consider it well worth your time to visit it at least once. If nothing else it is words from FBG that you haven’t read yet. (and some are pretty good words in my opinion)

Mechanically there’s also the advantage that you don’t lose as many dream qualities if you go to the Marches instead of a State of Some Confusion. Going to a SoSC also involves cards reducing Nightmares that often cost your stats, which the Marches’s cards do not.

But, honestly, the best reason to go there is because you haven’t been there yet. I thought it was a terribly fun place my first visit, but I’m kind of a Parabola-addict – so to speak.

{edit: Oh, a bunch of the Marches’s cards are also auto-fire cards that you can invoke without having any actions in hand. So if you use your actions to play storylets that reduce Nightmares and then play a bunch of autofire cards that do the same you can reduce Nightmares pretty fast as well. I can’t recall if the SoSC cards are auto-fire or not, it’s been a long time since I’ve visited the Royal Beth as an inmate.}
edited by absimiliard on 4/29/2016

Tough dilemma! I need my dream qualities to go forward in my Ambition right now (still waiting for a bit of the fire sermon) so I just downed some laudanum… but your advice made me decide that next time, I am definitely jumping in. Thanks!

FWIW, if you can be certain of going to the Mirror Marches instead of a State of Some Confusion it’s probably worth it. Rather than losing like 5 CP from each of your dream qualities you only lose a bunch from Someone Is Coming, I think it’s around -15 CP or so. In compensation there are chances to gain Fingerwork, Gates of the Garden, the Eyes of Icarus, and Walking the Fallen Cities in there – though you need to know where to look and understand the costs (if there are any).

If that’s Heart’s Desire you’re pursuing, do try the Key. Dreams are so hard to come by!

The key is only meant for the Ambition? Nothing else? Or can I get two of them?

You use up the Key in the Ambition, but you can always get a replacement in the same place you got the first one.

Oh thank you! Still a long way to go, but the suggestion helps a lot.