For those like myself, who came along specifically to pursue Seeking. Some observations upon my becoming a POSI (in a month and a half, with Exceptional Friends but no Fate). A certain amount of research into the game mechanics is presumed.
Enjoy the game while you’re playing it. The Neath is a wide and bountiful place, and there’s no sacrifice leaving a place you never truly experienced. Appreciate the storylines, even the grindy ones.
If you ask nicely, people on the forums will offer you delicious things. Persuasive kittens. Gifts. Starveling cats, if you’re very lucky.
You will want to specialise in Watchful at first. Don’t. This is a long path and you’ll need to raise every attribute regardless; it’s better to raise Dangerous, so that you will be able to make it to the Labyrinth of Tigers as soon as possible. Why do you want to go to the Labyrinth of Tigers? Because it’s the only way of controlling Unaccountably Peckish, which is your first priority; marsh-mired is the best way for a new player to gain SMEN.
(If you are like me, you will beg for the lend of a Starveling Cat and plunge onto the Seeking Path irresponsibly, raising your UP to a level catastrophic for a new player. Do this once, to see the cards. Try not to do it twice.)
Having an alt on hand to aid with the consequent pile of menaces is a cheat. Are you the sort of person who cheats? Well, only you can answer that one.
You will want to specialise in Watchful anyway. Do this; the sooner you make your name and can start progress on Forgotten Quarter expeditions, the better. Scholar of the Correspondence is exceedingly valuable for all sorts of reasons (Fledgling Writer, which will be a critical source of Searing Enigmas and many other goods).
Expeditions will be exceedingly slow as you grind up supplies. This is a good time to work on your Persuasive and Shadowy.
Shadowy is better, as making your way in the Flit will eventually unlock the option to talk to your Starveling Cat, greatly increasing the process of getting UP. This makes the task of getting your weekly point of SMEN much, much easier.
(For sane people, I would recommend not even beginning Seeking until you have both this and the Labyrinth. Though you may not be if you’re Seeking. I paid the time for cat-trading myself and am a full month further along than I otherwise would have been.)
Save jade for the Labyrinth, Docks favours for expeditions, whispered hints for everything. As a matter of fact, save raw materials, even the ones you know you’l need to rid yourself of. Find a profession early, for the sake of the Trade Secrets. I recommend pickpocket at first, with a stack of moonpearls - these, too, you’ll want later.
(Agree to kill anyone Mr Inch wants killed to skip a good chunk of grinding on Beast-Hunting. By then the jade in your pocket will be burning a hole.)
Do not buy the moderately expensive hat or henchmen that increases your needed attribute by a small but insignificant amount; there are better uses for raw echoes.
Unless you really, really want to.
Buy a Talkative Rat. Micro-manage your odds so they are always chancy. A Bold Approach on expeditions requires a Watchful of a 167 to be straightforward. And one of these days you’ll want to be an Extraordinary Mind.
It may occur to you that you won’t need Appalling Secrets, not travelling the Seeking Road. Not so. Appalling Secrets convert to Tales of Terror in great numbers, which you want both for the Fledgling Writer and for garnering Compromising Documents, which you will need to go hire Strong-Backed Labour.
And why do you want them? For the expeditions, of course.
(Besides, they’re used for a thousand and one things once you become a POSI.)
Ignore Ambitions. Ambitions are the opposite of Seeking; they are for people who crave more of the world, more of the Neath, who have postponed a reckoning for more life. They are tempting but not useful.
(I pursue an Ambition, and I water a plant. There is no need to be too consistent.)
The world cannot have too many Patriotic Adventures, or Correspondence symphonies. Write all you can.
Occasionally venture outside your rooms to do this; a wide experience of the world is a great boon in these matters.
Go slowly. The options to burn Watchful or pay appalling secrets for seeking are not for you, they are for players who stored secrets for years in their wait for Mr Eaten. They had to wait. You will too.
Go carefully. Trips to the slow boat and the prison await. No need to make matters more difficult when you do arrive.
Go North.
edited by Teaspoon on 8/6/2016