The IroNoman Marathon: Season 2

Hello delicious friends.
I’ve been merrily grinding away at buckets and tears with an aim to go for a noman tattoo. However, from some idle reading on the forum and wiki I’ve found that the real prize for the noman grind requires that one already has two tattoos. This being my first winter in the neath, I don’t meet that prerequisite.
Could anyone confirm that my interpretation is correct? That one can only obtain a single tattoo per feast, and that the special tattoo requires one to have obtained two tattoos in previous feasts? I like urchins just fine, but I’d like to stop showering them in my hard-won resources if my goal is unreachable.

There are two different tattoos, one for people with 2 tattoos, one for people with less.

I’m afraid you’re right Bootsy - you need two tattoos in total to get the special extra one. You could still do the run to obtain the original Noman tattoo (the face in the snow) but given the cost you’re probably better off waiting until next year so you can get both.

There are two types of Noman tattoo - a standard one and a Gant one. The Gant tattoo does require you to already have two tattoos. The standard Noman tattoo does not.

In terms of prestige I would say they are equal. In fact for the first few years that tattoo were on offer, the Gant tattoo wasn’t event an option. Both the “standard” and the Gant tattoos record and recognise the effort involved equally and the player community would certainly acknowledge both of them.

You may prefer the Gant tattoo for other reasons however. It’s aesthetically “special” and it comes with a material reward. The material reward itself, though, is no compensation for the resources you need to sink into the tattoo in the first place so it’s more of a cheery on top.

The main problem, though, is that the tattoo mechanic is highly likely to be completely reworked this year. The Noman challenge will stay but the exact implementation is hard to predict. So the “standard” tattoos may not even exist this year or if they do they may not be a requirement for the Gant tattoo. We simply don’t know.

Oh, wait.
The Gant tattoo also requires a live Noman?
Can’t I have it if I have: already a regular Noman tattoo and 2 tattoos total?
Or if I ask it this way: Do I need to keep a live Noman AGAIN next year to also get the Gant?
edited by Gonen on 1/9/2017

Yes, you need a living noman for the gant tattoo - I’m not sure why FB insist on you having two tattoos as a prerequisite, but that’s how things stand right now.

ETA: to be clear, you get the gant tattoo from an incident at Millicent’s, which becomes available once you have two tattoos. So you can get face in the snow & the gant tattoo in the same year, assuming you already have a tattoo from a previous year.
edited by Màiread on 1/9/2017
edited by Màiread on 1/9/2017

Well, I’ve already sunk so much time and so many resources into this endeavor that I may as well make a go at a not-so-private noman tattoo anyhow. I don’t know what I would do with all this lacre stinking up my lodgings otherwise. Thanks for the answers, all. Good luck.

Ah! That clarification was what I was looking for. Awesome. This year I’ll have the second tattoo, so hopefully them both.
I understand that &quotincident&quot can be activated at the same day of the regular tattooing. Not wanting to lose the Noman via TtH until the Gant tattoo option appears.

Yep, once Lilac appears the incident becomes available as soon as you meet the criteria. If it follows last year, there will be two options, one for getting the gant tattoo and one just providing a small bonus for people who are already double-inked but haven’t done the challenge. You can only chose one so don’t click the wrong choice!

Thinking about it, the gant tattoo is possibly available in this way so that people who already have two tattoos and don’t wish to reset them can still attempt a Nonan adventure of their own, which is rather nice.

[quote=Màiread]
Thinking about it, the gant tattoo is possibly available in this way so that people who already have two tattoos and don’t wish to reset them can still attempt a Nonan adventure of their own, which is rather nice.[/quote]

Exactly. A way to show you have a high end trophy even if you are &quotlocked out&quot because you already have 2 tattoos which are not Noman.

[quote=Màiread]Yes, you need a living noman for the gant tattoo - I’m not sure why FB insist on you having two tattoos as a prerequisite, but that’s how things stand right now.

ETA: to be clear, you get the gant tattoo from an incident at Millicent’s, which becomes available once you have two tattoos. So you can get face in the snow & the gant tattoo in the same year, assuming you already have a tattoo from a previous year.
edited by Màiread on 1/9/2017
edited by Màiread on 1/9/2017[/quote]

So if I’m currently understanding this correctly, I could pick, say, the Ubergoat for my second tatoo this time around and immediately turn around and grab the Gant Noman tatoo without having to wait a year? I thought picking a second tatoo would somehow lock you out of the parlor until next year, hence why you can’t get the first and second tatoo back to back in the same year.

the two situations are tracked by different qualities.

[quote=Scienceandponies][quote=Màiread]Yes, you need a living noman for the gant tattoo - I’m not sure why FB insist on you having two tattoos as a prerequisite, but that’s how things stand right now.

ETA: to be clear, you get the gant tattoo from an incident at Millicent’s, which becomes available once you have two tattoos. So you can get face in the snow & the gant tattoo in the same year, assuming you already have a tattoo from a previous year.
edited by Màiread on 1/9/2017
edited by Màiread on 1/9/2017[/quote]

So if I’m currently understanding this correctly, I could pick, say, the Ubergoat for my second tatoo this time around and immediately turn around and grab the Gant Noman tatoo without having to wait a year? I thought picking a second tatoo would somehow lock you out of the parlor until next year, hence why you can’t get the first and second tatoo back to back in the same year.[/quote]

I’m also wondering this. Assuming I have a non-Noman tattoo from last year and somehow choose another non-Noman tattoo this year even though I could pick the face in the snow, would I still qualify for the gant tattoo? And is this gant tattoo an actual third tattoo or a meta quality of another tattoo?

It works like this:

Once Lilac arrives, people who have already met her and been tattooed once can go straight to the FQ to obtain a second tattoo in exactly the same manner as their first. This tattoo becomes ‘a second skin bound memory’, listed under ‘circumstance’. (If you want, you can also pay a little Fate to reset the conversation at the theatre and give a different, Noman-specific answer to her question).

Having a second skin-bound memory of any value (so whatever tattoos you like) causes two new storylets to appear at Millicent’s parlour. One of these is called ‘An incident: get a private tattoo of your noman’, which does not require the face in the snow tattoo, but does need a living noman. Playing this storylet gives you the gant tattoo, which is listed under ‘accomplishments’, and also gives the ‘an incident at Millicent’s’ quality which locks you out from the other storylet which last year just gave a primeval hint.

Nothing is guaranteed to be the same year on year, especially this story, but last year if you did have a burning desire to get a second tattoo that wasn’t the face in the snow you could have got something else and still had the gant tattoo done. The gant tattoo was new last year, so we didn’t know this going in.

What you can’t do is get two of the BDR tattoos in the same year - getting one skin-bound memory gives you the ‘a recent visit to Millicent’s’ which locks you from getting another until the quality is gone, which happens through a living story after the Feast is over. The ‘recent visit’ and ‘incident’ qualities are separate, so you can have one of each. If you are only getting your first skin-bound memory this year, however, you cannot have an ‘incident’ at all and so are locked out of the gant tattoo.

Nice to hear this!
As I probably joined after the Feast I don’t have any tattoos at all and thought that I can get the Gant one only in 2019, but seems I can get it next year!
Let the preparations begin!

Thanks Màiread, that is an exceptionally clear explanation!

Thanks for the clarification. I couldn’t remember if ‘a recent visit to Millicent’s’ locked you out of the whole storylet completely. Good to know it doesn’t.

[quote=The Master]
Put the Noman Tattoo on your profile(the option to do so should be under your character’s picture in the myself tab) and either give your name or your profle so that others can see it.[/quote]

Brilliant, thanks :-)

http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Mordant

Noman Decay: 38 x Noman’s Friend at January 10th, 21:53 GMT

I lost 45 x Noman’s Friend due to TtH around same hour as Gillsing.