What used to be no big deal (because Urchins connection was easily grind-able in the Flit) now takes an obscene amount of Urchins favors to turn Correspondence Plaques into Aeolian Screams and then again into Storm Threnodies.
This is a major roadblock, and it’s a shame to see an important conversion made so much harder. Perhaps add an option to convert large quantities of Plaques all at once.
There’s a similar issue with ~4 Church favors being needed now every time I want to turn Strangling Willow Absinthe into 5 Cellars of Wine, but that’s still not nearly as bad as the Plaques → Screams → Threnodies conversion (since you need so many more Threnodies in practice).
The old system wasn’t too easy on the players; it seems un-fun to be needlessly punished.
You can grind Broken Giant directly, so you only need 1 Church Favour to convert into some Cellars (you can also grind Cellars of Wine directly in the 4th coil). It’s also possible to collect Storm-Threnodies through expeditions without any need for Favours, and if you save your Urchin Favours rather than spend them you can turn them against the Widow on “a familiar face” for 2 Storm-Threnodies each time. You’ll just need to grind Widow back up again.
For other, less newbie-friendly options there’s also the Overgoat’s card, and I do believe you can breed Rubbery Hounds from Flute Street into Storm-Threnodies if you’ve spent Fate to get there.
A number of actions give one or more aeolian screams on a rare success.
Lodgings cards: smoky flophouse, observatory cottage, lair in the marshes, rooftop shack
Unfinished business: the fellow in the corner (spite), get in on a card game (veilgarden), a spot of footpadry (watchmaker’s hill), a tradition developed after the fall (ladybones road)
Item conversion: exorcise your secrets by writing a journal (appalling secret, can give five screams), an arrangement of screams (primordial shriek)
Other cards: ask the sardonic music-hall singer for an invitation to an exclusive soirée, become the phantom of the antimacassar
Screams are also available through the Shivering Relicker, who takes 100 scrap for a 50/50 chance of 5 or 20 screams. There’s a rare success which gives a storm-threnody on top of the 20 screams.
The Shivering Relicker can also provide storm-threnodies directly, at 120 scrap for 3 STs. If you only want screams for up-conversion to threnodies, this is a better deal because you can skip the urchin favors.
As for cellars of wine: the Hound of Heaven provides 3 cellars, 6 bottles of broken giant 1844, and 3 church favors which can then be spent to upconvert absinthe.
Nomen need a lot. I can’t think of any other reason to want them.
My attitude is that things change; just adapt. I would actually use upconversions instead of completely ignoring them if they had a renown requirement instead of a favor cost, but eh.
To clarify - Nomen themselves don’t need that much. It’s the Noman tattoo that would require a bunch, and that’s not a challenge most players undertake (I’ve personally never bothered).
Depending on the melt rates and your luck, you may not even need so many. Last round, we were surprised to find that many of us would have made it with minimal use of buying pails of snow from the urchins (which used STs).
I hate the new system, too. I created an alt to do one of the other ambitions, and it took absolutely forever to get an Iron Republic Safe-Conduct thanks to the new requirement for Hell Renown 10. I waited and waited and waited for the cards to come around for favors from devils–I could go days without one. Seriously annoying and not much fun. The game itself seemed to at last realize what was going on, because I got the last 3 favors needed to get to renown 10 in about an hour and a half. edited by Tay1or on 9/18/2017 edited by Tay1or on 9/18/2017
There are several things one would not now choose to do because of the need for renown with a party with whom one does not wish to be permanently associated …