One week left to enter your memories into the Fallen London Memories Competition - but, that’s over in its own thread! This thread is for quick questions, and the answering of same!
I’ve gotten to the point in the game that I think I should open up the Nadir. What would be the best way to get an Eyeless Skull without relying on the thread in the Singing Mandrake? I’m willing to spend a few days seeking curios in hopes of a rare success, but if there’s a more reliable way that would be great.
Edit: My alt found an Eyeless Skull, and I’m internally debating the morality in sending it to myself to fast-track the Nadir. Does anyone have thoughts about this?
edited by Lord Garuda on 2/10/2020
[quote=Lord Garuda]I’ve gotten to the point in the game that I think I should open up the Nadir. What would be the best way to get an Eyeless Skull without relying on the thread in the Singing Mandrake? I’m willing to spend a few days seeking curios in hopes of a rare success, but if there’s a more reliable way that would be great.
Edit: My alt found an Eyeless Skull, and I’m internally debating the morality in sending it to myself to fast-track the Nadir. Does anyone have thoughts about this?
edited by Lord Garuda on 2/10/2020[/quote]
So… after the Eyeless Skull, you’re going to need another five Eyeless Skulls unless you’re willing to spend Fate. Given that, I wouldn’t be bothered so much by the morality of sending one over.
The two non-social sources of Eyeless Skulls are Seeking Curios, and a fairly uncommon Rare Success when completing the Shrine of Deep Blue Heaven expedition. Neither are particularly reliable, although expeditions are probably less actions per Skull and definitely less opium addiction per Skull. Supplying the expeditions is the limiting factor, although Seeking Curios does tend you end you up with a wealth of Secrets.
May I add here from recent personal experience:
The eyeless skulls in the Shrine expedition may be rare-ish, but in the usual way of the RNG, they may also crop up in pairs, as they did for me recently. A quirk when they do: the second of the expedition results pages (the one that actually tells you what you found) is skipped – or was both times for me, so a little glitch there. I only noticed when the menace cards started appearing. It’s worth noting that holding on to the skulls, even with a five-card lodging, makes your hand unplayable within a couple of days.
The Mandrake route seems to have fallen out of favour – so much so, that it’s barely worth offering the skulls when they do crop up, given that they can be sold for a decent profit.
It’s not a glitch, exactly. More like an artifact of a design decision. The Eyeless Skull is technically a Rare Success to Deep Blue Heaven. It replaces the flow where you find out your reward, rather than being one of the outcomes to finding your reward.
The fact that the Eyeless Skull reward is in a different branch has three in-game impacts:
- You cannot donate the Skull to the University factions, or pay Fate to re-roll it into a different reward.[/li][li]If you get the Rare Success, the Expedition overall requires one less action.[/li][li]The Skull is not in the Expedition loot table, so Fate expeditions that include Deep Blue Heaven’s loot range cannot get that result.
The last of these is somewhat immaterial, since to my knowledge the Fate expeditions also include Skulls on their own loot range.
I absolutely agree that your hand goes to pot rather quickly. I unlocked the Nadir by doing it The Hard Way®, and then did it again because I wanted a Cinder as a souvenir item. Both cases took like a week, and playing cards was noticeably difficult by day 2 and literally unplayable by day 4.