Here’s this week’s thread for any Fallen London questions you don’t want to start a whole thread for!
To start us off, here’s an unanswered Q from last week’s thread:
Does anyone know if you can reclaim your soul from the Stacks while already having the unlock in the carnival active? I’m always up for hunting new books, but I’m not sure if the qualities will conflict.
I’m unsure what that even refers to. Is that part of the Fate-locked method to reclaim one’s soul?
The carnival option is the fate locked method for restoring your soul. They’ve recently added a rare spawn to the stacks that provides an option to get your soul back without spending fate. I’m just trying to clarify the former locks you out of the latter or if it’s just a very rare chance (I think I’m about 40 tries into testing it myself, but obviously I can’t prove I’m not just seeing my results via chance).
Unfortunately both of these methods are poorly documented right now. The existing method is Fate-locked so it’s not fleshed out on the Wiki. And the new one is new, and rare, and that type of effect is not transparent so we don’t know what the rules are. I’m not even sure if it’s possible to play the new one twice or not.
Makes sense (kind of what I suspected). I’ll keep on trying. I’ve hit the last step of soul-hunting short of reclaiming my soul. So, if I get it, that will prove the two aren’t mutually exclusive. If not, at least my library visits will go up.
I have a new question regarding the agenda item for deploying the GHR train in the parabolan war. So I made arrangements for the tracks to directly go through the Is-Not towards Balmoral many weeks ago, but I sort of forgot about the potentials this unlocked. Now I’m nearly at the end of the line (currently researching an unusual surgical procedure for founding a city), and I just realized I haven’t seen the option to deploy the train in the Parabolan war during any previous meetings.
For context, currently my related qualities are: Parabolan Campaign 4 - Yourself; Stage of the War 1; Involved in a Railway Venture 120 - You’ve opened a station at The Hurlers. No Advance!
As the player, I do know that the option only appears when you have an active war and that’s probably why I didn’t see the option earlier. But I still cannot see it in the agenda even now that I have one ongoing war. Is there any more prerequisites?
Here’s a link to the relevant Wiki page. Note there are several branches, because the option varies a bit by campaign. Just from looking, hm… Train Defences? You do need some shooty bits on your train to actually do War with it.
Yeah, I’ve checked the Wiki page as well as the Railway Board guide and yet everything seems in place in my qualities. My train’s been all upgraded, war’s all there… I just really don’t know what is missing here.
I do have one theory though. Since I only commenced my current war campaign after convening my two board meetings of this week, this option, if available, would be still locked by my having Delay until the Next Board Meeting. So it could be that. But I imagine the option should still be there when I preview the agenda, just locked, right? Is that not the case?
Also, I don’t if that’s actually the case or a mistake, but in this section Railway Board (Guide) - Fallen London Wiki, the table lists that I need Train through Parabola 2 for this option to be available. If I understand it correctly, this is a hidden quality that tracks how your train goes through Parabola, 1 being choosing to directly build the main line through it, 2 being choosing the Hellworm route first and building a spur line into Parabola later. Am I blocked out of this option because I opted for the Parabolan route? That just sounds too counter-intuitive for me.
Update: Nevermind. You do have to have no Delay until the Next Board Meeting to actually see the option. No issue now. Choo choo into the fray we go!
Got the Anathema card at last, but nothing new. Doubled checked for my own contract and I have it. But I did play the Fate soul-reclaim story once already. Maybe it’s locked by Known for Metaphysical Caprice.
.. I would argue that is not the case - the individual „deploy your train“-pages list only the requirement of Train through Parabola but no numbers, and the corresponding page lists all deploy-option as unlocks without discerning between value 1 and value 2.
The option isn’t on the Anathema card! It’s a quality that is occasionally set when exiting the Stacks, which unlocks a new Stacks route. This is what make so opaque, the game doesn’t surface much info about quality change conditionals.
Thanks!
Will search more, but it does look a bit rare.