What is the best non-card based way to get expedition supplies (still trying to get that amber)?

Lore question here: What are the powers that a servant of the Fingerkings might have? You know, like a Mystic, Glassman, or magician with the Glass? I'm curious about "magic" in Fallen London.

Sam Stephens wrote:

Lore question here: What are the powers that a servant of the Fingerkings might have? You know, like a Mystic, Glassman, or magician with the Glass? I'm curious about "magic" in Fallen London.

As was brought up before me, the Glass themselves use the ability to enter and exit Parabola to great effect.

Pleat seems to derive hypnotism from an alliance with the Ophidian Gentleman, whose reflection shows up in Pleat's pocket watch and performs the act. The victim completes whatever task they are told to do, and do not remember what they've done after the fact. This may, in fact, be a case of a Fingerking possessing the victim for a short time and controlling them.

Outside of that, Pleat also seems able to create rather believable illusions (turn his cane into a detailed and moving snake), and can induce a trance-like state under which victims also become more responsible to commands (thought not to the level of his hypnosis. The PC can fail at persuading a victim of Pleat's trance).

The Stone Ghost also mentions The Molting of Pleat's Eidolon, a performance that involves Pleat entering a mirror and emerging also immediately after having changed. The notable feature is speed: The Idealistic Magician, who has practiced for similar tricks and is able to change quite quickly indeed, cannot replicate Pleat's speed during the Molting.

LiR provides us with a ton of stuff! The Orts, one of the more dangerous Fingerkings, provides visions of a possible future (namely, the fall of the Sixth City) in exchange for your memories. As Fingerkings seem to treat time differently from us, I'm fairly willing to believe that they're providing actual prescience.
The Genial Magician wrote:

"Time. I used to think it was a wheel. The Fingerkings say it's a flame. Coolest at its heart. But wildest at its edges."

The Season of Ruins' turn-in reveals that

...they can fake [change], through an admittedly convoluted process of birth, gestation, consumption, and then re-integration.

The snake eggs in the Orts' Nest hatch first into a weird scaled ostrich, then grow into black ravens with slit eyes, and the Labyrinth of Tigers contains unusually strong humans with slit eyes, who, by this logic, are also mutated Fingerkings that have escaped into the real world.

During one of the destinies, we get to see inside the Castle of Forests, where Fingerkings keep their prisoners. During Hallowmas, when the mirrors grow thin, one of them may be freed from Parabola and returned to the real world. You have (and have always had, and will always have) the position of their Huntsman, which might imply that getting things and beings permanently inside Parabola is easier than getting them out of there.

Also worth mentioning that, once you're in Parabola, the Fingerkings and you are, existentially, on equal footing. The Genial Magician had his arm bitten off by one of the 'Kings for not completing a task given to him, and suffers further wounds (specifically, bleeding from the eyes) when he returns from a successful fight with one.

One of the Fingerkings' prisoners in the Castle of Forests is the Red-Handed Queen, who is part of the Chess-dreams, and has, as far as we know, never existed. This implies that Is-Not can cross over to the Is in times and places where mirrors run thin, such as Hallowmas or Irem. As Is-Not can be pretty much anything you come up with, that's a very potent power to have on your side.

And I think that's about it when it comes to their powers, as far as I know! I might've missed bits and pieces, but this should cover all their major abilities for impacting the Is and its denizens.
edited by Vavakx Nonexus on 10/2/2017

suinicide wrote:

The last time they gave out the rubberies (that I know of) was for beta testing the app. I think they only give it away for big bugs and the like.

According to the descriptions, Rubbery Associates are given out for most bugs and Rubbery Conspirators are given out for the really big bugs. But who knows if they're still doing that.

Reused NPC wrote:

Don't you know you gotta get that 99 Is Someone There?

As someone who clicks dreams at every opportunity, it did seem to me like Chess took the longest to get started on. In fact it took until I was a PoSI and had found the Nadir -- so it wasn't even drawing it. Perhaps there was some prerequisite?

Edit: Checked in; no prerequisites. Maybe we're all just really unlucky.
edited by ReusedNPC on 10/6/2017

I'm convinced that has to be a joke requirement that they'll replace once the storylet is ready. The rest are feasible semi-difficult grinds, that's an endless parade of nephritite lenses :/