u/DevilishFedora

You've gained 1 x A Hunter of Zee-Beasts (new total 77 [...]).

It's been almost exactly a year (plus 12 days) since I started the character I'm currently playing, because I felt like I had rushed the early game my first time around. Fruits of the Zee was the first festival they saw.^(1) It's generally a much better way to play to take your time, don't worry about the cool new stuff, and just do things slowly, in the order they came out. I've even taken the time to notice that the An Invitation to Linger text changes every week! What a great meta-ludo-narrative commentary on being in a blind rush!

In any case, this seems like a minor milestone, and since I really only hunt Zee-Beasts when there are events, the triple-seven will only come ~ten years from now, so I thought I'd make a post. (What a normal thing to say.)

It's a lovely place, ever since the screaming has largely stopped.

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^(1) Yes, for the Eagle-eyed among you, yes, I could have played Estival with them right off the dirigible, but I went through it on my old account, and I prefered to let the fresh face have a gentler introduction to their new reality.

... they truly desire some companionship.

Never fear, the Masters swoop in to rescue, offering free Oil of Companionship changes.

I am so sorry.

Court. Witty. Plausibly said by someone, to someone, on some occasion. Preferably self-contained. Possibly vulgar. Here are a few examples I came up with today, though these may be leaning too much on the interpersonal aggresion side of things, much like Mr Fires on Labour Day.

"Let me get my Chthonosophy gear, and then to the root of this."

&gt;!"You'll become a Snuffer if you keep eating Candles like that."!< (SMEN)

"You're only *truly* Notable if you can get the Affluent Photographer to leave you alone."

"Working with you is like having a navigator who wants to go NORTH."

"Officer! How are you today? Me, suspicious? No, no, you see, I have a Special Dispensation to do that."

"I don't fear Death, Death fears me. You see, I have an Übergoat."

"Keep Calm and Leave the Nadir."

"Some people do it for the stuivers, but I like the thrill of Sneaking into the High Sancta."

"Triple-Bolted? Hah! My *clothes* are made out of Cat-like Thread. To the dismay of The Duchess."

"This should be a Dangerous challenge; The Starveling Cat couldn't do it!"

"F.F. Gebrandt could have had this idea, but she would have immediatly thrown it away in favor of a solution."

"F.F. Gebrandt says that her Laudanum *is* a *solution*."

"This statement contains about as much truth as the gossip column of the Gazette."

"My motto is: sneak like a cat, craft like a rat, earn passive income like a bat."

"We can play, but it will be so short a match that the Stewards couldn't keep the score."

"I'm changing butchers. The last one started working like a Tomb-Colonist. Too much blood on me."

"Today's the perfect mix of Rubbery, Infernal, the Masters and Parabola: The slimy lawlessness of capitalists is driving me mad."

I am looking for more like these. Perhaps more lifelike. Perhaps less. I welcome your creativity, Starving Artists of the Singing Mandrake and Starved Artists of Hallow's Throat alike.

... Erlkönig will not be postponed indefinitely.

(Goethe, much like myself, was also (reputedly) a fan of the Übergoat, and thus obviously appreciated the thunder of "Boo!"s.)

I will give half my kingdom for a few sips. (Careful!, the Fingerkings themselves would salivate at the technicalities of this offer.) They say the Fidgeting Writer went mad, but it wasn't them, it was me trying to grind out 50 Approaching the Gates of the Garden through them. I am but a humble egotistical railroad baron trying to commission a statue.

Honestly this is the worst of the statue grinds yet. I don't know what it is about it, since it's about the same length as the capstone qualities. But somehow, while those feel like threadmills, this feels much more like running in mud. (It may have to do with me having mentally consigned it to the "easy" box (>!Moulin, Station VIII, The Hurlers!<). It may have to do with me having forgotten what a pain the BIMP storyline is, and having done it again.. It may have to do with me starting to grow a thorn-infested spot in my heart for the Arts since the Empress' Court... Or it may just be the spore-fever.)

Any and all assistance you could offer would entitle you to my lasting and profound gratitude.

Please ease my suffering.

P.S. There should be "Begging" flair...

It is a serious question though. I am currently grinding something through the Fidgeting Writer, and I'm keeping track of my investmenet, to make sure I quit if I start losing too much, and I realised that I've been getting pretty lucky. As in, after just under 300 actions with the 70% luck check, supposing that my rate of success has converged, I'll be done with the grind in just over 700 actions instead of the expected 1000. Which seems like a big gap for "getting lucky". (Based on quick napkin math*, it's closer to a 0,9 success rate on the luck checks. Seeing how in statistics, 30 samples are usually enough for a Bernoulli's parameter (defined as: "the percentage on what's commonly called a 'Luck Check' ") to converge, and we've seen 300... Possibly this is not a Fluke.)

So I'm wondering if anyone has run statistical tests on Fallen London to see if they "load their dice" the same way games like >!XCOM !<quietly advantage the player's rolls to be more in line with intuitive probabilities. Sure, I have failed 97% (and perhaps higher) checks in Fallen London, but I'm not sure if I've succeeded them 97% or 99% of the time, for instance. So there could be some gentle finagling of the numbers in the players' favour. Has anyone done such studies? Are there people here who would volunteer to record their results on specific checks for long stretches of time?

If there are, and we can get a little coordinated thing going, a few things that would be very interesting:

• If there is an effect, is it just luck checks, or does it extend to skill checks as well? (How about advanced skills?)
• Do we observe the same effect across players on the same action?
• Is it the same for different checks of the same type? (i.e. all Watchful checks behave the same)
• Does grinding a check in particular behave differently than trying twice, doing something else for a day, trying twice... (The hypothesis being that there is a "per player you've-been-wronged-by-RNG coefficient".)

I'd like to know if people have already performed such experiments. But as I said, if there are (at least a few) others out there willing to contribute a potentially large amount of actions, I think it would be interesting to see if Fallen London is really as Heartless in its checks as it claims, or if it's just Subtle.

*Since I've only really kept track of the actions invested and the total progress, not really "journalling" each result, I'm working with reconstructions here, which is both ugly, and greatly reduces my confidence in my results. But it'd be nice to do this properly, tracking the actual sample.

Failbetter may be good at Mithridacy, but I've found the precedent. Now, I expect top-shelf moths for my cross-refercing of the echoes.

The Gazette may report the length of the invasion of London's Home Waters as lasting about a week. The Admiralty may report it as fifty-five thousand (bl___y hell eyeballs) invading ships. The measure I propose is ships lost.

With our crew, we've had to personally witness the loss of 4 ships during the events that transpired:
• the Deceiver's Goat, lost, somehow, even before the spiders arrived.
• the Mirrored, a valiant Khaganian ship that came to our aid, only to come to such a 'tragic' final stop in London's waters.
• the Daybreak, one of our own. It could have happened to any of us! I am opening Drownie-Song-Listening Courses for the families of the drowned.
• and lastly, Drummer's Furnace. Whatever Ironic or Republican design they intended to fulfill, has been thwarted.
• Honorable mention to the Graphite Flight's crew, who came within three actions of certain doom, but their Khaganian families may rest easy (for now).

Disclaimer: any accusations of me and/or my crew having sunk these ships instead of the Forest of Years is preposterous, and, if I may add, wildly disrespectful to the recently deceased, drowned or otherwise lost, and their families.

We have put up an Unsanctioned Commemorative Wall on the quayside opposite the Admiralty's Offices, so that anyone may add the names of those that they have lost during the invasion. A supply of Mourning Candles is generously provided by the good people at the Prophets' Call. Donations are also welcome, but will not be forwarded to the families of the deceased.

... so unlike an overcoat.

I've spent eleven thousand seven-hundred and twelve echoes,
- and eighty pence! -
And what did Nassos say? Stuffing it all into his pants?
Not a sentence.

Overgoat, Overgoat...
Anticlimactic like a toad.
Overgoat, Overgoat...
I'll have to get a Heptagoat.

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Seriously though, this is a strange feeling. I wasn't really grinding for this, I just set up the goat farmer's browser extension a few months back, and when I saw that my net worth, even with all my reserves accounted for, was almost 13000, I went for it. It took a good ten minutes (an entire action!) to sell everything I wanted to, and so the purchase felt a bit anticlimactic. Anyhoof. I'd say drinks on me, but I barely have *check inventory* seriously? From what? Okay well, drinks on me. Except if you want cider. Then bring your own.