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|     <o>         C U L T I S T     <o>     S I M U L A T O R      <o>      |
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       Study a Book: The Long; a Guide to the Gate that is Three.

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Table of Contents:

1. Introduction and credits
2. The Legacies
3. Basic Info
  3.1. Verbs and Seasons
  3.2. Card types and aspects
  3.3. Dangers and Enemies
4. Mundane Life (Common to every playthrough)
  4.1. Stats and Skllls
  4.2. Work and Labor
  4.3. Getting friends
  4.4. Secret places of Scholarship
  4.5. The Realms of Sleep
5. Occult Life (Common to every playthrough)
  5.1. Forming a Cult
  5.2. Expeditions 
  5.3. Higher Languages and Rites
6. THE CHOICE - Ascent
  6.1. Power - the Forge of Days
  6.2. Enlightenment, Sensation - The Door-In-The-Eye and the Red Grail
  6.3. Change - The Moth, the Meniscate and the Thunderskin. (Dancer)
  6.4. Threshold - The Mother of Ants (Priest)
  6.5. Palest - The elegiast (Ghoul)

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<>                     1. Inroduction and Credits                         <>
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The first thing to say should say "I'm sorry you're here." You could have
lived a healthy, happy life as a normal person, blissfully unaware of the
blinding, uncaring light of the GLORY. Alas, for whatever reason, you
are now exposed to its glow, and its corruption has probably reached you
by now. It is not too late, you may still go back. But if you are 
determined to seek your ambitions, then I urge you to read further.

This is a guide to help those who desire to become a Long, an inmortal in 
the service of an Hour. It will be a step-by-step guide on what to do, and 
most importantly what NOT to do. While some of the Know encourage blind
experimentation, one will very easily perish by doing so.

References to this work:

- The Faq/Strategy guide by Randomd000d, which is a much more general
          guide on everything the game has. Since I aim for a short, 
          to-the-point walkthrough, there are many things I will not 
          mention. His guide will provide that information.
- The Cultist Simulator wiki, for its excellent breakdown of the Art 
          mechanics, which I will just skim over. If you desire specifics
          about how the machanics work, I'd recommend going there.

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<>                     2. Legacies: The Past and Present                  <>
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>  

Legacies are the initial conditions of the game. There are basically three
types: 

- Ordinary: Gain access to the three normal victories: 
  (Forge, Lantern, Grail, and all Change variants)
  - Aspirant: Default Legacy. No bonuses.
  - Bright young thing: + Health. Extra funds, free Book, early locations.
      Can die of affliction before the game even starts if you're unlucky.
  - Physician: + Reason. Gets a Job Card (2 funds/60 seconds) that 
      you can never lose. Best general-purpose Legecy.
  - Detective: Completely different start. Has a unique mundane ending.
      [Read Randomd000d's genmral guide to know how he works]. He's not 
      worth your time except for his unique mundane ending.
  - Dancer: + Health. Gets early access to the Cabaret. Specially suited
      to win a Change victory. (Dancer DLC)
- Apostles: After winning a game with the normal victories, this will 
    substitute the Aspirant. it is basically a new game with different 
    objectives and much more difficult gameplay. For experts.
- Extraordinary: They have unique victories, which require these Legacies to
    be pursued in the first place. Not for begginers, requires DLC.
  - Priest: For the threshold victory (Knock-Themed).
  - Ghoul: For the Palest ending (Winter-Themed).

For this walkthrough I will assume you have Aspirant Legacy. I will explain
Ghoul/priest on their respective victory sections.

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<>                  3. The basics: The Walls of the Mansus                <>
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                     - 3.1. Verbs and Seasons. -

This game is a literal tabletop. As in, you control a table. There are two 
things to use on this table: Cards and square things. These thingies are 
what we call the Verbs and the Seasons. Now, what do we do to play the game? 
That's where the squares come in. There are two types:

- Verbs: Those are the ways you can interact with the game. There are 5.

  - Work (Blue): For Labor, and Rites.
  - Study (Yellow) : For books, Lore, and raising stats.
  - Rest (White): For recovering from illness, Dread or Fascination, 
      and for dreams. Dreams allow you to explore the Mansus.
  - Talk (Red): Get friends, meet with Patrons, do cult business, 
      ensare rivals, and keep cards from burning away. (Read 4.2.)
  - Explore (Purple): Expeditions. Buying and selling stuff. Keeping 
      summons from leaving.

- Seasons: Appear randomly from the "Time" square (Orange hourglass). They 
    are the ways the game will interact with YOU. Some are bad, some are 
    good, but they exist to react to your cards. You can predict which one    
    will come up by looking inside your time square. Here are the types:

  - Season of Roses: Gives you a contentment. Do not depend on these, but if 
      you predict one will come, use it. If you have a lover, you need
      to provide it with something or your lover will become a rival.
  - Season of Ambition: The hook will give you restlessness, which will 
      eventually become a Dread card. When you are doing a normal victory, 
      its conditions (and function) will become apparent.
  - Season of silence: Nothing happens.

These five are special because they have a chance to kill you. 
Refer to the Dangers section for more specific info.

  - Season of suspicion: The occult is illegal where you live; a detective
      will be hunting you if they smell Mystique or Notoriety.
  - Season of Affliction: The flu hits you and you become ill. When it 
      appears, make sure your Rest verb is free, so you can heal with it.
      It will eat one of your Health to do so, so have one free.
  - Season of Despair: if you have Dread, it will eat it.
  - Season of Visions: If you have Fascination, it will eat it.
  - Season of Rags: This triggers after you accept Poppy Lascelles' request.
      Have a person ready to give to her when the timer ends. Or else.

                        - 3.2. Cards and Aspects -

First some basics of the cards: 

- You may move the cards with your mouse, pick them up and put them wherever.
- You may use shift + click to grab the whole stack of identical cards.
- You may keep a card on your hand. When you do so, the game acts as if 
    the card(s) didn't exist. (I will refer to this as a "Hold" in 
    the future, and it is an important skill to remember).
- Some cards have timers. When they expire, they dissapear, or turn
    into something else, for example [Restlessness -> Dread -> Nothing].

Now, the cards themselves always have an image, a name, 
and most importantly, when you examine them, some lore and 
some little squares. Those little squares are its aspects. The number
indicates the value of the aspect. For example, a vitality has a Heart
square with a 2. I'll refer to this as a card having "2 heart". 

All aspects can be further examined for extra lore, but the important thing
to keep in mind is this. Certain actions (Rites, Expeditions, Dreams, Art) 
will require a specific quantity of an aspect. 

For example, to correctly access the Peacock Door you need an 
Edge/Lantern/Knock lore card with at least 10 value.
Whenever such a requirement is present, I will refer to it as 
"requiring 10 Edge, or Knock, or Lantern" or whatever it is.

                      - 3.3. Dangers and Death -

This game is not an easy game, and like the Watchman, it is not merciful.
Even at game start, there are a plethora of things that can and will kill 
you if managed incorrectly. There are five Grand threats:

- Despair: When its season comes, if you have any dread, it will take it 
   and advance your Despair by one. 3 despair, and you die of depression.
   This is the most dangerous in the early game by far.
   
To combat despair, you must acquire contentment, there are four 
sources of it.
  - Rest with Funds: Get used to this one, you'll use it a lot, it will 
    give you contentment, but has a chance to make you sick.
  - Explore with the Cabaret, and Funds: Will give you contentment, and
    a random thing. Problem is, it can sometimes get Raided and you'll
    get Notoriety. 
  - Work: Painting will give you contentment. It will also give mystique.
  - Rose Season: Always gives you one. it's pretty much random.

You may also preemptively delete dread by going to Rest with the 
dread and contentment, or Fascination and then Dread.

Another tactic, when you are a bit more advanced in the game, is to use Rites 
and/or Cult inductions to clear dangerous influences, by putting them in the 
trappings/offerings part respectively. Painting with restlessness will 
also remove it.

- Visions: Fascination will feed Lunacy, if you ever readh 5, you die. This
    one is mostly a danger to painters, but to Lantern players it can grow
    out of control. Dreams will also fill you with Fascination sometimes.

To counter it, you need either Dread, or Memories (These come from 
despair/vision seasons where no valid dread/fascination was picked up).
You may eliminate fascination preemptively with the Rest verb, or 
destroy it by using cult inducitons or Rites.

- Illness: Whenever the season of affliction comes in, one of your Health
  stats will get sucked up and turned to an affliction. You must Rest
  on said affliction with Funds or a Vitality to restore it. Otherwise, 
  it will decay into a Decrepitude, and you'll lose the Health until
  you can get access to a high level Ritual to restore it. 

Attention, if affliciton season comes in, and you have no health left, 
you will die of illness once its timer runs out.

- The Supression Bureau: They will send a hunter to throw you in jail.

- Mystique: This represent activities that are occult-oriented, 
  but not illegal. While the detective will use these to lengthen their 
  investigations, it won't produce evidence.
- Notoriety: This comes from illegal actions (Murder, tresspassing, 
  intentionally driving people insane), and these can be turned into
  tentative evidence. 
If the detective already has a tentative evidence, 
it'll turn into Damning evidence. After that, a Trial will be held
on the next Season of Suspicion, where someone will be arrested. 
If you are arrested, you die.

To reduce Notoriety or evidence, you have three ways:

- Cult business with a Heart follower will scrub Notoriety.
- Changing Headquarters will erase Notoriety.
- Painting will hide notoriety temporarily.
- Cult Business with Moth will delete Evidence.

Note none of these are 100%, so plan accordingly. Also, you may decide
instead to kill the messenger, and dispose of the detective. In general,
don't do this, because it can lead to a rival, or to even more
bad reputation. plus, you will get another detective endlessly.

If you are determine to kill, you may use a Lantern or Moth follower 
to drive the detective insane, although this has a high chance of 
turning him into a rival. An edge follower might kill him, but nothing
short of an assassin will guarantee effectiveness.

Now, there are traits the detectives can have, which make them special:

  - Mystic: Inmune to summoned creatures. 
  - Tenacious: Will no-sell the first succesful murder attempt.
  - Erratic: Can asspull evidence. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, if someone 
           has this trait, eliminate inmediately.
  - Methodic: Will always pull evidence from notoriety. Annoying, 
           but a good player won't have Notoriety on the table.

You may also try to hold a Notoriety card on you if you spy
the Season of Suspicion coming. You can only hold one card 
at a time though, but it is a great strategy for when your notoriety
scrubbing fails. Just be wary of the timers.

- Rivals: Other people who want the same as you. But there's only one spot
for a Long where you are, so you better get it first. 

Ok, first thing: If you avoid dealing with rivals, the better. 
Sadly there is no sure-fire way to stop them. Once they are in, 
it's a race, and you better start moving fast, because it's RNG 
whether they win before they die, no matter what you do.
Your rival will start with 3 points. If he/she gets to 7, you lose.

Every now and then your rival will start plotting, after which the rival
will either try to kill a rival, acquire knowledge or do an expedition.
The only way to try to hinder a Rival is by creating snares, and using them
when the rival goes on an expedition. If she falls for it, the rival will 
gain a Wound. 3 wounds of the same kind, and the rival is dead.
To create a snare, Talk with your Rival and then present a follower
with Moth, or Edge personality. The snare has a timer, though, 
so manage it correctly. Also, your rival is untouchable while s/he is 
plotting, so you need to be proactive.

For detectives turned Rivals, you have another choice. You may turn them
into Followers by using your cult and 21 of your Cult Aspect. That 
pretty much requires a tool/pigment and Lore of 12 and 8 or viceversa.

Again, with Rivals i'd recomend just not having them at all. The 
only way to get a non-detective rival is by having a follower
take vendetta upon you, when s/he gets to 3 resentnment. Generally, this
can only happen when s/he is your Lover and you don't tend to his/her 
needs during the Season of Roses. You can reduce resentment by 1 by 
gifting a tool, but that can only be done once.

- A special mention to an event regarding a patron, Poppy Lascelles, will be 
discussed in the "4.3. meeting friends" section.

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<>                           4. Mundane Life                              <>
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               - 4.1. Self improvement (Stats and skills)-
 
At the beggining of the game, you'll start with stats. These are the basic
building blocks of your character and are very important. 
There are three stats.

- Health - Protects you from affliction, used to explore.
- Reason - Needed for comissions. Dispels summons.
- Passion - Needed for Painting and some comissions.

You require stats for many things, including dreams, work, study, 
recruitment, and some victories require sacrificing stats permanently.
They lose some importance by the end-game, but they are still relevant.

You will start with one stat of each, which is a dangerous position, 
especially for health; so your first order of business in a game is to
improve your stats. For that you require the Enhancer cards, which
are Influences tied to a stat:

- Vitality (Heart) - Gotten from physical labor, the Wood and study.
- Glimmering (Passion) - Gotten from comissions, painting, and study.
    - Grail Residue will provide it.
- Erudition (Reason) - Gotten from comissions and study.
    - Lantern Residue will provide it.
    - These two last can also appear on the White Door.
    - Also, careful with passion learning, because passion has Moth
      aspect, and the Moth residue will give you Restlessness.
  
Once you have two enhancer cards, Study them both and you'll get an extra
stat and a Skill card: Body, Imagination, and Scholarship. These skills 
don't do anything except allow you to gain more stats, until
they are maxed out.

To keep raising your stats, now you must acquire Lessons. To get them, you
just Study two Enhancer cards and it will spew out a Lesson. For the last
one, however, you require to also provide it with a Lore. Here you will
get two types depending on Lore given. here's a table with the three stats:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| L |     Reason         |         Passion         |        Health        |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 1 |                              INNATE                                 |
| 2 |    2 Erudition     |     2 Glimmerings       |     2 Vitality       |
| 3 |   2 Eru. lessons   |    2 Glim. Lessons      |    2 Vit. lessons    |
| 4 |   3 Eru. lessons   |    3 Glim. Lessons      |    3 Vit. lessons    |
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| 5 |   4 Eru. lessons   |    4 Glim. Lessons      |    4 Vit. lessons    |
|5 A| + Lntrn/Knck/Forge |   +   Heart/Moth        | + Grail/Heart/Moth   |
|5 A|  Rarefied Mind (I) |        Never-No   (O)   |   Flawless (Dancer)  |
|5 B| + Edge/winter/SH   |     + Graui/Knock       |     + Edge/Forge     |
|5 B|  Silent Intens (G) |        Open Soul  (P)   |   Matchless (Danger) |
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The fifth level skills have two possibilities. For Passion and Reason, 
they will aid with certain Lore ascensions/subversions (Read 4.4.), 
while Health will either give you the dancer trait, required for the
Change Victory, or the "Dangerous" trait, which is useless except in 
Apostle games, where you can actually be attacked physically.

- General Tip: I'd recomend, in any normal game, to get a Library 
    hideout, and then Open Soul (P) and Silent Intensity (G),
    which will cover all lore ascensions. 

The collection books (poetry, essays) will give a lesson directly. I'd 
recommend only using one for the 3 lesson one, and use the other 3 on 
the last one. Your max stat number is 15 (5H, 5R, 5P), but some 
legacies get extras. Also, there are Rituals that turn some 
stats into others, so generally you have more stats than you'll ever need.


                    - 4.2. Work, Labor and Payment -

Time is always passing in this game, and it will demand one Fund for
every 60 seconds, or else it will turn a Health into a hunger.
The hunger must be recovered with Funds or Vitality or else it just 
disspears, no Decrepitude or anything, so you always want money. 
Fortuntely for you, the economy is booming and many opportunities 
for employment are aviable for you. Instead of explaining each job, I'm 
just going to give you a set of priorities that at least in the
ordinary legacies, works pretty well. 

- The begginings

First order of business: You'll usually start with either some sum of 
cash, or a stable job (physician, police), so use that time to raise
your health to 2 via study. this is because menial labor has a 
chance to injure you, which takes some time, and the affliciton season 
will not take an Injury, therefore killing you. 

Once you have combined both vitsalities into health II and the skill, work
with the skill and start upgrading Reason. Working with the skill does not 
prevent injury, but it severely reduces the chances for one, and at this 
point if an injury happens, you have another health to cover illnesses.
Start fusing vitalities into lessons, and if you can get the Reason II by
fusing two eruditions while you're at it, the better. Once you are 
creating your second Lesson, do not work or else the Skill card won't be 
aviable to be turned into Health III. 

- Glover and Glover

Three health is a good place to be, and at this point you may keep working 
for health IV or just leave it and get to work with Reason, and get the 
position on Glover, and later upgrade it after you've been sacked from it.
Now, while working with glover, you gotta be attentive; those tiemrs are
killers and you only get to plead your job once.

The first tier of glover is not profitable, but ascension is simple, 
use your second reason to do extra work and you'll get promoted. 
Now you work under mr. Alder, who is a perfectionist and will have 
you do overtime sometimes (60+30 sec./2 funds). You only have to use reason 
when you have overtime, but you gotta put it yourself.

To deal with Alder, you have two choices:
 - Kill (edge), seduce (Grail) or make him go insane (Moth) with a follower.
     Do this with a 5 value aspect. Randomd000d recommends Grail, and he 
     drives a strong argument for it, so I'd recomend it too.
 - Ignore it. There is a random chance that Alder will retire. The earlier
     you start working here, the more chances you get, which is why 
     I advise to do this early, and if he's still alive by the time 
     you get Disciples, then you should remove him.

While you do this, raise your other stats; you should try to have Reason IV 
and Passion IV while you are here; and then use the money to get some 
collecitons. Use one colleciton to help with getting to Passion/Reason IV, 
and use the other 3 to get to Passion/Reason V. This will keep you 
occupied while you get your initial expeditions and followers. You should
pretty much have every Verb running at this point.

After Alder leaves, you'll stay in the same position as Junior, but by
using anotehr Reason you will get the second promotion, to Senior. 
Now the job pays 3 funds for 70 seconds, but a new annoyance is here, and 
this one will not retire. 

You must deal with him with a follower; again,
I defer to both the wiki and Randomd000d's wisdom and advise a Grail 
disciple. When she suceeds, the off-time tiemr will grow to 90, which
means you can squeeze a comission/rite without losing your job. 

- The Calm

Now, I'd recomend you purposefully stay in that position for a while; it
is very lucrative, has only a reason requirement and it doesn't 
penalize you for trying rites as much. The lenght of your stay in the 
seniors will be up to how fast you wanna play, although I'd recommend 
staying a bit longer if you're going Forge, because Forge 
ascension eats money like nobody's business.

This is a great position to be while you're doing early and mid-game 
expeditions. Later on, when you have a bank, ascend using Passion.

---- Attention, do not use passion if you haven't taken care 
  of the Young Glover, or you will get a Mundanee Victory instead! ----
  
- The Top of the World

Once you're at the board, you can enjoy a (50sec/4 funds) job, with
excellent dividends, no reason cost, and a 100 second off-timer. 
Your new position puts you in a seat of authority, which is good 
and bad. Good because your notoriety will be swept by, never to be 
found again. Bad because there's a chance you get a scandal. The first 
scandal raises the work timer to 60; the second gets you inmediately and
unceremoniusly fired. After that there's no way to get back in, so make sure
that you have a hefty savings account, or another way to make money.

If you're going Grail/lantern, I'd reccommend waiting to get this boon until
you're starting your Marks. The prisoners will cost you notoriety and the
season of Ambition might trigger very quickly, not giving you enough time 
to scrub the notoriety by other means. The board will serve as a cushion 
against the mounting Notoriety, which can ease the ascent.

- Diversifying: After the fall

After getting fired, use those 8 funds and lvie a little. Go back to 
physical labor to iron out those Health stats, or paint a bunch to 
get your passion to max if you haven't already. After that, Commisions
should become your main Work verb occupation; the Spindrias go
for a pretty penny in the Auction house, specially if you get the extra 
money on the silver ones; those will keep your money from sinking, even 
in the Forge ascension.

If you find yourself with oozes of money, you can even go 
unemployed and live the NEET life. You have a fortune, use it!

- Other sources of work, and their purpose

Now, there are otehr ways to work, but they are either too little, or 
have dangerous consequences. I will mantion them, and what uses they 
might have for you.

- Art: It used to be a valid way to get money, but the "staleness" 
    mechanic has changed that. Now paintings have two purposes:
  - Hiding Notoriety temporarily.
  - Getting Masterpieces. To get them, use 4 passion, 
     a 4 value pigment and a Disciple of the same aspect. This will give you
     a painting Tool with a value of 8. This will be the first Component for
     any Forge/Lantern/Grail victory where you don't match your cult 
     with your Ambition. 
- Begging: If you have a Decrepitude, you can beg on the streets. This will 
    give you Dread. it's a terrible job, but the Dread can be used to 
    counter Fascination, which becomes a bigger problem in the end game.
    For the most part, avoid this. White Door has restlessness for days.

                        - 4.3. Getting Friends -

One cannot hope to conquer the world alone. And this is the case for 
you too. You'll need people that can help you do things, particularly 
Expeditions, and getting rid of Annoyances and Hunters.

But before you start throwing bodies to your problems, you need to gather
people. There are two methods to do so.

- Explore with a rumor (Found in The Wood). It's a noob trap, it gives
   you notoriety but requires no stats. Pass.
- Talk verb with a Lore will allow you to speak of esoteric matters. 
   You'd think this to be a horrid idea, but it is actually risk-free;
   it'll give you mystique, which is not enough to create evidence with.
   In exchage, one of two things can ocurr without your control:

 - Passion is taken, and you get a new acquiantance at random.
 - Reason is taken, and a Patron is brought at random.
 
 I cannot state this strongly enough. Once you have 2 reasona nd passion, 
 and you're not inmaediately using them for promotions, INMEDIATELY 
 start talking with Lore. Do not stop until you have all 5 patrons, 
 and at least two named acquiantances of each aspect (If you don't 
 know who's what by memory, you're gonna have to indoctrinate them first 
 to see what type they are). I'd also recommend getting the white 
 nameless guy (White color pswn), because he is kind of special, and
 has a purpose he is perfect for.
 
 Now, the choice of Lore is relatively unimportant, but I'd recommend 
 doing it with grail. This is because of Aspect residue, which is a series
 of localized Seasons that happen after interacting with a card that has 
 an aspect of certian types. The residues for each type are:
 
 - Moth: Restlessness (Really bad one, avoid working with Moth)
 - Lantern: Erudition
 - Grail: Glimmering
 - Heart: Vitality
 - Winter: Season of Despair (?)
 - Forge, Edge, SH, Knock: Nothing (?)
 
I'd recommend Grail, because glimmerings will really help out 
when you do Lore Ascension later, but the rewards tend to be scarce and
usually come when you can't use them properly. (Read 4.4)
 
For the patrons, i'll epxlain them here. The followers I'll explain
on the Cult section (Section 5.1), since their actions are more
adapted to the mid-game. The patrons are:

- Madame Bechelle (Greek): Her commisions tend to give glimmering, 
    so store her stuff to use the glimerings for lore ascension.
- Count Jannings (Latin): He has half chances of erudition (edge) and 
    glimering (Heart); store whichever you want.
- Dr. ibn-al-Adim (Arameic): Always gives Erudition commisions. Arameic
    books come a bit late, so you can Study with him to learn Arameic.
    It'll cost you a Spindria to do so, though.
- Sulochana Amavasya (Sanskrit): Doesn't give comissions. Important for the
    Change Victory. She can be used with Talk to stop any timer by 
    occupying the Talk verb with it. You may want to learn sanskrit from her
    if you didn't find the book early. She will also turn any SH Lore
    into the Repeatble vault of it class. 
   - Extremely useful with SH 6, the unnumbered stones have no curses on it,
          while the unique Vaults in that bracket are filled with them.
- Poppy Lascelles: Gives you Erudition commisions. Good for money, or if
    you actually need the erudition.
  - To sacrifice to Poppy, I always recommend using the White Pawn. That 
    because he is unnamed, and therefore not useful for expeditions, and
    because if you raise him to disciple, he will go insane and be useless.
    You're doing him a favor, really.

 ---- Attention! Poppy will ask for a request to be abviable as a 
      commisioner. If you accept, a timer will begin (season of rags), 
      after which you MUST give her a follower (Acquintances don't work) 
      for a sacrifice. If you do NOT give her one in the 60 second timer 
      that appears after the season of rags has passed, you will die.----
  
                - 4.4. Secret Places of Scholarship --

To win this game in any way, you'll eventually need a huge Rite. Those 
rites generally require high levels of Lore. Lores are cards with 
a colored background of their aspect and they represent knowledge. To gain
them, the only way is by getting them from books, which come from 
three sources:

- Morland's: One fund cost. Eventually Morland will close down and it
   will become a REALLY good place to move your Cult into, so use it 
   up as fast as you can.
- The Auction house: Cost can vary; eventually they will only sell 
   useless books (A book that says DEEP MYSTERIES) that can't even be read.
   Make sure to exhaust it before starting expeditions. It is a good source
   for the Collections.
- Expeditions: Explore with SH Lore to get Vaults to explore. They have 
   obstacles to defeat by your followers. (Read 5.3.)

Now, expeditions are very dangerous if you are unpreapred and somewhat
dangerous even when prepared. Therefore I'd recommend working with the
lore you get from Morland/auction and get your Cult Lore 8 from them.
To do so, you'll require Lore Ascension.

To ascend or subvert Lore, you will require two lores, either two identical
ones, or of two different colors. The Aspects, or colors of each Lore are:

Heart (Pink) -> Grail: (Red) -> Moth (White)-> Lantern (Yellow) --
-> Forge (Orange) -> Edge (Green) -> Winter (Blue)-> Heart again

The lines represent what Lore tranforms into what Lore. For example, you 
may put a Red Secret (grail 2) and a barber's Warning (Moth 2) and it 
will spew out a Wood Whisper (Moth 4). There are two exceptions.
 
- Knock (Purple): Any lore studied with knock will become Knock. Use
    sparingly, for the process is irreversible.
- Secret histories / SH (Magenta): Used for explorations, appear 
    randomly in Dreams. Cannot be subverted.

You may also use Reason to divide a Lore into two copies of their 
inferior one. For example, reason and a Wood Whisper (Moth 4) will 
give you two barber's warnings (Moth 2). You may use these techniques
to get the one Lore you actually need so you can kickstart your Cult.

Alright, now that you know what you can do, time to explain what you
are gonna need to actually pull it off. When trying to attempt a 
Lore ascension or a subversion, you'll use the Study verb with the 
correct Lores. However, every Lore has a series of challenges that 
need to be completed, which you can see on the Lore cards themselves.
Here is a comprehesnsive table of all that you may need.

---|---------------------------------------------------------------|
 L | Heart | Grail | Moth  | Lntrn | Forge | Edge  | Knock |  S H  |
---|---------------------------------------------------------------|
 2 |   N   |   N   |   N   |   K   |   K   |   E   |   K   |   K   |
 4 |   N   |   N   |   N   |   K   |   K   |   E   |   K   |   K   |
 6 | E   N | E   N | I   N | I   K | K   G | E   G | K   G | N   K |
 8 | E   N | E   N | I   N | I   K | K   G | E   G | K   G | N   K |
10 | E N O | E N P | I N O | I K P | P K G | K E G | P K G | N K I |
12 | E N O | E N P | I N O | I K P | P K G | K E G | P K G | N K I |
14 | E N O | E N P | I N O | I K P | P K G | K E G | P K G | N K I |
-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Legend:
 - N - intuition: Requires Glimmering/Sanctuary
 - K - Knowledge - Requires Erudition/Library
 - E - Practical Experimentation - Requires Health/Prisoner/Pit.
      (If you use Health, you have a chance for an Injury)
 - I - Illumination - Requires Fascination, Library or Rarefied Mind
 - G - Grim - Requires Dread, a Pit, or Silent Intensity.
 - O - Obession* - Requires Library, Never-No.
 - P - Paradox* - Requires Sanctuary, or Open Soul.
 
 * Obession and paradox, if you don't have the location or skill, 
 will take your stats, with a chance of permanently losing them! I 
 recomend, again, to have a library and the Open Soul/Silent intensity
 skills, so that you can confront any challenge without danger.
 
 For the enhancer requirements, again, Library is desirable, 
 because there are 5 Aspects that want Erudition inmediately, and they 
 raise to 6 after Lore level 6, verus 4 Aspects that require Health
 and Glimmerings respectively. Alwasys have your rest verb ready for 
 the possible injuries, and use Commisions and even painting to get
 the glimerings (You can keep the timer from your Glover job 
 permanently in stsis by using the Talk verb with the Patron 
 Sulochana, the Sanskrit teacher to give you time)
 
 With Lore Ascension, you can basically "cheat" into higher level Lore
 that expeditions would never give you. It's very important to do this 
 to rush your Victory's 14 Lore (Forge, Grail, Lantern...), which will
 become your Second Component for a victory.
 
                    - 4.5. The Realms of Sleep -
 
 A somewhat important part of the game happens in the Mansus, where the 
 Hours reside under the GLORY, and that can only be accessed by 
 dreaming about it. To get anywhere in the game, you need to get 
 through this place at least halfway, and depedning on the way you
 chose your Ambition and/or cult, it will be required to gain the 
 third and last Component for a victory.
 
 Anyways, the Mansus is accessed through the Rest verb. First, I will
 remind you that the Rest verb is the only way to recover from Affliction 
 or Injury with a Fund or Vitality. Don't go losing yourself on sleep and
 let your health get turned into decrepitude!
 You can also rest with health or reason to get contentment, but it is not
 reliable, and it can give you Dread or Fascination instead. It's better
 to just use Funds because that is a guaranteed contentment (Remember kids,
 drugs are good for you! At least if you are a cultist.)
 
 Lastly, you may use the Rest verb to dream on your Desire card. This will
 allow you to change it to something else or you may use a piece of 
 correponding Lore to lock it into a Temptation. You'll need the Temptation
 to win a victory, so make sure you lock it when you're sure you're 
 going that route; The process is irereversible.
 
 Whenever you don't have any pressing need to use the Rest verb, you may 
 want to start properly dreaming. Here's a simple list of the Mansus' lands:
 
 - The Wood (Passion + any Lantern/Knock/Moth): 
   - The wood is a perfectly safe area, nothing can hurt you here. You 
       get small influences, vitality, and SH Lore (2 or rarely 4).
   - You can revisit the Wood by using Way: The wood and Passion.

 - The White Door (Way: The wood + 4 Lantern, Moth, Knock):
   - The White door is for the most part harmless but you do pick up the 
       odd Fascination here and there. Since thsoe are useufl for deleting 
       Dread, you might want to go here a bunch.
   - This door houses glimmerings, erudition, SH Lore (4 or rarely 6) and 
       some 6-value influences (mostly to burn in rites).
   - To revisit the White Dorr, use the Way: White Door and Health.
 
 - The Riddle of the Stag (Way: White Door + Ambition/Desire Card)
     - Now here it gets interesting. You have to solve a Riddle to pass any
         further. The Answer is always a 6 level lore, but the Lore itself
         is random. Get your 6 level lores and see if the text 
         matches the Riddle's. When you get it present it vigorously.
 
 - The Stag Door (Riddle + Answer): 
   - Congratulations are in order, you are now one of the Know. 
     Unfortunately, the only use for that is to turn your Temptation 
     into the Third Mark. Since the playthroghs bifurcate after this point, 
     I'll refer to this Third Mark on section 6.
   - In any case, the Stag Door itself also has things for you. Not only
     it has 6 (and rarely 8) SH Lore, but here you'll find some very high
     power Influences for Winter and Edge (If you're having a Winter/Edge 
     cult, they can help you exalt followers); careful with the Winter Lore,
     because it degenerates into Dread after a while. I'd recommend using
     them while promoting followers (If you use an influence on the      
     trapping it goes away forever.)
    - To revisit, use the Way: Stag Door and a Reason.

Now, here is where the obligatory Mansus dwelling ends. You can win most 
victories without going any further, but the two last doors can yield
very powerful Influences that can become your Final ingredient for a win.
There are two end-game doors.

- The Spider (Stag Door + 8 Edge, lantern or Knock Lore)
 - Welcome to the Wrong Door. This one is quite nasty, as it requires a
    Prisoner sacrifice to enter. You may gain one in three ways.
  - Imprison a follower. (Do not do this, followers are valuable)
  - Imprison a Hireling (Acceptable choice if you don't have 
    the appropiate cult, Explore with Health to get the prompt to hire one 
    (1 fund) and then Talk with your Cult card and your victim.)
  - Do cult business with Grail or Edge followers. (most recommended 
    approach, if you have Assasins or Cyprians, because they never fail)
    - Attention, no matter what method you use, you'll get Notoriety.
      Remember to scrub all the evidence or notoriety before 
      you end in jail.

 - The Spider Door has a bunch of 10 value influences, SH Lore (6-10) and 
    the 15 value influence for Knock and Forge. (Power players may 
    want this influence as their Third and Final Component).
 - To revisit, use Way: The Spider Door and a Prisoner. No corpse 
    will be left behind.

- The Peacock's Door (Spider Door + 10 Lantern, Edge, Knock Lore)

 - This is the last door a mortal can enter, and it's the last door 
   you can access. It holds the secrets to the Vak language, and the 
   15 value influences for Grail and Lantern (Useful for victories).
 - The dangers here are again, dread and fascination, but unless you
   have the Frangiclave (Knock 12 Tool) you'll visit it too 
   sparingly to matter. Plus, you'll only want to be here for 
   the last influences to win the game, so you shouldn't care.
 - To Revisit: Way: the Peacoock + Mirror / Frangiclave. The mirrors are
   the 8 and 12 tools for Lantern, but when used they will break. You'll 
   have to repair them by using Talk with a Forge follower, then the
   miror, then paying a Bronze (8) / Silver (8 % 12) spindria.
     - Now, the process of reparation is tedious, but obtaining
       the frangiclave is a dangerous and even more tedious process, 
       so if you need the 15 influence (Lantern will probably have to 
       do this), you're better off bearing with it.

it is important to dream consistently in the mid game to provide you 
with SH Lore for expeditions. Whenever you are not recovering from
disease/Despair/visions, you should be going to the Wood/White for 
stuff. If you can deal with the Winter influences, the Stag door 
gives better Lore. Your mileage may vary, but I will speak of dream 
routes again on the individual playthroughs.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
<>                          5. Occult Life (Common)                       <>
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

This part of the walkthrough will deal with the transition to the mid-game,
which is the creation of your Cult, and the mid game itself (Expeditions).
The process for all the victories is mostly the same for this part, even
for the Priest, Ghoul, and Dancer playthroughs, since you always want 
high level lorea, and expeditions are the only way to get them.

First, how do i know I'm ready for the mid game? here's a handy list:
- 3 Health, at least 2 Reason and Passion. (Preferably more, go to 
    max if you can. Read sections 4.1 and 4.4 to know what you may need)
- A stable source of funds. The minimum I'd consider is the institute Job, 
    Glover (At least one Promotion) or a steady trail of comission money.
- Mansus access (Wood and White at least) for those SH lores.
- Having already exhausted Morland and the Auction house. The books in 
     there are low hanging fruit, so grab them all.
- IMPORTANT: Have at the very least two Disciples for Lantern, and  
     two discicples for either Edge or Moth. 
    - This is because the first group of vaults can be solved just 
           with these two aspects, but you REALLY should be working
           on getting a pair of disciples of each type for safety.

If you have all the things below, you are perfectly ready for the mid game.
If you are unsure how to get the disciples/exalts going, keep reading; if 
you just wanna get to the expedition stuff, skip the next part.

                         - 5.1. Forming your Cult -

Right at the beggining, you should have been diligently getting more
acquintances by using Talk with any lore. Now you have all these 
occult-loving friends... time to congregate. 
To begin your Cult, Talk to an acquintance, it will bring up the Season
of Conversion (magenta hands); here you must provide a Lore 
(The type of Lore determines the name and aspect of the cult), 
a stat and a person to become the first Believer. You will also get a 
Notoriety, which is better taken care off by moving headquarters.

You'll also get the temporary headquarters. At this point you should have
finished off Morland's. Change venues to morland to remove the Notoriety, 
and to provide yourself with a Library HQ, which will help a lot in lore 
Ascension (read 4.4). 

After you have your Cult HQ, it's time for MASS INDOCTRINATION. If you can, 
use those pesky restlessness, Dread and Fascination cards on the trapping,
so they get deleted. This will ease your early game. Your unnamed 
acquintances should be left alone to alow you to get rid of nasty stuff 
later on (Like 15-winter influences on the Stag door). Here are the 
Tiers for followers:

- Acquaintance: Not indoctrinated. They are of no use to you.
- Believer(2 of their aspect): Named followers will become this after using 
    your cult card and 2 of the Cult's Principle.
- Pawn (1 Edge): Unnamed, there's one for each type. These will never be 
    useful for expeditions or Cult Business (CB).
- Disciple (Named): 5 of their Aspect. These are what you want for CB
    and expeditions. Two of these will defeat any obstacle with the 
    maximum chance (90-100%). You want a pair of each Aspect eventually.
- Disciple (Unnamed): 2 of their aspect, 1 Edge. Useless, only ascend 
    unnamed ones when you want to get rid of bad influences. 
    - Warning: Ascending the White/Moth pawn will make him get a timer.
      Once the tiemr is out he'll turn into a lunatic. Do not ascend him, 
      instead, give him to poppy when she asks for a sacrifice.
    - To promote anyone to disciple, use your cult card and 7 
      of your founding aspect (influences can help).
- Exalt (Name changes depending on Cult): Requires 21 of the Founding 
  Aspect, and only the Disciples with amtching aspect to your cult may 
  be promoted (The unnamed doesn't count). These experts have 10 (!) 
  of their Aspect, and can take on obstacles alone perfectly. Also, 
  you may be able to use them as a Component for a Victory (This is 
  specially suited to Forge and Grail).

Now, your choice of Cult determines which Aspect is needed to promote people,
and it will grant you 2-3 unique Exalt characters. These exalts do the same 
as diciples, but they have 10-aspect power and they never fail 
when doing Cult business (CB) (Talk + Cult card + Follower).

I'm going to give a short explanaiton on each cult, but cult choices will
be given in their appropiate Victory sections for each type. How to 
determine the value of a cult is by the scarcity of the lores, by the 
value of their CB or Cult Business, and the value their aspect has 
on Expeditions (Some are better than others).

Know that you can do any CB with any cult, but exalts never fail on their 
CB missions and have 10 on their aspect. Here's all of them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Heart (Pink): Heart is a nice aspect because vitalities have 2 heart 
  on them, which helps promotion, and because Heart CB is literally the 
  best one in the game. It gets rid of Notoriety if you have no Mystique, 
  making it the only renewable way of scrubbing Notoriety away. 

  Heart exalts will be the ultimate PR firm, keeping the law at bay 
  for no cost. Now, the expedition value for heart depedsn on playstyle; 
  they are only used on the bad Curses, which are extra nasty, 
  and have a 10% chance to trigger regardless of power used. 
  If you wisely choose to avoid the Cursed Vaults, they are less useful.
  - Lore Speed 7/10 - CB Special 10/10 - Expedition 4/10* - 3 Exalts
  * If you avoid Cursed vauls, then the value falls to 1/10.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
- Grail (Red): While red lores aren't as common in the early game, Heart 
  can be subverted to Grail, so it's only slightly more annoying to get.
  Now, Grail is only useful against Watchers so nothing spectacular there, 
  but the CB (Seducing people) is the safest way to get prisoners, 
  whether you want them for a victory or for the Spider Door. 
  
  Aditionally, Cyprians are also the safest way to eliminate Annoyances.
  (Both can still give you Notoriety though)
  - Lore Speed 5/10 -  CB Special 8/10 - Expedition 4/10

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Moth (white): You get a lot of early Moth Lore, and thre are many 
  influences with Moth (Glimmering, Memories), which makes this cult
  super fast. The moth is great for Obstacles (Forests and Watchers) which
  are not abundant, but they are very spread out through the tiers, and
  Moth provides a very good way of keeping the Law at bay: by using Talk
  with a Moth Disciple/Exalt and putting Evidence in, they can try to erase 
  it. Moth exalts are really good at compromising evidence, which is a more
  daring, but effective way compared to heart CB. Its own CB, burglary, 
  just gives you money and Notoriety, a hard pass on an otherwise great Cult.
  - Lore Speed 8/10 - CB Special 2/10 - Expedition 7/10

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Lantern (Yellow): This one, like grail, benefits from Lore subversion 
  lines, because Moth is very bountiful, and you get a fair amount of Lores
  for it in its own right. Now, this Cult has strong ups, and strong downs.
  For expeditions; Lantern is literally the best thing to have. A great 
  number of obstacles require this or Knock, but while Knock is more useful </pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
  on the higher level expeditions, Lantern is better for the initial ones.
  However, if you are planning on wisely evading Cursed Vaults, Lantern 
  becomes far less useful. Since I plan on having you ignore most of the 
  higher level Expeditions, Lantern will be very valuable still.
  On the other hand, the CB for lantern is one of the worst. It gives you
  Influences at random and can give you Fascination. Also, trying 
  to turn Hunters insane will probably make them become rivals instead.
  - Lore Speed: 7/10 - CB Special 1/10 - Expedition 9/10
  * If you are evading curses, it falls to 7/10.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Forge (Orange): Forge is about two things: Blowing stuff up and passing
  difficult terrain. This makes it great at Obstacles, specially on the 
  fifth and sixth tiers. Unfortunately the CB is not that useful (It
  provides money and/or pigments, which you are better off getting naturally
  or by the unnumbered stones, and the Lore aviability is not that great;
  you may have to subvert Moth into Lantern, and then into Forge to get 
  stuff done, which makes it a very slow Cult.
  -Lore Speed: 4/10 - CB Special 3/10 - Expedition 8/10

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Edge (Green): The edgy cult is all about cutting throats. Killing 
  Hunters (Dangerous, i'd dissuade you from this), Annoyances and 
  Watchers without failure is their greatest skill, and Watchers are
  very prevalent on Expeditions. Their CB is also a Prisoner provider, 
  which can be useful for the Spider or for your Marks. The downside is 
  their abysmal lore aviability, and the fact that their subversion target 
  is Forge doesn't help. Dread gives Edge and there's 10 level influences 
  on the Ascent of Knives (Stag door) you may use. Not
  recommended for begginers, but otherwise a good cult to work with.
  - Lore Speed: 2/10 - CB Special - 8/10 - Expedition 6/10

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Winter (Blue): This is by far the worst cult. Its CB is providing corpses,
  which the Law can catch and investigate and can't be given to the Spider 
  Door. Lore aviability is meh, and they subvert from Edge, the Lore
  with the least aviability early. There are no influences with Winter 
  except affliciton and using those will delete your Health permantently.
  Expedition wise, they gain some use at the 5th tier... and that's it.
  Generally worthless, do not pick unless you have a craving for the dead.
  - Lore Speed: 4/10 - CB Special 1/10 - Expedition 4/10*
  * If you are evading curses, this drops to 2/10.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Knock (Purple): The Knock cult is all about opening things (And snakes)
  which is why they are the best type for expeditions, hands down. Also, 
  although lore aviability is really bad, ANY lore studied with Knock 
  will become Knock, so sky's the limit with it. The downside is their CB,
  which, like Moth is about getting money while pissing off the police.
  Great cult otherwise, specially early-game.
  - Lore Speed: 6/10 - CB Special 2/10 - Expedition 10/10
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- SH (Magenta): This cult is kind of special, it can promote people with 
  ANY aspect, but gets no exalts at all. It is by far the fastest cult to 
  get, and Lore aviability is completely irrelevant. I'd recommend using 
  Aspects with good residues (lantern, grail) but anything goes. They 
  literally offer nothing that other cults can't do, but they are faster.
  - Lore Speed 10/10 - CB Special 0/10 - Expedition 0/10

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Specific instructions on Cult Choice will be given on the respective 
victories page, but you can win with any Cult. Note that i will be giving 
far more value to the expeditions below SH 12, because the ones after are
honestly irrelevant to a normal victory. If you want info on Apostle wins,
go read Anond000d's more general faq.

P.S. Veterans will have noticed I don't mention summons once. That's because
they are not neccesary at all (Except for languages and influence removal, 
and for Port Noon, which unless you're going Change, you shouldn't be there)
and therefore I shall completely ignore them.

                           - 5.2. Expeditions-

With your cult followers ready, and a steady source of income, you may begin 
exploring Vaults. These hold Tools, Books and Pigments and represent 
the mid game. There are three components of expeditions:

- Getting the expedition: Use the Explore verb with SH Lore. There are
  seven Tiers of SH lore and therefore seven tiers of Vaults.
    - The Patron Sulochana will take any SH Lore and turn it into the
      repeatable version of the Vault, which can be done many times, and
      is vital to the Change victory.
- Payment: You must be providing funds (One per obstacle).
- Dealing with obstacles: Every obstacle can be cleared by two Disciples, 
  an Exalt or a summon with 10 on the correct aspect. You can see what 
  you need by examining the little squares once your expedition has started.
  
Now, one very specific obstacle to note is Curses. Curses will never 
impede your progress, but they will cause you to either lose a stat 
permanently or lose a follower permanently (Worms). They are also 
impossible to protect from 100% unless you can get your hands on a 10 
value Heart influence in time to protect you (Something impossible at the
early stages of the mid game, since they reside in the higher dream 
doors, Spider and Peacock). 

Therefore, I will be describing each Tier of Vaults, and mention which 
of the Vaults are cursed, so that you may choose to avoid them. 
I recommend avoiding them for the most part, specially on a Priest 
or Dancer playthrough, in which your stats are more important to preserve.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Tier 1: SH 2 - Capital
- Aspects to bring: Lantern and Moth
- Cursed Lands: St. Agnes hospital
- Notes: All these areas will give you possible HQ locations. The 
  repeatable is curse-free, so you can use it to get all 4 level pigments.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Tier 2: SH 4 - Shires
- Aspects to bring: Knock + Edge + Forge/Lantern
- Cursed lands: Kerisham (Repeatable)
- Notes: Avoid kerisham, it has nothing you can't get in other places. 
  Keglin is super important, it has a mirror for the Peacock's door.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Tier 3: SH 6 - Continent
- Aspects to bring: Lantern + Moth + Edge
- Cursed Lands: Forman's, Vanderschaaf, Raveline.
- Notes: I'd honestly recommend just using your SH 6 on Sulochana; the 
  Unnumbered Stones has no curses and is repeatable, which makes it
  the best place to get the 8 pigments and 4 tools.
  Also, Vandershaaf has the SH 4 Tool, the only one. If you don't want to 
  deal with randomness to get that tool for Teresa, you may want
  to risk the curse for that one.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Tier 4: SH 8 - Beyond the Forests
- Aspects to bring: Lantern + Edge + Forge
- Cursed Lands: Revek, Foxily Meadows (Repeateable), The Circus (Worms)
- Notes: There's some good Ingredients here, but otehrwise this Tier 
  is all about Books. The circus may be worth going to if you care about
  the 12 Grail ingredient.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Tier 5: SH 10 - Rending mountains
- Aspects to bring: Winter + Edge + Knock/Forge
- Cursed Lands: Snow Keeper (Worms), Ikirwami, Shadow kings (Repeatable)
- Notes: I'd do the Pits and the Mausoleum, maybe the Snow Keeper for the 
  Uyrus (For Vak language). otherwise at this point you should be able 
  to get the 14 Lore and an 8/12 Tool/Ingredient for anything you want.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Tier 6: SH 12 - Level Sands
- Aspects to bring: Forge + Heart + Lantern + Edge
- Cursed Lands: All of them, Seven Coils is Worms.
- Notes: Avoid this, all these are noob traps or places for 
  the highest level tools. Cristabel has the Frangiclave, the Tool
  that allows for unlimited Peacock Door Visits.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Special: Hebe Stanton (Forge + Edge/Grail/Moth)
- This ship will appear randomly; use your lower SH lores for it, 
  so you don't waste a valuable SH Lore on it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                      - 5.3. Higher Languages and Rites -

So, you have gone through tier 3 and 4 expeditions and now you 
probably have a ton of books you can't read. Those books have
to be translated with some obscure stuff. The Patrons can teach  
the four basic languages (Read 4.3). There are, however, four advanced 
ones, and they come from either books or Names. Here's the stuff:

- Fucine: You get this book pretty early (Key-Hunter garret, Tier 3), 
  otherwise Teresa (10 lantern, 2 SH) teaches it.
- Phrygian: The book comes really late, and there are a TON of these books.
  Learn it from Ezeem (10 Grail, 2 Forge), it's probably faster.
- Vak: Easiest way is by going to the Peacock Door; you may find Vak there.
- Deep mandaic: Get the Bowl from Hunter's Pits (Tier 5), or from 
  King Crucible (10 Forge, 2 Lantern).

Best ways to get the rites: get sunset rite, and use a Knock disciple 
for 5 Knock; use the Lore spot for the corresponding 10+ Lore, and then 
get a 2+ influence from the dreamworld, or from restlessness or 
something similar. or use pigments if you have extras. 
Otherwise, I'd advise against summons. Disciples can cover any Vault 
by themselves by working in pairs, and if you are playing right,
using them to kill Hunters will be unnecessary. Still, summons can be 
made explicitely to burn off bad influences just like cult ascensions do.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
<>                       6. THE CHOICE - THE ASCENT                       <>
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

This marks the beggining of the Endgame portion, where you are actually 
going to try to win the game. Everything before this is preparations common
to all routes, but from here the methods and strategies bifurcate.

I will go through them in difficulty order, starting from Forge (Power), 
up to Palest/Medium (Winter). I will not dwell on what is common 
to all playthroughs, as that is explained in the earlier sections, but I
will indicate what you need to gather from the expeditions before
deciding to stop and push for the endgame. The order of difficulty is this:

        Power->Sensation->Enlightenment->Change->Threshold->Palest

(AUTHORS NOTE: I may be subject to moving some stuff around in the future, I 
 am sure i was too inefficient on the Palest Route, gonna need more testing.)
 
 I will also leave ntoes on what Cults are better for that type of victory.
 There are General Cults that work well enough on all types, and those can
 be used indiscriminately. These are:
 
 - Heart: Notoriety is bad. Heart is the PR firm of the Cultist world, 
   scrubbing the bad press off your table. The exalts will never fail
   on scrubbing, so it makes for calm playthroughs. Could be considered 
   the best cult in general.
 - Moth: Evidence is bad. Moth Cult is the Cleaner of the Cultist World,
   deleting evidence off your table. more agressive than Heart, but
   can pay dividends sometimes. Also, Watcher Obstacles can be cleared 
   with the moth Exalts. Huge downside is that Moth Residue gives
   Restlessness, so Dread will always be a problem.
 
 POWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWER
 POWER               6.1. The Forge of Days - Power Victory            POWER
 POWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWERPOWER

This is the recommended Ambition for beginners, and for a good reason: 
Whenever you ascend your tempttation into the Third Mark, by using it
on the Work verb with the Stag Door card a Lore for Forge, it will 
start demanding Money, which is much more manageable than asking 
for human victims (Much cleaner, too).


Choice of Cult: 
- Forge: A cult with the same aspect as your Victory is always good, 
  because a 10 value Exalt will make the Seventh (And final) mark easier.
  On the other hand, Forge is a slow Cult to get going.
- Grail/Edge: if you wanna get those higher level influences for the win, 
  you're gonna have to feed the Spider door. Grail and Edge will suplly 
  you with victims. Just watch out for the Notoriety.

What you need to win:

- Option A: 14 Forge Lore + 12 Tool/Pigment + 10 Forge Exalt Follower
  - The reward for playing with the Forge Cult. You can get 
    the 12 Pigment from the Spider Door. Only do this if
    you don't want to have to hold Influences with Sulochana. 

- Option B: 14 Forge Lore + 15 Influence + 8 Tool/pigment
  - Best option for any non-Forge cult and even if you do have forge Cult.
    You'll have to go to the Spider Door to get a 15 influence and use it 
    with an 8 Tool or pigment. 

- Option C: 12 Forge Lore + 12 Pigment + 12 Tool
  - The no Mansus Special, but for people who didn't choose Forge Cult.
    This requires trips to some pretty high level vaults, which will
	be both time-consuming and dangerous. You won't have to get 14 
	degree Forge Lore for this one.

- Option D: Rite Intercalate + Forge Stuff up to 36.
  - Rite intercalate is a jumbo size rite that allows six slots, 
  instead of the usual 4. It's very much overkill, comes in the 
  highest vaults and erases everything it uses. Do not use it if you
  plan on becoming an apostle.

- Getting the Marks -
  
Since getting the Marks has no danger (Funds will raise the Mark by one, 
to a maximum of 6), I won't bother explaining much about them. Just now
that you need your Desire card to have a 6 on it before you can win.

Therefore, unlike the other playthroughs where you have to prepare 
everything before getting to the Third Mark, here you should get it as soon
as possible. You should, by that point, be quite highly promoted in glover, 
which can very easily sustain you. This means you can take it easy without
those pesky Restlessness cards to ruin your day.

- What to do when it's time to go -

Whenever you have your sixth mark, an 8 tool and a 14 Lore, grab some 
unsuspecting soul (Edge will work if you have exalts, otherwise use Grail), 
and feed the Spider Door while your heart followers srub the Notoriety away.
If you don't get the influence, try again. 

You may also start doing this early, before the sixth mark; in which case 
you'll want Sulochana to hold the influence in place until your marks 
are ready. The influence has a short 60 timer, so don't dawdle!

DELIGHTCONSUMEDELIGHTDELIGHTDELIGHTDELIGHTDELIGHTCONSUMEDELIGHTDELIGHT
DELIGHT        6.2. The Red Grail and the Door-in-the-eye     THELIGHT      
THELIGHTTHELIGHTTHELIGHTTHELIGHTTHELIGHTTHELIGHTTHELIGHTTHELIGHTTHEEYE

This should be the second andd third ascensions you may try. They are both
mechanically the same, so i will epxlain them at the same time. The
only difference is in the aspect to bring (Lantern/Grail) and the Cult
choices.

 - Cult Choices -

---------------------------------FOR GRAIL----------------------------
 to win
Grail: Yep, the best choice hands down is the grail cult. Coinciding
  Cult will lessen the requirements for the Seventh Mark, and the CB
  for Grail is the best Prisoner generator and Annoyance eraser.

And that's really it. There is literally no reason to get anyone but Grail,
this fact is what makes Grail easier to pull off than Lantern. It is 
also quite thematic: The Red Grail truly only has love for itself...

---------------------------------FOR LANTERN-----------------------------

Lantern: As always, concordant is a choice, but not a very good one. 
  The CB is useless to you for the most part, and you have no 
  guaranteed way of getting Prisoners. You will have to learn how
  to preserve your Marks from descending.
Edge/Grail: Counterintuitive, maybe, but Edge and Grail supply you with 
  prisoners. Grail is a very good choice for its superior 
  Lore speed, but Edge gets its big tools earlier and its aspect is
  much more useful for expeditions. Your choice here.

 - What you need to win -

Here, it's the same for both grail and Lantern. 
- Option A: 14 Lore + 12 Tool/Pigment + 10 Exalt Follower
  - The reward for a concordant Cult choice. 
    You can get the 12 Pigment from the Peacock Door. 
    Grail and lantern get a 12 Pigment pretty early, so doing 
    this route is very viable if you chose a concordant Cult.

- Option B: 14 Lore + 15 Influence + 8 Tool/pigment
  - Best option for any non-concordant cult; since the 12 Pigment comes
    quite easily, no need to do this with a concordant Cult.
    You'll have to go to the Peacock Door to get a 15 influence and 
	use it with an 8 Tool or pigment. 

- Option C: 12 Lore + 12 Pigment + 12 Tool
  - The no Mansus Special, but for people who didn't choose the right Cult.
    This requires trips to some pretty high level vaults, which will
	be both time-consuming and dangerous. You won't have to get 14 
	degree lantern/Grail Lore for this one.

- Option D: Rite Intercalate + Grail/Lantern Stuff up to 36.
  - Rite intercalate is a jumbo size rite that allows seix slots, 
  instead of the usual 4. It's very much overkill, comes in the 
  highest vaults and erases everything it uses. Do not use it if you
  plan on becoming an apostle.
  
 - Getting the Marks -

Here's where the run gets complicated. Both Lantern and Grail will 
start demanding fresh prisoners once you get the Third mark. If you
do provide it, you'll get the next Mark, up to the Sixth, at which
point you can win the game.

Atention! Do not get the third mark until you have your 14 Lore. You'll
also require aditional things depending on your choices:

- For Grail - 12 pigment and 10 Exalt Follower (Cyprian) or 8 tool.
  (The 8 tool for Grail is far away, I recommend getting the masterpiece)
- For Lantern - 12 pigment and 10 Exalt Follower (Seer) or 
    the lantern Masterpiece (You'll need the mirror for the Influence).
 
 * Reminder you can get a masterpiece (Tool 8) by painting
 with 4 Passion, a Disciple/Exalt and a 4 pigment of the same type.
 This will also produce one Notoriety, be ready to scrub it away.

Once you have the requirements, you're ready for the final push. Go 
and turn in your Temptation with a Lore and the Stag Door. This will
give you the Third Mark, which will activate on every Season of Ambition.
 
Problem is, if you don't have a prisoner ready by the time the 
Season of Ambition comes in, you actually LOSE a mark, to a minimum of 3.
This means you have to chain three succesful cravings to get the 
Sixth mark. To get your prisoners, I'd recommend Exalt grail, Exalt
Edge, and if you don't have exalts of those types, use Disciple grails.
In case of emergency, you can also use your Followers for that, use 
the unnamed ones first (Do not do this if you plan on an apostle game).

Of course, abducting people is hella illegal, so you'll need a Heart
CB to scrub clean that Notoriety, or if you're desperate, a change in HQ
can clean it up as well. if you want for Moth cult, they can kill 
evidence instead. lastly, if you're desperate, you can hide notoriety 
temporarily by painting with it, but it make scrubbing harder because
of the Mystique.

Lastly, a little trick to prevent Mark loss. If you watch your Time Season
(orange hourglass) you can predict if a Season of Ambition is coming.
If you can predict it, hold the Desire card for the duration of the 
Season of Ambition, and it will produce a restlessness instead of 
reducing your Marks. You gotta stay attentive though, and rememeber that 
magnets do not work while time is stopped.

Whenever you have the Sixth Mark, you are ready to try to win.

 - What to do when it's time to go -

 Ok, again, here the process varies: if you went for the matching cult 
 to your Victory, this part is really easy: Just grab your 
 12 ingredient, 14 Lore and 10 Exalt and win.
 Grail generally will be done with its matching cult, so its playthrough 
 ends here. For those who chose Lantern and suffered through a matching 
 Lantern Cult, you will your reward here.
 
 For the Lantern and Grail players who didn't choose a matching cult, 
 keep reading, and brace yourselves. The madness continues.
 
 Now, to those who can't get the matching Exalt, you have two choices;
 deal with high level vaults to get the 12 tool or the Rite
 Intercalate, which can kill your stats and is very time-consuming; 
 or deal with the Mansus, which puts you at the mercy of the RNG. 
 Since the first is self-explanatory, I'll explain the second.
 
 You want to use the mirror on the Peacock's door and get the 15 Lantern
 influence on the door itself or the Grail 15 influence on the Red Church.
 Problem is, they have roughly a 1/3 to appear. If you already got Vak,
 it'll raise the chances for the 15 Lantern influence.
 
 Seems simple enough right? Except that everytime you go in there, the 
 mirror will BREAK. For Grail, it just means wasting time repairing it
 (Talk verb, Forge follower, Bronze or silver spindria); but for 
 Lantern this is a big problem because the mirror IS your 8 tool.
 This CANNOT be remeied by good ol' Sulochana, because you need 
 the Talk verb to repair the mirror itself. The solution is to get 
 the masterpiece for Lantern, which is an 8 Lantern tool.
 
 So, in short, get the 15 influence, and combine it with the 8 tool
 for Grail/Lantern and the 14 Lore. (Rite is <<<<<<<). With this 
 you will have won the game.
 
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 The three earlier victories (Forge, Grail, Lantern) are the basic
 victories that you can do with any character. If the victories before
 are the minor Leagues, the following are the Major Leagues. The main 
 difference is that the Major Leagues require you to permanently 
 lose stats to proceed, or have requirements for advancement that will
 put constant pressure on you. Whenever you feel ready, we'll move
 towards the more advanced stuff.
 
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 CHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGE
 CHANGE              6.3. The Dancer DLC - Moth and Heart          CHANGE
 CHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGECHANGE
 
The first thing to mention here, unlike the Threshold and Palest paths,
you may become a Dancer with any legacy, not just the Dancer Legacy. It 
just gives you extra health and starts you with the right setup
to start dancing. 

There are three variants on the Change victory: Heart, Moth and Balance.
Heart is the easiest, Balance is the hardest, and Moth is very annoying 
(getting the Moth influences requires a lot of Spider Door visits), but
the process is the same for all of them, which is why I will explain
them together.

- Legacies - 

I'd only recommend being choosey with your Legacies
when you pursue the Balance victory, because the extra stats from Dancer
and specially Physician (The 2F/60sec guaranteed job makes this Legacy the 
best in the game, honestly) may prevent a game over due to Curses (Which
if you play properly is VERY unlikely, but theoretically possible).

- How to become a Dancer -

if you have the Dancer legacy, and/or the temptation change already, 
skip this part. Otherwise read this.

You will require to have found the Cabaret (Explore with health),
and the pstron Sulochana (Talk with Lore + Reason).

Now, this route is characterized by the Temptation: Change, that you can 
get by using Explore with the Cabaret and Sulochana. She will deny you
the Change desire if you haven't changed your desire at least once
(You do so by using Rest with your desire and applying a stat).
Once you have the change card, explore with the Cabaret and 
Sulochana again and she'll hire you as a dancer.

In any case, working normlaly in Glover to get a sizeable cash 
flow before taking out the dance shoes may be a good idea if you want a 
slower, calmer playthrough. Your choice.

- Cult Choices - 

- Heart/Moth: Being concordant will not grant you any special bonus; the
  Dances only take your stats and influences, not your Followers. Since
  you HAVE to do Cursed Lands to get the forms, Heart gains a fair
  bit of power on this one. You'll have to suffer to get the last 
  influences, though.

- Grail: Sporting early Annoyance clearing and ease to acquire prisoners, 
  this one is perfect for feeding the Spider Door for those pesky 10 level 
  influences at the end of the game. Also, there is a Grail Obstacle 
  is every repeatable Vault, including Port Noon, where Edge is useless.

- Forge: There is a guaranteed Forge Obstacle in every repeatable, 
  and is in general a good obstacle clearer. Unfortunately, 
  that all this Cult can give you. Still better than Knock, 
  that has no Obstacle on the Foxily Meadows.

- What you need to win -

To win any of these victories you require four things:

- A healthy Cult that can deal with every Obstacle (YOu are going to have 
  to do some high level stuff, so have two of each type, and I'd even
  try to get everyone possible for dealing with those pesky 10% failures)
- Stats. You're gonna have to turn 3 Passion, Health or both to get the 
  scars for the dances.
  - It is VITAL that you get Flawless Physique by using Heart or Moth on
    your last Health upgrade, otherwise you won't get the best contract.
- Dreamways. You want to get to the spider Door at least, and you want to 
  spam dreams, because it's the main source of SH Lore.
- Secret Histories. These will permit you to get to the repeatable Vaults.
  You require a SH Lore for 4, 6, 8, 12, and 14 (You'll skip the 
  Shadowless kings Tomb, even Sulochana will tell you to avoid it). 
  - To acquire the SH Lore, either go to the higher level doors for the
    big stuff, or Lore Ascend lesser SH Lore into the bigger ones.
 
You may do your dances/expeditions at your leisure; the Change ambition 
will just bombard you with Restlessness until you're done, which must be
managed either by using them on Cult promotions or by massive purchases
of drugs (Rest with funds, one dread is killed by one Contentment).
Once you have your cult going, you may start dancing.

- Getting the Marks - 

So, the process to get your Marks is a bit more involved this time. First, 
I would recommend you get your basic stuff before starting your Dances,
but make sure to save the SH Lores becuase you're going to use them. Don't
go nuts on expeditions, just do enough stuff to get your Disciples and 
Exalts, and the access to at least the Spider Door.

Note that to get the repeatable lands, you'd normally have to get EVERY
SINGLE ONE for that tier. This is unacceptable, so instead talk to 
Sulochana and give her the SH Lore. She will give you the repeatable 
inmediately.

Now, to actually start with the marks, you gotta use the dance contract.
You can use the contract in three ways:

- Use it with your Physical Skill, the Cabaret and Passion/Health to try
  for a higher contract. There are three tiers of contract, and like 
  painting, the higher tiers allow you to put more stats/scars. You need
  the Flawless Physique for the last one, so make sure you go that route.

- Use it with the club and Passion/Health: This will just give you Funds.
  It's not terribly impressive cash, and the Cabaret will have tro recover, 
  so compliment Dancing with Physical job (This will also help with raising
  Health to max, which you need).

- Dance with the Change Card to actually try to get a new Mark. You 
  will require a certain degree of Heart/Moth for each dance, after which
  you will also get a Disguise. You have to use this disguise on the 
  repeatable Vaults, once you beat the Vault, your Disguise will turn into
  a Surrendeer. 
  When season of Ambition comes, the Surrender will be taken
  along with your Change card, and you'll get a Mark. Here is a list of the 
  tiers:
  
- Tempation Change + 5 Moth/Heart (A passion/Health + Restlessness) - Will 
  direcly give you the Surrender card. Just wait for Season of Ambition 
  to get the next Mark (Change: Leaf).

- Change leaf + 6 Moth/Heart (A Scar + Restlessness): Will give you your
  first Disguise, which you must use on Kerisham. When you get the
  Surrender, wait for the Season of Ambition to get Change:Pearl.
  - Kerisham is a Cursed Land, make sure you have 10 heart/Winter. You'll 
    also need Knock/Forge, and to deal with Watchers (Egde,Grail,Moth).

- Change Pearl + 8 Moth/Heart (2 Scars, 1 Scar + 1 Stat + Restlessness): 
  This will give you another disguise, which you have to use on the 
  Unnumbered Stones, after which you'll get Change: Antumbra.
  - This one is the easiest of the repeatables, because it has no Curse.
    Moth and Lantern/Knock will be sufficent.

- Change Antumbra + 10 Moth/Heart (2 scars + Restlessness/Stat): This
  Disguise is used in the Foxily Meadows. 
  - This place is cursed, and so is everywhere from here on. The 10%
    chance to fail will be a bane you'll have to live with. In any
    case, Winter and Moth/Grail/Edge will be needed to pass through, 
    and grab the Surrender for Change: Stigma.

- Change Stigma + 13 Moth/Heart (Three scars): Skip the Shadowless kings,
  noone wants to be there. Instead, you'll go to Miah (SH 12). 
  - Miah can be dealt with using Grail, Edge/Winter, and Lantern/Knock. 
    If you survive the desert, you'll get the Surrender and 
    afterwards the Change: Pupil.

- Change Pupil + 15 Moth/Heart (3 Scars + Restlessness): This Disguise
  is for none otehr than Port Noon, where the Longs who don't want to 
  serve an hour go to be left alone. You need a Port Noon Anecdote
  (SH 14) to give to Sulochana to get this one.
  - Port Noon will require Forge, Grail/Moth and Heart/Winter, or 
    alternnatively Heart, Knock, and Grail/Moth. I'd reccommend Forge, 
    Moth and Heart because they can have a third member in case of 
    failure, which can always happen. Once you overcome it, breathe, 
    you've made it through the expeditions and you'll get the last
    surrender and afteerwards, the Change:Ivory.
    
On Miah, and Port Noon, there will be FOUR obstacles. This means 
that failures can really bottleneck you (When you only have two disciples 
and one gets injured, you lose his help, and this might cause you to 
fail repeatedly. If you don't have redundancies, you might as well call 
off the expedition, and try again.)

Another thing you could do to help is getting a couple summons. Normally
I wouldn't bother with them, but on higher level expeditions some of them
can lend a hand. I would only consider the summons with at least 10 
on their aspect, because otherwise a disciple is just as good. The
summons i'd recommend are:

- King Crucible: The Forge aspect is ever present on the higher areas.
  Cost: 5 knock, 10 Forge, 2 Lantern.
- Ezeem: He can teach Phrygian, and has Grail expertise which can deal 
  with the guardians and the desert. he also can eat your Reason and 
  give you Decrepitude, which can be turned to Health via Forge's glory.
  Cost: 5 Knock, 10 Grail, 2 Forge.
- Maid in the Mirror: Winter is useful to have, and Winter only has two 
  named followers.
  Cost: 2 knock, 2 Edge, 8 Winter.

Also, you may want to turn some Reason into Passion/Health sop you are at 
a healthy 3/3/3 Array if you're doing Balance. Be careful though, 
both rites give you Notoriety when they succeed. Have your heart 
followers ready for a scrub.

- Give your reason to a Raw Prophet or Ezeem, and you'll get a Decrepitude.
  Forge's glory (15 Forge, 1 Grail) will restore it to health. Best way
  to do that one is with a Restlessness, a Forge Disciple and a 10 lore.
  If you went for a Forge cult, this will be even easier.

- Passion's Gyre is a ritual that turns Reason into Passion. You'll
  require 1 Edge (Dread) and 15 Moth (10 lore, Moth Disciple).

One last thing, if you look at your Disguise card, you'll notice it
actually has stats. This is for the most part irrelevant, but the 
last forms actually have 5 on Winter (Moth and ?? (Heart), which
can be useful in Port Noon. 

- What to do when it's time to go -

Once you get Change Ivory, you are ready for your final ascension. To do it
you'll require 19 (!) Moth/Heart. if you're doing Heart/Balance, this one 
should be done with Heart, because there are 6 level influences on the 
White Door, while there aren't any readily aviable ones for Moth.
(Influences only stay strong for 60 seconds, so Sulochana is vital here)

Now, this CAN be done without Influence ascension, but you're not going 
to like it. Both the Heart and Moth's 10 level influences are on the Spider
Door (Heart on the Door itself (25% chance), Moth on the Chamber of 
Ways (20% chance)). As yuo can see, you don't have the best chances.
Prepare to feed a lot of unsuspecting victims to the Spider. Having a 
Grail Cult or a Heart Cult help with this, otherise, you'll have
to settle on a rhythm of getting a prisoner, scrubbing Notoriety, 
rinse and reapeat until you get the influence.

Alternatively, use teh Wood to get 2 moth influence, hold it with 
Sulochana and start upgrading influences. This blocks at
least three verbs (Study, Rest, and talk), so careful there.

Once you have the Influence, keep it with Sulochana (Talk) so it 
doesn't decay, and prepare to do a big dance with three scars, the 
Change Ivory card and the influence you just got. This will give you
the Imago. Dream with the Imago to win. if you want, get a lover and
get her killed, then revived as a zombie for the Variant Ending; the 
Imago card will not go anywhere. 

Now, depending on what Dances you did , Moth or 
Heart, you'll become a servant under the Moth or the Thunderskin. But, 
if you did three dances with each, you'll be taken by the Meniscate. 

Ok, here's a list of what to do to get the balance, because it isn't as 
obvious as it seems. To get into the Balance ending, the sequence can be 
done as follows.

You will always start with a White/Moth marker. You will have to get 
three moth dances and three heart dances, and then finish up with heart
(Heart is much easier to deal with than Passion).

- Get the first card,  Change: Leaf with Moth.
- Get the first disguise with Moth and then go to Kerisham.
- Get the second disguise with Moth, and then do Unnumbered Stones.
- Get the third disguise with Heart and do the Foxily Meadows.
- Get the fourth disguise with Heart and do Miah.
- Get the last disguise, with heart, and do Port Noon.
- Get the Imago with Heart.

If you got it right, on your change card there should be a couple symbols 
that look like people dancing, one white one pink. This is what shows you
how you're doing. By the time you get the imago, you should have 4 white
and three pink. Since you did the last one with heart, it will trigger 
the Balance ending.

I'll recommend you do Moth, Moth, Moth, Heart Heart, Heart. The influences
for Moth and heart are the same (Restlessness), but the Heart Influence 6 
and 10 are easier to find, which will make your ascent a bit smoother.
After tyou've made your choices, enjoy your victory!

OPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPEN
OPEN                 6.4. Priest DLC - The Threshold                OPEN
OPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPEN

Welcome to Saint Agnes, this is a guide to the aspiring Priest, so that
he can literally split himself open for the glory of the mother of Ants.
This route requires you to pick the Priest Legacy; no other will work.

This Legacy/Route is quite different from the others, and it's the 
most stat-loss intensive in the game: you'll have to sacrifice 7 health 
at the least to make it possible to win, and you'll have to deal
with some pesky and dangerous timers. make sure you have mastered using 
Sulochana for timer stasis, and how to hold cards so magnets can't grab 
them, for they are neccesary skills to get some of the components.

- Cult Choice - 

Secret histories: You don't really care about high level expeditions 
  or hard-to-get rituals. This makes St. hydra a really good choice for
  its incredible SPEED. 

Knock: Its thematic since this Cult is Knock-related, and Knock is 
  easy enough to come by because of Lore Ascension. The extra help
  on the Expeditions is nice too.

One thing: The cult will automatically try to be the same one as your 
last victory/defeat; to change it you must put a  Lore on the 
Exhultation when it asks for it. You won't get a second chance, 
so be sure of your choice.

- What you need to win - 

Ok, first of all, your priest job sucks (1 fund/60 sec.) and can randomly 
give you Notoriety. Avoid that job until you're ready to start
making scars, and do the usual stuff at the beggining (Raise stats, 
work in Glover, etc.). 

Do some of the expeditions, but I very strongly recommend you avoid 
Cursed Lands. This run can be completely  screwed if you get cursed 
too many times (3 Curses will start impairing your ability to do things, 
any more can kill you via bad luck with the Season of 
Affliction and/or Injuries). Plus, there's nothing special to get in those 
areas, save for maybe the Frangiclave, so don't bother.

Alright, now back to business. What you need before you start opening
yourself in various and distressing ways is:

- A healthy cult. Nothing extraordinary, but enough to get through 
  the first half of expeditions. Don't bother with most of tier 3, 
  it's full of curses (I'd consider getting Sulochana for the Unnumbered 
  Stones, it's repeatable and has no curses in it).
- You'll eventually want either the 12 or the 14 Knock lore, so don't skim
  on your studies. You can get away with the 12 Lore if you went for a
  Knock Cult. You also require level 10 of EVERY lore.
- Stats. You want to trade Reason and Passion for Health. I'd trade two
  of each so you'll end on a sustainable 2H/3R/3P, but giving away another 
  Passion can be helpful. Just amke sure, if you ever want to do a 
  painting masterpiece, you're gonna need 4 passion for it, so get that 
  done before you start the mass conversion.
- Rites and the components to do them. You need at elast to be able to 
  summon a Raw prophet or Ezeem, and a Maid-in-the-Mirror or Teresa. 
  The easiest way to do this is with either a high level Lore, or
  with at least an 8 tool (Paintings can serve this purpose), a Knock
  disciple, and some Influence with the right type. Here are the simplest
  ways to get these people:

- Ezeem: He can teach Phrygian too, so I'd really recommend him.
  Cost: 5 Knock, 10 Grail, 2 Forge.
- Maid in the Mirror: Cost: 2 knock, 2 Edge, 8 Winter.
- Raw prophet: Cost: 2 Knock, 6 Grail, 2 Moth.
- Teresa: She never rebels, so you can use ingredints for her 
  without them getting thrown down the drain.
  Cost: 5 Knock, 10 Lantern, 2 SH (Get it from passing memories)

Once you have moved youe stats, gotten your 12/14 Knock Lore, and 
the 10 Lores, you may start getting your Marks.

- How to get the Marks - 

Now here is where it gets tricky. The way to get your Marks, which are
called Lock-Scars, and you're gonna need seven of them. The process is
somewhat involved, but it has three clear steps.

- Work with your Parish Card, a Reason, and a Lore, and you may get a 
  Fervour card. When you do you'll also get an exuberation residue, 
  which has very chances of giving you Notoriety. The devotion card
  will expire into Dread after 150 seconds.

- You then need to pray with the parish card, Health, Devotion, and 
  at least a 10 value Lore of a specific type. After doing this, there
  will be a magnet that will pull in Restlessness. (Since restlessness 
  has a very small timer, it is recommended you preserve it with Sulochana
  if something else doesn't require also an effort of preservation)
  - Another way of getting Restlessness is by dreaming on the White Door, 
    it has a very high chance of having one.

- Depending on the Scar you are making, you will need an offering. These
  are the seven offerings for each lore Type. I very strongly
  recommend you raise your health first to at least 9, and then begin.
  Also, start by doing Grail, Winter and Edge, because they require 
  two health to do (One for the scar, one for the offering). 
  The offering will be given back to you as-is, so have your 
  Rest verb ready to recover it back to health. Here are the seven types.
  
- Edge (Injury): Somewhat annoying to start. Getting an injury 
  requires either working with health alone, or Lore ascending things 
  with Practical Experimentation (Edge, Heart). Since you can revert Lore
  with Reaosn, you may repeat this forever. Good thing is that Injuries 
  have a high timer, so maanging timers is a bit easier.
  
- Grail (Hunger): This one is very tricksy with timers. Hunger appears 
  when the Time Season cannot pull Funds. (One of your healths will 
  decay to hunger) To get this one without sever economic crisis, just
  hold ALL your funds on your hand (Shift + hold click) while the clock 
  ticks. This should give you a hunger.
  - Attention! Hunger will dissapear in 60 seconds and will leave 
    nothing behind, not even Decrepitude. keep it safe with Sulochana and 
    get the restlessness from the White Door while you get the Devotion.
    You might need more than one go to get it all together, but be patient.
    Change HQ if you see Notoriety creeping up.
  
- Winter (Affliction): This one is more annoying than difficult, since
  you depend on the always whimsical Season of Affliction. You may try to
  force it by getting drugs (Rest + Funds), but pay attention to the 
  Time verb (Orange hourglass) so you know if the Season is aproaching. 
  Affliciton has a high tiemr, so you may try to preserve it along with 
  devotion and/or restlessness with Sulochana.
  
If you got those three, you are already past the worst part. The next four
are easy to obtain resources with big timers. Use your Commisions 
to get them quickly or just gather them with Study. 

- Moth (Glimmering), and Lantern (Erudition): You can get these from 
  Comissions.

- Heart (Vitality): Wait for a Heart residue or Study it, or work
   with Health Skill or grab one in the Wood. 
 
- Forge (Bronze Spindria): The easiest; spindrias never decay, so leave
   this one for last.   
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- What to do when it's time to go - 

Once you have painstakingly gotten your 7 Lock Scars, you are ready 
to finish. Grab any Rite that has a tool slot, and put one of your
Lock Scars in there. You'll need an aditional 22 Knock, though.

There are many ways to achieve the required Knock.

- 14 Lore + 8 Tool/Ingredient: The easiest method. You can get an 8 
  ingredient on the Unnumbered Stones, which is repeatable, or if you 
  prepared beforehand, it is possible to have made the Painting Tool with
  a 4 Pigment if you did while you still had 4 Passion.
- 12/14 Lore + 12 Tool: Getting the Frangiclave is a pain to get, 
  it's in the Wreckage of the Crystabel, which is a 14 SH Vault, and 
  it has a curse. I'd avoid this one.
- 12/14 Lore + 10 Follower: If you chose the Knock Cult, this is your 
  reward; you'll get to skip a level of Lore to win.

After you put the stuff in, you'll be asked to put every Scar. Do not 
forget to put one manually every time, because it has no magnet. After 
all seven are in, you will win the game.

Alternatively if you die of hunger while having 3 Lock-scars, you'll get
a special death scene. Careful with dying of disease while you're doing 
this.

DEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATH
DEATH              6.5. The Ghoul DLC - Palest Victory           DEATH
DEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATH

Hope you're hungry. Also, hope you chose the Medium Legacy, 'cause 
that's the only way you're getting to play this one. When you do, 
prepare for a pretty stresful one, because the moment you start it up,
it will never leave you a moment of rest.

The theme of this one is painting and dead people. Start giving your 
memories to yuor painting friend and you'll eventually become disgraced.
After this, you really want to get the museum raid going, because
you need to have that painting to get your verbs.

I'd try to sustain myself on Health work and the occasional painting
while you are raising health. You could go to Glover, but know you will
be ditching it at some point unless you're willing to use Sulochana a lot,
because the Work verb is used a fair bit on this one.

- Cult Choice -

- Winter: Yeah, this cult was pretty much made for this route. It provides
  you with fresh corpses, which have no use except for this, Winter is 
  useful for dealing with some curses, and some of the obligatory
  expeditions you're making will have them.
  
- Grail/Edge: The only other thing I could possibly receommend is Grail 
  or Edge; it will get you Prisoners, who decay into corpses, 
  which you will need, and Grail/Edge are useful things for Expeditions.

- What you need to win -

Alright, first thing to do. DO NOT USE THE ELIXIR. Once you do you'll 
start trying to get your marks. Get everything you need first, 
money, a healthy cult, some basic Lore, stats (You'll want a Forge
10 Lore or more for king Crucible, so maybe use that as a marker 
for your completion, since Forge comes up pretty late).

Another thing you want is a series of Expeditions, from which you'll
get the stuff you need for the Marks. These expeditions are:

- Saint Felix of Schüren (SH 2)
  - Edge/Moth 
- Crowkiss Hill (SH 4) 
  - Forge/Knock
- Keglin's Scratch (SH 4)
  - Forge/Lantern + Forge/Winter
- Shadowless Kings Tomb (SH 10) - CURSED
  - Grail + Knock/Lantern + Forge/Winter
- Lagun's Tomb (SH 12) - CURSED
  - Forge + Heart/Lantern
Also, you'll need two ingredients:

- Holiest Hemoglyph (It's on Lagun's tomb, as well, so it's a 
    2-for-1 deal on that one.)
- True blood of Saint januarus - On Fort geryk (SH 14!!!) - 
  - Forge + Edge/Winter

Lastly, you'll need two more ingredients:

- Decrepitude (Let health decay from a Wound or give up a 
  Passion/Reason to a summon).
- King Crucible's Remnants: After this tiemr runs out, he'll get a 
  second timer, where his card will hvave a remnant aspect. Eat
  him then. You cannot summon him again once you've done this.

In total, it is 9 things to get. At least get the expedition cards 
and the ingredients themselves before starting. You may use Crucible 
to get the Decrepitude with ease, so those two can be done last.

Once you have the Ingredients, the method to summon Crucible, and at 
least the expedition cards listed, time to drink the potion. Honestly,
I would literally get every Expedition done before that, for the sake
of managing you Notoriety, but that depends on how fast you want to play.

- How to get your Marks - 

So, the problem with this one. You have a desire card that, if you don't
provide with Corpses, will kill you. Every Ambition season will come with
a Graveyard Mouth (GM). Once you reach 7 GMs, you die.

To reduce the GM, you need to eat dead corpses. This can be provided
by using the desire card on Explore, or by using your Winter Cult. Of
course, exhumation is a crime, so you'll get Notoriety, which needs to be 
scrubbed by your Heart followers. 

If you decided to drink the potion early, this is a problem because this 
occupies vital verbs, so the best way to deal with this is to settle on two
"seasons" of sorts.

- The season of calm: Get explorations done, eat remanants, get memories.
  While you do this, I guarantee that your GMs will rise up. 
- Season of Hunger: Once you have, I'd say 4 GMs, drop anything you're doing
  and start getting corpses and feeding on them, scrub Notoriety, rinse 
  and repeat until your Gms are gone. Then back to the Season of Calm.
  
Give priority to getting rid of GM when it appears. You never want it to-get
up to 6 under any circumstance. Now, as you get the Remnants, you want 
to preserve them in paint. Unfortunately this can give you Notoriety which
means more scrubbing.

Now, if you just waited and got every Expedition done, it is a simple 
deal of eating them all and paint with them. Don't just eat them all at 
once; painting takes time and Graveyard mouth will get worse as you wait.
Use the required remanants to pacify your GM while you paint. 

Regardless of which route you took, the safe one of the quick one, you 
will require the Palest Painting. For it, you must paint with a valid
memory and then offer it a dead corpse which will be your actual canvas
(Yes, you're literally painting on a person's skin, 
enjoy that mental image) which will give you Notoriety. 

Since dead corpses themselves can be picked up
by Detective and any source of corpses always gives Notoriety, this means 
that you are getting at the minimum 2 Notoriety. Under no circumstance
allow a corpse to be picked up by detective, let him grab the notoriety </pre><pre id="faqspan-3">
if you must. This can create a lot of problems, so using an HQ transfer 
while you scrub with your Heart Followers will allow you to double-time it.

- What to do to win - 

Getting those memories painted are your Marks. You need all 9 before you
start the last ascension. To do so is easy, just talk to your painting 
friend, which will trigger all the moemories together and will
also demand your stats. Give passion/reason first, then health.
And there you go, that should be a win. 

Now, it is possible that a nasty Affliction check will come AFTER 
you've give it all your Health. This cannot be predicted or
sidestepped, so you should prepare for such an eventuallity.
The way to do so is by summoning Teresa or another Name summon, 
which can grant you a Stay of Execution (300 sec); it'll 
protect you from No-Health defeats. I recommend Lady Teresa because
she never rebels, and as long as you have a 10 Lore Lantern, and a 
Passing Memory, you can get her with Sunset Rite.

In any case, this run is not hard in the slightest, but only if you
do it on the safe route, and getting all the stuff done like that
makes this particular route a slog. It's your choice to make though.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This finishes up my guide on all the basic and DLC victories.
Again, this guide does NOT cover the Apostle victories; 
I will refer to Anond000d's guide for this.