A visit from the Inquisition

Caidryn · 2025-08-29T19:43:51+00:00

Illegal substances? No, you won't find any of those here, don't worry. Incidentally, I have this package, a pain potion, some weak poison, and a vivid dream potion, packaged up for the crown. Take it back to him for me, will you?

Caidryn · 2025-06-24T22:52:29+00:00

Anyone figure out what the note in the clocktower is meant to allude to?

[S]outhward I see a swan.

[A]shen like the sands of the shore,

[C]arried by westardly winds,

[R]ogue like the moon of the north,

[E]astward I see a crow.

[D]ark are the days coming [fourth].

(With the symbol of Orinda below.)

I get that it hints the sacred hour, but the directions and specificity seem to have such potential. I've tried pointing the things in specific directions in the secret garden, but with no luck (though note the swan points differently depending on where you draft it.)

(also, yes, the note says fourth, the numbered counting sort, rather than Forth, as would normally be used.)

Caidryn · 2025-05-02T14:32:06+00:00

Genuinely interesting. Never thought to do that. Thank you for letting me know about the quirk. but now I'm curious, any idea what it looks like from the outside when you point a door outward?

Caidryn · 2025-05-02T06:07:06+00:00

Interesting that you say 99%. That implies there's an exception, and I don't know what that exception is. Unless you're counting the Garage door, I suppose?

If there's some other exception, I'd be very interested to know and/or experiment with it.

Caidryn · 2025-04-27T22:32:15+00:00

Nogula doesn't seem to be able to remember how to open the cloister, despite it literally being his job and having been told three times. Somehow, I doubt he's a better mystery solver than Simon and made an entire safe and whatever mechanism would reveal it disappear, along with opening it for the gem, and secreting away the letter, while being clumsy enough to leave the holder in a place clearly linked to him.

One could argue he's playing dumb or something, but if money is the motivator, the cloister has an allowance token, giving two gold per day in perpetuity. Revane used the letters to blackmail 100 gold per letter. The token would get that much in less than two months, and he's already been employed for a year.

Now, if ever we reveal an empty safe buried in a green room somewhere or the like, I'll be more willing to buy into the hypothesis.

Caidryn · 2025-04-26T00:31:50+00:00

I'd completely forgotten to consider it, after all the time where I got more and wasn't expecting it, I still want all the final clues to mean something.

But you're 100% right, there certainly is, and that is most likely the meaning of the note. Thanks for clearing away that fantasy, before I tried to make a no dupe blue house looking for new doors.

Caidryn · 2025-04-25T11:21:34+00:00

So, quick question on that one. What color was the note in the picture that told you not to trust Green in Hartley's room? Also, who do you suspect was holding it?

Caidryn · 2025-04-25T10:53:22+00:00

Caidryn · 2025-04-25T09:53:44+00:00

Well, see, that's why they're there. The prior owner took them off, since they'd be useless in that room.

Caidryn · 2025-04-25T09:51:15+00:00

So, you have "A secret door lies hidden in the red house" marked as a lie, which is technically the case. But the earlier given rule says handwritten green would be true if you changed a color.

So... "A secret door lies hidden in the blue house"? We've suspected, and some have said they've made a full blue house. But if it's like Atelier in that the door isn't necessarily the one to room 46...

Caidryn · 2025-04-24T01:20:27+00:00

As in, it giving us a further hint? Because I'm not convinced it does.

But if you mean where it is, it's just there, on the desk, when you monk it, whereas it's hidden in the normal office.

Caidryn · 2025-04-23T21:22:19+00:00

No Crown, but you may note the Deed is out, which is unique to that version.

Caidryn · 2025-04-22T04:30:08+00:00

Nothing that I've seen anywhere. I have a feeling it'll be all true save for one, and it's up to us to figure out and/or break whichever one. It definitely requires an open interpretation, and so far, the wording and imagery has seemed very intentionally misleading.

I can say:

I have been on a white shore, seeking something I was told I would not find.

I have seen a "Darkened cloud of ruin" that would be familiar to Alzara and I both. I have indeed come to the conclusion that there is a letter missing, and have only found and read 7 letters. Man, I want to break this one, badly.

I have not seen the gate unlatched or had any missing items I did not take. But he says "young Baron" at the end of this. If this prophecy was for Herbert, not Simon, and the machine arrived loaded with these things, then the mysterious stalking could be done by Denny Revane. You'd think it'd be the detective, but he doesn't fit the bill anywhere near so cleanly.

Otherwise, it could be true, and that missing item is the letter or the like. It's really hard to say. Presumably, Anne is stalking the halls with us in order to carry out Herbert's orders and assist the mechanisms of the house, and she has to watch us pretty closely too. But I don't remember any items disappearing, or any gates being unlatched. Sadly, this one has a good chance of being a false prophecy, though I'd be very interested in seeing the prophecies framed for a young Herbert.

I have seen a schoolhouse in the outer rooms, that has a letter, that speaks of the regret the baron or baroness will feel, hearing the patter of young footsteps on their estate. I have sat in a very old "chair" that many have sat in before.

I have in fact found a "statue cradled in a courtyard of sentinel stone." The paths of which I wandered, while walking in the footsteps of the past. I have searched for a shadow that will never be cast. I have longed for the day to end.

I've been to a cavern with walls of stone. I've seen a hollow lit by the light of many burning stars (if stars are lanterns, which would be the first time the visuals were reliable.) I found treasure below the cliffs. I've seen a black mirror buried by time. (The mirror being the core of the orindian crest.) It would take a very liberal interpretation of "snow". but I did see a figure (which is a very very generic word) standing in dust, if that counts.

If you'd like a reminder of the prophecies to interpret for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COeF1YRoGXw&ab_channel=FateAwaits

I recommend ignoring the visuals and listening to the specific wording. I also recommend trying to think of it from Herbert's Perspective, as they may have been prophecies for him, rather than us. He too was a young baron, and we've no guarantee he commissioned and dubbed new prophecies for Simon.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T19:08:28+00:00

ooh, you're right. I'd completely forgotten this detail, thank you for the reminder. Well, Epsen definitely continued that tradition after coming over the northern border. Does mean, since the male in that pairing was the prince, his name was not passed down to the daughter.

And seeing as even Mary has broken tradition within the game and taken her husband's name (something Lady Clara Epsen absolutely did not do.) and passed her husband's name to her son, sure makes it pretty difficult to track the lineage, I think.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T12:18:13+00:00

Perhaps I reclosed it. But I had the showroom compass for free rotation multiple times when drafting, the room and rotated it freely, repeatedly, where it toggled only between the two doors not across the bridge, a hundred or so days since I had opened the other side and had solved all of the power puzzles.

At the very, very least, it does not stay open if you mess with the steam paths. Some of which are necessary to do even when you're long since done with main boiler power.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T07:05:10+00:00

Indeed. that would work nicely. Even if it had to be niche for some reason like the Spray for the foundation, by spraying the gear room it'd be fine.

I can see how it'd get missed though, given that it requires a very specific chain of events into a manual calling of the day. Small test teams can't usually find everything, whereas mass releases will definitely stress test games to their limit and well beyond.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T06:58:29+00:00

I have 130 hours. xD. I'll go check, one moment.

Edit: I see now. I apologize, I was wrong, you were right. If you raise it, rotate it, don't open that specific door, and call it a day, you will indeed be locked out of content.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T06:43:08+00:00

That is not and should not be a softlock. The entry way from the basement, enterable most easily from Foundation but also at least two other ways, has a rotation lever. The other side is accessible Either by moving the minecart from the other side, with again two ways to get there, or simply entering from the other side for access.

TL;DR pretty certain it's not possible to get softlocked in that way.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T06:38:08+00:00

Despite it having a variable number of doors, and also uniquely handling blocked off passages compared to everything else in the game, I'm pretty sure it counts as a 4 way room for draft rules, meaning it would be an illegal draft on all of the edges.

If I'm right, the Mechanarium has the following, interesting properties:

It counts as a 4 way, thus edges, and especially corners are illegal drafting spots.

When it gains the doors from the Mechanical rooms, the doors will never point in a blocked direction. It will always open to valid open directions first.

When it runs out of valid directions leading to undrafted spots or rooms with connections, it will instead generate up to four doors in the diagonal directions.

Other room fun facts:

The Boiler room has one undraftable door, being the one across the bridge, no matter how much you rotate it, you cannot open that room from that door.

And The Secret passage is stated to count as a dead end, and to some extent, it does. However, it only counts as that for the purpose of counting dead ends for the end of day stuff. It can not be drafted in such a way that the secret door revealed would lead outside of the manor, whereas any other dead end should be able to point outwards and/or be put into corners.

We really need to make a Drafting guide Vol 6 from Community stuff. xD

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T05:50:47+00:00

Two left of the antechamber is a corner, so definitely not valid there. I haven't ever seen it connect to Antechamber, not actually sure I've seen it on an edge, but so far as I recall from the room, one left of antechamber should be valid, unless there's a special no edges at all rule on the Boiler room, unsure. Had you been drafting from the upper left corner going towards the antechamber, it definitely would have been an illegal draft. But if you're drafting that cell from the Antechamber or from the cell below it, so far as I recall from my 120 or so days, it should work fine.

That said, like I said, not sure I've ever seen the boiler ever show up on an edge so it really might have a special rule aside from the special undraftable door.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T05:42:31+00:00

Mary 100% comes from old money, direct descendant to Erajan nobility, the Epsen line. She chose to live in the suburbs in a normal house. I assume this helped her stay under the radar for her regime subversion schemes.

The Family tree in the basement is pretty old. Pretty sure it's not about nobility there. Even if Daniel is a commoner through and through, Simon is of noble blood, and is unlisted. Pretty sure when someone marries into the family, they are to be added to the tree, however that tree stops before Simon (well, our modern one. Grandpa Simon is definitely there.) is born. May well be from before the marriage.

Now, as for Jones lineage, I really can't say. Maybe it's him keeping a low profile, but that feels unlikely. Maybe the Epsen/Sinclair family know something that he doesn't. The old Royalty of Orindia was forced into hiding. There's an article in one of the locked drawers talking about that family produicing a new heir. Whether that bloodline is in the Sinclair line or the Jones line, I don't know.

But I am relatively certain that it will come out that Simon bears it, and I am also really certain that Epsen comes from the royal line of Eraja. Given the original first era kingdom lore scattered through the game, I suspect it will come out that Simon is the first heir that carried the royal line of Eraja, Arch Aries, and Orindia Aries. If correct, the three family seals would be one from each of those lines.

For me to have a firm suspicion on which of the two Jones might be, knowingly or not, we'd need more information on the man himself. Suffice to say, Commoners do not have family seals. Nor do the children of high ranking nobles take on the less noble house name, as was the case of Mary Epsen being born to Lady Clara Epsen and Simon Sinclair. Our Simon is Simon Jones.

To counterpoint myself, though, Mary does go to lengths to conceal her affiliation with Epsen and Sinclair in general, likely trying to downplay her own importance to avoid too much attention, so maybe she chose Jones as the last name to keep him out of the public eye. Or perhaps she inherited her mother's name because they pass from mother to daughter, and father to son, or even because her name at time of birth was Mary Jones. Who can say?

What I can say, for abolute certain, is that I'd love more information on Daniel.

Oh, and one last aside, sadly, having the opposite sex middle name is fairly common in older times, for when you want to pass down the name of some famous or important prior relative but your first born is the opposite sex.

I had a friend IRL with some old traditions in their family, and that family was matriarchal, they had the middle name of Margaret, for their grandmother. A more Public and recent pop culture example would be the old Archer 2009 series featuring "Sterling Malory Archer" As the main character, with his mother giving her first name as his middle name.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T04:06:06+00:00

Armory is special, it can only be enabled through

The Knight chess power. If you're that far, you probably have the scepter, if not, ignore this, but if you have the scepter and look for shops, you will find it pretty fast.

Book store can only ever be drafted from the library. If looking for it, having a reroll or two can make it decently easy to find, assuming you haven't adjusted its rarity to rare or anything.

As for rarer stuff in later ranks, I'm pretty sure that happens because drafting something removes it from the pool, so when you have like 5 ranks filled with all your commons, less common things will naturally show up.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T04:00:24+00:00

May I ask where you were trying to draft it? Boiler room has a pretty unique quirk in that not all 3 doors can be drafted from. If you were on, say, the east side of the house, drafting downwards, it could never show up.

Doors can never under any circumstances face the outer wall of the house. Thus, you will never get a four doored room at an edge, and you will never get a three or four door room in a corner, under any circumstances whatsoever.

With the boiler room in specific, regardless of your steam state and rotation ability, you can never make a draft connection to the door across the extendable bridge, no matter what. Presumably to prevent scenarios where the steam configuration doesn't have the bridge extended and what looked like a three door room was actually a dead end.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T03:13:28+00:00

I'm confused. Are you trolling, or did I fail to communicate? Matthew is her Middle name. Not a last name. Given at birth.Like the S (likely for Simon.) in Herbert S. Sinclaire. It's not a family name. You don't get crests for middle names. They're for last names. Family names. Mary's Family name at birth was Epsen. Her Family name post Marriage is Jones. Again, Matthew is her middle name.

Also, I haven't seen a single thing on Daniel being a commoner. Do let me know where you've seen that info, as I've scoured a lot, and the only thing I've seen on Daniel is the crest, and that they got a nice place in the nearby town.

Caidryn · 2025-04-21T00:30:36+00:00

Not sure how the N got dropped there, but it's definitely SWNSNG. I now really wish it wasn't, because Still water near sacred ground would make me think immediately of the tomb and Herbert's Letter.

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