Shaping a Masterpiece for the Empress

It will no doubt be magnificent. Let us hope the dour old thing will appreciate it.

Shaping a Masterpiece for the Empress is now a defunct story Quality. All the associated cards and mechanics still exist, though. This page now serves as the guide to creating great works of art at The Empress' Court.

Start Carving out a Reputation at Court
Upon entering The Empress' Court and obtaining Persuasive 90 you unlock A slow day where you get your first point of CRC (you must not be working on anything, e.g. a short story). You can now access What's your next work? and pick one of the following masterpieces to craft which locks your Working on... and won't let you choose another project until you finish it. To do so, you need to aquire a certain level of Inspired..., which is either 34 for the poem and novel or 24 for the other art forms. Note that this requires either 300 or even 595 CPs whereas the challenges give you roughly 10 CPs per action. So it is advisable to not start work on a masterpiece for the Empress unless you have high enough stats to reliably pass Persuasive 100 skill checks. For advice on what to work on check the conclusion section.
 * an Epic Poem
 * a Novel
 * a Play
 * a Song
 * a Symphony
 * a Ballet

Inspired... Progress
The number in parenthesis denotes the level of the skill challenge. All challenges are broad Persuasive challenges unless specified otherwise.

All quality gains and losses are in Change Points unless specified, and CP gains to Persuasive based on the challenge itself are not listed.

The common qualities have been compressed to just images in the tables:

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Menaces:

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Quirks:

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Connections:

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Simple Skill Challenges
Straight up grinding here.

Complex Skill Challenges
These challenges spend items, give additional menaces, change quirks or connections for sometimes various rewards and have no ++ unless denoted.

Luck Challenges
 

Conclusions
When you reach the required level of Inspired... you may complete your work of art and decide what kind it is, granting you slightly different rewards. Note that there is no benefit from achieving more than the needed level of Inspired....

Any poems and novels increase Carving out a Reputation at Court by 2 CP, give 6000 Moon-pearls and increase your Bohemian connection by 50 CP. They also give other boosts as stated below but most importantly you will be able to keep a copy of your work.

The other masterpieces basically half these rewards, advancing Carving out a Reputation at Court by 1 CP, granting 3000 Moon-pearls (TODO) and increasing Bohemian by 25 CP. Additional gains are noted below as well.

This overview is designed to give the important information on one page. Some of the options give a small amount of menaces which is omitted here. Check the respective page for details.

Your poem is complete!

 * An Epic Cycle: Society +50 CP, A Copy of your Epic Poetic Cycle
 * A Tragedy of Romance: Fascinating... +50 CP, A Copy of your Tragedy of Romance
 * An Allegorical Satire: Revolutionaries +50 CP, A Copy of your Allegorical Satire

Your novel is complete!

 * A Gothic Romance: Fascinating... +50 CP, A Copy of your Gothic Romance
 * A Tale of the Future!: Benthic +10 CP, Summerset +10 CP, A Copy of your Tale of the Future, 6000 Nevercold Brass Slivers (no Moon-Pearls)
 * A Patriotic Adventure!: The Docks +3 Favours, A Copy of your Patriotic Adventure

Opening Night! (Play)

 * A Slapstick Farce: Society +25 CP
 * A Wry Satirical Comedy: Society +25 CP
 * A Heart-Wrenching Tragedy: Society +25 CP

Publish your song!

 * A Rousing Hymn: The Church +50 CP (no Bohemian), 3000 Foxfire Candle Stubs (no Moon-Pearls)
 * A Newly Arranged Folk Song: Bohemian +25 CP
 * A Patriotic Anthem: Society +25 CP

Your symphony is complete!

 * Somewhat challenging music: Bohemian +50 CP (instead of 25), A Scholar of the Correspondence +1 CP (up to 10)
 * An exuberant cannonade: nothing else (?)
 * A choral requiem: Society +25 CP

Stage your ballet!
Having a tale of the future comes in handy when Designing your Zubmarine while any of the other five poems or novels helps to start Making Friends among God's Editors on the Making the Good Book Better golden opportunity card. Should you fancy a trip to the Tomb-Colonies, a saucy ballet is the way to go.
 * A light work based around a Neathy folk tale: Society +25 CP (maybe 50, no Bohemian), 3000 Jade Fragments (no Moon-Pearls)
 * A work of romance and automata: Bohemian +50 CP (instead of 25)
 * A work of barely-clad decadence: Bohemian +50 CP (instead of 25), go directly to the Disgraced exile in the Tomb-Colonies (!)

After all whatever you create, it will basically give you a bit less than one Echo worth of pearls, candles or jade. This is assuming you pass the challenges at 100%. Investing connections or items increases inspiration but, well, you pay for it. I personally suggest either grinding the simple challenges at 90% chance to get a solid 1.9 CP of persuasive for each success and a completed small work of art after ~35 actions (1 to choose a masterpiece, 30 to get Inspired... 24, 1 to finish a masterpiece, add some for failures, subtract some for rare successes). If you have Persuasive 167 and work on a musical based piece, you can grind The lead to gain 15 CP Inspired... per action without the risk to lose 20 CP when failing. But even with equipment you probable leave The Empress' Court (forever) before getting your stats this high. But assuming you cling to the old days and still hang around like a 25yo in front of a high school, you can rack up the needed inspiration with 20 actions, netting a whopping 30 / (20+2) = 1.36 Echoes per action.

What next? or A Tale of Banishment
After having finished a masterpiece you do what all artists do: get on with life and do something productive or start over. Should you decide to keep pursuing the arts you will eventually reach Carving out a Reputation at Court 4 which locks working on any more masterpieces and has the Veteran Privy Counsellor ask you to craft one last work of art. If you oblige, you will work on an opera and after presenting it, be banished from The Empress' Court forever (!). You can refuse him to reduce your CRC to 3 and do more things at court. But who wants to stay there anyway, right? So you grind up to Inspired... 24 and end it like the artsy little fellow you are. (Although you can pick the flavour of your masterpiece as usual, there are no different results this time around. You collect 2000 Drops of Prisoner's Honey, 2 Fate, a bunch of Scandal and your one way ticket to the Tomb-Colonies.)

Epilogue: If you are wondering why you should burn this brigde, lets just say choosing a certain kind of opera to perform lets you advance with a certain ambition (SPOILER: if you are A Scholar of the Correspondence you can choose to have written the Topsy King's opera, basically warping you to the end of that part of the Heart's Desire story. It saves you a lot of trouble the alternative would imply.)