Opportunity Items (Guide)

There are many items in the game which add cards to your opportunity deck simply by being in your possession. Many of these are useful, while others are to be avoided if possible. Knowing about them early can help you open up more lucrative opportunities or avoid unfortunate consequences.

Bazaar Companions
Several of the companions you can buy from the Bazaar add cards to your deck, either alone or in conjunction with other items.

Starter Animals
These companions can all be acquired shortly after escaping New Newgate Prison and represent a dramatic increase in value for the starting player's opportunity deck. All add cards with Standard frequency which involve a luck check that "could go either way" with strong indications that the odds are 60%, leading to an expected value of ~1.05 (not counting second chances or menace reduction) in each case.

A parliament of bats helps kickstart the Certifiable Scrap grind with a luck check that grants 3 scrap on a success, a Bat with Attitude that can be sold for 12.5 echoes on a rare success, and a few CP of. Since both scrap and Connected: The Great Game are hard to grind in the early stages of the game, this is a valuable pick.

The other three animals follow a simple pattern: A chance to trade 0.25 echoes of a basic resource for 2 echoes of goods plus a second chance and menace reduction. Like the Sulky Bat, the Reprehensible Lizard can be bought with the spare change you get for selling your manacles, and Beeswax can be obtained early by helping the Chandler from The Department of Menace Eradication. Even better, both the Bat and the Lizard can be applied towards the cost of permanent access to Mahogany Hall later on when their cards are starting to become less valuable relative to the other cards in your deck. The Raven and the Spider are a bit more expensive and a bit harder to usefully dispose of, but the value of their actions will easily repay the net loss of 6.4 echoes should you end up selling them back to the Bazaar eventually, and the additional Sudden Insights and menace reduction are a boon in the early game.

Working-Class Companions
This is a much more mixed bag than the starter animals. Almost all of them are skill checks, which means they will train your stats and can be sure things once your stats are high enough, but the payouts are lower, capping out at 0.8 echoes in most cases. In addition, the companions are more expensive; by the time you have the resources to acquire them, your opportunity deck is probably looking a bit better, so the overall benefit of adding these cards is lessened. On top of that, the cards themselves are seen less often, being Infrequent of Very Infrequent as opposed to Standard. In most cases, you'd probably be better off saving your echoes or buying other equipment that offers a better echo->stat bonus ratio.

The one standout is the Winsome Dispossessed Orphan, who provides a much cheaper supply of Laudanum than purchasing from the Bazaar. Granted, you have to keep a supply on hand and you'll have to play the card 8-11 times just to break even on your investment, but if you're having a lot of problems with Nightmares or want to grind up Hedonist, it's not a bad way to go.

The other wrinkle is that several of these companions (namely, the Urchin, the Orphan, and the Accomplice) are required to start up an Orphanage, so if you plan on going that route instead of opening A Salon, you may as well grab one of each early and enjoy the cards until then. Similarly, the Malevolent Monkey can be converted into a Pentecost Ape during the Feast of the Exceptional Rose, so if you have that acquisition as a long-term goal you could acquire the monkey and keep some honey around in the meantime.

Companion Conflicts
A few companions will get into conflict if you have them in your employ at the same time, adding special cards to your deck. These cards are lackluster at best and heavily damaging at worst, so it's generally best to avoid them.

A note about rats...
Having the Working Rat and the Ratskin Suit at the same time adds Sartorial squeamishness to your deck, which gives you an opportunity to unlock the Sympathetic about Ratly Concerns quality. That quality, along with a Working Rat, Talkative Rattus Faber, and Rattus Faber Bandit-Chief will unlock A night-time conference once your Dangerous is high enough, giving you an alternate route into the Seeking the Meaning of the Plaster Face storyline. Having those three rats (along with a Disgraced Rattus Faber Bandit-Chief) also gives you additional options during that storyline, so it's something to keep in mind.

PoSI Items
This section under construction. See PoSI Item Crafting for information about how to obtain these items.