Forgotten Quarter Expeditions

Expeditions take the form of three stages: Preparation, Excavation and Loot!

PreparationEdit

Begin an Expedition in the Forgotten Quarter will appear when you're in the Quarter and your Watchful quality is at least 60.

The goal of preparing is to get as many Supplies as possible. The cap is 100, and you can re-use supplies left over from other Expeditions, so there’s no need to worry too much about overpreparing. If anything, it's advisable to cap out at 100 before beginning your expedition; there's nothing more embarrasing than failing because you were missing the single unit of supplies needed to arrive at your objective.

The options to gather Supplies are as follows:

• Rumours of treasure: Costs 200 Whispered Hints. Provides either 1 Supply and 1 Map Scrap or 2 Supplies. The ratio of the successes is 60:40, gaining us 1.4 S/A (1 or 2) at 1.39 E/S (200 WH are worth 2 Echoes; this earns on average six tenths of a supply and six pennies worth of MS plus four tenths of two supplies, resulting in 2.00 less 0.06 Echoes for 1.4 supplies; 1.9400 ÷ 1.4000 = 1.3857).
• Blood-red tales: Costs 10 Appalling Secrets. Provides 1 Supply and 1 CP to Nightmares. Simple stuff, 1 S/A at 1.5 E/S, making this slower, costlier and more menacing than using the previous method.
• Your own expertise: Costs 10 Prelapsarian Archaeological Notes, obtained from Scientific Expeditions overZees. Provides 1 Supply. This is not the most viable option unless you already have excess since you'll be spending a long time both converting or gaining them.
• Show us the money: Costs 4 actions and 1000 pence. Provides 4 Supplies. 1 S/A at 2.5 E/S, which is slower than the Rumors of treasure option but slightly less expensive if the Whispered Hints have to be purchased from the Bazaar (as that doubles the cost to 4E for 200WH, or 2.77 E/S).
• Hire a porter from the docks: Requires 5 Renown: The Docks and 1 x Favours: The Docks, in return for 4 Supplies. The most economical way to gain Favours is via opportunity cards. See here for a list of some notable sources of Favours.
• Burly guards and porters: Costs 1 Strong-Backed Labour, provides 5 supplies. These cost 13.5 Echoes at the Bazaar Sidestreets, resulting in 2.5 S/A but costing 2.7 E/S. Alternatively you can Recruit Clay Man labour from The Clay Quarters via Life on Ladybones Road - this option costs 10 Echoes of supplies and lowers the expedition supply cost to 2 E/S. Fast, but still expensive.
  • There may be another alternative of obtaining Strong-Backed Labour which requires some juggling of connections with the Gracious Widow and Favours with the Docks. If the player can maintain the requirements, the The Acacia and the Butterfly opportunity card may be drawn. Picking and succeeding in the option to negotiate (Work long into the night forging a compromise solution) grants the player one unit of Strong-Backed Labour as part of the rewards. It takes some patience (and a number of faction-conflict opportunity cards) to re-gather the connections and Favour, though perhaps this is not an efficient use of Favours with the Docks.
  • If you are a A Person of Some Importance, you can obtain these from Searching out a Missing Woman - it gives you 4 labour and takes 44 actions assuming no failures. It would take 48 actions to get 20 supplies, giving you 0.416 S/A at no money expenses.

If you have plenty of time, and lots of Jade Fragment, Nodule of Deep Amber or Piece of Rostygold sitting around, you can trade them for Whispered Hints with the Tiger Keeper in the Labyrinth of Tigers. This will net you 1100 Hints for every 1000 resources you hand over.

ExpeditionsEdit

Once you’ve finished up your preparations, you can head out on an Expedition! Once you’ve chosen your Expedition, you can’t go back to get more supplies. So be sure to come prepared. If you run out of Supplies, you’ll have to abandon your Expedition, which is a terrible waste. Each of these areas provide different rewards and lore.

Note: If you can cope with the Nightmares that Seeking Curios and Secrets in the Forgotten Quarter brings you can change The Airs of the Forgotten Quarter there until they are 96-100 (you can check their value using the Scrapbook Value trick). Since starting an expedition will not change them again you will be able to hit your journey off with A sign?

Learn the Traditions of the Forgotten Quarter to gain your first point of Archaeologist unlocking the first expedition; this will cost 1 Tale of Terror, 250 Cryptic Clues and 1000 Whispered Hints.

The available Expedition areas are:

• Seek a thieves' cache (requires Archaeologist 1 and 10 Supplies to begin, upon completion you gain 1 CP to Archaeologist up to a level of 5): Also costs 1 Favours: Criminals.
• Seek a shrine of the Deep Blue Heaven (2/20, +2 up to lvl5): You now have rivals and Orthos is in on the action (more on rivals later).
• The Tomb of Seven (3/30, no CP): This expedition can only be completed once. It won't give a random reward, but only a Correspondence Stone which lets you start being A Scholar of the Correspondence. Again, there are rivals, namely Orthos and Virginia.
• A Temple of Uttermost Wind (2/30): Also requires 7 Fate.
• A Gallery of Serpents (3/40): Also requires 7 Fate.
• The Cave of the Nadir (5/60): Also spend 1 Eyeless Skull to access this expedition. Your rival here is February. See Cave of the Nadir (Guide) for more information.

Your Archaeologist quality cannot be increased beyond 5 since completing the Nadir expedition is the ultimate goal here.

As of September 2018, three non-Fate-locked additional expeditions have been added to the game, taking the total of non-Fate-locked repeatable ones to five. These three provide very certain results, compared to the Deep Shrine expedition. However, for their considerable difficulty, they do not give out much Archaeologist CP.

• The Chalcocite Pagoda (2/20, +1 up to lvl 5): You have regular rivals and the Heroic Archaeologist to contend with.
• The Tomb of the Silken Thread (2/30, +1 up to lvl 5): You have the Lugubrious Seamstress, and of course lesser rivals.
• The Sanctuary of the Crimson Petals (2/40, +1 up to lvl 5): The Heroic Archaeologist is your rival - again - and there are - of course - the lesser ones.

Archaeologist's and Rivals' ProgressEdit

To complete an Expedition, you'll need to increase your Archaeologist's Progress to the required amount which is equal to the minimum number of supplies needed to start the expedition. There is no point to acquiring more than necessary. It is also important to know that you can leave the The Forgotten Quarter to do other things. Although this seems a bit inconsistent with the concept of rivals it is very useful if you are missing an item needed to hinder your rivals (more on this later).

There are three options for progression that are always available. These are all broad Watchful challenges:

• A cautious approach (50) uses 1 Supply and 1 action to get 1 Progress.
• A bold approach (100) uses 2 Supplies and 1 action to get 2 Progress.
• A buccaneering approach (160) uses 3 Supplies and 1 action to get 3 Progress.

Failing the challenge will consume your Supplies at no Progress gain. Each option, success or failure, changes the Airs of the Forgotten Quarter quality. This might unlock rare Airs-dependent cards. Rivals' Progress has a possibility of increasing with each action, with the amount of the increase dependent on which approach was taken and whether or not the result was a failure or a success.

Progress (per Action) = Supplies invested (1,2 or 3) x Chance of success (/ Actions spent; always 1) = S x C

Supplies per Progress = S / P = S / (S x C) = 1 / C (how many supplies you need to spend for each progress only depends on your Watchful stat)

Rivals' progress per own Progress = [Rivals' progress per 1 action] / [own Progress / 1 action] = [RP/A] / [P/A] =  RP / (S x C)

own Progress until 10 Rivals' progress = 9 Rivals' Progress / (Rivals' Progress / own Progress) = 9 / (R/P) = 9 / (RP / (S x C))

We can determine how much progress we can make before our rivals get ten on their own. Note that you start with Rivals' Progress 1 into the expedition and that these are numbers that are average results. You might get unlucky and gain rivals' progress on more than half of your actions. Nevertheless, you can approximate how a certain expedition will go rival-wise. You can also tell how many extra supplies you need to bring if you don't want to invest in 100 of them.

Other options unlock under certain conditions, mostly if The Airs of the Forgotten Quarter are right. The only really interesting one is A sign? which gives you 4 progress without cost or risk of advancing your rivals.

• A supply cache! (20 FATE) (0-9 Expedition Supplies)
• A light caught by snow (11 Airs)
• The tent-city (22 Airs)
• White walls in the sun (33 Airs)
• An afternoon off (1 FATE) (85–90 Airs)
• A sign? (96+ Airs and 1+ Expedition Supplies)
• A cautious day (95+ Airs and An Expedition: Seeking the Cave of the Nadir)

If you run out of supplies you will have to Resupply ending your current attempt and resetting your progress.

The same happens if your Rivals' Progress reaches 10 and you have to Concede. This however might be averted.

Hindering your RivalsEdit

Either through the length of your expedition or sheer bad luck, your Rivals' Progress will grow. There are two ways to avoid conceding, though. Both require you to pass a skill challenge. One is the Airs-dependent cards that show up every now and then if your rivals' progress is between 3–9. They will reduce your rivals' progress by 2 at the cost of 1 unit of supplies and various items. Note that these are specific to certain characters which needs to be mentioned when you start the expedition.

• A chance to hinder Dr Orthos (90–100 Airs, Watchful 80): costs 1 Intriguing Snippet
• A chance to hinder Virginia (80–90 Airs, Persuasive 50): costs 10 Stolen Correspondence and 1 Touching Love Story
• A chance to hinder your rival, February (50–60 Airs, Watchful 120): costs 1 Presbyterate Passphrase, 1 Bottle of Broken Giant 1844, 1 An Identity Uncovered! and 1 x Favours: The Great Game
• A chance to hinder the Heroic Archaeologist (80–90 Airs, Persuasive 50): costs 5 Romantic Notions and 1 Touching Love Story
• A chance to hinder the Lugubrious Seamstress (80–90 Airs, Persuasive 50): costs 1 Unearthly Fossil and 1 Zee-Ztory

Should your Rivals' Progress reach 10, you can spend 10 supplies to Confront a Rival. Confronting a named rival will cost 4 actions and end their involvement in the expedition, so you can only do this once per character. Successful countering also drops rivals' progress back to 1, though it doesn't prevent a rival threat to grow up again. If there are no named rivals left, the generic Other Rivals option appears and can be played until you lack the resources to do so.

• Assault Orthos' camp (Dangerous 80): +5 AP, costs 200 Bottles of Greyfields 1879
• Bribe Virginia (Watchful 50): +3 AP, costs 10 Brilliant Souls
• Challenge February to a competition (Watchful 120): +3 AP, costs 1 x Favours: Revolutionaries
• Rescue the Heroic Archaeologist (Dangerous 60): +3 AP, requires no additional expenses
• Distract the Lugubrious Seamstress (Persuasive 72): +3–5 AP, costs 10 Bottles of Strangling Willow Absinthe
• Other Rivals (Watchful 50 + Supplies 10): costs 20 Cryptic Clues

Loot!Edit

At the end of certain expeditions you will uncover valuable treasure. Check the expedition conclusions:

• A thieves' cache!:
  • Success: Unpredictable Treasures (1 to 80) and 400 Shards of Glim (6 to 66.50 Echoes)
  • Alternative success: Unpredictable Treasures (1 to 80) and 500 Souls (12 to 72.50 Echoes)
• A Shrine of the Deep Blue Heaven:
  • Success: Unpredictable Treasures (1 to 160) (2 to 125 Echoes)
  • Rare success: 1 Eyeless Skull, 1 Extraordinary Implication and 100 Whispered Hints (66 Echoes)
• The Tomb of the Seven! (Dangerous 30): grants one of the Set of Correspondence Stones, enabling the A Scholar of the Correspondence quality
• The Gate of the Nadir: opens the route to the Cave of the Nadir
• The Chalcocite Pagoda (Watchful 60):
  • Success: 1 Searing Enigma (62.50 Echoes)
  • Failure: 2 Antique Mysteries and 1 Magnificent Diamond (37.50 Echoes)
• The Tomb of the Silken Thread (Watchful 60):
  • Success: 1 Judgements' Egg and 1 Parabola-Linen Scrap (125 Echoes)
  • Failure: 1 Parabola-Linen Scrap (62.50 Echoes)
• The Sanctuary of the Crimson Petals:
  • Success: 1 Portfolio of Souls and 2 Bright Brass Skulls (132.50 Echoes)
  • Alternative success: 3 Night-Whispers (187.50 Echoes)

Late-game, Minimized Number of Actions for a Deep Shrine ExpeditionEdit

The following is a guide for players who had been playing this game for a long, long time - long enough to accumulate the assets which are necessary for following this guide.

Restrictions: Firstly, there are the following restrictions that the player should cleave to in order to minimize the number of actions that will be needed.

1. No use of Sudden Insights: Using these means that the player will have to factor in the actions which were spent to obtain these Second Chances. This not only extends the number of actions, but also complicates the estimations.
2. Always use A buccaneering approach: This is obviously the fastest of the three non-luck-dependent methods of accumulating progress. Also, the Rivals' Progress hindrance will not be an issue, as the player will outpace the growth of this quality by using this method. Of course, this means that the player needs to have enough Watchful to garner success on the challenge rolls; there will be more on this later.
3. Obtain supplies through spending Favours: The Docks gained through opportunity cards: As mentioned earlier in this page, this method of gaining supplies is the most economical and efficient in the long-run. This will be needed in order to squeeze the most profit out of any outcome for the expedition.

Watchful requirements: The player will need to have the assets which are necessary in order to reach the 267-point mark for Watchful, in order to achieve 100% success on A buccaneering approach. After all, no Sudden Insights are to be used, and any setback due to failure can dash away a lot of potential profit.

The assets which any player can accumulate without resorting to holidays, buffs via Notability-spending, Mysterious Benefactor items, Profession items, the Watchful Mood, Fate and Destinies are the following:

• Any of the +8 Watchful Hats; see here for the list.
• Smock of Four Thousand Three Hundred and Eight Pockets, a +10 Watchful clothing with a mouthful name.
• Insatiable Glove, a +8 glove.
• Ratwork Watch, a +8 'weapon'.
• The Language of Laces, +7 boots, obtainable with Renown: Revolutionaries 25 and 5 Revolutionary favours.
• Overgoat, a +20 companion that is likely only obtainable after having played the game for a long time.
• Either the Orphanage or the Newspaper, both of which are Affiliation assets which grant 1 Watchful.
• The Voluminous Library, which is a Home Comfort item which grants 3 Watchful.

With a maxed-out 200 Watchful, this accumulates up to 265 Watchful - 2 short of the 267 needed.

The remaining points can be obtained through the following non-Fate ways:

• If you don't have The Language of Laces, you can get Watchful boots via the Mysterious Benefactor reward item that is the Pair of Mirror-Polished Shoes, a +2 Boot item, or the Christmas holiday gift that is the a Meticulously Altered Stocking, +3 Boot item, or the Wax-Hardened Boots, a +5 item, for taking on the role of a Campaigner in the July Elections event and choosing it as your free gift. (This may not be possible in future elections.)
• Watchful-granting Profession items, the most notable of which are the Notched Bone Harpoon (+12 Weapon), a Pot of Violant Ink (+12 Weapon) and Shrine to Saint Joshua (+9 Home Comfort). The Weapons give 2 or 4 points of Watchful, in excess of the items in the previous list. The Home Comfort gives 6 additional points of Watchful, in excess of the Voluminous Library's +3.
• Any Watchful Destiny, which grants +5 Watchful.
• Spending Notability, which requires the PoSI specialization of an Extraordinary Mind and up to 11 Notability, depending on the size of the gap to be filled.
• Getting married to another player in the game grants you +1 Watchful in the 'Spouse' category.

This means that characters who have experienced the holidays, and took up the Watchful-related professions, are the only characters who may be able to obtain the necessary 267 points of Watchful without Fate or lockable content.

Using the Watchful Mood: However, the shortage can be covered by making use of Mood-granting cards, specifically to obtain Preternaturally Intent, the +30 Watchful Mood. This is also perhaps one way to do the methodology in this guide before having to obtain the aforementioned Watchful assets. However, this adds 1 Action to the total number of Actions, specifically that is spent to get the Mood. Furthermore, the player may need to accumulate enough Actions before starting an expedition or two to make good use of it.

Number of Actions Points Needed: The number of action points is summed together by considering the following stages. Note that conservative assumptions are used, with the main one being no occurrence of good luck.

• Obtaining Favours: The Docks to be converted into supplies: the expedition nominally needs 20 supplies in order to achieve the 20 points of Archaeologist's Progress which is needed to end the expedition successfully. Thus, the player will need to hire dockers five times, meaning that 5 Action Points are needed. There will be the assumption here that each Favour will need to be obtained through opportunity cards which grant just one Favour; therefore, 5 Action points are needed to obtain the Favours. There is a total of 10 Action points for this stage.
• Starting the expedition: Always remember the costs of the seemingly small tasks - by the way, 1 Action point for this stage. (At least 1 point of progress is always granted by starting the expedition, sometimes more - see the section on luck below.)
• Accumulating progress: The player will need to perform A buccaneering approach at least 6 times, followed by the cautious one, to clinch the remaining 19 points of progress. Again, Rivals' Progress is not expected to be an issue, if the player can perform every progress-accumulating method successfully. Thus, at least 7 Action points are needed here.
• Completing the expedition: 1 Action point to end the expedition successfully.
• Taking the reward: 1 Action point to get whatever Unpredictable Treasures crank out. In the case of the Eyeless Skull being the reward, 1 Action point is needed to convert it to moolah - trust me, keeping it around is not worth the trouble.

Therefore, 20 Action points will be needed at most; 21, if the player used the Watchful Mood.

With this in mind, any rewards with a roll of 60 or above in Unpredictable Treasures will yield close to 2 Echoes per action. Of course, at the reward stage, luck matters more than any planning which the player has done to get to here.

Modifiers due to good luck: As of April 12th., the only known moment when good luck can occur is during the progress-accumulation stage.

• Good luck in gaining progress: The first way is through scoring the rare success from starting the expedition; this saves 1 Action point. The second is, of course, through scoring A sign?. This grants 4 points of progress, meaning that 4 crates of supplies are saved. This in turn means that the player saves the 2 Action points which are needed to get the Favour for these supplies. Getting this at least once also means that the player saves 1 Action point, since there would be 15 remaining points of progress to reach with 5 applications of A buccaneering approach without having to use any other approach. Moreover, since this leads to savings in supplies which can be hoarded for future expeditions, every one of this makes subsequent expeditions more economical in terms of Action points in the long run.
• Note that, with some timings, A sign? may not save any actions during the progress-accumulation stage:
  • Regular start -> A buccaneering approach x6 -> A cautious approach = 8 actions for 20 progress, consuming 19 supplies (default)
  • Regular start -> A sign? -> A buccaneering approach x5 = 7 actions for 20 progress, consuming 15 supplies
  • Regular start -> A buccaneering approach x6 -> A sign? = 8 actions for 20 progress, consuming 18 supplies
• As such, it's optimal to take the necessary non-buccaneering action before the very final action of the expedition. With a regular start, the appearance of A sign? saves an entire action only if the cautious approach action has not yet occurred, so the cautious approach action should occur at exactly 16 progress. One buccaneering action then concludes the expedition from 17 progress, minimizing the chances of A sign? appearing after the cautious action - and whenever it does, only one free progress is wasted.
  • With a rare success start, the action normally spent on a cautious approach must instead be spent on a bold approach to save an action without wasting supplies. This bold approach action should occur exactly at 15 progress, so if A sign? appears afterwards at 17 progress, again only one free progress is wasted. If A sign? appears before the bold approach action, a cautious approach will be necessary instead.