Advancing the Liberation of Night (Guide)

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So you want to contribute to The Work. Perhaps you want to become a Paramount Presence, maybe you just really, really hate candles and lamps. Maybe you just have a crush on a Month and want them to notice you. Regardless, this is a fairly intense grind, and the best options are not entirely obvious.

This guide is intended for lategame characters with very good stats (i.e. you should be able to 100% most if not all checks in a given grind) - and a couple of the grinds require access to fairly late-midgame or late game areas.

Advancing the Liberation has a few quirks that make this grind slightly annoying (not much, but slightly). Firstly, there are quite a few options in the Upper River that will hinder the Liberation that you may need to take for other grinds, and secondly, your Myself page will not show you your actual AtL level, just a vague description describing which bracket of 10 you're in.

As such, it's probably best to commit to this grind all at once, so you don't hinder yourself in the process.

Alternatively, would you like to reduce Advancing the Liberation of Night?

Notable Non-Grindable Sources & Early Levels[edit]

There are a few scattered non-grindable sources of AtL. You should probably do most of these before any grinds, just because they give quite a lot. Some of these are outright more efficient than the grindable sources, and some of them are just side effects of things you might want to do anyway.

This is not a list of all such options, some are pretty bad (e.g. a one-time sale of the location of the Cave of the Nadir to the Revolutionaries is a whole, princely sum of 1 CP), but there are a few worth taking into consideration - especially if you're not too far in your Liberation progress yet.

Chess (With AtL < 10)[edit]

In Parabolan Chess, you can Betray White for some early CP. This is extremely good, at 50CP per use, but you can only use it if you currently have AtL < 10. While the option itself isn't locked by this level, it's only available during the endgame while playing as the White pieces, and it forcibly switches you to Black after. Unfortunately, switching back to White is only possible if your AtL is under level 10. It also gives a few Revolutionary Favours that can in principle be converted to AtL, but rather inefficiently (mostly with cards in the Upper River, and even then they mostly require specific statues).

All-told, it's just barely possible to do this 2 times, assuming you haven't gotten any other CP (Level 0 to 10 is 55 CP, and since one use of this is 50CP, you can barely squeak out a 2nd with 5CP left to spare). That said, it's good enough that if you're just barely level 10 and not currently White, it may actually be worth it to do a few things that reduce your Liberation quality (such as lightening an Upper River area) just to get that last 50CP if you can bump your level under 10 in only a couple actions. Especially since most actions that reduce your Liberation do so (slightly) faster than most actions that advance it.

Railway Progression[edit]

If you're a dedicated min-maxer, you can always Support the Liberationist Tracklayers as much as possible while constructing the Railway to get some early CP. However, this may be undesirable for various RP reasons, external concerns such as missing out on a good source of Bone Market materials, dealing with the extra Tracklayers' Displeasure, or a lack of will to grind out the extra explosives needed for the Liberationist options.

Station Darkness[edit]

Many stations in the Upper River have a darkness quality of some sort (e.g. Balmoral: Darkness). Most options that increase darkness will Advance the Liberation by a fairly good amount, usually 2-3CP.

While this might seem grindable, it's actually a finite source that runs out fairly quickly, because lightening an area will always lower AtL by (slightly) more CP than you'd gain by darkening it.

However, if you're trying to hit a specific target (e.g. for Paramount Presence) it's probably worth it to just darken every station before doing any grinds. It's a pretty easy source, especially if you're flipping cards while doing other tasks in the relevant Upper River stations anyway. As a bonus, most stations have grinds that benefit from maximum darkness you can consider this setup for (though some stations also have alternative grinds that are easier if it's light, so be wary!).

Learning Things You Should Not Learn[edit]

Following the Steward of the Discordance storyline will give a fairly large amount of AtL CP, especially in later stages. From a detached min-maxing perspective this isn't necessarily efficient per-se, given the advanced skill loss, tedious weekly CP grind, and the need to create and burn a couple T8 items to get to the big payouts, but if you want to do the storyline anyway you may as well capitalize on the large amount of CP you get in the process before dedicating yourself to grinding.

Temple Club Candles[edit]

This guide is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.
What needs work: It would be good to have a table outlining how many candles you need depending on your current Liberation level, like SotC has for Plaques


If you have access to the Temple Club, you have a very efficient source of AtL at 300 Foxfire Candles per 3CP via Fund revolutionary research, plus a bonus Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory each time. Unfortunately visits to the Temple Club are limited. You can gain three free admissions with:

Access Code: https://www.fallenlondon.com/a/toc8478427505558293e81290

But if you've used those, you need to ask around for a friend who can get you one (probably not too hard, but annoying). As such, assuming you have a spare invite, you probably want to do this entire grind at once.

In case this guide ends up outdated, please check The Item Grinding Guide for Foxfire Candles for potentially better sources. At the time of writing, your best source is Hunting Bees in Old Newgate for 250 Candles per action assuming you can 100% all the relevant checks.

This results in 1.36CP/A[1], and (except for the limited entry) is both the most accessible grind with the laxest stat and story progression requirements, and the fastest grind available, (though the Tracklayers' City grind might be close to comparable, depending on luck, but is also limited by Rat Market saturation).

Note: with very high Dangerous or Watchful (near-BiS, around 320+) you can get closer to ~320-330 Candles per action at the cost of some wounds. By switching between the Mithridacy option when airs allow and the hardest option for the side you chose (become the leader of <faction>). Since you'll definitely gain wounds as you go this technically isn't infinitely sustainable. However, if you go in with zero wounds and decent AtL (maybe around 28-30) you actually can probably maintain this long enough to get all the candles you need to hit 40. Worst case if your wounds get too high you can always switch to the aforementioned 250/A option for the home stretch.

  1. ↑ 1500 candles in 6 actions, with 5 actions to turn in = 15CP per 11 actions, or 1.36

Writing Monographs[edit]

Another option is to Write a Monograph in Moulin, and give it to the The Charismatic Tracklayer, which gives 10CP (and some items) per turn-in. Make sure you have Moulin: Darkness(6) and Colour at the Chessboard: Black. This is the best option at 2CP/A presuming you have the items already lying around, but the second you need to source so much as one of the required items, quickly degrades to among the worst - 1.2CP/A as a ceiling, assuming you're only missing one item, and have an unrealistically good source for it. For a true long-haul grind this is probably more realistically among the worst methods as you need to acquire more and more items.

The main limiting factor on this strategy is the need to use a Corrective Historical Narrative per monograph, which you likely don't have dozens of lying around. The hardest to source ingredient is Identities Uncovered, which are a pain to reliably get in large quantities. Assuming a (extremely generous) 2/Action[1], you're at minimum at 3 Actions/ 1 (technically 3 actions and change factoring in the other required item and travel actions).

Unlike normal Monograph writing, your goal here is to write the shortest monographs possible, since any length and quality will get you the 10CP. Assuming you have all the items lying around (including Narratives), you're looking at completing and submitting a Monograph in 5 actions (one to begin, one to apply a Narrative, one to perform any research, one to conclude, and one to turn in). This gets you a very respectable 2CP/A, but of course any items you need to source cut into this fairly quickly.

For instance, assuming the (generous) 3 actions per one Corrective Historical Narrative as above, while still assuming you have all your other monograph items lying around, you're up to 8 Actions for a Monograph, which is 1.2CP/A, which is worse than the Temple Club.

Note: You may be tempted to "improve" this slightly since any turn-in also yields a single Revolutionary Favour, and if you solely focus on Monograph: Tragic you'll get Mourning Candles as a payout, yielding 1CP (2 on rare success) every ~3 monographs. This is actually worse than just making another monograph, unless your item hunting already brings this method to <=1CP/A, at which point you should probably just switch methods.

  1. ↑ In fact, given An Identity Uncovered! can be sold at the Bazaar for a flat 2.5E , any 2/A source is a 5EPA grind, which would already place it at the lower end of the best echo grinds in the game on its own.

Luminosity Item Conversion Grinds[edit]

Most Luminosity Items , when upconverted, give 1CP AtL[1]. As an added benefit, you get a "bonus" CP every so often, since the next item tier up (thru Mourning Candles) can also be upconverted for 1CP AtL. For instance, for every 5 upconversions of Lamplighter's Beeswax, you'll have 50 Phosphorescent Scarabs, which can immediately be upconverted to Memories of Light for an extra 1CP AtL - and so on.

That said, this bonus is essentially a rounding error, it tends to only bring up the AtL CP/A by a few hundreths or thousandths. As such, the calculations below only take the bonus into account if it's (relatively) significant. You should still do it, it's technically better and you get more bonus items. Except maybe Mourning Candles unless you have spare Revolutionary Favours around you don't need for something better, since it takes one per 25 Candles to "cash out".

  1. ↑ Cashing out Mourning Candles gives 2CP on rare success, but it's not worth factoring in - take it as a nice bonus.

Lamplighter's Beeswax at the Sunken Embassy[edit]

Farming Lamplighter's Beeswax at the Sunken Embassy can get you 380 Beeswax/Action. 380 Beeswax represents 3.8CP before taking into account the upgrade bonus and factoring in the actions per conversion.

When upconverting, make sure to use You know a fellow who wants it to convert 100 at a time, instead of 1000 at a time. This is an inefficient source of higher tier items, but is a much more efficient source of AtL CP, since it gives 1CP per lot of 100, instead of 1CP per 1000.

This naively gives ~.79CP/A[1], not including the higher tier upconversion bonuses. Including upconversion bonuses for the resulting Scarabs you get about ~.82CP/A, but beyond that the bonus is so small it's not worth calculating.

  1. ↑ This is easiest to calculate if you find a round number. It takes 5 actions to get 1900 Beeswax, which in 19 more actions is exactly 19CP. 19+5 is 24, so 19CP/24Actions = ~.79CP/A

Phosphorescent Scarab Grind[edit]

Assuming you have a remotely reliable source of Ratket items, you can grind raw Scarabs. This is because at the Rat Market they can be bought for a single Rat Shilling.

For instance, using up only the first tier of Rat Market Saturation (aka base 6500 worth of items), you get 8580 = 8580, which is a solid 171.6CP. This makes a base 5.2EPA grind that gives exclusively Rat Market-sellable items a 0.58CP/A grind[1], but only up to the first Rat Market Saturation threshold.

For the next 11500 worth of items, you'll end up with 12880 = 12880. Which yields 257.6CP. This is a somewhat worse (assuming the same base 5.2 EPA) 0.53CP/A grind[2]. Beyond that, you're operating at-cost ( 0.5CP per 5 echoes, essentially).

This on its own is worse than Beeswax, but becomes much more efficient when used with City of the Tracklayers .

  1. ↑ 171.6 actions to upconvert, plus 125 actions for the sellable items.
  2. ↑ 257.6 actions to upconvert, plus ~221.15 actions for the sellable items.

City of the Tracklayers Grind[edit]

As an extension to the above, if you have access to The City of the Tracklayers, maximum Hinterland Efficiency, and your city is aligned Liberationist, you'll get a few cards that will give 1CP AtL. Generally, these only give 500 Prosperity, though if your city is located in Moulin or the Hurlers, there is an extra card that can appear that gives 520 Prosperity while advancing the Liberation.

It's hard to value the CP/A of this exactly, but it's worth noting that any of these actions get you 1CP and (before even taking into account the Rat Market bonus) 50-52 Scarabs (aka 1CP for an additional action) at the same time, assuming you cash out your Prosperity for a Rat Market-sellable item (such as a Captivating Ballad). You can think of any Liberation card draw as essentially getting a free action with a free extra CP's worth of Scarabs.

This gives you quite a bit of extra CP, depending on the frequency of Liberation cards. The Temple Club Method is still probably better unless ~80% of your card plays are Liberation advancing cards (which they almost certainly won't be), and you're willing to play the long game with Rat Market saturation, but this is a close second and better than Beeswax.

Pulling Threads in the Khanate[edit]

The final method is pulling a very specific thread loop in the Khanate. As stated in that guide, this is 0.33CP/A, which is worse than the other methods here, and costs 4 Emetic Revelations per cycle, but if you're also going for something like Masters' Blood the Airag might be useful.

You could also use the 250 Khaganian Coinage to get 2 Fourth City Echoes for 250 Scarabs ( 5CP over 5 extra actions) via the Rat Market , but it's still not great, especially taking the boat trip into account.


Hindering the Liberation of Night[edit]

Why would you not want to "liberate" the night?

Maybe you figure that revolutionaries are feckless infighting idiots. Perhaps you prefer law and order to chaos and anarchy. Or it could be that you just want to be able to see whom you're talking to, read a newspaper, and not bump into walls in the dark.

Alternatively you might be some kind of contrarian that take joy from reversing the balance, in which case go ahead and raise-lower-raise your qualities as the whim takes you.

A mechanical reasons to want to lower this quality is if you want to play as White on the Chessboard (in which case you must have less than 10 AtL).

One-off actions[edit]

Where Action Effect
Offices of the Tracklayer's Union: Ealing Gardens Branch Build a Watchtower (five different options) -3 CP AtL, or -2 CP AtL if using The Contrarian's Monochromatic Lantern
Convene a Board Meeting of the Great Hellbound Railway Vote on new illumination for the stations -20 CP AtL (This is playable when you're dealing with Union dissent having laid track from Station VIII to Burrow-infra-Mump. It requires that the Leader of the Tracklayers is a Lackey of Mr Fires.)
Offices of the Tracklayer's Union: Hurlers Branch Illuminate the road you've built -2 CP AtL
Outflank Surface Veils Ambition: Bag a Legend! -20? CP AtL

Managing the lighting in Upper River areas[edit]

Adjusting the lighting in various station areas also adjusts Advancing the Liberation of Night up or down as well. The lighting range is limited and the upwards and downwards effects are mirrored or skewed towards darkness, so while these actions are repeatable, there is also a limit to how much you can stymie the Liberation this way.

Lightening and darkening effects in the table below show the CP change in Advancing the Liberation of Night for an amount of change in lighting.

Station Lightening Darkening Comments
Ealing Gardens -1 CP AtL per -1 +1 CP AtL per +1 Black cannot lighten
Balmoral -2 CP AtL per -3 +2 CP AtL per +3 Black cannot lighten; White cannot darken
Station VIII -1 CP AtL per -3 +1 CP AtL per +3
Burrow-infra-Mump -2 CP AtL per -4 +2 CP AtL per +3-4 Black cannot lighten; White cannot darken
Moulin -2 CP AtL per -4 +2 CP AtL per +3 Black cannot lighten; White cannot darken

Repeatable actions[edit]

Where Action Effects Constraints
Managing lighting in Jericho Locks (White / otherwise) Give an impassioned speech on Light and Beauty -3 CP AtL, +5 Romantic Notion, either +200 Whispered Hint or +1 Mirrorcatch Box Persuasive (150 + 25 x Supporting the Liberationist Tracklayers) test
Managing lighting in The Magistracy of the Evenlode (not Black / not White) Make an Impassioned Argument for Light and Beauty
Whilst playing Black at The Chessboard, during the Middle Game Sabotage your side -3 CP AtL, +3 Strategic Weaknesses Must have A Player of Chess 2
Whilst playing Black at The Chessboard, during the Endgame Betray! Destroy! Take black down from the inside! -45 CP AtL, sets colour to White, gain 3 Favours: The Great Game Must have A Player of Chess 4, and no more than 4 Favours: The Great Game
Which meeting?, an opportunity card in the Upper River Sell valuable propaganda to the Veteran Revolutionary, an anti-Liberationist -2 CP AtL, 1-3 x Forged Justificande Coin, 1-3 x Justificande Coin Must have Language of Laces; costs 1 Corrective Historical Narrative, Shadowy (300 - 20 x Supporting the Emancipationist Tracklayers) test
Khan's Heart, from The Pulling of a Thread: A Cry for Help Leak their identities to the Khagan -2 CP AtL, 5 x Vital Intelligence, 20 x Moves in the Great Game, 1 x Favours: Society
Khan's Heart, from The Pulling of a Thread: The Affair of the Factory Leak this information to the Tortoise -2 CP AtL, 1 x Hillmover, 5 x Perfumed Gunpowder, 25 x Correspondence Plaque, 5 x Mourning Candle, 2 x Vital Intelligence
My Possessions: Luminosity: Khaganian Lightbulb Give away a crate of lightbulbs -(1-7) CP AtL, +1 Determined Illuminator Costs 1000 Khaganian Lightbulb, which can be bought for a total of either 20,000 Moon-Pearl from the Midnight Market or (much cheaper) 180 Assortment of Khaganian Coinage from The Graphite Quarter in Khan's Heart

Intrigues in Khan's Heart can be played in cycles.

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