Assembling a Skeleton (Guide)/Recipes

World Qualities:	Preferred Quality: Amalgamy Preferred Type: Fish Occasional Buyer: An Enthusiast in Skulls Diplomat's Fascination: Skeleton: Antiquity
Reference Tables:	Buyers Bones Bone Sources Skeleton Types Recipes

This guide is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

What needs work: Human, Ape, and Monkey skeletons now also have 10% zoomania bonus.

Recipes for Home Comforts, such as Relatively Plausible Curator Skeleton can be found here.

The guide assumes at least level 5 in advanced skills as a baseline. Requirements beyond this will be listed at the top of the recipe.

Unless specifically stated, the following recipes do not have the skeletons declared as a Chimera. Declaring it as a Chimera leads to a spike in Self-Evident Implausibility that can be troublesome and expensive to deal with.

Amalgamy

For these skeletons you will typically need Helical Thighbones, Skull in Coral or alternatively Amber-Crusted Fins. The first two will require a Shapeling Arts challenge, and all of the supplies take some time to gather.

Knock-Kneed Newt

• Amalgamy 9, Antiquity 2, and Menace 2, sold to a Zailor with Particular Interests or A Rubbery Collector.
• Reptile or Amphibian. High Shapeling Arts

Attaching Helical Thighbones is not automatic until you have Shapeling Arts 10. If you fail one of the first three thighbones, there are ways to recover the recipe to target Amalgamy 6, and either Antiquity 3, or Menace 3, which will produce the same pay-out of 18. Failing the last roll will result in a pay-out of only 16, and failing two rolls is difficult to recover from.

• Thorned Ribcage
• Horned Skull when targeting Antiquity, or Plated Skull when targeting Menace
• 3 x Helical Thighbone
• If all thighbones were successfully attached:
  • 1 x Helical Thighbone
  • Tomb-Lion's Tail when targeting Antiquity, or decide your Tailless Animal needs no tail when targeting Menace
  • Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Reptile or Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Amphibian
• If one thighbone failed and targeting Antiquity:
  • 1 x Femur of a Jurassic Beast
  • Tomb-Lion's Tail
  • Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Reptile
• If one thighbone failed and targeting Menace:
  • 1 x Femur of a Surface Deer (reduce Menace to prevent overshooting)
  • Jet Black Stinger
  • Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Reptile

Thorned Toad

Credits to m0k0n4 from the Failbetter Games Discord server.

It's strongly recommended to have at least Shapeling Arts 10 before attempting to build the skeleton.

• Amalgamy 11, Exhaustion 4
• Zoomania: Amphibians
• Sell to the Tentacled Entrepreneur

Assembly:

• Thorned Ribcage
• Skull in Coral (requires 1 x Knob of Scintillack)
• 4 x Helical Thighbone
• Decide your Skeleton needs no tail

This yields 356 worth of items ( 97 x MoDS and 615 x Final Breath) and exhausts the Bone Market for the week.

Coral-Coiled Cockatrice

• Amalgamy 6, Antiquity 3
• Zoomania: Bird, Sell to the Zailor

• Thorned Ribcage
• Skull in Coral
• Tomb-Lion's Tail: Install this early to chance the roll, if it is not 100%. Maybe you could abort or alter the build if you fail, but this must succeed for the recipe to be viable.
• Helical Thighbone(s): Install these next. If you successfully install one, then this is all you need. If you fail the first leg, try to install another; if you fail both, this recipe won't be optimal.
  • If you succeed at the first leg, the other leg can be a Femur of a Jurassic Beast.
• Wing of a Young Terror Bird(s): At least one, or both wings if both legs have to be Helical. This/These should bring Antiquity to 3.
  • Albatross Wing: The other wing, if you prefer to raise the value of the skeleton to as high as possible. One of the legs must be a Jurassic Femur if you take this option.
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

Lopsided Lizard

• Amalgamy 7, Zoomania: Reptile (1 exhaustion), Tentacled Entrepreneur.

• Thorned Ribcage: This ribcage is relatively easy to get compared to the more expensive ones.
• Skull in Coral: Since the above ribcage is used, the Shapeling Arts roll for this should be trivial for characters that have maxed out their base skill.
• 2 x Helical Thighbones: You may have to begin with these, if your character cannot accumulate up to 10 Shapeling Arts. What you use next depends on the outcome of these rolls.
  • Both failures: 1 x Helical Thighbone and then, 1 x Unidentified Thigh Bone or a tentacle, thus leading to a lower Amalgamy rating.
  • Both successes: 2 x Unidentified Thigh Bone
  • Give a tail, and declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Reptile.

Caducean Raptor

• Amalgamy 6 Menace 6 - Rubbery Collector
• Zoomania: Bird/ Reptile, 1 exhaustion, high Shapeling Arts

• Thorned Ribcage
• Plated Skull
• Jet Black Stinger

The limbs to be used depend on the outcomes of the installation of the skull and tail. If both are successes:

• Wing of a Young Terror Bird: This should bring Menace to 6.
• Albatross Wing
• 2 x Helical Thighbones
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

If both are failures, i.e. you have only 4 levels of Menace, then:

• 4 x Helical Thighbones: You have no other choices, really; thus far, these are the limbs that can give up to 2 points of the pertinent qualities. This will bring the multiple of the secondary qualities to at least 20, if you have been having really awful luck with the rolls.
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Reptile

If either is a failure, i.e. you have 5 levels of Menace, then go for 7 levels of Amalgamy with these:

• 2 x Albatross Wings
• 2 x Helical Thighbones
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

Amorphous Arthropod

• Amalgamy 11
• Zoomania: Insect (4 exhaustion)

This is a skeleton made with the intention of having maximised Amalgamy, without having to resort to a Skeleton with Seven Necks, in order to sell to the Tentacled Entrepreneur. This will require Shapeling Arts challenges, so train this skill first.

• Flourishing Ribcage
• 1 x Skull in Coral: Shapeling Arts -2 challenge
• 1 x Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory To occupy the second neck without adding a skull, which would prevent you from declaring the skeleton an Insect.
• 4 x Helical Thighbone: Unless you failed the challenge for the Skull, you should try to fail exactly one of these rolls. If you failed the skull, try to fail none of them.
• 2 x Unidentified Thigh Bone: If you have failed 2 rolls so far and your Amalgamy is 9, then replace one of these with another Helical Thighbone.
• Decide your Tailless Animal needs no tail
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Insect

This recipe should reach Amalgamy 11, which will maximise the pay-out while keeping your Bone Market Exhaustion at 4 levels, which will be cleared by Time, the Healer.

Warped Warbler

• Amalgamy 14 + Value
• Zoomania: Bird (7 exhaustion)

• Skeleton with Seven Necks
• 5 x Skulls in Coral: These involve a lot of Shapeling Arts challenges. which is the main hurdle for this recipe. Fortunately, each skull that is installed reduces the difficulty further.
• Sabre-toothed Skull: You are wasting the Antiquity (and Menace), of course, but the value is what you want.
• Bright Brass Skull: This would be good for increasing value while not increasing Implausibility too much that a high-level player character could not reliably handle it.
• 2 x Albatross Wings
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

That should give you up to Amalgamy 14 for selling to the Tentacled Entrepreneur. This will give seven levels of Exhaustion.

Amalgamy Bomb

This recipe uses the least number of actions to use up Bone Market Exhaustion as efficiently as possible.

• Up to Amalgamy 23 (24 with an Obsidian Chitin Tail)
• Ribcage with a Bouquet of Eight Spines
  • Exchange 8 x Volume of Collated Research and 4 x Unprovenanced Artefact for 1 x Skeleton with Seven Necks in 9 actions, see Moonlit Woods (Guide).
  • Exchange 1 x Skeleton with Seven Necks, 1 x Thorned Ribcage, 3 x Nodule of Trembling Amber and 3 x Searing Enigma for 1 x Ribcage with a Bouquet of Eight Spines, see Helicon House (Guide).
• 8 x Skull in Coral
  • Exchange Memory of Distant Shores and Sworn Statement for Skull in Coral, see Canal Cruising in Jericho Locks (Guide).
• 2 x Helical Thighbone
  • Collate a great number of palaeontological reports to grind lots of Survey of the Neath's Bones.
  • Dig near Station VIII and choose An amalgamous interment
  • Shapeling Arts 10 the best
• 2 x Albatross Wing
  • Exchange 25 x Nodule of Warm Amber and 2000 x Bone Fragments for 2 x Albatross Wing, see Duplicate the wings of a Focused Albatross.
• No tail
  • Or any tail is fine, Obsidian Chitin Tail is the best but hard to grind.
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird and Sell to the Tentacled Entrepreneur (Skeleton) on Amalgamy and bird week
  • Comprehensive Study of Avian Anatomies, Oneiric and Otherwise required
  • Bizarre 13 required, 15 the best.
  • Gives 2895 x Final Breath, 1069 x Memory of Distant Shores and 21 x Bone Market Exhaustion

Roughly speaking, this recipe gives around 70 Echoes for every point of Bone Market Exhaustion. Very efficient.

Fish Of Unreasonable Length

This recipe can be used to produce an extremely large payout from the Tentacled Entrepreneur by burning a massive amount of Warm Amber and Bone Market Exhaustion. If you want to lock yourself out of the Bone Market for 19 weeks as profitably as possible, this is your Fish. This may not be wise, but it's fun.

• Prismatic Frame (or a Leviathan Frame) - you want as high a payout as possible as you won't be back for a while, and the Prismatic Frame gives 2 extra Amalgamy.
• Skull in Coral
• 2 x Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory for the other two Head slots
• Obsidian Chitin Tail, optional, but why not
• 27 x Amber-Crusted Fin at maximum profit
• 6 x Trembling Amber at maximum profit
• 32350 x Warm Amber at maximum profit

Add four more joints to your skeleton as per the table below, adding 4 x Amber-Crusted Fin each time, until you hit 27 joints (or run out of Warm Amber, Amber-Crusted Fins, Trembling Amber, or time). After 27, the profit diminishes as your Warm Amber costs mount. After 39, you are making a loss.

Fish Of Unreasonable Length extension costs and payouts

Trembling Amber total	Warm Amber total needed	Amber-Crusted Fin total	Memory of Distant Shores	Final Breath	Bone Market Exhaustion	Profit (Echoes)	Echoes per Bone Market Exhaustion
0	0	3	891	315	2	222	111
1	225	7	1029	1021	7	549	78.4
2	1450	11	1167	2159	16	992	62
3	4475	15	1305	3745	27	1479	54.8
4	10100	19	1443	5793	40	1937	48.4
5	19125	23	1581	8310	57	2289.5	40.2
6	32350	27	1719	11306	77	2461.5 (max)	32
7	50575	31	1857	14788	100	2376.5	23.8
8	74600	35	1995	18761	125	1957	15.7
9	105225	39	2133	23232	153	1126.5	7.4
10	143250	43	2271	28205	184	-193	-1
11	189475	47	2409	33686	219 (a year!)	-2078.5	-9.5

This table prices Warm Amber at 10 pence, and assumes you have added an Obsidian Chitin Tail and are selling in Amalgamous Fish week.

Menace

There are no legs that give menace, so most of these are birds with many skulls, or fish.

Ancient Armoured Avian

• Goal: Menace 13, Antiquity 3 (1 exhaustion)
• Zoomania: Bird

• Skeleton with Seven Necks
• Plated Skulls: Stack these until Menace lands on 8 to 9.
• Horned Skull: What to do next depends on the outcome of the roll to install this.
  • If the roll to install the above succeeds, Menace should be 10 or 11.
    • If it is 10, install another Horned Skull. If it is 11, continue to the next step.
• Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory: Plug any remaining necks with these.
  • Or perhaps swap one ball for a Bright Brass Skull to increase the Value of the skeleton.
• 2 x Wing of a Young Terror Birds: This should bring Antiquity to 3.
  • Alternatively, you can substitute 2 Plated Skulls for 2 Horned or 2 Sabre-Toothed ones, and install Albatross Wings instead. This is less predictable though.
• Make your skeleton less dreadful: You really shouldn't have to do this if you have been closely managing the increments of Menace.
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

This skeleton is to be sold to the Author of Gothic Tales, thus giving a return of 39 x Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory for 1 level of Bone Market Exhaustion.

You can also replace the Horned Skull or Sabre-toothed Skull with a Doubled Skull for more manageable increases of Menace. Of course, if you do this, the wings must be composed of a Wing of a Young Terror Bird and an Albatross Wing.

Savage Sunfish

You also want to sell this to the Rubbery Collector. The target is Amalgamy 5 and Menace 7.

• Zoomania: Fish

• Thorned Ribcage: Again, of course you should start with this.
• Plated Skull
  • If Amalgamy is in fashion rather than Menace, you can use a Skull in Coral instead to reverse the two qualities.
• 4 x Amber-Crusted Fins
• Decide your Tailless Animal needs no tail: (Author's note: Sunfish have next to no tails.)
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Fish

Heuvelmans' Nightmare

• Zoomania: Fish
• Rubbery Collector.

• Flourishing Ribcage
• Plated Skull or a copy of the Vake's Head; the latter is more expensive.
• Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory: The fish that you are going to declare can have only one head.
• 6 x Amber-Crusted Fins
• Jet Black Stinger
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Fish

If you succeed in all of the rolls, you should have around Menace 10-11 and Amalgamy 8. You would be having a lot of Rubbery Pies, but keep in mind that there will be Exhaustion.

Chaos Monkey

Low cost (common component) per point of menace to easily take advantage of Exhaustion. Sell this to A Teller of Terrors in Menace week for 3 levels of Bone Market Exhaustion.

• Menace 7 (brass version) or Menace 9 (horned version)
• Thorned Ribcage
• Bright Brass Skull or Horned Skull
• 4 x Crustacean Pincers
• Jet Black Stinger
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Monkey

Ideal during Human/Monkey/Ape zoomania with Menace fad. Brass version is more exhaustion-efficient but less action-efficient.

Prismatic Walrus

• Zoomania: Fish
• Antiquity 3, Menace 6

by mp, georg

• Prismatic Frame
• Sabre-toothed Skull
• 2 x Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory
• 3 x Amber-Crusted Fins
• Jet Black Stinger
• No further tails
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Fish

Sell on Menace (or Antiquity) Fish week to an Author of Gothic Tales. This recipe does not give Exhaustion.

Antiquity

These recipes typically use Mammoth Ribcage, Femurs of a Jurassic Beast and tomb lion tails.

Sauropsid on Shale

• Antiquity 7, Ambassador.
• Zoomania: Reptile/ Bird, 1 exhaustion

• Mammoth Ribcage
• Bright Brass Skull: Might as well maximise the returns of Memories of Light.
• 4 x Femurs of a Jurassic Beast 2 of these may be replaced with Wing of a Young Terror Bird in order to make a bird.
• Add a Tomb-Lion's Tail
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Reptile / Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

Terrifying Pterodactyl

• Goal: Menace 6 * Antiquity 6 to the Author of Gothic Tales.
• Zoomania: Bird, 1 exhaustion

• Mammoth Ribcage
• Plated Skull: You can also substitute this with a Horned Skull, if you are confident that the Monstrous Anatomy roll would turn out right.
• Jet Black Stinger
• 2 x Femurs of a Jurassic Beast: If you succeeded with the Horned Skull's roll, replace one of these with an Unidentified Thigh Bone.
• 2 x Wings of a Young Terror Bird: These wings are very much the best limbs for skeletons to be sold to this particular buyer.
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

Ivory Glimsect

The idea behind this recipe is to get a 15% bonus on turning Ivory Femurs into Hinterland Scrip while at the same time getting the maximum exhaustion-free secondary reward.

• Goal: Menace 3 * Antiquity 6 to the Author of Gothic Tales.
• Zoomania: Insect

• Glim-Encrusted Carapace
• Sabre-toothed Skull
• 2 x Wings of a Young Terror Bird
• 3 x Femurs of a Jurassic Beast
• 3 x Ivory Femurs: Can be replaced with Unidentified Thigh Bones if you just want to turn Glim-Encrusted Carapaces into Hinterland Scrip.
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Insect

Sainted skeletons

Spider Pope, Spider Pope
Neathy Holiness Spider Pope
Once He glowed, on the roof
Now He's bones, here's the proof
Look out! We're selling Spider Popes!

These skeletons are based on both Skeleton: Support for a Counter-church Theology and value and should be sold to the Bohemian Sculptress. Note that the Bohemian Sculptress neither gives nor is affected by Exhaustion, making these good for periods when you are locked out of high-end sales.
A variant is the exhibition recipe, which shouldn't be sold at all, but is used in order to work the opportunity deck of the Upper River with a Statue to a Custom-Made Saint at Burrow-Infra-Mump. Unsold Sainted skeletons can also be used to Inspire the Bohemian Sculptress while Oneiropomping, which does not pay well, but is amusing.

Arachnid Antipope

• Spider

AKA RoofPope, SpiderPope II, etc. This skeleton should be sold to the Bohemian Sculptress during spider week.

• Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory
• Glim-Encrusted Carapace - Requires Roof access from Firmament, best sourced from the Stacks
• 8 x Holy Relic of the Thigh of Saint Fiacre

Depending upon Mithridacy, this produces 4-5 Skeleton: Support for a Counter-church Theology per leg, or a total of 32-40 points of Skeleton: Support for a Counter-church Theology, and a base payout of 79 Preserved Surface Blooms. The resulting rumours can be spent on Prismatic Frames for further skeletons.

Sacred Scarab

• Insect

A variant of the RoofPope for Insect Week. By u/sobrique (I think).

• Skull in Coral (requires Knob of Scintillack), duplicated Counterfeit Head of John the Baptist, Brass Skull, or other non-Antique skull.
• Glim-Encrusted Carapace - Requires Roof access from Firmament, best sourced from the Stacks
• 6 x Holy Relic of the Thigh of Saint Fiacre
• 2 x Albatross Wing

Depending upon Mithridacy, this produces 4-5 Skeleton: Support for a Counter-church Theology per leg, or a total of 24-30 points of Skeleton: Support for a Counter-church Theology. The resulting rumours can be spent on Prismatic Frames for further skeletons.

Beatified Beetle

• Insect

This skeleton should be sold to the Bohemian Sculptress during insect week.

• Leviathan Frame
• Skull in Coral (requires Knob of Scintillack), duplicated Counterfeit Head of John the Baptist or other non-Antique skull. Successfully attaching a Skull in Coral pushes total Amalgamy to 4, letting you Sell an amalgamous skeleton as a work of Bazaarine art to the Colourful Phantasist if Implausibility is a problem.
• 100 x Warm Amber
• Trembling Amber
• 6 x Holy Relic of the Thigh of Saint Fiacre
• Scrimshander Carving Knife FRUITS OF THE ZEE (not consumed)
• Ravenglass Knife (not consumed)

1. Attach a skull to your Leviathan Frame.
2. Add four more joints to your skeleton ( Shapeling Arts 12 to 100%, if below 12 wear suspicion-reducing gear)
3. Add 6 saint legs. This requires Mithridacy 12 to 100% and gives 5-6 Skeleton: Support for a Counter-church Theology per leg.
4. Remove the tail with your Ravenglass Knife
5. Carve away some evidence of age with your Scrimshander Carving Knife.
6. Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Insect

During Insect week, this will sell to the Bohemian Sculptress for 190 Surface Blooms and 30-36 Rumours, depending upon your success at Mithridacy checks.

Sailbacked Saint

• Insect

AKA Prismatic Pope. This skeleton should be sold to the Bohemian Sculptress during insect week.

• Prismatic Frame
• Skull in Coral (requires Knob of Scintillack), duplicated Counterfeit Head of John the Baptist, or other non-Antique skull. Attaching a Skull in Coral pushes total Amalgamy to 5-6, letting you Sell an amalgamous skeleton as a work of Bazaarine art to the Colourful Phantasist or Sell the Diplomat an amalgamous skeleton if Implausibility is a problem.
• 2 x Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory
• 225 x Warm Amber
• Trembling Amber
• 6 x Holy Relic of the Thigh of Saint Fiacre
• Albatross Wing (or a Bat Wing if desperate)
• Scrimshander Carving Knife FRUITS OF THE ZEE (not consumed) OR 2 x Withered Tentacle and Ravenglass Knife (not consumed)

1. Attach a Skull to your Prismatic Frame.
2. Attach 2 Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory to use up the other skull slots
3. Add four more joints to your skeleton ( Shapeling Arts 12 to 100%, if below 12 wear suspicion-reducing gear)
4. Add 6 saint legs. This requires Mithridacy 13 to 100% and gives 5-6 Skeleton: Support for a Counter-church Theology per leg.
5. Add the Albatross Wing to use the 7th limb slot and give the Saint a Sailback.
6. Either:
   1. Carve away some evidence of age with your Scrimshander Carving Knife OR
   2. Add 2 Withered Tentacles as tails then Remove both tails with your Ravenglass Knife.
7. Decide your (Skeleton Type) needs no tail
8. Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Insect

With a Skull in Coral, the Sailbacked Saint sells to the Bohemian Sculptress for 198 (or 201 w tentacles) Surface Blooms and 30-36 Rumours, depending on how well you did at the Mithridacy checks.

Khaganian Exports

These skeletons are made for sale to The Trifling Diplomat in The Copper Quarter. Though you can sell to him as soon as you're able to zail to the Khanate, you will need access to Khan's Heart proper in order to spend the Assortment of Khaganian Coinage he pays you. This means these skeletons should only be used late in the railway, after building out the Cabinet Noir at Balmoral.

The Diplomat gives Bone Market Exhaustion and does not pay out for it especially well. You're best off selling him skeletons with a high Value; Chimeras are ideal, as he ignores Self-Evident Implausibility. On weeks where he has an interest in Amalgamy, Antiquity, or Menace, avoiding Bone Market Exhaustion is as simple as keeping the relevant quality at 9 or below. On other weeks he uses a sum of all three qualities, which must be 24 or less to avoid Bone Market Exhaustion. Spiders, Insects, and skeletons with numerous legs are best sold to the Bone Market proper; the Trifling Diplomat will not be nearly as profitable.

Because it's such a long journey, anything you do in the Khanate should be combined with as many other profitable related actions as possible: Piracy, crates from Peaceable & Godly, and weekly Emetic Revelations from Khaganian Intrigue all help raise the profit gained through Khanate trips.

Diplomatic Bird

• Skeleton with Seven Necks
• 7 x Bright Brass Skull
• 2 x Wing of a Young Terror Bird
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

This can be sold during weeks where The Diplomat's Current Fascination is birds or skeletons with many skulls. It is incredibly easy to source, requiring only a single trip into the Moonlit Woods and the echoes/brass for the skulls.

Prismatic Hydra

• Prismatic Frame
• 2 x Doubled Skull
• Bright Brass Skull
• Any limbs, preferably ones that add Skeleton: Amalgamy, Skeleton: Antiquity, or Skeleton: Menace.
• Decide your (Skeleton Type) needs no tail
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Chimera
• Sold when The Diplomat's Current Fascination is skeletons with many skulls.

Liquidation

Occasionally, you'll have spare parts that cannot be sold directly. These recipes assume you have all the parts already and won't be using additional actions to obtain them. There may be cases where sourcing something needed is worthwhile, but the calculations haven't been done.

Amalgamous Ape

This Exhaustion-free recipe uses Knotted Humeri, which are gained from areas such as Balmoral Woods and Palaeontological Digs in the Hinterlands.

• Human Ribcage (the limiting factor of this recipe)
• Bright Brass Skull (there are other sources of skulls if you wish to spend other items)
• 4 Knotted Humerus
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Ape
• Sell to the Tentacled Entrepreneur during Amalgamy week.

Pre-Railway Skeletons

Midgame Rubbery Saint

This skeleton is designed to let pre-Railway players save time and echoes when obtaining the Nightsoil of the Bazaar from the Tentacled Servant required for the Laboratory equipment upgrade, while minimising reliance on opportunity cards: a single skeleton sells for 205-213 Nightsoil (slightly more than the amount needed) and only requires a single opportunity card.

• Human Ribcage either from The Small Stalls (costs 3000 x Jade Fragments), from Call in favours at the Shuttered Palace (costs 5 x Favours: Constables), or from Brawling with Dockers.
• Bright Brass Skull from the Bazaar or from completing an expedition to the Sanctuary of the Crimson Petals.
• Knotted Humerus obtained either from the opportunity card Bones in the River drawn only in Wolfstack Docks, or from the Test the elastic limits of flesh and bone experiment in the Laboratory. This piece is vital, as it provides the single point of Amalgamy required to sell to the Tentacled Servant.
• Human Arm either from The Small Stalls (3 arms cost 2000 x Jade Fragments), or from Call in favours in the Flit (3 arms cost 5 x Favours: Criminals), or from Brawling with Dockers. While almost worthless it allows you to declare your skeleton a humanoid rather than a chimera, making it easier to sell.
• 2 x Holy Relic of the Thigh of Saint Fiacre from Publish an Expose of Palaeontology in Doubt Street. You only need these to maximise the value of your skeleton so you could theoretically replace it with some other, less valuable legs, as long as you don't mind sourcing more Humeri, ribcages and arms.
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Humanoid.

Attaching the Bright Brass Skull and the Knotted Humerus are both Mithridacy challenges so you will have an easier time selling this if you have already gained some Mithridacy from the Waswood in Parabola; additionally the challenge on the Humerus will be easier if you take care to attach it before all the other limbs.

Brass Lollipop

This skeleton allows you to easily transfer Echoes to Bone Fragments or Hinterland Scrip. This could be useful to get Parabolan Orange-apples for Ivory Femurs in order to make high value skeletons with other skeleton recipes, or in order to get scrip to exchange for a Sabre-toothed Skull, which adds the same value as a brass skull, but doesn't add implausibility. This could be useful when making skeletons with high implausibility like the sculpture above. It can also be done for building the station in Ealing Gardens.

You need:

• Headless Skeleton from opportunity cards or from the Bone Market.
• Bright Brass Skull from the Bazaar
• Declare your finished skeleton a humanoid
• Sell a complete skeleton to the Bone Hoarder for Bone Fragments. This gives a bonus of 2 fossils.
• Sell to a Constable (Skeleton) for Hinterland Scrip. This gives a bonus of 20 scrip.
• After gaining access to the Upper River exchange, Selling to a Theologian of the Old School (for Incorruptible Biscuits, which can be sold on the Exchange or fed to those in need) gives a slightly higher reward than the Constable.

Stupendous Statues

These skeletons are meant for the Colourful Phantasist, and should be possible with no access to Parabola. You will want to focus on Implausibility and either Antiquity or Amalgamy. This is one of few ways for pre-Railway players to benefit from exhaustion.

Start with the following parts:

• Human Ribcage
• Bright Brass Skull

Antiquity:

• 4 x Femur of a Jurassic Beast

(Provides Memory of Light and Knob of Scintillack)

Amalgamy:

• 4x Knotted Humerus

(Provides Hinterland Scrip and Slim Volume of Bazaarine Poetry)

Menace:

• 4x Crustacean Pincer - from Zailing by The Salt Steppes

(Provides Solacefruit and Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory)

And end with Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Chimera.

This should give you at least 5 Implausibility and 4 of the other quality for 21 bonus items, but may give a lot more, especially if your advanced stats are low.

Special skeletons

This guide is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

What needs work: Sections about generator skeletons and Khaganian coinage grind need restoring

Crackpot Export

The surface-dwellers who purchase bird skeletons through the Dumbwaiter of Balmoral are the only ones who are foolish enough to buy the following recipes. Due to the high implausibility, few other buyers would want these.

Septa-Cranial String-Along

• Skeleton with Seven Necks
• 7 x Bright Brass Skulls: The Implausibility would be so high that even the most naive of Neath buyers would be a difficult customer. But Surfacers who presume that anything outlandish is Neathy? Oh yes.
• 2 x Albatross Wings: Just to maximise the value; there may be more valuable wings in the future.
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

That takes 13 Actions, not counting the trip between Balmoral and London.

Extravagant Eight-Headed Hoax

• Ribcage with a Bouquet of Eight Spines
• 8 x Bright Brass Skulls
• 2 x Albatross Wings
• 2 x Ivory Femurs: You would think that this would have been too much even for the Surfacers - but it is not.
• 1 x Plaster Tail Bone: Ditto.
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

That takes 16 Actions, not counting the trip between Balmoral and London.

Leviathan Frame Fuel

The Carpenter's Granddaughter will trade you a Leviathan Frame for a completed skeleton if its value is at least 30,000 pennies, including zoological bonus. Therefore, if you want to do this your goal is to hit 30,000 as close as possible.
Note that with a base shadowy of 220, Leviathan Frames can also be obtained from Heart's Game.

Sufficient Archaeopteryx

On a bird week:

• Mammoth Ribcage
• Sabre-toothed Skull
• 2 x Ivory Femur
• 2 x Albatross Wing
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

If the Monstrous Anatomy 7 check to add the Ivory Femurs is passed, this produces a skeleton with 0 Implausibility (important because, as a real palaeontologist, the Carpenter's Granddaughter is more perceptive than most buyers) and a value of 30,800 including zoological mania. Exceptionally Shadowy characters may substitute a Bright Brass Skull for the Sabre-toothed, swap in one Wing of a Young Terror Bird for one Albatross Wing, and add a Jet Black Stinger, for a value of 30,030 including mania, with a 200 Shadowy check; Ambition: Bag a Legend! players may use a Vake skull instead, for 0 Implausibility with the same value.

Triple-Headed Terror Bird

On a bird week:

• Skeleton with Seven Necks
• 3 x Sabre-toothed Skull
• 4 x Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory
• Wing of a Young Terror Bird
• Albatross Wing
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

This produces a skeleton with 0 Implausibility and a value of 30,250 pennies including zoological mania, just sufficient for a Leviathan Frame trade.

Opulent Saurian

• Zoomania: Reptile
• Thorned Ribcage: If the Counterfeit Head is used, use the Mammoth Ribcage instead.
• Sabre-toothed Skull: If the Mammoth Ribcage is used, use the Counterfeit Head instead.
• 3 x Ivory Femurs
• Unidentified Thigh Bone
• Withered Tentacle
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Reptile

This should give you a tidy sum of 30085, inclusive of the bonus from Zoological Mania.

Treasure Toad

• Zoomania: Amphibian

Like the above, but for when the mania is for Amphibians. Use the same skulls and ribcage, and the same number of Ivory Femurs, then continue with the following:

• Femur of a Jurassic Beast or Helical Thighbone: This pushes the value just above the threshold that is needed to get the bonus that would put the sum at just over 30000; 30030 to be exact.
• Decide your (Skeleton Type) needs no tail
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Amphibian

Sensational Scarab

• Zoomania: Insect
• Flourishing Ribcage
• Plated Skull
• Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory: This is unavoidable, since the Ribcage has two cranial joints.
• 3 x Ivory Femurs
• 2 x Holy Relic of the Thigh of Saint Fiacre
• Unidentified Thigh Bone
• Decide your (Skeleton Type) needs no tail
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Insect

Teutonic Terror

• Zoomania: Bird

Use to consume excess flourishing rib-cages, such as from Jericho Locks.

• Flourishing Ribcage
• 2 x Sabre-toothed Skulls
• 2 x Bat Wings
• 2 x Ivory Femurs
• 2 x Withered Tentacles
• Jet Black Stinger
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

Fragment Farming

Incomplete Skeleton

This deliberately-incomplete skeleton is meant to convert Echoes into Bone Fragments by intentionally failing the Dangerous check during disassembly. Additional parts are optional and Implausibility is not a concern since we're not selling. The base skeleton, the only part that can't be bought directly, is not consumed upon disassembly, so you can always do this so long as you have the Echoes to afford skulls.

• Ribcage with a Bouquet of Eight Spines (or Skeleton with Seven Necks if you lack access to Helicon House)
• 7-8 x Bright Brass Skull

You can ensure failure on the dissassembly check by having only a Weasel of Woe equipped. The mere presence of this wretched little creature is enough to reduce overcapped Dangerous to negative double digits. You'll also want it equipped for the Mithridacy checks to add the Brass Skulls. Each failure reduces the skull's value by 2.50 but saves you 2 worth of Nevercold Brass.

If you cannot afford the Woesel, you can approximate its effect with a Talkative Rattus Faber and other Dangerous-reducing gear. Success on the check can actually be useful, once: it will gain you Whispered Hints instead of bone fragments, which should be sold to the Bazaar, so you can buy the Woesel, so you don't accidentally succeed again.

In this way, you can gain up to 48000 x Bone Fragments in 10 actions at the cost of 500 . If your normal EPA is 6, you can gain ${\frac {48000}{10+500/6}}=514.3$ Fragments per action.

Seven Heads Bird

• Build on the Skeleton with Seven Necks
  • (estimation) gain 4 x Unprovenanced Artefact in 2 actions
  • (estimation) gain 8 x Volume of Collated Research in 4.8 actions
  • The Seal of St Joshua required
  • Compel the Ghillie to extend your visit*2, Enter the woods, Keep to the fringes, Lay a trail, Wander the woods*2, Track down the Capercaillie and Report a sighting of Grouse. 9 actions in all, see Moonlit Woods (Guide).
  • Actions are 16.8.
• Affix a Bright Brass Skull to your (Skeleton Type)*7
  • Nevercold Brass Sliver sourcing from Seek out spy-holes
  • Actions are $7+7*200/380=10.68$
• Add the Wing of a Young Terror Bird to your (Skeleton Type)*2
  • Other wings are fine.
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird
• Sell a complete skeleton to the Bone Hoarder on a bird week and use 1 Hastily Scrawled Warning Note each time
  • (estimation) gain 1 x Hastily Scrawled Warning Note in 0.25 actions.
  • (estimation) Actions are 2.5.

In this way, you can gain 57680 x Bone Fragments. If your normal EPA is 6, actions are $16.8+10.68+2+1+2.5+{\frac {62.5*7-2.5-5}{6}}=104.6$, which means you can gain $57680/104.6=551.2$ Fragments per action.

Warm Amber Farming

Similar to Seven Heads Bird.

• Build on the Skeleton with Seven Necks
  • Actions are 16.8
• Affix a Bright Brass Skull to your (Skeleton Type)*2
  • Actions are $2+2*200/380=3.05$
• Affix a Sabre-toothed Skull to your (Skeleton Type)*5
  • Sourcing from Buy a Sabre-toothed Skull off him
  • Actions are 10
• Add the Wing of a Young Terror Bird to your (Skeleton Type)
• Put an Albatross Wing on your (Skeleton Type)
  • Sourcing from Duplicate the wings of a Focused Albatross
  • (estimation) Actions are $(2000/550+2.5/5+1)/2+1=3.57$
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird
• Sell your skeleton to a Zailor on a bird and Antiquity week

In this way, you can gain 5745 x Nodule of Warm Amber. If your normal EPA is 6, actions are $16.8+3.05+10+1+3.57+2+{\frac {120.51*0.508*5+62.5*2-2.5*2-2-3.5*6*5*0.508}{6}}=98.21$, which means you can gain $5745/98.21=58.5$ Warm Amber per action.

Recipes with historical value

Spider-Pope

This guide is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

What needs work: Reevaluate the sell value and overall usefulness of this recipe to account for the recent relic nerf.

• Spider

Their Holiness has retired owing to the perfidious treachery of values rendering their occupation of the Holy Zee unprofitable. AKA Their Wooliness, Unbiscuit of Balmoral, Leader of the Counter-Crunch, Successor of the Holy Mammoth, Protector of Bones, Spider-Pope. This recipe was meant for maximising the value of Holy Relic of the Thigh of Saint Fiacre. It uses Segmented Ribcage, currently only available from WHITSUN and Port Cecil, which formerly gave 8 Skeleton: Support for a Counter-church Theology per leg. It was sold to the Bohemian Sculptress during spider week.

• 3 x Segmented Ribcage
• 400 x Nevercold Brass Sliver
• 8 x Holy Relic of the Thigh of Saint Fiacre
• Optional: 1 x Withered Tentacle or other valuable tails that do not increase Skeleton: Antiquity

1. Start with a segmented ribcage
2. Use another segment as its skull.
3. Add another segment as a tail.
4. Add 8 saint legs. A high Mithridacy is an advantage.
5. Add a tail that gives value but not Antiquity or Decide your (Skeleton Type) needs no tail
6. Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Spider

A high Mithridacy will help both reducing Skeleton: Self-Evident Implausibility as well as increasing Skeleton: Support for a Counter-church Theology. You will end up at between 16 and 24 Support as well as 0-16 Implausibility. An estimate at Mithridacy 10 give 20 support and 8 implausibility, giving a Shadowy 400 challenge on the sale. ~2.5 Support and 14.37 skeleton value (incl. Zoomania) equals 8.046 value per relic. The resulting rumours can be spent on Prismatic Frames for further skeletons.

Primordial Ape

Wiki note: As of 11 August 2022 Fossil Apes are no longer a viable grind, due to a increase in Fossilised Forelimb cost

This recipe requires Monstrous Anatomy 15 to guarantee success on all checks, but for those who can attain that level it is was a quick and comparatively simple way to generate a chunk of Hinterland Scrip without accruing Bone Market Exhaustion. It produces a skeleton with 9 x Antiquity and 2 x Menace, for which An Author of Gothic Tales will pay 18 secondary rewards ( Carved Balls of Stygian Ivory), just below the Exhaustion threshold. When Bone Market Fluctuations is Antiquity, the payout increases to 22 without generating additional Exhaustion.

Four Fossilised Forelimbs can be purchased from Anning and Daughters in The Upper River Exchange for 220 340 Scrip. Because the Author pays out in Scrip, that investment will be recouped immediately, along with a profit of 55 Scrip results in a net loss of 65 Scrip. Stygian Ivory will also sell to the Upper River Exchange for 5 Scrip apiece, if you are so inclined. Rinse and repeat!

• Human Ribcage
• Horned Skull
• 4 x Fossilised Forelimb
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Ape

The Frog of Faith and the Reverent Reptile

This skeleton has been superseded by the arrival of Segmented Ribcages

You make this skeleton to sell to the Bohemian Sculptress. Keep in mind that the skeleton must not have any Antiquity.

• Thorned Ribcage: This is the default choice of ribcage. The others give the Antiquity quality, do not qualify or is otherwise just too much hassle to deal with.
  • Mammoth Ribcage can be more rewarding, but you have to do a relatively long lab experiment or use the Balmoral woods to get it.
• Copy John's skull
• 4 x Holy Thigh Bones: If you are using the Mammoth Ribcage, you get more rewards, but the Mithridacy rolls will be tougher - and you still have to remove the Antiquity.
• Add a tail and declare it a Reptile, or don't and declare it an Amphibian. Both ribcages have a tail socket that you need to deal with anyway.

Such a calcified congregation would bless you with at least 5 Counter-church Theology points, more if you use the other ribcage. This should net you a lot of Rumours of the Upper River. And flowers, of course.

Beatific Bird

If you still insist on using skeletons to get the Rumours, but you don't want to risk failed Mithridacy rolls or go through the tedium of getting the holy thigh bones, then use this build:

• Skeleton with Seven Necks
• Copy John's skull, 7 times: If you don't have high Artisan of the Red Science, expect Nightmare build-ups. Failure is just an inconvenience though; it won't set your skeleton back.
• Any two wings (at this time of writing)
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Bird

Ancient Asymmetric Alliterative Arachnid

Wiki note: In case spiders ever get good

Use this when antique spiders are in vogue. Your targets are 9 x Antiquity and 4 x Amalgamy, which can be tricky to pull off due to the number of legs this skeleton will have. You'll want to Sell to a Zailor with Particular Interests to get the most out of your qualities.

• Mammoth Ribcage
• Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory: Since spiders aren't supposed to have skulls, this is the only option. Fortunately you only need to pass the Mithridacy check once, unlike multi-necked skeletons.
• Add four more joints to your skeleton
• Femur of a Jurassic Beast x7
• Helical Thighbone x1: Any more than one will exceed our Amalgamy limit.
  • Note: If you want an exhaustion-free version of this skeleton with only 2 Skeleton: Amalgamy, replace this with an Unidentified Thigh Bone or another Femur of a Jurassic Beast and apply a Withered Tentacle as a tail to negate the extra Skeleton: Antiquity.
• Plaster Tail Bones (Optional)
• Declare your (Skeleton Type) a completed Spider