Department of Menace Eradication (Guide)

Early-Game Content

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

What needs work: Missing some failure/challenge info, especially on fate locked content

One of the starting storylets that a player has access to is the Department of Menace Eradication, where they can take part in helping rid London of some of the lowly pests that are not even worth the time of the great monster hunters. But hey, everyone has to start somewhere, and they'll start being a rat catcher. Several of these are required to increase your A Name Scrawled in Blood This guide only covers the contracts available in this storylet.

Quarrys

A cheat sheet for available Quarrys:

Target	Requirements			Additional	Rewards
A Worryingly Large Rat	N/A	10	15		200 x Piece of Rostygold +10 CP Dangerous OR 50 x Rat on a String 35 x Phosphorescent Scarab +12 CP Dangerous
Sorrow-Spiders	1	Uses a different mechanic and is covered in this Guide
A Miniature Menace FATE	15	20	20	3	300 x Piece of Rostygold 1 x Bottle of Morelways 1872 1 x Emergency Blunderbuss +10 CP Dangerous OR 1 x Watchful Doll 10 x Appalling Secret OR 1 x Watchful Doll 10 x Appalling Secret OR 1 x Extraordinary Implication 10 x Inkling of Identity 10 x Scrap of Incendiary Gossip 5 x Secluded Address 1 x Playing with Broken Toys (3 Max) +? CP Seeing through the Eyes of Icarus OR
A Malicious Ushabti	3	30	30	4	800 x Curator's Gratitude OR 1 x Captured Ushabti 15 x Tale of Terror!! +12 CP Dangerous

Hunting across London

The goal for each contract is to reduce Quarry: Confounded Thing is Hiding to 0 so that the player can confront the menace, usually by capturing or killing it, but for the rat, it may also involve searching its lair. If they fail this action, they will gain some more Quarry: Confounded Thing is Hiding but reduce their Quarry's Savagery.

Hunting Actions

Option	Requirement		Success	Failure
Search for traces	< 4	1x	-2-5 x  Rare: -2-5 x  +1 x	-1 x
Expose yourself as bait		1.5x	-2-10 x	-2 x
Employ the strategies of Mr Inch	30 < 4	2x	-5-7 x	+1 x  -0-1 x
Stalk silently		1x	-1 x
Lay a shining trail	70 30 x	?x	-10-16 x  -0-1 x -30 x
Approach it very casually	No	?x	-10  +1 x	+1
Lay poisoned bait	5 1 x	2x	-3  -1 x  Reset	-1 x

Trading in the Bounty

Once you have caught up with the quarry, You will have a couple options on how you wish to deal with it. These are detailed below.

A Worryingly Large Rat

Option	Dangerous	Success	Failure
Shoot it the moment you see it	1x	200 x Piece of Rostygold +10 CP Dangerous	-1 x Quarry's Savagery| +2 x Quarry: Confounded Thing is Hiding
Explore its lair thoroughly before it returns	?x	50 x Rat on a String 35 x Phosphorescent Scarab +12 CP Dangerous	-1 x Quarry's Savagery| +4 x Quarry: Confounded Thing is Hiding

A Miniature Menace

This section covers content that is FATE-locked, so per this Wiki's Content Policy, the covered content will not otherwise be included on the Wiki, and the guide may contain mechanical descriptions but not narrative content.

Option	Dangerous	Success	Failure
	?	300 x Piece of Rostygold 1 x Bottle of Morelways 1872 1 x Emergency Blunderbuss +10 CP Dangerous	-? x Quarry's Savagery| +? x Quarry: Confounded Thing is Hiding
	?	Further Choices, see below.	-? x Quarry's Savagery| +? x Quarry: Confounded Thing is Hiding

If the second choice is taken there is one more choice to make:

Option	Challenge	Success	Failure
	?	1 x Watchful Doll 10 x Appalling Secret	?
	?	1 x Extraordinary Implication 10 x Inkling of Identity 10 x Scrap of Incendiary Gossip 5 x Secluded Address	?
	N/A	300 x Piece of Rostygold 1 x Bottle of Morelways 1872 1 x Emergency Blunderbuss +10 CP Dangerous	N/A
	N/A	+? CP Magnanimous (Max 10)	N/A

A Malicious Ushabti

Option	Dangerous	Success	Failure
Shoot it the moment you see it	2x + 5	800 x Curator's Gratitude	-4 x Quarry's Savagery +5 x Quarry: Confounded Thing is Hiding
Capture it alive!	120	1 x Captured Ushabti 15 x Tale of Terror!! +12 CP Dangerous	-4 x Quarry's Savagery +5 x Quarry: Confounded Thing is Hiding

Strategy

Early Game

If possible, one should start with Approach it very casually, and then if the chance to succeed on Expose yourself as bait is at least 50%, then repeatedly take this option. This is the quickest way to defeat the quarry. This result in capturing the rat in a minimum of 5 actions.

Grinding Gratitude

Later on, a player may wish to return to the department in order to grind Curators gratitude. Without having any Moonlight Scales this will take an average of 8 actions, for 100 Curator's Gratitude/action. If a player is willing to spend Moonlight Scales, the optimum strategy is to Lay a shining trail twice and then Expose yourself as bait for an average of 6 actions for 133 Curator's Gratitude/action. This is likely not an optimal grind once you have access to Moonlight Scales, however, because by then, the player should have an easy access to a source of Femur of a Jurassic Beast for the better curator grind. See The Prelapsarian Museum (Guide)