F.F. Gebrandt's Prelapsarian Exhibition (historical)

F.F. Gebrandt CORDIALLY INVITES All Londoners to participate in the Raising of a New Museum of Prelapsarian History & accompanying Exhibition, to put on Display Curiosities Historical, Palaeontological, & Philosophical.

The Prelapsarian Exhibition was a one-off, experimental festival in Fallen London. Beginning on the 25th of July 1899 (2022), it had analogous mechanics to Mr Chimes' Grand Clearing-Out - the previous year's summer event - with players collaborating to raise various World Qualities. Five new items, as well as items from Elections and the Grand Clearing-Out, were available to purchase for Estival Tokens, which could be saved and spent in future summer events.

Data

Overall Progress Graph

Stage 1 Progress Graph

25 July

"who is ready to raise a musuem [sic]"

– Failbetter Games

The new items introduced for the event were:

• Verdant Hairpin
• A Rack of Carefully-Individuated Deaths
• A Hungry Little Snuffbox
• Overwrought Bathtub
• A Patron of the Pliable Arts

These could be purchased with Estival Tokens. Each player could obtain 30 free tokens at the beginning of the event, and more could be purchased for 1 FATE apiece. Unlike the Grand Clearing-Out, there was no option to turn in an unused A Free Gift for festival currency. Also unlike the Clearing-Out, it was confirmed in the announcement that Estival Tokens would remain usable in future summer events. At 12:17 UTC, an option was added to spend FATE to send tokens to other players.

The museum could be reached by a universal storylet, The Exhibition: Visit the Museum of Prelapsarian History. As a universal storylet, this was available everywhere in London - including in the museum itself. This led to a number of jokes about revolving doors and Zeno's paradox.

Initially, the work on the museum required Toil and Materials. Toil could be increased by 1-2 by various options in The Prelapsarian Exhibition: Building a Museum, and Materials by an amount scaling based off of how long the event had been going on by zailing to the Salt Lions, picking up A Hold Full of Sphinxstone and delivering it to the museum. Picking up a load of sphinxstone started a living story, preventing the player from returning for another load for 23 hours. As a result, most people only managed to deliver a single load before the Materials bar filled up.

These paid out in an amount of Curator's Gratitude scaling with the sum of the player's base stats, which could be cashed out once the museum was finished. It took about 12 minutes for people to realise that 1 Gratitude was going to be worth 1 penny, and as such the toil options were about 6 EPA. It was confirmed that there would be a unique item purchasable with gratitude.

26 July

"[banging hands on table ] TOIL TOIL TOIL TOIL"

– Bruno (FBG)

At 11:16 UTC, it was discovered that the Sphinxstone turnin had a rare success with extra text, describing a room being constructed from the sphinxstone. Based on this, people soon guessed that the extra text depended on the level of Museum Construction: Materials, and two other variants were soon uncovered. As nobody had reported any rare successes the previous day, it seemed that the earlier variant or variants had been missed.

At 14:35 UTC, Materials reached 100% completion, with a final value of 1000260. At 16:49 UTC, Toil reached 100% completion, with a final value of 1000007. At 16:51 UTC, after some cajoling from wiki admin Asarta, Bruno revealed the missing variant text.

At 17:00 UTC, the second stage began. Three different kinds of exhibits could be contributed; Optical, which took various filled mirrorcatch boxes; Osteological, which took various antique bones and skeletons; and Archaeological, which took various Relics, Rusted Stirrups and Nicatorean Relics.

It was soon realised that turning in Cosmogone-filled Mirrorcatch Boxes filled five at a time at the top of the Dome of Scales, or Peligin-filled Mirrorcatch Boxes filled in the Magistracy of the Evenlode was extremely profitable, approaching around 15.3 and 22.83 EPA respectively with sufficiently large numbers of mirrorcatch boxes. Also profitable was trading an Oneiric Pearl for a Peligin box, which had the added advantage of providing an extra empty box with which to pursue the other strategies.

At 17:22 UTC, Bruno revealed that the unique item would only require 20,000 Gratitude to obtain, quelling speculation that it would cost a vast amount.

At 18:20 UTC, Failbetter's Twitter account released a never-before-seen piece of Neathbow art (which may be seen at the top of this section) to celebrate the start of the second stage.

Throughtout the evening, in response to numerous complaints that the Osteological and Archaeological options were nowhere near as profitable as the Optical options - and indeed, were scarcely worthwhile compared to normal in-game activities - Bruno carried out a number of bugfixes and adjustments.

• At 17:35 UTC, he corrected the Gratitude payout for supplying a Leviathan Frame
• At 18:13 UTC he increased the payout of relic deliveries by "80% [...] or so" for non- PoSI
• At 18:43 he provided a smaller bonus to relic deliveries for PoSI without Moulin access
• At 20:01 he adjusted the turn-in option for complete skeletons to give a scaling reward for Skeleton: Antiquity, in the vein of the Investment-Minded Ambassador, as well as giving (and being locked by) Bone Market Exhaustion

27 July

kids these days are "pinging" when they could be "donating relics"

– suriname0

Early on in the day, work on producing graphs for this page uncovered unusual jumps in the progress of the Osteological and Archaeological tracks at each hour were noted. After checking that the scripts were working correctly, and by manually observing the values in-game, it was concluded that Failbetter were manipulating the progress numbers, and that about three quarters of the progress on the Archaeological and Osteological tracks were from this manipulation. When revealed, this led to a great deal of arguing in the FBG Discord, and a few feedback emails, as people assumed that FBG were trying to keep the event to some kind of schedule and felt that the collaborative nature of the event was being undermined.

At 8:13 UTC, Bruno explained that this was an intentional balancing mechanism - that progress on one track gave some bonus progress on the other two, and that if the players simply stopped contributing the bonus progress would also diminish to nothing. At 8:30 UTC, he uptuned the rewards for Archaeology for non- Moulin players again, and at 8:35 UTC revealed that one of the cash-in options for Gratitude would be sellable for Hinterland Scrip. The pre- Moulin boost made buying Relic of the Second City from the Bazaar and donating them into a profitable activity, reaching around 7.5 EPA for those with high base stats.

At 9:00 UTC, it was revealed that Gratitude would also be the reward quality for the museum wheel when the event was over, rather than just being a one-time thing.

At 10:05 UTC, Optics reached 100% completion, with a final value of 10000182. At 10:18, Bruno informed the Discord that he would lock the option for picking up Sphinxstone "the phase after the next one", implying the existence of a heretofore-unknown fourth stage.

At 16:26 UTC, it once again become possible to sell skeletons to the museum even with 4 Bone Market Exhaustion, albeit with a linearly scaling bonus payout rather than the usual quadratic scaling. Soon after, at 17:53 UTC, Osteology reached 100% completion, with a final value of 10000003.

At 20:50 UTC, Archaeology reached 100% completion, with a final value of 10000083. As a result, stage 3 began at 21:00 UTC. The Museum had its grand opening, with His Amused Lordship supplying the wine from his cancelled New Year's party. Participating in the Opening Revels allowed players to build up a new progress quality, Revelling..., which could be cashed in for a week-long Shadowy and Persuasive Mood, the Lingering Contentment, as well as a Nightmares wipe and an indication that the fourth stage would begin 23 hours after the third, at 20:00 UTC on the 28th, and would involve the Shuttered Palace.

With the museum complete, it became possible to cash in Curator's Gratitude, both for the event exclusive A Bronze Plaque Dedicated to Your Good Self and Sample of Lacreous Affection - the latter of which had only previously been available as a one-off reward at the end of the Grand Clearing-Out - as well as the normal payouts of the now-unlocked bone identification and artifact-donation activities in the museum, which remained available after the event. Most notable among the permanently available rewards was the F.F. Gebrandt's Patent Illuminating Cap, available for the first time since the Grand Clearing-Out, and the F.F. Gebrandt's Patent Neathoscope, Containing and Displaying All Seven Colours of Exotic Light.

Other opportunities became available, both in the museum itself - with players able to poison themselves or expose themselves to dangerous Neathbow colours - and in the Flit, where an option to carry out a heist of the museum appeared. This heist paid out in either various relics or bones, including Obsidian Chitin Tails, making this the first non-seasonal source of said tails.

28 July

"the best thing about this year's event is it obliterates all guesses about next year's event"

– Hannah

At 10:16 UTC, a bug was fixed with the bone identification activity, making identifying Fossilised Forelimbs more profitable. At 11:00 UTC, an option was added to empty filled mirrorcatch boxes, to make them more convenient to work with.

At 20:00 UTC, it became possible to encounter the Traitor Empress at the museum, where she was visiting the machine built of all the Sphinxstone in an attempt to bring back the Consort in full. An apparition of the Consort appeared in great distress, and in her attempts to soothe him the Empress forbade Gebrandt from deactivating the machine. As a result, the machine broke, having some nauseating effects on Time and Space and conjuring up Second City buildings across London, interspersed between existing buildings in gaps that had not existed until that moment. On investigating these buildings, players find eerie, oddly proportioned ushabtiu whose heads turn to follow them. Players could either leave the house undisturbed or steal some smaller relics in passing.

Outside the house, players could choose whether or not they wanted to purchase one of the ushatbiu, with game instructions informing them that the choice had to be made to move on to the next step of the story; that buying the ushabti would later give a unique item; and saying, rather ominously, buyer beware.

As of 21:07 UTC, 94% of players who had made the choice bought the ushabti.

On making the choice, players were informed that the next stage would begin at 10:00 UTC the next day.

29 July

"Easter Egg scavenger hunt but you're also hunted by the Easter eggs, and the eggs contain dead bodies of Second City residents."

– hops (aka Malachi Cinder)

At 10:00 UTC, the ushabtiu became a problem. They rearranged possessions, attacked random people, became a Burden to anyone had bought them (only the second time the Burden slot had ever been used) and generally made a nuisance of themselves through various black-bordered cards. As a result, the players (along with a number of other Londoners) descended on the museum to demand an explanation from Gebrandt. Alas, Gebrandt also had no idea what was going on, and so the players had to go hunting for Clues. Instructions told players that there were 18 clues in total, and that in order to progress to the next stage they would have to go out, find the clues and bring them back to Gebrandt, contributing to the Progress in an Investigation World Quality.

Once one person had found a given clue, a cryptic hint would become visible, telling others where to find it; once a sufficiently large number of players had found and turned in a clue, the cryptic hint became a clear and straighforward description of where the Clue was. There were two exceptions to this; one hint remained "(This hint will never appear.)", and another "(This hint will never appear. It is uncertain if anyone will find this clue at all. If you did – good job!)" throughout the investigation.

Instructions also revealed that turning in three Clues would give a special reward, turning in ten clues would give a vanity quality, and that it would remain possible to gather and turn in clues until the end of the festival, which would be the 5th of August at the earliest.

A Google Doc was created for people to list the various places they had tried, and where Clues had been located.

Also at the museum was the opportunity to gain a Lingering Excitation, another new week-long mood.

The clues, hints and people who first reported them were:

• By purchasing an ushabti of your very own - Clue: Ushabti Malice, obtained (by those who purchased an ushabti) en route to the museum to confront Gebrandt.

• In a hard-to-reach place, invisible to most players. - Clue: Ushabti Purpose at the conclusion of the A Second City Vengeance campaign in Parabola, to those with a particular ending of The Attendants FATE story. First reported to the FBG Discord by ProfessorLizzard, at 11:07 UTC.

• At a meeting with an intoxicating old friend. - Clue: Dimensional Toxicology, available in Jericho Locks to those with a particular ending of The Swan Bride FATE story. First reported to the FBG Discord by mouseyMoment, at 10:15 UTC.

• At an exclusive place in London. - Clue: Emergence of Feral Crocodilians, on the card An Evening at Sophia's. First reported to the FBG Discord by Finn', at 10:19 UTC.

• Under a cat lovers' gaze. - Clue: Apocryphal Egyptology in the Duchess' salon. First reported by Carol J. (IGN: Ragged Martha) at 10:06 UTC.

• Somewhere nostalgic, though not all players can find this. - Clue: The Mother Superior, available in the The Waswood to those who had completed Ambition: Bag a Legend!. First reported by The Fierce Greybeard at 10:09 UTC.

• Far away from London. - Clue: The Tomb-Colonies, on the card Remnants in Disgraced exile in the Tomb-Colonies. First reported by 🃏Mr. Cards🃏 (aka Sans Cipher) at 12:32 UTC.

• About as far away as you can get. Clue: Khaganian Historiography of the Second City - in The Imperial Colleges in Khan's Heart. First reported by Amy Griswold at 11:23 UTC.

• Somewhere loud. - Clue: Stone Desire on the card TRANSFIGURE, in The Maze-Garden in Polythreme. First reported by AnturK at 11:04 UTC

• Dug up from the muck. Clue: Moulin - on the card A Lesser Find, when on a Moulin expedition to The Deep Layer. First reported by rjb at 12:32 UTC.

• At a popular London destination. - Clue: The Carnival, in The Sideshows. First reported by mouseyMoment at 10:07 UTC.

• By sinking - Clue: The Fathomking, in In the Court of the Fathomking. First reported by Yeet at 11:41 UTC.

• In a bright place, in uneasy sleep. - Clue: Zee-Dreams, on the cards for Having Recurring Dreams: I Shot the Albatross. First reported by an unknown Discord member before 11:11 UTC.

• By doing your civic duty. - Clue: Ushabti Contents, by hunting and killing an ushabti in The Department of Menace Eradication. First reported by beo [unclevinny] at 10:10 UTC.

• In a desolate place. - Clue: All Living Things, available on Abbey Rock to those who had completed Ambition: Bag a Legend!. First reported by Yeet (maybe, really not sure for this one) at 10:39 UTC.

• By doing your own research. - Clue: Internal Structure of a Limestone Specimen, gained by hunting and capturing an ushabti in The Department of Menace Eradication, then dissecting it in your Laboratory. First reported by Carol J. (aka Ragged Martha) at 10:16 UTC.

• (This hint will never appear.) - available in within the deeper areas of the Adulterine Castle. First reported by Docteur (aka The Viric Voice) at 10:10 UTC.

• (This hint will never appear. It is uncertain if anyone will find this clue at all. If you did – good job!) - Clue: Movements of Limestone Men, found on the card Bat's-Eye View in The Mind of a Long-Dead God. First reported at 14:28 UTC, by Bondrewd did nothing wrong.

At 15:05 UTC, an option was added to The Mind of a Long-Dead God to allow those with the clue to leave more easily. At 15:12 UTC, it was revealed that the Clue qualities themselves would be wiped in 'the last step in the story', and that Investigating the Affair of the Ushabtiu couldn't go higher than ten, so there were no vanity-quality reasons to find more than 10 Clues. At 15:41, it was confirmed that there would be two more equippable items revealed over the course of the event; later (at 16:23), Bruno realised he'd forgotten about one and corrected this number to three, including the rewards for turning in three Clues and buying an ushabti.

At 15:51, Bruno sent some of the earliest players to seek the Mind Clue some Darkdrop Coffee, as a 'reward for their bravery'. At 16:06, it was explained that most of the Progress in an Investigation was being 'held back' until Monday, both to give players more time to find Clues and (presumably) to avoid having the developers working on the weekend.

30 July

"O hey y'all found the crocs"

- LukeFBG

A new zee-beast hunt for the newly-emerged Second City feral crocodiles was discovered, unlocked by enough people turning in the Sophia's clue.

At 15:29 UTC, Clue: Ushabti Purpose became the final clue to have the 'straightforward' version of its hint become visible.

31 July

"Like I can imagine while the FL PCs are off killing themselves at Zee and staring into the Wax Wind, classes in the Department of Pseudoethics at Benthic are having a field day with impromptu class discussions over the nature of the ushabtiu and whether it’s ethical to hunt them or not"

- Hespiderean Cheesemonger

Very little of note happened in-game, although the Discord played host to discussion of the ethics of hunting ushabtiu, and then a series of jokes about cooking and eating the contents of an ushabti.

1 August

the highest praise you can give my work is "this makes me scream and cry and throw up"

– Bruno

At 00:01 UTC, Progress in an Investigation reached 50% completion. At 8:49, it was confirmed that Clues could be obtained and turned in until you played the branches that progressed to the next stage of the story, which would be available from when Progress in an Investigation reached 100% until the end of the event.

At 10:01 UTC, 72 hours after the beginning of the stage, Progress in an Investigation received its first 'bump' of held-back progress, going from 53.4% to 62.5%. At 11:01, it jumped from 62.8% to 72.8%. At 14:00 UTC, the fifth bump pushed the progress to 100%, opening the next stage.

Players could progress to this stage by attending a demonstration from Gebrandt, where whe showed that a suitable perfume could lure nearby ushabtiu through a mirror and into Parabola, and then requested help manufacturing vast amounts of the perfume. Players could either assist her assistants or gather up to five shipments of the necessary ingredients. Instructions explained that helping the assistants or delivering a shipment would unlock a unique item later, and that making further deliveries would increase a vanity quality. There were five different ingredients that could be delivered:

• Sample of Delicately Distilled Grief, obtained from An Empress' Grief in The Shuttered Palace
• Firkin of Poisonous Waters, obtained from the Sere Palace (cost Esteem of the Guild 5) in Jericho Locks
• Vial of Nile Crocodile Gall, obtained from Finish off the crocodile, and collect its gall when hunting a feral crocodile
• Mirrorcatch Box Filled with Honeyed Cosmogone, obtained from Obtain a box full of honeyed cosmogone (cost a Mirrorcatch Box and honey) atop The Dome of Scales
• Quantum of Transposed Time, obtained from Manufacture a quantum of transposed time (cost a Searing Enigma, required a Betrayer of Measures) in Reflection of your Laboratory

The ingredients had warnings that they would disappear after a week and thus couldn't be hoarded.

Each ingredient delivery gave 500 Gratitude, and all but the first needed 5 in a relevant advanced skill (aka MAGCATSZD); as such, there were numerous complaints about the wildly differing costs and requirements of the ingredients, with the Grief costing a single action (and possibly some menaces) and the Firkin, Box and Quantum costing the equivalent of 62.5 .

Each ingredient delivery or assistant-helping increased the Perfumer's Progress World Quality; once this reached 1000000 and The Final Distillation reached 24 (i.e. 24 hours after the stage opened, 13:00 UTC the next day), the next stage would be unlocked. Perfumer's Progress reached 100% completion at 16:19 UTC.

2 August

"I would usually post a gif of some sort here, demonstrating the frequency and intensity of the vibration I am currently exhibiting, but those are FORBIDDEN, so I would request instead for you all to instead IMAGINE such an image."

– Neonir (Lord Gregory)

At 13:00 UTC, The Final Distillation reached 24 and the next stage was unlocked; by this time, Perfumer's Progress had reached 393.5% of the target value.

Gebrandt switched on her perfume machine, and the ushabtiu entered Parabola. Afterwards, the player could walk through the rainfall triggered by the perfume clouds and consider how they felt about what had taken place, receiving a Vestige of a Starlit Reverie - the first time this item had been available since the Clearing-Out.

Afterwards, the three remaining event-exclusive items became available; two ( An Initiate into the Perfumer's Arts, a Kataleptic Toxicology Affiliation and the reward for helping with the perfume; and Your Name in F.F. Gebrandt's Address Book, a A Player of Chess Affiliation and the reward for turning in at least three clues) available from Gebrandt in the museum, and the third ( A Stalking Stone Shadow Beyond the Glass, a Mithridacy affiliation and the reward for buying an ushabti) in Parabola, at the conclusion of a newly available hunt.

5 August

At 13:00 UTC, the event came to a close an hour earlier than expected, unlocking the epilogue card An Unexpected Gift. By this point, Progress in an Investigation reached 9681928, 968.1% of its target value; and Perfumer's Progress reached 6274200, 627.4% of its target.

At 13:31, the event was reopened due to its early closing, with a new end time of 15:00 UTC. When the event re-ended, Progress in an Investigation had reached 9862594 (986.3%) and Perfumer's Progress had reached 6285200 (628.5%).

References