Oneiropomp (Guide)

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

What needs work: New dreamer: the Captivating Princess, might affect EPA

Early Parabola Content

Oneiropomp Summary

Variable-Length Activity

Setup

1 A

Progress

1+ A

End

1 A

Progress Details

Raise Intensity of the Dream and Duration of a Dream to desired values.

Items Inputs/Outputs

Inputs

• Oneiromantic Revelation
• Antique Mystery
• The Long-Dead Priests of the Red Bird
• A Bright Brass Button
• A Venomous Caricaturist
• Cloud-filled Sphere
• A Palatial Holiday Home in the Arctic Circle

Boosting

• The Marvellous
• Sighting of a Parabolan Landmark
• Slim Volume of Bazaarine Poetry
• Mirthless Compendium of Statistical Observations
• Memory of a Much Lesser Self
• Expertise of the First City
• Justificande Coin

Outputs

• Palimpsest Scrap
• Vision of the Surface
• Comprehensive Bribe
• Sworn Statement
• Intriguing Snippet
• An Identity Uncovered!
• Venom-Ruby
• Nodule of Trembling Amber
• Unearthly Fossil
• Nodule of Warm Amber
• Verse of Counter-Creed
• Apostate's Psalm
• Palimpsest Scrap
• Memory of Light
• Inspired...
• Uncanny Incunabulum
• Extraordinary Implication
• Appalling Secret
• Hinterland Scrip
• Elemental Secret
• Viric-filled Mirrorcatch Box

Raw EPA

1.30

Raw SPA

2.00

Oneiropomping is an activity in The Viric Jungle. In order to get there you must first gain access to the Parabolan Base-Camp and unlock the route from there. This either requires you to pass a Glasswork check or to spend Shared a Phantasie of the Bazaar while hunting in Parabola. See Parabola (Guide) for more information on this.

Qualities

There are two progress qualities in this activity.

• Intensity of the Dream
• Duration of a Dream

Duration of a Dream is gained from every single action spent when dreaming, while Intensity of the Dream is only gained when passing a Persuasive check, or when spending items for progress.

Your main reward will be proportional to your Intensity of the Dream, where each level equals 2.00 worth of items. In addition, you will usually get Sighting of a Parabolan Landmark proportional to your Duration of a Dream, making it worth 1.50 per level. A handful of dreams give additional Intensity proportional to Duration, making the latter worth up to 2.00 per level.

Dream subjects

Requirement	Option
	The Bohemian Sculptress
Acquaintance: the Captivating Princess	The Captivating Princess
Oneiropomp 5	The Honey-Addled Detective
Oneiropomp 10, Embroiled in the Wars of Illusion 10	Madame Petrovsky

Gaining intensity

When gaining Intensity, there are several options. Some will depend on your dreamer. Either you can do a Persuasive, Watchful, or Glasswork challenge with no item cost, which will get harder the higher your intensity is, or you may exchange items for more intensity than otherwise. When gaining intensity, Parabola will become strained, and in order to continue you either have to succeed at a risky Persuasive challenge that might reduce your dream's intensity, or use an action to let Parabola recover.

All options give 1 x Duration unless otherwise specified.

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

What needs work: Needs confirmation that spending items besides Sightings and Poetry gives only 1 x Duration.

Rewards

Once you have at least 1 Intensity, you can cash out. Your final reward will be Sightings equal to 15 x Duration, as well as dream-specific rewards scaling with Intensity. Each point of Intensity is worth roughly 2 , but the exact Echo value of the payout can vary. In addition, some dreams give bonus Intensity up to 1/4 of Duration, depending on your bonus to an Advanced Skill. These cases will be marked with footnotes in the tables below.

Several of the dreams have three different rewards, and pay out using the Modulo Method. You will receive the highest tier of reward up to the Echo value of your Intensity, then the remaining value will be paid out in the second tier, and any further remainder paid out in the third tier. All modular rewards require Parabola to be Relaxed to access.

Non-modular Rewards

Option	Requirement	Challenge	Rewards	Parabolan state
Any Dreamer, Ambition-Specific
Hand over this dream as an offering	The Long-Dead Priests of the Red Bird	Glasswork 2	Palimpsest Scrap (0.5 e)	Strained
Let this vista influence the dreamers of the Royal Beth	A Bright Brass Button	Glasswork 2	Vision of the Surface (0.5 e)	Strained
The Bohemian Sculptress
a patroness of Freedom	A Palatial Holiday Home in the Arctic Circle	Glasswork 5	Memory of Light (0.5 e)	Relaxed
Take your own inspiration from this dream		Persuasive 100	Inspired... = 9.5 x	Strained
The Detective
Learn from the Detective's investigation		Watchful 100	Investigating... = 20 x	Strained
Madame Petrovsky
Let her take her visions home and peddle them to her followers		Persuasive 100	Hinterland Scrip	Relaxed
Comprehend something elemental	4 x Oneiromantic Revelation 3 x Antique Mystery Intensity 5 Duration 10	Watchful 200	Elemental Secret	Strained
The Captivating Princess
Stare into the glow that is the Princess	3 x Direful Reflection Intensity 5 Duration 10	Persuasive 320	Searing Enigma	Strained

Viric-Filled Mirrorcatch Box

In addition, if you have an empty Mirrorcatch Box, at least 3 Intensity, and Parabola is Strained, you can trade 1 Intensity in order to Fill an empty Mirrorcatch box with Viric. Doing so will not end the current dream.

Reward Amounts

The following table and graph show how much of each reward to expect for a given level of Intensity. They can be used to figure out how much Intensity is needed to get a given number of the 12.5 rewards. The number of Secondary and Tertiary rewards received will repeat every 25 Intensity, so you get the same number with N x Intensity and (N+25) x Intensity.

Intensity	Reward 1	Reward 2	Reward 3
1	0	0	20
2	0	1	15
3	0	2	10
4	0	3	5
5	0	4	0
6	0	4	20
7	1	0	15
8	1	1	10
9	1	2	5
10	1	3	0
11	1	3	20
12	1	4	15
13	2	0	10
14	2	1	5
15	2	2	0
16	2	2	20
17	2	3	15
18	2	4	10
19	3	0	5
20	3	1	0
21	3	1	20
...	...	...	...

Reward Distribution Graph
Editable version available at https://www.desmos.com/calculator/yaukffoeuj

Sourcing Material

There is a big difference to the difficulty in sourcing the items spent on progress. In addition, one 2.5 item is typically exchanged for 2 worth of Intensity, giving this a slight loss. The items that can be spent to speed up your dream session are as follows:

• Sighting of a Parabolan Landmark

These are gained from dreaming, especially dreams of long Duration. Consider spending actions to fuel some dreams (preferably ones that gain bonus Intensity based on duration) and spending the resulting landmarks on faster dreams with no bonus payout.

• Slim Volume of Bazaarine Poetry

These can be grinded in bulk by selling ironic monographs in Moulin or by selling amalgamous skeletons to the A Colourful Phantasist when she comes around.

• Mirthless Compendium of Statistical Observations

Can only be made in your University Laboratory

• Memory of a Much Lesser Self

Most sources are inferior to just using the persuasive check.

• Justificande Coin

Most sources are inferior to just using the persuasive check.

Strategy

It takes one action to start a dream and one to end it. As your reward is proportional to Intensity and Duration, it generally makes sense to maximise these, and go for longer dreams rather than many short ones. This can be an issue when using the options that cost no items, because they will get harder with increasing intensity.

Spending supplies

When going for a reward that doesn't give a bonus to Intensity based on Duration, consider spending items to speed it up instead. You will need to get them relatively fast for it to be profitable, but this means you spend less actions in parabola and can spend them getting resources in London instead, giving you access to your deck etc. If you want as many as possible of the most valuable rewards, you would want to target 7, 13, 19 or 25 Intensity (or higher). This is usually one action for Intensity 1, before spending the items. By getting higher intensity at once, you reduce the extra actions you need to spend to convert your items to other items.

Spending Sighting of a Parabolan Landmark or Slim Volume of Bazaarine Poetry gives 1 extra Duration compared to at least some other options (needs confirmation that Mirthless Compendium of Statistical Observations only gives 1 x Duration). This can be seen as a decrease in the cost by 15 sightings. Not enough that it's efficient to spend them if you're trying to get more sightings, but they are slightly more valuable than the other items for dreaming.

Spending actions

When going for a reward that gives a bonus depending on Duration, you might as well spend more actions to improve intensity on these.

Typically you'll want to get as much as possible of the 12.5 rewards. If you're spending actions, this might mean cashing them in at 7 Intensity, as that gives easier challenges. (Or a little below that if you get bonus intensity).

There is an interesting question about whether you should let Parabola rest or whether you should do the More! Further! action. If duration is left out of the question, the different strategies are compared below:

Amount of actions needed for 1 intensity, assuming no rare successes. s = success rate

• $Resting=1+{\frac {1}{s}}$
• $Stretching={\frac {1}{2s-1}}$

The intersection between these graphs happens at $s={\frac {\sqrt {2}}{2}}\approx 0.71$, which means that if you have a success rate lower than 71%, you should always allow Parabola to relax between attempts. Rare successes will make it more useful to stretch Parabola, but the extra duration by letting Parabola rest will favour letting Parabola rest. Additionally, the Nightmares gained on failures will make it more useful to let Parabola stretch, as that will end up giving you less failures on average, To give an approximation, you should let Parabola rest if your success rate is below around 70% if focusing on intensity, and below 75% if your main goal is duration.

Using a mix

If using a mix of free actions and actions that cost supplies, make sure to do the free actions first, as their challenge will be easier that way.

Maximising Duration

Maximising duration is what you want if you're grinding Sighting of a Parabolan Landmark. There are only two cases where you get more than 1 duration - either by letting Parabola rest, or by spending Sighting of a Parabolan Landmark. Each duration is worth 15 Landmarks, which means it's inefficient to spend 125 landmarks in order to regain 30 landmarks if you're only interested in the landmarks.

For gaining maximum duration, you should therefore always let Parabola rest, but if Intensity is also useful for you, you should check the calculation under the spending actions subsection to see if you should stretch Parabola or let Parabola rest.