Editing Rumourmongers newtowrk guide



To create rare and vaulueable items such as rumourmongers network or location of hells prince you will first establish a cover identity. One with no ties will have no cost, but at the very start you can establish a cover identity with ties to: 
*The Surface
*The Bazaar
*The Disposessed

For a rumourmonger's network you want surface ties. For a reported location of a prince of hell, you do not need it tied to anyone.

Establishing an identity with ties will cost something - usually a favour, but with the right items you may have an alternative cost available, or even a free option with some ambition rewards!

2) Increase the five stats associated with a cover identity - Elaboration, Nuance, Witnesses, Credentials, and Backstory.

Elaboration is a APOC & Shadowy check.

Nuance is APOC & Bizarre

Witness is APOC & Dreaded

Credentials is APOC & Respectable

These checks get harder with each additional point of the stat you're raising - for the tier 8 items you'll need to raise them to their maximums: 10 elaboration, 6 each of Nuance, Credentials, and Witnesses

Backstory is both easier and harder to raise - there's no check involved, but it does take items, and for the tier 8 items you're going to need a lot of it, 500 to be precise.

There's a variety of items you can use, which give different amounts of backstory. I liked Mortifications of a Great Power myself.

All options though are:

Well placed pawns (25 for 2 backstory, 250 for 12)

Vienna Openings (5 for 6 backstory)

Final Breaths (50 for 11 backstory)

Moves in the great game (50 for 11 backstory)

Unusual love stories (100 for 22 backstory)

Mortification of a great power (1 for 26 backstory)

Edit - Step 3) Sell the cover identity to the appropriate party.

For the location of a prince of hell you want to sell it to devils on the 'Halfway to Hell' opprotunity card, available in the upper river.

For the rumourmongers network you want to sell it to spies on the 'The Railway and the Great Game' card, available in the upper river.

Both will give you a letter to decode - when you finish decoding it in your outer Cabinet Noir you get your tier 8 item.

If you take my advice and work with mortifications there's four major options I'm aware of.

War in Parabola. Less action efficient than most other options, but maybe you enjoy wars. You'd want the second city vengeance campaign.

Spying in Khan's heart. A bit airs dependent, but three of the different options you can recruit to your network give mortifications (A Bandaged Naval Officer, A Shapeless Aristocrat or An Idle Soldier).

If you still need to build your network I might suggest this one, as it'd serve two purposes - but being airs dependent it isn't 100% reliable.

3) Heart's game. I know a lot of people love it. I've never been fond of it - but you'll get your payout, win or loose. One mortification for every 18 actions spent in the game.

4) Diving with final breaths. 75 final breaths can be turned into a mortification at the bottom of the evenload - thus 1500 final breaths -> 20 mortifications -> all the backstory you need.

This of course leaves you with the difficulty of sourcing that many final breaths. I seem to recall building as amalgamous a bone market skeleton as I could and selling it to the Tentacled Entrepreneur, but that'd depend on if you've already exhausted the bone market or if you're willing to engage with it at all.