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Mood wheel assassinations can usually be avoided by talking to Korundi, who pulls your mood to Cautious if there’s a lot of danger. I think I’ve only had one time where she didn’t bail me out when I was surrounded on the mood wheel: She warned me not to go anywhere I could be cornered while I was Secretive, and was facing death on both Negative and Determined. I’ve never faced a death check on Social or Compliant, so my early golden sneko runs left me oblivious to late stage assassination attempts while I was maxing out my social skills.

I’ve still never pressed the blackmail button. Maybe that helps.

You learn a lot if you make the most of your presents. One exception seems to be the Uuzgha’s snow globe, where setting up a display gave me an end where they rebuked all diplomatic advances, compared to being polite but avoiding deeper cultural exchange if I did nothing but let it sit in the vault.

You can poach Lukomir’s Kedrow colleagues if you’re very fast about completing their personal quests (only a few skill checks seem actually relevant for Zolok’s infiltration, and blast fishing is hilarious in Milan’s), and Milan will take a cabinet position if offered. It’s a lot of work in the crucial early turns, though.

I think in most runs I wrote off all “pureblood” Myrkkans except Mirelle (who is very kind), Krovos (who is kind of nuts and has a lot of enemies, but his personal quest just seems too important. I tried taking him as Spiritial advisor and it didn’t seem to do anything special, just the general malaise when people dislike someone), and Stoyan (who is just too useful as a science minister, though he has few friends and many enemies especially compared to Lorkas). I had to go back and check, since I wasn’t intentionally seeking out a diverse coalition, but that does seem to be what I’ve ended up with in practice. Maybe insulting the Myrkkans at reception wasn’t the political suicide I thought it was at the time.

Ixil finds the thought of bribes distasteful, but will easily vote for you without a pledge if you negotiate then claim you’re absolutely not trying to bribe a vote, you avoid bringing her enemies into your cabinet (all five of her enemies are very viable minister candidates), and you don’t overly offend Myrkkans in general. She will also pledge her vote for a cabinet position (though she’s not very good in any seat), or for an engagement. Mostly I’ve been content to ignore her and accept that she’ll eventually turn against me if I want a strong cabinet, though if I have a spare social action I’ll throw it at her to give the impression of squeaky clean hands and hopefully make Lukomir work for it.

I’ve yet to get a personal quest instead of in-negotiation dialogue from Erilott and Rippling Eternity. I’ve yet to get a personal quest instead of a “sure, I really like you already!” skip from Grojdana and Lorkas. I’ve yet to get anything other than “I hate bribes” from Rejt and Ixil. I’ve yet to get anything productive out of negotiations with Oletko, Ozara and Khdarr. I’ve yet to finish One Bite’s pilgrimage. Everyone else, I’ve been through their personal quest at least once.

I love Vahter’s quest. It’s a bit sad that you have to be pretty callous to see it. Even Vassily sent messages about being kind to myself on that run.

I feel like there’s more to Robe of Ice+Starlight Needle’s quest. I feel like there’s more to Radomil’s quest, there were a lot of branching paths in the Saw fiesta.

I’m trying to remember all the quests where you can end up in total darkness. Definitely with Krovos. Yakau if you fail. Maybe some routes in Radomil’s quest. Maybe there are routes on Sola’s quest. Did Oberod’s field test ever drop below dim light?