Spoiler warning: Everything

So I've been playing this game obsessively for the past two weeks, and spending my time not playing thinking about it. When I started playing, I quickly found out that learning the mechanics is a massive part of the game, so I decided to not look up anything. The only thing I needed to look up was how the hell summons worked as I was too excited about it, that's also how I found this subreddit. Luckily this post by /u/HoundArchon helped me tremendously while spoiling very little.

I have failed most of my runs through the Visions event, like most I imagine. Got arrested a couple of times as well. My main roadblock was the Stag Door. I didn't notice the riddle changing so it took a while for me to go through that. Once I did though, it was over rather quickly.

At the start of the game (Bright Young Thing) I built up my health, passion and reason skills asap so I'd be safe from my own inattention to the amount of passion/reason/health were not exhausted at any given time. After I got my Fevered Imagination, Notable Scholarship and the Physique of Steel(? the one you need 4 vit for) I started to paint a fuckton and generate money to buy books. I then spent my time buying out the bookstore and the auction house, studying the books I'd find and dream about the woods/white door for occult scraps (Since I didn't know how to get past the Stag Door, my main source of expeditions was upgrading Secret History Lore I'd find at the White Door, don't do this. It hurts your personal sanity more than Winter Lore). i also constantly kept yapping about the secrets I knew to build up my Cult, promoting any acquaintances to believers the moment I got them. I went for the Red Grail in theme with my Desire.

During this time, my inattention helped me in a weird way. I got an affliction which I accidentily ignored since I kept forgetting and dreaming about the white door every chance I got, resulting in a Decreptitude, but I didn't know about begging yet (Well, I knew, but thought it was just a shitty job).

The Adversary I got was the male one (forgot his name, Grim, Erratic and Mystic) and boys, that guy sucks at his job. I've had multiple moments where he failed to create evidence, even creating a tentative evidence at one point while trying to upgrade an already existing one, resulting in two tentative instead of one damning. I kept him alive throuhout the entire game, I even kind of ignored Notoriety and only started to look for my options to get moth summons once a Damning Evidence was on the table. Throughout the entire game, I only needed to destroy 2 Damning Evidences. That dude is by far the easiest Hunter, even the Weary Detective is more dangerous in my opinion, unless there's a way to give him erratic as well.

Once I got all the books (and the movie) I started to do the early expeditions. I summoned a Maid-In-The-Mirror and used her 10 Edge/ 10 Winter together with 2 lantern disciples (Level 3 lore influence from the Woods).

This is where I started to get salty because I didn't get a single freakin' book, just a boatload of 4 and 8 aspect ingredients and relics. The midgame was pretty uneventful since it took ages for me to be able to upgrade my cultists since I had to wait for either the cabaret or the woods to give me the influence of desire. I just kept dreaming, kept upgrading and kept exploring.

I got all the language books back to back, even getting the Vak and the Fuscian one on the same expedition, but still very little lore. However, I finally figured out the Stag's Riddle at this point.

The reason I got confused about the Stag Door was because when I read it the first time it was the riddle "What may be lost?". In a future attempt, I got the level 2 moth lore that has that as answer in it's text, but I hadn't checked my riddle in that game and it was not the answer. Because that specific Moth Lore has the line "Every (Name of Lore) is an attempt to solve the riddle", I figured it was RNG whether or not the Stag accepted it. Turns out I was just really dumb though, I read the card again this time and the riddle had changed, requiring the Grail Lore which I had. The Stag's Door's better Secret Histories almost made me cry of joy.

Finally having answered the Stag's Door riddle, I upgraded my level 2 Desire to level 3. Little did I know this meant I now want to eat people (Or I reckon it's eating, wouldn't know any other desires liek the good christian boy I am). It got close since I didn't have my Exalted Grail cultist yet and my Remira (girl grail cultist) failed in her first attempt. Meaning I had no prisoners and a fuckton of Notoriety (I was chaining expeditions during this). I ate some of my pawns out of desperation, but I failed to get prisoners like 2 or 3 times when the plate started to tick. I saw it eat a Glimmering and a Passion once, but I'm not sure about that mechanic yet, just that I need to avoid it. I painted a lot during this time, using my Notoriety to prevent investigation. I started painting every time he was about to be done investigating a mystique, but this keeps the Notoriety around for a very long time. I decided to leave one or two on the table surrounded by all the mystique I got from painting so I could have the timers tick down. It was around this time I lost all respect for the hunter though as whenever he did investigate notoriety, he either fucked up or didn't investigate for a very long time after leaving the tentative evidence to expire. The Spider Door description was pretty easy to me and I was getting prisoners anyway (even better secret history lore! More tears!). To give you an idea how little I respected the hunter, I was chaining expeditions and abductions not stop, even with tentative evidence on the table. He created 2 Damning Evidence over the course of this, which was easily destroyed by my Moth cultist (After finding the 12 grail aspect cup) and a Voiceless Dead.

I moved on to these higher level expeditions, since by now I had at least 2 cultists of every aspect upgraded to disciples (except knock, just had 1 and that was enough). I got some more through the books found, but I was still stuck on my measly level 3 lore for Grail. I did find the cup with 12 Grail aspect, so I was able to get all my cultists to Disciples and my Exalted Grail cultist. I used the Exalted Cultist to abduct nerds to eat.

It was during this time I wanted to prevent the generation of Mystique at one point so I could Charm the notoriety away from an expedition which was about to be done (Damning Evidence on the table, for timeline clarity, this one was destroyed by a Moth Disciple, I had one earlier I destroyed with a Voiceless Dead). I had decided at the start that I wasn't going to bother with Glover and Glover. I had found the way to get promoted to senior member in a different game, but got fired soon after. In the game after that, I was more careful, but still got fired pretty quickly. Being promoted was simply not worth it in my opinion, add the fact that you get demoted if you don't work mad m e ask "why bother at all?". This meant I had only one option to work without generating Mystique (and not risking injury), begging. Long story short, I had no problems with Visions and losing to Fascination anymore. The timing couldn't have been better, as the Stag and Spider door give a lot more chances to get Fascination than the White door.

Finally going through the Stag's (And Spider's) Door and now the (near) elimination of Fascination made me feel like I was ready to go all the way.

So, by now my problems are low in number but present notheless. I had no idea how to open the Peacock door and I still had my shitty level 3 Grail lore with no Heart or Grail to upgrade it. I brute forced the Peacock Door. I figured that it would need either high level Lore or a Tool, so I tried everything until I got the answer (Yes seeing the Vagabond's Map for the first time had me bawling). I knew about repairing stuff with Forge cultists (I fixed a moonstone once while experimenting in an earlier game) and had done the manuscripts. That plus the non stop expeditions I was (still) doing gave me plenty of materials to repair. I went through like 6 or 7 times until I was finished. The Cultist (Tristan btw) failed the repair once, but never died.

On my second or third time through the door I saw the 15 grail aspect influence and knew I was touching glory. I wasn't prepared to do the winning Rite so I wasted it, but I knew of it's existence now. However, my final moments were different than I anticipated. My final time through the peacock's door gave me a Vagabond's Map which led to a Tomb. In that Tomb I found a new book which, when studied, gave me the most batshit Rite I had ever seen. I forgot the name as I knew I had found my path to Glory and was a tad excited, but it had a looot of slots, including a Sacrifice (The picture was a dude's head which had seen better days).

Saliba, my dear friend and fellow worshipper of the Red Grail, gave his life so I could be reborn. I never upgraded my shitty level 3 Lore, his desire was a suitable replacement.

Great game. If you refuse to google it can be extremely frustrating at times when you're stuck since there is 0 direction (Am I doing something wrong or am I missing something?). That said, my feelings the first time going through all the ways and my first summon were worth the million times I was stuck and frustrated. The Lore and mystique drew me in and held me there. Most of all I'd love to see more (or to be more exact, mechanically different) adversaries and Desires.