welcome to a short guide to christmas time in fallen london! there's a lot of weird mechanics for this holiday, so i'm writing out a short guide to them. It's gonna be 3 parts:

• what fun stuff you can find that you won't need to worry about
• lacre, the weird mechanic of the season
• how to abuse lacre to get a 5 card lodgings for 1500$ off/how to unlock parabola to play the new story

if you're a new player, you only need to worry about the first two; if you're a POSI but haven't gotten a 5 card lodgings yet you EXTREMELY want to pay attention to the third as well.

note that all of this is subject to change; fallen london likes to mix things up each season so they might be changing little things here or there. the 5 card lodgings thing will probably be the same tho people would riot if they changed that. anyways lets get STARTED

PART 1: FUN STUFF AT CRIMBUS

• THE ADVENT CALENDAR

First, and most notably, you get presents at Christmas! each day you'll log on and be able to open a new door of the advent calendar. This has changed a bit this year; it used to be that it was done through codes you entered into your browser, but now it's a story event at your lodgings. Additionally, opening the codes on the same day you get them will apparently give you a bit more of a prize? All this means is that you really want to be in london at least once a day to go get your presents during christmas; no sailing off to the khanate for 2 weeks!

Prizes you may find might include things such as:

• Big Shiny Gems
• Gloves with great stats
• A complete menace wipe item
• A bunch of special christmas items (more on that in a minute)

and a bunch of other stuff! Enjoy your special presents!

• THE TWELVE DAYS OF MR SACKS

Fallen london is a bit like futurama, in that santa clause is real, and he's evil, and everyone hates him. His name is mr. sacks. He's gonna come to your lodgings 12 times and bother the shit out of you, but you'll get fun prizes as he does! This starts around december 25th and is just a fun little storylet with some solid rewards... unless you pay up with real money.

if you pony up 8-12 fate, you can help one of the various city factions figure out what the Fuck is going on with mr sacks, and get a much better reward from it. Notably, the Bohemians, Devils, Rubbery Men, Tomb-Colonies, and Duchess give some equippable items with great stats, and the Widow, Docks, Benthic, Revolutionaries, and Urchins give you a 312$ item. (The criminals are an exception as their item with terrible stats).

Note: If you have the right items, you can get a fair bit of connected: the masters by choosing the right options. Look up which ones if that matters to you. Personally i'm here to turn the lights off, and who knows what sort of accidents might happen to Mr. fires in the dark.

• MR. TREATS

the thing about the 12 days of mr. sacks, is you can only do 1 a year! this means it's both annoying for players who want to complete everything AND failbetter can't get extra money out of it. also, they uhhhh ran out of factions to work with. so thus they've created MR. TREATS, a new story that they can add to every year about the world's littlest mousiest most definitely official master. you'll find him mid christmas season at the rat market, and just like above, you can pony up 12 fate for a special prize. who knows what it is!

• CHRISTMAS CARDS

every time the healer, you'll get 7 cards to send to your friends! wow! each christmas card will give your friend XP, menace reduction, and second chances in the stat of your choice, along with some making waves! you'll get a little prize but mostly it's about being nice to others :) send them all if you can!

if you're really nice you can pay like. 50-100 in game currency and send a big card by throwing Real Money into the game, but honestly idk if i'd do this. there's better things to spend real money on imo. for example...

• THE SPECIAL CHRISTMAS STORY: A Dream of a Thousand Tails

Note: if you're a new player? if you aren't POSI yet? skip this section

every christmas, they add a special premium story you can buy for 25 fate to the game! These almost always unlock a few repeatable loops to get rare/valuable items, and will involve a short little story with some Real Fucked Vibes. Previous ones are The Poisoner's Library, Upwards, and The Mushroom’s Dream. I only have upwards, because i'm poor. Note that all of these require some relatively end-game locations; A Dream Of A Thousand Tails will require you to have a parabola base-camp, and possibly more then that; we don't know yet. If you are late-end game, you should have this, and i'd say go for it! these stories are fun. If you aren't... more on this in part 3.

• Fur Robes

Once a week, you will find yourself snowed in at your lodgings! You can pay someone to clear the way for you and get a pail of snow, or you can pay Fate to have the masters do it! if you do, you'll get to choose a master of your choice and get a special equippable item associated with that master! These items are... mediocre tbh, but if you do this a SECOND time for the SAME master you can get some stuff with great stats. That's.. 60 fate. I wouldn't recommend this unless you're overflowing with love for failbetter and desperately looking for ways to shove money their way, which.. yeah fair i feel that way about fallen london sometimes too. (Note: if you're seeking the name, and have SMEN you can get one of the funniest weirdest and worst-statted items in the game by doing this, so maybe if you love throwing money down a well lol)

However i also might not recommend it because it means they'll take all your snow, you won't get a funny pail of it. And having a pail of snow does actually matter. Read on to part 2 for LACRE HELL