Arbor (Guide)

Early MYN Content and Onwards

Arbor Summary
Locked Semi-Fixed-Length Activity
Setup				Progress				End
1 A				1-7 A				1 A
Progress Details			Gain while you have .
Items Inputs/Outputs Start-up Boosting Outputs
Raw EPA			6.02			Raw SPA			-

Arbor is a city on the Elder Continent, built half in dream. You can travel there in your sleep via A Dream of Roses, and a variety of intriguing and profitable interactions await you there...

Mechanics

Arbor, of the Roses
< 5		≥ 5
Near	The Temple	Far
Near	The North	Far
Near	The Centre	Far
Near	The South	Far
Near	The Palace	Far

Arbor runs on three qualities: , , and . The first controls the length of your stay, while the last two affect your position. These qualities are persistent (meaning you return to Arbor more or less in the same place that you left it), except that you lose whenever you return to Arbor, and Permission to Linger will always be 0 when you leave.

Arbor: Permission to Linger

This is essentially a clock. It is set to 7 by all of the options in A Dream of Roses, and nearly all actions in Arbor cost both 1 action and 1 x  Permission to Linger. Once this hits 0, you will be ejected via Leave Arbor (which also costs an action), so most trips take 9 actions. There are a few notable exceptions, though: Several locations have options that will drain all of your Permission to Linger, allowing you to leave more quickly. These actions are Serve as a Serpent-Shepherd, Labour in the temple, Become a serpent-tender in exchange for Attar, and Leave Arbor early. Enter Far Arbor doesn't cost Permission to Linger for some reason.

The Rose-Red Streets

This directly determines your position along the North-South axis, with The Palace being south-most and The Temple being north-most. The actions Walk North and Walk South are available in all parts of Arbor, and move you accordingly at the cost of one action. Walking North decreases Rose-Red Streets by 1 while Walking South increases it by 1. There is also the special movement action Take a short-cut north, which is only available in Near Arbor (South) and moves you 2 North for the price of 1. However, if you fail the Watchful check you are sent to a random location (including possibly where you wanted to go).

Attar

This is a currency of sorts, and also determines if you are in Near or Far Arbor. The first time you visit, you will have no Attar and be in Near Arbor. On subsequent visits, Return to the City of Roses will place you in Near Arbor if you have 0-5 Attar, while Return to the City of Roses 2 will put you in Far Arbor if you have 6+. Both of these also remove 1 Attar at the beginning of each visit, which is important to keep in mind when calculating profits for money-making schemes.

When gaining Attar inside Near Arbor, if you rise to 5+, Enter Far Arbor becomes the only option available, costing 1 action (but no Permission to Linger). This also resets to 3, so your position is set to Far Arbor (Centre). In contrast, if your Attar falls to 2 or less, you are forced to play The city washes away. This costs 1 action, does cost Permission to Linger, and does not reset , so you are left in the corresponding place, but in Near Arbor. The asymmetry between the two options is strange, but verified.

Table of Choices

Near/ Far	"Streets"	Action	Gain/Loss	Check/ Cost	Success	Failure
Near	Temple	Labour in the temple	Gain		Removes	Removes all
Near	Temple	Offer your Attar to the Temple	Loss	N/A	Removes all	N/A
Near	North	Visit London's Embassy	Gain			N/A
Near	North	Spy on London's Embassy	N/A
Near	Center	Explore the Gatehouse Market	Both
Near	Center	Leave Arbor early	Gain	N/A	Removes all	N/A
Near	South	Take a short-cut north	N/A		Move to North in 1 action.	End up in a random part of Arbor.
Near	South	Investigate the Near-Arbori	Gain			N/A
Near	Palace	Barter your Attar	Loss	N/A	Removes all	N/A
Near	Palace	Become a serpent-tender in exchange for Attar	Gain	N/A	Removes all	N/A
Near	Any	Enter Far Arbor	N/A		Enter Far Arbor	N/A
Near	Any	Light your candles	N/A		No Effect	N/A
Far	Temple	While away your time	Both	50%
Far	Temple	Serve as a Serpent-Shepherd	N/A	N/A	Removes all	N/A
Far	North	Browse the Edifice of the Unveiled Lie	N/A
Far	North	Enter the Forbidden Embassy	Loss			N/A
Far	Center	Walk the walls	Both
Far	Center	Attend a reception at the Copper Fortress	Both
Far	Center	Feed some of your Attar to your squirrel	Loss			N/A
Far	South	Surrender some of your Attar	Both
Far	South	Share secrets with the Arbori	N/A			N/A
Far	Palace	Gift your Attar in tribute to the Roseate Queen	Loss	75%/25%		Removes all
Far	Palace	Witness a trial	Both
Far	Any	The city washes away	N/A		Enter Near Arbor	N/A
Far	Any	Light your candles	N/A		Removes all	N/A
Any	Any	Walk South or Walk North	N/A	N/A	Moves you one step South or North	N/A

Making Money

Arbor is an excellent place to earn some Echoes, for those with high stats and for players who are just starting out. However, all the strategies are card-draw based, in that they rely on the 9 (or fewer) actions you normally get from each draw of A Dream of Roses.

It is also worth noting that Arbor has no opportunity cards, and is outside of London - so you can't do social actions, use the Bazaar, etc. while here.

All of the following EPA numbers were taken from this simulator.

Spy on London's Embassy

This is by far the simplest option. Park in Near Arbor (North) and repeat Spy on London's Embassy whenever you have the chance. If you have the 125 needed to 100% the check, this is 3.89 EPA, or 35 Echoes/trip.

Labour in the temple + Serve as a Serpent-Shepherd

This is the fastest option - once established, you will spend only 3 actions in Arbor. Head north to the temple, and then choose the appropriate option, depending on if you are currently in Near or Far Arbor. Both will drain your Permission to Linger, kicking you out again. With 125, this turns into a pattern that repeats every 7 visits, for 5 EPA, but only 15 Echoes/trip. It's actually better with low Dangerous, reaching 5.83 EPA (17.5 Echoes/trip) with 0 Dangerous - but it only starts getting significantly better below ~30 Dangerous. At later in the game, you can equip the Woesel to drop your stats low enough to always fail. Except for very large batches of this is the highest epa, but at a lower overall gain.

Build Attar for Gift your Attar in tribute to the Roseate Queen

The general strategy here is to do something in Near Arbor to gain , dumping you in Far Arbor. Then do something else, gaining more Attar, until you hit some specific threshold, at which point you travel south to the Palace and use Gift your Attar in tribute to the Roseate Queen. That action is both highly profitable and has a ~25% rare success which drains all your Attar at once, so the action costs of moving and cashing-out are dwarfed by the costs of building the Attar.

There are a variety of specific strategies that all revolve around this basic premise. These are generally the most profitable, but the downside is that to achieve maximum profit, you have to delay "cashing in" your Attar for many card draws. However, a balance can be struck that is still more profitable than other options, while still getting you Echoes reasonably quickly.

High Stats

If you have 167, the best way to build is with Explore the Gatehouse Market in Near Arbor and Walk the walls in Far Arbor. With 100% success, this tends towards 6.02 EPA (54.17 Echoes/trip), but only when done in unreasonably large batches. If you convert once Attar ≥ 200 (requires roughly 19 card draws), it hits 5.50 EPA (49.80 Echoes/trip). (A target of 1000 is ~250 Attar -> 82 . That is about 10 actions to convert and travel, and 19 trips, each of which gives +13 Attar for 9 actions, ~5.7 EPA.) However, a target value of as little as 35 (requiring ~4 card draws) is enough for a 3.92 EPA, beating the simple strategy of Spy on London's Embassy.

Low Stats

With Watchful significantly below 125, the best way to Far Arbor is generally Become a serpent-tender in exchange for Attar, which has no skill check. In Far Arbor, if you have very low , Surrender some of your Attar becomes an attractive choice. Contrary to the title, if you can reliably fail the check, you will gain Attar, and also . At 0 Persuasive, this tends to 4.72 EPA (42.5 Echoes/trip) in the limit, as well as 3.11 +cp Persuasive/Action. However, this falls off rapidly with higher Persuasive, and at 33 Persuasive it merely breaks even (on average) instead of gaining Attar, with a 2.93 EPA. If your Persuasive has gotten too high, it may be best to switch to Labour in the temple + Serve as a Serpent-Shepherd until your Watchful reaches 167. (This can be done while you are still in Far Arbor.) You can also plug your specific stats in to the simulator to see what your options look like.

Inactive Grinds

It used to be possible to use Investigate the Near-Arbori to gain Permission to Linger, allowing one to stay in Arbor indefinitely and creating Echoes. The action was changed in late July 2020, and so active grinding in Arbor is no more.

Other Items

Besides money, Arbor is a good source for several difficult-to-procure items. Please note that none of these actions match the tremendous EPA yield of the main Arbor grinds, and better grinds probably exist for these items.

A Vial of Queenly Attar

You can only get this here. Currently it has uses in Laboratory research, it can have a monograph written about it, it can gain certain cavalry options for the War in Parabola, and a player can use it to cook dishes at . None of these actions consume the attar. You can also Plant a rose-garden in the Palatinate, which will consume the Attar at the cost of gaining a . You may retrieve a new vial of Queenly Attar after doing this. Bring 77 x  Foxfire Candle Stubs and build to 7, and the action Light your candles will be available everywhere. It is best to wait until you are out of Permission to Linger, because this action will end your stay and does not consume Permission.

Direful Reflection

This item is only useful for late-game players who have access to the Railway and Parabola. You can trade for a via Enter the Forbidden Embassy in Far Arbor (North).

Sworn Statement

This is another item that doesn't have many uses currently. Probably the biggest bulk use is in Plan a Wedding, where there are better options. Another one is in when building up . If you need a bunch, Witness a trial in Far Arbor (South) trades for as long as you already have one. You can also Barter your Attar at Near Arbor (Palace) to gain a few, unconditionally, if you have none and need to get started.

Presbyterate Passphrase

You can gain these by cashing actions with Serve as a Serpent-Shepherd in Far Arbor (Temple).

Emetic Revelation

This item is currently only used either to create A Tasting Flight of Targeted Toxins (which is only used in a one-off event as yet), or to pursue An Opportunity at Khan's Heart. It requires a from Whitsun and to get, via Feed some of your Attar to your squirrel in Far Arbor (Centre).