"In The Beginning..." The FTA Help System.

Ah, the key to the guilds, the barmen. Pubs are where you can buy drinks and gather information about the moving buildings like Magic and Pawn shops, and more importantly, the Guilds, where you buy your powers. A fellow player, Sasquatch, penned a useful bit about the barmen/pubs which I will use to help describe what you find at the bars.

Bartenders are a chatty lot. But instead of offering to light your cigarette or standing around cleaning filthy beer mugs, the bartenders of RavenBlack city collect all sorts of information. Unfortunately, it costs to get this information.

Drinks available (and their costs) at the RavenBlack City bars are:
• Beer: 1
• House Ale: 2
• House Wine: 5
• Brandy: 10
• Scotch: 15
• Vintage Wine: 40
• Blood Wine: 50
• Blood: 100

The more you spend on an individual drink, the higher the chance of getting useful (i.e. non "null" information) out of the barkeep. However, there is nothing at all to stop him from giving you "null" info 15 times in a row even if you buy Blood for each drink. Such are the chances we take with our (necrotic) livers.

If you can afford it (e.g. if you have already achieved one or more levels of Thievery), always buy the Blood. It costs more than anything else but it has the added bonus of adding two BP to your score. So even if you get no new information, at least it wasn't money completely wasted.

Both Blood and Blood Wine are valid drinks for the Celerity quest (see the Powers_Texts section for more details on that).

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This following is a collection of "What the bartender says" and what it really means to you, the drunkard vampire. Remember that most of what you'll ever get from the bars is gibberish no matter how much your bar tab ends up being.

Pssst. (Some Cool) Guild (#) is right next to (Alphabet Street) and (Number Street) today. I don't know how much longer it will be there, though.

This is the only way to find the guilds, short of stumbling (drunk?) across them in your random travels. The guilds move frequently but sporadically. Please note that the barkeeps will usually only tell you about guilds that are personally useful to you, so this data will change from vampire to vampire. It also means that if you have all of your powers, you'll rarely see this one again.

The closest shop to here is (Shop Name), right by (Alphabet Street) and (Number Street). I do wish those damn magic shops would stay still for a while.

Congrats! Just keep in mind that this information changes rapidly as the Discount shops move every 24 hours and the non-Discount shops move every 12.

I read this great book the other day. (complete with hyperlink)

Did anyone ever tell you that RavenBlack wasn't trying to make a buck off of this game? Well, he is. And he's also trying to make a buck off of the book that he wrote. Follow the (safe) link to find out more about the book and even buy a copy. But be aware that the shopping cart doesn't accept RB City coins. :-)

These three "null" responses generate the most questions from newbie drunks (I mean vampires!). They have absolutely no (proven) in-game uses, but here they are.

Don't tell anyone you found a secret door - otherwise it isn't secret any more.

Rumor has it that there is a "secret" way into overcrowded squares that appears from time to time. It's purported to be a few squares away and only appears randomly (i.e. it's never been proven). If you actually find one, get a screen shot and show us. If not, accept this one as urban myth.

Hey, do you know what PBIANPF stands for? Someone spray-painted it on my door.

PBIANPF is worthless as far as in-game knowledge goes. It's there because one of our beloved players had a politically incorrect thought (out loud) in range of our demented creator, RavenBlack. It means "Pat Buchannan Is A Nazi Pig F***er" (yeah, it really does).

I've heard some guy named (Vampire Name) is one of the richest guys in town.

At that precise moment, this vampire has more money than anyone else. Be aware that this doesn't mean he'll still have his bucks when you try to rob from him. Oh yeah, and since it counts what's in his bank account, it might not be worth trying it anyhow.

<SNIP> --
Sas the drunkard
with lots of help from the lushes of FTA
and especially to SV Countess "My liver's deader than your liver" Boo

As a note on the side, the PBIANPF really does mean Pat Buchannan Is A Nazi Pig-Fucker. I'm absolutely certain because I'm the one who got RavenBlack to put it in the game for me. That's really a great description of what the Pubs do and are for and all that. Good places to rob, too. Let's get on with it then.