Incense

Changes as of April 3, 2020

changed: incense is now more powerful, between +/- 3 and 20 in stat warping
you can now wear incense as a perfume
pigs are attracted to odours and wheat

In addition, a scent (undiscovered) and a feeling (discovered to be Smelly, which is one of the starting Feelings) have been added.  This was mentioned by Malard when a player stated that they applied simple perfume, and a pig was not affected.

Incense is created in a Scent Lab, with the Perfuming 2 tech, out of

• 20 cactus sap
• 4 charcoal

No skill is required to make, or burn, incense, but constructing the Scent Lab and the Incense Burner requires Perfuming 2/2 - this is terrible, so if you can have anyone make your lab and burners for you, absolutely do that

Once a batch of incense is started, the player can "burn a little pinch of the mixture" and see the properties of the incense at that time. It will be in the format of:

"You catch a whiff of quality (number) (fragrance) scented incense.
You are filled with a (Feeling) (increased Stat), yet a bit of (decreased Stat)."

With an Incense Prong, the player can add ingredients to change the characteristics of the incense.

Quality can both rise and fall when any ingredients are added to the incense. After a great deal of testing and research, we will be able to reliably alter the quality. The magnitude of the stat changed should be determined by the quality number. Lower quality incense has a small effect on the stats and higher quality numbers will change the stats by a larger amount. This tale, incense with a quality of 98 has been burned, and it still changed the player's stats by one point.

Fragrance is altered by the herbs added, or new to T9, Mushrooms. The exact purpose of fragrance is not known, but fragrance is an incense characteristic which can be required by some worship tests.

Feeling is affected by adding the petals of any flower. The exact purpose of incense feelings is not known, but it is an incense characteristic which can be required by some worship tests.

The exact stats changed can be altered by adding resin from any tree. One stat will be increased by a certain amount, while another will be decreased by the same amount. These stat changes are in addition to any stat changes from foods eaten, aqueduct bonuses, banner bonuses, etc. Incense bonuses stack with all other known stat bonuses in the game.

When the Incense has the desired characteristics, it can be taken from the Scent Lab. At this time, it can be named. All Incense names have the quality prepended as "Quality x" before the name chosen. Incense sorts extremely oddly in storage, so it is helpful to give it as descriptive of a name as possible. Each batch produces 20 Incense at a time.

How to use it

Incense can be burned inside a compound in an Incense Burner, or outdoors in a Windproof Incense Burner. The length of time for which it will burn is determined partly by the type of Burner used, but mostly by the quality of the Incense. You will get a message in main when you light it telling you how long it will last. For a standard incense burner (both indoors and outdoors) incense lasts for Quality * 4 in seconds, and twice as long in a long-burning incense burner.

Once the incense is lit, anybody within 30 (possibly more, still testing) coordinates may "catch a heady whiff" of it, which affects two stats (one positively, one negatively), and may be useful for certain tests. The game checks if you should get a whiff once every 60 teppyseconds, so if the incense burns for less than that, you may not catch a whiff at all. The magnitude of the stat change depends on the quality of the incense:

• This chart needs to be updated, as of April 2020. Changes now range from 3 to 20. Given the increments discovered, it seems likely there are more steps than listed in the chart below.

Quality	Stat Change
0	0 (burns for less than 0 seconds, impossible to catch a whiff)
1-499	3
500-749	6
750-873	8
875-936+	9
937-959	10
968-983	11? (presumed from previous two)
984-1000	12? (presumed from previous steps)

Incense may now be rubbed on like a perfume - this results in a substantially smaller stat bonus (+3 out of a +9), but it stacks with the stat bonus of incense in a burner. Curiously, this appears to also apply to any players near the one perfuming themselves.

How it works

Incense has 4 properties that are affected by a random factor at the start, and by the additives included during the batch. These properties are:

• Scent. Scent is affected by the Herbs or Mushrooms added to the batch. Observed scents this telling: Citrus, Clove, Clover, Flowers, Frankincense, Honey, Musk, Opium, Oriental Spices, Patchouli, Pine, Sandalwood, Odorous (found in t10)
• Feeling. The feeling is affected by the Rose of Ra Petals added to the batch. Observed feelings this telling: Gentle, Giddy, Guilty, Hopeful, Invigorating, Melancholious, Mischievous, Relaxed, Serene, Smelly, Sorrowful, Suspicious, Troubled, Vengeful (Probably have more)
• Affected Stats. Every batch of Incense affects two different stats: one positively, one negatively. These are affected by the Resins added to the batch. The positive stat is obvious enough, but the negative stat may not be immediately recognizable if you're new to Incense. Here's how they map:

Description	Negative Stat
Clumsiness	Dexterity
Confusion	Perception
Forgetfulness	Focus
Fragility	Constitution
Lethargy	Endurance
Sluggishness	Speed
Weakness	Strength

Research

The above information is based on what has been observed this tale, with some copying from T7 wiki for data that appears unchanged. Statements that include "should" are based from our experiences in previous tales and have not yet been verified for T8.

Practical Incense-making Considerations:

Working in the Feelings plane is now, as of T9, practical and affordable: One can collect a single petal from a given Flower, on a fairly long (24+ hour timer), *without* killing it. Given the difficulties in understanding how a given flower petal may affect incense - for example, is it checking the flowers Genome? Its Phenotype? Its name? - a great deal of experimentation will be needed to determine how a given flower petal will affect the incense, and we are unlikely to ever be able to predict this for new crossbreeds.

Given the ability to readily work in all 3 planes, extremely high-quality incense is practical for the first time.

Tale 9 is a good tale for incense starts - I have managed 927 on a favorable stat pair without having a clue what I am doing, and 958+ is possible under the same conditions, with use of the now-renewable flower petals. -Somebob