I’ve been playing Venthyr for a long time now and only recently started paying attention to Ember Court, I have not found anything regarding tips for what is needed or how to do specific things so here’s what I have so far, for those who have unlocked and earned everything feel free to chime in, Once you know what to do Ember Court really is one of the more fun covenant features next to the Queens Conservatory. Remember, this is from me having tier 3 because I’m too anima-poor to upgrade.
Planning - Ember Court can be planned ahead, you don’t have to be on the quest to choose and change options, Choose your guests first then choose everything else based off of them. Having a Clean guest with an Exciting guests will not conflict unless being Exciting means making a mess (thus making the Clean guest upset).
Restock - Restocking is easy as the materials needed for most of the options can be bought off of the Auction House and crafted, The best way to determine if a choice you made will require restocking is to think “Are resources going to be wasted for this guest”, If you have a messy food fight you are wasting food and will have to get more, if you have volunteers as security you will have to get them medical aid because they’re not as efficient at defending.
Common Sense - For most of the events you really only need some common sense to know if they’ll grant you points towards a guest happiness, I’ll use the murder mystery for example; If you have Grandmaster Vole as a guest(+Dangerous), and you have a murder running around, you do not want to solve the issue, doing so would give you +Safe and lowers the happiness of Vole.
Plan out a route - This is just to make things easy, the area of Ember Court is fairly big and has a lot of clutter so having a small mount in a route you think is easier will come in handy. Do not leave the Ember Court area if you need to know how far you can go just see how far the guests are.
Some guests are easier than others, If you’re just starting out but already have upgraded everything ahead of time then I recommend having Merileth(Messy + Food Restock quest) and Choofa(Exciting).
Lost Chalice Band - Probably the most annoying form of entertainment if you don’t know the layout and npcs of the Court; Ansel’s Violin is South-East of the map where the group of Venthyr are dancing on top of the boxes(It’s a small gold belf guitar), Chiu’s Lute is where you choose the guestlist on a chair(beige lute), Noko’s flute is a low drop rate from roadies so I suggest farming roadies early on during the court. They all grant +Excitement.
Events - During Ember court you will see rare stars on the map, these aren’t rares but mini events that will grant you +(varying satisfaction points) based on what you do, going back to common sense, think about what your actions will result in depending on your guests, If Vole and Koryn likes a Dangerous court, then don’t find the murderer and don’t put out the fires, If Sika likes a clean court then don’t invite Merileth, and clean up stone debris, If Aliothe likes a relaxing court then don’t invite Choofa or the Lost Chalice band, etc. You will also have events that will drop items, these items will ask you to return them to Renathal or take a different course of action, this again will depend on your guests.
Happiness - All guests will have a bar in the quest tracker, each bar will have two opposing themes such as Dangerous - Safe, The first guests you will get access to have 1 bar, then 2, and the higher guests will have 3 bars, the happier the guest the better the rewards, even with the higher guests it’s best to make sure at least 2 of 3 of their bars won’t conflict; You shouldn’t have Sika(clean) and Merileth(messy) as guests as their preferences will be impossible to do, instead you might pair Aliothe(relaxing) and Stonehead(casual), same for the higher tier guests like The Countess (Decadent, Relaxing, Formal) with Adrestes (Clean, Formal), and Kassir (Formal), all 3 of them have formal so even if you miss the other bars you’ll still have managed to fill out their formal bar but it’s still best to try to cater to all of their needs for better rewards.
Buffs - If you don’t have the items to extend ember court then have speed, damage, and health boosts, the boost you get from talking to guests isn’t enough imho and mounting and eating takes up valuable seconds.
Notable Guests: Cryptkeeper Kassir (Kassir’s Crypt Mantle back mog), Rendle/Cudgelface (Bloodfeaster Spiderling pet), Alaxandros Mograine (Gruesome Flayedwing mount), The Countess (The Countess’ Parasol slowfall toy), Lady Vashj (Plaguelouse larva).
Note - A majority of the guests reward crafting materials or buffs, Vole rewards a quest for gold, Just like everything, some of the rewards like mounts and pets can be earned through any covenant feature (Ember Court, Queen’s Conservatory, Stitchyard, Path of Ascension), It just depends on what you feel like is easier to do aka not Path of Ascension. Ember court will also change with the holidays.
Reputation - Instead of having neutral-exalted for guests, you’ll have a friend system, the higher the friendship the better the rewards from the guests, while doing Ember court, you’ll also earn reputation for the actual Ember Court rep (Neutral-Exalted) and from the quartermaster you can buy more options and features for your court. Lady Rovinette sells the Green/Renathal colored version of the Deathshroud. After reaching best friends with a guest you will receive another quest for that respective guest, after doing the Best friend quest you will earn their RSVP permanently(account wide)
Stonehead’s RSVP - After doing the Revendreth storyline and Venthyr campaign, Stonehead will still grab you if you go near him, in order to combat this as any covenant you have to do Snacks for Stonehead, to start this quest simply fly to the side that Stonehead is facing away from, right by the stairs is a large rock you can click on, after disguising yourself as a rock, click on the chewed light shard to start the quest. For Venthyr in order to do his RSVP, you may have to wait for the weekly reset.
Choofa’s RSVP - For Choofa’s rsvp you have to retrieve their friends, for their otter friend you can use abilities to get to the lily pads, I suggest Door of Shadows (Theotar soulbind to have 2 charges) and whatever class ability that will give you a leap or aimed teleport.
Rendle and Cudgelface’s RSVP - Rendle will ask you to make him 4 different hats for 4 separate quests, all hats can be found on the Auction House as all the hats requires different professions. Do Not equip the hats, you will loose them and have to buy or make another.
The more you upgrade your Ember court the more guests you can have and thus more rewards and more guest happiness to track. You will also need to have a good flow of Infused Rubies as the Restock quests and changing of options will consume them which is why Blizzard needs to raise the amount of infused rubies you can carry, 100 capacity isn’t really wise in a zone that requires them for most things especially when you have both the Ember Court and Broken Mirrors.
All I can do at this point is laugh. When it’s an event at my court I just stare at it and sigh. I imagine this is how wedding planners feel when people ignore the “no phones” sign or something. I just stand there and think, “You’re ruining my party.”