A Beginner's Guide to Ascending

[Bimoraic_Phoneme]

Sorry, this is more of a request for such a guide then the actual thing, but I figured the great advice about perming skills and which classes tend to be easier than others that Foxy gave me here just could be useful for other people too.
I still have a heap of questions about ascension and aftercore, and I have a feeling that this might just be the place where I can find some enlightenment.
So, okay, first very concrete question: Does filthy lucre carry over into the next ascension or does one have to save up and go shopping "in this life"?

(I would of course edit, delete or otherwise prettify this posting once there was some more guide-y content to take its place. )

[Foxy Boxy]

So, okay, first very concrete question: Does filthy lucre carry over into the next ascension or does one have to save up and go shopping "in this life"?

To answer your specific question, yes. You keep any lucre you've acquired this far, into the next life.

A more general answer is that you keep almost all your items from one ascension to the next. I say almost, because you will lose any item that is marked as a "Quest Item" when you check out the item's description (click on the item's picture). So if you're ever wondering, just click on an item's picture and if you don't see "Quest Item" you're fine.

I'll post some more general tips and tidbits for "before you ascend" later, but I'm actually at work now. :)

[Bimoraic_Phoneme]

Thank you, great!!! But I wouldn't be able to access said lucre while in hardcore/ronin?

[NoodlyAppendage]

Lucre, like any other item in the game, is restricted during Hardcore/Ronin. During a hardcore run, you have no access to any of your former items, and must find everything yourself. During a softcore run, while in Ronin, you may pull twenty items -or- increments of 1,000 Meat from Hagnk's After-After-Life Storage. A single filthy lucre counts as one item.

The only exception are those items with the tag "Free pull from Hagnk's". Free pulls are generally just items that do fun stuff that doesn't affect gameplay (except for the Clan VIP Lounge key, if you've got one). "Free pulls" are mostly for people who really want to TP other people to celebrate their last ascension.

The following is a list of skills that I absolutely positively suggest you perm immediately, depending on what your class was:

Seal Clubber: Pulverize. So much utility it's not even funny. Also opens up your spleen to good use.
Turtle Tamer: Amphibian Sympathy. Passive bonuses are good, and this passive bonus is the best one the game has to offer. Depending on your familiar choice, it does anything you want it to do.
Pastamancer: Pastamastery. Noodles dishes are better than normal dishes 99% of the time. Whassamatter, you don't like-a de pasta? Your mother, she slave and cook all day fo- err... nevermind. Just eat the pasta.
Sauceror: Advanced Saucecrafting. Grants access to potions, which for most players can be like little red buttons marked "Win for 5 Turns". Also can be used in tandem with Pastamastery to create the reagent dishes, which are very very solid (and filling!) food items.
Disco Bandit: Advanced Cocktailcrafting. Fruity girl drinks are better than normal drinks, just like pasta's better than everything else.
Accordion Thief: The Moxious Madrigal. Moxie is important, especially in the early game, and this lets you not worry about it as much as you would otherwise have to.

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