Getting a Truly Disgusting Soul

How to get a Soul the Devil Wouldn't Touch with a minimum of fuss (and a minimum of spoilers)

Disgusting?

If you want a Soul the Devil Wouldn't Touch, you need to get seven soul flaws. Each origin grants two, but not all are equally hard to acquire. So here is a guide on how to do it with minimal fuss. Also, minimal spoilers.

If you don't want any spoilers at all, the section's titles tell you roughly how easy it is to get the flaws without deliberately aiming for them. Curdled is hardest, so choose the Urchin origin (who always start with curdled souls), preferably a Fisher-King (who start with a stained soul). A priest of the New Sequence or one accountable to their parishoners is also a good option.

Spoiler-free summaries of how to get the various flaws:

• To curdle your soul, suck up to the rich and powerful. Be envious.
  
• To make your soul clear... sorry, there isn't any good principle here. Refusing to intervene in dangerous matters will sometimes help, ignoring the specter of death will sometimes help.
  
• To stain your soul, indulge your curiosity when you know the answer will be bad for you.
  
• To make your soul flicker, renege on your word or lie at a crucial juncture.
  
• To chill your soul, be dismissive of love or uncaring.
  
• To remove the light from your soul, be inattentive to detail and incurious, especially when you really ought to be paying attention and when given the chance to gain knowledge at a cost.
  
• to ferment your soul, be scandalous and break taboos.

Easy to get: Fermented and Lightless

These flaws are repeatable in a predictable way, and can be freely removed at Carillon for fun and profit.

Fermented

Fermenting your soul is easy; Commingle Your Choirs at the House of Rods and Chains (in Eleutheria). This requires some amber, but is much easier to repeat than any other flaw; if you lack amber, get Eleutherian Mysteries (probably from turning in port reports) and bring a dozen or so to the House; you'll be able to trade them for amber, and probably plenty to Commingle with.

Other methods of fermenting your soul include the Parzifal quest (by accepting the errand to Hybras; once-only, excludes options which grant other flaws), accepting a tattoo at the House of Rods and Chains (free, but once-only), getting advice from the Deformer while imprisoned in Piranesi, and, at Achlys, experiencing Midnight's Favor and choosing to burn down the house.

Lightless

The easiest way to strip the light from your soul is in the backstreets of Brabazon. Run out of time, and you will become Lightless. This will have a high cost in Terror, or you can bring a variety of trade goods to give to the workers, which will substantially increase unrest. (Spoilers: This will probably spark a revolution, if you haven't done so already.)

Slightly harder is to accept a "gift" from the Measurers of Eleutheria, and when they come to settle a debt pay the Chrysanthemum Price of knowledge. This costs 7 Visions of the Heavens, and is repeatable, but requires finding a Measurer crossroads (a random Discovery in the Eleutherian sky), and then waiting an unknown duration for the debt-collector.

Other ways include refusing to kill at the command of the Displeased (near Avid Horizon in Albion), acting as a scapegoat for a Lightless spirit approaching Death's Door, getting advice from the Reformer while imprisoned in Piranesi, and denying that you hear voices after drinking Midnight's Favor.

Medium difficulty: Cold and Flickering

These flaws can be acquired repeatedly, but not as easily as the easy flaws.

Cold

There is a repeatable method of acquiring Cold, but it is luck-dependent and slow. It requires going on a tour of Piranesi with one of the chaplains, and refusing to acknowledge one of the prisoners who follows you as you leave. Minor spoilers: ||When a prisoners asks you 'what is this', giving an answer breaks the Second Rule, telling a story reduces Terror, and ignoring it grants the Cold flaw.|| This can be repeated indefinitely, though you won't get colder if you do it twice back to back.

Also technically repeatable, but only a handful of times, is the Quest for Lord Langley. When you find him, if you refuse to help him in his search, you become Cold. If you do help him, and bring someone to him as requested, he will ask you if you are certain this is the man he wanted. If you say no to that, this also makes you Cold. This can be done up to twice, depending on how you resolved the Amenable Host's quest in this lineage and how you respond to the Supralapsarians near Avid Horizon. Suggesting that you yourself are the man in question also makes you Cold. I believe this provides at most three opportunities per captain.

Other methods: offering to help the imprisoned Servitor in Piranesi and then thinking better of your offer will make you Cold. (The Grey Conformer will lead you to the Servitor's location.) A random encounter in the Blue Kingdom, with a Weary Spirit, makes you Cold if you ignore it.

Flickering

Like Lightless, this can be gained by taking charity from the Measurerers of Eleutheria. If you refuse to pay your debt when it is demanded, you will gain Flickering at the cost of 1 Hearts and gaining Terror. This is repeatable, but requires a discovery of a Measurer crossroads, and then waiting an unknown duration for the debt-collector.

Other methods include blackmailing a Rose-Gloved Devil at Carillon and betraying him anyway, lying to the Fuliginous Forewoman beneath Perdurance as part of the Macabre Counsellor's quest, and getting advice from the Performer while imprisoned in Piranesi. Lying and reneging is a theme, here.

Hard to get: Clear and Stained

The remaining three flaws are only possible to gain from a limited number of missable opportunities.

Clear

• You may clear your soul by investigating the Parzifal and choosing to destroy rather than make a delivery.
  
• The first time you dock at Achlys, you can clear your soul by refusing to get involved in the brawl at the gates.
  
• When the final battle at Achlys happens, hanging back will, again, clear your soul. (This is not true in the interim battles of the War of Midnight.)
  
• If you have the You Are Not Alone nightmare, you can clear your soul at Magdalene's in the Oneiric Chambers, but what nightmare you get is chosen randomly so this can't be relied on.
  
• Finally, you may clear your soul by getting advice from the Performer while imprisoned in Piranesi.

Supposedly you can also clear your soul by destroying the Chorister Hive at Titania. If this is actually possible, which I'm somewhat doubtful of, it's most likely available only once per lineage.

Stained

• From the Parzifal, making a delivery to Traitor's Wood stains your soul.
  
• When turning in a spirifer at Carillon, ask about the nature of devil souls rather than asking for a reward. (This can be combined with a choice that gets you Flickering.)
  
• Meeting the leader of the Revolutionary or Brazen Brigade, by completing their faction quest in Pan, stains your soul; meeting the leader of the Heart-Catchers does not.
  
• Failure in the Quest for the Martyr-King's Cup, at almost any stage, will stain your soul - but this will lock you out of the Ambition for that captain, so don't do it lightly.

Hardest of all: Curdled

Curdled

There are only two events which grant Curdled.

• The first time you Explore Port Prosper, if you choose to mingle with the well-to-do West Enders, you curdle your soul.
  
• The first faction quest for the Brazen Brigade at Pan, anointing a statue, that will curdle your soul. (It doesn't matter which of the statues you pick.)

It may also be possible as part of the Regent's Grave quest at Traitor's Wood, but I don't think that is a reachable state with the current build of the game (as of 2020/11/29).

Approach One: Piranesi

This may be the fastest approach if you're willing to create a doomed captain who will sail straight into Eleutheria and be dead in a month.

If you are imprisoned in Piranesi, you can speak to the four chaplains to become Flickering, Lightless, Clear, and Fermented. So get the other three before you get thrown into lockup. Cold can be gotten on trips to Piranesi, but unreliably. Curdled can be acquired reliably by joining the Brazen Brigade and bringing 5 Eleutherian Mysteries to the sub-port of either of the other two factions. (The quest's name in your journal is Requiesat in Pace.)

If you prefer the easier but more unreliable route, you want to start with your soul Stained and Curdled. An Urchin of the Fisher-Kings is the only option here.

If you prefer the more reliable route, bearing in mind that it will involve substantial travel around Eleutheria to get port reports - or else pulling Curator's Eggs out of the bank and selling them for Mysteries, you instead want Stained and Cold. Either a Revolutionary who resisted with their art, or an Academic who studied the language of the heavens, works here.

If you don't mind doing both, for some reason, anyone who starts Stained will do. That's any revolutionary, a Fisher-King, a scholar of the Correspondence, a priest of the New Sequence, or a zee-faring explorer.

If you start in Albion or The Reach but want to suicide into Piranesi at top speed anyway, I recommend starting with Stained and Cold, curdling your soul in Port Prosper (hobnob with the toffs of the West End during the Festival of the Red Saint), then heading to Eleutheria and Piranesi.

Approach Two: The slow way

Getting imprisoned in Piranesi is no vacation, and tends to cramp your style if you want to do something with your captain other than get this achievement. The paths are many, but here are the core things to keep in mind:

• Do not remove Curdled, Stained, or Clear from your soul at Carillon. Not under any circumstances, at least until you're done and have the achievement.
  
• Think very carefully before removing Cold or Flickering. Probably just don't.
  
• If you visit Albion and aren't Lightless, linger in Brabazon and correct that.
  
• If you visit Eleutheria and aren't Fermented, commingle your choirs in the House of Rods and Chains and correct that.

My view of the easiest sources for each flaw:

• Lightless and Fermented: the repeatable sources.
  
• Cold: Toss-up between finding Lord Langley and refusing to acknowledge a prisoner in Piranesi.
  
• Flickering: Blackmail the devil at Carillon and betray him anyway.
  
• Stained: Turn in the spirifer at Carillon and ask about devil's souls
  
• Clear: Uninvolved in battle on first visit to Achlys
  
• Curdled: West-Enders on first visit to Port Prosper

[AmberedDragonfire]

On my quest to get a truly disgusting soul, I didn't have enough amber to commingle my choirs to get the fermented status, however when i chose "Sample the Rose-Cheeked Cook's Wares" in the Rubbery Market on the House of Rods and chains, I got the fermented status as well!
Since it's not listed I thought i'd leave a note <3