Whenever you burn lifespan, for whatever reason so long as it's on purpose.
I copied it over from the death shard, I thought I switched that. Opps.
Distant Stars. (a WH40K/Xianxia civ Quest).
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Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Okay, so putting together my thoughts about it, I expected our dao shards to mostly give straight power boosts, and while some stuff would have probably been better off with a power boost (we can't pay the bringing back the dead insight for example, so unless it can work decades later, it isn't really useful for the apocalypse and Kuvara can probably bring back the dead more easily too), the most useful upgrades are stuff that weren't just plain power boosts.
I will say the biggest gains were the intent ability of the keku, more divine qi would have been nice, but extending the intent boost to everything is far from insignificant, the boost wasn't small boost when we got it for the first time, so we can potentially see intent style abilities growing significantly better, on turn 8 we got 14 charges, on 9 we got 16 charges, on 10 we got 23 charges, so intent abilities will likely see an increase in effectiveness of around 20% at minimum.
The body refinement side path is also very nice, especially with the new way to get lifespan boost.
As for the rest, we did see some of the expected power boosts, but it seemed reliant on some stuff.
Healing techniques are two steps higher when contending another, lifespan boost give us six lifespan now, but when we use it on ourselves, as an example.
Which aren't big downsides, considering that we only used the lifespan boost on ourselves and that unless someone contend us, we should be able to heal almost anything.
I am looking forward to trying to get a phoenix shard, but I am relatively certain we wouldn't get to do it next turn.
@uri , when the shard speak of increased effectiveness of life and death techniques, aside from insights, do we have any techniques that count? Do healing techniques count as life techniques?
I will say the biggest gains were the intent ability of the keku, more divine qi would have been nice, but extending the intent boost to everything is far from insignificant, the boost wasn't small boost when we got it for the first time, so we can potentially see intent style abilities growing significantly better, on turn 8 we got 14 charges, on 9 we got 16 charges, on 10 we got 23 charges, so intent abilities will likely see an increase in effectiveness of around 20% at minimum.
The body refinement side path is also very nice, especially with the new way to get lifespan boost.
As for the rest, we did see some of the expected power boosts, but it seemed reliant on some stuff.
Healing techniques are two steps higher when contending another, lifespan boost give us six lifespan now, but when we use it on ourselves, as an example.
Which aren't big downsides, considering that we only used the lifespan boost on ourselves and that unless someone contend us, we should be able to heal almost anything.
I am looking forward to trying to get a phoenix shard, but I am relatively certain we wouldn't get to do it next turn.
@uri , when the shard speak of increased effectiveness of life and death techniques, aside from insights, do we have any techniques that count? Do healing techniques count as life techniques?
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giving a look at what changed in our character sheet...
our lifespan is shrinking down so quickly... at current rates we have basically 3 more turns (age 513 lifespan 510). We NEED to work on that lifespan sharing formation/ritual.
Runes instead of artificing... Soul Surgery went up a rank...
wait, do we need to burn lifespan specifically for this, or does it happen automatically? Because we're basically going to burn 40 lifespan each turn for the extra actions anyway... saw later it works for ALL lifespan uses, which is nice. Especially as we're planning for lifespan-using techniques, including potentially "terraforming" ones to recover from the Apocalypse.
In any case we need 200 years of burned lifespan to reach our current body stage in the "new" refinement, and then the 100-500-1000-10000 remaining stages.
If nothing else this is saving us the time and effort to research how to go back to improve the body step. And it gives us something to use lifespan on.
After all 11.800 years of lifespan is a lot for one person... but if we could get it from even just all our cultivators, or the mortals, is a drop in an ocean in exchange for significantly strenghtening the strongest hero unit of the Empire.
well, more efficiency in getting extra lifespan (+20%) is just nice.
we can now heal death. Which, sure, it's REALLY expensive... but for specific champions it's worth it, it can be shown as another "miracle" we can use for propaganda and raise faith and divine qi generation, and we're already working towards ways to gather more lifespan for such investmenets.
Though, admittedly, resurrecting a champion is likely to cost far more than the "minimum". Especially if they die to demons.
make all demonic cultivation weakers. It's nice.
A minor bonus, but it helps. I imagine by the end of it Kuvara and Shikatu will share the Keku domain.
this implies we should see bonuses in everything using intent, and the first thing to come to mind is spiritual herbs.
so we don't get to add Keku pillar to the core concept? Shame...
our lifespan is shrinking down so quickly... at current rates we have basically 3 more turns (age 513 lifespan 510). We NEED to work on that lifespan sharing formation/ritual.
that's heavy. we'll have to work on ways to mitigate this if at all possible.
With a bit of luck our divine qi generation will go up enough that we can open a few more before the start of the apocalypse... it depends on when it begins, admittedly.
Runes instead of artificing... Soul Surgery went up a rank...
not much, but hey, every little bit helps. This is... currently 1 extra turn of lifespan every 20 turns. a decade every two centuries.
In any case we need 200 years of burned lifespan to reach our current body stage in the "new" refinement, and then the 100-500-1000-10000 remaining stages.
If nothing else this is saving us the time and effort to research how to go back to improve the body step. And it gives us something to use lifespan on.
After all 11.800 years of lifespan is a lot for one person... but if we could get it from even just all our cultivators, or the mortals, is a drop in an ocean in exchange for significantly strenghtening the strongest hero unit of the Empire.
well, more efficiency in getting extra lifespan (+20%) is just nice.
we can now heal death. Which, sure, it's REALLY expensive... but for specific champions it's worth it, it can be shown as another "miracle" we can use for propaganda and raise faith and divine qi generation, and we're already working towards ways to gather more lifespan for such investmenets.
Though, admittedly, resurrecting a champion is likely to cost far more than the "minimum". Especially if they die to demons.
make all demonic cultivation weakers. It's nice.
A minor bonus, but it helps. I imagine by the end of it Kuvara and Shikatu will share the Keku domain.
this implies we should see bonuses in everything using intent, and the first thing to come to mind is spiritual herbs.
so we don't get to add Keku pillar to the core concept? Shame...
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Way too wasteful, we have enough uses for divine qi, including just throwing it in Kuvara as healing techniques, or keeping it fro revives.
I doubt we are opening any more meridians, especially if we want to try for another core insight, the only argument I could see working is the longshot argument that completing a full cycle would do something, but if looking at open meridians wouldn't hint at it, I would say to just keep the divine qi for the many boons it could give.
I would guess there is about 5% chance of us using it in the apocalypse, and those 5% exist at all because we might be able to get divine qi from sacrificing demons to our divine heart flames.
If anyone died and their soul is recovered by Kuvara, she can revive them if we can afford it, if she can't, they would likely become deva princes.
Sharing domains is bad, Kuvara should get all of it, or we should get all of it, trying to share it will just mean it is weaker.
I think that a typo, Uri said it would work to add it in, if I remember correctly.
I remember asking of if we will need actions to join it to the core, and he said no, likewise, we made a core insight that used keku insights.
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I want to check for that "full cycle" thing, yes. It's just 6 divine charges, right? Worth a look I think, unless we're trying to make multiple core insights before then?
Which, hey, might be a good idea if we have the time for it.
CAN we just give divine qi to Kuvara though? I thought we could not.
I wonder... CAN we even revive someone after the soul has been "used" either for Daeva or reincarnation? I suppose the cost might go up exponentially to express the difficulty in basically stealing a soul back from a living person?
Was that even among allies? As in, can't we temporarily give full control of the domain to only one of the two for example?
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
We could, I think at least, especially with the knowledge Okerteru gave us, he could do it, I assume it is gods only, because if we can grab our people divine qi, that changes stuff significantly, but I didn't mean explicitly giving it to her, girl is already getting like five times more than us at least, and six is like a fourth if what we get, divine qi in our hands is significantly more useful than increasing her pool a fraction.
I spoke about using our healing insight to fix her outer layers, which I am relatively sure is more efficient than any way she has to heal, especially if we have lifespan fro others.
And you speak of six divine qi as if it is a little amount we can just throw to get 5% faster cultivation in the hopes that it might boost us in some other major way, I will be willing to vote for it if we have in character indication of that theory (say that scanning open meridians hint at it), but currently, it is just a theory.
But without it, tell me honestly, do you think having another life in the apocalypse and four more divine insights is less useful than 5% cultivation boost and maybe a reward?
Or more than half the damage Tzeench does in a turn fixed for Kuvara without her needing to put the work there? Or three lessons to champions and talents if we get the teacher insight?
That divine qi isn't free, if we spend it now, we wouldn't have it later, so we need to take heavy considerations before spending resources, that we have a lot of resources doesn't mean we can afford wasting them on frivolous stuff.
Maybe? Nice that you say it I am not sure.
If we can share domains, than all of us having it will be good.
@uri , if multiple allied gods have the same domain, can they work together to counter the weakness, or does it being spread say the domain will be weakened ni matter what they did? Also, does cultivation have a domain?
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oh, if we can heal her then sure. Problem is, her "real self" is in the Warp. We might not be able to heal her from the material world.
uh, side note, is there ANYTHING known about the universe outside of the Milky Way Galaxy, other than Tyranids come from out there and MIGHT have conquered multiple galaxies already?
Fair.
ESPECIALLY if we can get that teacher insight. I'd love being able to teach all our Champions first, All our Third Steps second, and eventually every cultivator (or at least every second step) third.
Eventually I'd like to be able to do mass-lessons for all cultivators, as our lessons can't be forgotten so they're better given the earliest we can.
Considering that our special divine insight starts with "Shikatu, the God of Cultivation", I expect that to be our first Domain, really.
Followed by potentially Keku.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
We can, that one of our actions, one point of outer layer per one life and one divine qi, Tzeench does around ten damage in a turn without Okerteru, that might increase with greater focus from him or other gods being involved.
There is a story of people of the imperium once sending some machine outside and getting ork language back before they shut it off, so Orks may have gotten outside, but their grammer is primitive, so they didn't reach beast level yet and achieved the dark powers of grammer.
The black templers once fought some cybernetic psyker xeno that mind controlled worlds and came from outside the galaxy, how they beaten someone who can control worlds is something I don't know.
Keep in mind the canonicity of everything is in doubt because this is how 40k lores work, entirely possible it is just propaganda, so either story might be fake or real.
Those are stuff I remember from the top of my head.
That kind of why I am asking, I wonder what cultivation domain would do, give us influence over every cultivator? Allow us to create impossible cultivation methods? Make cultivation easier or faster? Or maybe stuff crazier than that.
I am pretty sure Tzeench got the sorcery domain, so I am pretty sure it is possible.
Huh, another Tzeench mirroring ability, didn't think of it before.
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I'm pretty sure all of your healing techniques count as life techniques but you don't actually have death aligned techniques.
Knew I forgot something…
Not really, well the "weakness" in having another claim your domain is that it becomes less versatile as specific parts of it aren't in your possession, so if the one who claimed the other part of it is an ally you can just ask them to use it if you need it but the reduced versatility is still there.
Cultivation doesn't yet have a domain; it needs some more time to grow and spread before one manifest.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Another upside to Okerteru getting out, spreading cultivation into the galaxy, meaning that it grows more significant.
Once it has a domain, we should definitely attempt claiming it, would more people beyond our power cultivating reduce our ownership of cultivation? Because I remember we got a small reduction when we spread it for the first time through Okerteru, but I wonder if it means anyone beyond our power learning it is bad or good for us, or if the reduction was one time thing.
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just give it time. and if ANYONE was to claim such a domain, it would HAVE to be Shikatu.
Considering there's now cultivators on other planets thanks to Okertatu that makes it even better, as we might have influence on them...
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
I wonder if cultivation will cause massive chaos, as it grows into a threat to the psychic branches of the imperial bureaucracy.
It doesn't necessarily mean the former branches can't thrive in the new situation, but it is a massive change, and it would mean their gathered knowledge will grow irrelevant, they will be starting over with only their bloodlines (third eye in the navigators' case) and wealth to aid them.
Astropaths are starting over to even bigger extent, the basic psychic disciplines are pyromancy, biomancy, telepathy, divination and telekinesis.
Qi seem different in some regards, divination required innate trait, we needed a core insight to get some decent biomancy, and we have yet to see telekinesis and telepathy.
It doesn't mean qi necessarily can't do those stuff, but we are talking about developing them from zero, and you would need to be second step before you match a psyker in raw power.
All in all, I think it would be like a growing storm, qi will probably be out-competed for a while, but between it's ability to stabilize psykers and greater reliability, it would slowly gather power until there might be a massive civil war, as the main branches of the astra telepathica and Navis Nobilite will fight to make things stay as they are.
All around good for us, a united imperium is a threat, civil war could be what we need to carve ourselves a place in the galaxy.
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Something to be considered is that cultivators being more "stable" offer an alternative to mass killings of psykers. They're inherently less dangerous to those around them.
on the other hand, Psyker sacrifices are still needed for the Emperor and Astronomican, aren't they?
If the Empire ends up "trusting" this new method (which will likely take decades for even minor official adoption, if not centuries), I imagine the methods will coexist for some time. Psykers would make for faster training/recruiting, but cultivators being inherently more stable makes it a potentially valuable addition for, say, the Space Marines.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Yep, but you would still see a massive amount of causalities on psychic training, only the best of the best can survive those training.
The emperor likely also eats the soul, which wouldn't be harmed by stepping on the path, so making psykers step on the path could be a simple way to deliver them with less risk without compromising the quality of them as a meal.
Psykers are all talented, so instructions would probably see most of them awakening relatively easily.
I think it would be used more as a way to make psykers safe for a while, I remember that passage.
Cultivation is easy way to disable psykers, do it and significantly less warp threats.
Than I think it would be a period of people slowly advancing, slowly developing techniques, and only when the imperium would be full of cultivators created to disable psykers that they will actually start rising to prominence as anything more than a way to cripple psychic potential in unstable psykers.
Artifacts Treasury.
New
Okey, I finished updating the empire sheet and while doing so I realized that putting your artifacts there just doesn't feel right.
So here is you're artifact tab.
The daemon sword- the spoils of war form the first deamon you have vanquished, in its form many lie many secrets.
The divine blood drop- a tiny drop of blood containing the essence of all four of the great chaos gods.
The eternal flame (unique)- a pyre of black flames given purpose and substance by your sacrifice, can be used to boost your divining attempt or to allow another to attempt to divine the future.
Retribution- crafted by the best artificers of the empire for the personal use this suit of power armor combines the bleeding edge of mortal science and the knowable of rune scripts, to achieve capability unmatched, retribution is all but immune to small arms fire and even a direct hit by an artillery shell would only dent it. there is no other of its kind in the empire and you doubt that another could be crafted for decades more.
So here is you're artifact tab.
The daemon sword- the spoils of war form the first deamon you have vanquished, in its form many lie many secrets.
The divine blood drop- a tiny drop of blood containing the essence of all four of the great chaos gods.
The eternal flame (unique)- a pyre of black flames given purpose and substance by your sacrifice, can be used to boost your divining attempt or to allow another to attempt to divine the future.
Retribution- crafted by the best artificers of the empire for the personal use this suit of power armor combines the bleeding edge of mortal science and the knowable of rune scripts, to achieve capability unmatched, retribution is all but immune to small arms fire and even a direct hit by an artillery shell would only dent it. there is no other of its kind in the empire and you doubt that another could be crafted for decades more.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Nice, that's our new armour? Thing might be better than most space marine armours, most can't take direct artillery with only denting I think.
Not significantly better, I am almost certain some of the heavier space Marines armour can also do it, but I guess that's the advantage of runes and making this suit one of a kind thing, probably with graded material, it can be small and stay durable.
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cool new armor.
Our economy doubled overnight, though the EEFP went up much less due to the HEAVY maintenance/wellfare costs. It will probably double again next turn between tech multiplier going up, and penalties from the uplift going down
It's really a shame Okertatu couldn't make his offer a bit earlier, so we could have finished the uplift BEFORE the apocalypse. We would have gladly payed double I think!
Divine Charge production went up another bit, though this turn it doesn't matter much due to, well, Okertatu taking it all. And our population went up a cool 46 millions (from 222 to 268), which is also really nice.
We need as many people as we can get, after all.
Coming turn we'll likely have to rewrite those laws, spend a LOT on MODERN military hardware (and probably leave the tier 7-8 stuff for civilian units at best, though it might just be better to recycle it for raw resources), Maybe we can establish asteroid mining as we're going to need a LOT of resources...
well, we'll see how it goes.
Our economy doubled overnight, though the EEFP went up much less due to the HEAVY maintenance/wellfare costs. It will probably double again next turn between tech multiplier going up, and penalties from the uplift going down
It's really a shame Okertatu couldn't make his offer a bit earlier, so we could have finished the uplift BEFORE the apocalypse. We would have gladly payed double I think!
Divine Charge production went up another bit, though this turn it doesn't matter much due to, well, Okertatu taking it all. And our population went up a cool 46 millions (from 222 to 268), which is also really nice.
We need as many people as we can get, after all.
Coming turn we'll likely have to rewrite those laws, spend a LOT on MODERN military hardware (and probably leave the tier 7-8 stuff for civilian units at best, though it might just be better to recycle it for raw resources), Maybe we can establish asteroid mining as we're going to need a LOT of resources...
well, we'll see how it goes.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
After seeing two primarchs are coming, I am kind of the opinion that we should really lower the focus on exploring what more the chaos gods are sending and just assume the worst.
So developing space technology is pretty important, because I am under the assumption they will send some major demon ship and a fleet of lesser ships our way.
Getting astroid mining is also important because the resources of space should be incredibly plentiful, and advanced technology mean inner system space travel is much cheaper and faster than it would normally be.
I have two divination goals currently, first is having someone use the flames to try and find demonic cultivators on our world, and than the turn after it, try looking for causes to the apocalypse so we can try to delay it, say by outlawing tribulations from the sixteenth turn, we know we can't stop it, but if tribulation do bring it closer, we should consider the risk that trying to get more cultivators faster may just make it closer.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Thinking of writing an omake about Haku preparing a tribulation array for her master.
So had a few questions @uri , did tribulations arrays get stronger now, because they are based on rods who use intent to work, and all intent got a pretty decent boost.
What is our level of access to technology similar to what the imperium use, like, can we use gellar fields now? Void shields to empower our qi shields and serve as another layer of defense? Are those stuff locked for us behind more advanced infrastructure unless we are making one of a kind masterpiece like the Retribution?
If gellar fields are available, what happens to cultivators if they are activated in real space (if that possible), what happens if you try to trigger tribulation in one?
Also, in which turn the next batch of third steps to be are, 14 or 15.
So had a few questions @uri , did tribulations arrays get stronger now, because they are based on rods who use intent to work, and all intent got a pretty decent boost.
What is our level of access to technology similar to what the imperium use, like, can we use gellar fields now? Void shields to empower our qi shields and serve as another layer of defense? Are those stuff locked for us behind more advanced infrastructure unless we are making one of a kind masterpiece like the Retribution?
If gellar fields are available, what happens to cultivators if they are activated in real space (if that possible), what happens if you try to trigger tribulation in one?
Also, in which turn the next batch of third steps to be are, 14 or 15.
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Your tribulation arrays did not get stronger as they aren't intent based, the lightning rods (a different tech that also improves tribulation chances) did but the shift is small enough you wont really feel it.
You lack some of the infrastructure to actually build one, they need specialized tools and specialist worker to craft and you have neither.
You could probably kludge a really primitive one if you had to go into the warp but I wouldn't recommend it.
They also can't be utilized in real space, or they can but they do nothing throwing more realty at realty doesn't really do anything.
So, you can create void shields (but not a lot) but they don't really interact with Qi shields, so you could layer them to have two defense layers but they don't really empower each other.
Actually, they might even weaken each other a bit as they utilized two different energy sources which generally draw on the same source.
Edit: Turn 14 is your next batch of third steps.
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Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Maybe we can activate them separately, I think void shields have weakness that you can pass them by walking slowly, meaning that melee fighters can break through easily, so toggling them depending on the situation could be helpful, than again, Khorne demons sometimes have anti magic stuff (and they are probably some of the more dangerous melee forces we will face) and I am not sure how it would interact with qi.
There is also to consider that if we have more shields, we would probably be better off scattering them to protect more places, unless we are protecting the capital or something.
And you said they use the same source, does it mean we get improvement to the qi battery, as there is tech version that can improve it, or does the imperium power them up with psykers/we don't have the tech level or something.
First steps would probably appreciate it at least, those can't afford tribulation arrays.
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I meant more in the sense that the shield array refines the ambient warp energy into Qi and then uses that Qi to power the shield (which is completely physical) while a void shield uses the warp energy to shift/absorb attacks.
Using both means that there is less warp energy to fuel the Qi shield and less warp energy for the void shield to utilize to shift/absorb attacks.
Its not that big of a downside as one of the upsides of the Qi shield is that you can store Qi and can use cultivators Qi to strengthen it.
But at the end of the day both shields draw their power from the same source.
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Could we do something like "intent-focusing lessons", to improve the effect of the lightning rods? Basically a course for family and friends of cultivators wanting to help with the rods?
It's likely to share a lot of the same material from spiritual herb farming courses, even, as that's also about focused intent
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
I think it is already being done, I mean, people don't start off knowing how to forge lighting rods in most cases, they need to go through a course anyway, so something similar to herb raising is probably already being done.
As Roth said, its basically the required knowledge to even construct one and is already being taught.