Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

While I think I prefer Wood or Darkness, if Sixiang grows a Wind bonus right before we use her Music bonus on Harmony that'll be swell, especially given her narrative focus on perception(even if that's just because that's the only way she can interact in non-social scenes besides dispelling)

That said, switching to approval.

[x]Wood
[X]Darkness

[X] Darkness
[X] Water
[X] Wind
[X] Wood

As I said I was going to do. Darkness is in just about everything (for good or ill), Water's our Offense, Wind's looking to be perception/stealth, and Wood's our Defense.

Then Music and Moon come in to thread most of those together.

Wind. So important to us and shaped us its a part of the following arts we use regularly:

…

You know what Wind IS a key component of?

Fallen Stars Art.


[X]Darkness
[X]Water

[X] Wind

I considered it a bit of a shame when we switched away from wind in our breakthrough vision. Of course I want to bring it back.

Insert tally

I was going to vote Darkness/Wind because I don't want Wood or Water to come anywhere close to winning, but just because of the guy talking down FSA a few posts ago instead I'm going to:

[X] Wind

[X] Darkness
[X] Wood
[X] Water

I'm sort of expecting Wind to win and honestly it's kinda annoying and fitting. Wind is the fickle element and because Quest with a large voterbase actually having consistency and commitment to a build just ain't gonna fucking happen, such as selecting Wind as most important when we have nothing important that uses Wind with nothing major planned to add using wind, hence the annoyance. So I'm expecting Wind to win and for us to nab yet another bonus that ends up being useless because we aren't going to use it. Or maybe Yrsillar is pulling a fast one and Sixiang is asking Ling Qi what's most important to her so he can evolve in the opposite direction to serve as a counterweight and provide Ling Qi with different perspectives cause the whole adding a modifer to you cultivation isn't what Sixiang is thinking about.

[X] Wind
[X] Darkness
[X] Water

[X] Wind
[X] Wood

Orkus Majorkus said:

Regardless of what we think should be important to Ling Qi in the future what we are voting on is what is important to Ling Qi right now, and wind isn't it.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Except that it's asking which is most important to who Ling Qi wants to be, not who she currently is.

minimap_op said:

[X] Darkness
[X] Wood
[X] Water

I'm sort of expecting Wind to win and honestly it's kinda annoying and fitting. Wind is the fickle element and because Quest with a large voterbase actually having consistency and commitment to a build just ain't gonna fucking happen, such as selecting Wind as most important when we have nothing important that uses Wind with nothing major planned to add using wind, hence the annoyance. So I'm expecting Wind to win and for us to nab yet another bonus that ends up being useless because we aren't going to use it. Or maybe Yrsillar is pulling a fast one and Sixiang is asking Ling Qi what's most important to her so he can evolve in the opposite direction to serve as a counterweight and provide Ling Qi with different perspectives cause the whole adding a modifer to you cultivation isn't what Sixiang is thinking about.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Well, no, everyone wants some wind in the build, we just can't get any good arts with it because of the whole Darkness/Water meme

minimap_op said:

with nothing major planned to add using wind, hence the annoyance.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

We're training HDW this turn. That's Wind/Music, and one half of our near-future Perception suite.

ENM is Wind/Dark, which provides an offensive element to our Stealth.

MNO is Moon/Wind, and counters Spiritual senses the way SCS counters physical ones.

DLS is Dark/Wind, and does for Spiritual Avoid what SCS does for Physical Avoid.

AFL is Wind, and boosts our Flight.

We're looking to train ENM or MNO next turn and the turn after, with DLS and whichever of ENM/MNO wasn't previously trained on turn 6.

So, uh... if you count four Arts as 'nothing major', then sure. Nothing major. It's only in ~60% of our potential stealth suite.

I mean, if a Wind Pill ever shows up, you can bet the voters will go ham on Wind.

Same with any other element we've got, like Wood or Darkness.

Basically, Drugs are Destiny.

So, I just got done with a 7 1/2 hour workshop session, and I'm ready for some theory crafting! I find that the current lack of discussion regarding the aspects of the chapter outside of the vote to be criminally underrepresented, so that is where I shall go!

yrsillar said:

In Dream Ling Qi was surrounded by kin. Through the currents of thought and great abyss's of conciousness, she swam with countless millions of her kin, forming patterns of color and brightness of incomprehensible beauty and complexity. In and out of Dream did her kin swim, individuals breaching briefly into the alien realm of the Real. Each time they carried a hint of Dreams Spark, and returned themselves, enriched by new droplets of thought to add to Dream.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

This is some fantastic worldbuilding information. This seems similar to Carl Jung's idea about the sea of unconsciousness. A great swath of the ethereal that connects all thinking beings. Or possibly inspired by the D.C Comic character Morpheus, the individual who represents all that is not reality. Or, possibly, it is inspired by Gamework shops Warp, just calmer and not governed by only 4 gods that want to eat all of humanity. Or none of the above.

Whatever Dream is, it seems to represent the unreal. Or, in other words, the opposite of reality. There is also the ability to move between the two realms, from the Real and the Dream. And in so doing, the entity brings something called a Dream(s?) Spark from the Dream to the Real and then the thoughts from the Real to the Dream, presumably to be turned into more dream sparks and repurposed for different creative enterprises. It's a fascinating world, and Ling Qi now has the means to see memories of living and dying in that place.

So, theory crafting time. PLR is from Sixiang's grandmother, described as a Levithan in the Abyss of Consciousness. Sixiang's grandmother appears to constantly send out muses to bring creativity and return with ideas and thoughts. So Sixiang's Grandmother is constantly having parts of herself bridge the gap between the Real and the Dream. PLR brings forth the memories of a Dreaming Moon Revel into reality. Then could PLR allow us to take a dip into the shallow ends of the Dream should we use it correctly? I mean, Sixiang said that PLR might help us with our dodging abilities, and entering Dream for an instance to avoid an attack is a huge advantage when dodging a Real attack. I think the possibility is there, and it is exciting.

Next up we have...

yrsillar said:

Because the leviathan was herself only a single scale of something greater. Stretching out far beyond her perspective, Ling Qi beheld the Dreaming Moon whole, and found herself insignificant in its face. If Cai Shenhua had been a mountain of impossible vastness, the reality of a great spirit dwarfed even that. One could comprehend reaching the top of a mountain, no matter how high, but this… it was if the world had flipped upside down, and the whole of the earth loomed overhead.

And, to her growing incomprehension, she found that this was only the face which looked upon the empire, a spike of pain shot through her mind, and she saw in the blurry distance; a green skinned man of with beard bound in a strange stiff coil, holding a strange golden scepter in his hand, another with gleaming silver helm and shining ruby who soared through the stars, and beyond even that an androgynous figure with eyes of purest flame that danced in cruel merriment, and...

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

the ability to witness a memory of someone observing a Great Spirit. How many of our peers can say that they've seen the face of a Great Spirit? To witness the breadth and scope of an entity so powerful it defines swaths of reality? Even if it was only a fraction of the Great Spirit's might/size, we have seen knowledge that is locked behind the outer gates. We now have two connections to Great Spirits, EPC and the memory Sixiang has of actually observing a Great Spirit.

I wonder how much Ling Qi will remember of this? If nothing else she can just take a dip in the Sea of Memories again to remember. Which is just a really cool feature of Sixiang, the ability to remember and relive a memory.

Any way, here's the summary:
TL;DR: PLR might allow us to dip into the Dream to avoid an attack. That would be fantastic. Also, Dreaming Moon all the way!

[X] Darkness

Sixiang's dreamscape had not changed much. The endless mounds of pillows and cushions were arranged more neatly, with lanes between for easy movement. Stepping off of the mound she had awoken on Ling Qi found the off white ground to have the texture of fine cloth, and the springiness of a high quality mattress.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Six's domain being pillow fort land is still great.

"I didn't want to nap for a month like that sleepy boy of yours," Sixiang laughed.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Well, Zhengui is going to be a teenager so him sleeping in more would make sense.

Seeing everything from Sixiang's perspective was pretty interesting. I wonder if the peek at the full scope of the Dreaming Moon will influence Ling Qi in anyway.

[X] Wind
[X] Darkness

So are we going to go and pick up a bunch of wind arts if it wins? I'm not exactly opposed to that, but it's going to be incredibly annoying if we pick this entirely for who we want to be while ignoring what we actually do.

The interest in wind arts did stick.
Just that we keep getting crappy ones genned, though Lark is nice

[X] Darkness

Not interested in Wind. We have been plenty creative without it.