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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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[] Songs and poems of peoples and ways of life long gone (Spirit Ken, Beast handling)

Best to play to our strengths at a time like this.
 
[] Paintings, watercolors and tapestries depicting glories long gone (Art, War)

Because bards need to be good at everything, but when else can we pick up crumbs about Art and War?
 
[] Songs and poems of peoples and ways of life long gone (Spirit Ken, Beast handling)
Most people we know have a spirit, MAYBE two. We have three and possibly counting, depending on what we run into, so this seems solid.
The other two...
Governance, while inevitably going to slap us upside the head, alongside War which is also likely to do the same, aren't our Cultivation focus. Speeches isn't Ling's thing so to speak? She's the person who grabs her flute when she wants to express something tricky, and Art is again, probably going to be expressed via Flute.
 
[] Songs and poems of peoples and ways of life long gone (Spirit Ken, Beast handling)

Seems interesting, moreover, for other things we can get bonuses from Arts.
 
I started reading on RoyalRoad and then immediately switched to reader mode on SufficientVelocity, so I was late to realize how much impact voting and randomness had on the story.


Meizhen at the lake was a very good plot line and felt in character, but the middle-late portion of the story was long and it took forever to resolve their separation.

It would have been ridiculous for Li to win the tournament so I don't expect much resistance there. Her tournament run was fairly anticlimatic but I viewed Bai vs Sun as the main conflict there and it paid off spectacularly.

Joining Cai was an objectively good choice so I don't see much criticism from that direction. To be honest if you don't realize there was a poll the decision doesn't really have much narrative or thematic weight.


If you evaluate these quests as stories I think the biggest problem is repetition in the grinding segments, and that the character interactions are very segmented. Each cycle we choose a small number of people to interact with, meet them at [quest location] and then separate and return home. This is compounded by the fact that people don't eat or sleep so there aren't any central locations or times to produce random encounters.

This leads into my more subtle criticism which has to do with the relationship score mechanic. In a natural story I feel like you spend more time with people that you are close with; but we focus our attention on unfamiliar people in order to raise our scores. I think this could be mitigated by more events that incorporate multiple people but who knows.
 
[X] Songs and poems of peoples and ways of life long gone (Spirit Ken, Beast handling)

Being a pokemon trainer is appealing to me
 
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[] Songs and poems of peoples and ways of life long gone (Spirit Ken, Beast handling)

We have 3 spirits plus more on the wish list. (Ugly River Eel, looking at yoooouuuu.)

Also, kinda interesting that the whole thread got it wrong on the previous votes on which option belonged to which moon phase. So Tonghou was the Hidden Moon option, not Grinning.
 
mectron said:
Meizhen at the lake was a very good plot line and felt in character, but the middle-late portion of the story was long and it took forever to resolve their separation.
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mectron said:
If you evaluate these quests as stories I think the biggest problem is repetition in the grinding segments, and that the character interactions are very segmented. Each cycle we choose a small number of people to interact with, meet them at [quest location] and then separate and return home. This is compounded by the fact that people don't eat or sleep so there aren't any central locations or times to produce random encounters.
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A big part of the rewrite on Royal Road is going to be streamlining and reworking the chafe in the latter portion of the story, so I'd expect them to be quite different when we do finally reach that point.
 
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[] Songs and poems of peoples and ways of life long gone (Spirit Ken, Beast handling)

I care very little about the mechanical part of this. But I've always been more interested in the Empire's contacts and incorporations of peoples than in the Empire itself. While I'm sure there are some real beauties and treasures produced in service of that process, the more interesting pieces usually come from people writing about themselves and their own experiences, not from people writing about the ideals of Nation.
 
[] Songs and poems of peoples and ways of life long gone (Spirit Ken, Beast handling)

While the War option would offer a nice way to finally start raising that i don't think we hand enough time on our hand to add yet an other training objective. Much better to focus on what is directly useful to us right now.
 
yrsillar said:
Though here in Emerald Seas, she was the sponsor of wild spirit bacchanals and impropriety, the Dreaming Moon itself was more than that. It was actually simple in concept, the unrepressed expression of self and all the good and bad that implied.

The Grinning Moon too, was not just the thief and the flighty fairy. If the Dreaming Moon looked to the future, and the Hidden Moon looked to the past, the Grinning Moon exulted in the now. She was the joy in motion and the rush of triumph over long odds. She was the satisfaction in drawing a startled yelp from a stoic junior, and bringing down an organization in a single night of frenzied thieving.

The Hidden Moon was the desire for knowledge, and through it, power. It was knowing all of the things that could threaten you and how to counter each and every one. It was looking back on her past and not letting her bile overwhelm her when she examined those memories, how they had shaped her and how that related to material reality.

The Grinning Moon was her desire for agency in her own life, of being in control of the world within the reach of her arms. The Hidden Moon was her caution, the desire to build a place of safety, either within or without. The Dreaming Moon was her the desire to grasp for more, seeking always the lights beyond her reach. This was not their whole of course, but Ling Qi was far from being able to embody even one phase. It was what they were to her.
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I loved this section and really appreciated the thought process Ling Qi is having to internalize the different phases of the moon and what they meant to her. Ling Qi is not one for impropriety like what the Dreaming moon can sponsor, Ling Qi isn't one for abject thievery, and Ling Qi isn't one for to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

However, framing the phrases as aspects of time that concern's Ling Qi, the past and present and future, is a wonderful way to reconcile some of the various disparate elements of the phases that might not play nicely with each other. Furthermore, Ling Qi doesn't just stop at framing the phases as parts of a timeline, but also as integral parts of her character. Of her desire to control things within her reach, of her desire to be cautious and safe in a place to call her own, and of an endless pursuit for something that is just out of reach.

I think this is a wonderful way to begin creating our own phase out of the phases of the moon that we have become our patrons. It's really, really cool.
 
[] Songs and poems of peoples and ways of life long gone (Spirit Ken, Beast handling)

I like Ling Qi spending time with spirits, not as excited about interacting with the government.

War is coming, but I think it's going to be more of Ling Qi managing her scouting group of 5-10 (through spirit infested lands) than her commanding a group of 20+ in massed warfare.

Huo Yuhao said:
I was fine with Liling winning as she did. It was an expected outcome and we performed fairly well. What I didn't like about the tournament was Ji Rong being seemingly rubberbanded to our level. It diminishes the value of all the planning and strategizing that happened in the thread, making it seem almost pointless in the end. I'm not sure how exactly the calculations work out with Ji Rong having Talent 7 though, so I might be wrong about this.
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IIRC, Talent 7 expects 17% more successes than 6 (plus 1 extra die (negligible after pills)) so, with equal time and resources spent, we expect a talent 7 cultivator to move 17% faster. Ji Rong lost... what, 6 weeks of time? That's 11.5% of a year. So in the end it comes down more to resources and dedication (time spent) than time available, and it's entirely believable that Liling's bankroll would be equivalent to (or better than) Ling Qi's luck, theft, and spirit guides.
 
[X] Songs and poems of peoples and ways of life long gone (Spirit Ken, Beast handling)

Yarp.
I'd...sort of be okay with any of these I guess. None of these would be directly counter to a growing Ling Qi, and I sure do like songs and spirit ken.
 
[X] Historical Plays, works of wit and satire, (Speech, Government,)
 
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