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

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Orkus Majorkus said:
Ugly River Eel will be Lan Lan's boyfriend! AND we can get her to come with us on the hunt so she can make kissy eyes at the scruffy count scion whom her family already has ties to. It's all falling into place for Operation Decactus Lan Lan
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Besides we can't afford another powerful spirit. Even we don't have that much QI.
 
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It's not like we can stop hunting spirit beast.
All of our drugs are made from their parts. All of our talismans use their cores in it's construction.

Only way we could go full pacifist is to live as a hermit in a cave.
 
Asael said:
It's not like we can stop hunting spirit beast.
All of our drugs are made from their parts. All of our talismans use their cores in it's construction.

Only way we could go full pacifist is to live as a hermit in a cave.
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There is also the fact that the vast majority of spirits are trying to kill everyone they meet. It is just a fact of the world that spirits kill humans and humans kill spirits. I doubt that even the idea of pacifism has been born in a death world like this.
 
yrsillar said:
She wanted to say that it was different, that killing a person wasn't like killing an animal, no matter how smart, but then… She looked down at Cui and then back up at Meizhen. She thought of Zhengui and Heijin and Zhenli, and all the other spirit beasts she knew.
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Meizhen's point, while not addressing Ling Qi's particular current issue, is actually really pertinent in the context of her last Moon quest: the decision Ling Qi made to revive the hill tribes' traditions of spirit interaction was made in contrast to the Imperial method of treating spirits as things. In other words, Ling Qi had the Dreaming Moon inspire the people of Emerald Seas to engage with spirits as people. If Ling Qi doesn't make space for killing spirits in her reconcile with killing humans, that puts her directly in conflict with the ideas that she caused to be inspired.
 
yrsillar said:
However, it seemed that her words were enough as understanding dawned in the girls golden eyes. It was still hard to meet them. "It was unsettling in the moment, I will admit. However Grandfather was there to talk me through it," she hesitated for a moment, as if deliberating on something. "...It is a happy memory all things considered, Grandfather rarely took personal time for us. While it is untoward to glory overmuch in killing, Ling Qi, the world is deadly, and for one to live and grow, others must die. You have slain many spirit beasts, some of which could even think and speak as we do, given some age and experience, and consume pills and elixirs made from their essence every day. Why be so torn at this death?"

Ling Qi leaned back in her chair with a complicated expression. She wanted to say that it was different, that killing a person wasn't like killing an animal, no matter how smart, but then… She looked down at Cui and then back up at Meizhen. She thought of Zhengui and Heijin and Zhenli, and all the other spirit beasts she knew. "I… don't know," Ling Qi admitted aloud. Was it just because the bandits had looked like her, because seeing their eyes as they died was different than looking down into the eyes of a dying beast.
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So, let's get into the weeds and try to figure out a platform to stand on this moral quandary. The first step, as ever, is asking the right question or framing the question in such a way so that we have some actual ground to begin dissecting it and understanding it.

As such, here is, in my opinion, the distillation of the question in its essential form: "Is there a difference between killing a living, thinking, speaking spirit beast and a human?" This question is especially interesting given what we know of some of the more powerful spirit beasts, that the Dragons developed culture, buildings, and established social structures similar to what humans are capable of. By all appearances, if the dragons had a body identical to that of a human, what difference would there be?

The answer, I believe, falls into the creation of the world. And this is the basic mythos of the world as told by Elder Ying
yrsillar said:
Elder Su paused, giving her an amused look, as if her thoughts were heard, and Ling Qi ducked her head and flushed a bit. "Great Spirits were alien to one another, each was their own unique being with little connection to one another, yet this spirit felt strange at the sight of the Mother's tears. He felt a pain, as if he had come to harm. At first he imagined it an attack, and withdrew in suspicion," she continued without pause. "Eventually though, he found that he was not wounded, and once again grew curious, filled with a desire to understand. He returned and considered the scene. Soon, he came to the conclusion that the Mother's pain had caused his, and set about to correct the problem. The dolls were the obvious problem, but he could find no damage, they were filled with her essence, active fragments, just as such things should be. Yet they were without motion or will, as the Mother was a being of order and stillness." Elder Ying paused here, turning here, spreading her hands. "The other spirit however, was a being of chaos and motion, and so he considered that perhaps the stillness was the problem. He extended his own essence to the dolls, and made them dance."

Ling Qi couldn't help the slight snort of laughter that escaped her lips. Elder Ying, surprisingly, did not reproach her and instead let out a quiet chuckle herself. "This story makes Great Spirits seem very simple," Ling Qi noted. "Is that intentional?"

"Most likely," Elder Ying replied. "You must understand, that the beings of this time had no real comprehension of communication with one another just yet. The world was new, and they were in many ways as children.There are many treatises on the evolution of Great Spirits, if the subject has your interest. For now though, simply keep that in mind as we continue," she answered kindly. "Now, this of course startled the Mother, who had been so embroiled in despair that she had not noticed the approach of the Other. She grew excited for the dolls before her acted without her will, she could perceive the existence of the other being before her though, and it quickly became clear that he was the source. Her mood fell, as she realized it was only another Great Spirit playing with her discarded creations," Ling Qi cocked her head to the side. What must it have been like, to simply be fundamentally unable to communicate at all like that. "The other spirit saw her plunging mood and thought furiously about a solution. To a being such as him it was obvious. The dolls needed more motion. He poured greater essence into the effort, going so far as to longer puppet the dolls, but to infuse them himself," Elder Ying smiled. "And so, his essence mingled with the Mothers, and from it was born two things. Understanding, and the very first humans."

"So, we are different because we were created?" Ling Qi ventured a guess. "We aren't… natural the way spirits are?"
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Regardless of whether it is true or not, there are clear differences between the spirit beasts and cultivators. The inflexibility of a spirit beast in the meridians it has open, the lack of impurities in a spirit beast, and the immediate power of a spirit beast upon birth are clear indicators that there is something profoundly different between the Spirit Beast and the Cultivator.

Furthermore, the natural cycle of the world can be strictly applied to spirit beasts. They grow stronger from consuming their competition, from successfully hunting and consuming the energies within their prey. The world has a brutal cycle for an ecosystem which the spirit beasts are perfectly capable of using to their advantage. Humans, on the other hand, are outside of that cycle. They can not directly benefit from consuming a spirit beast's core or eating the flesh of a high-grade fruit. It would poison them, turning on them and killing them. In that way, spirit beasts are inside the cycle of consumption while humans are outside of the cycle, only able to benefit from the cycle by the disciplined use of tools and procedures to make the pills, elixirs, and talismans.

In that way, spirit beasts and humans are in different groups, one is part of the cycle while another is outside of it. And to kill something inside of the cycle is to simply keep the cycle going, to either leave the core behind for others to consume or to prepare and consume it yourself (or die trying to consume it leaving your corpse for others to profit off of). However, killing something outside of the cycle doesn't promote the cycle. While it is true that the body of the cultivator could provide meat and energy to a spirit beast, it is something coming into the cycle from outside. The very act of a human killing another human is a conflict that is outside of a natural cycle that has existed before humans were even conceived as a concept. And it is from this that the difference between the two could arise.

This argument could, however, be complete hogwash. It will be up to Ling Qi to decide whether there is a difference between killing a spirit beast and a human, what that difference is, and how to come to terms with her actions in regards to spirit beasts and humans alike.
 
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[X] Seek out Liao Zhu, there were things she wanted to get out of her mind, and she thought her senior brother might have useful insights.
 
Liling's beast sounds interesting, not least because I'm imagining it looking like a three eyed crow got nabbed by the flood.

That said;
yrsillar said:
...Though I find myself more irritated that her little lapdog managed to contract a Heavenly Dragon. Do you know how much time I have spent, how many things I have tried, attempting to entice one?
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Ok I gotta call bullshit here.

How the hell did he even find one? Dragons don't exactly grow on trees and tend to be pretty territorial. The only dragon's remotely close to the sect should be the sect master's companion and her offspring.

Neither him or Xiulan should have been looking for one directly in the first place.

And in order to have any sort of relationship Heizui we needed to beat him without actually hurting him or his mother would eat us. And that was just to share space with him, never mind actually bind him.

Which can only mean that Ji Rong, the very epitimoe of facepunching, somehow managed to beat a dragon without actually punching it. And I thought Heizui was a disappointment to his mother. Or Liling gave him literally the mother of all bribes to pass along to get the dragon to pretend to go along with this. In which case I can only hope it acts like an unholy fusion of Ash's Charizard and Yojimbo.

The whole thing just feels gameey, rather than organic. Too much like "Ling Qi has a four directions beast, better give the rival one". I'm not saying that was the thought process behind it, but it really does feel that way.
 
[X] Take care of her tutoring session with Bai Xiao Fen, to ensure her time afterward was free.

Must tease snek kohai!
 
Humbaba said:
The whole thing just feels gameey, rather than organic. Too much like "Ling Qi has a four directions beast, better give the rival one". I'm not saying that was the thought process behind it, but it really does feel that way.
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Given this was the following sentence, you are 100% correct that this was just basically level scaling:
"Luck is a talent as well," Meizhen said dryly, giving Ling Qi a long look.

Ling Qi smiled sheepishly, she supposed that she couldn't comment on the matter.
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This is basically "Well, Ling Qi is lucky as fuck, so designated rival must be too suck it up". The problem with that reasoning is that not only does this assume level scaling is the norm, but it also commits the grave sin of wanting both rare luck to be rare inverse, but everyone around Ling Qi to have similar amount of "never before seen luck", basically making it a cliche "interesting time" rather than rare things actually deserving their rare tag.

It just ends up being really lazy and just bad writing.
 
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[X] Take care of her tutoring session with Bai Xiao Fen, to ensure her time afterward was free.


I feel using our mentoring as a way of understanding ourselves will end better than simply listening to our elders (particularly when said mentor is likely to be of the find bad guy > kill bad guy mentality)
 
Arkeus said:
Given this was the following sentence, you are 100% correct that this was just basically level scaling:
This is basically "Well, Ling Qi is lucky as fuck, so designated rival must be too suck it up". The problem with that reasoning is that not only does this assume level scaling is the norm, but it also commits the grave sin of wanting both rare luck to be rare inverse, but everyone around Ling Qi to have similar amount of "never before seen luck", basically making it a cliche "interesting time" rather than rare things actually deserving their rare tag.

It just ends up being really lazy and just bad writing.
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Someone can't handle dealing with the bullshit Meizhen and Xiulan have to put up with :p

Tbh, I'm far more concerned about named characters in general doing too well like Suyin and Su Ling and Han Fang etc. But for some reason people try to defend that. Probably because they don't threaten our specialness.
 
Arkeus said:
Given this was the following sentence, you are 100% correct that this was just basically level scaling:
This is basically "Well, Ling Qi is lucky as fuck, so designated rival must be too suck it up". The problem with that reasoning is that not only does this assume level scaling is the norm, but it also commits the grave sin of wanting both rare luck to be rare inverse, but everyone around Ling Qi to have similar amount of "never before seen luck", basically making it a cliche "interesting time" rather than rare things actually deserving their rare tag.

It just ends up being really lazy and just bad writing.
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If someone we don't know about got a heavenly dragon would that be a problem? We know from LanLan that it is somewhat well known how to approach heavenly dragons. Sure heavenly dragons may be rare but if Lanlan, someone from a viscount clan, is able to attempt to get one then it makes sense that almost anyone is able to try. If anyone is able to try then anyone might be able to get it. We don't really know what happened behind the GM screen but if Ji Rong rolled to see what spirit beast he would get and got a crit then is there any room to complain? Just because something is unlikely to happen doesn't mean it never happens.
 
Humbaba said:
Ok I gotta call bullshit here.

How the hell did he even find one? Dragons don't exactly grow on trees and tend to be pretty territorial. The only dragon's remotely close to the sect should be the sect master's companion and her offspring.

Neither him or Xiulan should have been looking for one directly in the first place.

And in order to have any sort of relationship Heizui we needed to beat him without actually hurting him or his mother would eat us. And that was just to share space with him, never mind actually bind him.

Which can only mean that Ji Rong, the very epitimoe of facepunching, somehow managed to beat a dragon without actually punching it. And I thought Heizui was a disappointment to his mother. Or Liling gave him literally the mother of all bribes to pass along to get the dragon to pretend to go along with this. In which case I can only hope it acts like an unholy fusion of Ash's Charizard and Yojimbo.

The whole thing just feels gameey, rather than organic. Too much like "Ling Qi has a four directions beast, better give the rival one". I'm not saying that was the thought process behind it, but it really does feel that way.
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After a couple minutes of thinking, I'm going to disagree on this point.

We know that there is at least one family of River dragons in the area (given our experience with the son) and we have OoC knowledge that there is, or was, an underground dragon in the sect. Next, here is the text regarding Heavenly dragons that Ling Qi found in the archives:
yrsillar said:
Dragons, it seemed came in three broad types. Heavenly or Sky Dragons, kin to the First Emperors spirt, were the only dragons which flew. Their scales were typically light blue or white, and they had the longest and most serpentine forms. They lived among the clouds, only touching the earth to nest on the very highest mountain peaks. They had an instinctive command of wind and cloud, able to whip up storms at a moment's notice
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We know that the Sect Head has been depicted as a perfectly controlled all-consuming storm, and the Wall has some of the highest peaks in the area. It is not, therefore, out of the realm of possibility that Heaven dragons would be attracted towards the area. Further evidence for this is provided that other types of dragons are attracted to the area, both river, and underground.

Furthermore, it appears known that heavenly dragons might like the area for nesting sites given that Xiulan attempted to find/entice one. Which leads me to think that while dragons are rare, likely exceptionally so, they are not hyper-rare in that they can only be found in the Celestial peaks.

Additionally, we don't know why, exactly, the dragon agreed to go with Ji Rong. It could have been in a rebellious phase and was enticed by a high talent cultivator wanting to bind it (as a way to get away from his family). It could be that the dragon just hatched and heavenly dragons leave their young to fend for themselves, and this one found Ji Rong. It could be that Ji Rong forcibly bound it because it wasn't associated with the Sect. There are a lot of possibilities here once we have the presumption that a heavenly dragon would be attracted to the location.

So I don't particularly think that this is just random happenstance. Ji Rong is a strongly heaven aligned, with a bit of wind, and is high talent. Likely very attractive to a heavenly dragon to bind with. Furthermore, this area seems to be a place that dragons are attracted to, for whatever reason, and the Wall has the highest mountains in the region, which is perfect for heavenly dragons. There have been enough hints and dots to connect that this doesn't seem, to me, to have come out of the left field and is rather a natural progression on what we already know about the Argent Sect.
 
Amperstand said:
Well, that looks a whole lot like he just hit us with a social art. Might want to start thinking about upping our social defense.
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I doubt that. Any active tech would probably get spotted.

Odds are, it was either a passive, or just Ling Qi being a 15 year old.

Also:

[X] Seek out Liao Zhu, there were things she wanted to get out of her mind, and she thought her senior brother might have useful insights.
 
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