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

Going to look at this in terms of Insights, as I feel conflicted about it.

Sincerity is the measure by which the worthiness of the self and ones guests should be measured.

This doesn't make an argument either way, but does mean the promise can't be made flippantly and broken when convenient.

There are endings and Endings, only the very last one is final. Just as winter ends in spring, small endings are new beginnings.

This I think argues that the promise is wrong. Zhengui is placing emphasis on avoiding endings entirely.

Though a path might be hard and lonely, it has worth if you can present something of beauty to those you care for at the end.

This insight also argues against the promise. If one can't take hard, lonely paths, how can the insight have value?

There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end.

One could argue this emphasizes mobile tactics, and maybe even highly binding promises at all. That's a stretch reading though.

Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.

This insight on the other hand is mostly arguing with Zhengui, unsurprisingly because of the wood nature of it. Don't separate yourself from your roots. Then again it would also argue self sacrifice for something important enough is worth it at times.

One person's desires cannot, alone make a home nor a family.

You could argue this one either way, I think. Is Zhengui being too controlling? Is Ling Qi being unreasonable? It's hard to say.


Overall, as I suspected, I think the balance of LQ's domain insights are against making this promise. Going over it more in my head it feels like a promise I would want to make, but one that is wrong for the choices Ling Qi has already made in Green. I think we need to exercise some tough love here.

[X] She could not make that promise, not knowing what the future could hold. (Ling Qi remains open to all tactics. Affects Zhengui's development.)

Vote tally:

DeAnno said:

One person's desires cannot, alone make a home nor a family.

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Actually I think this insight is most in favor of ZG's request here. We're ultimately being asked to take our family's desires into account when making choices, not just our own.

DeAnno said:

Going to look at this in terms of Insights, as I feel conflicted about it.

Sincerity is the measure by which the worthiness of the self and ones guests should be measured.

This doesn't make an argument either way, but does mean the promise can't be made flippantly and broken when convenient.

There are endings and Endings, only the very last one is final. Just as winter ends in spring, small endings are new beginnings.

This I think argues that the promise is wrong. Zhengui is placing emphasis on avoiding endings entirely.

Though a path might be hard and lonely, it has worth if you can present something of beauty to those you care for at the end.

This insight also argues against the promise. If one can't take hard, lonely paths, how can the insight have value?

There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end.

One could argue this emphasizes mobile tactics, and maybe even highly binding promises at all. That's a stretch reading though.

Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.

This insight on the other hand is mostly arguing with Zhengui, unsurprisingly because of the wood nature of it. Don't separate yourself from your roots. Then again it would also argue self sacrifice for something important enough is worth it at times.

One person's desires cannot, alone make a home nor a family.

You could argue this one either way, I think. Is Zhengui being too controlling? Is Ling Qi being unreasonable? It's hard to say.


Overall, as I suspected, I think the balance of LQ's domain insights are against making this promise. Going over it more in my head it feels like a promise I would want to make, but one that is wrong for the choices Ling Qi has already made in Green. I think we need to exercise some tough love here.

[X] She could not make that promise, not knowing what the future could hold. (Ling Qi remains open to all tactics. Affects Zhengui's development.)

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2,3 are incredible stretches. This doesnt prevent endings, merely unnnecessary self sacrificial stunts, and it doesnt really prevent hard lonely path. Arguably, the other way, not taking the promise, is the easy path since Ling Qi wouldnt have to change what she is doing now. This promise on the other hard forces Ling Qi to change a lot about how she fights, which is not easy.

And the last one, our advanced insight, is firmly in favor of Zhengui. We arent just causing him pain. We are also causing Hanyi, Qingge and Xiulan pain through our excessive self sacrifice.

So I was thinking some about this, and honestly, an art that would be really neat to pick up to support this decision (if we agree to the deal with Zhengui) is some sort of dedicated zookeeper art. Such things must exist: an art which improves the cultivator's ability to withdraw one's spirits into their dantian and to deploy them faster would do a lot to help mitigate Zhengui's negatives and also allow him to basically use him as a tank, not in the RPG sense, but in the armored warfare sense. Ever watched Starcraft 2 mech Terran pick up a deployed Siege Tank with a Medivac, activate booster jets, and then drop it out into a new and better vantage point? I'm thinking something like that. Plus other support techs to improve fighting-alongside-spirits in other ways, like synchronizing our arts with theirs, or theirs with each other's.

I think I would prefer this to a general group mobility tech which lets LQ carry allies with her when she moves, even. I like the idea of leaning into the "close relationships with spirits" thing. Didn't Plan Pokemon win our recent skill training vote? Let's be a Pokemon master.

Lena27 said:

Actually I think this insight is most in favor of ZG's request here. We're ultimately being asked to take our family's desires into account when making choices not just our own.

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I mean, the circumstances we got that insight under was Zeqing wanting to hold tight onto Hanyi and not let her go, so I'm not sure you can make such a decisive reading here.

DeAnno said:

Going to look at this in terms of Insights, as I feel conflicted about it.

Sincerity is the measure by which the worthiness of the self and ones guests should be measured.

This doesn't make an argument either way, but does mean the promise can't be made flippantly and broken when convenient.

There are endings and Endings, only the very last one is final. Just as winter ends in spring, small endings are new beginnings.

This I think argues that the promise is wrong. Zhengui is placing emphasis on avoiding endings entirely.

Though a path might be hard and lonely, it has worth if you can present something of beauty to those you care for at the end.

This insight also argues against the promise. If one can't take hard, lonely paths, how can the insight have value?

There is no peace in emptiness, no content in stillness. Stagnation is death; act, change, move, think, and grow until the very end.

One could argue this emphasizes mobile tactics, and maybe even highly binding promises at all. That's a stretch reading though.

Branches and trunks bend and sway, but the roots must remain unyielding. Retreat only so far and then no more.

This insight on the other hand is mostly arguing with Zhengui, unsurprisingly because of the wood nature of it. Don't separate yourself from your roots. Then again it would also argue self sacrifice for something important enough is worth it at times.

One person's desires cannot, alone make a home nor a family.

You could argue this one either way, I think. Is Zhengui being too controlling? Is Ling Qi being unreasonable? It's hard to say.


Overall, as I suspected, I think the balance of LQ's domain insights are against making this promise. Going over it more in my head it feels like a promise I would want to make, but one that is wrong for the choices Ling Qi has already made in Green. I think we need to exercise some tough love here.

[X] She could not make that promise, not knowing what the future could hold. (Ling Qi remains open to all tactics. Affects Zhengui's development.)

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Arguing against what I voted for but I'm with @Sparkle, the advanced insight (and recent narrative thrust) point toward making the promise (the rest of the insights imo are suffuciently ambivalent so as not to factor here, SCS's 'adapt' applies should be broad enough).

Why I still vote for not making it is that imo if we're gonna have a conflict of insights it's better to do so now and hopefully resolve it with another advanced insight sometimes soon than deal with a situation where we find ourselves breaking the promise at a higher cultivation and likely paying a much higher price.

picklepikkl said:

So I was thinking some about this, and honestly, an art that would be really neat to pick up to support this decision (if we agree to the deal with Zhengui) is some sort of dedicated zookeeper art. Such things must exist: an art which improves the cultivator's ability to withdraw one's spirits into their dantian and to deploy them faster would do a lot to help mitigate Zhengui's negatives and also allow him to basically use him as a tank, not in the RPG sense, but in the armored warfare sense. Ever watched Starcraft 2 mech Terran pick up a deployed Siege Tank with a Medivac, activate booster jets, and then drop it out into a new and better vantage point? I'm thinking something like that. Plus other support techs to improve fighting-alongside-spirits in other ways, like synchronizing our arts with theirs, or theirs with each other's.

I think I would prefer this to a general group mobility tech which lets LQ carry allies with her when she moves, even. I like the idea of leaning into the "close relationships with spirits" thing. Didn't Plan Pokemon win our recent skill training vote? Let's be a Pokemon master.

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Gonna quote myself on discord (with partial credit to @AbeoLogos):

setting aside that Zhengui's kit is strongest when he's not moving and that the direction we'd want to move fast toward is probably up

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redeployment is fine tactically but it's kinda avoiding the reason to make the promise in the first place
and like he'd still be pretty useless in high speed chase-y fights and especially air battles

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[X] She could not make that promise, not knowing what the future could hold. (Ling Qi remains open to all tactics. Affects Zhengui's development.)

[X] She promised, even if it was hard. (Ling Qi will avoid tactics which leave out or separate her from her spirits and deliberate self sacrifice outside of actual necessity. Affects Zhengui's development.)

As Ling Qi put it before,

yrsillar said:

She forced herself to focus on Renxiang, she had to do things one at a time. The other girl had already looked down, focusing on some letter. "...I went to the archive and read through a copy of that book you know," she said, there was no response. "It had certain things to say about advisors who do not speak up, and rulers who do not listen."

Her liege stilled, and the light that played around her shoulders wavered and intensified. She looked up, and her expression was a frozen mask, cast in shadow by her own light. "Ling Qi. That is enough."

"Lady Renxiang. I am doing exactly what you recruited me to do," Ling Qi shot back cooly, not letting herself be intimidated. "You are hurt. I do not know how, but… you speak of foundations and building, do you think that you can afford to let yours be damaged?" Despite herself, Ling Qi really was beginning to worry that she was going to far. "I am telling you to stop working. Just come out this afternoon. Have tea with Meizhen and I. We can talk, or perhaps have a spar or… something."

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Ling Qi made an unnecessary risk to her health, out of sense of senseless self-sacrifice. This pattern is a damaged foundation, and if we don't repair it sooner than later, than there will come a next time when she won't be so lucky. Our spirits and our mother have advised us to be careful and we would do well to listen to their advice.

yrsillar said:

Of course she wanted to see Zhengui right away, but she didn't want too…

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to

yrsillar said:

Hanyi Looked up, and Zhen's head whipped around as she landed on the earth

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looked

yrsillar said:

Gui does not want her too. Just… will Big Sis promise to fight together next time.

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to


Dang. Not being able to separate Ling Qi and Zhengui limits our tactics by quite a bit, but developing towards being able to coordinate better might just be a worthwhile force multiplier.

[X] She promised, even if it was hard. (Ling Qi will avoid tactics which leave out or separate her from her spirits and deliberate self sacrifice outside of actual necessity. Affects Zhengui's development.)

[X] She could not make that promise, not knowing what the future could hold. (Ling Qi remains open to all tactics. Affects Zhengui's development.)

Lol "don't make self-sacrifices anymore" sacrifices one of Ling Qi's greatest assets for one person. Might as well toss the LFoTWT Jade slip into the air for Grinning to take back for all that it's going to get used in combat if Ling Qi makes the promise. Zhengui is a child and he has to learn that things don't always work how you want them too.

Also, yrsillar is great at writing angsty scenes.

[X] She could not make that promise, not knowing what the future could hold. (Ling Qi remains open to all tactics. Affects Zhengui's development.)

Black Noise said:

redeployment is fine tactically but it's kinda avoiding the reason to make the promise in the first place
and like he'd still be pretty useless in high speed chase-y fights and especially air battles

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Even tactically it's been portrayed as pretty rough, it sucks up actions and Ling Qi doesn't usually stop to pick him up in the middle of fights. Where it's completely fine is for strategic movement, like we could've brought him on our excursions to the other villages if there had been sufficient force to hold the first without him. If we want better tactical repositioning of Zhengui within the context of one battle maybe that's something to look to getting an art for eventually, regardless of what happens with this promise.

DeAnno said:

Even tactically it's been portrayed as pretty rough, it sucks up actions and Ling Qi doesn't usually stop to pick him up in the middle of fights.

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That's why I was musing about an art that focuses on it; such an art might improve the action economy of putting him in/taking him out of his Pokeball and/or the range at which we can do it.

I agree that as it currently stands, it's not a great solution.

Well, I'm torn. Certinly, Ling Qi had established that she slows down for no one, but at the same time, hadn't she also desired to grow strong enough to carry any weight? Isn't that promise simply another weight she has to fly with, and if she can't do so now, then she simply has to get stronger again.

I want to encourage Zhengui and Hanyi to keep up by continuing to apply this pressure on them, similar to how Xiulan felt, but it seems like it's causing them grief with little to show for it instead.

[X] She could not make that promise, not knowing what the future could hold. (Ling Qi remains open to all tactics. Affects Zhengui's development.)

[X] She could not make that promise, not knowing what the future could hold. (Ling Qi remains open to all tactics. Affects Zhengui's development.)

An art for quick-releasing/retrieving spirits seems a bit silly since we only have two that need that. An art to let Zhengui keep up with us somewhat is generally eminently sensible, but it shouldn't be so restricted as to only cover him and Hanyi. Even with a focus on our intimate connections, well, we have more of those than just our spirits. No, what we need is general movement support. Fortunately, PLR exists and gesturing vaguely in its direction suffices for an argument.

Oh, fine. Movement is one of the art's focuses, it already involves moving other people in the form of our enemies, and the party themes inherently promote group effort. Sending illusory dancers to help the movement of or carry allies doesn't seem out of question to me. In fact, I'd argue its lack is the more questionable state! Aside from dancers, the art also uses quasi-teleportation dream logic to speed the user herself. I see no reason that wouldn't be applicable to allies, or couldn't seep into the illusory dancers in their support efforts. This approach would work especially well with big boys that carting around on the backs of faeries might look a bit silly.

Mechanically, the Art's meridians are Leg and Lung; the relevance of this is Ling Qi turning into a multi-positioned puff of dream logic isn't a Spine-driven transformation. This substantially lowers barriers for allies benefiting from effects the user does, within the framework of the Art's structure. Rather than truly turning into dreamstuff, it seems that she's more skating along the surface of the dream realm and taking advantage of its inherently immaterial and transformative properties to arrive at the same effect. She should be able to take along others for the ride, especially with Sixiang lending a hand and/or playing guide.

PLR should actually be a fun and not lame party and bring friends along for the ride.

re: being forced to cooperate with our spirits:
It is not quite as bad as it sounds, because for high speed chases, we can still 'unsummon' Zhengui and take him with us.
Aside from that, a given battlefield should be big enough (especially since we can fly) that we can still use our speed to our advantage while cooperating. This might need some practice, but we intended to train War and fighting in teams anyways, so this should be doable.

re: risks

I honestly like that part more than the fighting together part.
Ling Qi needs to learn to place value on her own life and wellbeing, even if she has to be bullied into it.
Taking risks is fine (and still allowed even with the promise), but there is a difference between risks and self sacrifice. And the later of those should be a last resort and not a default option.

I just had a thought. Recently we had a discussion regarding Gu Xiulan and needing to intervene due to her self destructive path. This is exactly what our spirits are trying to do for us.

[X] She promised, even if it was hard. (Ling Qi will avoid tactics which leave out or separate her from her spirits and deliberate self sacrifice outside of actual necessity. Affects Zhengui's development.)

Rayous said:

I just had a thought. Recently we had a discussion regarding Gu Xiulan and needing to intervene due to her self destructive path. This is exactly what our spirits are trying to do for us.

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This update by itself is pretty fun in that regard!

@yrsillar made good use of juxtaposed narrative repetition with the update opening on Ling Qi making a demand of her social superior for the benefit of (her perception of) said superior's well being, then closing with Zhengui making a demand of Ling Qi as his social superior for the benefit of (his perception of) her well being. The contrast between Ling Qi as the challenging and challenged party in parallel circumstances is just good writing.

[X] She could not make that promise, not knowing what the future could hold. (Ling Qi remains open to all tactics. Affects Zhengui's development.)

Rayous said:

I just had a thought. Recently we had a discussion regarding Gu Xiulan and needing to intervene due to her self destructive path. This is exactly what our spirits are trying to do for us.

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Rest assured that there are those of us that think Xiulan needs no such intervention and in fact her current path is a perfectly reasonable tradeoff between risk and power.

Zhengui is a very ill fitting spirit for us. And from a pure cold power perspective has been a subpar investment.

We spent 11 major and ~8 minor actions hatching and raising Zhengui during the first year.
In addition it's implied that he has a notable extra upkeep cost to maintain.
For that we got:
A minor benefit during combats in the tournament, a decent benefit against the bandits and Bai archer and was notably useful protecting the village.
Socially Zhengui might have given some status to use and some good will from the Xuan.
Also his cultivation bonuses have given the equivalent of around 225 successes in total.

Compare to Sixiang.
We spent ~5 minor actions to get them and they have provided the equivalent of over 1000 cultivation successes.
In combat they have often provided very useful dispels and boosted our techniques.
Socially Sixiang gives direct buffs and constantly provides useful advice.

It is not that Zhengui is weak, he would be perfect for other builds.
For example Gu Xiulan would work great with him. She could focus on doing ranged damage while he protects her.
Also almost all her arts would gain a cultivation bonus.

So can we change our build so that he becomes useful without crippling our self?
Getting arts for his mobility or to carry him with us, seems the smallest change to our build.


An alternative is that we allow for some distance, not having him always directly helping in a fight but protecting other things instead.
I can see a future where he is of great use as the guardian of our fief, protecting it while we are away.

[X] She promised, even if it was hard. (Ling Qi will avoid tactics which leave out or separate her from her spirits and deliberate self sacrifice outside of actual necessity. Affects Zhengui's development.)