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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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Ayashi said:
To be fair, it's a pretty shitty "gift". It's basically the "Gift" of powerlessness.
Sure, it's useful for the people as a whole, as Spirits show it's basically mandatory to build a civilisation (though Dragons might disagree on that point...). But not for the individuals? It's a curse, plain and simple.
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nah. The Two that began us were the most powerful of the spirits and they sacrificed themselves to create offspring with *free will* and the cost of free will is powerlessness. To be free from burden is to be unable to carry others. To carry others is to be burdened, even if it is positive.

Ultimately there is no great spirit that is free except for the Two that began us, and even they perhaps were bound to create us in a never ending time-loop where the humans become spirits and the whole of existence becomes naught but spirit again and then in that primordial mess the new Mother and Father (individuals that ascended and accumulated the most overall power) sacrifice again to create the world again. Perhaps new, perhaps old, perhaps free, perhaps predestined, it's hard to say

The gift isn't powerlessness the gift is choice. It is a cruel gift, a harsh gift but a wonderful and beautiful gift as well.
 
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]

We need more group buffs. And I want to see Zhengui dancing.
 
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]

I'm all for Ling Qi as a horror movie antagonist. While EDD is ok at that, I think SCS (and presumably LFotWT) has the ephemeral angle handled well enough.

Meanwhile IPF is handling a completely unique niche with fears of social anxiety, loud music, bright lights, and isolation and loneliness despite being in public.

It also gets even scarier if you try to escape that environment but somehow you can't seem to leave and, while you're trying to figure out how you got turned around, the very shadows are lashing out at you in conjunction with a wraith that always seems to come from behind to attack your very soul with the coldness of death. But the revel goes on like no one notices your plight, like maybe this is a nightmare or maybe it's all in your head or maybe you're crazy and the revelers are too polite to share their judgement, but it's so bright and loud and....

Peter87 said:
[] Something fast paced and dramatic. [Empowers Ephemeral Dreamlit Dancer, shifts technique focus to movement and personal buffs]

Ephemeral Dreamlit Dancer: C

Duration: Short

Having begun to understand the nature of the dreams, the user flits from place to place, shrouded in the phantoms of paths not taken. While active the users speed is increased significantly. Techniques which would still hit the user have a chance(decreasing based on the attackers perception) to simply fail, shattering instead some of the dreamlike phantom images the user is shrouded in. Each use of this technique generates two 'charges' which do not stack with additional uses.


[] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]

Illustrious Phantasmal Festival: B

Duration: Long

The foundational technique from which all others in the art arise. The user gathers their qi and the memories of their night of revelry and expels them through every available channel in a rush of power and gleaming many colored mist. Within Close range centered on the user, ghostly dancers ever shifting in form coalesce from the midst in a riot of color, laughter, music and movement. Amidst the revel the user is but one figure among many, and in its ever shifting tides, only those of sharp eye can even attempt to reach or strike the user directly. Within it's confines the senses of enemies are confused, penalizing perception. This technique may be renewed as if it were D rank at instant speed at the end of its duration. This technique allows for stealth and is an illusion effect, affecting all senses. The festival counts as an opponent for the purposes of determining multiattacker bonuses.

Damn it, mind says that Illustrious Phantasmal Festival is more practical choice, but heart says that Ephemeral Dreamlit Dancer is so much cooler than the other one.
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Thank you for the reminder because I had completely forgotten.

EDITS SUMMARY: I realized I forgot something important, added it in, then read it and realized it messed up the flow, followed by like 20 edits trying to fix it... Usually my edits are just spelling or grammar, but this post was significantly changed in presentation and took a while (like 20 minutes).
 
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[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
Thanks to @Black Noise and @JowKeen for the kind responses.

My main worry is that sifting various aspects of the art into two options to vote on means two substandard choices. I don't know that everything needs to be a vote. A more coherent focus could be spun more easily without the artifice of a binary choice that has to be 'balanced', both thematically and mechanically.

The EDD choice doesn't make much sense as a new primary focus for a few reasons. Meridians are wrong and it's a single technique that also doesn't interact with the other techs, which is also weird for the Lung meridian focus. I think we're also answering the question of what we want our Dreamworld imposed on waking to look like, and for us it would be really weird for it to be a personal focus on go-fast and Dance buffs, especially at the moment.

At the same time, weird-ass Dreaming Moon grace has been a core promise of the art from the start, and leaving it by the wayside feels wrong for a 'true reveal'.
 
AbeoLogos said:
At the same time, weird-ass Dreaming Moon grace has been a core promise of the art from the start, and leaving it by the wayside feels wrong for a 'true reveal'.
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Mmm, tbf, that's only a line in the art description that's never been eventuated in the art itself. It's not exactly hard to retcon - even if it would be a shame.

Hmmm... part of the problem I feel is that, the few times we've used it, PLR being a "dance art" has never really been apparent. It's basically just some kind of construct field effect art, and in terms of its application doesn't really feel any different from, say, AE. She's just summoning a party or something - there's been no sense of any actual dancing or anything. And that, I guess, would be where not wanting to lose EDD would come from - it's kind of the only tech there that feels like it has the potential to do more dance stuff...
 
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]

LQ is already fast nough that her allies have a hard time catching up to her. Area things works out best for us.
 
AbeoLogos said:
At the same time, weird-ass Dreaming Moon grace has been a core promise of the art from the start, and leaving it by the wayside feels wrong for a 'true reveal'.
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Yeah, that's why I want it to be an organized dance of sorts. Gui has four club-feet but maybe Zhen would be a dancer, we know Hanyi is p graceful and I think Six will gain a variety of temporary bodies for their personal use. A wardrobe of sorts, or a dressing room.

I do think focusing on PLR as a dance art that makes the rave around us too would be helpful. Like, sometimes a dodge is a partner swinging us out of the way or spinning us around the blade thrust or what have you. Something where it aesthetically looks like a group dance. Should help with the buffs being added to people aesthetically too.

It's not like we'll be getting Gui to move with the grace of a moon maiden, but if he lifts his legs up we can probably spin him real good haha
 
[x] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
[x] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
I'm never sure how to handle it when there's a bunch of different things I want to respond to =/

JowKeen said:
I wrote that our kit was similar to Lethal Social Anxiety at a party, and the contemplation route is like when people group off to the sides for conversations and you're left without a partner so you're stuck either a wallflower or on the dancefloor. I think the supportive route should flesh out the sides of the party and make it more of a coherent "party in a box" where the same party is partially overlain and partially superseding the existing terrain/environ whenever we deploy. Should give @yrsillar a consistent party to develop in their head and then plop down onto the specific terrain of the encounter, commenting on the specific adaptations of this iteration of it and how the guests on the dance floor and on the sides interact with the fight.


[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
I want the joy of EEDD but never at the expense of connections here. Let us focus now on lifting our allies up before we dive again into self actualization. The season for Buffs and teamwork is here! Rejoice! For it will never leave again! <3
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Regarding PLR's potential future: I was thinking less of a specific party being thrown over the environment and more of stretching and morphing a given environment to be more party-suitable. For example: expand a cave to be more ballroom-like and incidentally make space for Zhengui to expand to full size. The downside is that it would likely require more per-scene thought from yrsillar.

AbeoLogos said:
I don't know that everything needs to be a vote.
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I kind of agree. If the narrative needs to go a certain way then it's fine to force it to go that way. But in that case, there might as well be a vote for what flavor that direction will have (i.e., narrow the vote's focus to only the good direction which reduces the vote's impact but doesn't remove it entirely).

It feels really weird for me to have come to this conclusion, since I found that my feelings and thoughts significantly differed (I feel like votes are entirely unnecessary, but I think they likely improve the story).

AbeoLogos said:
At the same time, weird-ass Dreaming Moon grace has been a core promise of the art from the start, and leaving it by the wayside feels wrong for a 'true reveal'.
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I'm not sure IPF necessarily loses weird grace. I can think of two possibilities: (1) the grace becomes a group buff, or (2) something like what @JowKeen proposes or like Bai Meizhen's ability to leisurely walk as fast as other cultivators run.
 
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My impression with the IPF is that instead of making Ling Qi even faster it'll now start sharing out the speed with allies in our party cloud, so, say, we hit the movement/dodge spell and instead of it just being even better for us, it affects however many allies we're willing to pay for.

Which means turbo turtle may be a thing.

Given the Meridian Spread anyway, the logic seems to be "A Construct that Facilitates Movement". It can work by making us faster, or it can work by making our allies faster. Either is consistent with the meridian spread we've got attached to it.
 
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Erebeal said:
Mmm, tbf, that's only a line in the art description that's never been eventuated in the art itself. It's not exactly hard to retcon - even if it would be a shame.

Hmmm... part of the problem I feel is that, the few times we've used it, PLR being a "dance art" has never really been apparent. It's basically just some kind of construct field effect art, and in terms of its application doesn't really feel any different from, say, AE. She's just summoning a party or something - there's been no sense of any actual dancing or anything. And that, I guess, would be where not wanting to lose EDD would come from - it's kind of the only tech there that feels like it has the potential to do more dance stuff...
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This is mostly paired with broader co.bat pacing issues, I think. IPF can establish itself as a Dance tech fairly easily through a blurb about setting the pace of the dancers, or flitting through them in a series of shadowy non-steps if using them for stealth (SCS is a Dance art too, after all). But usually IPF is used as a side-thought on our way to try punching someone in the face, so she just kind of farts it out since it isn't the focus of the scene/action.

Duh it wouldn't show its stuff when we don't use it for its stuff. Which is part us, part the art. PLR might be flabby, but that doesn't mean its limbs aren't downright skeletal.

Alectai said:
My impression with the IPF is that instead of making Ling Qi even faster it'll now start sharing out the speed with allies in our party cloud, so, say, we hit the movement/dodge spell and instead of it just being even better for us, it affects however many allies we're willing to pay for.

Which means turbo turtle may be a thing.

Given the Meridian Spread anyway, the logic seems to be "A Construct that Facilitates Movement". It can work by making us faster, or it can work by making our allies faster. Either is consistent with the meridian spread we've got attached to it.
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I agree, but "slow and contemplative" lends itself thematically to "strategist" speed, not "sprint" speed. Good for scuffles, less so for charges or chases or overland movement in general. It's narrow. Also a fairly large departure in the art, theme wise. Not inherently a problem, but could be.
 
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[X] Something fast paced and dramatic. [Empowers Ephemeral Dreamlit Dancer, shifts technique focus to movement and personal buffs]
 
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Adhoc vote count started by EternalObserver on Dec 28, 2019 at 3:36 AM, finished with 106 posts and 55 votes.
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[x] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
I really liked the update, but I am left a bit confused as to what Sixiang thought. We saw Ling Qi's view on Six' issues, and it was hinted that Six also saw Ling Qi. There was Ling Qi talking to Six about understanding them better.

However, what has Six decided? They are staying, sure, but are they going to constantly be in pain because of their newborn understanding of people? Or did they grow through the experience of sharing feels with Ling Qi, but we don't know in what direction?

Anyway,

[x] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
[X] Something slow and contemplative [Empowers Illustrious Phantasmal Festival. Shifts technique focus to Area of effect, group buffs and terrain control]
 
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