TimEd
Meteor maker
to
to
it's
only
Also there was an overuse of comas the whole chapter
samples of concentrated gunk seem to be somethinf Suling could possibly use.
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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Also there was an overuse of comas the whole chapter
Ok. The Gnawing Ones have a problem where they are apparently sexless, and require external aid to reproduce. However, the trueborn births in this settlement have been decreasing. This accounts for the lack of children Ling Qi sees.
However! This does not account for the lack of elders. The problem of birth and awakening does not seem to cause the lack of increasing infirmity with age. I'm not inclined to speculate too wildly, since we know only scraps but—
If everyone seems to be in their physical prime, and their "spirit stone mine" can be replenished with tribute of flesh (and maybe spirit)*, do these people kill their infirm members? If they can contribute, are they sacrificed for all the contributions they have left? They seem to return their dead to the river, after all, so its only a short hop to returning the crippled members also.
*(So that's what happened to the flesh and spirit that Thunder Crow Shaman traded! That's a bit of mystery solved! Even more mystery arises, like, what did that spirit fire do? Burning the offered spirit stones, to collect the distilled impurity or discard it?)
To sum up, this is a spirit stone mine that's dying, meaning the village built around extracting the spirit stones is also dying.
...That comparison to the worst parts of Tonghou is perhaps more apt than Ling Qi may have thought. Tonghou, after all, is a dying city whose spirit stone mines were plundered to uselessness, retaining little importance. The withdrawal of resources to the slums there and the village here is easily paralleled.
[] Infiltrate the fortress by going over the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
60% chance of success, which is a little too low for my tastes. However, it seems Ling Qi is nigh-guaranteed success at infiltration, with only luck involved in how deep we penetrate.
[] Wait and see if you can spy a group going in or out that you can shadow (Base DC 20, waiting means less time to investigate overall. Failure indicates no opportunity arises)
80% chance of success, which is very high! The problem here is that outright failure means we just fail entirely, and possibly even success involves lesser degrees of success than just flying over.
This is a good point, gonna adjust options
Okay, I think I'm starting to put together an idea of their cultivation. Those eel things they fish up might be a sort of living spirit stone. I'm guessing their energy kind of "clumps" together, like calling out to like, eventually forming these creatures.
From the use of the word "melding" to describe the process, I think it involves taking a Shishigui and fusing together or maybe even implanting the eels(or equivalents) into their bodies. It seems to cost lifespan to do. Without knowing their expected lifespan, we can't be completely sure how much but a hundred years seems significant either way. The way it's phrased though makes it sound like it's easy to pick up. Like this ratman felt he could go to the city and get melds and be fighting in short order.
How far it goes, I'm not sure. I'd say that you probably shouldn't be able to take a rando off the street and get a Yellow or even Green tier fighter right away, but maybe the loss in lifespan balances things out? They can spit out a lot of fighters when needed, but their dudes aren't going to last a super long time even if our guys don't kill them? Producing Violet or Prism level guys might be a matter of industry, rather than cultivation. Get a lot of resources and give one guy a ton of "meldings" for a super weapon. If their cultivation shortening life continues in the same pattern up the various levels, it may mean that their top tiers have a short shelf life and are only "created" when there's an immediate need. Which, if I'm right, would imply that those high ends are much more willing to take on suicide missions and one way trips. If they're not gonna last long anyways, then it makes sense to take as much of the enemy down with them as they can.
I'm hoping I'm wrong though. The idea of the high cultivation equivalent of suicide bombers is......uncomfortable.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
If their cultivation shortens their life. Then we can expect them to become much more dangerous as they become more desperate. Right now most are not becoming as strong as they can be in hopes of living a long life. If they start losing that hope however...
Would match with the entire "cyan blob" thing we've seen them do before.
Suicide bombers are probably harshly limited by the combination of being fucking expensive for this civilization, and not lasting long enough to provide any kind of defense - if it's an option for them to produce Whites that way, it's more likely a "we've been pushed to the brink, we're taking you down with us" thing than anything they'd ever want to do, 'cause all the damage that could do is coming out of the same resource pile they use to defend their settlements down here and probably at much worse efficiency.
Problem: attacking their outlying settlements means the outlying settlements are going to want the central government to Do Something, and they're going to be more willing to provide bodies for the war machine for vengeance than they will be for the rulers' pocketbooks.
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- Location
- Right Behind You.
[] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
Guaranteed success to at least some degree with the chance for total success. Even in the worst case scenario we were getting ready to leave anyway so we won't lose much and we have everything to gain. Plus, this is quite obviously a central command area so chances are high Senior brother whatshisface is in there and can help us.
The shishigui are basically the industrial faction then. It's not a matter of personal excellence and diligent training but industrial power and willingness to sacrifice oneself. That could be absolutely terrifying. Assuming they can increase the number of 'Pups' by 'fertilising' and human corpses work as fertiliser...
Guaranteed success to at least some degree with the chance for total success. Even in the worst case scenario we were getting ready to leave anyway so we won't lose much and we have everything to gain. Plus, this is quite obviously a central command area so chances are high Senior brother whatshisface is in there and can help us.
The shishigui are basically the industrial faction then. It's not a matter of personal excellence and diligent training but industrial power and willingness to sacrifice oneself. That could be absolutely terrifying. Assuming they can increase the number of 'Pups' by 'fertilising' and human corpses work as fertiliser...
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
Moratorium's up. Voting time.
Moratorium's up. Voting time.
What are the probabilities here?
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
Wall hacks! & Spoopy Ling Qi being spoopy, what's not to love?
Wall hacks! & Spoopy Ling Qi being spoopy, what's not to love?
DangerKitty
shoddy writter
- Location
- lala land
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
Average roll is a success with 1 full degree of success on the Infiltrate option and a success on the Shadow option, so the average case and above-average cases for the Infiltrate option are obviously better. What Shadow does that Infiltrate doesn't is provide better outcomes over the 20% odds that we roll a 20-39, i.e. half of the below-average cases.
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
Yippie-kay-yay.
Yippie-kay-yay.
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
- Location
- Florida
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
Gonna kill us some rat cultivator's real soon...
The wait is killer
Gonna kill us some rat cultivator's real soon...
The wait is killer
- Location
- United States of America
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
So, here are the places where we placed some of Elder Jiao's spider eyes.
We have a... forge or refinery of some kind.
We were able to bug some places where overseers congregated but given that they seem to have a distributed authority structure, it's not going to be as useful as bugging a leading officer, but the fact that it is a distributed authority structure is very useful information to have.
And then we bugged the bridge which seems to be of at least some importance to the shishigui as a source of resources and they become concerned when that resource drops in availability. Pretty useful information, and maybe Elder Jiao or his subordinates might be able to glean more from observing the river itself.
While it is hard to judge whether this information is more valuable than what was in the Dome, it seems like this information could be extremely useful in figuring out the particulars of their logistics and the value of these resources. Also, the information on the various problems that seem to effect their society could be useful in planning more psychological attacks or even when attempting to broker a peace deal of sorts.
However, the meat of information seems to be within the military fortification. For while it is nice to know more about their supply chains and where they get their resources, it's even nicer to get a better understanding of their military situation and how they fortify their territory. I'm voting this way specifically because it will always at least somewhat successful at getting inside the fort, if to varying degrees. Given the military nature of our mission, it seems prudent to be sure to get what information we can on the place before moving on.
So, here are the places where we placed some of Elder Jiao's spider eyes.
We have a... forge or refinery of some kind.
We were able to bug some places where overseers congregated but given that they seem to have a distributed authority structure, it's not going to be as useful as bugging a leading officer, but the fact that it is a distributed authority structure is very useful information to have.
And then we bugged the bridge which seems to be of at least some importance to the shishigui as a source of resources and they become concerned when that resource drops in availability. Pretty useful information, and maybe Elder Jiao or his subordinates might be able to glean more from observing the river itself.
While it is hard to judge whether this information is more valuable than what was in the Dome, it seems like this information could be extremely useful in figuring out the particulars of their logistics and the value of these resources. Also, the information on the various problems that seem to effect their society could be useful in planning more psychological attacks or even when attempting to broker a peace deal of sorts.
However, the meat of information seems to be within the military fortification. For while it is nice to know more about their supply chains and where they get their resources, it's even nicer to get a better understanding of their military situation and how they fortify their territory. I'm voting this way specifically because it will always at least somewhat successful at getting inside the fort, if to varying degrees. Given the military nature of our mission, it seems prudent to be sure to get what information we can on the place before moving on.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
[X] Infiltrate the fortress by using your wisps to move through the walls (Base DC 40 higher degrees of success allow deeper infiltration, degrees of failure shorten time spent before turning back)
