- Location
- Staring into the void
Inserted tally
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.
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
just cause I can
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
I all know is that the more I learn about the shishigui the more tinfoil I use.
- Location
- Colorado
[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)
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Huh. That was an interesting update.
It seems like Ling Qi can't see them 'properly', or rather that the divergent cultivation system they use means that they appear too alien for her senses to be able to sense their form, and the opposite is also likely true. It would also make a conflict between the size bigger if both are literally unable to 'humanize' the other.
Also, they are apparently dirty communists.
It seems like Ling Qi can't see them 'properly', or rather that the divergent cultivation system they use means that they appear too alien for her senses to be able to sense their form, and the opposite is also likely true. It would also make a conflict between the size bigger if both are literally unable to 'humanize' the other.
Also, they are apparently dirty communists.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Maybe. Just because they get representation at the city doesn't imply they are communists. I didn't see anything in the update to suggest that they have a communal sharing of resources.
Given that they have to wait for permission to have kids implies an extreme authoritarian government style but authoritarian government combined with at least token representation doesn't not necessarily mean communism.
They could be communists and it wouldn't surprise me if they were but it seems like a bit a leap to go straight there.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Well yeah obviously.
They do get the traditional showings of how a "communist farming village" looks like in media though, so that amused me greatly, especially the combination of "permission to have children + no real leader in small villages + farming community mindset".
Last edited:
- Location
- A place
[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)
It's worth noting that the thing about pups went "not many awakening any more" to "the waiting list is long". That doesn't suggest authoritarianism to me so much as a strict scarcity of children to be raised, potentially paired with a biological incapability for the average member of the society to have children themselves. What's interesting is that skipping the line for kids is also associated with having a place in "the city", which probably is a factor in why we don't see kids around. For whatever reason, a pack having a pup is associated with living in the city.
There's a lot of interesting tidbits in this update.
Resources:
Hauls of what I'm going to call Spirit Slugs are in a slump which has lasted multiple years. When refined through a spiritually powerful (exact scope unclear, but implied to be late Green equivalent or more likely Cyan+) furnace, it becomes a substance highly reminiscent of the physical impurity human cultivators expel from their body as they increase in stages. We know this resource is important to the Shishigui, but we don't know exactly what it is used for. Cultivation seems likely to be among its uses. They believe fertilizing the tar river can increase yields, which apparently involves dumping corpses into it.
Pup "awakenings" are down, and the population is shrinking. From the mindless Shishigui we've seen in the past, we can assume that not all members of the species are sapient. In context, "awakening" likely refers to the process by which they attain human-like intelligence, at which point they are considered a "pup". It's not clear if this can happen at any age, or if it's a "by this level of maturity or never" kind of situation. We do not know whether the reduction in awakenings is linked to the reduced Spirit Slug hauls, or if it's a separate issue. We do not know if awakenings can be or are induced, or if it's a natural process that mostly can't be affected. It's also not clear whether the shrinking population considers the mindless variety or not. Finally, we don't know where the mindless variety comes from in the first place.
Cultivation:
Shishigui appear to start out in and plateau at the first realm naturally, though it is unclear what winnowing process applies to the young that results at an all-cultivator society, if any. Higher cultivation appears to reduce lifespan, which appears to naturally be significantly longer than one century. Advancing in cultivation is related to "meldings". Reaching the same cultivation as Caretakers, which are likely the herders we've seen and are all 3rd realm equivalent, takes "a couple meldings" which may make the term equivalent to our realm breakthroughs. It's not clear what the process entails, what resources it uses, how long it takes, or how many meldings a Shishigui can undergo in a short span of time.
Ultimately, the Shishigui's capacity to field cultivators is difficult to estimate despite the local downturn in productivity.
Society:
As of yet, the local social organization appears relatively non-hierarchical. Higher cultivators appear to command less authority compared to human society, potentially due to the sacrifice of lifespan inherent to their system of cultivation. "Packs" are a unit of social organization; it isn't clear if these are family units, something more like breed, caste, or trade divisions, or all of the above. The scrawny and burly specimens we overheard weren't packmates, but their differences in physique could be coincidental. We don't know where pups come from, but packs are on a waiting list to receive them. Military service, at least to the surface, is on a voluntary basis and this potentially extends to roles requiring higher cultivation in general.
Multiple mentions of "the city" as somewhere that is preferable to live and that representatives are sent to. Representatives seem to hold the station temporarily, a year being the given timeframe here- not clear if it is for a full year or for a yearly conference of some kind. The city evidently has great influence or authority over at least some aspects of how this settlement is run, either directly or indirectly. The fact that they are asking for volunteers and offering enticements would seem to suggest the latter, but skipping people to the front of the pup list could suggest otherwise- needs more context. It's not clear if the city has formal authority or emergent authority as an industrial and/or administrative hub. The structure of governance in the city is also not clear.
Conclusion:
They socialists, yo. I mean, maybe. Hard to say. Some pretty interesting standouts that mirror some schools of socialist thought though.
Also, I agree with the analysis of a previous poster that attacking this struggling town seems likely to spike their military volunteer rate super hard, even as it causes members of their populace to be furious with those on their side who pushed for involvement with the surface in the first place. It's not like they have any open dialogue with us, or that they're capable of realistically resettling their lives to avoid the fact that they're a close settlement to us.
When we're deciding on what target to hit, one of the things we should weigh is to what degree we're instilling the population with a sense of existential urgency. Might be best to stick to as purely military targets as possible in that regard, especially since testing their military defences is something of our purpose. Of course, there's still a cultural divide here, if we attacked the fort and crippled their defenders who had already sacrificed years of their life to serve as the community's guardians in the first place, it's possible that the general public would find that just as harsh a blow to sentimentality as if we blew up a daycare or something.
Edit: Thinking about it, causing a lot of casualties in the place they're more likely to have that "convert corpses to shoggoth" powder might not be the most tactically sound approach, heh.
There's a lot of interesting tidbits in this update.
Resources:
Hauls of what I'm going to call Spirit Slugs are in a slump which has lasted multiple years. When refined through a spiritually powerful (exact scope unclear, but implied to be late Green equivalent or more likely Cyan+) furnace, it becomes a substance highly reminiscent of the physical impurity human cultivators expel from their body as they increase in stages. We know this resource is important to the Shishigui, but we don't know exactly what it is used for. Cultivation seems likely to be among its uses. They believe fertilizing the tar river can increase yields, which apparently involves dumping corpses into it.
Pup "awakenings" are down, and the population is shrinking. From the mindless Shishigui we've seen in the past, we can assume that not all members of the species are sapient. In context, "awakening" likely refers to the process by which they attain human-like intelligence, at which point they are considered a "pup". It's not clear if this can happen at any age, or if it's a "by this level of maturity or never" kind of situation. We do not know whether the reduction in awakenings is linked to the reduced Spirit Slug hauls, or if it's a separate issue. We do not know if awakenings can be or are induced, or if it's a natural process that mostly can't be affected. It's also not clear whether the shrinking population considers the mindless variety or not. Finally, we don't know where the mindless variety comes from in the first place.
Cultivation:
Shishigui appear to start out in and plateau at the first realm naturally, though it is unclear what winnowing process applies to the young that results at an all-cultivator society, if any. Higher cultivation appears to reduce lifespan, which appears to naturally be significantly longer than one century. Advancing in cultivation is related to "meldings". Reaching the same cultivation as Caretakers, which are likely the herders we've seen and are all 3rd realm equivalent, takes "a couple meldings" which may make the term equivalent to our realm breakthroughs. It's not clear what the process entails, what resources it uses, how long it takes, or how many meldings a Shishigui can undergo in a short span of time.
Ultimately, the Shishigui's capacity to field cultivators is difficult to estimate despite the local downturn in productivity.
Society:
As of yet, the local social organization appears relatively non-hierarchical. Higher cultivators appear to command less authority compared to human society, potentially due to the sacrifice of lifespan inherent to their system of cultivation. "Packs" are a unit of social organization; it isn't clear if these are family units, something more like breed, caste, or trade divisions, or all of the above. The scrawny and burly specimens we overheard weren't packmates, but their differences in physique could be coincidental. We don't know where pups come from, but packs are on a waiting list to receive them. Military service, at least to the surface, is on a voluntary basis and this potentially extends to roles requiring higher cultivation in general.
Multiple mentions of "the city" as somewhere that is preferable to live and that representatives are sent to. Representatives seem to hold the station temporarily, a year being the given timeframe here- not clear if it is for a full year or for a yearly conference of some kind. The city evidently has great influence or authority over at least some aspects of how this settlement is run, either directly or indirectly. The fact that they are asking for volunteers and offering enticements would seem to suggest the latter, but skipping people to the front of the pup list could suggest otherwise- needs more context. It's not clear if the city has formal authority or emergent authority as an industrial and/or administrative hub. The structure of governance in the city is also not clear.
Conclusion:
They socialists, yo. I mean, maybe. Hard to say. Some pretty interesting standouts that mirror some schools of socialist thought though.
Also, I agree with the analysis of a previous poster that attacking this struggling town seems likely to spike their military volunteer rate super hard, even as it causes members of their populace to be furious with those on their side who pushed for involvement with the surface in the first place. It's not like they have any open dialogue with us, or that they're capable of realistically resettling their lives to avoid the fact that they're a close settlement to us.
When we're deciding on what target to hit, one of the things we should weigh is to what degree we're instilling the population with a sense of existential urgency. Might be best to stick to as purely military targets as possible in that regard, especially since testing their military defences is something of our purpose. Of course, there's still a cultural divide here, if we attacked the fort and crippled their defenders who had already sacrificed years of their life to serve as the community's guardians in the first place, it's possible that the general public would find that just as harsh a blow to sentimentality as if we blew up a daycare or something.
Edit: Thinking about it, causing a lot of casualties in the place they're more likely to have that "convert corpses to shoggoth" powder might not be the most tactically sound approach, heh.
Last edited:
Might be that the unawakened are nonsapient/mortal swarms?
Melding sounds like you take several of them and fuse them together into a higher cultivation but less stable entity.
The lifespan shortening suddenly makes the whole talisman thing we've seen appear in a different light: if your cultivation shortens lifespan then a civilizational optimum would be for your short lived powerful cultivators to create permanent works that will survive past them if mothballed, which could be stockpiled for future use(unlike those of high cultivation who'd burn out to keep them on standby, while creating them as needed has the basic problem of them not being practiced with their abilities)
Merging multiple individuals together is where my mind first went with the term 'melding', partly because it is reminiscent of that goo they throw around that drags corpses together and turns into a higher realm shoggoth. Melding could be the more stable elder cousin of that process.
What's interesting though is that both members of the conversation treated the subject of melding like the scrawny individual would meaningfully persist through the process. "Just a couple meldings, like the Caretakers don't seem bad." then "Seems stupid. Hack a hundred years off your life, and for what, a bit of power?" Neither seems to treat it as a cessation or dilution of individuality. It's difficult to tell if this suggests melding isn't smushing people together or whether the Shishigui have a radically different understanding of individuality.
What's interesting though is that both members of the conversation treated the subject of melding like the scrawny individual would meaningfully persist through the process. "Just a couple meldings, like the Caretakers don't seem bad." then "Seems stupid. Hack a hundred years off your life, and for what, a bit of power?" Neither seems to treat it as a cessation or dilution of individuality. It's difficult to tell if this suggests melding isn't smushing people together or whether the Shishigui have a radically different understanding of individuality.
Varder
Tired Cultist
- Location
- Hell
Or maybe it's a gradual process and melding into a yellow is no big deal and free for anyone willing; melding into higher stages' equivalent takes more out of you and available to chosen and in specific circumstances only.
glyph
completely and utterly fine
Might be that it's temporary? The fact that they talk about "a couple meldings" could indicate that.
- Location
- Greece
[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
- France
[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
- UK
[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)
An alternative method is if they have some way to 'offload' the damage cultivation does to others, which although maybe not worth for lower levels, could be used by a a Shishigui Noble class equivalent to produce more members, similar to what they did in creating the cyan(?) threat that forced Renxiang's dress to awaken (sacrificial techniques to create an entity which was a threat).
I'm sorta picturing, just as an example, if you were to force through the normal method a Shishigui to reach cyan it would die within only a short time, to short to be practical in war, maybe a few days, but with significant preparation, resources (the wiggly spirit stone things) and mass shishigui sacrifice you can get one to Shishigui 'noble' to Indigo or higher without sacrificing lifespan.
Or maybe they don't have a 'target' Shishigui to empower, and the Shishigui 'noble class' are literally a bunch of lovecraftian/frankenstein abominations created through mass sacrifice.
Then what they did against Renxiang was just an quick and dirty equivalent without preparation, so with lesser results (maybe the entity was weaker, or short lived, or non-sapient, or absolutely insane).
...this would kinda fit with the basest Shishigui being non-sapient rat things which are mass farmed and awoken to 'true' Shishigui, then through fusion/sacrifice of many Shishigui you get the ruling class. Livestock Shishigui become Awakened/Citizen Shishigui become Abomination/Noble Shishigui.
An alternative method is if they have some way to 'offload' the damage cultivation does to others, which although maybe not worth for lower levels, could be used by a a Shishigui Noble class equivalent to produce more members, similar to what they did in creating the cyan(?) threat that forced Renxiang's dress to awaken (sacrificial techniques to create an entity which was a threat).
I'm sorta picturing, just as an example, if you were to force through the normal method a Shishigui to reach cyan it would die within only a short time, to short to be practical in war, maybe a few days, but with significant preparation, resources (the wiggly spirit stone things) and mass shishigui sacrifice you can get one to Shishigui 'noble' to Indigo or higher without sacrificing lifespan.
Or maybe they don't have a 'target' Shishigui to empower, and the Shishigui 'noble class' are literally a bunch of lovecraftian/frankenstein abominations created through mass sacrifice.
Then what they did against Renxiang was just an quick and dirty equivalent without preparation, so with lesser results (maybe the entity was weaker, or short lived, or non-sapient, or absolutely insane).
...this would kinda fit with the basest Shishigui being non-sapient rat things which are mass farmed and awoken to 'true' Shishigui, then through fusion/sacrifice of many Shishigui you get the ruling class. Livestock Shishigui become Awakened/Citizen Shishigui become Abomination/Noble Shishigui.
First thing I asked when I joined the thread was if there had been discussion as to whether or not the rat people were connected to the impurity expelled during breakthroughs.
With their form of cultivation being called melding, I think they go the opposite route that imperial cultivates do: pulling in a mix of elements rather than simplifying themselves down to a specific narrative.
[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)