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

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TehChron said:
She doesnt

Her stealth and disguise would be seen through by the Cyan Cloud Barbarian once he puts his back into it
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Oh fuck no, not shanking the Cyan. I mean that if Ling Qi is seen using a Y'lith'kai weapon in the attack(maybe shanking a Green?), and steals the starstone(which the Twelve Stars consider to be holy in significance) and the Y'lith'kai are nowhere to be seen after a blinding initial strike...

...what are the odds that the Twelve Stars would believe that the two groundpounder empires are working together against the Cloud Tribes?

As for the plans lets see:
[] Plan Star Stealing Shenanigans

-Guan Zhi - Alpha strikes the strongest peer combatant to her. Sensible
-Renxiang - Eliminates the Y'lith'kai before they can burrow or stealth away. Her attacks should have type advantage.
-Ling Qi - Secure the strategic material. Given that the Cloud Nomad is WEARING the stuff I suspect stealing it would involve physically loading it onto Zhengui's back using Zhen to strap it on. Yeeting it into Dream may work(and be more convenient) if Moon Qi can handle Stellar matter. Worst case scenario Zhengui sets up a hardpoint around the rock with Paradise Rampart.

Risks:
-Y'lith'kai may survive the alpha strike and escape.
-Ling Qi jacking the stone puts her in a position of elevated personal risk, its a priority objective of multiple factions.
-Ling Qi would find it difficult to do much else, most of her techniques are qi constructs.

Advantages:
-Seeming to be here to steal the stone ramps up suspicion on the groups present.

[] Plan Bishoujo Battle: Barbarian X Bard
-Guan Zhi - Alpha strikes the strongest peer combatant to her. Sensible
-Renxiang - Eliminates the Y'lith'kai before they can burrow or stealth away. Her attacks should have type advantage.
-Ling Qi - Focus fire on the Y'lith'kai to ensure they're trapped after Renxiang's blast.

Risks:
-One or more factions may be able to take away the starstone.
--This is mitigated by the Starstone's size, the only ones who could do this are the Twelve Stars leader(who is a Cyan and could just lift the whole damned thing as he flies away) and the Y'lith'kai(who can just open the earth below it)
--Both of them are under attack in this vote, so they may not be able to spare the attention.

[] Plan XCOM door breach:

...leaving the Cyan untouched. The stone untouched. Focus firing only one faction. In short it has just made the optimal action for the Twelve Stars Cyan to grab the stone and fly away.



[X] Plan Bishoujo Battle: Barbarian X Bard

For now.
Wouldn't be opposed to heisting the stone, but this would be my top preference.
 
The problem with the XCOM analogy is it removes morale, fighting capability deteriorating as damage is taken, and the objectives of the Boss in this instance out of the equation.

if you can severely wound or cripple multiple threats in an opener that's better than removing some of the pieces potentially, because it's just better to leave no enemy clear headed enough to marshal orders.

honestly if we launched Guan Zhi at the 12, CRX at the White Sky, and personally try to obscure and cloud the Shishigui that would be a very chaotic and fairly optimal opener. If we assume that the White Sky won't choose to leave if we let them.

I think there are decent odds that they choose to leave after a few updates. They'll probably help initially, but allowing them to leave will sour relations and I'm not certain White Sky will care if they sour relations or not.

12 won't want to leave so long as the starstone is on the table, and can almost certainly handle it. Shishigui can get the starstone off the table fast but then we won't have access to it. White Sky might not care about starstone.

we're banking hard on the idea that we might be able to get White Sky to leave if we simply don't engage them as hard as the others. Might work, honestly.
 
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... I feel we need to pray to Grinning for guidance on this. She's all about stealing the unstealable right? If she, as a mortal, could steal the winds, we ought to be able to steal an eldritch rock.
 
Candesce said:
It's entirely possible our opening salvo wiffs, yes.

Not actually an argument to waste fire on the Cyan, that.
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Except forcing the Cyan to expend their reserves saving themselves and their subordinates from Guan Zhis opening salvo is pretty distinctly the opposite of wastage, as it makes taking them and their followers down significantly more plausible

And if we manage to capture them or otherwise secure their corpse?

That's a lot of intel on an unengaged hostile faction for the Sect to.work with
 
TehChron said:
No, I mean selling that act requires fooling that Cyan cultivators senses

Which isn't happening
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Fooling what senses? The proposal is that the very fact that she has a Shishigui assassin's dagger will make the cloud barbarians wonder if the depth dwellers are also dealing with the Empire and trying to set the surface dwellers against each other. It might not be very persuasive, but it doesn't depend on fooling senses, unless you think that every Cyan has ranged retrocognition strong enough to tell how she got the knife from seeing her use it on their Green or Yellow subordinates.
 
thuealing said:
Fooling what senses? The proposal is that the very fact that she has a Shishigui assassin's dagger will make the cloud barbarians wonder if the depth dwellers are also dealing with the Empire and trying to set the surface dwellers against each other. It might not be very persuasive, but it doesn't depend on fooling senses, unless you think that every Cyan has ranged retrocognition strong enough to tell how she got the knife from seeing her use it on their Green or Yellow subordinates.
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So Ling Qi stabs one of their subordinates with a Shishigui dagger

They look in the direction she ran in

They spot a Landdweller fleeing the scene of the crime

...I'm afraid that your proposed framejob is lacking the necessary pieces to make it work, friend
 
thuealing said:
Fooling what senses? The proposal is that the very fact that she has a Shishigui assassin's dagger will make the cloud barbarians wonder if the depth dwellers are also dealing with the Empire and trying to set the surface dwellers against each other. It might not be very persuasive, but it doesn't depend on fooling senses, unless you think that every Cyan has ranged retrocognition strong enough to tell how she got the knife from seeing her use it on their Green or Yellow subordinates.
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Essentially yes. Just enough doubt to toss in as a freebie, same way we'd be suspicious if a Cloud tribe raid was armed with Impurity weapons
 
Stealing the Rock is the one option here that has a high chance of producing no results at all and wasting a turn, or getting our ass one-sidedly handed to us before the rest of the team arrives to back us up. As long as we prevent anyone from escaping with it and drive off/kill all other contenders we get the Rock anyway, trying otherwise and leaving our rather under-gunned group without our help for a turn is just asking for bad things. I've heard a lot of claims that the 12 Stars will try to steal it, but they're going to need to disengage with us, avoid getting intercepted by our second Cyan, and avoid getting swatted by our 6th realm Elder, all while carrying a 10 meter boulder that disrupts Qi. If it's going anywhere, it'll be the Shishigui moving it, and CRX's alpha strike will greatly hamper that, especially if we follow up on it.

Enemies on the left Sect on the right.
1 Cyan (12 Stars)1 Cyan (Guan Zhi)
1 Green 8 (White Sky)
1 Green 7 (Shishigui)
1 Green 6 (White Sky)
2 Green 5 (12 Stars)1 Green 5 (Ruan Shen)
3 Green 4 (12 Stars)1 Green 4 (Cai Renxiang)
9 Green 3 (5 12 Stars/4 Shishigui allied barbs)Between 1 and 4 Green 3+, probably 2-3 (Ling Qi and unnamed disciples)
2 Green 2 (Shishigui)
6 Green 1 (Probably a mix of Cloud tribe factions)22-25, probably 23-24 Green 1-2s
100 Yellows (Probably a mix of Cloud tribe factions)

In addition to these numbers we shouldn't discount the possibility that the Shishigui have some of their own scouts/guards hidden underground that have better stealth than we can detect. I find it a bit suspicious they brought something this valuable and only sent 1 G7 and 2 G2s to guard it.

Now we should think about what we expect the alpha strikes to accomplish. If CRX hits the Shishigui alone she won't manage to kill the Green 7, even with surprise and a type advantage. Best case scenario she moderately injures the G7, minor-moderately injures the G3 Barbs (maybe cripples one if she hits them directly instead of the G7), and seriously injures/cripples/kills the G2 Shishigui. Additionally her technique prevents them from retreating underground with the Rock. Also music boy will find support abilities rather difficult in the aftermath. We should probably assume she won't manage quite that much damage, but we can hope.

If Guan Zhi hits the 12 Stars alone she isn't killing the Cyan, but she if she targets him specifically she might moderately injure him and injure his subordinates with the collateral, some of the Green 3s might be killed or otherwise entirely removed from the fight and the rest should be at least moderately injured. If she targets his subordinates she might kill or cripple most of them in the opening strike but the Cyan would be untouched and depending on how well he can guard his subordinates the G4s might survive and the G5s might even remain combat capable. Depending on positioning of course.

If both hit the Shishigui, then they're probably all dead and the Rock can't be moved underground. G7 might be barely clinging to life, but they aren't going anywhere. Even if the Cyan gets enough warning to try to protect them his first reaction will probably be to guard his own faction in case another Cyan level attack is on its way.

I expect groups in the crater that we don't attack will break away and try to flee, with the addendum that the Shishigui probably won't leave without the Rock. They don't know how many of us there are so standing and fighting would be a stupid decision on their part. If we double tap the Shishigui group then the 12 Stars and White Sky groups will have a good chance to largely escape, but the Shishigui group will be dead and we almost definitely get the Rock. If we try to tie down both the Shishigui and 12 Stars then White Sky will be able to disengage from our attack easily, but would be more likely to be caught by the perimeter group if there aren't a bunch of other escapees to make it easier for them to slip away. If they realize this, then the option where we target 2 groups is the one that is most likely to result in White Sky coming to the aid of the other groups to help them disengage, if only to get themselves some cover as they make their escape. White Sky is strong enough to tip a peer fight against Guan Zhi or absolutely wreck us and CRX fighting the other group.

While the groups at the negotiating table have escape as their priority, the Yellows on perimeter defense are going to be concerned with helping their bosses escape, so any that don't get run over by our strike team on the way in will come pouring in to support their leaders.

This is a lot of words when I haven't even made up my mind, but all I know is I'm against stealing the Rock, though having Zhengui tie it down has promise.
 
[X] Plan Bishoujo Battle: Barbarian X Bard
[X] Plan Strategic Support Stymieing
[X] Plan Star Stealing Shenanigans
 
thuealing said:
What do you think is the problem? @veekie's suggestion specifically depends on the cloud barbarians seeing that it was an Empire fighter who was the one using a Shishigui knife.
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But for that to be effective, the strike force will have to ignore or softball the shishigui through the enitre battle, something no current plan endorses.

So the plan would require sending the artillary after the Twelve Star and White Sky reps, and for Ling Qi to flit between locking down the Shishigui and regularly killing Cloud Tribe members with the knife (a weapon she can't use with her songs, and isn't trained with at all, so good luck) so that future negotiations have the "how convenient that your entire delegation survived because a control Cultivator sat you down in mist and vines while killing my people with your weapons" hanging over it. If the underdark mission had gone differently and the sect could raid an armory then they could arm the entire force with Shishigui weapons to better sell that illusion, but it didn't, so one cultivator wielding a weapon like that is going to have everyone important just assume she stole it from a Shishigui.
 
As much as it would be satisfying for Ling Qi to sow discord by knifing enemies with a shishigui weapon, the fact is she can't really use it. Both because just holding it probably isn't healthy for her, but mostly because she's a no-lift nerd who can't into stabbing.

It's been a long-standing idea, and just as long-standingly discarded as infeasible. It's essentially the reason the dagger loot has been the butt of so many jokes- it's basically useless to us, as a material and a tool.
 
TehChron said:
And then nothing happens?

Like...the only Cloud Tribe that would consider that as anything more than confirmation bias is the White Sky.

So I dont see the point
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I also don't think it would be very effective as a means of planting doubts. But your claim that openly using the knife in a weak attempt to plant doubt is a plan that depends on fooling a Cyan cultivator's senses was just totally bizzare.

Zeful said:
If the underdark mission had gone differently and the sect could raid an armory then they could arm the entire force with Shishigui weapons to better sell that illusion, but it didn't, so one cultivator wielding a weapon like that is going to have everyone important just assume she stole it from a Shishigui.
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AbeoLogos said:
As much as it would be satisfying for Ling Qi to sow discord by knifing enemies with a shishigui weapon, the fact is she can't really use it. Both because just holding it probably isn't healthy for her, but mostly because she's a no-lift nerd who can't into stabbing.
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mastigos said:
This is important to consider, he and his people will aggro if the Star Stone is "desecrated" ... like we were just ordered to do.
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The knife probably isn't worth trying to use, but it seems like just happening to have the Empire attack right after the "demons" lift the star stone out of its safer resting place is a good and lucky start for sowing doubt that the Shishigui are weak and infiltrated at best or actively double-dealing at worst.
 
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