Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

BungieONI said:

seems pretty reasonable that what the Jingshen is trying to do is trying to recoup from the costs of fortification, and building atop the money they likely saved by not having to pay the Golden Devils that chunk of income a few years back in return for raiding the Cannibal Sect.

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My personal take on this is less on that and more making the moves to replace us as the power in the desert. The Oasis is to help them build up connections with the Righteous Powers so that when they make a move, the powers might slip them some manpower to help out

After all, we're " Demonic " unlike the Jingshen who are all jolly good chaps! My guess is that such a betrayal would be during Turn 5 or 6 where we're still dealing with the aftereffects of the Trials. If all goes well for us, the Jingshen can just push the plan back while accumulating wealth and goodwill from the Righteous powers.

If this Nascent soul starts building up a core of Jingshen Cultivators who focus on the same Dao path, we might even see marriage alliances form.

Honestly, the survival of Cannibal Sect is actually in our interest as it currently stands. It keeps the peace in the region. With only 1 Nascent Soul alive (and our ability to field a second one a century away), and the Jingshen Clan having 2, they are almost on par with everybody else put together.

They got a 10-15% boost to the economy from that Heavenly Treasure (and lower tariffs), along with the new land. We got extra land and remains of a Nascent Soul but they still pulled ahead.

A huge amount to unpack here. Though I definitely want to add that Contempt Ridden Manuel was both hilarious and a little tragic. @occipitallobe impresses with every update.

I really want to say no to the Jingshen proposal. It feels like we are basically being asked to pay for our rival to secure their own borders, with fairly flimsy returns. We already have a 100 year ceasefire with the Blood Cannibals after all. More trouble with travellers bitching about the tolls feels like a manageable problem if it gets us the more significant income boost. Would be open to a Write-In that attempts to squeeze a better deal out of them though.

I would be worried about the relations hit... if we were anything but the Golden Devils. I don't think any favour or other social credit we build up with righteous path powers will be worth much when the time comes they don't need us for something.

Frankly the oncoming Demon War sounds like a good opportunity to build our strength with less opposition, though its a shame about the Heavenly Bandit.

I bet they will fortify the area, with or without our agreement, they want better relations with the plains, they won't have a choice

We have no reason to refuse, it might lower the amount of money we get but it will let us avoid some of the trouble caused by core formation cultivators traveling through our lands and as the benefits outweigh the negatives the question is what can we get form them.


We could ask a big onetime payment or for a lower but continuous amount, we could ask that our own core formation cultivators will be allowed to use the Spirit-Refreshing Oasis for free or with a heavy discount (how effective is the oasis), we could also ask for various treasures.


We should also probably tall them that we don't care how much the fortify the area

I feel like this is actually a terrible deal for us?

occipitallobe said:

"A new war is beginning. Jingshen Clan have negotiated the ceding of the former Oasis Rebels under the Cannibal Sect to us. Our plans are simple enough. The Spirit-Refreshing Oasis there is an excellent healing measure for Core Formation cultivators. We are hoping to have the Golden Devil Clan see reason and allow such cultivators to travel to be healed from the Great Battlefield for a nominal fee."

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From what I understand, they want to make money and get goodwill from the other region's cultivators from offering cheap healing in the upcoming war against the Demonic Altar sect. They therefore want us to massively reduce our tolls on travel through our lands to get there. In return we get an extra hundred years of bulwark against the blood cannibals

The issue of course is that the 'goodwill' from most righteous sects is completely worthless. A bunch of them come together every 100 years or so to murder the hell out of us because the madate of heaven says that's a good thing to do. Not to mention we already have the 7 Divine Saber palace be agitating against us.

Especially since it will be the Jingshen clan providing the actual healing. Who would you be more grateful to? The person who offered you extensive healing and got your core formation cultivators back in the fight? Or the clan that lowered the it's tolls it charged to allow you to get there? This sounds like an excellent way for the Jingshen clan to build up their own networks and contacts, more easily allowing them to arrange a pincer move against us alongside the righteous sects once the war calms down.

Much as I want to help punch in the face of the Demonic Altar sect, especially since they killed our buddy, it isn't worth it.

Katana1515 said:

I would be worried about the relations hit... if we were anything but the Golden Devils. I don't think any favour or other social credit we build up with righteous path powers will be worth much when the time comes they don't need us for something.

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The World itself hates us, so i doubt anything will improve the opinions

Humbaba said:

They therefore want us to massively reduce our tolls on travel through our lands to get there. In return we get an extra hundred years of bulwark against the blood cannibals

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The way i see it, the options presented to us are a lose lose. First one is the already mentioned points about leading the wolf to the door, the 2nd one has the trap that the Jingshen could direct any ire to us by claiming that all the cost, trouble etc is due to the Golden Devils.

Unfortunately, since there is no way we can refuse without making a enemy of everyone, my personal stance is see if we can somehow trade the permission for a deal to defend our Sea against foreign invaders.

This way we can make them help us take the blunt of the Foreign cultivators using us as whetstones. And since we're not asking them to explicitly defend us, i dont see a way for Righteous Cultivators to reject without coming across as the Selfish people they actually are. After all defending against invaders is something that all patriots of a land have to unite for.

It's not like they'll get nothing as well, since if Foreign cultivators invade their lands we'll be willing to help (ignoring that our continent is poor and they're not worth the cost ). In short, in the style of Xianxia politics, coached it so it comes across as the Greater Good but helps us as the largest beneficiary.

[] Disagree. Moderate Income boost from Cultivators traveling to the Spirit-Refreshing Oasis. More likely to cause trouble in your lands due to tariffs charged. Fall in Jingshen relations.

Personally, I don't want the Cannibal clan too fucked over. Preliminary nonvote.

Also, $$$.

Mochinator said:

The World itself hates us, so i doubt anything will improve the opinions


The way i see it, the options presented to us are a lose lose. First one is the already mentioned points about leading the wolf to the door, the 2nd one has the trap that the Jingshen could direct any ire to us by claiming that all the cost, trouble etc is due to the Golden Devils.

Unfortunately, since there is no way we can refuse without making a enemy of everyone, my personal stance is see if we can somehow trade the permission for a deal to defend our Sea against foreign invaders.

This way we can make them help us take the blunt of the Foreign cultivators using us as whetstones. And since we're not asking them to explicitly defend us, i dont see a way for Righteous Cultivators to reject without coming across as the Selfish people they actually are. After all defending against invaders is something that all patriots of a land have to unite for.

It's not like they'll get nothing as well, since if Foreign cultivators invade their lands we'll be willing to help (ignoring that our continent is poor and they're not worth the cost ). In short, in the style of Xianxia politics, coached it so it comes across as the Greater Good but helps us as the largest beneficiary.

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I think you overestimate how pissed people are going to get at us maintaining our standard charges for core formation cultivators to cross our land which we have had for decades/centuries.

Plus, at the end of the day, IC this is the Jingshi Clan making a personal request. It is not any of the righteous sects coming to negotiate with us, just the Jingshi Clan. And their offer is terrible.

Now I would actually be happy to negotiate with some or all of the righteous path sects for lower tarrifs to come through our lands to get to the Jingshi's healing Oasis, Nothing stops the other righteous powers from coming to us and making a deal for lower tariffs through our lands separately. If they can offer something more useful than nebulous 'goodwill' I would be happy to negotiate (including penalty clauses for bad behavour). But when many of them have shown their 'goodwill' or even their word to be worthless (looking at you 7 divine Saber palace) then they have to deal in actual hard currency. Not 'goodwill'.

Beyond that, well the righteous powers can't really afford to go to war with us right now. Certainly not over something so small. We're attrition central and they're already stretched thin between the siege on the unassailable Noble Knowledge sect heartlands and the worsening war with Demonic Altar sect who can 1:1 replace or increase their troop strength in every battle they can retrieve their (or righteous sect) dead from.

As long as we don't get too greedy I think we'll be ok.

That said I do dream of putting sanctions (increased fees etc) on the sects of anyone who does dare make trouble in our lands, but we might not have the power.

On another note:

occipitallobe said:

Heaven's Impoverishment (Weakening) - If you should seize a new land it will find itself impoverished as fate itself conspires against your wealth. Each time the Clan seizes new lands or forces another power to pay tribute the curse must expend itself and is thereby weakened.

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Hmmm. Hey @occipitallobe does forcing the righteous sects to pay us tribute to cross our lands count towards weakening the curse?

Because I could absolutely see that being part of a long term recover plan by the clan. I think it would be an excellent bit of characterisation for the clan to have set up a way for our very position sitting on the trade route and charging fees for passage is forcing heaven to expend power on the curse every year. Especially since we did it after being chased off our rightful lands.

Also, I assume that forcing Old cannibal to give us child corpse gulper's corpse and a bunch of land has already been factored into the curse's current weakening state?

Humbaba said:

I think you overestimate how pissed people are going to get at us maintaining our standard charges for core formation cultivators to cross our land which we have had for decades/centuries.

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Reading Xianxia has taught me to be paraniod + they're always out to get you with some 5th dimensional plans happening behind your back!

Humbaba said:

Now I would actually be happy to negotiate with some or all of the righteous path sects for lower tarrifs to come through our lands to get to the Jingshi's healing Oasis, Nothing stops the other righteous powers from coming to us and making a deal for lower tariffs through our lands separately. If they can offer something more useful than nebulous 'goodwill' I would be happy to negotiate (including penalty clauses for bad behavour). But when many of them have shown their 'goodwill' or even their word to be worthless (looking at you 7 divine Saber palace) then they have to deal in actual hard currency. Not 'goodwill'.

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More seriously, one thing to consider could be that we aim for land within the Oasis itself, so that we can provide Services in the form of Inns, Forges etc to the Cultivators coming there to heal. Essentially a tradetown, that could allow us to both humanize our Clan to the more junior members + give us opportunity to gather information even if it's in the form of Gossip.

Humbaba said:

As long as we don't get too greedy I think we'll be ok.

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Well... If it's possible i won't mind asking for the sums paid to be in raw resources. Considering the economics involved, we'll get more compared to using said funds to buy the resources and having it shipped to through the desert or buying it from caravans that travel into the desert. Especially if we can get regional specialties

[X] Disagree. Moderate Income boost from Cultivators traveling to the Spirit-Refreshing Oasis. More likely to cause trouble in your lands due to tariffs charged. Fall in Jingshen relations.

That deal is terrible. I think she is counting on the fact that the Dao of Acceptance will make us agree to this frankly terrible Deal.

[X] Disagree. Moderate Income boost from Cultivators traveling to the Spirit-Refreshing Oasis. More likely to cause trouble in your lands due to tariffs charged. Fall in Jingshen relations.

I have been convinced by the arguments that this should be our move.

@occipitallobe How effective is the oasis in heling core formation cultivators? how much dos Manuel think the Jingshen clan are going to charge for the heling to other righteous powers?


Also I think you should add perception and toughness to the Realm Guide Spreadsheet and what is the name of the city that is around the Qiguai Clan magic door way? (I need this for an omake).

[X] Disagree. Moderate Income boost from Cultivators traveling to the Spirit-Refreshing Oasis. More likely to cause trouble in your lands due to tariffs charged. Fall in Jingshen relations.

Maybe we should offer travel services to make sure the wounded are transported to the edge of our territory quickly and safely, keeps them from causing trouble in our territory, and they can pay extra for a bit of protection

[] Negotiate. Yes, but... Write-in what you want. Relies on a Diplomacy roll from Manuel to succeed. The more you ask for, the less likely it is to go through.

The straight-yes and straight-no options are both bad, so let's try to get something out of this. The fact is that their proposal would help Jingshen at our expense, and whatever gains we received would be incidental. We don't have to refuse outright, but let's at least ask something commensurate with the value of the favor we'd be doing them. For example... maybe they compensate us half of the value for every toll waived?

Hard pass. Considering what Old Cannibal was gonna charge us for the privilege of keeping the Oasis after helping with Corpse Gulper, chances are the Jingshen Clan had to agree to something equally bad and porous. It's similarly likely that the Jingshen clan wont see the value of being able to afford fortifying the Region further without this agreement.

Which means we can take it for ourselves later on.

[X] Disagree. Moderate Income boost from Cultivators traveling to the Spirit-Refreshing Oasis. More likely to cause trouble in your lands due to tariffs charged. Fall in Jingshen relations.

[X] Disagree. Moderate Income boost from Cultivators traveling to the Spirit-Refreshing Oasis. More likely to cause trouble in your lands due to tariffs charged. Fall in Jingshen relations.

A crafty write in could sway my vote, but the deal as it stands stinks. If we really want social points with the Plains Sects we would do better to make bilateral deals with them for passage. As it stands I suspect we would get the cold shoulder while the Jingshen boast about how they have 'Subdued the Desert Devils' to their allies.

Hmm, i think the general consensus we have is that we don't like the deal because of how we get shafted and not because we're not willing to let the Cultivators use it. But the disagree option basically says that we don't agree to give a discount, it says nothing about the Spirit Oasis so even a refusal would not change the overall situation.

And i'm a bit unsure on if we can even negotiate with the other Sects directly regarding the Tariffs since all that needs to be done to put a stop to our plans is the Jingshen denying us access to it.

Only thing i can really think of is that if we go disagree, we might want to look into further fortifying our lands because of the trouble caused by the tariffs. I still feel it's a very lose lose situation, i just can't think of anyway out

P.S: Brief Addon, i get the feeling that the Oasis was " ceded " in the same sense that the Jingshen Nascent Soul is our true love.... Maybe finding disgruntled members of the Rebels is possible.

[X] Disagree. Moderate Income boost from Cultivators traveling to the Spirit-Refreshing Oasis. More likely to cause trouble in your lands due to tariffs charged. Fall in Jingshen relations.

Mochinator the reason that the Jingshen Clan are at this at all is because they want money from the Righteous Sects sending cultivators to heal at the Oasis. If we're charging the normal tariffs, then those Righteous Sect Cultivators are going to be more strapped for cash when they arrive, meaning that the Jingshen clan will have a harder time negotiating to Jack up the price.

This isnt about helping the Righteous cultivators. This is about filling the Jingshen Clans pockets.