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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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Some good plans but surprised theirs not more people suggesting plans that more different since new system seems more engaging.
 
[X] Plan Dreams of Power

The new system looks very nice, thank you for all the work you put into it! My only gripe is the fact that noone sees any reason to asigns sites to actions, that feels like an oversight in the system. I understand the need to keep things simple - thus only having two concret thresholds and not a scaling one - but a mechanic feeling so useless in its very first appearance still irks me.
 
Erebeal said:
Ok, I was going to put this off but I've been bullied into posting it now :V

There's been a bunch of discussion of Armor, and I've been thinking a ton about it. I think I've worked out a decent framework for explaining the problems we've had with our defensive layers and armor - as well as why Shroud doesn't seem to work.

I call it the Narrative Theory of Defense.

Basically, each of our defensive arts, and indeed other layers of defense, are trying to sell a particular story:
  • LFWT: I am a fleeting, insubstantial shadow, uncatchable and untouchable, scattering on the wind
  • PLR: Losing the enemy in a chaotic and bewildering revelry as you dance away, what they thought they had caught was but an illusion
  • Shroud: I am an endless pool of darkness, attacks vanishing into my body without a trace, my form unaffected
  • Black Mirror: I block attacks with a shield of endless darkness that devours them as if they were never there
  • Aria/Echoes: Attacks are frozen, their energy drained away from the cold, leaving them weak
  • Basic armor/Gown/Zhengui shell etc.: I r tuff, attack bounce off me
Now, the problem here is that a) every layer demands narrative attention - i.e. description - to function, but this is necessarily limited, and b) many of those narratives don't really synergise with each other.

This can take a range of forms. For example, LFWT and PLR theoretically work together quite well - the main problem we've had is that there's often just a feeling of redundancy rather than layering - dream dodges and shadow dodges feel interchangeable, a lot of which I think comes down to it feeling like we never actually get to use the chaos of PLR to lose people. That being said, trying to layer them does still the problem of just creating a whole lot of description to manage, so its understandable that things can get lost.

Perhaps the most serious issue here though is Shroud. It doesn't really synergise with anything well. Superficially, you might think "oh, it's darkness aesthetic so it can fit LFWT better!" but it's actually a completely different kind of darkness from LFWT. It is a very substantial shadow, in contrast with LFWT's insubstantial shadow. They're completely different transformations and don't really mesh at all. It also doesn't mesh with any basic armor stuff like our gown or Zhengui's shells. It can't reinforce their narratives by making the armor stronger - instead it overwrites them. Or, more accurately, Shroud just doesn't get any on screen effect with Yrs instead choosing to show our gown mitigating attacks or arrows bouncing off Zhengui's shell. It is also - and I think this is important - a relatively complex effect that demands a fair amount of description and attention. Which it can't get when it's competing with all our other defensive layers and isn't even our primary defense. Hell, I'm not sure it's even our secondary. It's more like our tertiary.

Aria/Echoes has a bunch of problems here too. The big one is of course its generally passive nature, which we've discussed before. It tends to just fade into the background after our initial entrance, and any sense of it mitigating damage is non-existent. In terms of selling its story, the ideal image is really what Jaromilla did in the Caldera fight imo - and it would probably be better if it was a stronger, active, stunt effect instead of a passive field. It synergises best with armor - the ice aura drains the power from attacks and they bounce off. It seems to have problems getting screen time in the context of our defensive layers however - finding room to go "ok, so you failed to dodge this attack so you're going to get hit and now I need to describe the attacks having their energy reduced by Echoes before they hit you and run into your armor" is probably a bit awkward. A reframing to have it enhancing dodging by having it slow attacks could also potentially be reasonable? Whether or not it synergises with Shroud is a bit more open. Attack has its energy drained -> bounces off armor is straightforward. Attack has its energy drained -> sinks into darkness without a trace is more complex. I think it still could work as a narrative, but you'd really want to be focusing on that stationary fortress narrative and image - you can't dilute it with dodging imo.

So yeah, those are my thoughts on how our defenses function. I think the framework is quite a good way of thinking about how things are or are not going to work together. Questions like "do these synergise in the narrative of a fight? are we trying to do too many things at once?" are important.

In terms of our armor development, this is also why I've become much more sceptical of whether or not Shroud actually works for us. Not Black Mirror - that has no problems as a shield we can use to block things we need to - but SNR's armor. I think it's a really good art, and a very potent effect - but I'm becoming convinced it's one that doesn't really synergise with the things in our build we hold as higher priority (LFWT, dodginess) and is an armor effect that really demands it be the primary defense, which isn't something we're going to do.

What we want for Armor I think is a secondary/tertiary defense that is simple, and doesn't demand too much attention while adequately supporting our other layers and providing a useful catch for when we fail to dodge. We also, I think, would ideally have something that provides meaningful strategic options for group defense play and support.
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Why does Shroud have to stay substantial and super dark? Void is nothingness...who says we can't modify the Shroud to be as insubstantial-looking as our shadow but stay just as effective? We can explore the SNR projects on Void more maybe, if we need more understanding to do successfully modify it (not sure whether its necessary or not). We're gonna end up modifying a lot of our arts as we progress. I don't see any reason not to modify SNR to suite our needs...and whenever people do suggest it, its usually to combine SNR with other arts. Why is that even needed? If we can tweak it the way we want, I don't think we need combine it with any other art at all.

Edit: Maybe while modifying SNR we...use spatial distortion or something to put folds in our Shroud to make it appear more insubstantial and less noticeable. However this doesn't affect the efficacy. OR maybe we use use Reflection in order to sort of camouflage our Shroud. If a layer of Reflection is covering the darkness, it will only reflect surroundings. However, it will still work as originally intended. Or if people want, we can make it a complete Reflecting Shroud that will actually reflect the enemies attacks back at them. Either way though I don't think there's a need to look for another armor art or to combine SNR with PLR, let alone TRF (*shudders*).
 
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[X] Plan Full Dreamwalking
[X] Plan Move It Move It
[X] Plan: All in on reflect.
[X] Plan All in on Grinning
[x] Plan Full Moon
 
[x] Plan Full Moon
-[x] Echoing Grandeur (7/5)
-[x] Hidden Smile IV (1/1)
-[x] Grinning (8/3)

[x] Plan Dreams of Power
-[x] Echoing Grandeur (7/5)
-[x] Hidden Smile IV (1/1)
-[x] Hidden (8/3)
 
[x] Plan Dreams of Power

For now, I'll concide that we need to be on our tip toes for the upcoming event and being prepare with an extra hidden smile level can only do us good.

But for the next months, I'll be hell bent on us getting void domain if possible, it had caught my eye something fierce!
 
I think defensive layering is the wrong approach to take to defense. The goal of Arts should instead be to have a relevant Concept to defend against any given attack, allowing us to avoid using a defense that would be weakened by an antithesis.

LFWT defends against most things (with Want, Motion, and Freedom) and has some relatively strong Concepts behind it (level 2). However there is the possibility of someone using Bondage, Stillness, or Contentment in an attack Art and thus countering it. We then need some sort of other defensive Art in that case (which should be relatively rare), SNR is not bad for this (it is very much the opposite of LFWT, making it difficult for a given attack to have antithetical Concepts for both) but we also don't really have those Concepts (because they are antithetical to the core of our identity).

We have a weak Isolation based attack/defense from our domain's Isolation effect but the underlying Concept is one of our strongest. However I feel that the best approach would be a Persistence based defense as that is an already strongly developed Concept that appears at odds with LFWT's principles but definitely isn't due to our interpretation (aesthetically it would be someone trying to punch a fog bank, sure you go through but that doesn't accomplish much). This would be TRF+ (possibly merged with SES and PGR).

On an attack level we already have a fair bit of Isolation and Power attacks. I would suggest adding Want as the "trap people in Dream" archetypal attack (like Diablo's shadow realm in Diablo 3).

Also, my vote:
[x] Plan Dreams of Power
 
Adhoc vote count started by EternalObserver on Jun 10, 2021 at 12:04 PM, finished with 112 posts and 58 votes.
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I have been waiting for Hidden to win a vote for a long time and we finally got there with the doubled success it offers alongside Mystery and Causality which is FREAKING SWEET
I would love to wait to double up on Grandeur, but w/e gimme the conceptual exploration of power-from-community and maybe we'll hit the Heart Demon a bit lol

EDIT: Xuzhen, Suzhen, Su, Su Ling. Su Ling could definitely not be her real name, it might be short for Xuzhen Ling. A zero/nothing from Xuzhen.
ooooof.
Cultivators gain names as they ascend cultivation, and if Su Ling wants a proper goddam name she'll make one and we'll be so happy for her omfg. And she'll not be Ling Ling, she'll be Ling _badass chosen name_. And I'll say "wow. Justice Fox So Cool <3"

[x] Plan Dreams of Power
-[x] Echoing Grandeur (7/5)
-[x] Hidden Smile IV (1/1)
-[x] Hidden (8/3)
 
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I am particularly excited to engage with this dream trip. It'll be interesting to see just how deeply we can delve with the proper tools!
 
Sooooo

latest RR update: notable wild spirit area, Fantasia, great dream palace of the Weilu, home of the Moonlight Dancer (avatar of the dreaming moon). This is totally where were going with the dream quest with Sixaing right?

Do we want to vote knowing this? As in, go all in with dreaming stuff? I'm perfectly happy with any of the current leading choices, but I wonder if we might want to use meta knowledge to tailor our approach. Maybe we could get some super narrative bonus to Grinning Dreaming projects if we are meeting a literal avatar of the grinning moon.

EDIT: misread the RR chapter a little (I was on my phone and all), the moon avatar is Dreaming not Grinning. We could then vote for dreaming moon projects specifically. Moon stuff is already very popular, I'm just considering going a step further in terms of tailoring.
 
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