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

[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

The arguments about Hanyi saying she can't do it have swayed me.

We also don't actually need very much clergy when we set up a baron. One of our focuses is spirit ken. So reduced clergy support doesn't hurt us as much as it would otherwise.

Plus no where in the vote does it say we beat up the river. Going by our previous interactions we are more likely to just sing it a personal song than bast it apart.

[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

I think we need to keep this from blowing back on the Bao, and we may be able to rebuild relations with the clergy if we can present a common enemy, which the sabatour would be.

It's been a while since I've approval voted something anyways so may as well add to the vote count

[X] Learn the missing piece yourself and take part in the performance (80% Success. Improved relationship with Clergy on success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Reduced benefits for Hanyi's reputation. Annoyed Hanyi)
[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

Erebeal said:

Really, the choice should be between (1) or (3), with questions around "what is the actual intention with (3)?". Like, people are jumping straight to "beat up a river", but LQ's history and leanings here that it's more likely that she'd try to surreptitiously run interference and personally placate the river imo... Indeed, we actually know it can't be that because we know from our experience that that doesn't work (unless you're the Bai). Killing spirits just means they come back angry later, and flood things, so I don't think it would actually count as "success".

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Given that (3) involves an exercise of Power strong enough to rank up the concept, I can't see a reasonable conclusion other than "beat up/intimidate the river, keeping the concert from going wrong immediately but making things worse in the long run." If (3) involved placating the spirit, it either wouldn't level any concept or would level something related to spirits or diplomacy.

Neshuakadal said:

We also don't actually need very much clergy when we set up a baron. One of our focuses is spirit ken. So reduced clergy support doesn't hurt us as much as it would otherwise.

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I think "reduced clergy support" means that we don't get the reputation reward for success, not that it hurts us with them.

[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

You know what?
Fuck the clergy, it was their job to deliver us the right info, and they fucked it up.
They got complaints, direct them to whomever did not do their job.

For all the talk about letting Hanyi perform and trusting her, I really don't like the possibility of failure on our first performance. That would have serious repercussions and embarrassment down the line. She's flat out said she can't properly learn the new part so quickly, so let's support her by letting her perform how she knows she can (political and social support).

Addressing, the "playing into the saboteurs hands" I have two points:
First, we don't know at all who did this, if it was on purpose, or why. Since we are working in this area, we have to address this. Bending our plans suddenly to someone else mucking about isn't going to let us either smoke them out, or accomplish our objectives.
Second, how is changing up our routine any less playing into their hands. Perhaps they want us to try that and fail in doing so, which is what option 2 would (potentially) lead to. Especially if it is the Clergy trying to pull this.

Finally, the clergy messed up. We can always say that we weren't given the information. This has been in the planning for months and as the record will show, they didn't tell us about this river spirit. We don't need the clergy. The nobles don't seem to care and politically they are by far the most important to us politically speaking.

[x] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

JohnnieBoy123 said:

I think "reduced clergy support" means that we don't get the reputation reward for success, not that it hurts us with them.

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Either way my statement holds true. We don't need as much clergy support as other new barons.

Valmond said:

[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

You know what?
Fuck the clergy, it was their job to deliver us the right info, and they fucked it up.
They got complaints, direct them to whomever did not do their job.

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Yah. Yah! Does anyone have lemons?! I am going to burn some houses.

tryingtobewitty said:

Given that (3) involves an exercise of Power strong enough to rank up the concept, I can't see a reasonable conclusion other than "beat up/intimidate the river, keeping the concert from going wrong immediately but making things worse in the long run." If (3) involved placating the spirit, it either wouldn't level any concept or would level something related to spirits or diplomacy.

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It involves something that will change how LQ sees power. Presumably "huh, I'm actually pretty good at talking with spirits and this protected my sister when violence would not have."

Its important to remember that Concepts are about how well you understand the thing in question, not how much you embody it. Its entirely possible that CRX or Shenhua has "corruption" as Concept through an understanding of "its awful and should be eradicated if at all possible"

Leaning toward
[x] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
A 100% success rate is hard to beat and dealing with spirits is something we're supposed to be good at.

tryingtobewitty said:

Given that (3) involves an exercise of Power strong enough to rank up the concept, I can't see a reasonable conclusion other than "beat up/intimidate the river, keeping the concert from going wrong immediately but making things worse in the long run." If (3) involved placating the spirit, it either wouldn't level any concept or would level something related to spirits or diplomacy.

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At the very least it is a power play to say, "You can't handle your problems? I will."

Also at some point we can't keep looking for long term gains. We have enough of those on our plate. We need some short term successes to build faith in our team so that those long term plans van come to fruitation.

I do understand your concern about beating up the river. But we can extend trust to the local clergy that they could deal with any fall out from that.

[x] Learn the missing piece yourself and take part in the performance (80% Success. Improved relationship with Clergy on success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Reduced benefits for Hanyi's reputation. Annoyed Hanyi)
[x] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

Neshuakadal said:

At the very least it is a power play to say, "You can't handle your problems? I will."

Also at some point we can't keep looking for long term gains. We have enough of those on our plate. We need some short term successes to build faith in our team so that those long term plans van come to fruitation.

I do understand your concern about beating up the river. But we can extend trust to the local clergy that they could deal with any fall out from that.

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We've repeated;y run into Ling Qi not trusting her spirits enough, I really don't think that stepping in here is the best choice. We should help Hanyi solve this problem herself, or else get more heart demons due to ignoring the foreshadowing that Ling Qi coddling her spirits is bad for both them and her.

[x] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)

It occurs to me that the ownership issue could be resolved by granting the land to the Li Clan, seeing as how we happen to have a Li for a friend who's quite interested in medicine. Her not being particularly interested in managing an estate just means she'd be mostly an absentee owner, which I'd expect would suit many of the local nobility just fine.

EDIT: Added an approval vote just in case.

Okay, I'm concerned about the gains Option 3 is now making.

I have too much faith in yrsillar as a QM to believe that he'll just give us one option that's got all the bonuses and no downsides. If it gives 100% chance of "success" and concept progress, that ??? is going to be negative enough to balance that out. You could argue that Option 3 is about taking guaranteed negative consequences in exchange for fewer negative consequences, but none of the other options give us concept progress, so I'm inclined to believe it's worse than just a reputation hit (though we still won't piss off the nobles, so that's something.)

So, what's bad enough to be equivalent to (40% chance of pissing off nobles and clergy + 60% chance of -Hanyi growth opportunity cost + 60% chance of -clergy reputation opportunity cost + -1 Power opportunity cost?) or (20% chance of pissing off nobles and clergy + 80% chance of -clergy reputation opportunity cost + annoyed Hanyi + -1 Power opportunity cost)?

Neshuakadal said:

Also at some point we can't keep looking for long term gains. We have enough of those on our plate. We need some short term successes to build faith in our team so that those long term plans van come to fruitation.

I do understand your concern about beating up the river. But we can extend trust to the local clergy that they could deal with any fall out from that.

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We've had short-term successes. What we need is to avoid causing even more long-term problems than we already have - such as, for example, by not pissing off the people who are responsible for spirit speaking, and can thus testify to our own trustworthiness as a spirit speaker - or lack thereof, if we fail or pick option 3 - to others.

The local clergy may very well be able to handle the problems we cause, but given that they were expecting us to solve problems, it's not going to endear us to them - and it will certainly reinforce the existing Impression that the only sabotage here was due to our own negligence.

Erebeal said:

The arguments for 2 seem generally absurd. People constantly try to make these "trust" arguments - and frankly history has shown them to almost always be wrong.

Hanyi's just said she can't do it. Taking her at her word and accepting that our little sister needs help, because she's being screwed by factors beyond her control, isn't "not trusting her". Hell, if anything it's trusting her assessment of her own capabilities (though that would also be a weird way to frame it).

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Except the reason for the "probably" comes down to the fact she has never done an impromptu performance, and will lack the experience to draw upon to be able to say she can do so with confidence.

Since we know from quest mechanics the issue isn't a lack of ability, but rather the fact that she never had the Ling Qi experience of being thrown onto the stage by the Dreaming Moon, and the route Ling Qi chose in life is one where the consequences for failure will only ever get worse as the cultivation level increases.

tryingtobewitty said:

I have too much faith in yrsillar as a QM to believe that he'll just give us one option that's got all the bonuses and no downsides. If it gives 100% chance of "success" and concept progress, that ??? is going to be negative enough to balance that out. You could argue that Option 3 is about taking guaranteed negative consequences in exchange for fewer negative consequences, but none of the other options give us concept progress, so I'm inclined to believe it's worse than just a reputation hit (though we still won't piss off the nobles, so that's something.)

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Well, that's how I'm interpreting it. The ??? consequences having negative connotations. To me, it indicates that whoever the saboteur is did stuff in the background.

tryingtobewitty said:

We've had short-term successes. What we need is to avoid causing even more long-term problems than we already have - such as, for example, by not pissing off the people who are responsible for spirit speaking, and can thus testify to our own trustworthiness as a spirit speaker - or lack thereof, if we fail or pick option 3 - to others.

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These aren't spirit speakers, they are the successors to the people that destroyed them. Their job is to get the spirits to fall in line or else!

Its just hard to control spirits if you truly give them nothing from the relationship.

[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

I'm tempted by the "have everything 60% of the time" option, but I'm also really curious about this myself... And I trust that Yrs will make this lead into a branch, not immediately railroad us into several updates of Consequences. We'll have some freedom to react and mitigate, so long as we read the situation right.

Plus, retreat only so far and then no more. I'd be perfectly fine with Ling Qi developing a reputation for playing Immovable Object right through complex plans.

[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

JohnnieBoy123 said:

These aren't spirit speakers, they are the successors to the people that destroyed them. Their job is to get the spirits to fall in line or else!

Its just hard to control spirits if you truly give them nothing from the relationship.

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I recommend you reread the other story points and sidestories about the priesthood and their activities.

The Imperial method is to deal with spirits through either subjugation or supplication. (Very appropriate for dragons - you are always either above or below a dragon, never equal.) The priesthood is responsible for supplication and were hoping for Hanyi's assistance with it. They won't be happy if Ling Qi rolls in with subjugation and messes up their carefully constructed relationship with the river.

Anderein said:

Plus, retreat only so far and then no more. I'd be perfectly fine with Ling Qi developing a reputation for playing Immovable Object right through complex plans.

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Straightforward is predictable. An unexpected Immovable Object might play through a plan, but an expected Immovable Object will play straight into it.

Consider the situation. Someone who really doesn't trust Ling Qi has arranged circumstances with the intent that other people will end up not trusting Ling Qi. If Ling Qi shows up with a clearly unsuited song, then deals with her own (apparent) negligence in a way that leaves the priesthood holding the bag, the priesthood won't trust Ling Qi - mission accomplished for the saboteur.

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Anderein said:

And I trust that Yrs will make this lead into a branch, not immediately railroad us into several updates of Consequences. We'll have some freedom to react and mitigate, so long as we read the situation right.

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I don't expect the consequences will hit immediately - they'll probably go on the pile with the others we've been building up.

60% is a coin flip and i don't like it.

[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

Yeesh, this is a rough situation with how the Road Quest is unfolding. We basically committed to untangling a political snarl between two Count clans, which is hilariously above our station but hey. Exorcising the pass ourselves is also out of our power, and wouldn't even resolve the issue of custody over the pass.

Looks like we misread the benefits involved too, and the road project doesn't move the needle on our basic logistical access, which was a huge concern during the vote. I think it's still a valuable project, but man did we leap into a really deep end of the pool without knowing we were actually aiming to do that.

The problem right now though is how our current issue with Hanyi's performance impacts the quest. Our ability to convince Counts to listen to us relies on our unusual clout via Cai Renxiang and our personal reputation for success, if unorthodox success. If we or Hanyi have a public failure right now, it spikes our personal rep into oblivion. Especially since that failure is right in the backyard of the Black Mountain Pass. We'd have no credibility to offer suggestions to solving the conflict over the pass.

Keep in mind that, mechanically, we're 1/2 events for the current stage of the questline. We've already been told when the second event is happening. It's when we talk to the Wang clan during the end of the year tournament. This means this chunk of the quest is going to end this month, so we have absolutely no opportunities to recover our reputation if it's damaged here. Basically the only response we could expect would be the Wang representative politely declining our interest in the matter. As a best case. Even if they like us on a personal level, our reputation being in shreds means they can't buy in to our pitch with the rest of their clan. It's just politically infeasible.

[X] Learn the missing piece yourself and take part in the performance (80% Success. Improved relationship with Clergy on success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Reduced benefits for Hanyi's reputation. Annoyed Hanyi)
[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

Failure here means material harm to the people of the valley, failure for Hanyi's aspirations, failure for the questline we just started, and compounding reputational harm (as we fail our tacit promise to look into the road pass issue) with the valley nobles, clergy, and in terms of undermining ourselves in our entire foreign diplomacy project. Because that one centers on all the same reputational issues. A newcomer with influence far above her station who advocates for the strange and uncertain. If we start having failures with our unorthodox methods, then nobody is going to listen to our advocacy later. Especially when it's a high profile failure directly out of the gate.

Hanyi's career, the Road Questline, and diplomacy with the Polar Nations are all at risk here. Ling Qi can't do what she and Cai Renxiang dedicated themselves to accomplish with our southern neighbours if she takes unnecessary risks that blow up in her face and damage exactly the resources she needs to leverage her faction towards success. Losing trust here would be devastating across the board.