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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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[] The Wang Clan
[] The Meng Clan

Definitely one of these two. LQ has no long term interest in the Diao Clan beyond making sure they don't actively hate her, so I'm loath to spend any more actions on them than the bare minimum required for that. They seem pretty heavily into the whole Imperial Conservative thing too, so I doubt they'll ever like LQ. Why waste the effort?

Improving LQ's reputation with the Meng Clan would be good for potentially getting access to unique music resources, as well as potentially allowing LQ to head off Meng-Bai boarder tensions over the long term. That second part is definitely long term though, but no reason not to start now. Some people seem to be arguing that getting intel on the Meng from the Bai is some sort of poison pill that will hurt LQ in the long run. This is a bad argument for the same reason that all of the "yrs is secretly giving us trap options" arguments are bad. yrs doesn't do trap options.

Improving LQ's reputation with the Wang definitely has much more immediate impacts. They're going to be LQ's neighbours, and getting some early support from them for the Ice Lady diplomacy and trading could make or break that whole project. I'm leaning towards this at the moment, but I could be convinced otherwise.
 
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I just had a sudden realization.
With both CRX and Meizhen, in some ways we may be in better terms with their dads than they are?
Low bar to clear in both cases yes, but still...
 
I still fail to understand why so many want to make friends with the Diao.

Their Matriarch hates our liege and we are forever tainted by that association. To make things worse, our political goals and general outlook are very much opposed to their's. We cannot make them happy, and in my opinion it's actively harmful to even try. We waste opportunities to court the other Count clans who might actually be our allies.
 
Random Shinobi said:
I still fail to understand why so many want to make friends with the Diao.

Their Matriarch hates our liege and we are forever tainted by that association. To make things worse, our political goals and general outlook are very much opposed to their's. We cannot make them happy, and in my opinion it's actively harmful to even try. We waste opportunities to court the other Count clans who might actually be our allies.
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For me, it's not about making friends with the Diao, rather it's about lessening their aggression and not making enemies. I've kinda already accept that Imperial subfactions would probably still hate us, but at the very least I don't want to attract Count-level enemies while we're still a baron
 
EternalObserver said:
For me, it's not about making friends with the Diao, rather it's about lessening their aggression and not making enemies. I've kinda already accept that Imperial subfactions would probably still hate us, but at the very least I don't want to attract Count-level enemies while we're still a baron
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Which is why people voted for the political action+personal action synergy combo.

Like we got enough focus on the Diao at this point.
 
Random Shinobi said:
I still fail to understand why so many want to make friends with the Diao.
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What part of this is about making friends? This is about knowing what they do, how they think, what are their inclinations. Of all the clans in the Emerald Seas we only don't know anything at all of 2 clans, the Diao and the Jia.
The Meng has a faction that views us with good eyes and we have Meng Dan in the group, making getting info on them an easier diplomatic task, while the Wang are perhaps the more straightforward and we are friends with the heir, again making it easier to get info by just asking. We have no such lever with the Diao, and as you have said, will probably not have it, with this level of interest.
 
[X] The Wang Clan
[X] The Diao Clan

I'm likely going to approval vote these two. The Wang are the more immediately important due to our efforts in the South, but as Briefvoice pointed out on Discord the Diao are effectively the ducal clan of ES. Shenhua almost entirely lacks a clan of her own and so uses the Diao in that role. We also don't know how many opportunities we'll get to stop our reputation loss with them beyond this one.

I personally think the Meng were only tacked on to the plan because they were the most interesting of the less important clans (for this vote not necessarily overall) so they can take a backseat here.
 
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Audacious said:
[] The Wang Clan
[] The Diao Clan

I'm likely going to approval vote these two. The Wang are the more immediately important due to our efforts in the South, but as Briefvoice pointed out on Discord the Diao are effectively the ducal clan of ES. Shenhua almost entirely lacks a clan of her own and so uses the Diao in that role. We also don't know how many opportunities we'll get to stop our reputation loss with them beyond this one.

I personally think the Meng were only tacked on to the plan because they were the most interesting of the less important clans (for this vote not necessarily overall) so they can take a backseat here.
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I'd argue against the tacking the label of "lesser important clans" to Meng. That's the clan that borders not just Thousand Lakes, but Western Territories as well. Not only that, they are also just as affected by Cloud barb attacks as Wang, Jia, and Luo. True, Wang is the more immediately important in terms of location, but that doesn't make them less important. I think it's also important to pay attention to the inner workings of the different Meng factions 'cause they're definitely some complications there with the mix of Bai hate and possible Sun support.
 
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EternalObserver said:
I'd argue against the tacking the label of "lesser important clans" to Meng. That's the clan that borders not just Thousand Lakes, but Western Territories as well. Not only that, they are also just as affected by Cloud barb attacks as Wang, Jia, and Luo. True, Wang is the more immediately important in terms of location, but that doesn't make them less important. I think it's also important to pay attention to the inner workings of the different Meng factions 'cause they're definitely some complications there with the mix of Bai hate and possible Sun support.
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So I agree with you big picture, but I was referring to our immediate objectives and or opportunities to have reputation gain at all long term.

The Wang have the greatest chance of effecting our most immediate main objective that Shenhua will care about. This is incredibly important for not just us, but also CRX and GG for obvious reasons. We MUST impress Shenhua and continue to impress her to maintain our and our liege's status.

The Diao are the most likely to continue deepening their dislike of us AND Renxiang to a potentially irreversible degree if not addressed and we don't know how many opportunities we'll have I'm the relevant time period.

The Meng are undeniably important in the LONG term especially in reference to our deepening bond to the Bai, but I think they're the easiest to put on a back burner and come back to at a later time. They don't out right hate us, we have an in with then through Meng Dan, and our success diplomatically in the South may help us soothe the wounds between them and the Bai in the future.
 
There's not really much point to understanding the Diao further, we don't want them to hate us but we have no expectations they'll actively work for or against us in regards to our major political efforts when we're acting on behalf of Cai Shenhua. The Wang are relevant since they're going to be closest to the south but why do we need secrets of a relatively young clan who, if Wang Chao is even remotely an indication, is relatively straightforward.

Between how hard it is to get good information on the Meng given their isolationism and seemingly common Hidden Moon mystery worship and how likely Huo Zhuang is to have that gone through the effort of acquiring it anyway since they are the Bai's neighbors and past rivals, I feel like information on the Labyrinthine Lords is going to be far and away more useful for us. You don't get a name like that by being easy to navigate without precisely the kind of edge Huo Zhuang is offering us and we know there's potential there for getting their support with the White Sky.
 
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This vote I think is a good time to bring up my views on the political situation. Due to the pre-existing relations, alliances and enmities between the various political factions we will not be able to please everyone. We have already seen this in the votes between the Cai and the Sect. Thus I believe that eventually we will have to chose specific factions to be allied with. This doesn't mean ignoring the other factions but that we will have to focus primarily on a small subset of the factions.

Personally I don't think we should ally with the Diao - while it would undoubtedly be valuable to us - I think that it is too much effort to be worth it. Thus I would recommended getting the information on one of the other clans - with the eventual goal of balancing one clans dislike (hopefully nothing worse) with the favour and regard of another clan.

However, one other consideration is our cultivation methods which alongside the idol can be reminiscent of the Hui. This information might be very useful in figuring out how that association will affect future diplomacy and reveal how much information can be safely shared with them. For purposes of this question does anyone know who would be best?
 
Orkus Majorkus said:
Oh man, this kind of backdoor politics is what I was hoping for becoming Renxiang's hand. Delicious.
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I find adventure / swords and sorcery stories with an underlayer of believable politics to be much more gripping. Maybe because it brings the fictional world and people much closer to home. Like despite all the fancy magic and unrecognizable history, it's still mundane human nature running the show.
 
VoiceOfTheRiders said:
However, one other consideration is our cultivation methods which alongside the idol can be reminiscent of the Hui. This information might be very useful in figuring out how that association will affect future diplomacy and reveal how much information can be safely shared with them. For purposes of this question does anyone know who would be best?
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The Wang are a new Imperial clan that definitely doesn't have ties to the Hui or Dream Cults. There are probably still many Meng that actively associate with the Dream Cults that we could approach with the right information and with two Hui still on the loose we might want to insert ourselves in their old circles. And the Diao's stance is aggresively against Hui, Dream Cults and everything associated with them, though they are still together with the Meng and Luo the last remaining old comital clans so there might still be some Weilu leaning among them if we look closely.
 
By the way, is there a chapter where all the castes of Bai are listed? I would like to reread them and I can't find it ... 😅
 
dycouza said:
There's not really much point to understanding the Diao further, we don't want them to hate us but we have no expectations they'll actively work for or against us in regards to our major political efforts when we're acting on behalf of Cai Shenhua. The Wang are relevant since they're going to be closest to the south but why do we need secrets of a relatively young clan who, if Wang Chao is even remotely an indication, is relatively straightforward.
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The sabotage to Hanyi's tour happened in Diao vassal lands.
 
Oh wow. I just realized something, the wind thief can do the same thing Hou just did. Sure it's worded as stealing, but if you have access you can just as easily put something in. Man, I am way more excited for that art now.
 
yrsillar said:
Fan Yu Xiulan's former fiance. She had never much cared for him, but by the end most of her dislike had guttered out into pity. It looked like he had managed to achieve the bronze physique, if only barely
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Fan Yu is behind Xiulan by a year, which isn't too bad by cultivator standards, though it remains to be seen how quickly he reaches Green. Bronze is gated behind a concrete physical self-image, but Green is determined by personality and character; he has been proven conclusively to be incapable of following the Way of a protector to his fiancee, and he has little to no friends left. I hope the Elders are watching to ensure his Way doesn't become twisted. (His family sure won't. They've given up on him, last we've seen, and still have, if his sullenness in the face of victory in the first round is any indication. And, as a 2nd year partial Third Realm, the Sect is likely to feed him to a 1st year partial Third Realm or a 2nd or 3rd year full Third Realm; he's very unlikely to win his elimination round.)

yrsillar said:
Again, it exploded into petals and this time the girl was too slow to deflect the descending wave of blossoms.

"Hm, she's really come far," Ling Qi said, the aesthetic was certainly different, but she felt a little flattered anyway.
[snip]
In Ma Jun's ring, disciples had given up on hunting the swiftly moving storm of flower petals and song and turned to fighting for the other slot
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Seems Ma Jun also made a similar mistake as Ling Qi did in her first round last year: she turned out too powerful for the other disciples to defeat and didn't preserve an allied disciple, so everyone else just fought for the second slot. Unless there were no other Cai-allied disciples in her ring, she gave up an opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of allying with Cai. (Gan Guangli did his part, and her own strength is proof enough, but I'd think Cai Renxiang would like to have seen all of her own followers also protecting her other subordinates as is proper according to her utopian vision, yeah?)

Also. Flowers? A stringed instrument? Is that tutelage from Ruan Shen I see?

yrsillar said:
the other green in Lu Feng's ring, an older young man with a boar spirit, defeated the last second realm.
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Hei Boqin, boar guy that Sun Liling speared in her elimination round and who was having an affair with Wen Ai last year. Lu Feng apparently didn't have any followers in his ring? He didn't have anyone except Ji Rong last year, too, which makes for a weird non-parallel to Gan Guangli and Cai Renxiang.
 
I am inclined towards the Diao because one, as it stands they don't really exist narratively beyond "extensions of Diao Linqin's will who ask how high when she says jump," and that's not really a basis to form an opinion about an entire Count Clan on, and two, because the Diao also can trace ancestry back to the ice prince, and so we should at least check if there is anything at all that they could potentially bring to the table.
 
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