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

[X] Rites or rituals which could be used to keep the mindless Zmeya away from work sites.

[X] Rites or rituals which could be used to keep the mindless Zmeya away from work sites

Or at least let the Pines know that information would be a good bargaining chip.

[X] Rites or rituals which could be used to keep the mindless Zmeya away from work sites.

I'm hesitant to give even this, but it's important to cultivate (heh) some good will with the Westerners in general.

[X] Let it go for now, exchanges can be negotiated at the map table.

[X] Let it go for now, exchanges can be negotiated at the map table.

[X] Rites or rituals which could be used to keep the mindless Zmeya away from work sites.

[X] Rites or rituals which could be used to keep the mindless Zmeya away from work sites.

[X] Rites or rituals which could be used to keep the mindless Zmeya away from work sites.

[X] Let it go for now, exchanges can be negotiated at the map table.

I'm mainly looking at these in terms of rhetorical negotiation. How could we pursue these matters in terms that Dzintara would find understandable, sympathetic, or worthy of respect.

[ ] Rites or rituals which could be used to keep the mindless Zmeya away from work sites.

Hard to know where they might take offense, but it's probably not too hard to spin it as the fools living in the jungle really not needing another threat plaguing them, even if they are fools. Other than that, I gotta think that Tangled Pine rites would involve Polar Nations sentiments. Probably sacrificial/bloodletting involved in there. I wouldn't expect any of Sun's army to shrink from what's required, but injecting a bit of Polar Nations sensibilities into their midst? Maybe not hard to convince Dzintara of the wisdom of that.

[ ] Information on the ranges and habits of the mindless Zmeya which the Sun could use to avoid their ire.

This could maybe be spun as helping to pressure the Sun away from the Tangled Pine cultivation/sacred sites. But only if the Zmeya have a higher incidence near those sites, which isn't something we're actually aware is true or not. This one does kind of have the downside that it'd let the Sun formulate their expansion efforts more coherently, both in terms of land claims/bids and in terms of operating outside of those.

[ ] Let it go for now, exchanges can be negotiated at the map table.

Obviously nothing we need to do rhetoric about with this option. Does cede an opportunity to warm Dzintara up to negotiating with them. Direct talks could be kind of fraught, so having an established something at the ready isn't a small thing to be giving up.

I don't really feel strongly about any of it right now though. Feels like I had something more clever to say about it earlier, but the thought fell out of my head 8 hours ago or something and hasn't fallen back in since so eh.


Edit: voting after all, apparently
[X] Rites or rituals which could be used to keep the mindless Zmeya away from work sites.

@Aurelian convinced me, mixed with my own thoughts. We just kind of want momentum on stuff. Feet in doors. Staking territories is one thing, but demonstrating to the Sun that exchange with the Tangled Pines, in this case knowledge, is also valuable? That's valuable to us.

In multiple ways, frankly. It hopefully reduces the chance of the Sun pulling a gamer move and invading south. If relations go okay, it could potentially lesson some of the existential strain the Sun are under. Good for everyone. And having the Sun dialogue with Tangled Pines boosts the legitimacy of our project.

I'm just going to ignore all the horrible potential outcomes.

Edit2: Also, thinking about it, won't these same kinds of things and potential insult be in play when we reach that map table later, anyway? Might be a good idea to get ahead of that now, so we can handle it carefully later. There is a potential tradeoff here -the Sun stepping in it versus us- but I think Ling Qi can weather a bit of extra grump here better than our objectives can, if that makes sense. We can contain a blowup here, with Jaromila's help. A blowup in strategic talks could spiral out of our hands pretty quick. And empty hands is not how you want to find yourselves in a career-making heist diplomatic summit.

[X] Rites or rituals which could be used to keep the mindless Zmeya away from work sites.

[X] Let it go for now, exchanges can be negotiated at the map table.

I don't think it's worth the effort now. It's probably enough to confirm it's a sublime to get them to stop seriously poking it

yrsillar said:

However their very nature made her certain the Twisted pine would be reluctant to offer much on them, so she would have to choose carefully what she tried to fish for. Warding rites against them would be good, since Dzintara had said they could be dangers even to the Pines, and something that could not be abused, but she didn't know if it would be insulting to ask such a thing.

The other option was simply pursing information on the beasts and allowing the Sun to develop countermeasures based on them, but that could certainly be more abusable, and was just as likely to be insulting. She could just leave the matter lie though. The Pines did not seem to mind a few of the creatures being killed and the Sun were not antagonistic over it yet.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

And of course all of this is complicated by the fact that we're unknowingly bargaining in bad faith since Daddy Sun has is thoroughly subverted by the Flower Demon.

Then again, maybe he's just playing the long game to whip out the good ol' Imperial "I can fuck anything, and bearing my baby means I can bind you into being my obedient familiar" trick like Hanyi's dad tried to pull.