How common bound spirit relations with their humans are:
It is generally pretty uncommon
like even if they have personality compatibility the social pressures make it undesireable and many beasts simply aren't going to view humans that way, or spirits may not even have those desires.
The Sovereign spirit ruling over one of the ES wilderness areas:
Hm, I'd say there is a great tree spirit in one of them a more malicious kind, made active and vengeful over broken contracts that none alive currently recall, the region is a hellish nightmare of dense and predatory vegetation.
Granny Snek certainly created other serpents out of the aether just by existing but its hard to call those her children. She did not have children beyond those with Yao in the traditional sense. The full bai sneks are mostly descended from early gen Bai mixing further with snakes of the province instead of non bai humans like the human bai descend from.
Not as often, but yes
Probably a like 3-4 generations same as it would take for spirit blood to fade without direct infusion
you see why the most famously spirit blooded clans do what they do with their bloodlines
that's not to say they wouldn;t still have some features but at that point they will become mostly cosmetic
not if you keep breeding back into the beast side of things
if it goes back and forth you'll hover in the heavy spirit blood grey zone for much longer
like
Snake+Human=Hybrid
Hybrid+snake=Hybrid
Hybrid+Snek= Hybrid, leaning Snek
Hybrid leaning snek+snek=Mostly Snek
Mostly Snek+Snek=Snek
mix another human in there at any point and it'll reset.
So Private Property is not individually owned. Nobody owns land except in a vague way the Xuan Clan as a whole
their subordinate clans typically pay to use theirs, but do not own it
Ships are owned by their captains, but all other forms of productive property are communally owned. Individuals do own personal goods, like their clothes and talismans and such
If you want to use some major piece of property like a workshop or ritual site, you petition the Duke and their councilors and are added to the waiting list for use of the site if there is one, or otherwise given a schedule and terms for using it.
It is considered pretty ironclad, many of those contracts go back millenia but they have been stripped before.
I won't say part of the setting is that no one really knows exactly how it worked, that time is lost to the mists of ages the most I can say is what I've said, every creation myth contains a dualistic element, and has the world forming in opposition to some hostile force which now resides outside it.
If the Mu invented the anti-spiritblood bias or if it already existed:
Nah, there was resentment there for a long long time
after all the spirit blooded basically dominated the hierarchies of the empire since time immemorial
Ogodei's plan and if he grasped how big the Empire was:
Unite the tribes
Destroy the Emerald Seas
Return to the starsons tomb for ???
Unite ALL of the tribes.
Profit
he did understand that the fight wouldn;t end there, though he did not really truly internalize the sheer scope of the Empire
He spends more time prepping and uses the visions as exhortations to get more fence sitters to come over
because the way he sees it that would just mean their war is bigger than he thought and they need to strike now and wound this great behemoth while it is vulnerable
rather than waiting for it to turn its eyes on them fully.
Also he would viciously focus down the fleeing remains of the argent Sect lol
(Karthak clarification that in this scenario Ogodei doesn't know that Yuan He is going to kill his ass)
Ooooh okay
well not that then
but he'd probably still have not let himself relax as much as he did when he saw the Hui were still sitting around jerking each other off in VR chat
Average age nobles aren't considered kids anymore:
you stop being a young master sometime between 20-40 in most clans, with the number going up the bigger and more powerful (and thus constricted by still living power brokers) your clan is
Alright so each 'Province' has an althing, whose members are assigned from more regional leadership decided or voted on from among those smaller hierarchies
so like there will be a certain number of seats for various guilds and temples and city leadership, and military leadershi[ (edited)
these all combine into the Great Althing for the nation which only meets fairly rarely
these can reject a decision of the Althing if they determine its decision to be at odds with the will of the big deal gods, but otherwise are purely supervisory and generally serve as a divining tool for the sitting thing reps
things are completely parallel there. The Pharaoh is a cultivator but the rest of their government is mortal
which... well its still a bronze age palace economy but hey you're boss can't pop your head like a grape with their own two hands.
Well the temples do have a lot of influence over society, and their laws and the prhibitions of the gods are taken very seriously
but like, in the same way they're taken seriously in irl societies
technically speaking the exact structure of civic law is beneath divine notice as long as it doesn;t defy those strictures
There would be a lot of objections from people on neighboring territory
because they would probably have good odds of ending up collateral
if the sites ever went super active and starting being offensive rather than just a big blot of 'abandon hope ye who enter here' that would change.
but if they were reassured enough I don't see why it couldn;t happen
Xiang is doing something similar with the strife wastelands in the peaks right now
making them human habitable again
They can share some information as far as their greater self opens that connection but they can't really directly communicate unless they physically meet
they would most definitely sense each other if they were within an area as small as province though, relatively speaking
Because he genuinely wooed and won the heart of the White Serpent Queen, and proved he could back up his words on the tide of blood and domination they could spread across the continent together
How old and bored court clan members spend their time:
Maintaining their social status, the thing old rich people have always done.
but also things like the gold autumn school, basically putting their efforts toward whatever pet projects still interest them in old age
right now that includes a lot of arts funding because that's the big fashion right now
but yeah you'll see all kinds of odd old hobbyists in Xiangmen
Just for you sure there is definitely a doddering Bai Granny who spends her time on new hats for her snek friend
The Xuan have their own reinforcing ascension. The Guo don't focus heavily on it and so their traits are trending toward smaller expressions with the occasional infusion of new blood
the folks without ascensions mostly hover around at the bottom of the spirit blood pool where they have specific cultivation talents but not many if any physical traits
Generally speaking its pretty imperial china overall, though in high society wrists and ankles and collarbone is mostly fine
show a tiny hint of cleavage or wear something very form fitting for 'risque' this is about where Xiulan is
If you're in military you can get away with snug trousers and high boots, but will probably be expected to wrap up everything that could uh tantalize
ES is just increasingly diverging due to Shenhua, who is also kinda infecting fashions elsewhere too
ES is most okay with bare chested dudes along with AS
generally speaking guys are supposed to wrap up too but of course get more leeway
Bai common fashions can be pretty scandalous too do to being in a seub tropical environment
but high fashion is all about being covered in silk and jewels
If there was a magic "restore Golden Fields" button but all the provinces had to agree to press it:
Yeah the rest of the Empire might be okay with pressing the button ebon rivers and es especially since they do have to spend resources dealing with the edge of the desert, the bai probably prefer the mineral wealth to the agriculture but could be bought off. The Jin would be the sticking point
they make a lot of money off of the fire imbued salts which they harvest from the flats where incoming seawater still boils away
in addition to not wanting to give up the coast
and other concerns
She takes her 'offerring' a young man in his prime going out alone. She returns the 'gift' that is the child, then gets to double dip on the sacrifice when the child dies of neglect or abuse
she's allowed to eat them directly if the chosen method of disposal is leaving the child to expose outside of the wards.
but just letting the kid die of exposure works just as well for her
and is too easy trap bait for her to regularly take up
Hmm, if Ling Qi can find ways to take along her three Spirits with us to at least be reasonably close behind her, that'd be nifty. Like, a White Ling Qi with three Prism Spirits would be pretty fucking terrifying, honestly.
...I mean, of course, an 8th Realm *anything* is terrifying.
Hmm, so we'll hit Cycles III and Power V this go around, for a total of 52 Concept Levels, and be at 7/8 for Want V... so things continue apace I suppose!
Lol was about to vote cycles, glad it squeaked by.
Also was thinking how Ling Qi can't fly right now, lacking dress chan, so there might be some undignified scampering along the cliffs. (Can she sable grace yet in her recovery?)
I hadn't realized that the vote was so contested. I was under the impression that Cycles had like 15 votes of advantage.
But Want nearly pulled ahead right at the end.
There was even an out-of-time vote that would have tied it up!
