Enlightenment

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Academia Nut said:
The armsmen that were instructing them were mortal.
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Hot damn.

Well. That's interesting. Really tends to reinforce the idea that we're from weirdo cultivation world - something that the rest of the universe doesn't really care all that much about except to the degree that it makes use useful.

Feels like a bit of a shame, because I was actually kind of digging the "cultivation world played brutally straight" premise that the first few updates teased, but I'm here for this one too.

Protip: For those who are not already aware, if we at some point wind up in a fight with people riding weird misshapen dinosaur/horse/eel things, be aware that that is a cause for very serious concern.

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[X] Heavy Weapons
[X] Leadership

Honestly, I'd go with Special Weapons, to further reflect his deft touch with tempermental equipment, but that one isn't going to win. Heavy weapons feels solid and appropriate, and there's definitely a place for it in the heavy infantry. Leadership because... well, he does have some actual leadership skills, and I think it might be cool to lean into that.

We can work on cultivation later, when it isn't reflective of a lack of other talents.
 
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Guest99 said:
It's explicitly pointed out that the technique training is just us having extra free time to spend on training them, not us being particularly talented in their use. Trading an actual talent for extra time seems like a net loss in the long-run, because leveraging our talents to be good at our job (Heavy Infantry) seems to be at least as useful as working on our physicality, and something that will continue to benefit us in the long run.
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This is going to be a quest where we ascend to become some kind of Aspiring Champion/Daemon Prince as understood by Yon through his unique cultural lens of Xianxia setting tropes. Then (hopefully) we can return home to rescue (for some value of "rescue") our home world before it is completely bled dry by the Black Legion. This is not going to be a quest about being an infantry officer in a Traitor Guard regiment where we eventually become a colonel or something.

Knowing how to clean and maintain a meltagun or heavy stubber is going to be useful for exactly as long as we are leading a heavy infantry platoon with troops who use those weapons who we have to directly oversee, which we want to be doing for the minimum amount of time we can possibly get away with. The second we can find a chance to distinguish ourselves and be promoted into doing some better/more prestigious job we have to take it, because "First World War Junior Officer except it's in Warhammer 40,000 and you live inside the Eye of Terror", is like, a bukkake of different things all of which have horrifically high casualty rates. We won't last long, Iron Body or not.

Now, becoming an Aspiring Champion is equally horrifically dangerous (with possible added risk of tentacles), but it at least has a narrow chance of not-dying. Therefore, we actually do need to be always gaining more gifts of the Dark Gods cultivating, because anything else is ultimately a death sentence.

It's actually quite funny how @Academia Nut has grafted the settings together whilst the essential incentives still enforce the Xianxia Grindset.
 
I feel like far and away the best way to keep our cultivation going is to be performing well enough to get recognized. The Envoys have outright better cultivation than our world from what we know, on top of better alchemy, technology and the like. Being valuable enough to secure cultivation time and resources, or to get a patron who wants to invest in us is key.

This is a Chaos Warband equivalent, we need to be strong and respected enough to throw our weight around and/or have a powerful backer. Trying to do more on the meager quantities we get from IKB is just not going to be enough. We have to be proactive about creating a niche for ourselves before someone decides we're just the sacrifice they've been looking for.

Skippy said:
Knowing how to clean and maintain a meltagun or heavy stubber is going to be useful for exactly as long as we are leading a heavy infantry platoon who maintain those weapons, which we want to be doing for the minimum amount of time we can possibly get away with. The second we can find a chance to distinguish ourselves and be promoted into doing some better/more prestigious job we have to take it, because "First World War Junior Officer except it's in Warhammer 40,000 inside the Eye of Terror", is like, a bukkake of different things all of which have horrifically high casualty rates. We won't last long, Iron Body or not.
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Okay I feel like you're applying a very reductive brand of no limits fallacy. 'If the goal of cultivation to is to punch god, then why care about young masters' seems more than a bit excessive. Especially since Chaos is all about doing really incredibly flashy shit that gets you recognized by the divine. The moment we distinguish ourselves, we don't get to suddenly play things straight, we wind up in the rat race of Chaos where we're competing for attention and accolades with every other monster.

We blow up a tank with a heavy weapon? It's not good job you're a clerk/staff officer now, it's 'good job, you're in the cooler heavy weapon section' or 'time to fight the Corpse Emperor's supposed Angels'. Chaos is always going to involve us pitting ourselves against each other and anybody around as a prelude to fight whatever Imperium equivalent that serves as a magnet for all their rage and hatred.

You're logic only holds if you want to get away from this insane clusterfuck and try and strike out- in which case getting a good gun and being really good with it in the short term is actually ideal.
 
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[X] Special: Iron Kettle Belly
[X] Heavy Weapons

Switching since I'm convinced about the chaos contamination point, and also had the thought that, we're probably going to be able to very on sourcing high-quality extra-pure alchemy materials, so redoubling our investment in the Iron Kettle may be really important to being able to continue our cultivation at all.

Also, if LE1st is going to be heavy infantry, it's probably going to be important that Yon have a good handle on the relevant equipment himself, or else he may have a hard time wrangling his subordinates.
 
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Skippy said:
This is going to be a quest where we ascend to become some kind of Aspiring Champion/Daemon Prince as understood by Yon through his unique cultural lens of Xianxia setting tropes. Then (hopefully) we can return home to rescue (for some value of "rescue") our home world before it is completely bled dry by the Black Legion. This is not going to be a quest about being an infantry officer in a Traitor Guard regiment where we eventually become a colonel or something.
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So... I believe that you are making a number of assumptions that are not necessarily correct.

First, simplest, I don't think they *will* be bleeding our homeworld dry. Like, this is pretty clearly the kind of thing they've done before, time and time again, for millennia. "Celestial Envoys" were very, very rare, but we knew what they were. They've been coming back to this world for a very long time, and the marks of their culture are upon it. It's a long-term asset rather than a short-term asset, and I think there's every reason to believe that as far as the Black Legion is concerned, this is just business as normal for this world. They even let a third of the sect behind to rebuild.

Second, if you really want to go Aspiring Champion/Daemon Prince, then our ability to take down enemies is going to be pretty significant. If anything, that's more reason to take at least one of the attack forms (Heavy Weapons, Special Weapons, Marksmanship or Assault), with preference probably going to Assault. Still, "Aspiring Champion who carries around a heavy weapon" isn't a particularly bizarre character concept for WH40K. That skill isn't going to go obsolete. For that matter, as an aspiring chaos champion, Leadership absolutely isn't going to go obsolete. We might not be in control of a traitor Guard Company or whatever, but if we're an Aspiring Champion, you better believe that we're going to have underlings to manage.

Academia Nut said:
Reminder: protagonism is a power that Yon has. It's just that his trait was unable to manifest very well before due to being a different genre of protagonism.
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Does Lady Va also have protagonism?
 
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You know, it'd be kind of funny if the IC reification of a heavily split vote here was that the recruitment officers couldn't agree on where to put Yon, and that where he goes is determined by who wins the resulting administrative brawl.
 
[X] Special: Diamond Body
[X] Heavy Weapons

We're going into Heavy Infantry, best to be...well, heavy infantry. Our squad will be able to do as the lady did and use Yon to break their enemies fist.
 
Karugus said:
Okay I feel like you're applying a very reductive brand of no limits fallacy. 'If the goal of cultivation to is to punch god, then why care about young masters' seems more than a bit excessive. Especially since Chaos is all about doing really incredibly flashy shit that gets you recognized by the divine. The moment we distinguish ourselves, we don't get to suddenly play things straight, we wind up in the rat race of Chaos where we're competing for attention and accolades with every other monster.

We blow up a tank with a heavy weapon? It's not good job you're a clerk/staff officer now, it's 'good job, you're in the cooler heavy weapon section' or 'time to fight the Corpse Emperor's supposed Angels'. Chaos is always going to involve us pitting ourselves against each other and anybody around as a prelude to fight whatever Imperium equivalent that serves as a magnet for all their rage and hatred.

You're logic only holds if you want to get away from this insane clusterfuck and try and strike out- in which case getting a good gun and being really good with it in the short term is actually ideal.
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To be clear, I am not saying that moving up in the rat race means we suddenly get to sit and be safe - of course it is just as dangerous if not exponentially more dangerous. But it is also the only way we get stronger and survive in the longer term, so every skill we pick up needs to be assessed in terms of how it helps us in that rat race in both the short and the longer term. Knowing how to service a plasma gun is great now, but will be less useful when we are being thrown into an arena to fistfight feral pit beasts as halftime entertainment for our Black Legion masters.

It is building on and leveraging our unique abilities that mark us out for special distinction, plus our "people skills" like Communication or Leadership, that both directly improve our chances of survival now and in the future. There is maybe an argument for some kind of special combo like Marksmanship + Kettle Stomach having quite good long-term potential, but a lot of conventional infantry stuff is less useful longterm because we are not going to be anything approaching a conventional infantry officer. Obviously yes, we need to survive the short term, but Communications, or Diamond Body/Iron Kettle also improve that.

You seem to be arguing in favour of keeping going with our cultivating so I think we actually agree here, but hopefully this clears things up if I didn't communicate this very well before.
 
Sirrocco said:
First, simplest, I don't think they *will* be bleeding our homeworld dry. Like, this is pretty clearly the kind of thing they've done before, time and time again, for millennia. "Celestial Envoys" were very, very rare, but we knew what they were. They've been coming back to this world for a very long time, and the marks of their culture are upon it. It's a long-term asset rather than a short-term asset, and I think there's every reason to believe that as far as the Black Legion is concerned, this is just business as normal for this world. They even let a third of the sect behind to rebuild.

Second, if you really want to go Aspiring Champion/Daemon Prince, then our ability to take down enemies is going to be pretty significant. If anything, that's more reason to take at least one of the attack forms (Heavy Weapons, Special Weapons, Marksmanship or Assault), with preference probably going to Assault. Still, "Aspiring Champion who carries around a heavy weapon" isn't a particularly bizarre character concept for WH40K. That skill isn't going to go obsolete. For that matter, as an aspiring chaos champion, Leadership absolutely isn't going to go obsolete. We might not be in control of a traitor Guard Company or whatever, but if we're an Aspiring Champion, you better believe that we're going to have underlings to manage.
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The Traitor Legions replicate most of the attitudes of the Imperium with the exception that they think they should be the ones running it, the Black Legion especially. This is not likely to be some kind of sustainable relationship if they're sufficiently in a hurry to tithe 2/3rds of every Sect at once - them nuking all the mortal servants of our Sect to make a landing zone in their haste may also have been a clue. If you don't believe me at this point, don't worry, there will be more clues coming.

Regarding Heavy Weapons or Special Weapons, yes, it is technically true that we could be an Aspiring Champion whose special schtick is that we run around toting a Heavy Stubber and shooting it from the hip or dual-wielding plasma pistols or whatever. However, it's probably not significantly higher value than just becoming harder to kill or getting stronger faster, which is the route most Chaos champions seem to take. Leadership though, yeah, that would be extremely useful, I don't disagree.

Comms + Diamond Body was angling for a particular skillset but if anyone wanted to vote Leadership instead of Comms then I wouldn't criticise them for doing so.
 
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Skippy said:
To be clear, I am not saying that moving up in the rat race means we suddenly get to sit and be safe - of course it is just as dangerous if not exponentially more dangerous. But it is also the only way we get stronger and survive in the longer term, so every skill we pick up needs to be assessed in terms of how it helps us in that rat race in both the short and the longer term. Knowing how to service a plasma gun is great now, but will be less useful when we are being thrown into an arena to fistfight feral pit beasts as halftime entertainment for our Black Legion masters.

It is building on and leveraging our unique abilities that mark us out for special distinction, plus our "people skills" like Communication or Leadership, that both directly improve our chances of survival now and in the future. There is maybe an argument for some kind of special combo like Marksmanship + Kettle Stomach having quite good long-term potential, but a lot of conventional infantry stuff is less useful longterm because we are not going to be anything approaching a conventional infantry officer. Obviously yes, we need to survive the short term, but Communications, or Diamond Body/Iron Kettle also improve that.

You seem to be arguing in favour of keeping going with our cultivating so I think we actually agree here, but hopefully this clears things up if I didn't communicate this very well before.
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I don't think there's ever going to be a moment where direct combat capability isn't incredibly important. It's not just knowing about how to service a plasma gun, it's getting to use one/another heavy weapon- and perhaps more importantly understanding their capability. As others have brought up- Yon has no experience with guns, he's really good at making himself useful and avoiding giving offense, but he has no context for how dangerous the war he's about to enter is, and familiarizing him heavy weaponry makes him learn more about what's probably one of the biggest threats to him on a battlefield.

Chaotic cultivation is presumably all about performative valor/deeds (which is funny because I made a comment how basic military training was about the opposite)- picking up combat skills that help us achieve deeds and give us a leg up when someone inevitably tries to kill us is important. I think a huge point of divergence between us is that I don't think Yon is bound to wind up in a slave fighting pit. Yon's superpower is being a useful henchman 'the Black Legion masters' is a misleading notion because it suggests a monolith Yon is wholly outside of. The Black Legion is a patronage network, to a greater extent even than Yon's sect- and Yon is really good at fitting into a patronage network.

From there it becomes a matter of excelling enough to get noticed, and being strong and dangerous enough that our willingness is preferred to the cost of subjugating us. And this is more speculative- I think we're supposed to assume that '40k tech' is meaningful at higher cultivation fighting. Primarchs are using artifact weapons that aren't wholly divorced from what they're based on, space marines are probably the gold standard of cultivator combatants, and mortals have been casually executing and brutalizing these weaker cultivators on the back of their superior equipment. I don't think any kind of weapon option we pick here is doomed to get out scaled and I think combat is just going to be a fact of life. Our patron will expect us to fight if need be, we will need to be threatening so that our patron doesn't take too many liberties, and fighting capability is always going to be highly valued and prestigious in this sort of atmosphere.
 
Karugus said:
I don't think there's ever going to be a moment where direct combat capability isn't incredibly important. It's not just knowing about how to service a plasma gun, it's getting to use one/another heavy weapon- and perhaps more importantly understanding their capability. As others have brought up- Yon has no experience with guns, he's really good at making himself useful and avoiding giving offense, but he has no context for how dangerous the war he's about to enter is, and familiarizing him heavy weaponry makes him learn more about what's probably one of the biggest threats to him on a battlefield.

Chaotic cultivation is presumably all about performative valor/deeds (which is funny because I made a comment how basic military training was about the opposite)- picking up combat skills that help us achieve deeds and give us a leg up when someone inevitably tries to kill us is important. I think a huge point of divergence between us is that I don't think Yon is bound to wind up in a slave fighting pit. Yon's superpower is being a useful henchman 'the Black Legion masters' is a misleading notion because it suggests a monolith Yon is wholly outside of. The Black Legion is a patronage network, to a greater extent even than Yon's sect- and Yon is really good at fitting into a patronage network.

From there it becomes a matter of excelling enough to get noticed, and being strong and dangerous enough that our willingness is preferred to the cost of subjugating us. And this is more speculative- I think we're supposed to assume that '40k tech' is meaningful at higher cultivation fighting. Primarchs are using artifact weapons that aren't wholly divorced from what they're based on, space marines are probably the gold standard of cultivator combatants, and mortals have been casually executing and brutalizing these weaker cultivators on the back of their superior equipment. I don't think any kind of weapon option we pick here is doomed to get out scaled and I think combat is just going to be a fact of life. Our patron will expect us to fight if need be, we will need to be threatening so that our patron doesn't take too many liberties, and fighting capability is always going to be highly valued and prestigious in this sort of atmosphere.
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To be clear, I absolutely agree that our direct personal combat capability is going to be incredibly important here, that's what I've been advocating. However I think that Heavy Weapons is less likely to fulfil that role compared to simply getting more yoked, because it is not in actuality what we see stuff like Aspiring Champions, Chaos warlords, Sorcerers, or even most Primarchs using, even if in theory many of them could probably carry a heavy bolter into battle and shoot from the hip. And yes, I agree that the Black Legion is probably going to function kind of similarly to a Sect - which is why I've stressed developing our "soft" people skills as most useful next to becoming more jacked.

The bit about us finding ourselves in an arena was not because I think Yon is going to become a full-time gladiator, and more an offhand comment illustrating what "meritocracy" in one of the Traitor Legions looks like. They will absolutely get some of their promising aspirants and make them fight Chaos spawn for no greater reason than entertainment and seeing which ones survive. That's the sort of world we're entering.

Of course heavy weapons can still have utility - any option can in the right circumstances. But I think improving our personal, physical combat power in the most direct and visceral sense, plus making ourselves a better minion with people skills is still the best bet overall.
 
ArcanaVitae said:
I don't think we're in 40k, I think we're in a cultivation setting that's inspired by 40k.
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I think 'Warhammer 40K, except that psykery (and possibly other supernatural phenomena) have been reinterpreted as cultivation methodologies' is the most likely possibility at the moment.
 
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