Enlightenment

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veekie said:
Body cultivation techniques reads to me as specialized biomancy than mutations.

Less flexible but much more reliable than unconstrained biomancy
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The changes are sometimes too spiritual to just be flesh manipulation.

Iron cattle help with spiritual consumption for example, I think it is some kind of combination, cunage both in our body and soul.

One thing that might point against biomnacy is the children, children of cultivators should inherit most of their parents's biological changes, than against, it is possible sufficiently advanced cultivators are each their own species, too divergent to have children, so they need to make something human because that's the middle point they are both familiar with.

Va is supposedly very beautiful, but she and other young masters don't start off as that much greater than a human, if at all, at least far as I can see.
 
It seems likely that we're probably in a WH40k flavored setting. The specific details might be very different though.
 
Always take a special option if you can, being unique is interesting. I like the idea of being of a leadership position but won't be upset if heavy weapons wins... because kaboom.

[X] Leadership
[X] Special: Diamond Body
 
[X] Special: Diamond Body
[X] Special: Iron Kettle Belly

Approval voting for the special options because I want at least one of them.
 
Roth963 said:
The changes are sometimes too spiritual to just be flesh manipulation.

Iron cattle help with spiritual consumption for example, I think it is some kind of combination, cunage both in our body and soul.

One thing that might point against biomnacy is the children, children of cultivators should inherit most of their parents's biological changes, than against, it is possible sufficiently advanced cultivators are each their own species, too divergent to have children, so they need to make something human because that's the middle point they are both familiar with.

Va is supposedly very beautiful, but she and other young masters don't start off as that much greater than a human, if at all, at least far as I can see.
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I mean theres no reason to split up the psychic disciplines the way the rest of 40k does. Any categorization works, the Warp doesn't care as long as it fits your own internal logic
 
Since Leadership is in the lead here, I am going to add in approval votes for it and both cultivation options, going with my theory that we want to develop our interpersonal skills further, and our cultivation skills that mark us out.

[X] Leadership
[X] Communications
[X] Special: Diamond Body
[X] Special: Iron Kettle Belly

Roth963 said:
The changes are sometimes too spiritual to just be flesh manipulation.
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He compares the Astartes to body cultivators except even moreso, which further suggests that Yon sees a distinction between merely physical changes and the "spiritual" aspect of cultivation. He also senses immense spiritual power from a sorcerer they meet. So I suspect cultivation is more like your body becoming partially daemonic/warp-infused, or (in 40K terms) being a special kind of psyker who continually and subconsciously strengthens their own body with their abilities in a way distinct from biomancy.
 
[X] Leadership
[X] Communications
[X] Special: Diamond Body
[X] Special: Iron Kettle Belly
 
[X] Special: Iron Kettle Belly

Because being able to purify and refine the body is very useful

[X] Communications

I do not want to get shot at if possible.
 
Okay so like. I gotta ask the thread a question. Not much, no biggie, just a small little matter…

Why the FUCK are we trying to take leadership lessons from the CHAOS MARINES?!?!?!

Yeah, the Chaos Marines! Real bastions of loyalty and camaraderie, them! Famed for it even! Definitely no shitty ideas are going to percolate through that hot mess which will bite us in the ass later! Absolutely no way it's not going to boil down to just reinforcing the blandest grimdark parts of wh and Xianxia both!

If y'all wanna stay with Chaos, just admit it, but trying to learn how to lead from them seems like a shitty way to not end up losing some of the better qualities that Yon currently has!

[X] Special: Iron Kettle Belly
[X] Heavy Weapons.
 
The3rdCorinthian said:
Okay so like. I gotta ask the thread a question. Not much, no biggie, just a small little matter…

Why the FUCK are we trying to take leadership lessons from the CHAOS MARINES?!?!?!

Yeah, the Chaos Marines! Real bastions of loyalty and camaraderie, them! Famed for it even! Definitely no shitty ideas are going to percolate through that hot mess which will bite us in the ass later! Absolutely no way it's not going to boil down to just reinforcing the blandest grimdark parts of wh and Xianxia both!

If y'all wanna stay with Chaos, just admit it, but trying to learn how to lead from them seems like a shitty way to not end up losing some of the better qualities that Yon currently has!
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Technically we'll be taking leadership lessons from the traitor guardsmen, not the traitor marines. The Black Legion don't actually know or care about Yon right now, which is probably for the best. Ultimately any effective military organisation is going to have some of the same principles of command via convergent evolution, and Leadership will much more importantly let us get to know other officers and our superiors and how to ingratiate ourselves to them. Knowing the org chart is useful even if we don't necessarily like our new masters all that much. If Yon has maintained his integrity through living in a Sect where experimentation on unwilling mortal subjects was apparently not unheard of, hopefully he can do so here, and the voters will get a choice.

As for "y'all wanna stay with Chaos"... I empathise, but do you imagine we really have a choice? Yon and friends went through a warp portal. He has absolutely no idea where he is or how to get home, and the mentions of twisting corridors and no mention of natural light or seeing the sky makes me suspect we might even currently be on a voidship. (I may have missed something.) The best outcome for running away right now is that we end up essentially living as a fugitive on whatever war-torn hellworld the Black Legion take us to first.

Our only realistic prospect of ever seeing home again is rising in rank, power and privileges enough that we can steal or commandeer some form of transport at a minimum. Our only hope of not then eventually getting killed by Black Legion retribution is if we become powerful enough that it's more expedient to barter with us instead. Alternately if don't want to ever see our home again, and abandon our people to the tender ministrations of the Black Legion, that's absolutely a choice we can make... but we'll still need to get aboard a ship bound for elsewhere and have at least some resources and idea of where we're going, which means gaining rank and privileges.

It's important to be very clear about the reality of our situation here.
 
The3rdCorinthian said:
Why the FUCK are we trying to take leadership lessons from the CHAOS MARINES?!?!?!
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Because a Xianxia cultivator has ...
- a sociopathic disregard for their fellows in the search for personal power
- a willingness to sacrifice others in the pursuit of personal power
- a pitiless, unempathic brutality towards those weaker than themselves
- a mindset of simmering stewing outrage towards anyone more powerful than themselves

in other words, a xianxia cultivator is, functionally, already behaving like someone on the Eightfold Path would be behaving. The overlap is tremendous and incredibly in theme.
 
Don't care, realised this quest isn't for me. You all have fun, but those exact tropes are the least interesting parts of the genre for me, and since it seems everything is being set up to lean into them as hard as possible, I might as well just dip now instead of trying to fight against the tide.
 
The3rdCorinthian said:
Alright well then, sorry, but I'm not down for a Chaos quest.
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Honestly I suspect Yon may soon be feeling the same as you do if he does not already. However that does seem to be the situation we're in at least for the foreseeable future. Maybe there will be opportunities to escape a bit sooner if that's a priority for voters - I think Leadership is likely to hopefully get us promoted quicker and thus have more and better opportunities for desertion.

That being said if it's not for you then I totally respect that.
 
Skippy said:
He compares the Astartes to body cultivators except even moreso, which further suggests that Yon sees a distinction between merely physical changes and the "spiritual" aspect of cultivation. He also senses immense spiritual power from a sorcerer they meet. So I suspect cultivation is more like your body becoming partially daemonic/warp-infused, or (in 40K terms) being a special kind of psyker who continually and subconsciously strengthens their own body with their abilities in a way distinct from biomancy.
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I am convinced that what reads to Yon as spiritual power is literally how suffused by the warp something is, yeah.
 
It may be valuable to hold in mind that, even if Leadership does win, it's not that Yon is choosing that path so much as it's being afflicted upon him. We may still have the opportunity to encourage him to resist its influence.
 
Cornuthaum said:
I am convinced that what reads to Yon as spiritual power is literally how suffused by the warp something is, yeah.
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He might also be commenting on psyker grades.
Aabcehmu said:
It may be valuable to hold in mind that, even if Leadership does win, it's not that Yon is choosing that path so much as it's being afflicted upon him. We may still have the opportunity to encourage him to resist its influence.
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I see leadership as leading troomps in combat, not being a commissar.

Basically managing our soldiers, we need to stand out if we want to rise the ranks and be given benefits and for that we are better without mismanaging our squad.

i am the type of guy who usually advocate straight away to cannibalism in cultivation quests and even I am very much planning to skaddle the first opportunity because chaos is bad news, for that we need to be more than a grunt.
 
*sigh*

Sorry, I let my emotions get the better of me.

I… might keep things at an arms length, just until things develop out a bit more and we see where things go. I just really feel that trying to climb the totem pole to try to get power to get out of this runs the risk of ending up just being a Chaos psyker, and most of my favourite cultivation stories tend to be the ones where it's about defying the heavens in more than just words.

But yeah, still let myself get heated there.
 
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