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Nah, the 3+1 elements, life and death were essential, but teaching and flight COULD have been removed safely enough I think.
Losing the INSIGHTS of some of those pillars would have hurt a lot though
Distant Stars. (a WH40K/Xianxia civ Quest).
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Losing the INSIGHTS of some of those pillars would have hurt a lot though
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Not sure if we can remove teaching or flight without removing both, in which case we lose a bunch of stability.
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Turtle-Speed Writing
Would've been sorta funny if we got the sky pillar corrupted right after grabbing it, lol.
One thing I'll postulate on, as it may have some bearing on how future tribulations play out - we seem to be progressing through the different Chaos Gods with each successive tribulation level. First, the tribulation from Body Refining to Dantien Expansion seems to be from Nurgle, as it targets the body with green lightning - and in hindsight it's also fairly clear that Nurgle was the source of the super-plague that triggered Shitaku's awakening in the first place, so it's kinda fitting.
Anyway. Second tribulation, from Expansion to Foundation Establishment, comes from Slaanesh - purple lighting that attacks the mind. Sorta fits!
This is our third major one, and it's featured red lighting bolts, one for each of our pillars. This comes courtesy of Khorne, who's all too eager to show how all our efforts could go wrong.
I don't quite know where to take this - does it mean that Nascent Soul tribulation will come from Tzeentch? Further, since we've had WoG that there's at least 9 steps of cultivation, does this mean that each successive one will feature interference from increasingly fanon chaos gods such as the chaos god version of the Emperor, ascended Vash'torr, and other such things? Gotta admit, I'm kinda curious to see where it goes.
Oh also, I suspect the apocalypse is going to take the form of an invasion of beastmen that mutate out of moles or other subterranean creatures, triggered both by the ire of the chaos gods and the increasing proliferation of mutagenic Warp energy on the planet as a direct side effect of all the tribulations we've been causing. Should probably encourage some of our emerging third step cultivators to take some animal-focused pillars, and maybe try to actually train that earth sense thing when we have the time - even if my guess is wrong, we know the apocalypse comes from below the ground, and having that literal thing feed us information is, well, hella useful.
One thing I'll postulate on, as it may have some bearing on how future tribulations play out - we seem to be progressing through the different Chaos Gods with each successive tribulation level. First, the tribulation from Body Refining to Dantien Expansion seems to be from Nurgle, as it targets the body with green lightning - and in hindsight it's also fairly clear that Nurgle was the source of the super-plague that triggered Shitaku's awakening in the first place, so it's kinda fitting.
Anyway. Second tribulation, from Expansion to Foundation Establishment, comes from Slaanesh - purple lighting that attacks the mind. Sorta fits!
This is our third major one, and it's featured red lighting bolts, one for each of our pillars. This comes courtesy of Khorne, who's all too eager to show how all our efforts could go wrong.
I don't quite know where to take this - does it mean that Nascent Soul tribulation will come from Tzeentch? Further, since we've had WoG that there's at least 9 steps of cultivation, does this mean that each successive one will feature interference from increasingly fanon chaos gods such as the chaos god version of the Emperor, ascended Vash'torr, and other such things? Gotta admit, I'm kinda curious to see where it goes.
Oh also, I suspect the apocalypse is going to take the form of an invasion of beastmen that mutate out of moles or other subterranean creatures, triggered both by the ire of the chaos gods and the increasing proliferation of mutagenic Warp energy on the planet as a direct side effect of all the tribulations we've been causing. Should probably encourage some of our emerging third step cultivators to take some animal-focused pillars, and maybe try to actually train that earth sense thing when we have the time - even if my guess is wrong, we know the apocalypse comes from below the ground, and having that literal thing feed us information is, well, hella useful.
And how dos he hate that, one of his domains is stagnation and it is his actions wich saw the greatest advancement in the psychic field in the last 20+ millennia.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
I am kind of curious, Shitaku's heaven defying talent says even the gods can't suppress it, does it imply that while he was an alpha plus psykers, the gods made it so he wouldn't manifest his power, until he invented cultivation anyway? Was the entire plague just an assassination attempt against him, and they stopped providing power once he invented the cure and they realized the attempt failed?
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Mh... Maybe they start working together instead?
4 separate chaos gods, + 6 pairs, + 3 groups of 3, plus one group of 4. Total 14. And at the 15th step you'd be the equal or superior of the 4 chaos gods combined (which is probably basically impossible to reach)
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
I think psychic powers is genetic to some extent, so I wonder if it may be worthwhile to have the emperor have more children after the apocalypse, on the other hand, losing said children to tribulations might seriously mess him up, and losing some is inevitable as even if they have a chance of inheriting our talent, the emperor also nearly died, and not all will necessarily get it, maybe if we ever get a way to insure they wouldn't die, same way we can keep four divine qi in our pocket to not die to tempering tribulation (and maybe even regular one, thinking about that).
I wonder if Kuvara will start looking for a partner eventually, Kekita probably isn't really going to settle down anytime soon, considering she didn't do it in centuries even before the apocalypse.
I wonder if Kuvara will start looking for a partner eventually, Kekita probably isn't really going to settle down anytime soon, considering she didn't do it in centuries even before the apocalypse.
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Mh... Unironically if the faith grows enough we might start getting zealots coming to the palace asking for us to "gift" them with children.
I'm not sure I can imagine Shokatu go for that, though. Especially not after losing the heart demon that made it at least a bit tempting.
He'd have to fall in love first, I think. Maybe there could be a slowly growing romance between him and Haku? I could see it, eventually. And as a champion we'll already do our best to ensure she has all possible advantages for her Tribulation...
I'm not sure I can imagine Shokatu go for that, though. Especially not after losing the heart demon that made it at least a bit tempting.
He'd have to fall in love first, I think. Maybe there could be a slowly growing romance between him and Haku? I could see it, eventually. And as a champion we'll already do our best to ensure she has all possible advantages for her Tribulation...
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
If it didn't happen already (and it might, we don't really see the emperor's day to day life), it is because they don't think we want it, we already got 40% of the population, and that was before incentivising religion through the rise of more organised priesthood and money.
Even ignoring the religious aspect, I imagine plenty people come to us with all the bribes they could think of in an attempt to influence the empire, and when you think about what to gift to the god emperor of a planet that already has everything, women seem like an obvious bribe at least at first, I suspect people offering us wives and concubines and such was really common back when the empire started.
Do our culture even have anything against polygamy, without a Christianity equivalent? We know the average people have single marriage, but at least in humanity, there were plenty cultures where you got as many wives as you could support.
But the birds aren't humans, we know there are real life birds who find a single mate and don't pick another ever even if he dies, our species doesn't seem monogamous to that extent, because Shitaku can theoretically fall in love, his age just kind of make it really difficult.
It might be possible, Haku didn't really shown interest in all the omakes I had shown, but she did have pretty bad formative experience with courtship, and than kind of lived in a mountain for decades, a second step did propose her, but that doesn't really says much, because she could have just not connected to him specifically, and was barely coming out of her hyper focus on cultivation at the time.
Something might grow natrually if they interact, or not, it is just as possible she becomes our new adoptive daughter, but at the very least, she is old (and as a third step, powerful) enough that it can happen.
That reminds me, did we cleanse our heart demon? That thing was supposed to go away in the tribulation, which reminds me, we didn't have a culture vote.
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It's likely unusual outside of maybe some nobles, but it barely matters.
Cultivators are likely above such concerns. I wouldn't dismiss the possibilities of some of them getting harems. They certainly can afford them.
Admittedly it depends a lot on Keku psychology. Do they get jealous the same way humans do, for example?
It helps that, like all cultivators (except probably the noble ones), she already inherently respects and approves of the emperor, and that all experiences she had with/of us have been positive.
Generally speaking I imagine Shokatu would be unlikely to consider anyone not at least a second or possibly third step simply because they'd be too vulnerable otherwise.
EDIT the tribulation shouldmhave removed them automatically, yes. What do you mean by culture vote?
I'll put it in the turn 12 write up. And you did cleanse your heart demon.
As for shikatu and his (none existent) love life i just don't see it happening anytime soon, he's just too old and too respected/loved for him to form the necessary connection.
Honestly, if its going to happen it will most likely be with another long lived alian.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
They probably do, unless cultivation cause mental changes (like how cultivators make for really bad worshippers), some at least would presumably seek out power and pleasure like other keku, especially with the existential dread knowing you would soon meet tribulation probably induce, might cause people to try to enjoy their lives to the fullest before facing the heavens.
Skimming about his chapter again, Terkahu (first sect third step) seem to have found love, as in singular.
Seeing that he mentioned he was old when he sought out Shitaku, this is years later and he already had great grandsons, I assume that love is a female cultivator, but he also seem very down to earth.
Not sure how much of it is personal lack of interest, his wife not wanting him to get more women or biology making such things uncommon.
I wouldn't really be surprised if the Keku are extremely monogamous species (but not completely because they can let go), but we don't really have big enough sample to say for sure.
They definitely respect us, we got a trait that make sure their opinion can't fall below a certain point, we also don't really have a clue how the nobles got a second step, is this second step one of them who entered our programs? Did they bribe one with promise of riches?
There are other stuff, we got superhuman thinking speed, I wouldn't be surprised if we pull
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or a god/goddess, I suppose.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
If that happened, I assume we would do the thing spirit beasts do where they take the form of another species.
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So we're pulling a baldur's gate 3 with the druid bear sex scene?
Ah, no, wait, its kind of the opposite there I suppose.
Never mind!
Remembrance.
One of my regrets in this quest is that the top down nature of it and the nature of the apocalypse doesn't lend itself that well to developing the culture beyond shikatu point of view.
So from time to time I'll write small snippets about a topic (feel free to suggest things you want to see) as I think knowing what you defend can only add.
Anyway, this short has been fully written on my phone so typos are probably abounds.
In the far south, in a sleepy little town by the name of rednest lie several giant stones.
Fifty feet tall and ten feet wide, the stones are a central landmark of the town with the small chicks often flying between them.
Only the very oldest remember a time before the stones.
Once in a while a regal aldy comes around to chisel a few more names upon the stones.
Adding to the thousands already there.
The purpose of the stones has long been forgotten by the people of the town.
And none dared approach the lady for she had the bearing of a cultivator and to acknowledge that none know the stones are so important might bring upon them the wrath of the chosen.
And the situation continued, with the cultivator visiting every few months to add a new name and the town people unaware why, for many years.
Until one day, a small chick just learning to fly crashed before the cultivator.
And as she was exercising her divine gifted power to heal his scraps, the young chick -too curious for his own good- asked her who the names on the stone belonged to.
The elders overseeing the interaction held their breath but the rage they were expecting did not materialize.
Instead, the cultivator gently picked up the chick in her wings and walked before the stone "Every name upon those stones belongs to a keku who sacrificed it all so we may live, it is my duty in the birthplace of our gifts to immortalize their sacrifice" she then proceeded to tell the story of every name upon the stone.
Until hours later the mother finally gathered enough courage to approach the cultivator and proclaim her son needed his sleep.
A decade later the young chick would join the imperial sect and become a cultivator himself.
Two decades after the lady would return
and carve his name upon the stone.
So from time to time I'll write small snippets about a topic (feel free to suggest things you want to see) as I think knowing what you defend can only add.
Anyway, this short has been fully written on my phone so typos are probably abounds.
In the far south, in a sleepy little town by the name of rednest lie several giant stones.
Fifty feet tall and ten feet wide, the stones are a central landmark of the town with the small chicks often flying between them.
Only the very oldest remember a time before the stones.
Once in a while a regal aldy comes around to chisel a few more names upon the stones.
Adding to the thousands already there.
The purpose of the stones has long been forgotten by the people of the town.
And none dared approach the lady for she had the bearing of a cultivator and to acknowledge that none know the stones are so important might bring upon them the wrath of the chosen.
And the situation continued, with the cultivator visiting every few months to add a new name and the town people unaware why, for many years.
Until one day, a small chick just learning to fly crashed before the cultivator.
And as she was exercising her divine gifted power to heal his scraps, the young chick -too curious for his own good- asked her who the names on the stone belonged to.
The elders overseeing the interaction held their breath but the rage they were expecting did not materialize.
Instead, the cultivator gently picked up the chick in her wings and walked before the stone "Every name upon those stones belongs to a keku who sacrificed it all so we may live, it is my duty in the birthplace of our gifts to immortalize their sacrifice" she then proceeded to tell the story of every name upon the stone.
Until hours later the mother finally gathered enough courage to approach the cultivator and proclaim her son needed his sleep.
A decade later the young chick would join the imperial sect and become a cultivator himself.
Two decades after the lady would return
and carve his name upon the stone.
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...that hits hard.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Maybe one day we would be able to blind the heavens, opening the path to ascension for everyone, maybe as our population grow, we can shove millions of first steps through an ascension, as it weakens in the first hundred and won't touch the rest.
Okey so I'm about 20% done with the turn end and its kinda all over the place, you got another significant talent (for feng shui), the nobles managed to get a third step and you rolled no significant advancement.
All that left is me writing the cultivator and empire actions.
But I've actually come here to ask two (maybe three questions).
The first is if you have any particular actions/topic/directions you want me to offer next turn, doesn't have to be detailed but if you have something you want to explore more I can add more options to it if I know there is interest.
Secondly, now that were out of foundation building I want to hear your thoughts about this stage, good? Bad? somewhere in-between, I will admit that when I was designing this quest I feared the insights part would be less well received so I want to hear about your experience with this stage and if there was perhaps something that could have been added (or removed) that would have made it better?
And if I'm already asking the above, I figured I'll also ask about how you're currently finding the quest, both form the narrative aspect as well as the mechanic one.
All that left is me writing the cultivator and empire actions.
But I've actually come here to ask two (maybe three questions).
The first is if you have any particular actions/topic/directions you want me to offer next turn, doesn't have to be detailed but if you have something you want to explore more I can add more options to it if I know there is interest.
Secondly, now that were out of foundation building I want to hear your thoughts about this stage, good? Bad? somewhere in-between, I will admit that when I was designing this quest I feared the insights part would be less well received so I want to hear about your experience with this stage and if there was perhaps something that could have been added (or removed) that would have made it better?
And if I'm already asking the above, I figured I'll also ask about how you're currently finding the quest, both form the narrative aspect as well as the mechanic one.
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well, if nothing else the nobles will understand even better just how behind us they are. A third step with ONE pillar and ONE insight would understand what having NINE Pillars and an undetermined amount of pillars would mean.
And of course we're also now one full step higher, and they know intimately the difference between first, second and third steps, and can guess the difference between 3rd and 4th is at LEAST that large.
maybe we need to have a meeting with this third step at some point though. I don't even mean to threaten them, just to understand what they want. They're going to be a factor now. A power to be kept in mind.
also interesting, Feng Shui... we didn't think of that much. I imagine it might improve the capacity of Places of Powers and/or spiritual diet?
mh... well, for empire maybe something to help the citizens adapt to the new discoveries that will come out of the tech rank up? At the rate our tech is going to go up, some kind of school to keep up with the advancements related to to one's job would be valuable.
We're quite literally going to go from steam tech to contemporary tech in the course of ONE Keku's professional career, they NEED some help to keep up!
Possibly something like an action to prevent tech-related problems too? a large part of the advancements points will come from the emperor in the next few turns, so he'll KNOW the tech that is going to be released before everyone else, and could create laws and prepare for the downsides before they even realize. For example he can predict the effect of polluted air and water near cities, the potential of cyber crime, and so on.
for other potential actions... Vaccination campaigns maybe? Medicine-related heavy investments? Social Welfare/Universal Basic Income, possibly tied to the requirement of either being in a job OR in education?
actually, let me go for a stream-of-thought list
- medicine-related. probably vaccination campaign, medical database, periodical check-ups for everyone to prevent things... stuff like that
- tech-related: schools for professionals to keep up with the tech advancements connected to their job and speed up their adoption.
- more religion, obviously. maybe something like coming up with holydays (for example, celebrate the day of each of the emperor's tribulation, the day he first granted rights to non-nobles...)
- mass-farming of spiritual herbs by mortals, especially by the most faithful. Then again, that might require us to first do the cultivator research about it
- beginning of a space program. Study the skyes, the stars, the planets, begin to consider the potential for rocket missions and space stations
- nuclear tech. research into radiation, its dangers, it's potential, how to deal with it (though I suppose that's the next tech level
- uses for aviation tech. military, urgent mail delivery, mapping...
I'll probably think of more later.
I think it worked out well. Maybe I'm a bit surprised there were so many society-scale powers, but most of those were from divine insights so we were kinda cheating there.
Are you willing to comment on those pillars whose insights gave automatic death yet, by the way?
I think we're likely to go back to get more insights eventually, either to get more ingredients for core insights or just to get cheaper powers. It helps that we still have the double insight gain AND knowing we lose heart demons after a tribulation means we have an incentive to spend a few APs on it before trying for step 5 eventually.
On this note, actually, now that we are step 4, maybe we should get an action to collect all of our knowledge and understanding for step 3 (and under, if we didn't already do it) and basically come up with cultivation manuals to help our cultivators progress even faster? Kinda like that manual for the first three pillars.
No complaints right now that I can think of. I suppose I find it a bit weird the cultivator numbers are this low, maybe, but we're currently teacher-limited if I remember correctly. Pills will help once we can actually afford them en-masse.
I suppose I'd appreciate a bit more of a window in Shikatu's life, and now probably Netika and Kuvara too.
What about them? any pillar whose divine Qi outcome was only death, was because it touched too closely to the nature of the chaos gods (not their domains their nature).
I think the only pillar I said was instant death if you used divine Qi with was Taiji and trying for a concept that represents the cosmological state of the universe and its affairs on all levels takes in way to much of the 4 chaos gods, which allows them to kill you (note if you were demonic you would have gotten actual options).
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
One thing I am interested is possibly seeing a school of Keku, seeing the way Keku grow, how our system looks like, how and if the religion get into it.
Another thing is Kuvara, I am curious to see how she fit in, how society view her, what is her day to day life now.
I liked for example seeing the people being fearful of the cultivator, because it revealed some interesting perspective on cultivators that I never considered before, are some of them like regular cultivator, arrogant and harmful, are the villagers afraid because they never met one, how had cultivators been interacting with the population when we sent them to spread our religion, and so on.
I really liked it, the insight system combined power and work in a very interesting way, picking pillars to be synergetic while at the same time balancing interesting concepts was fun and introduced a lot of engaging debate.
Picking insights was probably my favourite part about it.
As for adding or removing stuff? Not really sure I can think of anything.
The one thing that I wonder the most about is our daughter and her own insights, we got quite a few divine insights that could change the game in pretty major ways, and getting a divine insight seem relatively cheep, but our daughter had been getting divine insights for quite a while and never really pulled off something major, when we got like seven different divine insights that can change the game in a major way.
I could kind of understand her regular cultivation staying behind without heaven defying talent, especially when we know you need at least one ap equivalent to make a pillar and she is early one, where pillars take one ap equivalent to us, but divine insights seem less related to it.
What I am trying to say that it doesn't seem like she is truly using divine qi to the same extent as she gets.
Take last turn for example, she is getting at least two divine qi if I remember correctly, so does she get two divine insights? And do they have the potential to be something that change everything, like how we can heal people, or move boats instantly, make divine qi or control fishes in a wide scale.
Looking at her character sheet, she got what feels like one divine insight (although I could be wrong and more of them are divine), is divine qi much less efficient on other than us, does she keep all the divine qi she had been getting or is it something else?
The quest is probably my current favourite, I find it incredibly engaging.
The mechanics work extremely well for me, and I find the narrative interesting, it introduce urgency, but has enough slack that the course of action have a lot of debate going on.
You could say that if I have one thing that bothers me, it is that at times it felt like we were carrying most of the empire ourselves, I liked hearing our daughter had been doing stuff like managing the cultivators, because before I asked that question, I didn't really have a clue what she was doing with her free time, and it felt like she just wasn't doing anything.
Playing her when we were dead just made me more confused, because despite her being much weaker than us, she managed to take a pretty major action, and by doing so helped us in a really major way, so I say highlighting her (and now other third steps') contribution will improve stuff.
I am kind of hopeful that the rise of other third steps now make it feel like we are less alone in all the major projects, one of the reasons I put one of them in alchemy is to see if he can heal his body himself, given time, to see how far he can push alchemy.
In that regard, I really liked the talents, because regardless of how weak or strong they were, we saw that they were helping, in a way we could clearly see.
I loved some of the cultivator actions and the occasional advancement because of it, so in their regard, I was very satisfied.
Good thing about space exploration, all you need is an ice pillar and you've solved all of the heat-dumping problems (could probably be replicated with runes). Not even talking about other stuff you could do with qi up there.
Maybe if we had a higher amount of cultivators we could build some tech around them. Still, if you have a gigantic ship with thousands of people on it, placing a 3rd pillar on it so you can full blast nuclear reactors seems worth it.
Pretty good, I'm still not sure how kekus look tho, I imagine their hands are normal except the fingers end with sharp bird claws, and they have wings attached. I could be completely wrong and they're way more bird.
I'm also interested in keku schools, and the spiritual food farmers, I'm just imagining they're normal old-school farms, since they have to spend extra-effort on it, except with more modern tech and utilities as they're also rich, even if we tax most of the food, since it's just so valuable.
Would people be happy if their child was found to be talented and taken to become a cultivator? I imagine yes, since they would most likely get a lot of rewards for it, like in the Vekatu omake.
Is hating the emperor a taboo? Straight up illegal? There surely are people that feel that way, despite the advancements, since change isn't to everyone's liking, and some people can't adapt. If they're suddenly in a worse situation than others, despite being better than before, they'll hold some negativity.
And lastly, IIRC there are still people with psyker potential in kekus, it's just that it gets converted to something else once they become a cultivator, right? Is the same true for blanks as well?
Agreed, but I can understand it too, due to our strength and insights, and how small our population truly is. The gap should become smaller however as our population and tech level increase.
The other 3rd steps do feel a little too insignificant for the empire at large.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
A single insight could change everything, so meeting them is important, we can't ignore such a power, now they matter, and I think we would be willing to benefit the nobles if that what it takes to make sure the third step is backing us.
I kind of hope at least one of them develop one wildly useful insight, like I mentioned, just using our divine ones, we got seven.
this is something that I should have probably been more explicit in but in general your insights are better than others, it has to do with both your position and talents I should probably also note that regular people (IE: not you) have a chance to fail at crystalizing an insight.
But I will try to give the various third steps more screen time, as they are supposed influence and impactful.
I'll also see if i can manage a few side stories about some day to day life.
Hating the emperor isn't taboo its frowned to express such opinions in public but criticism of the empire (and the emperor) actions and policies are both allowed and even somewhat encouraged.
The people who are safe to vent their anger and frustration of the government with words are the ones who won't pick up the pitch forks.
The same is not true for blanks, they remain much the same (you'll get a few next turn).