Even Further Beyond [Complete]

Citrus · Apr 12, 2018

[X] ...All Paths [10 Beyond Points]

Rihaku · Apr 12, 2018

You have access to both Reality Effects immediately because you went Beyond. The parts of them that scale with Cultivation base still do so, of course.

Orm Embar · Apr 12, 2018

Alratan said:
How would we know that he can't share the description of the Fate configuration? This seems like the kind of thing that the elves would have invented a vocabulary to describe.

Our Artifice is much more precise than theirs, thanks to the Forge. Here's what we've been told of the Elven creative process:

Rihaku said:
The answer would basically be the same as my previous answer to you - it's hard to predict what the Artifacts you make buffing a spell will do unless you keep the buff very linear and simple, like reducing the blood cost or improving the maximum number of step(s). Even forcing an Artifact to buff a specific spell is an act of immense control. Elves usually have much broader goals in mind like "I wish to make something beautiful, to enliven and bolster my community" or "I wish to make something to help my child grow up happy and unencumbered."

The idea of sharing Fate configurations to optimize for Artifacts just doesn't exist in their cultural sphere; Feanor doesn't pass out blueprints for the Silmarils so that others can make more. Amouthanos could make an Artifact that would help Xiaoling, probably even bolster her Cultivation somehow, and maybe Fate will push him to do that. But she's not getting All Paths.

Wolfy · Apr 12, 2018

One thing we have to make sure is to keep our Masked Realities few. Cultivation speed one, Diagram boosting one, Artifact one and, at most, combat or pure utility one. Even there we are at two entire stages less than Stateless build.

We need to make sure to know what we want so our power doesn't suffer as we get utility.

OctarineShrike · Apr 12, 2018

Or we could take the Dao of Joseph Joestar.

Aabcehmu · Apr 12, 2018

I would prefer if we don't jump onto Reality Masking as our choice for our first custom stage. Given its design for versatility, I feel like it probably sacrifices strict power or conceptual wholeness. In particular, we aren't yet barred from Philosopher King, and its one of our cheaper available EFBs, and I would really like to not let it slip just yet.

Talking about specific Daos is helpful for considering our power level and our pool of attack and defense modes, but I really do think we should forbear committing to it.

Unelemental · Apr 12, 2018

Fanwork##3298 Words

Rihaku said:
Three Severings

Ah, a straightforward title for once! We get a choice of Cleaving three Daos later on, assuming All Paths actually counts as a single Dao. Might also be a play on the three-part Spirit Severing Stage from ISSTH?

That said, I kind of expected the conflict to be more drawn-out, but in retrospect there wasn't really much to it, was there? We came, we saw, we conquered.

Taishan of House Ming regarded the interloper with care, though the newly-appointed Patriarch maintained a stony exterior that revealed nothing but polite indifference.

What an interesting coincidence that Taishan's colors are the same as the Heroine's brother's. On the one hand, it's the color of Avarice, so perhaps it is fitting for someone with his Dao. But does that mean that Wealth/Greed is a major theme for her brother? Perhaps this is simply a sign of the Fates' involvement, as we'd previously theorized.

Two months after Jinyue's bastard had been cut off, her presumptive 'penpal' and his bodyguard had arrived, with the half-breed herself not a half-step behind. Millennia of discipline stifled his shudder at the creature's inhuman allure.

You're treading on thin ice there, buddy. Xiaoling is our friend - though I guess she wishes to escape the friendzone - and you're coming dangerously close with your attitude.

He's lucky we can't read minds, though perhaps we don't need to with someone like him. And what does he mean with that presumptive comment?

It was said the Half-Elven were every bit as swift, graceful, and beautiful as their highborn parent. Maddening that others would overlook the simple conclusion that followed: If it was as agile as an elf, nimble as an elf, possessed of an elf's passions and looked like an elf - why bother designating it half-"human" at all? The creature, which carried a mere cosmetic shred of Jinyue's blood, stared at him with the defiance of a youth (or an Elf) utterly convinced of her own rectitude.

Laying it on pretty thick with the racism there, Taishan. It's true that they're outwardly similar, but how could we ever acknowledge the cheap imitation as the equal of a pure elven waifu? Seriously, does he know anything about Xiaoling at all? She's so very pragmatic, I have to wonder whether all that elven blood went into her looks and avoided affecting her personality at all. Her passions don't seem to extend past 'getting spoiled rotten' and 'getting best hubando', so equating her to an elf is really a stretch.

Teenagers. Did these upstart brats think to bamboozle the likes of the Board? The good name of Yong may have gotten them past the staff, but such security was as much for their protection as the Board's. These children walked now into the dragon's den, and if they failed to give face they'd ensue the dragon's fire. Nothing even he could do about it now.

It's hilarious just how wrong he is about everything. He thinks we're trying to negotiate here, when we're in fact enacting a very specific brand of diplomacy - the Titanic kind, and the only thing protecting him are the very traditions that he thinks are binding his hands. We'd looked into the Eyes of a real Dragon, and Taishan doesn't compare at all.

Yong Liefang's son had not failed to live up to his father's reputation. His bodyguard - fair and classical features, perfectly proportioned, with the distinctive Eyes of Kong - was no one less than Suizhen of Kong, a rising star and terrifying prodigy that had taken the Southern Vane Tournament not more than seven weeks past.

Why does he have to sound like such a creep? I tried to ignore it when he was 'resisting' Xiaoling's allure, but should we be worrying about his preferences for powerful young women? Not that age would mean much to Cultivators, now that I think about it, but I still don't want him eying our girls!

Only sixteen! A veritable force of nature in her Cultivation talent, quite possibly Zang's most successful experiment to date. That she stared at Yong with dumbstruck adoration could only be the result of that scion's personal charm. Even if her peak-Reality Forming strength was insufficient to truly chastise this Board, few would be foolish enough to risk the displeasure of the Endless Sky by terminating her. A maneuver worthy of the Vermin Lord; just like Liefang his son was nearly as good as he thought he was.

...Buddy, there's so much wrong with this that I'm starting to feel sorry for you. He's completely in awe of her Cultivation talent while unknowingly ignoring the real miracle boy's genius at her side, he thinks Zang Kong would even notice if Suizhen died, he even believes we're relying on her power and potential to get us through this clusterfuck. At least he didn't make false assumptions about our Yong Charm, so I guess it would be uncharitable to call him the Thrice-Wrong.

This was about the elves as much as Jinyue, that much was easy to surmise. Their gait and stance gave it entirely away; the half-breed's agitation was too great for this to be about the mere personal insult of Jinyue's demotion. He had been retired with all the pomp and joviality that a respected executive could ask for. No, the creature had some traitorous fellow-feeling for her true kindred, and would not be satisfied until the onslaught of Ming was quelled once more.

Does Xiaoling actually care about elves other than her mother? Him being wrong on this account as well wouldn't be surprising, and given that he seems to have misjudged her character (there are no half-elves! it's all a conspiracy!), it's entirely possible he is mistaking her anger over being cut off from money for moral outrage. That he takes two wrong conclusions and draws the right one from them is just icing on the cake.

That would not happen.

We'll see about that.

Taishan knew the Elves with the intimacy of a favored enemy. Their unnatural passions and ludicrous morality, a heedless caricature of human moral thought. Idealists and the naive mistook their alien values for nobility, unaware of how thoroughly the Elvish mind was opposed to reason, progress, industry or innovation of any kind. They'd never heard the lamentations of the hungry, the mothers withered and infants starved, in the aftermath of an Elven raid against so-called "factory farms." They'd never seen butcher's districts razed to the ground, tanneries burned, entire cities thrown into anarchy by Elven propagandists instigating for a standard of living the Ming simply could not provide!

It's interesting to see another perspective on this matter. While he likely belongs to a somewhat radical faction, this rhetoric might nonetheless mirror the opinions of many other Cultivator in the Empire at least in part. It's all well and good to preach absolute morality and justice, but how do these exacting standards fare when confronted with the real world? Not everyone is a protagonists who can insist that it's the world that is wrong, not the ideals. That's not to say I approve of what he says or think that the Cultivators aren't greedy little fucks who would loot the elves to the bedrock if they had a chance to, but we might have ignored a big problem when considering the elves - even if we manage to stop the Cultivators from conquering them, will the elves be content with that? Will they stop there and be willing to compromise, or will their ideals demand that they 'save' humans, further destabilizing the Empire with their actions?

And when the Ming tried, as they were always trying, to bring food and work and prosperity to their people, at every corner and avenue they were hounded by insane moralists constantly interfering with every decision of note, preaching a brand of blind and unthinking compassion that inevitably harmed more than it hurt! Never kill a beast, never cut a tree, never dam a river, never hurt an innocent even by inaction, never let a single child die even if it beggared ten thousand families - perhaps there existed a race that could follow such precepts, but it was not the race of Men. If the elves had their way humankind would still be squabbling in mud where it was best unable to hurt anyone.

Do the elves really have so much influence in Ming's politics? Taishan is too biased to rely on his opinions for determining the general situation, but I wouldn't think the moralists would be that much of a problem, given how they're at war with the elves. Then again, the elves are supposed to have supernatural charisma and grace, so perhaps I'm underestimating their effects on human society if left unopposed.

The Elven race had a saying: "better to face oblivion than to turn one iota away from the light." No human could live to such a standard. No human should. As Daos went it was sheer folly, the idealistic excess of a species too powerful to select for common sense. Inhuman benevolence was still inhuman: that was a lesson his younger self had been too fool to heed.

I wonder how exactly he got those scars. Given everything else he'd been saying till now, had he tried to make some 'necessary' sacrifice and got attacked by an elf? Maybe he even tried to help an elf, but in a way they couldn't accept? And this talk of inhuman benevolence while likening their philosophy to a Dao... is this a Dao the Heroine would find appealing? Sometimes power is not the only recourse, and having axiomatic moral superiority can open a lot of doors that would otherwise remain closed.

But humanity had grown strong, had mastered the Diagram, had pulled together the arts of a thousand forgotten races into the edifice of Orthodox Cultivation while the Elves had sneered and condescended and wrung their hands on their pretty little island. And now, in the high noon of humanity's ascent, the Highborn that had for so long lorded their superiority over all and sundry were reduced to begging for mercy. Not on his watch. There was to be no compromise with that species, no matter the cost.

Oh? Is he a fan of history? I remember Suizhen calling the Diagram just the Forgotten Arts, but Taishan seems to hold it in higher opinion than that, if only because it's an example of human superiority over other species. It's kind of sad just how little he knows of what is really at stake - he believes humanity is on the rise when they're actually standing on a precipice and are one short step away from apocalypse. It's not really his fault, hardly anyone knows the secret history of the world and even Nameless doesn't have all the facts, but that doesn't change the outcome: in his ignorance he turned himself into an obstacle on our road.

An inhuman neighbor was inhuman still. An alien intelligence was still alien. That they championed values which superficially resembled those of humanity, only made them more insidious.

We'll have to fix that attitude if it is common in the Empire. Where would we get our pure elven waifus from otherwise!

"Yong is very displeased with your actions regarding the Elves," the Nameless Scion said, tinkering idly with the ring on his finger. A treasure far too powerful for a child of his ability, a trinket meant to emphasize his station. "The Thriesis Flower is the fundamental component that every Cultivator needs to begin. If we remove the species from the game-board, how can we be certain their flowers will not die with them?"

How insidious. He's implying that his actions represent Yong while drawing attention to his Ring and thus deepening the impression that he's just an upstart too big for his breeches. He even makes a pretty coherent argument, but it's likely nothing that they haven't heard before - their human proponents would have mentioned the economic downsides when they realized that arguments based on morality don't work.

This is all obfuscation though. Nameless doesn't expect to accomplish anything through words alone, and he's intentionally letting them underestimate his power. They're seriously missing a General Ackbar in their camp! How tragic that they fell into a trap despite knowing who our father is.

Taishan held back a scoff.

"Yong does not rule the West," Taishan answered.

Sounds almost like a challenge, doesn't it? This is something that can be arranged, should it come to that, so I'd ease up on the taunts, Mr. Warhawk.

"The honored guest is free to visit his grandfather for clarification on this matter. The honored junior may be surprised to hear that we have captured and cultivated flower plantations from Elvish lords without issue."

"Ming... Taishan, was it?" The boy deigned to glance at him. Taishan was briefly stunned at the child's sheer gall, to address him as an equal. "Your conjecture commits a simple but elusive mistake. I understand if the honored senior could not catch it; the mind grows less sharp with age. Our fear in Great Yong is that, when the last Elf falls, the Thriesis may die even if we understand how they are planted and grown. A similar event befell the Dwarves in the past, and the results were inconclusive."

Nameless has quite a sharp tongue, doesn't he? This attitude wouldn't be out of place if Nameless was Taishan's equal or superior, but from Taishan doesn't know the truth, so he interprets the MC's actions through a lens of his own, entirely wrong, perceptions. That said, Nameless has done his homework, and if what he says about the Dwarves is true, it would be difficult to find fault with what he says.

What was it that others tried to steal from the Dwarves, I wonder? We know so very little about other races, and the little tidbits we get are all the more tantalizing for it. Ah, perhaps the iconic magic methals mithril, orichalcum and the like were only produced by dwarves, and while the Diagram managed to steal their secrets for a time, they disappeared or lost their properties when the Dwarves breathed their last?

'The mind grows less sharp with age!?' The boy was trying to bait him into a conflict. What was his angle, how could he be so foolish - ah. The girl.

Kong Suizhen. She'd champion him, naturally, saving his life with her own. And the eradication of his experiment would anger Kong Zang, who cared nothing for the fate of the Elves or the Ming. And yet, Taishan could not do nothing. The child had all but slapped him across the face. If he failed to deliver a spanking, he'd be the object of mockery for millennia onward.

He's spiraling ever deeper into making faulty assumptions, now filled with the belief that we're sacrificing Suizhen to bring Kong into this. Perhaps our father's habit of spending the lives of his patsies to gain certain advantages (or cover his butt) has given everyone the wrong impression? We're not our father. Where he would need to manipulate and cajole, we can rule with an iron fist. We've learned to mesh our father's and Baenlixnaire's lesons quite well, I'd say, trapping our enemies in a web of words that lets us come down on them with full force when they inevitably trip up.

Though I doubt this gambit will work a second time.

Taishan laughed warmly. "Ah, the impertinence of youth. Gentlemen, is it not refreshing? Reminds me of my daughter's show-and-tell! Go on, boy, what else have we doddering old geezers failed to perceive?"

The Board chuckled warmly; Ganpang let out a guffaw.

The boy frowned, as if in concern. "I am afraid you are not treating this emissary with the seriousness it deserves, honored elder. Let me be unambiguous. It is the opinion of Northern Yong that your conduct in the war with the elves is inappropriate. Ming's internment of half-elven citizens, some of which were visitors under the jurisdiction of Yong, is completely unacceptable. Cease your practices, recall your troops and remunerate us fairly for this breach of jurisdiction, or face the consequences."

How exciting! We're making our first - though unlikely to be the last - demands in a (sort of) international diplomatic meeting! I especially like the last part where we request compensation for mistreating the poor half-elven citizens. Our boy never lets up on an opportunity to scam more money out of people, doesn't that bring a tear to one's eye? Dad would be proud.

Taishan laughed harder. "You threaten us with Titanic annihilation over a pittance? Child, you've much to learn of this wide world. Run off now, before I lose patience. Brats like you can go beg to their fathers! He'll give you a better answer, or at least some candy, hm?"

Does everyone know about that one time father stole candy from us? It wouldn't surprise me if he told the story far and wide just for kicks.

The Nameless boy sighed. "Gentlemen. Your incivility is un-called for. I have done nothing but highlight factual considerations while you have belittled me at every turn. Were it me alone, of course I could forgive my honored elders in such a trifling matter. But to insult me to my face is to insult Great Yong. Rescind your words, Ming Taishan, or I will have my satisfaction."

Wow, we're all but lying through our teeth here. Wasn't Nameless the one who pretty much called them senile dotards to their faces? He had been more polite about it, of course.

Not that it matters, we're on the cusp of getting what we wanted here, having backed them into a corner where they either have to take a hit to their reputation or acknowledge our challenge. And they don't know enough to pick the sensible option.

Predictable as ever, was 'great' Yong.

This is so funny it slides right back towards tragedy. I suppose he's talking about Yong Shen, because if he really thinks our dad is anything close to predictable, Taisha deserves everything that is coming for him.

Taishan snorted coldly. "Satisfaction? A great lot of presumption you've got, runt. As Patriarch of Ming I'm happy to accept your challenge. As this is a formal matter between Great Clans, no seconds or champions will be permitted. Let us proceed!"

Ah yes, congratulations! You've outsmarted Nameless with great adroitness and caught him in a trap he couldn't have possibly foreseen. Surely Nameless didn't know about the laws pertaining to inter-clan incidents and wasn't planning on bringing up this very clause in a bout of youthful impertinence if you somehow forgot to.

He indicated the courtyard with a flick of his sleeve. The boy masked his panic with an expression of smooth indifference, perhaps confident that the worst he could experience would be a painful thrashing.

It's almost painful just how far off he is with his guesses. Even if we were actually weaker than Taishan, we would still have access True Regeneration, be nigh-immortal, and wouldn't succumb to pain. Not to mention that killing us would have caused an even bigger diplomatic mess, so the most we'd be in danger of would have been some lost reputation.

All that is moot because we can squash him like a bug, of course.

"I," The child swallowed, "I d-didn't want to do this, but it seems I have no choice. Very well, let us duel as representatives of our clans. I-I hope, Lord Ming, you will show consideration for the junior generation in this matter."

Pulling all the stops, eh? Maybe he's even being at least partially truthful here, as Nameless shouldn't yet be used to cold-bloodedly planning someone's murder, however unpleasant the person is - and this is what is happening here, make no mistake. We carefully maneuvered the situation such that there was no possible outcome other than Taishan's death. One could say that he had brought it upon himself and that such is the price of weakness, but many elves would likely still proclaim it a crime and try to chastise us for it.

Nameless still turned it to his advantage by making the opposition underestimate him further, naturally.

Admirable composure, for a child about to face his first very real consequence.

Eh, we already went through that when we accepted the Eyes of Kong, I think. It was a real wake-up call. Except we went on to party like mad afterwards, so maybe not?..

Taishan smiled and said nothing.

He was going to enjoy this, he'd bet his life on it.

He just did bet his life and is going to lose it, Taishan simply doesn't know it yet.

It was a quarter-hour to noon and the sky was as blue as the child bodyguard's eyes. Above shined the sun, that molten ingot, blazing coin of circumstance, the unblinking eye of his mind.

Speaking of Eyes, he has focused on Suizhen's eyes quite heavily, but he hasn't mentioned our own even once. Did we find a way to disguise them? I would have thought fooling a Grand Solipsist would have required creating an Artifact, but perhaps such a minor change isn't easy to notice? Or maybe things are much simpler and we used colored contacts instead of magic.

Scarce had he stepped out before the Solar Armory enveloped him, the glistening gold panes of his Reality Effect clothing him more adroitly than any mail. Wealth beyond measure surged through his form, pounding thunderously through his blood, the toil and devotion of ten thousand thousand serfs amplifying every sinew, every tendon, every nerve.

Hmm. Perhaps Taishan was motivated by more than moral outrage in his coup if I understand this right? Do his Reality Effects draw power from being in a position of authority over people or being rich? Also, I can't help feeling that the description is a bit disgusting - feeling the toil of countless people thunder through his veins? If some people have problems with painting a Vault Diagram on our body, a Reality Effect like this sounds much worse.

With a glare, his Unmerciful Eye affixed its gaze to his foe, a ray of translucent heat that could melt mountains like wax, boil oceans entire.

The boy stood, seemingly unaffected, ring glinting idly in the sunlight.

What's that? The bastard has laser vision? Wait, laser vision, solar armor, supernatural physique... is he supposed to be Superman's Evil Twin?!

It's curious that Taishan opened with such a strong move immediately. He doesn't seem to think that we're near as impressive as Suizhen, so in his opinion we'd be, what, Dao Cleaving? In which case he might have actually been trying to maim if not kill us. Pretty daring of him~

"Now, I begin," The child announced, and for a moment Taishan's puzzlement was replaced by amused disbelief.

It is time to duel!

To a war veteran like Taishan we must look and sound ridiculous, announcing our attacks like that. Perhaps he would have even snorted contemptuously in true xianxia fashion?! If he had the time, that is.

Then the first emanation struck him. It was terror and doom, sheer pitiless desolation, the looming eye-wall of a storm high enough to erase sea, sky, and world entire. Power beyond comprehension, but unfortunately not beyond his recognition.

A Titan, here... ?

Sometimes, no amount of skill can bridge the gulf in power. A Grand Solipsist can melt mountains and evaporate the seas. A Titan can shatter continents and raze the atmosphere. With power such as this, do we really need more skill than 'swing fist in his general direction'? And I wouldn't call us unskilled in any case, thanks to Suizhen's tender tutelage.

There was a wetness in his chest. There was a terrific tearing, a suddenness of impact, red lines like flame contrails blurring across his gaze. There was a sound of thunder, and all his limbs went numb.

What an ignoble death. To be honest, it makes me a bit sad that this was necessary. He was a wholly unpleasant person and had to be removed, but to be brushed aside like a bug after clawing his way to power and defending Ming all his life... I can't help wondering whether this is our future too if we mess up.

"Im... possible..." Ming Taishan managed, before the fist like a falling comet caught his skull, and he knew no more.

And the final lesson here, boys and girls: don't be like Ming Taishan. If he can be said to have made any mistake (aside from being in our way), it is making assumptions and acting on them without verifying them first. We aren't quite as bad as this guy, but there are still a lot of things we don't know about our situation, so it might behoove us to learn more before committing to a course of action.

---

The Nameless Scion stood and flicked the blood from his fist. "Yong has no desire to be your hegemon. Let us re-classify this as a personal matter between myself and Taishan. I am sure that if my father's old friend, Ming Jinyue, were Patriarch, there would be no cause for enmity between Ming and Yong, just as there was not for all the centuries of his reign."

"I'm not saying I'm going to murder you all horribly if you don't obey... but you get my drift, right?"
While this was really cool and dad would likely only cheer us on when he hears it (until he learns of our blunder with Kong), grandfather might not appreciate our actions quite as much.

...Well, we still have at least two years of adventure before us, so let's not think about such depressing matters yet!

Slowly, slowly the body of Taishan fell to earth.

"YONG. LIE. FANG!!" One of the Board Members screamed quietly. He was slowly and methodically tearing out his hair. The others were silent, mortals huddled fearfully in the Titan's wake.

Heh. Dad has quite the reputation, doesn't he? If it can be said that Kong Zang can do anything, then after this people are going to start believing the same of Liefang. Few things can top raising a Titan son and keeping him a secret until he could stage a coup in another province. The Vanes are probably thanking the Heavens that we decided to party rather than involve ourselves in politics more directly.

---

"I have fulfilled my portion of the compact," Nameless said.

Across the clearing, Forge-Lord Amouthanos stared with eyes of sharp grey. There was a slight tinge of madness in those eyes, in the stark and hollowed-out soul of a highborn that had drawn too deeply of himself. For one not Thrice-Great, Artifice was the least forgiving Art of all. Once, the Dwarves had dug too greedily and deep, unleashing the monsters that lurked below. Few remembered that the Elves possessed a similar capacity.

So this is the elf we were negotiating with? A somewhat abrupt way to introduce him, but the mention of monsters from the deep has piqued my curiosity. Seeing how we're acting as Sauron, maybe we could go looking for a Balrog? Suizhen is a pretty cool Dragon, especially now that she can shapeshift, but a more obvious monster wouldn't be out of place at a Dark Lord's side either!

The Elf-lord furrowed his brow for a time. The center-jewel of his crown glistened like a freshly-plucked eye. Finally he sighed, gesturing resignedly. "So you have, son of Earth. We have... we will request our champion recover the documents you desire from his... computer. And the Unshattered Glade is yours to peruse. Treat it well. It opens but once a lifetime, and I mean not your mayfly span."

The Unshattered Glade alone makes the trip worthwhile. Whatever Dao we choose, this is one Artifact the Heroine won't have access to anymore, at least not in a relevant timeframe. It's too bad the majority of other information from the notebook will be all but useless. There is no point in creating modern weapons, and modern infrastructure isn't really meant to support Empires the size of the Central Continent, so we likely couldn't improve communication technologies either.

That aside, what's this about mayfly lifespans, aren't we basically immortal? Even if one disregards our lichdom, strong Cultivators live really long lives too. I understand that he is taking into account the fact that we might yet be unused to this truth, but does he have to be so insulting about it?

"My thanks, Forge-Lord." Nameless inclined his head.

"No human has ever had the honor," Amouthanos said. "And I did not craft it for the minds of men to withstand. Gird yourself, son of Earth. Three visions will you see, three selves yet unborn, three paths you could yet take. But only one must walk free of the Glade, lest you wish to remain unshattered no longer.

Is it Divination, Time or Fate magics? The way he's talking about the Artifact is making me quite worried. Hmm, and if it is called the Unshattered Glade... did he mix Artifice with Naturalism when creating it?

For my grand-daughter's sake I shall hope you retain that wish."

Man, Xiaoling has a pretty rad lineage. Those theories about her being a Heroine are starting to resurface again, I'd say. Maybe marrying her won't be so bad?

"I understand," Nameless said solemnly.

"You do not," The Elf-Lord said lightly, "But you will. That is why the Glade exists."

Nameless turned, and walked through the archway of trees, whose leaves were as stained glass, and bark like the unturning sky. And he saw...

As long as they aren't the color of the Endless Sky, I won't complain about the weird trees. Otherwise I might tell Nameless to book it as fast as he can.

[ ] ...A Throne of Stars [1 Beyond Point]

"Whether you point to a little stalk or a great pillar, a leper or a beauty of legend, things ribald and shady or things grotesque and strange, the Way makes them all into one."

-The Zhuangzi

Primacy over quantity; salience over size. Vengeance, at any cost. A man is defined by his means, his methods, and his goals. As above, so below. Perhaps the sky is greater than the stars, but it is the stars that give it light, and in the constellations of their arrangement is meaning given to chaos. The Diagram to which all reason returns is the supreme centerpiece of his methods, the foremost purveyor of his means, the tie that binds the one goal he must hold above all others.

But a man is not a Diagram. He is not stars; nor is he a throne built from their like. He sits the throne. He is their master. A crown of light, a throne of stars, a halo like the nighttime sky: the raiments of a Philosopher-King.

First Reality Effect - As Above: The character's Diagram spells are undispellable as if they were the internal Reality Effects of a Cultivator, and may be willed into existence like a Reality Effect, bypassing the need for incantations and gestures. For purposes of casting & researching Diagram magic alone, he gains superhuman intellect and mental speed that scales with his level of Cultivation.

Second Reality Effect - So Below: The effects of Diagram spells that directly create attacks or defenses are raised to a level commensurate to the user's Combat Strength. The Blood Sign may raise this level by one additional full stage. For purposes of this Effect, estoeric attacks count as directly-created, as are esoteric defenses.

*This and the Dao to follow are all retroactively compatible with Truth; they will be buffed +.25 stages even if you take Truth afterwards.
*Cast Battle Diagrams instantly, cast multiple Diagrams at once, get +.25 stages immediately and an additional +.5 from PK and Truth.
*Cheap and powerful Philosopher-King progression
*Nameless will consider the Diagram his primary recourse, as he already does
*Nameless will strive to become wise and virtuous (though not without cunning), as a Philosopher-King should
*Research Ascendant Sign Diagrams faster and with fewer requirements
*Easy access to ridiculously powerful esoteric attacks which now scale to Nameless' own level
*Extremely versatile and powerful, the might of an Archmage who has harnessed Artifice and Cultivation to his ends. Should Nameless prevail, it would be the supreme triumph of the Diagram to be remembered for all history.

Despite being worth a mere Beyond point, the Throne's aesthetics are quite attractive. It is elevating the Diagram to combat relevance and pushing the turbo button on our R&D of the Diagram, blowing off the dust of ages to reveal its shine once more. It is the dream of Baenlixnaire made manifest, even if it is through means he would despise twice over. Our childhood and much of our youth had been spent amidst spell tomes learning the secrets and mysteries of the Diagram, and it has played a great role in elevating us to our current level of power. It is the legacy we'd sworn to remember and carry with us.

And yet... we're not a child anymore. Nameless has grown up and his needs have grown commensurably. The Throne is a great Dao, but it does not exceed Zang Kong's Dao. And if we are to surpass that man, I want to do it on every level. I don't just want to beat him power-wise, I want him to look at our Dao and realize that all his pride means nothing in the face of this disparity. I want the Divinities to see it and despair of ever containing us.

This is not that Dao.

[ ] ...A Laughing Vagabond [3 Beyond Points]

"A man like the one described in these words blankets all things with his Virtuosity, allowing the present age to seek out its own chaotic order. How could he be bothered to try to manage the world? This man is harmed by no thing. A flood may reach the sky without drowning him; a drought may melt the stones and scorch the mountains without scalding him. From his dust and chaff you could mold yourself a Heavenly General or Great Sage; why would he concern himself with mere beings?"

-The Zhuangzi

How sad, how limited, how finite - in action if not scope - is the Dao of a specific thing, a specific path, a specific world! How much broader, how much deeper, is the Dao of the man who sees those things, walks those paths, visits those worlds! The Laughing Vagabond is a wanderer and adventurer par excellence. Sage and charlatan, tyrant and fool, archmage and priest, soldier and slave, cook and gigolo, scammer and huntress, avenger and steward, child and king. Endless masks, endless faces, the sky merely another horizon to conquer. He is the wild card, the joker, the palmed card, the trump. Untouchable as the cycle of the seasons, capricious as the moon!

What constrains him? Merely this: that he takes to adventure with a smile on his face, and that the arc of his life is a journey unbound. From time to time he may settle down, but always it will come that he uproots himself again.

He may reign for ten thousand years, but not for years beyond counting. He who would be free must prize freedom above all things; that is its price in the reckoning of eternity.

First Reality Effect: Laughing At All Things

To 'Laugh At' at something is to be advantaged over it. A style of combat, a form of rhetoric, an identity entire. The Laughing Vagabond is considered to 'Laugh At' every style and form of conflict. In any contested action, he receives a moderate bonus that stacks with other bonuses. No matter how ridiculous, his fighting style somehow counters that of his opponent. No matter how fallacious, his words pierce to the core. As his Cultivation base grows further, this effect begins to stack over multiple confrontations. A persistent opponent may eventually find it impossible to outmaneuver the wielder of this Dao.

Second Reality Effect: Vagabond Slips Away

Choose [Body, Mind, or Soul]. The character evades (but does not resist) esoteric attacks upon that aspect of himself as if he were 2 stages higher, and standard attacks as if he were .5 stages higher. The category selected is retroactively switched to "the category of the attack that last targeted the character." Practically speaking it is very difficult to hit him without simultaneously attacking at least two categories at once.

*Also grants +.5 stages like a normal FB
*Unbalances Philosopher-King progression, forcing you to Go Further Beyond Reality Forming and Grand Solipsism if you want to maintain it
*Extremely versatile and powerful offensive and defensive Reality Effects with significant non-combat use and near-total effect coverage, while still maintaining virtually no restraints on personality from Dao Selection
*A Dao that, by definition, has no limit or end.
*The least restrictive, and most encompassing, Dao that would fit Nameless' personality.

YONG. LIE. FANG!
Dress it up however you want, I'll recognize the Dao of Scamming anywhere! This is an undoubtedly powerful Dao, and fully deserving of being an FB, but people are going to look at it and think 'yeah, this is Yong Liefang's son alright'. It would probably make our fights against the Heroine hilarious, even if it isn't quite as good against Zang Kong.

[ ] ...All Paths [10 Beyond Points]

"How, then, do I know that delighting in life is not a delusion; that in hating death I am not like an orphan who left home in youth and no longer knows the way back? ...How do I know that the dead don't regret the way they clung to life? ...While dreaming you don't know it's a dream. You might even interpret a dream in your dream. You wake, and realize it was all a dream. But when will you wake from the dream of this world?"

-The Zhuangzi

"Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and tither, joyfully as a butterfly would. I followed my whims exactly as I liked and knew nothing of Zhuangzi the man. Suddenly I awoke, and there I was, veritably Zhuangzi once more! Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or whether I now am a butterfly, dreaming I am a man."

-The Zhuangzi

The wind blows through chimes and pipes, voices and canyons, hollows and streams. Which of these is the sound of 'the wind?' A frog, residing in a well, cannot conceive of the ocean's vastness. But this is no mere perspectival relativism. Relativism merely sketches the limits of knowledge; the true Daoist goes beyond.

There is no idea of "yes" that is coherent without the idea of "no," no "being" without "nonbeing," no "ought" without "ought not," no "Yin" without "Yang." Within the minds of humans, a concept cannot exist without begetting its opposite. So, too, with perspectives. To advance an argument clearly, you must understand what it is not.

If each perspective begets another, then from one perspective you can beget all others. In some sense they are all equally valid, separated only by the consciousness of the present 'now'; but that does not mean they are all equally useful. That is what is meant by the search for a Dao, a process to approach life.

And of course, there is a process to finding "a process to approach life," a Dao of Daos, a map of paths to take. Zhuangzi walked the map and sketched out its boundaries: the inescapability of perspective, and the limits of perspectival knowledge. There are beliefs that seem true, as a dream seems true to the dreamer, and from this we understand that the 'seeming of truth' is no guarantee of its presence.

If no Dao can be known to be true, how ought one search for a Dao?

A Dao broad enough to appear generally correct will be too non-specific to be useful. A Dao narrow enough to be useful in a field will falter if applied generally. However broad the avenue, a man must be free to wander off, lest he cease to be a man. It is the man that walks the path, not the other way around.

A man is not a Dao. He is the person that chooses Daos. And a Dao chosen can be discarded. That is what the Titans forgot, or perhaps never learned at all. "The Dao that can be spoken is not the true Dao."

You hesitate to embrace a path because you fear it may be wrong. It is wrong, but you do not know how. When you know, you will change. Acceptance of this cycle gives one the license to live fearlessly. It is only when we realize the impermanence of a thing that we dare to embrace it fully. So it is with Daos.

'This too, will pass' thus applies to the joyous as well as the bleak, to serenity as to misery. It is by full assumption of his own perspective that the Sage opens himself to the perspective of others - for if his perspective implies theirs, and theirs his, then why should he not live fully, unafraid of 'correctness?' It is by studying the sound of the wind-pipes that we thereby derive the wind.

There is no secret path, no simple truth, no single Dao. There is only the perspective to live fully on your current path, for as long as you may walk it - and the consciousness to change direction when that perspective shifts. But even this is only the view from one path. Even this is only the truth of a single perspective. It is a truth lived fully, but in time it may prove as finite as any other.

Then, another choice will await. Another path to walk. Another Dao to cleave. Or perhaps, for a time, no path at all. What is meant by Dao Cleaving? Only this: that you should cleave to a Dao for as long as it helps you, and cleave it away thereafter.

Encompassing every Dao, yet not of any Dao. Such is not a Titan's path, but a Man's.

*Nameless must derive his own future Stages or pattern of Cultivation past Dao Cleaving.
*It is all well and good to realize the core truth of Daoism, but applying that to the practical science of Cultivation is another matter!
*Normally, the Dao Cleaving stage represents the absolute maximum Energy density that a Cultivator can accumulate without creating a Reality to house it in.
*By perusing the Unshattered Glade, Nameless accesses the path of a successful Daoless self. He learns the configuration of Fate necessary to create an Artifact that will allow him to continue gathering the Energy of All and Nothingness without the need for a meditating Reality. The one-use Artifact merely unlocks the process, it is not required thereafter.

*After Cultivating for 1.2 more months, Dao Cleaving will grant another full stage's worth of power.
*By continuing to gather the Energy, this power increases without limit. In roughly the time it would take him to accumulate one 'stage' of Orthodox Cultivation, he gains two stages of effective power. Thus, "Reality Forming" grants +2.0 stages, "Grand Solipsism" grants +2.0 stages, etc.

*At any such milestone Nameless can choose to create the Masking Reality Stage. By stealing the techniques of a self that created a 'Formless' internal Reality, he may manifest the Reality Effects of arbitrary Daos, shifting freely between any he has mastered. While in this Stage he gains 1.5 stages of power, and masters a Dao, in the time it would take him to accumulate one 'stage' of Orthodox Cultivation.
*Mastered Daos are typically equivalent to a specialized Further Beyond Dao, but without personality requirements. Think of each Reality Effect like a Beyonded Diagram in terms of power; if both are used in conjunction, like a Further Beyonded Diagram.
*For example, the Daoless One could create an arbitrary Dao whose Reality Effects solely increase his Cultivation speed, thereby quintupling his rate of Cultivation when not using other Reality Effects, as if he had Gone Further Beyond Kleinvarr's Greater Refining.
*This is not the only Stage Namless may choose to create at this juncture, though it is the most versatile. Who knows what Stages Nameless may or may not choose to create at future milestones?

*The Daoless One cannot be truly bound by any path, be it his own or that of any other. Upon the conclusion of any episode in which a Drawback substantially disadvantages him, he may choose to discard it. This applies even to those Drawbacks created by [A Throne of Stars] or [The Fates], such as his vulnerability to death by Age's ending.
*No restraints upon personality or decision-making.

---

You currently have 6 MP and 5.5 BP, +.5 for somewhat correctly guessing the nature of EFB Dao Cleaving. Nameless spent two months plotting his coup, training, faking travel time and waiting for his Cultivation to reach levels commensurate to Titanic Combat Strength; you have 22.5 months until the Heroine and 55 until Kong Zang awakens again.

This is the Dao. Or not a Dao at all? If Cultivation is the pinnacle and culmination of thousand upon thousand magic systems, then this is the next step of evolution, impossibly brought to us by the Unshattered Glade from our generous future self. Or perhaps he's simply paying off the debt he'd accrued in the past when walking through his own Unshattered Glade? Maybe he's dreaming of the past and we're no more than an uppity figment of his imagination.

It might be I've gotten too philosophical after reading the blurb, but one can hardly blame me. A Diagram Dao, an Artifact Dao, a Butterfly!Aizen Dao... every path is open to us and we can walk them without fear of finding ourselves chained to a decision against our will. It is Scientific Cultivation beyond Zang Kong's wildest imagination, a cheat that turns us from a (powerful) game piece into one of the players almost by itself.

In five years, we will face Zang Kong as an equal, we'd said. We shouldn't be so unambitious, I think. With this (Non-)Dao, we can do far more than equal him, there is a real chance of exceeding him. All that we need is the daring to reach for the clouds instead of staying in the comfort of the safe options.

Alratan · Apr 12, 2018

Orm Embar said:
Our Artifice is much more precise than theirs, thanks to the Forge. Here's what we've been told of the Elven creative process:
The idea of sharing Fate configurations to optimize for Artifacts just doesn't exist in their cultural sphere; Feanor doesn't pass out blueprints for the Silmarils so that others can make more. Amouthanos could make an Artifact that would help Xiaoling, probably even bolster her Cultivation somehow, and maybe Fate will push him to do that. But she's not getting All Paths.

That's a very absolutist statement. Has Rihaku told us this explicitly?

Also, note how Rihaku said that elves 'usually' have much broader goals in mind. He didn't say 'always'. That suggests that there are situations in which they do make more precisely tailored artifacts.

Also, Xiaoling needs more than an artifact that boosts her cultivation 'somehow', if Fate is to have a hope in hell of sustainably keeping her within 0.25 stages of Nameless' combat power when he has a pure Potential type EFB as the Lieutenant effect should guarantee, she's going to need a pure potential type EFB of her own (and possibly an extra power type one on top of that, to fill in the gap that already exists). We know that Fate has limited reserves of credibility, and it's much more reasonable of it to go for the low hanging fruit of the Forge-lord making her an artifact that allows her to copy Nameless in becoming Dao-less. It fits the theme of her Cultivation anyway. Particularly as there are probably multiple different ways that such an artifact could operate. Nameless made a one use artifact that changed his metaphysical makeup. The Forgelord could make something like an artifact implanted third eye, or something that lived in/was its own sub-realm.

Unless the Forge-lord can make her an artifact equviilent to a pure potential EFB based on something else, of course, but that seems unnecessary work, and so she's likely to keep falling further and further behind despite Fate's best efforts.

OctarineShrike · Apr 12, 2018

I would like to call out that we have gotten some Clues on the Benefits of Truth/PK.

This and the Dao to follow are all retroactively compatible with Truth; they will be buffed +.25 stages even if you take Truth afterwards.
*Cast Battle Diagrams instantly, cast multiple Diagrams at once, get +.25 stages immediately and an additional +.5 from PK and Truth

PK adds a half stage of power to all our Battle Diagram spells, as does Truth.

Truth provides a quarter stage additional strength to our Dao Cleaving Stage.

Alratan · Apr 12, 2018

Conjured Blade said:
I would like to call out that we have gotten some Clues on the Benefits of Truth/PK.

PK adds a half stage of power to all our Battle Diagram spells, as does Truth.

Truth provides a quarter stage additional strength to our Dao Cleaving Stage.

I'm pretty sure they're generally statements. PK 's perfecting artifacts add a quarter stage strength to every Beyond Cultivation stage. What this tells us is that so does Truth for thematically compatible Daos.

This tells us why with EFB Dao we have to choose between the benefits of Truth and the benefits of PK. While we can come up with a Dao that is compatible with both Truth and PK, Daoless Cultivation stages seem to only be compatible with the bonus from one of the two.

OctarineShrike · Apr 12, 2018

Alratan said:
I'm pretty sure they're generally statements. PK adds a quarter stage strength to every Beyond Cultivation stage. What this tells us is that so does Truth for thematically compatible Daos.

I'm not talking about the perfecting runes. I am talking about the free EFB we get at titanic ascension.

Alratan · Apr 12, 2018

Conjured Blade said:
I'm not talking about the perfecting runes. I am talking about the free EFB we get at titanic ascension.

I'm pretty sure that the PK that Rihaku was talking about was the perfecting runes. The EFB PK is thus still a mystery box.

Rihaku · Apr 12, 2018

Assuming Mastermind Points are liquidated, you guys are almost at 10 BP!

vali · Apr 12, 2018

Unelemental said:
Ah, perhaps the iconic magic methals mithril, orichalcum and the like were only produced by dwarves, and while the Diagram managed to steal their secrets for a time, they disappeared or lost their properties when the Dwarves breathed their last?

If the Fates have any sense at all they will do everything in their power to insure that the Age of Might never, ever, returns. Remove the elves, remove the flower, wipe away the detritus of all the past ages, and start with a clean board. Sadly for them it's a little too late for that sort of thing.

One funny thing is that the Heroine has the very real possibility of becoming more powerful as a mortal than she was as a Fate. After all, Zang is set to surpass the Fates soon enough, and he is merely a one-in-a-trillion genius at Cultivation. I would guess that the Fates have put some sort of leash on the Heroine, some way to insure she can't turn on them.

Orm Embar · Apr 12, 2018

Rihaku said:
Assuming Mastermind Points are liquidated, you guys are almost at 10 BP!

Bit of a catch-22, since any omakes or reactions produced for Stars ultimately bring All Paths closer to viability.

Aabcehmu · Apr 12, 2018

That reminds me. Alratan, can I ask what thoughts you've had on bridging AP and PK? If you've come up with anything yet, anyway.

At least, I think I remember you being on-board for AP + PK? Pardon me, if you prefer AP + Truth, or some other combination of EFBs.

That reminds me, again! Regardless of the result of this vote, we're currently set up to have three EFBs!

If we take Throne of Stars or Laughing Vagabond, then we'll have Vault, Truth, and PK, and if we take AP, then we'll have Vault and either Truth or PK.

OctarineShrike · Apr 12, 2018

Assuming we get Laughing Vagabond it's first reality effect augments diagram magic in battle. Combined with the half stage boost from Truth it's diagram magic would be nothing to sneeze at either, and regardless of if you think the half stage diagram boost is from getting all 7 runes for the free EFB or a specific rune, it makes 6 of the 7 runes reachable.

Alratan · Apr 12, 2018

Hmm. If we take the EFB Dao, and are sufficiently ruthless, could we become Emperor and craft the Ring of the Age of Might in the next three years? The Divinites would probably more than gladly help make sure that such a crafting would succeed, as it Dooms Kong Zhang, and would seem to guarantee their victory. We can then evacuate those we care about to the Phylactery of Empires, which we'd make after forging the Ring. They'd be protected from their Doom while in there. We could then drop the Drawback that we die when the age dies (as we'd have been substantially disadvantaged by having to create a Phylactery of Empires with our ((E)F)B Vault.

If it was anything like the Ring of the Age of Truth, then this would guarantee that the Divinities couldn't corner us in a region where Cultivation was blocked, and would also presumably massively empower everything we do with Cultivation before then.

We could then proceed to kill the Divinites, and overthrow Fate, invalidating the Doom of the Age of Might, as there would be no more Ages.

Aabcehmu said:
That reminds me. Alratan, can I ask what thoughts you've had on bridging AP and PK? If you've come up with anything yet, anyway.

At least, I think I remember you being on-board for AP + PK? Pardon me, if you prefer AP + Truth, or some other combination of EFBs.

That reminds me, again! Regardless of the result of this vote, we're currently set up to have three EFBs!

If we take Throne of Stars or Laughing Vagabond, then we'll have Vault, Truth, and PK, and if we take AP, then we'll have Vault and either Truth or PK.

I'm in favour of EFB Dao + PK.

I suspect that the best way to achieve this is through experimentation with novel Cultivation stages based on what we learn in the Tomb of the Netherine, where we should go next, burning them away to create artifacts in between

The other cheaty option I see is mimicking a Dao with a Reality effect that grants perfect synergy and compatibility with the PK progression, say allowing the pseudo-ranks of Daoless progression to count as their equivilent ranks in Orthodox Cultivation for the purposes of the Philosopher King Progression. That wouldn't be the sexiest reality effect, but could be effective as it should allow the use of the Perfecting Artifacts, making each Reality Masking stage give 1.75 stages of standard progression. We'd probably have to be careful with ordering, however.

Lealope · Apr 12, 2018

Imperial Center

Rihaku said:
Imperial Center is mostly about the Sects, there's not really any opportunity to interact with the Emperor at your power level. Your best shot would be begging Gramps to arrange a meeting with him and waiting a few years - decades.

The Emperor does not have audiences. He does not do anything resembling 'work.' He does not make even trivial decisions about the administration of the Empire that is technically his. I suppose you could infiltrate the harem, but remember the last line of the Cons...

-

Rihaku said:
You can meet Princes, sure. The Emperor doesn't help them at all so they're usually not very important. Some have clawed their way into relevance. Some are undoubtedly plotting sedition and treason.

Hm... you don't really have any skills at art, I suppose you could learn if people voted for it. But he wouldn't meet you, you would just be paid handsomely by palace staff for the art.

The Sects have tons of shit, yeah. The Imperial Territory is still one-fifth the size of the Empire, which means it's like 70 times the size of Asia. Only a small fraction of it is covered by city.

-

Rihaku said:
By the way, Imperial Center isn't a single giant city, the Emperor's palace is a small fraction of its land area. Its political and physical geography are most analogous to the traditional Jianghu of Wuxia, a forests-and-gorges frontier of rivalrous sects. There is a sprawling Imperial City around the palace, but you don't have to go there. The main weakness of the choice is the lack of unexplored Secret Dungeons and the fact that you will seem like an unsophisticated hick.

-

Enohthree said:
Or maybe the Emperor pays us to kill him and then bring him back sans Crown who knows?

Rihaku said:
As if death would provide a reprieve from the Labyrinth!

Northern Yong

Yong Clan

Rihaku said:
Your father is only the brother of the current Patriarch, so you're already not in the direct path of inheritance to the Main Branch. If you become powerful enough people will do as you say regardless.

-

Rihaku said:
There is no clan more powerful than yours in this world.

-

Alectai said:
Incorrect, because if someone that badass shows up in the next few updates, and we're not strong enough, they'll speedblitz us, kill us, and shatter the vault and kill our lackeys and everything in there anyway.

Because we'd be operating under a full two stage disadvantage at that point--when even one is considered a nigh insurmountable gap.

"Get what we came for" means that even in the case that your nightmare scenario happens? Guess what! We're strong enough to fight back or run away successfully.

Rihaku said:
Well, you could try flashing the Great Seal of Yong! Most Grand Solipsists would at least consider the deterrent and the risk of being Heavy Countered. It's not like anyone short of Kong Zang can save them from Yong Shen, after all!

-

Rihaku said:
Yong isn't a great place to learn Cultivation Science. They take a dim view of Heterodoxy.

-

Da Boyz said:
...no offense Xiaoling but you kinda fucked up massively. Its understandable that she was a kid but her dad really should have taken her aside one day and reinforced just how bad an idea it was for her to reveal her heritage. You'd think it'd be clear after the first purge of her close associates though. We were presumably spared due to the fact that assassinating the only child of the Grand Strategist of Yong and a grandson of Yong Shen probably would have put her in more danger than letting us live.

Rihaku said:
To say nothing of the difficulties in actually assassinating the son of the Strategy Officer of Yong and his professional Great Sect assassin bride!

Yong Shen

Unelemental said:
So they call granddaddy the First of the Titans because he's the oldest?

Rihaku said:
Because he was the first person to become a Titan.

-

Wolfy said:
Also, Dream's End? Wanna bet there was some sort of Diagramic Superspell, Lich, city, pocket dimension or even Logos named Dream that got blown the fuck out by might of Grandpa's muscle wizardy?

Rihaku said:
"Your fancy time, fate, and causality-manipulation is as nothing before the Dao of an entire World! For justice, order, and all the innocents you have slaughtered - Heavy Counter!"

Grandpa can do things such as -

*Kill a time looper in their time loop

*Kill a lich by punching its body regardless of its phylactery status

*Ignore effects that make him fated to miss the target

*Kill an intangible target by punching the area corresponding to its location

*Kill a spatially warped target by punching where it 'should' be

...And that is why one does not press against the Mountain.

-

Rihaku said:
You're not nearly strong enough to learn the Heavy Counter. Even the Fist Counter requires Reality Forming to pull off. Also, it would lock you into his Five-Elements Cultivation style. There's always an opportunity cost!

-

runeblue360 said:
just waiting for the fire themed cultivator to be the dragon of the unconquered sun

Rihaku said:
Yong Shen is the fire-themed Cultivator. And the Earth, and the Water, and the Metal, and the Wood.

-

Robotninja said:
@Rihaku

By the way, is there a reason there is such a lukewarm reaction from the empire about us becoming Titan tier before we are 18? I would think that at the very least our grandfather would want to talk to us.

Rihaku said:
Nameless has been hiding in the Elvish territories and has studiously avoided making any contact with major elements of the Empire. He wants to wait until he is more powerful than Yong Shen before potentially being exposed to the Heavy Counter. A grandson is just a cute kid. A Titan that young might well be a threat. He doesn't know Yong Shen enough to say that it's impossible.

Eastern Kong

Eyes of Kong

Deathbybunnies said:
If we took the eyes, could we remove them afterwards once we have Truth to remove the Stain? I really want that boost to Truth, but I don't care about any further Eye bonuses - we have enough easy paths to power we don't need a "difficult" one that might leave us open to Kang Zong.

Rihaku said:
Once they're integrated, you'll just regenerate the Eyes back. You could try selling them, I guess, but most people without True Regeneration can't integrate them at all and will go insane trying. Still, you might be able to scam one or two...

Without Zang Kong-levels of Cultivation Science, you won't be able to figure out how to un-integrate the Eyes.

-

Corripere said:
We can always forge an artifact to defend against Kong

Rihaku said:
"We can kill Kakuzu Orochimaru, how hard could it be?"

-

Corripere said:
I mean, if taking the eyes opens us up to Kong Zang influence, we'd better ditch Suizhen, too. She's just as vulnerable to us. I'm concerned this is more paranoia than actual concern: there's no sign Kong is looking to mind-control all his descendants.

Rihaku said:
Looking, no. Able... well, wouldn't you?

And if not, then you are not fit to pursue the Endless Sky!

-

Rihaku said:
The Eyes of Kong would be an additional utility vector for you, capable of numerous stage-breaking feats without the Cultivation drain of Artifice or the rigidity of the Diagram... just imagine if you had fourfold synergy between your own Dao, the Eyes of Kong, a Titanic-grade Artifact, and the Truth! Will you allow fear to rule you when Reason could take its stead?

-

Dark Lord Bob said:
I wonder if the body parts of higher Realm Cultivators make good Cultivation Resources?

Rihaku said:
If you're a Heterodox MONSTER, maybe!

Rihaku said:
You aren't nearly powerful enough to forge an Artifact relating to the Eyes of Kong! How unsettling...

Alratan said:
Do we have any idea what rank we'd need to be to manage it?

Rihaku said:
Far beyond Nameless' current forging level (7.9)... that's all he can manage to discern. Perhaps a Cerebration could reveal more? Of course, you know what they say about staring into the Abyss...

-

Alectai said:
Oh, it totally can transmit. That's why I'm advocating we retool it to either go silent--or if we're really clever, to have it transmit false information while we're blacked out.

Dark Lord Bob said:
Well, yeah, but that's something we'll have to deal with. I don't think @UBR is arguing that it's insurmountable, merely that it is an issue.

Rihaku said:
You guys don't have the time or materials to develop the Cultivation Science necessary to interface with the Eyes of Kong. The Elysians might be able to help you with it or it may be beyond even them. The easiest way to deal with the Eyes would be from an oblique angle such as the EFB Palimpsest - or, failing that, becoming so much more powerful than Kong that they don't matter.

Zang Kong

drake_azathoth said:
After the vile spirit helped her achieve vengeance against Kong Zang in such a satisfying fashion, however, she felt that it couldn't be so bad after all. The Rapacious Eagle had finally met a creature crueler than himself, and in his distraction she struck to exact justice.

Rihaku said:
As if rupturing his sacral chakras would stop the likes of Kong Zang! They don't call him the Monster of Utiilty for nothing!

-

Corripere said:
I mean, we've started this fear train all the way since The Pearl, the most innocuous of all choices in that there is no evidence Kong has the capability to control people through it. Now we're extending that fear to everything related to Kong, and I'm concerned our fear, and Rihaku's excellent understanding of how to manipulate us, is preventing us from taking great opportunities.

Rihaku said:
What are you worried about? It's not like Kong Zang is the GM or a-anything!

Rihaku said:
If you guys had Palimpsest / Form of Vehemence you wouldn't even need Titan Stage IV to get to 14.4! Of course, Zang Kong could be even higher than that, but probably not more than two stages at the absolute most. You could even just go Primordial Earth and still hit 8.9 + 3.5 + 3 = 15.4 before combat Artifacts, then use Heavy Counter to get around esoteric effects!

The dream of the Heavy Chokehold and Heavy Locker has not died yet...

-

Orm Embar said:
To take a stab at interpreting this, it seems like Zhuangzi's talking about the difficulty of obtaining objective truth, which the voters in this quest can certainly sympathize with. Some contend that humans all see different colors; who's to say the blue on blue I see when gazing skyward is anything like yours? There exists a gaping chasm between subjective experiences; qualia are fundamentally individual. Fellow-feeling is a hallucination. You can't know for certain that your partner's not a sociopath playing chess, to steal a phrase from Seram. If the first line forces us to acknowledge the nature of perception, the second posits its ultimate fallibility. The sky may have no true color. Claiming otherwise is nothing more than humanity's vain attempt to impose its ideals on the sky's vast, uncaring distance. Maybe that's what it really means, to face emptiness. Now, to banish my inner Gisena and proceed with the reaction!

Rihaku said:
The blue-on-blue of the sky is the same color as Zang Kong's eyes. But is that blue the color of the "sky" or of the "endless distance?" The truth is that the endless distance is itself the sky. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, how could those of the Endless Sky be any other color than blue?

-

Langevin said:
So I get that for practical purposes we have to take Kong at his word, but what do you bet he re-emerges like four years from now? Good opportunity to catch us unaware if we'd been planning around having at least 4.5 years to take him down.

Rihaku said:
Indeed, the only thing you can be absolutely certain he's not lying about is that his power is greater than that of the Fates. But he is trying to enlist you as an ally for the very long-term, and would have limited incentive to lie...

-

Projectile said:
Damn. You weren't kidding when you called him a Utility Monster. And he's not even just that happy, he's holding infinite people hostage. If we decide to actually care about morality, we'll have to find some way to evacuate infinite people. Assuming he isn't lying. Maybe we can just eat him.

It turns out, all this time we were busting our ass to get BP, only to barely keep up with this guy over here. I knew that nobody special enough to be a Titan would be a "normal" Titan, but 13+ is terrifying.

Rihaku said:
There's no need to fight Zang Kong in order to win! Just win normally in <5 years and wish yourself off this rock!

-

Projectile said:
If we accept, all of our problems are solved except for the niggling detail that Kong Zang is God.

Rihaku said:
You still have to beat the Heroine or at least keep the Empire alive for ten years while Fate is doing its level best to Final Destination you and every remaining Hero is gunning for you. And you have to be powerful enough to forge the incarnate Oath with Zang Kong, which isn't easy in and of itself. If he just breaks free unbound in ten years, everyone is kind of fucked.

-

Yeangst said:
So refusing does mean that he's waking up five years early to spite us?

Rihaku said:
Zang Kong isn't a creature of petty spite! If he decides that the expected value of "waking up and living for sure" is greater than the expected value of "gambling on further ascension," he'll do so. Remember he values "further ascension" extremely highly, but likely not as much as "continued existence." He'll decide what to do when he determines what the world looks like in five years, confident that you can't catch up to him in that time - and for good reason!

-

Strange9 said:
Well aren't we growing at a vastly higher rate than him? He took 5000 years to get to his current level, which he imagines will take us ~17 years of actual growth to get to. If we'd scrounged up the Beyond Points for literally one EFB (Tyranshals), we would be stronger than him in less than 1. If this goes to the long game, I'd say we have a hell of a lot better odds than we do in the short run/5 years.

Rihaku said:
Well, he's calculating the odds you'll find more multipliers, and even if you EFB Tyranshal's you would still be finding / developing multipliers over the course of multiple years, not one year.

-

Cerillian said:
But I'm also not entirely convinced in the necessity of opposing Kong anyway. The fearful talk about how we're guaranteed to lose and be consumed by him if we join him strikes me as entirely without foundation or plausibility.

Rihaku said:
Yeah, it doesn't seem likely that Zang Kong will renege on the deal, given the disdain he shows for Yong Shen - and yet despite being literally infinitely more powerful than your grandfather, he has not annihilated him or converted the Empire entire into his Overgrowth or anything of that nature. Perhaps he is simply willing to compromise his Dao by 10-20% because a reliable chance of growing to .5 of Existence is far better than a nearly-certain chance of stagnating at .000000000000000...00000001% of existence!

It would only be logical, after all. Why mess with unreliable deception when the stakes are that huge?

-

Chronic said:
That sounds like a stealth bad end anyways. After all, any place that the Divinities could reach to deposit the Prince is certainly within reach of the Ascended Endless Sky. The Prince would just get devoured a little bit later than this world.

Rihaku said:
This is xianxia! There is nothing preventing a stealth or overt bad end. That said, I think your guys' "paperclipper" headcanon has gone too far. You already have an example of a territory in which Zang Kong has effectively unlimited authority. It is called the world. If he wanted to conquer the entire empire and snuff out the elves he could have done so trivially any time after reaching Type IV. The fact that he has not done so implies that some of your guys' interpretation of his dialogue may not be entirely accurate.

There was nothing stopping Kong Zang from tiling over the entire world with Cultivation resources even as a fledgling Type IV. That he has not so, either because of an agreement with Yong or some other reason, indicates that your predictive model may not be correct. You already knew there are tens of billions of people and a highly operational civilization remaining in Eastern Kong, where not even a prior agreement would have prevented Kong Zang from eliminating them all if he so desired. What makes you think Zang Kong would devour this world at all when he has had the means to do so for years, likely centuries, and yet has not done so?

Chronic said:
Or maybe there are diminishing returns to the effects of consuming Cultivation resources, leading to Kong Zang only needing a certain amount of space to refine resources? In that case, wouldn't that mean that as Kong Zangs power increases, his need for resources would grow proportionately, eventually leading him to consume this world, and as he endlessly escalates, an infinite amount of other worlds?

Rihaku said:
If your logic were correct, there is no reason Zang Kong would not already have tiled over the world. If he anticipates a future requirement of Cultivation resources, why would he wait until he is bottlenecked by them instead of devouring the world pre-emptively?

Similarly, the Divinities are not capable of direct intervention. What action more drastic than 'sending the Heroine early' can they take? They couldn't even send the Heroine to stop his Stage IV ascension.

-

DarkKing98 said:
...the Divinities can only interfere limitly at the beginning and end of an age.

Zang Kong's Asencion is the end of the age.

Rihaku said:
His Stage V Ascension, yes. His Stage IV Ascension, which made him unrivaled in the world, was much earlier.

DarkKing98 said:
Yeah, I meant his Stage V Ascension.

Which in my mind, means one thing.

Zang Kong cannot be allowed to Ascend if the Age ends the instant that Ascension happens.

Rihaku said:
Uh... once he ascends, Ages won't matter. The Fates will have been broken.

vali said:
. Therefore, any resources that exist unexploited remain unexploited only because the return on investment is too poor for their consumption to be worthwhile

Rihaku said:
"Only" is a strong word! I can think of a few other reasons...

-

RedV said:
He has been keeping an eye on us,

Rihaku said:
To be clear, while Kong had gathered substantial data on you before you implanted the eyes, the only reason he now knows almost everything Nameless knows is because Nameless implanted the eyes. If he hadn't had this source of perfect information, many things could have turned out differently. His calculation of your growth speed is based on his knowledge and experience plus everything Nameless knows, so Wolfy is basically correct: you will need to pull some next level bullshit off in order to surpass his expectations, which were already pretty close to a best case for Nameless barring extreme BP generation.

-

DkArthas said:
For fuck's, now that ambivalent has won, We can't waste our time on indulging our Minions, Xao would be even more sad!

Focus and get stronger. Stop wasting our time. We need to ally with the Heroine or make a new deal with Zang Kong in 5 years.

Rihaku said:
Nameless doesn't actually feel that much urgency. Because Accept was so close to winning, he feels like he can just enter a Fate-warded Vault and objectively consider allying with Kong if he's too weak before five years are up. Basically, if he succeeds at becoming stronger than Kong than he can dictate terms, if not he can just backstab the Fates and ally with Kong anyway.

-

Rihaku said:
He wouldn't know about EFBs either way, but perhaps he guessed (correctly) that you guys wouldn't be able to save up for an EFB anyway! Even now you only have 4 BPs total, with the prospect of missing out on an EFB Dao when it is offered...

-

Redshirt Army said:
It seems like two EFBs - three at most - should give us more than enough power to match Kong at the agreed time of his check-in.

Rihaku said:
Should it?

-

Shard said:
Getting the Quintiple Cult.Multiplier would definitely throw ZK's calculation off-whack..

Rihaku said:
You would need a lot more multipliers than that!

-

Rihaku said:
There is still the issue of matching enemy utility effects even if you have greater bodily power. All the strength in the world doesn't matter if Kang Zong can ensure that all your attacks miss while his land unerringly! It might take him subjective years to kill you, but he'd manage eventually! Remember that Act as Truth only allows you to act as Truth, which is greater than the Fates, but the Endless Sky may be greater still.

Chronic said:
That seems to contradict the Stage system as introduced by you. All combat-relevant Reality Effects we've seen have boosted stages for certain purposes. Shouldn't enough bodily power mean we transfer so much power that we can just hit all parts of his Endless Sky?

Rihaku said:
If you're 3+ stages above him, it's unlikely to matter, sure. But that doesn't seem likely. If you're .5 to 1 stages above him, it's certainly possible he has Reality Effects that work well against pure bodily strength. For example, if you only have pure physical damage and he has something like Aizen's Bankai from Bleach quest, then you'd be screwed.

Reality Effect interactions and matchups are actually extremely important in Cultivator battles and the Yong access to Heavy Counter is one of the cornerstones of their power. The ability to no-sell any type of defensive Reality Effect as long as one's Cultivation stage is higher is extremely versatile.

Chronic said:
Sure, but that still means we should always pursue Pure Power over Reality Effects if there is a trade off. Because if we are merely .5 to 1 stage above him, choosing Reality Effects instead of Pure Power might land us at equal to or 0.5 stages weaker than him.

Frankly, without knowing his exact stage we should just always go accumulating as many stages as possible instead of gathering utility effects.

Rihaku said:
If his Reality Effect hard counters physical strength, however, you'd still be in a stalemate. He wouldn't be able to hurt you because you're too strong, but he can still do other things. And you have more things you care about than he does.

-

runeblue360 said:
Wow, Daos are some next level drugs if they're capable of warping this pretty cool guy into the Elder Beast of Reason.

Xianxia: not even once.

Rihaku said:
It has been over four thousand years... there is still plenty of the old Zang left behind. It has simply been taken to its logical conclusion.

Southern Vane

Blorcyn said:
Is the southern marquis a diagrammist, also? I was a bit confused from his blurb

Rihaku said:
He's dead, his family rules the Territory.

The General Information on the Labyrinth Empire

Rihaku said:
There's a fairly good chance the Young Master will belong to one of the Four Great Clans, each of which is headed by either a Titan or a coterie of Grand Solipsists. If you do belong to such a Clan, it's likely you will be able to practice Thrice-Great openly without much fear of PR implications. There are complications, of course, but the opportunities may outweigh the drawbacks. Most clans do not keep their anointed heirs cloistered away in secrecy, after all.

-

Chronic said:
And if Diagramm magic is seen by Imperial Culture as a weak and cowardly art practiced only by incaltricant barbarians that real nobility of the Empire should not engage in, bringing in one of said incaltricant barbarians to teach the nephew of the clan head could send tongues wagging. People might start to disparage our clans strength. Grandpa would not be pleased about that, not if we can't prove that Diagramm magic can actually be a massive benefit to our cultivation.

Rihaku said:
Nah, they don't care about that. Unless it's a forbidden technique, which alternate forms of magic aren't, you won't have that issue.

-

Rihaku said:
Yong territories are run well, the South is doing okay... it's really Eastern Kong and Imperial Center that are, in one way or another, overrun with threats to Empire. Of course, if the Heroine grows powerful enough, she can simply march down to the Emperor's throne and shatter this fragile peace between Cultivators.

-

Rihaku said:
A military reputation isn't particularly useful in politics unless you display notable strategic or tactical acumen in a serious conflict with other cultivators or intelligent monsters. Being a more powerful Cultivator would take priority over all but super-genius levels of reputation.

However, my point is that you are at the stage where your assets must be directly converted into power. Your social skills convert to power by granting directly powerful allies. The military of Yong already serves your interests broadly; institutional quality is high enough that the need to make allies from their ranks is modest, much like how the military will generally obey the President even if they personally dislike him. The most powerful Cultivators are not members of the military except as Generals or Special Assets anyway.

Rihaku said:
If you have a Lackey who is a powerful Cultivator, that also works to some degree. Kind of like the Grandmaster Strategist.

-

Alratan said:
And Nameless has access to almost precisely none of those resources right now, unless he prefers to rip off his family's bank rather than a bunch of strangers. He's largelly one his own on this adventure. He doesn't have half a dozen hidden experts guarding his back, he isn't being showered with a continuous stream of high grade cultivation resources. At this point he has whatever resources he can scrounge together.

If we'd wanted access to the Yong government resources, we should have run a fief. Instead we decided to go (almost) solo.

Look at what Nameless' father did. He went out and scammed people just like this. He couldn't rely on just being given stuff either, and found this kind of deal to be much more profitable. Seriously, he was investing time in scamming people he met on the side of the road when he was the son of the Titan of Earth. They can't have all been the Titans that you think are the only cultivators worthy of our time to scam. If they had been, they'd just have killed him, or his father would, for bringing shame on the family for being an idiot.

Even Ming Xiaoling, who's even wealthier than Nameless was, would rapidly bankrupt herself if she tried to rely on the assets her clan gives her for Cultivation resources.

Rihaku said:
To be fair, 14-15 year olds typically aren't provided resources sufficient to breach the Dao Cleaving stage as you are attempting. As far as money goes, sufficient resources can usually ensure that even a hack can break into Dao Cleaving if one is willing to bear any level of inefficiency and wait for a substantial amount of time. Only the Ming, with their network and access, might be able to produce Reality Forming with money, and only at enormous cost. Anything above that relies on resources beyond money. Priceless Treasures usually can't be paid for in currency, hence their name.

-

BrainInAJar said:
We must be the like the seasons themselves, like a cycle of the world.

Rihaku said:
Would you really want to be so intimately connected to the Winter Labyrinth!?

Sects

Rihaku said:
All Clans are rivals with each other, though no one particularly wants to make an enemy of Yong and the Hero-Killer. Kind of ungrateful to attack one of the three Founders of Empire!

You are expected to be betrothed as soon as your parents can extort the best deal for you out of whoever is willing to bid highest. If you are particularly powerful or adept, you may have some influence over this process. If you are a master schemer or otherwise outside context problem, you may be able to delay it indefinitely or even marry for love.

The Clans are kind of like the Great Houses in Exalted where people tend to have concubines on the side. At the highest levels, even this breaks down into open polyamory - who is to gainsay a Titan if they decide to take multiple wives/husbands? But it is expected that only Titans have the prerogative of flouting otherwise conservative social norms so flagrantly. If you are not a law unto yourself, then you're just the nail that gets hammered down.

The situation is somewhat different in the Sects which are much less conservative. Many Sects practice Forbidden Techniques or Heterodox Cultivation as an open secret, and are powerful, useful, or connected enough to be tolerated. Your mother hails from a Sect.

Clans -> Polite Society

Sects -> Jianghu

-

Rihaku said:
The White Orchid Sisterhood is not among the Seven Great Sects. They're a comparatively minor Sect fighting to break into the Seven Greats. No particular relation except that they were hired to kill your father and failed miserably. Their best assassin, the pride of their sect, turned her back on them and became his waifu.

And that is why you never go up against the Lord of Vermin when he has room to maneuver. He'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

-

Rihaku said:
One of the Sects does have a Titan. She's not the Sect Leader though.

Unelemental said:
Is she the one who became the youngest Titan, btw? Or was that Grandfather as well?

Rihaku said:
Yes she is.

-

Titans

Rihaku said:
It is generally considered poor form for Titans to fight each other without attempting diplomatic means first. The collateral damage would be immense, and neither knows the other's hidden trumps. Therefore it is difficult to say who is 'strongest.'

-

skaro said:
You said about we can become Emperor.How that actually work out thought?

Are we need to spend mastermind point to prevent the damage of battle between Titan?

Rihaku said:
If you're powerful enough compared to your opponent you can minimize collateral damage or get a utility effect that does so. Or you could make yourself Emperor through other means.

-

Strange9 said:
As an aside, @Rihaku what would be the reaction be (from the Great Clans) to someone emerging as a low-level Titan combatant before their 17th birthday? Are there any established protocols for this type of situation?

Rihaku said:
Of course not!* Though you don't have to reveal your full Titanic-tier power, you could pretend to be merely Reality Forming or something. No one would know unless you go around beating up peak Grand Solipsists in your spare time.

Strange9 said:
Would Yong continue to back us?

Rihaku said:
Probably, though concentrating this much power in Yong may hold the potential to destabilize the empire. However, Yong is generally seen as the most reliable and trustworthy clan so it's not as much of a problem as if you were born from, say, Zang Kong. It would need to be addressed but it is very possible to address.

*That you know of, at least...

-

vali said:
Here's the updated info on all the Titans.

The Emperor: Lives in giant, continent sized imperial palace in the Central province of the Empire, with millions of concubines. Appears to pay literally zero attention to the outside world.

Epithets: Possibly called "The Hero Killer".

Dao/Cultivation: Unknown. Possibly the Bleak Procession.

Power level: Unknown.

Activities: It has been speculated that he's using his concubines as a breeding program. It's also possible he's just indulging in hedonism. Or maybe he's doing both at the same time!

Grandpa Yong Shen: Dao Reserve of Yong. He's the oldest titan. Rules Yong, the Northern Province.

Epithets: First of the Titans, Titan of the Elements, Dragon of the Primordial Earth, the Old Mountain, the Calendar, the Cycle Incarnate, Labyrinth-Builder, Dream's Ending, the Unbroken World, Dao Reserve of the Yong Clan, the Marquis of Yong

Dao/Cultivation: The Unbroken World. Primordium Techniques are focused on defeating esoteric techniques, and on primordial elements.

Power Level: Ascendant Titan

Activities: Ruling the empire and being 'just a simple old man'.

Kong Zang: Rules the Eastern Province of Kong.

Epithets: The Monster of Utility. Gentleman-Scholar. Dragon of the Unbounded Sky, the Rapacious Eagle, the Pitiless Lightning. Lord Marquis-Protector of Eastern Kong, the Elder Beast of Reason. The Experimenter's Realm. 'To face Kong is to strike nothing but emptiness.'

Dao/Cultivation: the Endless Sky. Focus on Scientific Cultivation. A form of Heterodox Cultivation.

Power Level: People respect Grandpa Yong; people are terrified of Zang.

Activities: Science!!!! He's plotting, and farming monsters for power-ups, and preparing for the coming conflict.

Sect Titan: Not the leader of her Sect, no clue what she's up to. She's the youngest titan.

Epithets: Unknown.

Dao/Cultivation: Unknown. Possibly the Bleak Procession.

Power Level: She's the youngest, and thus probably the weakest Titan.

Activities: Unknown. She's not leading her sect, so she presumably has plenty of free time.

No Titans are known to exist outside the empire.

When it comes to sensing power levels, you can always hide your power level from people who are weaker than you. So it's possible that a fifth Titan exists, but has chosen to remain in hiding.

Rihaku said:
The rest looks accurate, though!

-

Rask said:
[ ] Orchestrate a Coup

The surprising thing about this option is that it has a worse impact on Empire stability than outright stomping the Grand Offensive.

Rihaku said:
Of course it does, murdering the legitimately selected leader of a Great Clan in order to install one of his rivals is far worse than the fates of some Cultivator soldiers that are irrelevant in grand scheme of things!

Da Boyz said:
How common and tolerable is violence/coups in Ming? While I imagine something of the level we're doing is probably borderline unprecedented Cultivator society seems pretty violent when it comes to internal politics, even outside the laissez faire warfare of the center between sects.

Rihaku said:
It's not tolerable per se. You can maybe skate by, by claiming it's an internal affair. Ultimately enforcement has to come from somewhere, if a Titan doesn't care enough then nothing will happen. On the other hand, if you fuck up enough Yong might step in even if the Emperor isn't likely to.

-

Rihaku said:
DLYW's cultivation speed is definitely not low-key, even if you don't reveal Thrice-Great. However, it is unlikely that a rival clan will throw a dude from the elder generation at you. After all, they do know who your grandfather is. Killing the grandson of a Titan is prelude to continent-obliterating levels of war.

The Elven Empire

Elven Traits

Rihaku said:
You would become one of the few Half-Elves. Half-Elves are a prime example of hybrid vigor! Much like their metaphorical cousin, the mule, they benefit from the exceptional attribute spread of the Elven parent while retaining much of their human parent's pragmatism. Unlike the Elves they are not considered a Complete race, so they are capable of Cultivating if they don't desire to take up Artificing.

Unfortunately, the combination of Elven passions with human spiritual imperfection means that Half-Elves tend to dramatic excesses of emotion. This would be further multiplied by Heroic Passions, which most builds are taking. Also, none of the Great Clans have any human-elf couplings so you would be relegated to a lesser clan or the Elven homeland.

-

Lexica said:
So because I'm trash @Rihaku I've got a question as far as 'powerlevels' go. The cultivators are obviously the current dominant paradigm, but Diagram Liches and Elves still exist and aren't casually brushed aside. In terms of say, a Titan vs some Feanor equivalent bearing a Silmaril equivalent vs a Diagram Lich with lots of prep time and intel on their target, what's the 'expected' outcome? I would assume the Titan has an advantage based on cultivators being ascendant in the setting at the moment, but the Elves still exist as a polity and not just a bunch of slaves toiling away to make artifacts for their cultivator masters and Liches can apparently get away with terrorism to at least some extent, so the answer can't be totally cut and dry.

It seems like a question that would have an interesting answer!

Rihaku said:
The Titan would stomp both the others combined, Feanor would stomp the Lich. Diagram Liches have incredible logistical powers that make them good at running away and hiding, but they can't withstand a Titan in a straight fight. A peak Elf is considerably more potent in open battle than a Lich, but without a Naturalism-boosted battlefield even a such shining exemplar of the highborn would fall in short order. Too much of their power is concentrated in areas (psychological unbreakability) that aren't relevant in battle. The Liches don't do enough damage to be worth the time of hunting them, the ones that were that aggressive have been pared out by millenia of selection pressure.

None of the four existing Titans has shown an interest in breaking the Elves, which is one of the major reasons they're still around. They ran out of Feanor equivalents quite a while ago, sadly. If they were up against a bloodlusted Yong or, god forbid, Kong instead of Ming, they'd already be dead - elves can't be enslaved, they have effectively infinite willpower for resisting torture or supernatural influence. This 'spiritual perfection' is also why they are considered a 'Complete' race, unable to Cultivate. The imperfect Dwarves and Orcs would theoretically have been able to Cultivate, had they the opportunism and scientific mindset to develop the practice, and had they not been wiped out to a man by the Archmages of the Diagram.

-

Shard said:
Would Infinite Absolute Ego Barrier Crown of Tragedy allow for enslaving Elves for Artifice spammage? (10 BP Crown 1 BP Ego Barrier)

Rihaku said:
No. Nothing so grossly mundane as infinite power can so easily mar perfection.

-

Wolfy said:
Besides, you can never go wrong with more anti-mindfuck.

Rihaku said:
One could say the Elves have gone too far in that direction... at the cost of their other capabilities!

-

Chronic said:
Not sure if giving the Elves compatible Cultivation is a good idea. Right now we still kinda need to keep their Empire around and introducing a new magic system that completely revolutionizes their lives sounds like the sort of tectonic shift that may lead to their Empire becoming unrecognizable in short order. Thus counting as "fallen".

Rihaku said:
Elves don't seem able to perform anything resembling Cultivation. You're not even sure where to begin!

-

-

Unelemental said:
As for the Oath, its protection against Fated Love works both ways, and I have no desire to see the elven Hero NTR us after going through all the trouble of stealing his waifu. Plus it skips us right past all those pesky loyalty missions and almost straight to max loyalty. Those last two points will be a bitch to earn though, considering Nameless' personality.

Rihaku said:
The summoned hero isn't remotely charismatic enough to compete with Nameless. Also, remember that undiminished elves are psychologically unbreakable, and mate once for life. In terms of social skill, if Nameless level 15, the summoned hero would be like level 2 (assuming a normal pleb is level 1) and Amouthanos level 40.

Golgotha said:
This was the moment to wax rhetoric and sophism about our reliability, not instantly offer to bind ourselves irrevocably!

Rihaku said:
There's no way that would have worked, Amouthanos is far too skilled to be deceived by Nameless and they both knew it.

-

Rihaku said:
EFB Crown at maximum intensity would be more powerful though less enduring than the Lover's Oath, but Elven spiritual perfection makes them immune. They're usually not strategically useful Crown targets compared to Cultivators. But, remember this: Elves can't Cultivate because they're considered a perfect species already. The average Elf has essence comparable to a Reality Forming adept, greater Elves comparable to Titans. All that power 'goes' somewhere, even if it's hyperspecialized compared to Cultivation. And where it 'goes' is spiritual fortitude and a wildly inefficient but versatile all-attribute boost that includes intelligence, wisdom, charisma, etc.

-

Rihaku said:
Well, to say it's a 'boost' would be somewhat reversing causality. They 'have' that much essence because their attributes are higher, would be more accurate.

-

Enohthree said:
Elves aren't going to give us maximizing payment because they're not sure we're intending to honor the deal?

Rihaku said:
They're wary of giving you resources because of your character and long-term incentives, not your honoring of this one particular deal.

-

Alratan said:
How likely is it that we could get an elf to make us a Magnum Opus that does what the Externalised bracers do?

Rihaku said:
All three options are pretty good, yeah. Immortal has the least non-combat utility though.

-

Rihaku said:
Mm, the stakes for this particular vote are not _that_ high. It is extremely unlikely that Aurelia would act against Nameless' interests unless she is presently lying to manipulate him. As she explains in the update, if her love is genuine, then she wouldn't be able to bring herself to do it. For what principle could be higher than love itself?

Similarly, even if you don't take Do It For Her, she will still be a very helpful companion. Do It For Her binds Nameless (though at much lower level than Lover's Oath) for two reasons: a) Some amount of reciprocity, since Aurelia mates only once for life and cannot ever romantically love again, even if she wants to, if this fails*, and b) Some defense against Fated Love effects. Neither of those concerns are hugely critical to Nameless' success or failure against the Fates, especially if he takes +Bonus for a good chance to develop True Incarnation.

*There are a lot of complications that arise in elf-human relationships due to their vastly differing natures. One of the Forge-Lords on the Praxis Council had a human wife who died after a few centuries and he was thus unable to reproduce, which caused him to throw himself into Artifice. But even diminishment could not overcome this essential facet of Elven nature. For many, 'till death do us part' is a pleasant ideal to contemplate, but the literal embodiment of that ideal is almost invariably painful.

-

Chronic said:
I wonder about the Ring of Severity. Mainly because it is apparently in the hands of the First Of The Praxis Council. Makes one suspicious. The boss of the guy who schooled us in the art of diplomacy...

Also, does that mean its wielder, Princess Antimony (named after a a metal, btw), is a plain looking Elf ?!?

Rihaku said:
All the Crown Princesses are named after metals. Antimony, Argentia, Aurelia, etc. What about Severity makes you think that Antimony would look plain? Amouthanos, who is as diminished an elf as can still remain sane, still has Legolas-tier looks, he just lacks the inner radiance of an undiminished elf.

-

Chronic said:
Because one of the alternate meanings of Severity is Plainness or Austerity. Just as Nameless speaks the Truth, and Aurelia looks Majestic, perhaps Antimony mantels herself in Plainness!

Rihaku said:
She looks like a normal member of her family, but in reality Antimony is far more ruthless! For an elf, she's exceptionally ruthless! That is the power of Severity!

-

RedV said:
Yeah, if we only have a few Orbs they should be used efficiently for enhancing our chances like Scales or Reincarnation. Maybe the original Throne of Stars if we can snag it for two or so Orbs.

If we get more we should pursue Aurelia's Immortality as a priority.

Rihaku said:
Diminished elves have a very long but finite lifespan, but undiminished Elves are immortal, impervious to the ravages of time.

Elven Lands

Rihaku said:
I'm surprised Trebly Bound isn't more popular. Not only are the elves almost unambiguously good, it does not empower your enemy or weaken yourself, and there are plenty of ways to save the elves without even interacting with them. For example, you could rise in the Imperial ranks and broker a peace. They would accept almost any reasonable terms. Better yet, if you can convince the Empire to defend the Elves, it'll be almost as if you've 'worked off' a Drawback!

-

Rihaku said:
Peace treaty will require you to rise incredibly high, it would have been much easier if you were publicly the Thrice-Great early on. Now it will be difficult, though perhaps in several years doable.

-

Rihaku said:
The Good-aligned Elven nation would be the empire at least risk of harm from true heroes. You'd only need to worry if your opponent gets to them first and joins up, but then you'll just be facing a single stronger attack, something that the Cursebearer wouldn't have much trouble with.

-

Rihaku said:
Elven Artificers are diminished, especially if separated from their Artifacts. More Elves are Naturalists or don't practice magic directly, though. They have a lot of artists, singers, craftsmen of various goods, etc.

-

Rihaku said:
You're in a state of half-assed war. If the Empire were serious the Elves would be dead by now, they might be able to repel lesser cultivators but they would crumble against a serious attack from four Titans. Even one serious Titan could probably wipe them out if he/she were determined enough.

You don't know of any official trade, but it may be possible unofficial trade exists. The elves are psuedo-buffered by human auxiliary kingdoms loyal to them, so it's not like they need the Empire for the products of human civilization (if they even need those).

Rihaku said:
You'll need higher quality materials than that, you can already access virtually any plant that mere money can buy. The Ming, with their vaunted ability to create Reality Forming Cultivators with cash alone, are the only faction better-supplied than you. The Elves might have some unique Naturalism- or Artifice-derived plants, but if they're not already on various grey markets then they're likely highly precious to the Elves.

-

Rihaku said:
It's a matter of trust... they can trust their champion and Half-Elven levies implicitly, so for them to take resources away from them and give them to you is incredibly risky in their eyes.

-

Rihaku said:
From what you can gather, Taishan's impression of the Elves is based on the most extreme segments of the Elven population. Their morality isn't monolithic, though there are points of commonality like typically not eating meat. The kinds of Elves that would burn down factory farms are probably a <1% of the population outlier, but of course they're the ones most notable and memorable to the Ming. That's not to say that Elves are happy about factory farms existing, most just don't advocate violence as a means to shut them down.

Shard said:
Does Nameless think a Generic Elf would have an issue with essentially creating monsters for the express purpose of murdering them and looting their corpses for resources?

Rihaku said:
Depends entirely on whether the monsters are conscious.

-

Unelemental said:
The solution is obvious. Murder the Elven King, steal his Ring of Lore, and use the resulting wisdom to become a benevolent ruler.

Rihaku said:
He is the Master of Lore, it cannot be profitably stolen.

-

Orm Embar said:
We should've just gone to the bloody Tomb, Elven diplomacy is way more trouble than it's worth. Can we just... decline and go loot the place?

Rihaku said:
You can decline and leave the elves unchecked, Procrastinate is the most similar option to that. But it really doesn't make sense to keep them around, Amouthanos has all but said they'll work against you if they can't trust you, and right now they can't trust you. And can you blame them? Right now their choices are -

The Dark Lord (bad)

The Heroine (bad)

The Endless Sky (bad)

Nameless himself noted the power of a kingmaker in his own role between Zang Kong and the Fates. The Elves are playing to their outs. If Nameless can be flipped to become a good option for them, then they'd at least have a chance. They're Doomed anyway. Their only other line is to maneuver a mutual triple kill.

-

Timewinders said:
@Rihaku Would the Lover's Oath prevent Nameless from having a mistress on the side? And what are the elves' views on infidelity in a political marriage? Are multiple marriages a possibility? I'm in favor of the political marriage but it seems weird to me to use magic to create an artificial love.

Rihaku said:
It's supposed to be used by people who are already in love and want to be in love forever. That's why it's optional.

-

Shard said:
I assume the Elves didn't expect us to accept their bog-standard offer?

Rihaku said:
Even if you do, they might still work against you because they can't trust you in the long term. Since you've sniffed that out this is their best play.

-

Shard said:
Interestingly our Fated Overlord lets us negate the Elves' Doom, and with Azure Flare we'd have been able to unmake it entirely?

Rihaku said:
Probably not, the Elves' fate is not particularly integral to your personhood so Acting as Truth wouldn't have worked.

Imperial Princess

RedV said:
I desire my EFB waifu. The Elf is only a pretty decent non-Beyonded waifu. Sword starts as FB and scales to EFB, while being doubled by Ring, buffed by Truth, and improved by another Stage 14.4 Artifact. Elf-chan can eat her heart out.

That's a waifu worth 20+ (!) BP of value right there!

Rihaku said:
Nameless' betrothed has mastered her Ring, which counts as an EFB as much as Truth is.

-

George said:
If we're going to lock in a minimum, why not choose her nickname and make it a higher minimum? It could make the difference in whether she gets Fate's Lieutenant buff, which with her Cultivation research skills could prove an incredible boon to progressing our Extrusion and/or to understanding and preparing for Heavenly Tribulation.

Rihaku said:
Psst, don't tell them how powerful Lovey Dovey is, if they realize Aurelia can boost almost any non-combat action, including Cultivation, they might actually vote for it and remove my ability to unilaterally dictate her nickname!

Rihaku said:
Her research ability is due to superhuman INT. You still have to perform the practical component yourself, but she can make theoretical innovations.

Others

Chronic said:
By the way, @Rihaku, can you tell us more about what other Empires are out there aside from ours and the Elven one? Because we really should know about that by now, and it is kind of important for creating strategies.

Rihaku said:
The other Empires consist mostly of barbarians who don't even have a Titan. At least from your biased perspective, should the Labyrinth Empire fall then only the Elves would be a viable barrier to the Heroine's victory.

-

Rihaku said:
General consensus is that the other human empires just aren't nerdy and OCD about cultivation enough to really reach Titanic heights. They have trouble producing even one Grand Solipsist out of tens of billions. Their warlike demeanor and martial cultures aren't contemplative enough to produce talented Cultivators at a high rate, so they've been relegated to ruined continents and sand-blasted wastelands.

Perhaps in another world they would have been as a conquering tide, sweeping over all opposition. Alas, the path to power wends a different way in this one.

The Divinities

General Information

Robotninja said:
Huh. So they are totally bound to do this, but they will punish just giving up? You would think they would encourage it just in case.

Rihaku said:
They're very confident. After all, they've never lost. Besides, it's so much more interesting when there are actual stakes...

-

Projectile said:
Knowing how ridiculous the Endless Sky is makes me question the premise of this story. Why does there have to be a Dark Lord in the first place? Is "Who would win: 100 Fates or 1 R E A S O N B O I?" just not dramatic enough for narrative fate-powers to fully activate? Or are we meant to be a training partner for the Heroine, so she can use us a stepping stone?

The option where Fate backs us is also the one where we 'befriend' the Heroine, so maybe the hope was just that we'd team up against a greater evil.

Or maybe me thinking of this as "Zang v. Fates, Nameless was there too," is a false impression based on the words and the admittedly magnificent presence of the man himself.

Rihaku said:
Zang Kong can't actually do anything for ten years, and it's very possible this Age will end before then. If he does do anything, he'll be sacrificing the ascension that is his life's work. But yes, while the Fates have to follow their "script," which includes an adversarial initial relationship between you and the Heroine, there is nothing stopping them from only including Drawbacks that either make you or the Heroine stronger or in some way more likely to team up. For example, a Reincarnation that remembers how much of an asshole Zang Kong is, and can't stand him! Or the ability to drop 4-5 more Zang Kong-seeking Fate missiles into the world, or making your life tied to that of the highly moral elves who abhorr him, etc.

-

indra said:
If you ignore the fact that they want to kill us too, after all if Kong Zang can see that we can become his equal in a decade and a half the Fates can also.

And we choose the throne of the stars, what does it mean that we are obliged to take revenge on the Fates and they know it.

They absolutely not will provide help enough for if become equal the Kong Zang same if they can, because if they do that they will only be switching Kong Zang per us.

Rihaku said:
Well... wouldn't you take that trade? Though, if Zang Kong is going to just mercifully obliterate them while you do what Baenlixnaire wants...

-

Strange9 said:
Out of curiosity, @Rihaku , what was the Divinities' game with Talentless? That seems to cripple us without necessarily making the heroine stronger.

Rihaku said:
If you're stupid enough to take that without something like Cursebearer / Scythe, then at least you're not a threat! If you do take it with Scythe, then you'd still want to team up with someone who has access to magics you don't.

-

George said:
Ah I don't think there's any evidence that the Fates have been doing this for infinite time already. We've only heard about finite numbers of Ages and finite Age length. Normally this would be pedantic, but Zang Kong commands an actually infinite number of Worlds, so if we're using a moral system where magnitude is relevant then if he commits some measurable amount of bad things on a measurable fraction of those worlds, then he trumps what the Fates could have done.

Since we're forced to work with one of two definitely morally bad entities, however, I'm not sure this is relevant if you aren't using a very particular and well-defined moral system.

Rihaku said:
You don't have to work with Fate, they're going to power you up if you choose Be Ambivalent anyway. Nothing stopping you from rejecting the Heroine's help except practicality, after all.

-

Cerillian said:
I'm not sure I see that they quite needed to go all the way to cheerfully tell us that they're planning to torture us forever if we do what they want, though. Seems a bit more than would be required.

Rihaku said:
They never said that! You could make an argument that their Servants implied it...

At any rate, you should see what they tell the other Dark Lords.

Da Boyz said:
Hmm...

Rihaku said:
Oh, a word of advice: try to make a good show of it. No one likes it when the Dark Lord lays down and dies 'for the good of the world.' My sister might appreciate the gesture, but don't expect the rest of us to go easy on you afterwards!

Rihaku said:
Jeez, you must have some real traumatic experiences with people 'not going easy' on you! But of course, it's only natural that when someone 'stops going easy' on someone else, that means they're definitely going to torture them forever!

-

LordFrank said:
Does trying to find the heroine early count as "hostile"?

Rihaku said:
Yes, unless you are very convincing in your stated intention to ally with her. The Divinities are always watching, but they aren't always paying attention. Things like your convo with Zang Kong and anything involving the Heroine, however... their gaze will be on you like an omniscient third-person perspective! Though probably without the mind reading, else they shouldn't have given you the Fated Overlord buff in the first place.

-

Alectai said:
Basically, the problem here is that the moment we lock onto the Heroine's position before she activates, the Fates will take that as a sign of aggression, and dump Enemy of Heaven on us--even if we can dump it (And assuming they can't just put it back on anyway), and it also likely means they start moving her into a hyperbolic time chamber, or alternately vector some kind of threat at us that we can't ignore to knock us out of play.

Rihaku said:
Not necessarily, if you pretend to be trying to befriend her! You'll have to be really convincing, though. Stunts / tactics would help. On the other hand, forcing the Fates to constantly re-apply The Enemy of Heaven to you would be pretty useful too. And getting critical info on the Heroine first-hand rather than speculative data from the beginning of this Age!

-

Rihaku said:
Open the Way, True - The caster rends open a gate to any spatial coordinate within the material or celestial realms, or to another realm of which he is well-informed.

vali said:
We've been to the realm of the gods before, in the very first chapter. So we could return there now, if we were feeling suicidal. This would also be useful for visiting legacy realms.

Rihaku said:
You could try to steal some Celestial Orbs! Follow in Wukong's footsteps...

-

Aabcehmu said:
Also, an interesting idea: going into the divine realm and then recruit the Spirits of the Fallen.

Rihaku said:
Or free them, if you've power enough. Have they not served their sentence?

-

Rihaku said:
If you want to retain the Fated Overlord buff, it's worthwhile to avoid taking actions that could be construed as actively hostile towards the Heroine. On the other hand, if you kill her early, that would definitely be bonus points from Kong Zang even if you end up somewhat weaker than him.

Duquette7 said:
Frankly I never wanted the Overlord buff anyway, as seen here it is ridiculously easy to lose, so I would have no problem challenging the Heroine early.

LordFrank said:
Does trying to find the heroine early count as "hostile"?

Rihaku said:
Yes, unless you are very convincing in your stated intention to ally with her. The Divinities are always watching, but they aren't always paying attention. Things like your convo with Zang Kong and anything involving the Heroine, however... their gaze will be on you like an omniscient third-person perspective! Though probably without the mind reading, else they shouldn't have given you the Fated Overlord buff in the first place.

-

Alectai said:
Basically, the problem here is that the moment we lock onto the Heroine's position before she activates, the Fates will take that as a sign of aggression,

Rihaku said:
Not necessarily, if you pretend to be trying to befriend her! You'll have to be really convincing, though. Stunts / tactics would help. On the other hand, forcing the Fates to constantly re-apply The Enemy of Heaven to you would be pretty useful too. And getting critical info on the Heroine first-hand rather than speculative data from the beginning of this Age!

-

Rihaku said:
Does that really count as evidence for that theory? If the Fates wanted to kill someone, they'd normally just Doom them, assuming they are allowed. The real question is, why is Heavenly Tribulation allowed in this circumstance?

-

Rihaku said:
The only Path that has decent odds of pulling off a Divine Heist within a reasonable timeframe would be Sage. Immortal is a pure power play that aims at Zang Kong! It doesn't even have the utility effects to put down the Heroine. Both Sage and King are better suited to defeating the Heroine (your immediate threat against which you'll only have >12 months to prepare after this timeskip) compared to the Immortal, who's specced against Zang Kong. Remember, if you defeat the Heroine, you'll get a wish!

-

drake_azathoth said:
...Hadn't thought of it right off, but one major thing is that this confirms at least one of the Fates would be completely onboard with extending the Age of Might indefinitely.

Rihaku said:
Too bad she's the Fate Baenlixnaire hates the most!

-

------ said:
Frankly I never wanted the Overlord buff anyway, as seen here it is ridiculously easy to lose, so I would have no problem challenging the Heroine early.

Rihaku said:
It's very difficult to lose unless you perform the specific action of "going after the Heroine." Almost any form of general power-gain is fine, and the major buff to all actions is extremely useful (as Nameless discovered when maneuvering against Taishan).

-

LordFrank said:
Does trying to find the heroine early count as "hostile"?

Rihaku said:
Yes, unless you are very convincing in your stated intention to ally with her. The Divinities are always watching, but they aren't always paying attention. Things like your convo with Zang Kong and anything involving the Heroine, however... their gaze will be on you like an omniscient third-person perspective! Though probably without the mind reading, else they shouldn't have given you the Fated Overlord buff in the first place.

-

Alectai said:
Basically, the problem here is that the moment we lock onto the Heroine's position before she activates, the Fates will take that as a sign of aggression, and dump Enemy of Heaven on us--even if we can dump it (And assuming they can't just put it back on anyway)

Rihaku said:
Not necessarily, if you pretend to be trying to befriend her! You'll have to be really convincing, though. Stunts / tactics would help. On the other hand, forcing the Fates to constantly re-apply The Enemy of Heaven to you would be pretty useful too. And getting critical info on the Heroine first-hand rather than speculative data from the beginning of this Age!

-

vali said:
We've been to the realm of the gods before, in the very first chapter. So we could return there now, if we were feeling suicidal. This would also be useful for visiting legacy realms.

Rihaku said:
You could try to steal some Celestial Orbs! Follow in Wukong's footsteps...

-

Aabcehmu said:
An important question is, now that we're not in the character creation process, would we even be able to use the Celestial Orbs? Do they function automatically, or would we need to find some means of expending them?

Also, an interesting idea: going into the divine realm and then recruit the Spirits of the Fallen.

You want a secret history of the world? Nobody more savvy to it all than them!

Rihaku said:
Or free them, if you've power enough. Have they not served their sentence?

The Wish

Shard said:
So if we take Cursebearer could we demand the Divinities to suffer our Curse as our 'Wish'?

Rihaku said:
You could make them kill themselves if you want. That's part of the reason they have absolutely no interest in letting you win.

-

Robotninja said:
If we kill the Heroine, could we wish for enough power to kill Kang Zong?

Rihaku said:
They can only grant wishes within their power to do so.

-

Alectai said:
further Reality Masks are harder and slower to get, but we'd only need one more to be in striking distance of even our more pessimistic projections of Kong's power. And this assumes we never actually manage to figure out how to advance the Nameless Dao further still.

Rihaku said:
Nameless' most pessimistic projection of Zang Kong's places him at 16.4 (14.4 + 2, which I stated before was his absolute max). It's likely he's below that height, but how far below you do not know. Thus, to break the Fates probably requires at least ~15 effective Stages of power plus relevant esoteric offense.

-

-

andy50 said:
I'm not really into the whole eternal torment thing, just give them a True death and be done with it.

Rihaku said:
Most people aren't! Baenlixnaire isn't a nice lich. You got his power, you'll have to pay the price (unless you remove that Drawback after an episode where it disadvantages you via All Paths).

-

Redshirt Army said:
This has already been asked, and the answer is... sort of. Baelixnaire blames the Fates for his family being tortured to death. He would apparently be satisfied with us using the Fates as puppets after "merely" a few billion (might have been "trillion", can't recall) years of unimaginable agony, but not before.

This is a major step down compared to his preference of infinite duration torture of infinite magnitude.

Rihaku said:
It's only a few thousand years of torture after which they can be reduced to servants.

-

George said:
So much this. With the Vengeance on us, we can't Wish ourselves far away from Zang Kong since we don't currently have other means to torture the Fates. As such, going for an early Heroine kill like this will put us at Zang Kong's mercy. It's not an absurd choice or anything but we can do way better.

Rihaku said:
You can Wish to screw over the Fates in a way that empowers yourself, most likely. If you intend to stick around.

The Heroine

General Information

Unelemental said:
Oh, and when you say she's an omni-disciplinary genius, does that only apply to cultivation or does our nemesis have the benefits of Thrice-Great?

Rihaku said:
You don't know, but it does seem like she won't be doing anything notable before her maturity, unless you take In Full Bloom.

-

Chronic said:
The Scions advantage is that the heroine won't be anyone special until she is 18. Her cultivation foundation probably will be mediocre until the divine mind kicks in, similar to certain other Xianxia protagonists I've read about. And while this might not look like that much of an advantage, we do have diagram magic which we should immediately beeline towards time dilation in order to hyperbolic time chamber the fuck out of what time we have left.

Rihaku said:
It won't be mediocre, she'll still be a genius with plot armor, just not threatening to someone who has orb-boosted abilities. Until she regains her memories she won't have any incentive to train and adventure like a Xianxia protagonist should, and until she starts adventuring she won't have the opportunity to encounter tons of random powerups. Why work so hard when everything's already so easy for her and everyone loves her?

-

Blonddude42 said:
I think I've been in the RWBY fandom too much. My first reaction to our enemy being female was to waifu her

Which is probably a valid option. If she becomes immortal, the game won't end from her death, and if we jointly rule one surviving nation, well, they didn't all collapse did they?

Rihaku said:
Her objective is to end the Age, so she'll want to destroy all the empires no matter what. To dissuade her, you'd have to convince her to give up her objective or surrender to her mercy and hope that the punishment from the other Divinities isn't sufficient to obliterate you.

-

Rihaku said:
She'll still be an omni-disciplinary genius with super plot armor, so it may not be impossible to find her. The difficulty would be in confirmation.

-

RedV said:
Pick A Way with Words, Rihaku said it's better for social skills than Butterfly.

Rihaku said:
It is... unless you are trying to locate the heroine!

-

Timewinders said:
Can the Heroine be persuaded to betray the other Divinities?

Rihaku said:
You can't know unless you meet her! She will be temporarily of mortal flesh and blood, so it should be easier than normal. But if normal is 'impossible' then it might still be.

-

Rihaku said:
You've never heard of a Spirit of the World incarnate as a person, though...

-

Capabilities

Rihaku said:
You get extra orbs in exchange for allowing her requests to be fulfilled. She doesn't get extra orbs of her own on top of those requests.

-

Reckless_Sun said:
@Rihaku i wonder if we choose Age of Heroes and we join them, are the heroes loyal enough to the savior that we can't turn them against her from the inside?

Rihaku said:
You don't know who she is, but once she regains her memories she will know who you are.

-

Rihaku said:
Since you didn't take In Full Bloom, you guys are actually somewhat overestimating the likely speed of the heroine's advancement. She may not be as slow as Meng Hao or Bai Xiaochun, but she's not going to advance four realms in a single year either. It is possible for the game to play out over decades or even centuries, if you force her into setbacks and buttress the empires enough.

-

DarkKing98 said:
This part interests me. The Gods love to at least appear fair. So in theory she'd have gotten as many of starting points as us. This costed 4. So, to imply this, and to appear giving some moducrum of fairness, she'd have had to taken somekind of drawback.

Rihaku said:
You guys are so close and yet so far from the correct answer. It's very possible to come up with it now if you look at my prior posts on the subject and the posts they refer to.

-

Chronic said:
Together this means, that unless the gods are being unbalanced, the heroine cannot have Thrice-Great. She does not have enough Orb-equivalents worth of power to manifest it, since she should be limited to only three plus the advantages we gave her by taking drawbacks.

Rihaku said:
Not entirely correct, but getting warmer...

-

HatsuZ said:
On another note, Rihaku, does Elven naturalism allow one to alter luck in ones' favor on terrain that the user controls? And would the Heroine have access to Naturalism like the elves do?

Rihaku said:
You don't know, though it is possible to semi-guess the answer to the latter question by examining the text. No one has successfully done so yet.

-

Rihaku said:
They are pretty slow, Meng Hao takes two years to get to Foundation Establishment and over a decade to get to Core Formation! And let's not even talk about the number of decades he spent getting one extra Anima in Nascent Soul...

You shouldn't expect her to take such a sedate pace, unless you 'kill' her enough times in a row that fate has to secret her away for decades+ just to recover. Of course, if you can discover her after that, you might actually have a shot at truly finishing her after 10+ apparently successful different ways of permakilling leave her diminished enough to lose.

-

Rihaku said:
Not necessarily decades, you could kill her enough times in a row in a few years or even months to put her down for sure, especially if you use multiple supposedly permanent vectors each time. Coming back from "sword through heart" is much easier than "completely obliterated, soul trapped and devoured by ancient lich, wiped from time stream, destiny defiled, killed from and through higher dimensions." She might not even come back from one of those.

-

Conjured Blade said:
Personally I'm pushing for the amulet rather than the ring because it has lower chance of being found if we are forced to choose security through obscurity.

Rihaku said:
If you choose security purely through obscurity, you have a chance of getting rekt by the Heroine's luck. Obscurity works better as a layering factor, not the whole shebang.

-

Rihaku said:
You guys are overestimating the Heroine's speed of growth. Unless you help her, she's not going to hit Titan level in even two years, let alone one. Likely substantially longer than that. Even an In Full Bloom Heroine would have serious difficulty hitting Titan level within two years.

Remember, it is possible to draw the game out for decades or even centuries if you sabotage her or set her back, and she'll take some years of her own to grow powerful enough to challenge the existing system in the first place. She's starting out from close to zero in terms of power level compared to the big guns of the setting.

-

skaro said:
What if she find priceless artifact and super ancient technique in Vane ruin?

Or some old master sacrifice their power to her ,Ishida style?

Rihaku said:
Yeah, that stuff might happen, just as it did for Meng Hao. But even then he didn't hit Spirit Severing for centuries, and Core Formation took over a decade. She won't be that slow, but the higher stages of Cultivation take time to reach.

-

Projectile said:
No need to name call. And Truth is Even Further Beyond, there's no way it won't live up to the hype. It's just getting there that's the problem, and what we have to give up to get it.

Rihaku said:
Well, you honestly might not need an Even Further Beyond to win if you are powerful enough at the start. If you're at or above Titan-level when she begins her adventure, then as long as you're versatile enough you can probably just kill her after a few tries.

So it may be a completely unnecessary risk that people are taking because it's cool. But I can understand that. Still, it won't save them if the circumstances go against them or they fuck up a political situation too badly.

-

Rihaku said:
Remember that the listed Cultivation rate is many dozens of times faster than even a Patriarch-level genius would be able to achieve. To achieve in 28 months what takes them 210 years is already absurd. Remember also that even the Heroine will take some time to power up before she's close to your level, likely a year or more. That said, there are further multipliers, that is why you are dungeoneering instead of just timeskip training...

-

Rihaku said:
Realistically speaking, as long as you don't completely slack off in the three+ years ahead, it'll take the Heroine at least a year to catch up to you in proactive might, if not two or more (likely 2+ years, if your build is at all synergistic - Thrice-Great also has the fastest theoretical prolonged growth speed). So you could theoretically add twelve objective months to your ramping-up schedule if the synergy boosts and payoff of greed are high enough.

-

DarkKing98 said:
It's been confirmed that she won't get three stages or higher in a year.

Rihaku said:
It has not. Four stages is what that post says.

-

UBR said:
We don't even know if the heroine will be a cultivator (and even if she is, damaging her cultivation base so that she can rebuild it better might not be the best approach).

Rihaku said:
Hm... even with the Heroine's luck, I can't imagine she could pull an EFB stage out of her ass too many times without straining credulity. She's only supposed to be a xianxia protagonist, and those rarely have more than two EFBs total.

-

Radvic said:
It sounds to me like the divinities aren't the biggest of our worries. If we can defeat Kong, we probably can defeat the Divinities. Now, ideally, we kill off the heroine as a sidestep on the way to killing Kong, but I think that might upset fate.

If we can also just do what Kong did -- grab a bunch of the world a stick it inside ourselves or a secure pocket dimension, then make it so to "destroy the last age" you need to kill us. And, if we've scaled so hard we're stronger than Kong, well, we're probably not in too much danger from the divinities.

Rihaku said:
The Heroine is incarnate now; if she has access to Cultivation then she has access to the same scaling vectors as Kong Zang.

-

Shard said:
Yo Rihaku, gotta wonder: How does Fated Overlord compare to the Heroine's Luck?

How does it compare to In Full Bloom?

Rihaku said:
It's almost as strong as the Heroine's luck but distributed differently. It's weaker than IFB, IFB is basically "the Fates take the gloves off because you chose to let them break the rules in exchange for a bribe."

-

Rihaku said:
If you just kill her via punching, she may not even need Fate intervention to survive that and come back stronger.

Weaknesses

Bludflag said:
Is her death immediately equivalent to our victory or could she be revived by some powerful cultivator / mage (e.g., temporal retrogression)?

Rihaku said:
Spiritual annihilation would be more reliable than physical, yes. If you just destroy her body, Diagram magic at the very least presents a vector of resurrection.

-

Pipeman said:
So she wants us to give up our name, which dehumanizes us in her eyes.

Rihaku said:
Yup.

Pipeman said:
The hidden gameplay drawback is that she has less scruples in acting against us, regardless of how much of a good guy we play it as.

Rihaku said:
Nothing to that level, it's basically a free orb. You can still re-humanize yourself, she just THINKS that this will render her impervious to your hypothetical charms!

-

Pandemonious Ivy said:
@Rihaku for the sake of the thread's sanity, is the only viable path forward one that goes exclusively into fighting the Heroine as soon as possible? Aka are all plans for a long term setup doomed to failure, as is being bandied about?

Rihaku said:
In theory, you don't have to fight her to win. You just have to kill her or arrange for her to be killed. Fighting her does offer the advantage that you know about her plot armor and will pursue more doggedly than others, double check that she's dead, ensure she has no resurrection or possession chances, etc. And that no one has experience fighting thrice-greats so you would be a moderate outside context problem.

-

Rihaku said:
By the way guys, there is a lot of tactical information you can extract from the Servant's description of your initial vote options. Consider what its description of Thrice-Great might imply for your eventual competition.

-

andy50 said:
I think what we can take from this is that... The gods might start doing some cheating...

Since I assume beyond points work outside the laws of universe, they might view our rate of growth as greater then they anticipated.

Rihaku said:
If you actually start approaching those power levels, there are certainly ways they can make life hard for you. For example - you auto-vaporize the Heroine and she gets shunted into some side dimension for 5,000 years in order to recover. Now you have to hold together the empires of this world for 5,000 years, including every Cultivator out of a population of 780+ billion that through actual random chance accumulates a prodigious amount of Cultivation-boosters and Beyond Stages. It is in such situations where exotic attack vectors come in handy.

Rihaku said:
Well, you've seen no evidence they can directly cheat. But they can certainly use up their credibility allotment in the way most obnoxious for you. Forcing out something like the 5,000 year delay maneuver would already be a significant win in your column, especially if combined with successive iterative kills of increasing comprehensiveness and potency. They can do the 5,000 year thing once, but twice already begins to strain credibility, and three times might well force them all-in...

-

Other Heroes

Chronic said:
how does The Bow and An Age of Glory interact? Can we defeat equals friendship the lesser heroes or do they benefit from the same protection as our true nemesis?

Rihaku said:
You can, but the trigger chance is low.

-

Rihaku said:
I see the Bow is popular, but if you really want to subvert the Age of Glory, your best shot is probably the Scales. Why gamble on a risky Defeat Equals Friendship when you can just manipulate the heroes to your side?

Rihaku said:
Bow proc chance is based on how difficult the struggle is, so if you're just steamrolling people with Cursebearer power it won't do much.

-

Genesys said:
If Age of Glory synergizes with Incarnate and we have to face 5-6 heroes, including the nemesis, within a year, I think we can't make it. @Rihaku, is this a thing?

Rihaku said:
Those options do synergize, but it just means their adventures will begin within a year instead of eighteen. It'd probably still take them a few years to grow powerful enough to challenge a Combat-type Cursebearer. Depends on the other Drawbacks you take.

-

Dark Lord Bob said:
@Rihaku Do the 'ever-increasing heights of longevity' offered by Cultivation mitigate the consequences of Limit Break? Can we choose longevity or vitality as the attribute we reap with the Scythe?

Rihaku said:
Yes, but the % lifespan lost is fairly stable. You can choose constitution, but not 'longevity' directly.

-

Dark Lord Bob said:
@Rihaku when we come out of Limit Break, would it be fair to assume that the diminished lifespan (the longterm consequences) would be accompanied by a variety of immediate consequences such as exhaustion and injury? Would those immediate consequences be mitigated by nomming on someone with the Scythe?

Rihaku said:
Yes to the former, usually not to the latter.

-

LordCassius said:
@Rihaku

Do the Incarnate and those other heroes suffer from heroic passions also?

Rihaku said:
They may as part of their personalities, it is by no means guaranteed.

-

RedV said:
And it might mean she's hiding her true secrets/strength, which is the reason she looks kind of underwhelming for a Hero supposed to be nearly on par with us.

I intuitively feel this is wrong, which I haven't felt for my other theories/guesses. But could be true, is shockingly plausible and a very naughty keikaku by the Heavens against us!

Rihaku said:
Nah, she won't be ready to go up against Zang Kong directly for years at the minimum, more likely decades. He is a Titan after all. But that is only proper, the Heroes don't even start adventuring until they're 18 (unless they run into something that disrupts that fate).

-

George said:
Concerning the potential Lackeys, I mostly favor getting information from them and ensuring they don't disrupt the Empire. I don't feel a need to focus on them beyond that. Unless the Rubric ends up being amazing and we need Loyalty to learn it, that is >.>

Rihaku said:
You can't learn the Rubric. There is pretty much no way for you to get access to the Rubric!

Robotninja said:
What about forging the hero into a ring where his soul powers it as a magnum opus? Crown of Tragedy at EFB can convince him.

Rihaku said:
Nope!

Companions

General Information

Sickul said:
Does making one of them a second have any effect on their Loyalty?

Rihaku said:
Making them a Second does not directly affect loyalty.

-

George said:
Alright. I think convincing the Genius to teach the Noble Lady will be a formidable challenge that we have to expend effort on.

Rihaku said:
Can one teach the other? Top-notch instruction has already been paid for, perhaps it is simply a difference in innate talent - or will to train!

-

Rihaku said:
Cultivation depends on a ton of factors, enough so that if you wanted you might be able to accelerate the Lady over the Genius via Diagram Magic. But if all other conditions are held equal and one surpasses the other, that is likely a matter of innate talent. In this case, the Genius' circumstances were even worse than the Lady's as far as access to teaching and materials goes. However, the Genius was likely also far more driven.

-

Rihaku said:
'Keep up' can mean 'as powerful as you' or 'more than one full Stage behind you,' depending on the relative advantages between yourself and your Lieutenants. A pleb that becomes a Grand Solipsist when his boss becomes a Titan has still kept up magnificently compared to the status quo. Also, it's not magic, plot events still have to occur so as to maintain their progression.

-

Rihaku said:
They're your Lackeys, you could have zero Lackeys and still win easily, or eight incredibly loyal Lackeys and still get stomped.

-

Sickul said:
The benefit to strengthening them both is not only do we have have a stronger party, but we may be able to reach a point where we can split the party and go after multiple Priceless Treasures simultaneously. We are built pretty well at this point be the leader of a strong party, between our Charisma to keep the group together to the Quickening which we can use to buff and help training. We have artifacts to help them get stronger.

Rihaku said:
It is indeed true that powerful Lackeys can act as a multiplier of their own, both in actual battle outcomes and in the ability to deploy to multiple fronts. That saves a lot of travel time and can let you support the acquisition of several objectives simultaneously - useful when treasure-hunting, critical when trying to prop up an empire!

-

Rihaku said:
Further Beyonds only give +.5.

Buffs you give Lackeys stack with the Lieutenant buff.

-

Rihaku said:
You may be willing to let your Lieutenants die, but is the thread? That buff doesn't carry over!

-

Rihaku said:
If you're growing in power this fast, it may be difficult for the Fates to buff your Lieutenants to compensate. Buffing your Lieutenants is not their highest priority or most pressing duty, and there are limits to their power. They're still obligated to make an honest effort, but their capabilities aren't infinite.

Xiaoling

Alectai said:
Noble Lady has asshole detection powers that will protec the only people willing to deal with her.

Rihaku said:
Perhaps her asshole detector is why she's willing to deal with Nameless!

-

Prince Sheo said:
The Nobel lady is mostly useless IMO, Diagram is probably way better at finding dungeons than what she has to offer. We might be able to get an in into Ming, but she doesn't seem to be anyone important enough for the effort.

Rihaku said:
Xiaoling's primary usage isn't finding Dungeons, it's in allowing you to socially steamroll many obstacles and in opening doors you otherwise wouldn't have access to. Plus she can fight, distract male enemies, and make female enemies self-conscious!

-

Langevin said:
Noble Lady also seems like she might be helpful for smoking out the Heroine

Rihaku said:
Hm... I hadn't considered that, but if the Heroine is in Vane, then that's very possible. They would naturally be Claws Out against each other, it would likely cause quite a scene.

-

RedV said:
the consequences of having Miss Ming die adventuring with us would be very bad. Bad diplomacy juju, could create a war between clans, etc.

Rihaku said:
You could take Huai and Ming if you are concerned for her safety, but she is a relatively powerful Cultivator in her own right. If she continues this progression she would be a contender for Matriarch in a few hundred years.

-

Sickul said:
What worries me about the Noble Lady is that we have no easy reason for not marrying her. So we are forced into either marrying her or trying to retain her after we don't marry her.

Rihaku said:
You are both only fourteen, so betrothal negotiations will take a while and are mostly up to your parents. If your father can get a good deal by betrothing you to her, he might, but it'll likely be years down the line unless you both 1) reveal Thrice-Great and 2) indicate that you want marry her. And he has plenty of other betrothal prospects for Nameless...

-

Projectile said:
I was waiting for somebody else to bring this up, because I didn't want to sound like a whiner, but does having the Noble Lady as our second slow down our cultivation? It would make sense if she enables our spoiledness, I suppose.

Not that she's not worth it, with the improved social skill and punchiness, but I was curious.

Rihaku said:
No, she's a half-elf, they Cultivate slower in exchange for more power. It's like having a more thorough Foundation at all stages!

-

George said:
Does Nameless have any idea how willing Ming Xiaoling is to risk life and limb for Legacies? I assume she's seeking such to secure her position as heir and try to eventually be Matriarch; is that a life goal or a defining obsession?

Rihaku said:
She does seem more passionate about it than the average noble scion. He doesn't have a good read on the exact level just from her letters, but she doesn't seem unwilling to risk the Vane Exclusion Zone. Who knows if that's just arrogance, though... As a Half-Elf she has effective inbuilt Heroic Passions.

-

Rihaku said:
Something you guys may have noticed - Xiaoling's independent information-gathering was very effective this turn. Her wealth and family name give her outsized influence in this backwater, and she is presently highly motivated to assist you, but you will need to improve her Loyalty and personal power both to get similar results in more cosmopolitan areas or against more difficult targets. She can be a very powerful social operator given the right tools.

Rihaku said:
No, Charmed Life offers no defense for Xiaoling... nor does it prevent the Overlord from being scarred, as my earlier post says. The Overlord becoming the Edgelord is a completely fine outcome from Fate's PoV. It'd make him an even better villain!

-

Alratan said:
As far as she is concerned, with Xiaoling's background and culture, Cultivation and possibly Artifice are real things. Diagram Magic is not. ItMs a relic of the ancient past. As a result, it will probably seem like a hobby, a distraction from what actually matters, which is becoming a powerful Cultivator. Now, she can see the benefits of Diagram magic, I'm sure, but it will seem like it should be some exotic and unusual thing that sits off to the side.

Rihaku said:
No, Xiaoling thought being a Diagram mage for Yong was Nameless' job before he revealed he was the Thrice-Great. She's well aware of how relevant it is to him, he was her penpal in childhood.

-

Rihaku said:
Xiaoling was Cultivating, of course! She's already reached high Organ Refining, which is great progress for a Half-Elf! Cultivators are expected to take centuries to meditate and reach higher realms.

-

notgreat said:
Since Suizhen is effectively our second now, can we unlock her special Second ability?

Rihaku said:
Xiaoling's still your real Second, she does all the things a Second should be doing. Suizhen is useless outside of combat.

Suizhen

Rihaku said:
Prolonged social interaction would probably suffice for Suizen's loyalty, as long as you guys can think of convincing arguments for why the Heroine is actually evil. Shouldn't be impossible, she may stand for truth and justice but would be opposed to the Imperial Way!

-

Unelemental said:
On the subject of the Genius... the suppositions that she is a Heroine (not the Heroine, but still dangerous enough) are probably on point. I'd even go so far as to make a wild guess: the enemy she is hesitant to name is Zang Kong himself.

Rihaku said:
That's right. Take some Beyond Point progress.

-

Rihaku said:
The other Heroes don't really start powering up until the Heroine turns 18, what they have before then is just the results of the traits they started with. Suizhen is a genius, but she won't get logic-defying bursts of essentially 'free' power without Lieutenant until after the Heroine is active.

-

Rihaku said:
You don't think that Suizhen will be too concerned about a Forbidden Technique that allows 'safe' ingestion of poisonous materials. Spiritual poisons are a danger to all!

-

Rihaku said:
Eh, you guys avoided making the Sword last time and Suizhen is pretty loyal still. While it's not a huge buff to Xiaoling now (comparatively speaking), the social benefits of a loyal Xiaoling - and, perhaps more importantly, the lack of headache and complications from a bitchy Xiaoling - could be useful for holding the Empire together even after you've killed the Heroine a few times. If the Heroine lucks into some decades-long time chamber effect on the brink of utter annihilation, social Lackeys would be useful to free up your own time for training.

-

Alectai said:
Hmm. Direct Approach is still good if we pair it with MM boosted Scamming, because bullshitting our way past these people and...

Wait, Forbidden Art Cultivators and Suizen.

Then again.

@Rihaku

What's Suizen's feelings on scamming the everloving shit out of temporarily superior Forbidden Art Cultivators and seeking to steal their prize through cunning rather than main force?

Like, we did bring a socially focused crew here, if anything could pull it off, it would be this band here, especially if we upgrade our scamming powers with a Mastermind Point in the process.

Rihaku said:
She doesn't care as long as you're not trying to be friendly with Forbidden Cultivators. You could also try persuading her that any individual case if okay.

-

Origami Clock said:
Can we get a confirm from @Rihaku on how Suizhen's development is Fated? Just so we know whether our investments into her will be significant in the grand scheme of things or not.

Rihaku said:
Your investments, both in her power and loyalty, are not superfluous.

-

Unelemental said:
Erm, I suspect there is a fine line between 'kill evil enemies' and 'sacrifice evil enemies for power' that she will be hesitant to walk over. She might be OK with 'shower ourselves in their blood on moonlit nights' tho, as long as we pass it off as consequences of our childhood trauma.

Rihaku said:
Well, if you get enough Loyalty... many things are possible.

-

George said:
I'll concede that the Suizhen variant is attractive, but should we survive this tribulation then we will be well positioned to make our way to the Ruby Court over the next six months and could accomplish great things there. Should we prove to have been blinded by greed in pursuing our course and watch a friend die while powerless to intervene, then we will come to viscerally understand what will be required of us to triumph over Fate and defeat the Heroine, both in action and spirit. Odds and stakes such as this shall be the least of our trials in a few short years to come; perhaps it's best to learn now what they really mean.

Hubris and Terror. Aren't those what define an Overlord in the circumstances we've been thrust into?

Conjured Blade said:
@Rihaku If we end up agreeing with Xiaoling, should we expect a vote on Suizhen's new job title so we know things like how much time she'll spend training/how much of an uphill climb cultivating her into a replacment for Kong Zang might be?

Rihaku said:
Suizen has plenty of talent at things that make her good at killing, she doesn't really have much talent in non-killing-related fields...

-

Rihaku said:
Anyway, you don't have to worry about Suizhen taking the 'wrong' Dao. If she is an Age of Glory candidate then she won't end up taking anything suboptimal.

Rihaku said:
Suizhen's self-image doesn't depend on her being pretty, it depends on her ability to sword. She just also wants to be pretty and figured it wouldn't burden you overmuch to ask (else she would never have asked).

-

Rihaku said:
Remember, Suizhen can use combat buffs better than Nameless or Xiaoling due to her far greater combat skill!

-

VNodosaurus said:
So wait, if Suizhen is in Reality Forming... what's her Dao?

Rihaku said:
Sky-Splitting Blade.

Rihaku said:
If you guys are worried about putting down Zang Kong, Suizhen's Dao is tailor-made to counter his... buffing it by +.5 stages for offensive purposes could arguably be worth more than a Beyond point, much less a normal Mastermind Point!

-

Da Boyz said:
I wonder if there would be any horrific mental consequences toward locking Suizhen in the Vault for months to farm and having her play Escape from Overgrowth 2: Vault Boogaloo? Nah.

Rihaku said:
For a normal person, maybe. But an unending jungle filled with horrific monsters one mistake away from eviscerating her is Suizhen's natural environment!

"You merely created the Overgrowth. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the open sky until I was nearly a woman grown..."

Drawbacks and Lose Conditions

Drawbacks

Rihaku said:
You are one orb short! I'd suggest Unnamed, though it is actually kind of inconvenient with Young Master. Can't pass on the family name...

-

Rihaku said:
By the way, 'chance to proc Spoiled' is not an upside - there is no one remotely high ranking enough to gainsay you if you decide to waste a crippling amount of resources having a palace built and importing luxuries, etc. At least taking Vengeance is somewhat dignified.

Rihaku said:
Nah, it's pretty terrible. What kind of commander wastes staggering amounts of clan resources and his own time to live in opulence while his soldiers are roughing it? Even if you're a Titan it would still be brought up as a character flaw behind your back. Achilles was the strongest warrior of his age, and yet we all remember the tent scene...

Episodes of Heroic Passion are not small. They can often be prevented, but when they trigger they are likely to become a defining part of your legacy, positive or negative.

-

Rihaku said:
That is not to say you cannot be proactive and prevent it with foresight and preparation. At the very least you could strongly reduce the chances of a true Episode.

-

Alectai said:
We did pay through the nose to get wiggle room in our vengeance.

We could shift it from "Murder the Gods and topple their thrones" into "Change of management with people who might actually be responsible for their jobs instead of crazy hedonists"

And the previous Divinities get to be incarnated into the world instead, just without Fate backing them up and without memories that give them incalculable power. So they can have the injustice they forced on others imposed in kind.

Fair retribution--which would be no less torturous for such beings.

What greater punishment can be elicited than to make them scrabble in the dirt that they hold such disdain for?

Rihaku said:
Those terms are way to generous, Baenlixnaire would probably be okay with torturing them for trillions of years and then letting them off with reincarnation into subhuman animals, but nothing nearly as kind as that. The guy was made of hate!

Alectai said:
You mean the Hate he discarded into the fires to fuel our ascendancy? That Hate?

Rihaku said:
Sure, but you are still bound to his purpose. He's willing to accept trillions of years of torture instead of infinite torture of infinite magnitude, which is already a large concession.

Da Boyz said:
What about "Infinite enslavement and reduction to psuedo-Servanthood." While I don't think Baenlixnaire had a poetic bone in his body I can see Nameless casting them into the fate which was originally in store for him.

Rihaku said:
Eh, if they're truly sorry and agree to infinite enslavement and humiliation, he might accept like, several thousand years of torture. But definitely no fewer than his lifespan plus the lifespan all of his kids would have had if they weren't murdered / raped / tortured to death!

-

Shard said:
To wit - Could the same artifact to bind Zang Kong be applied to Heroine?

Rihaku said:
There are limits to what you will agree to with the Heroine. You took A Throne of Stars, after all!

-

Shard said:
Oooh, right, we can topple Vane over for another BP, can't we, Rihaku?

Rihaku said:
If you actually remove them from power, slaughter their children and hear the lamentations of their women you can get up to 2 BP! Hard to justify doing that, of course, and the effect on Imperial stability would hardly be salutary...

-

Shard said:
Would this qualify as fulfilling Baenlixnaier's oath of vengeance? Actually, what's the criterion for fulfilling Baenlixnaier's oath of vengeance? What does 'defile' mean? Destroy the Legacy? Do some negative thing to the legacy? Does simply acquiring and exploiting the Legacy to our own benefit statisfy his vegeance?

Rihaku said:
It's an Artifact-enforced oath so there's no strict definition, just the spirit of the agreement. If Baenlixnaire would be somewhat satisfied with the damage you've inflicted on the House of his enemies, you will gain the benefits of having fulfilled that portion.

-

Shard said:
We can actually get 2 more BP by fulfilling Baen's vengeance by smiting Vane. Another 2 from All Paths.

Rihaku said:
You'd probably want to be a bit stronger than low Titan if you intend to actually smash Vane. Also, the Heroine would likely get a huge boost to credibility...

-

firefrog600 said:
seriously does no one else think our dead master would find it fitting that only one deity is left just as his civilization was snuffed out with him being all thats left?

Rihaku said:
Baenlixnaire would much prefer you horrifically torture or at least murder and consign to oblivion all of the Fates, not sparing a single one. He wasn't kidding about hatred.

-

Rihaku said:
Heroic Passions are a part of your personality, they're not supernatural influence.

-

Lose Conditions

Chronic said:
what happens in case of a draw? Say, we take Cursebearer and immediately go on a genocidal campaign, blowing up every continent with humans on it to ensure we kill the heroine while she is still young, but destroying every remaining Empire in the at the same time?

Rihaku said:
You'd be stopped by one of the experts capable of matching you, but if you succeeded, destroying every empire ends the Age, so you'd lose.

Chronic said:
Even if we kill the heroine in the process?

Rihaku said:
Yup.

-

Rihaku said:
An empire of hundreds of billions reduced to 10,000 will definitely count as fallen!

-

Chronic said:
... That can't be right. If there were only two viable Empires out there, Trebly Bound wouldn't have been enough of a disadvantage to be worth an Orb, wouldn't it?

Maybe that is our Imperial Prejudice speaking, but we were educated by a Diagram Lich....

Rihaku said:
It is not the number of empires that matter, but their relative power. If the Elves have 5 Stability, the Labyrinth has 25, and the other empires have 3, then being forced to defend the 5-Stabilty realm is certainly a large disadvantage.

-

Rihaku said:
Your win/loss intuition is very bad at hypotheticals, but it seems to indicate that a Titan or two dying is not the end of the world. What's more important is the institution of the Labyrinth Empire. Reform is possible, but a total revolution merely cast as 'reform' feels very risky to your intuition. You can change the people, you can change the incentives to some degree, you can't upend the table.

-

Alectai said:
Eh, I think the trick is that the Great Clans and Sects still have to exist in a recognizable state. So replacing the current Titans with the scions in our groups would be legit, even if we make some internal changes here and there. Outright casting them down would not be legit.

Rihaku said:
You don't need to prop up specific clans so long as the general structure of Empire remains. Wide-ranging reform is even possible as long as it remains recognizably the Empire. Hell, you could even overthrow the Emperor as long as you have someone to replace him.

-

Alratan said:
Nameless isn't the Champion of the Age of the Diagram. He's the Champion of the Age of Cultivation. His role isn't to remember the Diagram Schools, it's to preserve the Great Clans and lesser Sects of the Empire of the Cultivators, and the last Elven Kingdom.

Rihaku said:
Preserving the structure of the empire would be fine-ish. And if that fails, there are always the barbarian empires further to the East! They may be crappy, but they're also forgettable!

-

skaro said:
@Rihaku So if we have this diagram then we can avoid fate worse than death? The result that oblivion is most kindness?

Beyond the reach of fate is good enough compare to oblivion for me

Is this choice result in "pseudo good end"?

Rihaku said:
I would put it more as "psuedo bad end," presuming you're able to get it off between 'The Heroine is obviously going to win' and 'The Heroine kills you.'

-

DarkKing98 said:
On technicality Ages DO matter. To us, at least, since our life is anchored to this Age.

Unless The Fates break the very moment he Ascends and we are no longer anchored to this age to live.

Rihaku said:
Breaking the Fates does not by itself do anything to the empires of the world, which is what your life is presently tied to.

The Nameless

General Information

Shard said:
Aren't WE straining credulity, though, and isn't she a reincarnated goddess?

Rihaku said:
That doesn't matter, you're not relying on Fate to win. You can be as outlandish as you like outside of Artifact forging.

-

Rihaku said:
You can probably kill everyone that sees you, but that would do a number on Nameless' psyche. He obviously has no problem with limited necessary killing, but even slaughtering the Bleak Ravens' enemies caused him to hesitate somewhat...

Lichdom/The Ring

Rihaku said:
Yeah, 3 Beyond Point options are really powerful. You would basically be immortal and unkillable unless your enemies managed to locate and destroy a Magnum Opus-level Artifact.

-

Rihaku said:
It is pretty interesting, though. Even if they got your phylactery, they'd still have to go on an epic quest to destroy it while you continuously respawn and attack them.

-

Rihaku said:
It is pretty difficult to figure out your true nature, you don't look like a Lich at all. A few Cultivators might be able to tell, but they would likely be confused unless they are very familiar with Liches.

-

Prince Sheo said:
Ah Rihaku didn't say anything about the Genius hating us because of our Pseudo-Lichdom. Paranoia rising...

Rihaku said:
It's almost impossible to tell that you're a Lich, you look like a normal person and can imitate biological functions trivially.

-

Rihaku said:
To clarify, the allure of the Ring is not the pull of the One Ring. Someone like a Grand Solipsist who has already seen many treasures would find it very cool, but not worth compromising their sense of self over.

-

Rihaku said:
Consider this as well: All three forms of the Artifact grant tremendous physical survivability. The easiest way to kill you is the Bakuda solution (esoteric offense - time stop, destiny manipulation etc). What is the magic source with the highest variety and easiest access to esoteric offense?

The same magic source that the Ring immunizes you from. Physical attack is just one vector. The threat surface is far greater than that, and the Ring offers protection against the most immediate threats of all - those you are likely to face in a Southern Vane dungeon.

-

Redshirt Army said:
The Ring can be stolen, if stolen confers both the ability to make use of and immunity to all Diagram magics, and allows us to respawn six times. Total. Per Age.

Rihaku said:
Nah, each respawn interval just gets progressively vaster (millennia, ten millennia, etc)

-

Rihaku said:
Note also - the Gauntlet provides no regen at all, and twelve hours is not tactically different from seven days for most urgent objectives. The Ring's Fortifying property, combined with its vast innate power, mean it will be far harder to actually put you down: whereas someone can slay the Gauntlet's maker merely by stabbing him in the brain, the Ring sustains animation until the entire body is destroyed, and you resisting all the while.

The Gauntlet means losing has a simple, predictable cost. The Ring makes you more likely to win. And if you go up against the Heroine for the first time and die, have you not already lost?

-

Dark Lord Bob said:
So if we ever encounter one of these without the Ring we're going to be pretty fucked, given that we can't teleport out and we lose both pur Acceleration and Deliberation. But most importantly, what happens to:

Rihaku said:
It's part of / within a Magnum Opus-class Artifact so it should be fine.

vali said:
@Rihaku, could you clarify what it means to be "difficult to conceal"? For example, if we placed the ring inside a lead casket, then surgically implanted that casket in our chest (easy enough now that we're a lich and regenerate all wounds), how noticeable would it be? And what if, instead of a lead casket, it was an artifact good at hiding stuff?

Rihaku said:
It's a Ring, you have to be wearing it on a finger to get the buffs. But yes, Artifacts can be made to - if not directly conceal - at least redirect attention from the Ring, or to highlight those aspects of Truth most uncomfortable to the covetous. Just as Artifacts can be made to reinforce the structural strength of the Gauntlet, or heighten the regeneration of the Amulet, etc. If you wish to spend an Artifact on something, then you can usually see some form of improvement. You just have to pay the cost in essence, which for good Artifacts is not cheap.

-

Shard said:
I'm wondering, actually, if our Ring is on the same scale as Priceless Treasure or higher. What of our Heart Rune?

Rihaku said:
The Ring is a Magnum-Opus level Artifact upgraded with 3 Beyond Points containing the willingly donated essence of a millenia-old lich who was also the Crux of Fate for the remaining Diagram nation and who optimized the Artifact's creation with eyes capable of seeing Fate. It is also an Age incarnate and has a major disadvantage (the allure) to go along with its strengths. It would probably be in the top tier of Priceless Treasures, though still not quite as powerful as a Treasure worth ten Beyond Points.*

...

*Note: You are not the Heroine, so you do not have any particular advantage in encountering high-value Treasures you do not seek out. A Charmed Life is powerful but nowhere near powerful enough to guarantee even a single opportunity to claim a ten-BP-value Treasure within four years.

-

Wolfy said:
Anyway, our Ring allows us to use spell wherever, so it might be possible for us to develop spells in darkness beyond if we do use Expiration. That means that we can get back, possibly.

Rihaku said:
The most important thing is to make sure that you're counted as wearing the Ring, something that can be difficult to arrange when one resides in a realm literally beyond space and time.

-

Exter said:
So what does us speaking in blue actually mean? And this liches gray? How was our Second able to hear that we spoke in blue?

Rihaku said:
Anyone can hear that you're speaking in blue. As for what it means... perhaps it just reminds you of teachers past.

-

drake_azathoth said:
Well, she could cast Diagram spells if she was wearing the Ring. How feasible is it to coach someone through a Diagram spell? Do they need to understand it completely to use it?

Rihaku said:
You'd have to full-on teach her the spell, which would depend on her talent in the Diagram. For Suizhen, it's unlikely to be high.

Robotninja said:
Maybe, but dedicated training from a Master of it likely helps quite a bit.

Rihaku said:
Even if you're tutored by Einstein, there's no guarantee you'll learn how to cast Derive General Relativity From First Principles!

Beyonded spells are hard.

Robotninja said:
Not even learning how to cast it by rote?

Rihaku said:
The Diagram is not just hand-waving and mumbled words! It requires a state of mind, a state that the Ring can unlock in Cultivators but for which their talent is their own. It's probably not impossible to eventually teach Suizhen how to cast a Beyonded spell but it would likely take longer than Baenlixnaire had with you. After all, you were a Total Bookworm with a talent for the Diagram whereas Suizhen put literally all her points into Cultivation and Sword.

-

Rihaku said:
A sufficiently thick wall can conceal the Ring, as can the Vault (though then it won't count as you wearing the Ring without Acc 7 / Sign 5+).

-

Rihaku said:
The Ring makes your Llewyn's +1 instead of +.5. It makes your Vault 20 points instead of 16. It makes your Quickening x4 instead of x3, and your Potentiation cost 25% of blood instead of 50%. All those effects go Ring, as can the Vault (though then it won't count as you wearing the Ring without Acc 7 / Sign 5+).

-

Rihaku said:
Pure power-type Diagram EFBs are probably the best use of the Ring, after you get a potential-type EFB of some kind to lock down your lategame.

-

Alratan said:
Being able to grant its effects to others is a two edged sword, as we saw with Suizhen, it's a benefit as well as a cost. Attracting attention is similarly two edged for an accomplished scammer. Being able to be chain stolen was an ephemeral cost, one that the Ring itself provided a solution for by helping Nameless rapidly uplift himself to the point where there isn't a chain of more powerful people in existence.

And saying that if you don't spend BP on Diagram spells it doesn't do much, while true, isn't really a criticism. If you don't invest time or resources to Cultivate, EFB Dao is pretty useless as well. That's the point of investments in potential. If you don't exploit them you can't realise their value.

Rihaku said:
Nah, there were plenty of decisions points you guys could have taken that, if you'd rolled poorly, would have lost you the game almost immediately. The other phylacteries didn't really have that issue. To say the risk doesn't exist is just survivorship bias.

-

Alratan said:
Despite that, to my mind the FB Ring remains head and shoulders more powerful than any EFB we've seen, let alone FB, even including the downsides. I include the likes of EFB Amplification in there, which is the best other EFB we've seen, to my mind, the Ring is just that good.

Rihaku said:
In order to double the effects of 10 BP, you have to spend 10 BP. Conversely, the Logos alone could have gotten you above Titanic level with proper time and study. Similarly, we see that AP grants 6 BP worth of bonuses per Cultivation stage for free. From the perspective of an actual decision-maker with imperfect information rather than a retrospective with guaranteed knowledge of both safety and how many BP the thread would generate, the Amulet was much safer. If the Ring is powerful, it is only because of the thread's productivity.

Misc.

Rihaku said:
You won't get Special Eyes. Take that, you Sasuke wannabes!

-

Conjured Blade said:
Dungeoneering:No incentive to pursue new cultivation stages

Rihaku said:
Dungeoneering might also yield Cultivation multipliers.

Beyond Points

Rihaku said:
Going full ham into Cultivation wasn't a trap. You aren't intended to get most of the Beyond options and it is possible for you to beat the game without taking anywhere near all of them. There is no way you will get enough Beyond points to buy every Beyond option even if the thread is as productive as Bleach Quest at its peak. You may well have encountered other Beyond options if you'd taken another path, options that you presently can't see because you lack the pre-requisites.

Not every Beyond option is equal, either, they frequently optimize for different things.

-

Rihaku said:
Method Revealed

Earning Beyond Points, Methods (2 of 3)

Rihaku said:
Enough fanwork or analysis of sufficient quality has been submitted to qualify for a Beyond Point (Multiple submissions by one person contribute progressively more until the point is yielded).

-The standard for evaluation of quality is fairly critical and most submissions will not make the cut, or will only barely make the cut, contributing a small amount

-Therefore it is possible for a few great submissions to create a Beyond Point

-Even if a submission does not make the cut, it will still count towards fanwork/discussion bonuses and other effects

Converting 2 Mastermind Points into 1 Beyond Point at appropriate intervals

???

-

Rihaku said:
The Beyond Point progress granted by any fanwork is determined by my subjective appraisal of its quality and enjoyableness. This is not subject to appeal and in no way pretends to fairness. You guys are supposed to get Beyond Points by fulfilling your heroic commitments and carefully trading off benefits for Mastermind Points, not just through omake spam! But neither will I devalue an omake just because you guys have gotten lots of Beyond Points from them already.

-

Rihaku said:
It is true that the more Beyond Points you have, the more powerful the potential interactions that arise...

-

Rihaku said:
Numbers matter little, only quality can deliver Beyond Points! Better a single inspired omake than ten just 'cranked out.'

-

Rihaku said:
BPs are just a representation of how awesome your character is. They are the hidden greatness which circumstance or true adversity can occasionally draw out even from the apparently mundane.

It's like Goku having the potential to become the legendary Super Saiyan. He doesn't have it because King Kai implanted it into him, he instead had the personal qualities (and confluence of circumstances) to ascend.

-

Rihaku said:
Is your plan to just JAM Beyond Points into spells? I suppose you could try it, but without a defined option the results would be unpredictable...

Wolfy said:
As of matter of fact, we could try and force spells to Go Beyond. Results would be completely unknown, however.

Rihaku said:
There's even a chance it could do nothing!

-

Redshirt Army said:
How would a Titan with 70 Beyond points piled into his foundation compare with a Cursebearer? :U

Rihaku said:
Vastly stronger than a starting Combat-type, still weaker than a Progression-type eventually but it would take much longer for the Progression-type to catch up. Put it this way: a single Even Further Beyond is the most efficient conversion of Beyond Points to power for most cases, not accounting for synergies.

Having more than 1-2 Even Further Beyond-level effects would strain credulity for even a xianxia protagonist. Many don't even have 1!

-

Rihaku said:
Without the power of the Ring, how will you ever go Further Beyond the Even Further Beyond? Is there any power offered here truly more valuable than doubling the efficacy of 10 Beyond Points?

-

Rihaku said:
The Logos would be a good example of a potential-based EFB.

-

Rihaku said:
About the power level of Cultivation Beyond Stages - you can kind of look at Meng Hao as an example. He didn't have any Even Further Beyonds, I'll leave it to your interpretation whether a given stage of his was Beyond or Further Beyond, but his Beyond Stages definitely weren't providing power on the level of a 'full half stage' each, since he couldn't even reliably beat mid-Spirit Severing (Stage 5.5) at near-peak Nascent Soul (Stage ~4.8). He was able to tango with enemies a Stage above and come out alive, but usually at a severe disadvantage. Your Beyond stages probably aren't that weak, but they're unlikely to be dramatically stronger without an EFB.

Of course, his power did compound over time and he became able to face Dao Realm (Stage ~20+) enemies while in Ancient Realm (Stage ~15), but that was after literal centuries of escalation. That should put into perspective for you guys just how powerful the Ring's effect of doubling "a half stage" into "a full stage" is, and how much more potent Diagram + Cultivation is comapred to Cultivation alone. For a Cultivator, the ability to operate at a half-stage higher is worth a priceless fortune. For a Thrice-Great, it's the unboosted effect of one of his twenty spells.

It's not that Cultivation Beyond Stages are weak, but that half-stage and full-stage buffs are really strong.

-

Rihaku said:
Beyond points are a meta representation of your character's skill, cunning, verve, and will combined with the occasional confluence of destiny. NPCs do not have them.

-

Conjured Blade said:
At that point you're probably entering into the territory of the Accursed, or somebody from the Suggsverse or something.

Rihaku said:
Nowhere near the Accursed. Every EFB wouldn't even get you above Elder God Demonbane level, most likely. Not that EFBs are weak, but it's almost pointless trying to use the Accursed as a measuring stick for power. He's like a meta*-OPM, but played entirely straight.

*infinite meta-escalations of cardinality etc

Aabcehmu said:
Also, if the Accursed is actually infinite levels of meta-scaling, then what in the name of Omega managed to curse them?

Rihaku said:
The Accursed has many enemies. It's likely that no single one of them is quite as powerful as him, but in conjunction...

-

Conjured Blade said:
Aren't BP's a get out of danger free card in some cases?

Rihaku said:
That's not all they are!

-

Deathbybunnies said:
Holy shit. If we somehow got 10 BP together we could take this, and getting Titan would be trivial.

@Rihaku, be honest - would you have made it this strong if we nearly had 10 BP?

Rihaku said:
The effects of Beyond, FB, and EFB options are not affected by your current Beyond Point total. With 6 Beyond Points, you could get an effective 2.5-3 stage boost to physical strength and durability this update alone!

-

Alectai said:
Nah, that's just general activity bonuses, not BP progress.

Rihaku said:
Reactions do give Beyond Point progress! Subject to the same caveats as other fanworks. of course.

-

RedV said:
OTOH, I would trade away PK for EFB Dao, I think.

Rihaku said:
Why bother with an EFB you can only get after Titanic Ascension when you could get one sooner? Plus, not every EFB is made equal... immediate-power EFBs grant instant capabilities, but potential-type EFBs like the Logos are stronger in the long run...

-

Rihaku said:
An EFB Dao is just one example, however pure potential types with broad versatility are the rarest EFB offered.

-

Rihaku said:
One other thing to consider - you guys may not be able to rely on Mastermind Point income for Beyond Points in the future, since with the Heroine's awakening you may want to reserve those points for tactical or strategic use.

Fanwork and Arguments

Rihaku said:
Arguments are generally considered against three standards:

1) Would the character be convinced

2) Does this convince other posters (not the person directly being argued with, of course, but neutral-leaning posters)

3) Does this convince me

Eloquence, degree of effort, insight, depth of detail and accuracy are also important. Sometimes it is not practical to know 1) (the character not having been instantiated), but 2) and 3) are almost always important. Of course 2) can be faked, which is difficult to catch, so there is a massive penalty for trying to fake 2); the penalty persists beyond the current vote.

Rihaku said:
Do you want it to? By default, all fanwork and analysis posted during a voting period contributes to the argument strength of the poster's selected choice.

-

Rihaku said:
The colors are determined by two things -

1) The emotional valence of the option

2) Whether the overall color scheme of the options looks decent

-

RedV said:
Blade has got a ton of omake love. I don't know how we can make an omakes about not forging a sword, so we're on the backfoot there.

Rihaku said:
Some of the omakes about blade (for example, Fumbles' SORD omake) are actually by people who are voting against it. Omake power follows the vote, not the omake subject. Otherwise you would be disincentivized to write what inspires you!

-

Rihaku said:
Pretty much everything I point out while advocating is true, there are almost always significant advantages and disadvantages (if only in opportunity costs) to every option. What you can take from this (sometimes additional) information is more data about how each option fits into your plans and long-term synergies. Is it really a devastating insight to point out that you may want to save Beyond Points if you are about to learn a number of new spells, or that you need to Cultivate in order to make Artifacts and time is indeed ticking?

No, these are things parts of the thread already realize - the GM's stamp of confirmation merely rewards these correct observations that are sometimes overlooked.

-

Rihaku said:
Do you want to keep your Mastermind Points unconverted, though? You only get one free conversion per calendar year and haven't explored other ways to convert them!

-

UDwarf said:
However, I need some confirmation that at least the basic bits work as I think before it's something we can implement, so: Feedback, please, oh gracious QM?

Rihaku said:
In general you shouldn't expect every question of yours to be answered. No one has that much time. Pick well the questions that you actually ask.

I don't see Nameless ever performing the specific stage formula you envision. He doesn't know what the consequences of True Incarnation use are beyond that which is stated in the update, just as he currently doesn't know much about the Immortal Awakening Stage. Remember also that Truth Diagrams cannot be acquired with research alone.

The central question of this proposal is whether you can make an Artifact that causes Realm time dilation to scale with cultivation speed, which is also not something Nameless knows!

-

Rihaku said:
The winning option is [X] A Political Marriage without Lover's Oath. This was extremely close, only sheer weight of arguments pushed this compromise option over the edge.

Wolfy said:
While the fact that effort I have put into arguments is apparently so worthless that even such lead can not win is nothing short of insulting, I would at least prefer to be informed of my own inadequacy prior so I could put in more effort, instead of assuming that 66% vote lead with what seemed like equal argumentation is enough.

Rihaku said:
The vote is evaluated holistically. The fact that the vast majority of Procrastinator arguments were opposed to Oath was a factor. That many (though certainly not all!) of the Marriage + Oath votes were single-line votes from people who don't regularly participate was a factor as well*. APM won as a compromise option because the tenor of argumentation established that Nameless was too conflicted to confidently choose the Oath; i.e. he was pulled by both extremes. This can occur in votes like these, but will not occur in combat where tactical cohesion is critical.

*Nothing against new players, especially if they present even a modicum of arguments for the position, but there's not much benefit to the quest of a player who posts just once and without arguments - one of the reasons I stopped offering bonuses for # of players at chargen.

Wolfy said:
lease inform us next time you decide to change how the system work so I can adapt

Rihaku said:
It's the same system we saw in the Kong vote (Nameless was truly ambivalent). The nature of crappy compromise vote is that not many people end up happy about the outcome, but this outcome does best reflect Nameless' overall disposition given the arguments in thread. Oath had the largest number of votes for, a high number of arguments for, and the highest number of arguments against.

Wolfy said:
Compromise implies both sides getting something - Oath lost. There is no ifs or buts about it. Pray tell what did we get out of this compromise? That Marriage, vote block that had more than twice as much votes than other two options combined, won?

Rihaku said:
I don't think it's so unintuitive to consider the three options in such a manner. There's a clear gradient of not getting married, getting married without the oath, and getting married with the oath. In this case we can say Nameless ends up somewhere in the cluster of "getting married without the oath." Because Oath was stronger than Procrastinate, he will be more willing to commit time and effort to making the marriage work, etc. He would be "more like" the version of himself that accepted the Oath than the version of himself that Procrastinates.

Remember the additional factors from my earlier post as well. "Highest votes/arguments against" is not an irrelevant factor, "highest votes" was less relevant in this case for the reasons I stated earlier. Also, while people claim there are those who voted for Procrastinate that would not prefer Marriage to Marriage + Oath, I didn't see much argumentation to that effect. Almost every Procrastinate argument I saw considered Marriage preferable to Marriage + Oath. So your question answers itself. Consider Orm, the archetypical Procrastinate voter who was okay-ish with APM but hated Oath. Once approval voting was removed it was still 66 against / 50 for the Oath. While that can't be taken directly since Procrastinate voters usually didn't directly chime in, it was factored into the analysis alongside the fact that every Procrastinate debater desired Marriage over Marriage + Oath.

-

UDwarf said:
However, I need some confirmation that at least the basic bits work as I think before it's something we can implement, so: Feedback, please, oh gracious QM?

Rihaku said:
In general you shouldn't expect every question of yours to be answered. No one has that much time. Pick well the questions that you actually ask.

The Ordinal Spiral

Ordinal Spiral

runeblue360 said:
The reason Enoch was teaching magic was because that was one of the Angel's greatest joys in the life. Said Angel able to achieve a mutual kill with some Outer Evils (i.e. Azathoth/Yog-Sothoth type entities) and Pay to Win implies that that's at least somewhere approaching mild relevance on the Accursed's scale*, though I'm not sure how that interacts with Rihaku's comments on Elder God Demonbane.

So take that how you will, I guess?

*unless those are distinct from the "elder horrors of the omniverse"

Rihaku said:
Someone who has mastered all twenty-six Ordinals would certainly be very powerful and capable of taking on Lovecraftian entities, but still nowhere near the Accursed's level.

-

Aabcehmu said:
Why are there only 26? It's not like there aren't literal ordinal numbers after 26.

Rihaku said:
Don't confuse the means with the end. Twenty-six Ordinals is what it takes to reach the Heart of Magic and thereby acquire the theoretical maximum power that a magus of that type can!

Shard said:
I was imagining a:

1: Shield

2-9: Shield Specialist

10: Vindicate

11-24: Vindicate Specialist

25: Shield Specialist

26: Vindicate Specialist

Ordinal Spiral build. But mastering all 26 allows something.. special?

Rihaku said:
Not taking Herald / Halcyon would defeat the purpose of the Ordinal Spiral!

EDIT: Updated till 1308

Aabcehmu · Apr 12, 2018

IMO that deserves a threadmark.

LordFrank · Apr 12, 2018

Holy crap, it's massive.

Wolfy · Apr 12, 2018

I'm so unsure what to do - Throne feels much more efficient, but AP is just cooler.

Rihaku · Apr 12, 2018

Assuming Mastermind Points are liquidated, you guys are not that far from 12 BP!

Windlass · Apr 12, 2018

Ngl that level of effort deserves a reward. You have my vote, dude

[X] ...A Throne of Stars [1 Beyond Point]

Alectai · Apr 12, 2018

...

Really? That was worth 2 BP?

Holy shit, props to runeblue. We may not agree on policy, but I can respect effort where it comes!

Either Throne is locked in and we have a good sized nest egg for post-Truth spell development, or we hit All Paths with mastermind points to spare, win-win!

Even Further Beyond [Complete]

The Internet

Refutation

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Confusion as a Natural State of Being

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The Internet

Refutation

Confusion as a Natural State of Being

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Not yet invincible

Confusion as a Natural State of Being

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A Windy Lass

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion