10, IIRC. Basically, they're not nearly as common as you think.
Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
10, IIRC. Basically, they're not nearly as common as you think.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Empress is only prism, and as far as we know she only has 1 white in the Mu clan, though she might have another working for her. We know the Xuan and Zheng clans also have a white. There should be around 10~~ white in the empire.
Cai's position is ridiculously unstable because she has no real heir and has no real Cai clan, while she has made a ridiculous numbers of enemies. With her raw power she suppresses them, but if/when the empire gets in a big conflict everything will change... and CRX has to prove herself.
CRX literally cannot inherit unless she gets to Violet, and if she is only Violet basically any count house could ask her to step down as she'd have less qualification than them.
As is, the Cai clan is probably not expected to last a week after Shenhua dies/leave.
We wouldn't be a direct vassal of the heir. We would be a direct vassal of the Bai that controls the area we are in.
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Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Just to build on this, here are the Whites we know of:
Sun Shao
Cai Shenhua
Mu clan White. Not the empress, he went into isolation and hasn't come out in about a century or so.
Xuan clan White
Zheng clan White
Yuan He? (He killed Ogodei about 400 years ago and is still alive. Ogodei wasn't White/Divine, but he was likely still Orichalcum)
The rest are unknown (if Yuan He's not White, that means there are about 5 other Whites we don't know about)
- Location
- Spain
Well, not sure about "thousands" but i certainly expect ducal clans to have at least a few hundred adult members (That is, greens and up).
CRX position is absolutely dependant on her mother living, and while i don't expect her to die anytime soon, that's still a lot more insecure than a normal great clan.
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- Location
- Here
[X] To remain outside and slip a scout onto returning disciples, with orders to return in an hour. At least one would make it out, surely?
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Do we know Ogodei wasn't white at the time of his death? We were told he wasn't white back in Dark Dreams Flashback, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had gotten stronger by the time he was stopped.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think it takes a ton of work to get to White even if you're in Prism (Remember how Granny Tiger, who's the Han's spirit ancestor, still needs about a century or two to get to White despite being as old as the Han clan?). Unless his campaign lasted 100 years, I don't think he managed to reach White by the end of his campaign.
I will confirm that Yuan He, the Sect Leader is Prism, not white. None of the three great Sects in the province have a white cultivator. The gap between prism and white is pretttty vast. The first two realms are basically cultivation easy mode and each one after gets many many times harder to reach.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Except the possibility of war/big conflict is enough of a destabilising factor that we don't know what it would do to the sects either. Maybe the Empress would lose her power at which point so would the sects. Maybe the sects would be more damaged by conflicts that take more and more of their members since noble families' political roles give them less reason to be used as soldiers. War isn't something we can really plan around.
Without the idea of a hypothetical big conflict though, the sects are tied more closely to the whims of the throne whereas dukedoms have a role as a government which gives them a degree of autonomy. I'd agree that CRX is in a position of incredible pressure but she's also in a position of power since she's more valuable to her mother than Argent Peaks is to the Empress. Both depend on another for survival/prosperity/safety but CRX is more likely to be continually offered such. I'd say that means she's in a pretty decent position to grow unless Shenhua randomly gets taken out.
We have no reason to believe we'd be the direct vassal of the Bai. All we've heard of direct vassals is their position as retainers but CRX was given a lot of leeway by her mother in being able to offer that to us. The Bai would have less reason to do so since they have less need for new people in court, as a large family, and more need for people out in their province, since Sun Shao took a load of vassals away. We have no reason to believe they'd request such a relationship and pleanty reason to believe they wouldn't.
It was also mentioned previously that people are actually pretty fucking terrified of Shenhua, because she's one of the only two Whites who actually keep doing stuff all the time.
Throw in the distinct possibility that she might be exceptionally powerful even among Whites by now and the Cai are ridiculously hard to dislodge even with a single person foundation.
Especially since part of the issue the Cais have with the Sects is that in their eyes the sects don't actually further centralization but devolve power further and among more factions.
Kinda doubt they'd frame any movements they make against the sects as movements against the throne and for all we know, Shenhua does have enough sway at court to get away with that sort of thing far better than anyone else, even discounting the sway granted by how scared everyone is of her.
Any instability of CRX's position stems solely from the fact that, should she fail to measure up to Shenhua's expectation, Shenhua probably has little qualms about scrapping this attempt to get a decentish heir and go for a do over. She probably just doesn't really want to bother if she doesn't have to.
And that's kinda really useful for our purposes.
CRX is low power enough that we can get in on the ground floor, but we can still expect a disproportionate amount of resources to be funneled towards her.
And she's also in a position where it's really important for her personal fate to prove herself and, lacking either the absurd talent of her mother or whatever one-weird-trick-spirits-hate Shenhua discovered, Cai basically has to do so in large part via demonstrating a hold over and the loyalty of a bunch of capable subordinates who reflect well on her by getting stuff done.
Which essentially kinda means she also has a lot of incentive to funnel more of the resources she gets assigned than usual down towards us and other subordinates of similar value.
Throw in the distinct possibility that she might be exceptionally powerful even among Whites by now and the Cai are ridiculously hard to dislodge even with a single person foundation.
Especially since part of the issue the Cais have with the Sects is that in their eyes the sects don't actually further centralization but devolve power further and among more factions.
Kinda doubt they'd frame any movements they make against the sects as movements against the throne and for all we know, Shenhua does have enough sway at court to get away with that sort of thing far better than anyone else, even discounting the sway granted by how scared everyone is of her.
Any instability of CRX's position stems solely from the fact that, should she fail to measure up to Shenhua's expectation, Shenhua probably has little qualms about scrapping this attempt to get a decentish heir and go for a do over. She probably just doesn't really want to bother if she doesn't have to.
And that's kinda really useful for our purposes.
CRX is low power enough that we can get in on the ground floor, but we can still expect a disproportionate amount of resources to be funneled towards her.
And she's also in a position where it's really important for her personal fate to prove herself and, lacking either the absurd talent of her mother or whatever one-weird-trick-spirits-hate Shenhua discovered, Cai basically has to do so in large part via demonstrating a hold over and the loyalty of a bunch of capable subordinates who reflect well on her by getting stuff done.
Which essentially kinda means she also has a lot of incentive to funnel more of the resources she gets assigned than usual down towards us and other subordinates of similar value.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
I really want to meet a White. It seems like it would be amazing and terrifying.
Kai Merah
Hound Hearted Hedonist
- Location
- Somewhere in the corners of my imagination
I feel like meeting Cai Shenhua for example, would be like meeting the concept of Domination. Whites are pretty close to being spirits after all, and spirits tend to be more conceptual than human. Like, just think of Ragyo, how she holds herself, and imagine if she was able to imprint exactly how awesome she thought she was into your very soul.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Well, we know Shenhua is planning for a big conflict, so it's not a outsider problem. We also know that the sects are also having a role as a government which gives them a degree of autonomy.
However, the big thing is that Shenhua is alone. She might be, personally, secure, but the minute she is gone, Renxiang would have to be strong enough to hold the reins. She has no one to help her but the allies she herself make, and she has tens of very, very pissed violet/prisms who want her head.
She might have a couple hundred years to solidify her claim, but right now it's unstable as hell, and the Cai clan is as much as gone unless big war/etc happens. Or unless Renxiang shows herself as much of a monster as her mother one way or another.
Huh, we know how it usually works: we go around and ask an indigo/violet to take us on. If we ask the Bai, unless we are a direct vassal of the heir/head, we'll then have to ask a specific Bai.
That's how all the vassals works. We get a piece of land they own, etc. The difference with Cai is that she would give us more resources so that our house would not be fodder.
If Cai Shenhua was easy to get rid of it would have happened 150 years ago. Moving literal mountains would be easier than killing her, so I think we can consider her a fixture for the foreseeable future.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Shenhua is planning for conflictt, you don't get to where she is by not planning for possibilities or being ready to initiate it yourself, that doesn't mean that a conflict will necessarily happen or that it will affect her more negatively than the sects. Sects have a role in government? I know they have a degree of influence in their surrounding area but I don't think it goes so far as them governing. Also not sure I'd go so far as to suggest their autonomy since their power is newly established, specifically a newly established system of power, and dependent on the goodwill and funding of the Empress.
Sure, I accept that. But she'll also be pretty insulated by her mother so like I said, she's fine unless Shenhua gets taken out. From there, I'd say that the Cai are in a pretty solid position. Even if not as solid as other heads of provinces.
When was it said vassals work for a specific person (other than direct vassals) or that we'd be asking a violet/indigo to take us on? Suppose you could just be talking about getting land that's a part of a much larger domain but that doesn't mean we'd be working as a retainer and as long as we aren't, we'd only have to manage our land and pay taxes. No need for the court intrigue that'd have us work against Meizhen.
The difference with Cai is being a retainer which isn't necessarily the same as being a vassal. Being a retainers is a personal relationship and they attend their lord in court etc. A vassal is just a noble whose land is a part of their lord's. Like I said, the Bai are short of vassals and need some to work the lands left abandoned but they have a clan and so won't need us in court like CRX will, since she's building up her base of power.
The Bai need their land protected and so look for vassals:
CRX is specifically looking for a vassal to work as her retainer in court so she can build a better position for herself but will also move to help us improve our own position:
Anomen
「Innocent」
- Location
- United States
She was only 50 when she ascended to White, so I'm fairly certain she's younger than 150. Your point mostly still stands in that she won't die unless the Empire is going through major upheavals, like the Bai clan leader did, though.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that @yrsillar has said that she reached White 150 years ago, which would make her 200ish.
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This actually makes the timeline a bit weirder. IIRC In the past (cant find the post) yrsillar has mentioned that even Cai S. was forced into a marriage to do what was required of her but as soon as she was pregnant dumped her husband in some random palace and focused on her career as a fulltime lesbian.
Considering CRX'S age her mother must have been the leader of her province and been a white cultivator for more than a century before giving in to societal pressure.
If she got herself fairely early into a political marriage and gave birth to a child as some kind of compromise with the old guard it would make sense. At the point where everybody looked at her and knew she would rise to the top but whenthe old guard was still powerful enough to do something about her, entering into a political marriage to calm some nerves would be exactly the right move. Especially because we know how the empire views high level cultivators who arent tightly tied to a major political group or organization.
But if she was already a white and the leader of her province for decades, if not a century by then, then who could oppose her? Unless she really cared about having a successor so badly, why would she marry a man and have a child? But why like this? Especially since we know that paltry things like sex or species or being an inanimate object matter little with regards to cultivator procreation.
I think she really did care about having a successor, so that's why she got married, not any politics.
As I recall, that's for spirit-on-spirit action, not humans. Human/spirit may be more...corporeal. Also, there is the speculation that she wanted a daughter with a claim to the imperial throne, which requires a human.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
There is really very little support for that theory. It's more based off of the person Cai was inspired from.
I don't think so. If only for the simple reason of it not being technically possible (after all, an human wouldn't be able to fuck a train sized snake).
Beyond this, the corporality of high level cultivators very much isn't a given. Jiao for exemple don't have a body.
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Zhengui was also born from his dad's qi and shards of his mom's core so spirit beast also dont really care for biology.
I wouldn't say that sex doesn't matter.
Generally in mythology things are identified as male and female due to their fairly fundamental connection to the whole idea of procreation. I would imagine that Cui's father was a male dagger.
Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if higher level spirits could take human form. Certainly such things are common in folklore - Su Ling's mother for instance almost certainly can.