No one cares about revenge, except maybe Meizhen. This is about neutralizing him as a threat. That's explicitly what Ling Qi is talking about.
Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
To be fair, he sort of gave us a Causus Belli by siding with the rival faction and bullying a friend of ours. We started investigating him and Liling after that second thunderdome where he joined in.
The fact he instantly went "Oh, I should have fucking known it would be you" rather then "What the fuck are you doing?" Sort of suggested that he knew to expect some kind of reprisal from us in particular.
- Location
- Canada
I have it on good authority that Li Suyin read a great deal of books. I do not believe they are likely to be accurate sources of information with regards to cultivator culture. Of course, their presence in the Sect library may suggest otherwise, but who knows? We did not read the books. I too regret this, but for different reasons.
- Location
- United States of America
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to get at with that quote? I mean, Ling Qi is not trying to get revenge against Yan Renshu, it is Yan Renshu trying to get revenge against us. That is what makes him a threat we need to neutralize. We don't know how far he is planning his revenge, how far he is willing to go, and how to protect ourselves against him without going on the offense.
Unless you are saying that Yan Renshu doesn't care about revenge, which doesn't make sense with his actions? He is effectively out of the war game between Sun and Cai as he was disowned by both and is now just used by Sun for favors between powerful cultivators. He seems to have an ax to grind in regards to us and is willing to mess with us in order to achieve his revenge.
Regardless of whether he invited the attack by siding with Sun Liling or whether we started the attack by following the Grinning Moon quest, he is trying to get revenge against us for the theft we committed against him. To say "we should accept the punishments of those who catch us thieving" is to make the argument that we should not join Meizhen on this raid, and should do nothing to Yan Renshu because anything he does to us at the moment is in retribution for a theft we did.
That depends entirely on how people want to keep playing Ling Qi. The easiest way to avoid the abuse of other people is to become those hermit cultivators in caves. No interactions with people, no way to abuse them.
That, however, is not going to be a fun quest and is not the route that Ling Qi would want to go, as she doesn't want to feel lonely again. As such, if we want to participate in tournaments and take spoils from our defeated adversaries, I could see that as the next step above "cave cultivator" on the scale of least abusive. We are still taking from the hard work and successes of others, but they have an equal chance of taking from us and defending their hard work. And in a tournament, they knew what they were getting into when signing up.
If we want to keep being a thief, however, then we need to realize that this moral "dilemma" is not going away. We will always be taking advantage of the hard work of others, either by stealing their resources or stealing information so that we or someone else can blackmail them into doing what they want (which is much similar to what Yan Renshu did then simply stealing their resources).
[X] Go along with Meizhen, you should probably convince her not to go overboard, and she could use backup besides
Changing my vote, at least for the moment. May change it again depending on how yrsillar answers questions, or my own mood.
There has to be some kind of social convention for ending conflicts like this in the outer sect or far too many noble scions would end up crippled. Which means they have some way of suppressing each other that is somewhat sufficient to satisfy, and keep control of, the typical Xianxia assholes. We know that Meizhen's idea of appropriate retaliation is a step beyond society's normal standards. Of course, even if there is such a social convention Yan Renshu may be ignoring it, he seems that kind of guy. In which case "Bai time" may actually be the socially expected response.
I am firmly in the camp of "never do an enemy a small injury" but it's really hard to tell exactly how injured each of these options is going to make him. Some people say there is no such thing as overkill, but I am a fan of Musashi's Earth scroll, fourth rule: Never do anything useless. If "normal" retaliation is enough to remove him as a meaningful threat going for further crippling would just be paying social penalties for no measurable increase in safety.
IF
I REALLY wish we had some idea how bad he would be hurt if we don't go "overboard."
Changing my vote, at least for the moment. May change it again depending on how yrsillar answers questions, or my own mood.
There has to be some kind of social convention for ending conflicts like this in the outer sect or far too many noble scions would end up crippled. Which means they have some way of suppressing each other that is somewhat sufficient to satisfy, and keep control of, the typical Xianxia assholes. We know that Meizhen's idea of appropriate retaliation is a step beyond society's normal standards. Of course, even if there is such a social convention Yan Renshu may be ignoring it, he seems that kind of guy. In which case "Bai time" may actually be the socially expected response.
I am firmly in the camp of "never do an enemy a small injury" but it's really hard to tell exactly how injured each of these options is going to make him. Some people say there is no such thing as overkill, but I am a fan of Musashi's Earth scroll, fourth rule: Never do anything useless. If "normal" retaliation is enough to remove him as a meaningful threat going for further crippling would just be paying social penalties for no measurable increase in safety.
IF
I REALLY wish we had some idea how bad he would be hurt if we don't go "overboard."
Eh, I quoted the wrong part. I should have quoted this
We aren't going after him because of what he's successfully done to us, so I don't see this as applying either way. It's about preventing future harm.
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Eh... the socially acceptable method is generally the losing side conceding in some visible way. Its generally bad form to keep pressing after that. On the other side if you want to keep pushing its kind of on your head if you suffer misfortune for it, though obviously there are all sorts of addendums and if/then's involved depending on the relative status of everyone involved.
NaanContributor
Provider of delicious flatbread, and nothing else.
- Location
- Hawaii
BTW yrsillar, I don't know if you saw this:
fallintolife
the worst vegan
- Location
- Los Angeles
- Pronouns
- They/Them
yes let's cut off the crooked moneylender's fingers because he might hate us one day.
wait, no, let's not do that at all.
[x] Go along with Meizhen, you should probably convince her not to go overboard, and she could use backup besides
wait, no, let's not do that at all.
[x] Go along with Meizhen, you should probably convince her not to go overboard, and she could use backup besides
Ah, His stuff is all wood or wood/fire with the exception of boiling venom and boiling shot which are pure fire
- Location
- Canada
But... He already hates us. He hates us a lot.
NaanContributor
Provider of delicious flatbread, and nothing else.
- Location
- Hawaii
And the Qi cards?
fallintolife
the worst vegan
- Location
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source(s) please. I've seen nothing to indicate he is or will continue to be enough of a threat to warrant permanent damage. you wanna beat the dude up, put him out of commission for a month or so, I'm down. but in that month, he'll stop being a threat. it's been less than a year and we've gained the favor of scions from three noble families (Cai, Bai, and Gu), and gone from "what's a dantian" to posing a threat to one of the foremost young cultivators in the empire (Sun Liling came after us personally). there's no reason to wreck his entire life when he's had such a small impact on ours.
So, guessing at his other techs they'd probably be something like:
- Ingraining Roots - Wood
- Eternal Vitality - Wood/Fire
- Stone in the Soil - Wood
- Blood Boiling Venom - Fire
- Ashfall - Wood/Fire
- Boiling Shot - Fire
Do the options we're voting for include a "stop if he concedes" clause, or a vote on it, or will we press on regardless? Or is it too late for him to properly concede once we're knocking at his door, so he should have done it earlier if he wanted to?
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NaanContributor
Provider of delicious flatbread, and nothing else.
- Location
- Hawaii
We should get Gui a Wood Talisman and Zhen a Fire Talisman to congratulate their breakthrough. Given at the same time, otherwise they'll start bickering about it.
Not for lack of trying, mind you.
A Top Hat for Zhen and a Party Hat for Gui!
- Location
- United States of America
Speaking of talismans, I have a crazy idea for one of them.
Rather than get a flat qi reduction to fire with more offensive dice, get qi reduction with an activatable ability.
I was thinking something along the lines of "add 1 unblockable damage to the next attack" and have it with a fire talisman that we give them. The reason for this would be to allow "Boiling Blood Venom" to successfully deal damage to the target enabling the poison to proc.
Since he will be fighting with us for the most part, he doesn't need all the offensive dice (in fact he should have a good 19-20ish dice without our attack buffs) and the venom from that technique is brutal. If he can start landing it in the mid stages of a fight, he will be able to do a lot more work against his target.
It would make them pretty viable too. It would bring all of their techs down to 2 qi I think.
stop being a threat to us personally, but when we leave our friends and minions won't have us to help them against a third level if he doesn't advance.
fallintolife
the worst vegan
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- Los Angeles
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yes, this man may eventually try to harm us and/or our friends, so let's do permanent damage. this is what we call escalation. he did us a small bad, we're planning on wrecking his entire life. if you want to destroy everyone who might do our friends a bad, it's a long list and it's going to grow exponentially as we work our way down it.
I mean, all Yan Renshu did was give information to Sun Liling for free. If you want to pin the blame on why Sun was hounding Ling Qi it's solely Sun's fault. She even explained to Ling Qi why she personally had to retaliate:
Yan Renshu role in that debacle was to do something he was going to do anyway for free.