Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

[Erebeal]

I agree with you, it's balanced. But I agree with you because I believe a domain weapon without domain weapon art shouldn't be as strong as a powerful tech that's backed by 3 different arts.

Basically, I believe that a domain weapon should not be considering powerful against peers until we get to green 3+ and have arts designed to use them.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I'm with you there. Ultimately they are training aids afterall, not the be all and end all of cultivator combat. But then, I think that everyone running around with flying swords is lame, so...

Anyway, the key question here I think, @yrsillar, is how strong do you want the domain weapons to be narratively?
On a scale from:

• Basic flute attack
• Scalding Streams
• Falling Star Shot (2 arts, decent gear, good attack, no buffs)
  
• Full power Xiulan (3+ arts, focussed gear, strong attacks, 3+ buffs)

Where should they be?

 

[SynchronizedWritersBlock]

I agree with you, it's balanced. But I agree with you because I believe a domain weapon without domain weapon art shouldn't be as strong as a powerful tech that's backed by 3 different arts.

Basically, I believe that a domain weapon should not be considering powerful against peers until we get to green 3+ and have arts designed to use them.

Click to shrink...

Well, given that yrs took your post to mean that flying swords needed a buff, I don't think you were interpreted correctly.

 

[Kian]

Towering a full three meters tall at the shoulder and bristling with metallic black fur, the huge bear fixed its beady eyes on Ling Qi, standing so smugly in the open.

Click to shrink...

Smiling, Ling Qi set out to take care of the messy work of cleaning her kill, and carving out Zhen sized chunks for his convenience. She was very careful with the measurements too, as funny as it was to see Zhen bloated from trying to swallow too much, they did have other things to do today. Eventually, all that was left as a piled fur and cracked bones. They had some value, but Gui like the marrow enough that she wasn't inclined to tell him no.

"While we're resting," Ling Qi said from her seat on a flat stone, sending the skin into her ring, along with her portion of the meat, for a later meal. "Have you been working hard on being small?"

Click to shrink...

If we look at these quotes we are reminded how incredibly expensive feeding zhengui is. A bear of such a height is absolutely guaranteed to weigh in excess of one metic ton. Its close to the size of an asian elephant (height: 2.75 m (9.0 ft) tall at the shoulder and weighing 4 tons). Even if we disregard the skin, the core and the bones of the bear, which all have value on their own, we are left with the meat. Considering that the bear was likely a mid to high second realm beast and the fact LQ, a 3rd realm cultivator, finds the meat delectable enough to cut herself a portion from the kill, we can assume that the meat has some value to cultivators.

Considering again that know that LQ and Xiulan pay a few RSS for tea, snacks and services, lets assume 3 rss for both of them(1,5 rss per person), it would not be unreasonable to price the meat at about 1 rss per kilogram. if we assume a weight of about 1250 kg (super low ball) and about 40 per cent of the weight being edible meat (which is a rule of thumb for game) we come to a total of 500 kg of edible meat. At 1 rss per kilogram thats 500 rss for all the meat. We basically fed zhengui a gss in meat alone. He also got the core and the bones. Feeding him is ridiculously expensive. We do this several times a week. Sometimes(like today) several times a day. Supporting a high quality spirit beast is really a chore.

He is worth of penny though. Zhengui for life.

 

[tricholysis]

Interesting, Ling Qi's "death" is a skeleton(which is normal), but Meizhen reflects as eyes in the Abyss. Which sounds like someone already called dibs on her soul? Or she's sufficiently beyond human that she's not going to die normally?

Click to shrink...

More likely IMO that her different appearance is a combination of her spirit ancestry and her new shadow-spirit. Since the latter literally becomes her shadow, I think it makes sense that it would affect her spiritually as well.

what with the Dragon being a river version

Click to shrink...

In China, dragons are water-based by default. The Dragon King lives at the bottom of the ocean, the usual depiction of them is doing their usual task of giving rain flying among the clouds, their treasure is a pearl and not gold, etc. Heizui is not a strange off-brand the way that Zhengui is. (His mother is an ocean spirit, too, I think.) If anyone has encountered a strange off-brand dragon, it's more likely to be Gu Tai.

 

[Dovahsith]

[X] Status Quo

 

[Ayashi]

But then, I think that everyone running around with flying swords is lame, so...

Click to shrink...

if you don't want everyone to go around with one, it needs to have a backdraw, and high material cost has already been sunk. Otherwise no matter how crappy the Domain Weapon is, it's always strictly better to have one than not. Even if it's a crappy 1DV, 10 dice , with 2HP and 1 Armor, it's still better than zero.

The most obvious backdraw would be it needing a Art(s). Hence costing meridians and time to train.

An other opption would be that you can use your domain with an other focus (for exemple your own body, giving you a dice bonus), or that using a flying weapon gives you a malus (ie: concentration malus ?)

 

[Klaus]

I like flying swords and I think they represent a cool and immediately the visible way to give a character a unique style.

Of course, as a support character we need domain weapons to be good because somebody in this party has to be dealing the damage and if our domain weapon isn't a good damage dealer we're going to have to DPS ourselves.

 

[Ayashi]

Of course, as a support character we need domain weapons to be good because somebody in this party has to be dealing the damage and if our domain weapon isn't a good damage dealer we're going to have to DPS ourselves.

Click to shrink...

I disagree; We could have a flying shield and use the time it buys us to slowly chip the target's life.

Or, arguably, we could use a flying harp and have double support effects on our minions, Zhengui and whoever else is in the party. Probably not optimal for the 1vs1 Tournament, but the soon to come military life should have us working in teams often.

 

[Klaus]

I disagree; We could have a flying shield and use the time it buys us to slowly chip the target's life.

Or, arguably, we could use a flying harp and have double support effects on our minions, Zhengui and whoever else is in the party. Probably not optimal for the 1vs1 Tournament, but the soon to come military life should have us working in teams often.

Click to shrink...

When someone as defensive as Meizhen tells you that you need offense, you need offense.

And if it isn't optimal for the tournament I'm not interested. That's just me though.

 

[Erebeal]

I like flying swords and I think they represent a cool and immediately the visible way to give a character a unique style.

Click to shrink...

My problem is the exact opposite - flying sword builds would be cool in isolation, but if everyone's using them then they aren't unique and interesting. Also, if a flying sword is just tacked on to someone who's actually doing something completely different (e.g. Meizhen) then it looks dumb. The guy standing back and throwing swords at people with telekinesis is cool. The guy getting into a sword fight and then randomly having a flying sword whizzing around in the background is just silly.

 

[PaperMache7]

[X] Accelerate

 

[A/N]

[X] Status Quo

Changing how things are planned, getting rid of minor actions that we use for mechanical benefit, seems like it will be messy and limiting.

I wouldn't mind updates being trimmed down with standard and common things being summarised, going back to one week covered per update or whatever, but I'm sure a lot of us wanted to use minor actions to build up to binding another spirit (dragon or muse), for one thing. Maybe just an additional vote on which character interaction or scene not to skim? QM knows best there anyway.

It would be simpler if there was a better planning format for advanced pacing than joining a bunch of weekly ones together and adding a ton of conditionals until we aren't scared of it going wrong, missing things, or anything else.

 

[Amperstand]

[X] Ask Cai to commission you a Domain Weapon with the Void Shard

Meizhen looked away, and Ling Qi noticed unsettlingly that it did not reflect her friend as a worn skeleton, but as a pair of greedy golden eyes, staring up from a pit of abyssal dark.

Click to shrink...

Interesting. It seems that while Ling Qi will eventually die, Meizhen will become immortal, although she may become a monster in the process. It reminds me of one of the themes of this quest, that although cultivators can achieve tremendous power and long life, it comes at the cost of their humanity. It also casts the later conversation about her family in a different light. The Bai clan is pretty terrible, and I'm starting to get the impression that Meizhen is less afraid of disappointing then she is of becoming just like them.

It also occurs to me that there is an interesting parallel between Meizhen and Cai. They are both girls who are being groomed by their families to be monsters, both in the sense of being powerful and in the sense of being inhuman. However, they react in opposite ways. Cai seems to have accepted her situation, but is nonetheless determined to make the best of things and strive after her ideals. Meizhen, on the other hand, would rather avoid her families cold-blooded lifestyle and live in peace, but doesn't really believe that's possible.

She toyed with the idea of bringing out the pod as well, but they were merely second grade seeds with a yin wood nature, hardly worth troubling her friend over, though they did seem to be alive still, despite their situation, which implied a certain hardiness. Perhaps she could plant them later, when she had a proper home to work with.

Click to shrink...

It actually concerns me that Ling Qi isn't bothering to learn more about the seeds. Given the unpleasantly entropic nature of the other items she fished out, it seems prudent to check and make sure they aren't, you know, dangerous. If she plants them out of curiosity and ends up unleashing a plague of Evil Corruption Death Weeds that desolate the ecosystem of her fief, I will be a little irked.

"I really do have to do some more research," Ling Qi sighed. Perhaps she could speak to Cai about that, learning from her would probably be more fruitful than poking through books on the matter, and she could pick up what the heiress thought of the various players.

Click to shrink...

That's a lead in to a Cai minor if I ever saw one.

"Nope, not going to let my friend develop bad habits," Ling Qi replied, crossing her arms playfully. "You're at least going to start coming out for some evening exercise with me. I don't want you getting pale and squishy on me."

Click to shrink...

I'm curious if this will be represented as a major or minor action, or if it's something that will automatically assumed to be happening in the background. Although I suppose if accelerate wins it will amount to the same thing.

 

[archangis]

Interesting. It seems that while Ling Qi will eventually die, Meizhen will become immortal,

Click to shrink...

Nah. If it could see wether someone would end up ascending it would be significantly more valuable than just 4th grade.

It probably just mean that in case of death, meizhen will become a spirit.

 

[Erebeal]

Changing how things are planned, getting rid of minor actions that we use for mechanical benefit, seems like it will be messy and limiting.

I wouldn't mind updates being trimmed down with standard and common things being summarised, going back to one week covered per update or whatever, but I'm sure a lot of us wanted to use minor actions to build up to binding another spirit (dragon or muse), for one thing. Maybe just an additional vote on which character interaction or scene not to skim? QM knows best there anyway.

Click to shrink...

How will the change affect that though? Like, if there's one character that I'm sure yrsillar isn't going to ignore it would be Sixiang given how much work he put into adding her and putting him on a timer this year. They clearly have a plotline that has to be covered now.

Smoothing out the story is hardly going to lose us anything there. What are these benefits that you're afraid of losing?

 

[Ayashi]

It also occurs to me that there is an interesting parallel between Meizhen and Cai. They are both girls who are being groomed by their families to be monsters, both in the sense of being powerful and in the sense of being inhuman. However, they react in opposite ways. Cai seems to have accepted her situation, but is nonetheless determined to make the best of things and strive after her ideals. Meizhen, on the other hand, would rather avoid her families cold-blooded lifestyle and live in peace, but doesn't really believe that's possible.

Click to shrink...

Meizhen isn't the Bai heir, or anywere near inheritence. She's just one of the, arguably, many members of the main family lucky enough to be somewhat close to a potentially major player in the family.

 

[OneArmedYeti]

Meizhen isn't the Bai heir, or anywere near inheritence. She's just one of the, arguably, many members of the main family lucky enough to be somewhat close to a potentially major player in the family.

Click to shrink...

While that's true, the impression I've gotten from the Bai is that the "heir" is less a hereditary position and more just the cousin that wins.

 

[A/N]

How will the change affect that though? Like, if there's one character that I'm sure yrsillar isn't going to ignore it would be Sixiang given how much work he put into adding her and putting him on a timer this year. They clearly have a plotline that has to be covered now.

Smoothing out the story is hardly going to lose us anything there. What are these benefits that you're afraid of losing?

Click to shrink...

Well, for example, Zhengui training in the Vale is a minor that isn't likely to get much screen time if things change, but should have mechanical effects of increasing his stats and skill, and combined with Ice Mom minors, could potentially result in us binding the dragon. Or trying to.

Sixiang was pretty blatantly forced into this. New Moon plotline suddenly became Dreaming, because reasons. The actual New Moon plot died without anything further beyond an aesthetic and effect for a flying sword that Cai would have gotten us anyway, some uncertain amount of money or defence for a fief over a year away, and some potentially useful/dangerous seeds that Ling Qi didn't investigate even though we kinda wanted her to. Dreaming Moon could have been an option any number of ways, but instead it subverted the New Moon plot. But that's off topic.

We could develop the Sixiang plot line to bind them, or let them pass on through. Now under a new system if we just let it be a character development arc it might be detrimental mechanically, because social time just eliminated the more mechanical minor actions.

'Smoothing out' shouldn't mean 'cutting out'. It's unclear to me that the less-social scenes that aren't chosen to be covered fully will still actually happen and have effect.

Meizhen, Su, other Su, Xiulan, Cai, Gui, Sixiang, Zhengui, Dragon, Ice Mom, Moon Mom, Dragon Mom, Mom-Mom, minions, Jian, Xuan, tutors, anything else I'm missing off the top of my head...

Three-week plans. An uncertain low number of the above each, is not appealing to me, especially not if it means we don't get any minor actions, just social preferences. Does it mean if we pick Xiulan and Cai, we can't try to bind Sixiang? Or that Zhengui doesn't train in the Vale with the dragon helping? Or that we don't finish the formations with Suyin? How about more silverblood pills from Su Ling? Or whatever else?

Some of these don't need that many lines to work just fine, but it seems to me that currently they'd be cut simply because we didn't want to expand their scenes.

It's the uncertainty more than anything, really. It would be better with more information.

The fact that it was originally going to be just voting for which characters had screen and social time, without a hint of subplots to pick, makes me nervous.

 

[Erebeal]

Three-week plans. An uncertain low number of the above each, is not appealing to me, especially not if it means we don't get any minor actions, just social preferences. Does it mean if we pick Xiulan and Cai, we can't try to bind Sixiang? Or that Zhengui doesn't train in the Vale with the dragon helping? Or that we don't finish the formations with Suyin? How about more silverblood pills from Su Ling? Or whatever else?

Click to shrink...

You seem to have misunderstood something somewhere, or gotten mixed up with the earlier arguments we had about going full closed door. We aren't losing actions here. Ling Qi is still going to do these things and hang out with her friends. She's still going to train Zhengui and play with Sixiang (assuming we don't vote to ignore her arc or something). We just won't be awkwardly getting fed miscellaneous scenes for everything week by week. Ling Qi is still going to have 5 (well 4 once tutoring gets going) minors-worth of activity a week.

And if we don't have enough actions to do everyone's plotlines then that's hardly something that this makes worse - we don't have the actions either way. Heck, if he tells us something like "here are the 5 arcs you could do - you only have time to do 3" then that is much better than our current position where we have no idea what's going on long term and could easily try to do everything at once and fail to finish any of them because we overreached. If spending too much time with Xiulan means we don't have time to spend time with Sixiang then that's an issue regardless.

 

[A/N]

You seem to have misunderstood something somewhere, or gotten mixed up with the earlier arguments we had about going full closed door. We aren't losing actions here. Ling Qi is still going to do these things and hang out with her friends. She's still going to train Zhengui and play with Sixiang (assuming we don't vote to ignore her arc or something). We just won't be awkwardly getting fed miscellaneous scenes for everything week by week. Ling Qi is still going to have 5 (well 4 once tutoring gets going) minors-worth of activity a week.

And if we don't have enough actions to do everyone's plotlines then that's hardly something that this makes worse - we don't have the actions either way. Heck, if he tells us something like "here are the 5 arcs you could do - you only have time to do 3" then that is much better than our current position where we have no idea what's going on long term and could easily try to do everything at once and fail to finish any of them because we overreached. If spending too much time with Xiulan means we don't have time to spend time with Sixiang then that's an issue regardless.

Click to shrink...

I could be wrong but it seemed that we'd lose all minors and instead get to pick some characters to interact with. That we'd just have our Major training actions to vote on, and mechanically that's it.

 

[A/N]

If folks vote for acceleration, you will get to vote for training plans, and I will choose minors myself to move along the remaining plot threads we still have at this point to write between the dice rolls and such. I will still give you guys input on which characters get the screentime though. You may also vote for your talisman as you can during all voting periods.

Click to shrink...

We don't get to pick minor actions.

Well given the split nature of the vote and the number of weeks I have left till tourney time, I figured I would give you two three week sections for training plans. Minors would instead have me throw out the names of characters who you would like to see Ling Qi interact with and have you guys do a bit of ranked voting to see who I should focus the most attention on. You won't be voting for a discreet number of minors with them though, just the level of attention and screen time to give them. My hope is that I can complete the this section by the end of may.

It's somewhat of a hybrid of how I intend to handle things in the sequel, with you guys voting for training plans over a time period, and picking out characters to focus on during 'events' sprinkled throughout the training period.

Click to shrink...

We don't get minor actions, and instead we get social screentime emphasis.

My issue (beyond the fact that voting for minor actions is basically the lifeblood of the quest in that they determine Ling Qi's social activities, it's mostly fine at this point because our QM is awesome and it'd be building on the choices we've made so far, and just for the the final stretch to the tournament), is that there are minor actions we'll want to take that we don't necessarily want to spend a more limited social emphasis slot on.

 

[Erebeal]

I could be wrong but it seemed that we'd lose all minors and instead get to pick some characters to interact with. That we'd just have our Major training actions to vote on, and mechanically that's it.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, the point wasn't that Ling Qi wouldn't be doing those actions anymore - it's that the process would be streamlined and looked at over a longer term than just week by week.

I agree that there there are question marks around implementation though. It's also interestingly fiddly around the next few weeks due to Sable Light. Since our plan is to have two weeks of closed door tutor there we'll have very limited room for social. And our obligations to Cai, Zhengui, and Mother will basically fill up all of that. Hence, over the next 3 weeks the amount of longer character arcs that can be explored is pretty limited. While we can do more stuff in the third week, that's only a single week. In that sense, it might be better to treat that week as more of a "quantum" week or something where we are assumed to talk to our friends and to have laid any necessary ground work (such as, idk, Sixiang befriending or Suyin formations) that is needed for the plots/characters we choose in the 3 weeks after that.

Hmm, gonna be interesting.

 

[A/N]

Yeah, the point wasn't that Ling Qi wouldn't be doing those actions anymore - it's that the process would be streamlined and looked at over a longer term than just week by week.

I agree that there there are question marks around implementation though. It's also interestingly fiddly around the next few weeks due to Sable Light. Since our plan is to have two weeks of closed door tutor there we'll have very limited room for social. And our obligations to Cai, Zhengui, and Mother will basically fill up all of that. Hence, over the next 3 weeks the amount of longer character arcs that can be explored is pretty limited. While we can do more stuff in the third week, that's only a single week. In that sense, it might be better to treat that week as more of a "quantum" week or something where we are assumed to talk to our friends and to have laid any necessary ground work (such as, idk, Sixiang befriending or Suyin formations) that is needed for the plots/characters we choose in the 3 weeks after that.

Hmm, gonna be interesting.

Click to shrink...

A few weeks of closed door training could be covered in a single update. That would certainly streamline things.

It would be much more palatable and understandable if we kept all our actions, and just voted on which one or two social things not to skim.

 

[Erebeal]

We don't get minor actions, and instead we get social screentime emphasis.

My issue (beyond the fact that voting for minor actions is basically the lifeblood of the quest in that they determine Ling Qi's social activities, it's mostly fine at this point because our QM is awesome and it'd be building on the choices we've made so far, and just for the the final stretch to the tournament), is that there are minor actions we'll want to take that we don't necessarily want to spend a more limited social emphasis slot on.

Click to shrink...

Ok, yeah. That's a good point. I would agree that there are things like, for instance, Zhengui training which are super important but don't necessarily need a lot of screen-time (just like cultivation).

Personally, I feel that screen time should be separated from that and left to the judgement of @yrsillar as to how to write the story best. We should just be voting on what we feel is most important to prioritise in terms of Ling Qi's actions and time.

Edit:
That being said, there are really two main minors that are a problem like this: Zhengui and Suyin. This is not a coincidence. I would argue that at this point both of them should be Majors. Zhengui training should become a major where we can cultivate at the same time (like with Golden Fields, we can cultivate and do stuff at the same time, and he needs the practical experience). Suyin formations should be a formations training major. We've had enough freebees at this point - it's time for yrsillar to make us do some work of our own if we want to get our minions up and running for the tournament.

 

[A/N]

Ok, yeah. That's a good point. I would agree that there are things like, for instance, Zhengui training which are super important but don't necessarily need a lot of screen-time (just like cultivation).

Personally, I feel that screen time should be separated from that and left to the judgement of @yrsillar as to how to write the story best. We should just be voting on what we feel is most important to prioritise in terms of Ling Qi's actions and time.

Edit:
That being said, there are really two main minors that are a problem like this: Zhengui and Suyin. This is not a coincidence. I would argue that at this point both of them should be Majors. Zhengui training should become a major where we can cultivate at the same time (like with Golden Fields, we can cultivate and do stuff at the same time, and he needs the practical experience). Suyin formations should be a formations training major. We've had enough freebees at this point - it's time for yrsillar to make us do some work of our own if we want to get our minions up and running for the tournament.

Click to shrink...

Exactly! My first point is that our Beloved QM can streamline things without taking away choices. Non-dramatic actions can be skimmed and summarised.

Honestly, "the rest of the week passed in a blur of cultivation, meeting and training with friends, honing their arts and abilities" covers a great many things and frees up space for whatever subplots yrsillar thinks best. Maybe not that extreme though lol.

Zhengui training in the Vale should just happen when we cultivate there anyway. Honestly, we leave him alone at home often enough, maybe once they bond a little more (or we bind him) we could let him continue training there while we do other things. Have to leave him with a stash of food though heh.

Suyin, eh. It doesn't feel like their sessions take up more than a single bit of time, not enough to justify what is essentially a +24 hour period spread out over the week. She's pretty busy too.

I'm more concerned about little things that can't be majors, but are still useful, being left out because they aren't important social events.