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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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Erebeal said:
So, on a completely different topic I was thinking about the future. People focus a lot on our progression for obvious reasons, but in many ways the biggest challenge we'll have long term might not be our cultivation, but rather our ability to actually hold our status.

The big challenge with noble families is being able to reliably produce cultivators of the appropriate level. To be a stable baronal clan you need to be reliably producing Greens at the very least. To be a stable Viscount clan you need to be able to reliably Indigos.

It's easy to forget given how talented we are, but Ling Qi is abnormal. We should not expect many in our family to be as talented as us. If Biyu reaches Cyan she'll be doing well. And our kids? Many of them will probably never get beyond Green.

Now, to make sure you're a stable Viscount clan you're probably going to want to be producing an Indigo at least once every 200 years or so. Once a century would be ideal, but that's harder. Problem here though is that you can't rely on kids being talented enough to reach that. Ultimately it's a lottery.

Now, let's assume that we're rich enough to get everyone to Green as a baseline. Realistically, you're going to have several times as many people in Green as Cyan. Sort of pulling numbers out of my ass, if you're doing well you might have, say, 3 Greens for every Cyan you produce. This will then repeat again for Cyan to Indigo - probably with worse falloff given that getting people through Cyan would strain the clan's resources more.

tldr; if we want to make sure our family is reliably Viscount, then we and Biyu should probably have at least a dozen kids before the end of our second century in order to give us decent odds of producing a second Indigo to be our heir. And that's arguably being optimistic.

This is, of course, one of the big difficulties in establishing and upgrading noble families. You need to not just be able to support the increasingly expensive cultivation of your top dudes, but also be able to keep producing potentials.
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Yeah, a mix of lottery and significant investment in each case, as it's not impossible for a Talent 4 kid to do much better than a Talent 6 kid. I'd say that the minimum for reliably Viscount is an Indigo every 300 years (so when a clan head reach 450+ their heirs can reach indigo), but ultimately you want a spare, so every 200 years is much better, and every 100 years is ideal.

My personal impression is that for every Cyan you have 10 green, and for every indigo you have 20 cyans... which does make things extremely hard for a new clan to reach Indigo without some extreme consecutive luck. So if we want to even have a chance for someone to get to Indigo in our lifetime in the clan without extreme cheating, we want 300+ kids in the clan in the next 400 years. So, not only would Biyu and Ling Qi need a dozen kids in the next 200 years, but those two dozen kids would also need a dozen kids in the following 200 years.

It's not impossible, but... yeah, it's not great at all.
 
Arkeus said:
My personal impression is that for every Cyan you have 10 green, and for every indigo you have 20 cyans... which does make things extremely hard for a new clan to reach Indigo without some extreme consecutive luck. So if we want to even have a chance for someone to get to Indigo in our lifetime in the clan without extreme cheating, we want 300+ kids in the clan in the next 400 years. So, not only would Biyu and Ling Qi need a dozen kids in the next 200 years, but those two dozen kids would also need a dozen kids in the following 200 years.
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Well, I don't think it's that bad. While, yeah, I think there is likely a 10fold drop-off across realms throughout the empire, the distribution of that is going to be highly skewed. Like, a lot of the greens will be baronial families who just don't have the resources to go further. So you have lots of families with plenty of Greens, but no Cyans. Then you have, say, count families who can get a lot of people to cyan. So while overall it might average out to only 1/10 Greens getting to cyan, for the people who actually have lots of resources the ratio will be a lot lower.

But yeah, the point that just stabilising at viscount is hard enough is clear regardless I'd say. And my feeling is that we're ambitious enough to want to be aiming for count. Which means reliable Violets. Which means, I'd say, that we need to be able to produce Indigos at about 1 every 50 years.
 
Erebeal said:
Well, I don't think it's that bad. While, yeah, I think there is likely a 10fold drop-off across realms throughout the empire, the distribution of that is going to be highly skewed. Like, a lot of the greens will be baronial families who just don't have the resources to go further. So you have lots of families with plenty of Greens, but no Cyans.
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I mean, Barronial families are still "Green under 20 is considered a good potential Heir"... which implies they are expecting their clan head to get to Cyan. So they probably do have 2/3 cyans, though not many.

Good point though about the ratio of green/cyan/indigo being very different in a viscount house and a count house. It's likely that a count house main branch can expect to get to Cyan sometimes in their lives, while only the best of a viscount houses can expect that.
 
Realistically, it's a lot easier to raise people up to "The Furthest Progression -1" of a noble household though.

First and foremost being how spirit stones and other things explode in cost so heavily--so that someone who can afford to Cultivate at Fifth Realm for instance is going to find raising up Third Realms to be basically pocket change. (I suspect GSS are the Imperial Standard like how we use RSS as our income).

Even going beyond that, someone who's Fifth Realm has explored a particular Way down a good direction, enough that they can provide valuable insight to the people who come after them. Not enough to just copy you straight across--but there's enough to be learned that someone can take significant inspiration from it.

That's probably why the Viscount rank is something that requires Indigo--because Barons are effectively only able to raise up Third Realms--and only a handful of them at that (Because GSS are still expensive even at Cyan). It's not until Fifth Realm that you can reasonably expect to have a handful of Fourths in your retinue as well--which is the big distinction of rank when you get right down to it. A Baron has to basically focus on one thing to be relevant--a Viscount can afford to diversify.

It does explain a great deal about how all the trials to be recognized as Heir work out. Give everyone equal investment at the start, and the one who has the best Work Ethic to Talent ratio gets the nod.
 
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I mean, lets see (100-30)/(12) = 6+ average years between children. That's doable if a huge time investment, because we will literally always have a young child from 30 or so on. We will have a real choice between cultivation and furthering our family because a 5 or 10 year break would mean either not having a kid or being absent for their entire childhood. And between treating our children as independent people or tools of the house, because this a huge commitment that we will be asking from our children to produce enough grandchildren.

Having twins/polish twins or triplets or like a kid every other year for a decade or two early probably both lets us be more involved and reduces the pressure on our children.

Established houses only need something like 2-5 kids per couple per century.

Can you tell I'm up late with nothing better to do?
 
Well the thing you guys have to remember is over this time period our kids will also be having kids. even if it only starts after 50 years which sounds like a good conservative guess, then we can do this:

Us and Biyu have 1 child at 50 years from now, total four Ling Clan.

100 years from now each of the four Ling Clan have a kid, total eight Ling Clan.

150 years from now each of eight Ling Clan have a kid, total sixteen Ling Clan.

200 years from now each of the sixteen Ling Clan have a kid, 32 Ling Clan.

250 years, 64 Ling Clan.

300 years, 128 Ling Clan.

Now at this point the less talented Greens may start to die off so won't be quite as exponential any more (but still increasing very fast). There's also the fact talent may get diluted as it goes on and people may marry out of the Clan. But people are also likely to have more than one child every 50 years on average, and even here there's a good chance one of our or Biyu's hundred+ descendants could reach Indigo.

Now we'll still likely want to have more children so that the average talent is higher, but the point is we don't have to math it out, figure out how many people would be needed to get another Indigo in 300 years and personally birth them.

This also shows how by the end of the quest there's a good chance we'll already have hundreds if not thousands of descendants. A millennia is a long time. We might pull a Shenhua of course and wait ages to have a bare few descendants, but this seems to be a common route, which makes it unlikely for those hoping for a small, close family. I would be surprised if any of our great grandchildren or further away got more than a couple lines of dialogue in the story, which will end up being the vast majority of our relatives, excepting for those few fortunate high talents which we would end up cultivating to be the next generation of pillars for the clan.
 
One thing that I took as a great sign was ling qi ability to put new stuff into her soul. Being able to modify your dantain like that on a whim can't be normal. I imagine that most people need a senior alnog the path of cultivation in order to pull off what she just did. It brings me hope that she will be amazing at creating new arts if she has such a sense and grasp of qi flows now.
 
Alectai said:
That's probably why the Viscount rank is something that requires Indigo--because Barons are effectively only able to raise up Third Realms--and only a handful of them at that (Because GSS are still expensive even at Cyan). It's not until Fifth Realm that you can reasonably expect to have a handful of Fourths in your retinue as well--which is the big distinction of rank when you get right down to it. A Baron has to basically focus on one thing to be relevant--a Viscount can afford to diversify.
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I think maybe the main reason why the cut off is at Indigo for viscount is because greens can progress on yellow stones (though need GSS for better arts), and cyans can progress on GSS... and GSS are still buyable on the market. However, an house that that an Indigo would need their head to have access to ressources not available on the market at all to cultivate.

This, to me, means that an Indigo clan needs to actually have solid alliances and connections in order to do any sort of progress. They have passed the threshold of "can hopefully make do with the imperial market" and are now in the "need to trade favours with the other high nobles to do anything". So they contribute to the imperial power.

This is also why Ai Xiaoli is in early indigo only, because each Indigo you cultivate is an immense drain on ressources.
Nolrai said:
I mean, lets see (100-30)/(12) = 6+ average years between children. That's doable if a huge time investment, because we will literally always have a young child from 30 or so on. We will have a real choice between cultivation and furthering our family because a 5 or 10 year break would mean either not having a kid or being absent for their entire childhood. And between treating our children as independent people or tools of the house, because this a huge commitment that we will be asking from our children to produce enough grandchildren.
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Yeah, that's why I think a dozen kids in the next couple century, not next century. A kid every 15 or so years is fine.
 
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Kai Merah said:
Don't forget Su Ling's mom, who has apparently been killing folks for centuries without being stopped, because she's careful to pick her targets and move on before the authorities can kick up much fuss.
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Neshuakadal said:
She is also a spirit beast and thus follows very different norms than humans. If it was a human going around doing that then people would band together to stop it as soon as possible because they don't want other people getting that idea. Since it's just a spirit beast though people will eventually get to dealing with her, eventually, when there is time.
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Spirit beasts actually have it WORSE off.
A Cyan Huang scion draining mortals to death for a cultivation boost is overlooked(and even protected from retribution) if they make sure theres' reasonable deniability.
A Cyan fox spirit eating mortals is usually hunted down as soon as enough people going missing to call in a Cyan cultivator to kill it for talismans and drugs.

The old fox bitch knows this which is why she makes sure to hunt JUST enough people that the local authorities never bothered to go call in help before the fox is gone from the area. She's survived this long by dint of being too much effort to hunt down and presumably too cunning to actually hunt in the personal fief of any cultivator strong enough to deal with her.

Neshuakadal said:
One thing that I took as a great sign was ling qi ability to put new stuff into her soul. Being able to modify your dantain like that on a whim can't be normal. I imagine that most people need a senior alnog the path of cultivation in order to pull off what she just did. It brings me hope that she will be amazing at creating new arts if she has such a sense and grasp of qi flows now.
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Naw, basically everyone does it all the time. Its what Art passives do. Its where the vast numbers of shitty arts come from as people bash together a message coherent enough to teach someone else.

Ling Qi's talent here is that she did it at Green 1. Not that she could do it at all.
Arkeus said:
I think maybe the main reason why the cut off is at Indigo for viscount is because greens can progress on yellow stones (though need GSS for better arts), and cyans can progress on GSS... and GSS are still buyable on the market. However, an house that that an Indigo would need their head to have access to ressources not available on the market at all to cultivate.

This, to me, means that an Indigo clan needs to actually have solid alliances and connections in order to do any sort of progress. They have passed the threshold of "can hopefully make do with the imperial market" and are now in the "need to trade favours with the other high nobles to do anything". So they contribute to the imperial power.

This is also why Ai Xiaoli is in early indigo only, because each Indigo you cultivate is an immense drain on ressources.

Yeah, that's why I think a dozen kids in the next couple century, not next century. A kid every 15 or so years is fine.
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That makes sense. You can sustain a Barony on the strength of just being badass and beating up spirits for stuff you can flog for Green Stones, but anything higher takes politics to acquire. Hell, we know high noble clans are careful about being TOO generous to their vassals and raising a competitor.

Theres ways around that, but as a general rule of thumb they're going to stall out unless they hitched their wagon to a winning one.
 
veekie said:
Naw, basically everyone does it all the time. Its what Art passives do. Its where the vast numbers of shitty arts come from as people bash together a message coherent enough to teach someone else.

Ling Qi's talent here is that she did it at Green 1. Not that she could do it at all.
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Art passives benefit from the structured use of meridians. Ling Qi's insight, near as I can tell, is not part of an art. In the current system, that means it's not associated with any particular meridian. Swapping meridian usage isn't instant either, even with matching elements and meridians, switching Arts takes a short while of focus.
 
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veekie said:
Naw, basically everyone does it all the time. Its what Art passives do. Its where the vast numbers of shitty arts come from as people bash together a message coherent enough to teach someone else.

Ling Qi's talent here is that she did it at Green 1. Not that she could do it at all
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That is what I was talking about. The fact that ling qi can do something like this at green 1 without anyone helping her. I think that is pretty huge.
 
Or it is another one of those things that "everyone" knows about and is easy to learn, but no one bothered to tell LQ and other commoners about it.
 
veekie said:
100% this. The target audience is mostly youths who chafe at the idea of a system where they have to give way to some smug rich asshole because his family is rich.
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It's part that and part that "young masters" are written as ones that just use their family status to do anything they want to lower status people without consequences.
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There is certain truth about that.
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Incidentally that means that there is no point to adhere to face system with them as you will suffer either way so you may as well to drag them down with you. "They lost their mandate" situation essentially.
 
al103 said:
It's part that and part that "young masters" are written as ones that just use their family status to do anything they want to lower status people without consequences.
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There is certain truth about that.
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Incidentally that means that there is no point to adhere to face system with them as you will suffer either way so you may as well to drag them down with you. "They lost their mandate" situation essentially.
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Its basically the Shonen Violence Solution in a much more grudge intensive environment
 
Aze said:
Really think that people throw the word 'fascism' a little too much, fascisme is explicitly a form of populism using militarism and nationalism to establish its powerbase, not something that should be used to describe a the politic environment of a multi ethnic Empire that spent 30k years being a feudalistic wet dream, it really seems like you are just using buzz words because you really don't like the Cai path without knowing anything behind them

what you could have said is that Shenhua wants to build an absolute monarchy/totalitarianism gouvernement, I would have agreed with that since it is basically true but totalitarianism =/= fascism, and really CRX's all thing is that she doesn't want to follow in her Mother's footsteep without even talking about the fact that "fight against corruption" type of speech isn't a fascist things, everyone used it at one point, from the American Revolution to the French Revolution, you are just equating 'trying to motivate people against the very real injustice of the society they live in' to the Hitler youth.
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Thank you.
I was actually about to post, but this sums up everything I wanted to say and more.
Fully agree with you.
 
Wow. This boss fight seem to be getting a mostly consolidated vote. Nice.

Just hope we can pull it off without any long term after effects.
 
veekie said:
That makes sense. You can sustain a Barony on the strength of just being badass and beating up spirits for stuff you can flog for Green Stones, but anything higher takes politics to acquire. Hell, we know high noble clans are careful about being TOO generous to their vassals and raising a competitor.

Theres ways around that, but as a general rule of thumb they're going to stall out unless they hitched their wagon to a winning one.
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The highest rank you can reach with cultivation alone is viscount, iirc. (Indigo)

that would make the holding a county, I believe?
 
Briefvoice said:
Piggybacking off your post, I don't feel like I have a good idea how common intra-Empire violence is in the Forge of Destiny.

If a Cultivator gets killed is it a huge scandal where the MoI is going to find the culprit and punish them unless they hid they tracks real well? Or is people dying in inter-clan feuds just "business as usual" and it's expected that you'll pick some bodies off the ground every month or so from Cultivators who get into a beef with each other and decided to settle it with a duel? How Wild West/Warring States Era is it out there?

I could see this going a lot of different ways. Maybe fighting in civilized lands is verboten, but we know that spending time fighting off spirit beasts in the wilderness is a job most of them have to do. Two cultivators who hate each other go out into the woods, only one comes back, MoI stamps "killed by spirit beast" on the appropriate forms.

Or has the story been explicit about this and I missed it?
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Okay, this is kind of a complex question when you get down to it. Basically, the stronger imperial authority is in an area, the more frowned on it is. Emperor An was a pretty terrifying guy, but in the end the MoI is still a relatively young institution(even if it is older than a a fair number of modern nation states) and as such, it's authority and reach is still strongly centered in the imperial province and major cities. The further out into the boonies you go, the less contact and influence they have. So there's a couple different scenarios here.

Murder in the streets is illegal. If two cultivators start a fight in the middle of a city they're both going to get arrested and punished, same if they pick their fight anywhere inhabited, in theory. Remember what Cai Renxiang said, it's a cultivators duty to protect mortals, this is an almost religious thing and sure it's gotten really twisted in some senses, and many many cultivators care very little about it personally, but wrecking a bunch of mortal shit because of a petty tiff is still regarded socially with roughly the same disdain you'd see for a couple of guys who got into a shootout in the middle of a daycare.

Now actually official duels are different, if enmity between individuals or clans is great enough they might arrange a duel between two individuals, which might even have lethal consequences. The difference is this will be supervised by a ranking member of the Ministry of Law and take place in a controlled environment after a whole bunch of legal contracts are signed regarding the conditions of the duel and the results.

And while it can be very difficult to kill a cultivator quietly... some people still have 'accidents' while they're out hunting or whatnot, as long as it doesn;t disrupt society too much, that sort of thing gets left to the local authorities to deal with unless. Anything that happens in the vicinity of the imperial court being obviously excepted.

In any case, I'm locking up, can I get the tally?
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Thor's Twin on Sep 4, 2018 at 10:02 AM, finished with 358 posts and 61 votes.
  • [X] Plan Penultimate Boss Fight
    -[X] Begin by using Twilight Beauty and expressing both Zhengui and the Horror, use your new insight, GCD, your Fairy Flower headpiece, and all the techniques of TRF you can apply to survive the first turn. In addition, abuse the obstacle-rich environment to break contact with Liling whenever possible throughout the fight. Zhengui and the Horror are to buff and heal with Ashfall in the initial stages, until Dhartiri arises from ambush from one of the trees or massive roots that fill the area. Those two are to engage her then, keep her distracted as you finish layering IPF, SEA, and the rest of your defenses. Use the Cai technique upon Dhartiri next, in conjunction with Pressure Crack and follow this strike up with your mightiest Hoarfrost Caress. Use it again repeatedly until Dharitri expires, then grab Zhengui and the Horror, and use the Red String escape talisman to flee and reset the terms of the fight. Heal as you can, prepare FVM up to Traveler's End and refresh your defenses. Without her spirit, Sun Liling will never be able to find you within your mists, so go wild. Throw everything you can at her to drag out the battle and with it her secrets for the sake of your Lady and best friend in the fight to come.
    --[X] There's an outside possibility that, since Elder Jiao was the one to create this formation space, it may share terrain features from that of your Trial with Xiulan. If thats the case, think of familiar locations you can use to your advantage when you use the escape talisman. Every bit of terrain you know better than Sun Liling is one you can turn towards your advantage. Especially that lake.
    ... and 14 more.
    -[x] Plan Play To Your Strengths
    - [x] Use Scarlet Thread immediately
    - [x] Move away from Sun Liling and look for good defensive terrain
    - [x] While running away and once you find your spot, brace for an assault
    - [x] Once Zhengui, the crow construct, defensive techs, and FVM + Traveler's End are up, wait for Liling or her spirit to show
    - [x] Focus fire on the first available target with HC + Cai card, then play things by ear
    [X] Plan Penultimate Boss Fight
    -[X] Begin by using Twilight Beauty and expressing both Zhengui and the Horror, use your new insight, GCD, your Fairy Flower headpiece, and all the techniques of TRF you can apply to survive the first turn. Zhengui and the Horror are to buff and heal with Ashfall in the initial stages, until Dhartiri arises from ambush from one of the trees or massive roots that fill the area. Those two are to engage her then, keep her distracted as you finish layering IPF, SEA, and the rest of your defenses. Use the Cai technique upon Dhartiri next, in conjunction with Pressure Crack and follow this strike up with your mightiest Hoarfrost Caress. Use it again repeatedly until Dharitri expires, then grab Zhengui and the Horror, and use the Red String escape talisman to flee and reset the terms of the fight. Heal as you can, prepare FVM up to Traveler's End and refresh your defenses. Without her spirit, Sun Liling will never be able to find you within your mists, so go wild. Throw everything you can at her to drag out the battle and with it her secrets for the sake of your Lady and best friend in the fight to come.
    [x]plan prepared alpha stike
    -[X] Buy the Scarlet Thread
    -[x]First turn use Scarlet Thread and 10 ring defense to downgrade aggravated.
    -[x]have Zhengui heal us well we buff up and summon allies.
    -[x]loop back around and gank Dharitri with everyone.
    [X] Plan Destroying armours and constructs with a 1 in 10 000 000 chance silver bullet
    -[X] First establish your and Zhengui's unbreakable defences by both using the more potent fortress techniques and dancing like the shadows you are, helped by the beauty of twilight, the horror and your new pin's ability. Once that is accomplished, switch to our strategy of hopefully destroying our opponent's constructs and succeed in an attrition strategy. Between the Breath of the Stygian Depths, Dissonance of Night's Terror, Ashfall, Hoarfross Caress and CRX's granted tech it could be possible deconstruct our opponents weapons and armour as quickly as she can summon them, especially if we bring down Liling's defences low enough for Thunderous Retort to be applicable. If possible, tag Dhartiri with Elegy of the lost so that she cannot empower Liling any more and complete Traveller's End, though CRX's tech might be needed for that. If it succeeds, Zhengui being on healing duty, the horror refreshing deepwood vitality early on and then Ling Qi doing the same as well as adding to our defences could turn this into an attrition game where our opponent will never be able to leverage their own abilities, especially as the Jungle should be an optimal terrain for our dance.
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We sink or swim together. Just ignore those who voted differently. Tell them the boat cant hold more people or something.

And I-eeeeeiiiii will always love youuuuu-
 
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