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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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Eh, don't read too much into a given set of skills, any more than Blaster prescribes Heaven/Fire.
Even if he were Moon, Guiding is the wrong Moon. Hidden Moon is the Archeology(or looting) Moon, where you discover secrets lost to time.

If you were looking at 'pure' Divination, then it's Heavens.
If you were looking at psychometry, then its Metal, Earth(Imperial, not Traditional), Mountain.
If you were looking at secrets then its Darkness, Hidden Moon, or for a suitably esoteric one, Time/History.
If you were looking at Revelation, then its Guiding Moon, Heavens, Light, and Mountain

The Moons are relatively rare elements, so should not be the first conclusion you leap to for a Historian. Sure its beneficial to be one, but its not nearly prescriptive.
 
That actually is a good question, how rare are Moon Cultivators? As in, people who cultivate EPC and it's variants. We know that the Moon is certainly a major Great Spirit, but that doesn't necessarily mean that people dedicate their cultivation to them frequently, or that the Moon extends it's favor easily. We already know that in the Argent Peak Sect, which is located in a province that seems to have quite the history of Moon Worship, there are only three disciples in the entire sect that dedicate their cultivation to the Moon, including us. And this isn't even getting into the potential distribution of cultivators under any given phase of the Moon, given that we ourselves had trouble finding info on the Dreaming and Mother Moons as they were noted to be rarely relevant to cultivators. So it really does interest me to learn more about the Moons and their presence in the Empire, or even beyond. After all, the Moon is one of the first Great Spirits in the world made by the Mother and Father, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are barbarian tribes that worship or revere them.
 
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Well, the sample size is small, but we have reason to think the following:
-The Sun and Moon cults/cultivators are the oldest of the Empire. They in fact, predate the Imperial Era and the Dragon Era. The known families who make Sun and Moon parts of their cultivation are the Xuan, Lu and Weilu, of which two have only branch remnants.
-Elements of the Moon, particularly Grinning and Bloody have been recently(by cultivator terms anyway) 'rebranded', which the normal process I'm aware of involves an ascending White to make it stick.
-The Moon doesn't restrict who can follow them(we asked yrsillar, Ling Qi is free to teach EPC if she chooses), but following the Moon path is not common. The Xuan have their own thing rather than EPC
--Incidentally it seems that EPC might actually be rare because walking the Phases is rare. The Xuan seem to do fine doing a Guiding Moon only thing?
-Moon Quests points to the Moon having Live Dangerously as a thing. Every mission so far pushed us to our limits, and involved major risks even in the protected Sect environment. We tweaked the nose of a cultivator in Green 2 back in Yellow. We went to a rave where we took a thimbleful of a drug which Violets use(presumably in significantly larger amounts) to get blitzed. We went to a cave and fished loot out of liquid death.

So two secondary derivative conclusions:
-'True' Moon cultivation is rare, because most cultivators specialize early. EPC is a difficult path to follow for a specialist, if you follow the Bloody Moon and the Reflecting Moons, you're going to need arts to both be a great socialite AND assassin. Which is going to tend to give you an elemental/domain configuration that has observers asking you "what the heck are you trying to build to be?" because you switch from mask to mask.

-Moon(and Sun, given what we know of Xiulan's career path) has a Burn Bright Or Burn Out approach to cultivation, as befits paths set in the pre-civilization era where the slow and steady approach isn't really viable. A risky and demanding path, many who walk it tend to fall off.
 
veekie said:
The Moons are relatively rare elements, so should not be the first conclusion you leap to for a Historian. Sure its beneficial to be one, but its not nearly prescriptive.
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It's not the set of skills but the mindset behind it.

I'm not saying that he's a moon cultivator, people keep bringing up arts and elements and I don't recall mentioning them. What I remember saying was that his skill with divination and history meant that when he went to talk to a moon spirit that shared the same interests they would actually be willing to provide quotes about the past that could go in his paper. I might have been wrong about which phase of the moon that would be but unless you know a spirit other then the Sun and the Moon that can provide a first hand account of Genesis and is both still around and not going to kill any humans it sees he has to have found a way to talk to one of them.
 
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veekie said:
Well, the sample size is small, but we have reason to think the following:
-The Sun and Moon cults/cultivators are the oldest of the Empire. They in fact, predate the Imperial Era and the Dragon Era. The known families who make Sun and Moon parts of their cultivation are the Xuan, Lu and Weilu, of which two have only branch remnants.
-Elements of the Moon, particularly Grinning and Bloody have been recently(by cultivator terms anyway) 'rebranded', which the normal process I'm aware of involves an ascending White to make it stick.
-The Moon doesn't restrict who can follow them(we asked yrsillar, Ling Qi is free to teach EPC if she chooses), but following the Moon path is not common. The Xuan have their own thing rather than EPC
--Incidentally it seems that EPC might actually be rare because walking the Phases is rare. The Xuan seem to do fine doing a Guiding Moon only thing?
-Moon Quests points to the Moon having Live Dangerously as a thing. Every mission so far pushed us to our limits, and involved major risks even in the protected Sect environment. We tweaked the nose of a cultivator in Green 2 back in Yellow. We went to a rave where we took a thimbleful of a drug which Violets use(presumably in significantly larger amounts) to get blitzed. We went to a cave and fished loot out of liquid death.

So two secondary derivative conclusions:
-'True' Moon cultivation is rare, because most cultivators specialize early. EPC is a difficult path to follow for a specialist, if you follow the Bloody Moon and the Reflecting Moons, you're going to need arts to both be a great socialite AND assassin. Which is going to tend to give you an elemental/domain configuration that has observers asking you "what the heck are you trying to build to be?" because you switch from mask to mask.

-Moon(and Sun, given what we know of Xiulan's career path) has a Burn Bright Or Burn Out approach to cultivation, as befits paths set in the pre-civilization era where the slow and steady approach isn't really viable. A risky and demanding path, many who walk it tend to fall off.
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That does seem to make sense, that the various Moon Phases are both worshiped and cultivated individually across the Empire due to it's age, but very few people cultivate (and possibly worship, given it's rather hard to worship an everchanging Spirit without solidifying it at least somewhat) the Moon in it's entirety. Or to summarize, plenty of people worship and or call upon the Moon Phases, but few people actually worship or cultivate the Moon.

What I'd also like to know are how rare Whole Moon cultivators are, as well as the rarity of the two Gibbous Phases. We know that Cultivators rarely call upon them, so does that mean they are primarily worshiped by Mortals? Or are they just rare period? Given the nature of Cultivation in general, I suppose it's not surprising that the Moon of Aesthetics and the Moon of Love and Life aren't popular amongst a class who traditionally serve as protective guardians, given a sacred duty to protect mortals. But I can't help but wonder just how rare they are. Like, if someone who knew their Moon Lore saw us slinging around PLR, an art that seems heavily associated with the Dreaming Moon, how surprised would they be? Given how Cultivation under the Gibbous Phases seems uncommon, I would imagine that arts associated with them are equally uncommon. Really, there just seems to be a lot about the Moon that we as the players don't know. Not surprising, given it's themes, but it would be nice to have an interlude that drops some background and exposition on the Moon and it's Phases, as well as their influence on the Empire, and cultivator culture in specific.
 
It'd really surprise me if a Great Spirit as a whole (rather than parts like Xin) cared about the accuracy of a mortal history.
 
George said:
It'd really surprise me if a Great Spirit as a whole (rather than parts like Xin) cared about the accuracy of a mortal history.
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Cared? No... but you could likely convince it to help, given appropriate inducements. It's not so much that it cares about the accuracy of mortal history in general, but it might well be convinced to care about the quest of a cultivator seeking to write a mortal history.

Or at least, that's my read on the moon side of things. In a more general sense, the process of becoming a Great Spirit involves following your Way to the end. The Great Spirits are eclectic in what they choose to care about. If the author of this particular text managed to transcend, for example, I'd imagine that he *would* care about the accuracy of mortal history. It's possible that he wouldn't really care about anything else.
 
Sirrocco said:
Cared? No... but you could likely convince it to help, given appropriate inducements. It's not so much that it cares about the accuracy of mortal history in general, but it might well be convinced to care about the quest of a cultivator seeking to write a mortal history.

Or at least, that's my read on the moon side of things. In a more general sense, the process of becoming a Great Spirit involves following your Way to the end. The Great Spirits are eclectic in what they choose to care about. If the author of this particular text managed to transcend, for example, I'd imagine that he *would* care about the accuracy of mortal history. It's possible that he wouldn't really care about anything else.
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That sounds reasonable enough, but that's not quite what I was arguing against. I'm saying they aren't going to provide a comment or vision with info not otherwise available anywhere, as the inducements possible are far more limited than for Sublime Ancestors who retain a physical presence on the mortal plane.
 
Note, rare in an Empire this size still means theres likely at least tens of thousands of practitioners.

So look to the phases again:
-Hidden Moon - Scholars, explorers, tomb raiders and spies. Unsurprisingly cultivators of the Hidden Moon tend to keep a low profile, but I dare say theres a lot of them out there in the Ministry of Integrity and elsewhere.

-Grinning Moon - Tricksters, thieves, rebranding also had them include military (and maybe political maneuvers) of cleverness and misdirection as well. Sounds reasonably common to specialize into, though it may not be advertised as such.

-Bloody Moon - Assassins, violence done by surprise, retribution, rebranding had them include Justice. Pretty likely to feature in law enforcement, but I suspect for most cultivators of the Bloody Moon, the Moon comes to them, not the other way round.

-Reflecting Moons - Mediators, Traders, Diplomats. Not going to be rare at all, though high level cultivators following this might take some work to fit in major cultivation time as they become more and more essential.

-Dreaming Moon - Performers, Artists, Revelers. I'd say the scant scraps of info we have would point to this being a Weilu and Zheng practice. Rarity...well, this type would probably appeal to the various indulgent Young Masters. Shame they never get anywhere eh?

-Mother Moon - Parents, caregivers. I think the rarity of this is self explanatory in the same way the Reflecting Moons are. How many people with the personality for it are also the type to pursue cultivation and self improvement?

-Guiding Moon - Teachers, scholars mentors. Probably not uncommon to specialize into this later in life, I think.

Overall I think the rarity issue is overblown, considering the Weilu prominence, and their scattered branches, theres plenty out there.
The problem is that the Moon paths demands engagement. None of them approve of sitting in a cave cultivating your way up on drugs, they tell you to go out there and do shit. And some of those you should be low key on.

Not so bad for those with a workaholic work ethic and good Talent, but it stands in contrast to the 'normal' Imperial way of doing your job for most of the year, then hunkering down in closed door cultivation for a month or year(depending on your tier) to get the most out of your drugs.
 
George said:
That sounds reasonable enough, but that's not quite what I was arguing against. I'm saying they aren't going to provide a comment or vision with info not otherwise available anywhere, as the inducements possible are far more limited than for Sublime Ancestors who retain a physical presence on the mortal plane.
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Hmmm...

I don't think I agree with that either. I could totally see with the Hidden moon, a follower who made the right offerings and begged for the right favors being given some sort of quest, and then having a vision with truly lost information as a quest reward. The Moon's phases are patrons of action and behavior and endeavor, and they do offer quests. What better reward for a quest taken on behalf of the patron of Seekers of Knowledge... than knowledge?

Now, I doubt that happened in this case, because it seems like the sort of thing he'd have mentioned. "The Hidden Moon herself came down and told me how it went down" is *way* more significant than "I got a few inebriated sentences out of the avatar of Reveler before politeness demanded that I share his booze and I blacked out." I'm just saying that it's not entirely implausible.
 
About this thing with the moons being all about Going Out and Doing Stuff, I'm not sure that's applicable for all the moons. It makes sense for Grinning, Hidden, and probably Bloody, but Guiding just wanted us to learn formations with a friend, and Mother just wanted us to find more friends for our boy. I bet the Reflective moon would give its adherents pretty calm missions too. So it's entirely possible to be a mood adherent without doing particularly risky or adventurous things.
 
veekie said:
-Reflecting Moons - Mediators, Traders, Diplomats. Not going to be rare at all, though high level cultivators following this might take some work to fit in major cultivation time as they become more and more essential.
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I don't think finding time for cultivation is the major issue. We get successes for doing moon stuff, presumably they do as well. Not sure how rare that is, but it seems like a pretty nifty bonus.
 
Kai Merah said:
About this thing with the moons being all about Going Out and Doing Stuff, I'm not sure that's applicable for all the moons. It makes sense for Grinning, Hidden, and probably Bloody, but Guiding just wanted us to learn formations with a friend, and Mother just wanted us to find more friends for our boy. I bet the Reflective moon would give its adherents pretty calm missions too. So it's entirely possible to be a mood adherent without doing particularly risky or adventurous things.
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Possible, its not like we've tried any of the less adventurous moons yet...but I strongly doubt that Guiding Moon was just formation study, considering the Grinning Moon mission involved bearding a Green 2 in his own lair(and robot army and also worm army and also a cultivator army of forced contractees) as a Yellow...and it looked like we were just doing a simple loot mission when we first saw it.

BurnNote said:
I don't think finding time for cultivation is the major issue. We get successes for doing moon stuff, presumably they do as well. Not sure how rare that is, but it seems like a pretty nifty bonus.
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The thing is they, unlike basically anything else we've seen, encourages taking up time consuming roles in life and well...settling in. Now, as quest players, this largely means Path Of Doing Thing I Was Going To Do Anyway, but take it from an IC perspective, a Guiding Moon cultivator is going to want to be teaching or advising people all the time, and the easiest way to make sure of that is to carve themselves a social status and role of teacher.

Which adds secondary obligations that makes it harder, over time, to just take a year off to hammer at your breakthrough, or even to spend drugs efficiently by doing the drug-closed-door cycle that much of the empire would have built around.

...which is actually a feature, not a bug, if you are a frontiersman or pre-imperial tribal, considering they just plain don't have the freedom to do the drug-closed-door cycle to begin with.
 
As a vague thought: given the greater rules of the inner sect, doing some of the skullduggery moon phases in the outer sect seems to have been a wise choice. Outright theft from other disciples may be much more frowned upon in the inner sect. It might very well be a very good time to choose one of the more... socially acceptable phases.
 
JENTHULHU said:
As a vague thought: given the greater rules of the inner sect, doing some of the skullduggery moon phases in the outer sect seems to have been a wise choice. Outright theft from other disciples may be much more frowned upon in the inner sect. It might very well be a very good time to choose one of the more... socially acceptable phases.
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Woo! Moon party time!

Those are socially acceptable right?
 
Mother moon might be fruitful. Zhengui is still a kid, Hanyi also a child, Sixiang is simaltaneously old and young, and we have our sister Biyu. Lots of opportunities to fullfil mother moon quests.
 
I'd argue quests themselves are the least of where our focus should be in our considerations of lunar priority. It's not just a choice of milestones after all, it's the selection of tools for walking the path of life. We will want tools that suit the path we'll walk, whether that suitability is in terms of practicality, preference, or conscience.

Hidden and Grinning lend themselves to mischief, obscurity, and curiosity. All useful in politics, thankfully.
 
Our way though is about home not politics. Politics will be our job, and I would heed Jiao's advice to not throw away things important to our Way for a job. Regardless, I would contend that mothers, especially in large families, are very adept at political manuvering. Also i can't think of which facet of the moon would more important than the mother when it comes to starting a clan from scratch.
 
Neshuakadal said:
As long as pants are required.
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Eh
yrsillar said:
"So then, the goat-man-thing at the center demands a duel, like I'm the one who did something wrong!" Ling Qi complained, gesturing with the translucent cup in her hands. Zeqing's tableware was all made to order, which was definitely convenient.

"You did drop your mist across the whole party," Sixiang noted, whispery voice echoing in her ears.

"Half of them didn't even have pants," Ling Qi grumbled disgusted. "It was indecent. They should have been thankful." If she never saw such a disturbing sight again she would be happy.
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yrsillar said:
Lightning flashed, but it brought only a giggle from the spirit restraining him as he found himself spun into the grasp of of a laughing man-beast.
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Ling Qi invited him in the end!
 
instantia said:
Our way though is about home not politics. Politics will be our job, and I would heed Jiao's advice to not throw away things important to our Way for a job. Regardless, I would contend that mothers, especially in large families, are very adept at political manuvering. Also i can't think of which facet of the moon would more important than the mother when it comes to starting a clan from scratch.
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The politics bit was an aside from my main point, and I was mostly thinking about the short term in the Inner Sect. My main point was worrying about conditions for lunar quests shouldn't be our priority.
 
Sirrocco said:
Cared? No... but you could likely convince it to help, given appropriate inducements. It's not so much that it cares about the accuracy of mortal history in general, but it might well be convinced to care about the quest of a cultivator seeking to write a mortal history.
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Yes that was what I was trying to get across; but I would also say that It doesn't need to care about mortal history to want the tale of it's mother and father to be known and honored by those mortals.

George said:
That sounds reasonable enough, but that's not quite what I was arguing against. I'm saying they aren't going to provide a comment or vision with info not otherwise available anywhere, as the inducements possible are far more limited than for Sublime Ancestors who retain a physical presence on the mortal plane.
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I don't think so to even talk to a Sublime Ancestor required a writ from the Emperor and gave a handful of sentences. More then that as a Sublime Ancestor they are more rooted to the world and both supported by and attached to the interests of their clan which would mean you would have to give up something truly valuable that would be a treasure to a White cultivator to bribe them. The Emperor cares about history but would he be willing to give up Prism stones to have it be accurate.

On the other hand while our talent was unusual, a mortal giving offerings and a red stealing during a test was enough to get attention from one of the moons. That attention was a cultivation art which I think most people would say is more valuable then stories of the past. I'm thinking that the path of seeking out and writing the history that would be spread throughout the empire could very well get attention from the moon in it's own right regardless of if you want that attention. ​

Sirrocco said:
Hmmm...

I don't think I agree with that either. I could totally see with the Hidden moon, a follower who made the right offerings and begged for the right favors being given some sort of quest, and then having a vision with truly lost information as a quest reward. The Moon's phases are patrons of action and behavior and endeavor, and they do offer quests. What better reward for a quest taken on behalf of the patron of Seekers of Knowledge... than knowledge?

Now, I doubt that happened in this case, because it seems like the sort of thing he'd have mentioned. "The Hidden Moon herself came down and told me how it went down" is *way* more significant than "I got a few inebriated sentences out of the avatar of Reveler before politeness demanded that I share his booze and I blacked out." I'm just saying that it's not entirely implausible.
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The only difference between this and the original position I was trying to take was that you didn't have to be a moon cultivator all you needed was to resonate with the moons theme's deeply enough to make them interested, and be brave enough and dumb enough to try and get their attention. I suppose you could also be lucky and have one of them drop by to say hello while you are looking for a doctor.

Honestly I'd pictured something like Xin and the second test. A person that was not a moon cultivator but could be interesting and deserved a nudge to help them along. I'd even wondered if giving said people a nudge could be a possible moon quest.

edit: without the references there is of course no way to be sure.
 
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