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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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kitsune9 said:
Ji Rong and Sun Liling are rivals but I don't consider them enemies. I mean at this point I don't think that we can ever become friends but If Ji Rong or Sun Liling met us in the forest when we were working against the barbarians.
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My thought is that Sun Liling would almost definitely do it just to punish Bai Meizhen and Cai Renxiang, And because it will put her in a better position for pretty much all stances, whereas Ji Rong is ultimately more self-serving and likely to put aside differences until we get to a safer location.

I'm not gonna argue about Kang Zihao or Yan Renshu, but I'm pretty fucking sure Sun Liling has both motive and means to cover up any sabotage, as well as probably enough ability/tools to be able to leave us for dead and save herself.
 
kitsune9 said:
And now he's in the inner sect with us at seat 875, we really should apologize to Meizhen about being restrained after all apparently we didn't punish him enough.
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Strictly speaking we did punish Yan Renshu enough, actually. Ling Qi was concerned about him sabotaging her at the tournament- she achieved that. It was never about ensuring he could never reach the Inner Sect, since to be blunt, that's the kind of attitude that led to our mother having to work as a prostitute. Notably, it sounds to me like the Inner Sect is far less tolerant of sabotage of other Disciples, since Inner Sect Disciples are themselves valuable assets to the Sect. Outer Sect Disciples, to be blunt, are a dime a dozen, there's something like 3 or 400 that join each year, and a total of something like 1600, if you only count those actively trying to join the Inner Sect. There could be far more that are permanent Outer Sect Disciples that are the ones who usually do most of the work interacting with mortals. Wheras there's somewhere around 1k Inner Sect Disciples. (which, incidentally, suggests that if 300 join the Outer Sect per year and 16 get promoted to the Inner Sect, then 284 remain to swell the ranks of the Outer Sect. Sure, some will return to their clans, but if even Yellow Cultivators can expect to see their 200th birthday, that's what? 185 years the Sect can get out of the disciples that remain. Even if 184 end up leaving the Sect for various reasons, that's 18.5k Outer Sect Disciples in total.)

Sorry, I got a little off-track. Basically, because there's far less Inner Sect Disciples, then Inner Sect Disciples sabotaging each other does far more damage to the Sect. Therefore the Sect will come down harder on sabotage. Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't doubt Yan Renshu will be a minor PITA in the Inner Sect, but there's a reason why the Inner Sect rules limit challenges far more than the Outer Sect. The idea is that you're supposed to put most of your effort into either working for the Sect, or cultivation. not costing the Sect money by sabotaging fellow disciples. (even if healing isn't free, there's the opportunity cost of the work the injured disciple could have been doing.)
 
Stats based systems require effort, but I prefer them because you have something concrete to judge your strengths and weaknesses on, and a means to analyze things objectively.


Purely narrative systems are highly subjective. If two dozen people read the same chapter, it's entirely feasible to have five or more different interpretations of what happened in that chapter. Plans can easily succeed or fail based entirely on authorial fiat.

And all to often I see purely narrative system devolving into empty power fantasies.

Hell, some of the more interesting plot developments in this story happened because we failed. I just dont find games interesting if it doesn't feel like there are any stakes.


I'm not to worried about yrs falling into this trap. He's more than earned the benefit of the doubt with me.
 
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yrsillar said:
So, this is something like the fifth or sixth time this subject has come up, and its fed into something I've been thinking in the back of my head for awhile.

Should I really call this a Xianxia story? Like, I've used the trappings of it, but a lot of the central genre conceits are things I'm deliberately avoiding.

Basically the only Xianxia thing here is the cultivation system and the high fantasy kung fu magic. Otherwise it'd probably slot pretty easy into Wuxia or standard fantasy with an eastern flavor, ala AtLA. What do you guys think?
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This isn't xianxia.

Your writing is solid, the world is incredibly deep yet still unknown and your characters are actual human beings coming into power clumsily.

That said xianxia is Immortal Hero genre as opposed to wuxia or Mortal Hero. Your story does not have that( the first, maybe there is a "Jianghu" equivalent ).

At best I would call it Xuanhuan in the vein of Coiling Dragon. There are fantastic powers, power strata is sorta there because a usual chinese author uses what he can instinctively type out fast enough to get in a 3.5 k chapter a day, and immortality is implied to many characters not privy to highest info ( here, complete mortals ).

But there isn't any.

Just like in Coiling Dragon the higher you go, the more brutal the ways you can be executed in.
Forge of Destiny has a western fantasy flair with all the spirits you wrote in ( a la Tales of Demonic Gods ) and even the highest known lifeforms die due to time if nobody or anything else.

Finally, I skipped pages of comments but there is good xianxia out there.

World of Cultivation - 915 chapters, completed
Desolate Era - 40+ volumes, completed
Seeking The Flying Sword Path - 532 ch, ongoing
Shrouding The Heavens - 190+ chaps, ongoing
My Disciple Died Yet Again - 393 ch, completed
I Shall Seal The Heavens - 1200+ ch, completed

And so on.

A big part of Xianxia is the overblown everything.

Cultivators ARE NOT the only ones exceeding natural order of things. Authors still desire their characters to be challenged.

So the world is unreally hellish, enemies and rivals are born every minute and the source of it all is far more oppressive than it is helpful to those who cannot reach very far.

There are other ways for things to be achieved.

As so novels like Jiang Ye, Ze Tian Ji, Gate of God exist too. Cultivators there are still clearly divided in many classical ways, yet it conforms more to readers who can't let go of their reality while they read.
 
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kitsune9 said:
And now he's in the inner sect with us at seat 875, we really should apologize to Meizhen about being restrained after all apparently we didn't punish him enough.

Ji Rong and Sun Liling are rivals but I don't consider them enemies. I mean at this point I don't think that we can ever become friends but If Ji Rong or Sun Liling met us in the forest when we were working against the barbarians. My first thought would be rival team up; If Kang Zahao or Yan Renshu appeared I would be worried about an attempt to kill us that would be blamed on the barbarians.
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Depends:
-Liling is going to be an enemy, no question about it. She has a blood feud with our best friend, and a personal feud with our feudal liege. On the other hand she's got a modicum of respect and it was never personal with us.

-Ji Rong was never anything personal. If he sticks with Liling as a vassal, then we're unlikely to be more than polite to each other.

-Kang is not even on our radar and vice versa. Meizhen wants to kill him, but its not our concern since she doesn't really need any help doing that.

-Renshu is going to be holding a grudge, but with limited ability to make good on it.

He's cut off from the network and all the stuff he's spent the past couple years building up. Ling Qi is still under the protection of two ducal scions(admittedly he's also protected somewhat from being hammered up and down the sect by two cultivators who outclass and outstatus him). He's also got bigger fish to fry in the person who screwed him to begin with.

Finally...his making it into the Inner Sect, coupled with Ling Qi's use of Worm Qi Cards in the tournament looks a lot like Renshu cut a deal to help her in exchange for his project not being interfered with. Liling and Ji Rong may have Questions he cannot answer convincingly.

Really the only issue with Renshu is if we stagnate, if Renxiang loses status and authority, or if we focus our attnetion onto him to trigger reprisals.
 
veekie said:
Finally...his making it into the Inner Sect, coupled with Ling Qi's use of Worm Qi Cards in the tournament looks a lot like Renshu cut a deal to help her in exchange for his project not being interfered with. Liling and Ji Rong may have Questions he cannot answer convincingly.
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If people who saw our fight would assume this, what would Meizhen think? She considered that LQ's just a merciful airhead but if Renshu bought his safety with worm-summons, does it look better or worse in her eyes?
 
veekie said:
Depends:
-Liling is going to be an enemy, no question about it. She has a blood feud with our best friend, and a personal feud with our feudal liege. On the other hand she's got a modicum of respect and it was never personal with us.
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It's possible that we made it personal when we infiltrated her base and successfully ran away from her. Now, it's possible that she got her satisfaction when she trounced us in the semi-finals, but I'm not entirely sure she won't remember the humiliation we gave her.

She does respect us, but I also believe that she really doesn't like us on a personal level.
 
yrsillar said:
"You keep going on about the Bai being traitors… but no matter how I look at it, doesn't that match your family better?" Ling Qi replied blithely. Even if it cost her initially, riling her enemy up was better than letting Sun keep a cool head. "Though I guess it doesn't count since you got rewarded for it."
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Nah, Liling's fine with Ling Qi. No personal enmity, insults to answer, or grudges to fill whatso ever.

Nothing to worry about~
 
veekie said:
But is the reverse true?
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Yes.
yrsillar said:
"You keep going on about the Bai being traitors… but no matter how I look at it, doesn't that match your family better?" Ling Qi replied blithely. Even if it cost her initially, riling her enemy up was better than letting Sun keep a cool head. "Though I guess it doesn't count since you got rewarded for it."
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This was not just a passing insult. This was a deep, sharp one that said Ling Qi didn't respect any of the reasons the Sun clan had for what they did, and is something piled on top of both the fortress infiltration and the subsequent escape. Liling might respect Ling Qi and regret not recruiting her, but that doesn't mean they aren't enemies by more than association.
 
I'm glad Ling Qi nailed down her objection to Sun Shao's conduct so early, btw. This way, when Ling Qi's family is inevitably slaughtered while she's off adventuring or fighting wars, we won't have to worry about a big contentious vote on whether to go full-bore on taking revenge or not. Through taunting Sun Liling, it has been established that Ling Qi won't pursue extralegal vengeance. Ling Qi is a good girl who respects the law and being told what to do.
 
AbeoLogos said:
I'm glad Ling Qi nailed down her objection to Sun Shao's conduct so early, btw. This way, when Ling Qi's family is inevitably slaughtered while she's off adventuring or fighting wars, we won't have to worry about a big contentious vote on whether to go full-bore on taking revenge or not. Through taunting Sun Liling, it has been established that Ling Qi won't pursue extralegal vengeance. Ling Qi is a good girl who respects the law and being told what to do.
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Woah there, buddy.

Don'tcha think you might be jumping the gun a bit?


Also, the last part is ridiculous.
 
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As far as I know the situation was:
-Barbarian raiders hit the Thousand Lakes like they had since time immemorial.
-Bais raise their levies and vassals to kill them all. Sun Shao was one of these guys.
-They slaughter every barbarian up to the dividing river line. Bais say nobody fucking cross this river, we've been there and its bad juju.
-Sun Shao disagreed, and kept going with everyone who shared his sentiment of "fuck those barbarians, we're gonna win, we're gonna take that bloody land from them". This is because Sun Shao's Way.
-Sun Shao kept going all the way in, burned their cities all the way to their heartland, where the Sunflower Goddess reigns. Mystery spoopy happens. All of the dudes who went with him are at least Green, except the ones who are dead, which was most of them.
-Sun Shao turned around and headed back, expecting a parade in his honor. The Imperial Throne agreed and gave him a new province and dukedom.
-The Bais did not, and launched an assault upon his person with their White, who died doing so. This is because the Bai's Way wouldn't allow them not to perform reprisals.
-The Suns discover that maybe the Bais knew something they didn't, because Yandere Sunflower is killing their family slowly.

According to the Suns, the Bai violated the feudal contract because they refused to make a final and decisive resolution to the barbarian problem(which is actually the correct one, historically the guys launching punitive expeditions into jungles and steppes tended to get cut to pieces when they fail, and when they succeed they achieve nothing that isn't gone in a century).

According to the Bais, the Sun violated the feudal contract by raising their flag in rebellion in deploying armies in violation of the express orders of their liege.

According to the Throne, the Bais violated the feudal contract by assaulting the Suns against imperial orders.

The balance is actually mildly in favor of the Bais because Sun taking THEIR armies to kill barbarians, losing most of said army in the process, is not kosher in any command structure you might know.

But to simplify it down:
-The Bais did the Correct thing.
-The Suns did the Right thing.

Just because you're correct doesn't mean you're right.
Just because you're right doesn't mean you did the correct thing.
 
veekie said:
The balance is actually mildly in favor of the Bais because Sun taking THEIR armies to kill barbarians, losing most of said army in the process, is not kosher in any command structure you might know.
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Of course, we don't really know if Dukes have the authority to tell their vassals not to launch reprisals expeditions against barbarians, as in a feudal society the army, as a whole, isn't the Bai's, it's mostly all the little armies of their vassals.

Feudal duties often don't actually mandate obedience outside a tightly defined list of obligations.
 
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The first section there isn't quite how it was described to us. Sun Shao went to the Bai and requested authority to raise an army to wipe out the jungle barbarians. The Bai said nah, but you can take 100,000 dudes and slaughter anything up to the river. Sun Shao grabbed way more dudes than he was permitted and went where he wasn't allowed straight from the get-go. This is important, because he would have needed to draw from clans not subordinate to him, and even peers in rank considering there's only 2 non-Bai count clans left in the province; he went behind the Bai's back hierarchy-wise.

It was likely within the authority of the Bai to restrict the size of the army raised, because FoD is a deathworld that requires constant defence obligations so that mortals don't get devoured.

Speaking of, @yrsillar how much of the mortal population of Thousand Lakes died because of Sun Shao's noble cultivator exodus? 20%? 30%? More? Since he was going behind the Bai's back, I seriously doubt there were organized civilian evacuations to Bai-held strongholds, and there's no way the mortals got brought along to the jungle, or survived if they did. Lands going fallow, as Meizhen put it, are lands strewn with the bones of mortals.
 
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AbeoLogos said:
The first section there isn't quite how it was described to us. Sun Shao went to the Bai and requested authority to raise an army to wipe out the jungle barbarians. The Bai said nah, but you can take 100,000 dudes and slaughter anything up to the river. Sun Shao grabbed way more dudes than he was permitted and went where he wasn't allowed straight from the get-go. This is important, because he would have needed to draw from clans not subordinate to him, and even peers in rank considering there's only 2 non-Bai count clans left in the province; he went behind the Bai's back

It was likely within the authority of the Bao to restrict the size of the army raised, because FoD is a deathworld that requires constant defence obligations so that mortals don't get devoured.

Speaking of, @yrsillar how much of the mortal population of Thousand Lakes died because of Sun Shao's noble cultivator exodus? 20%? 30%? More? Since he was going behind the Bai's back, I seriously doubt there were organized civilian evacuations to Bai-held strongholds, and there's no way the mortals got brought along to the jungle, or survived if they did. Lands going fallow, as Meizhen put it, are lands strewn with the bones of mortals.
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Slight aside, this has given me an idea. Two simple counters for all our territory: 1 showing the mortal population, and 1 showing the running mortal death tally.
 
Killer_Whale said:
Slight aside, this has given me an idea. Two simple counters for all our territory: 1 showing the mortal population, and 1 showing the running mortal death tally.
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You'd have to refresh the death tally every now and then though. Or you'd still be counting deaths from a hundred years ago.
 
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