Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

[occipitallobe]

Good Seed and Omake Spreadsheet Rules:

Firstly, if you have questions about Good Seeds and the like please read here. If that doesn't answer your question please ping me in thread, or on Discord.

If you write a new Good Seed, or write an omake, please update the spreadsheet if you have access.

If you do not have access, please ping a collaborator (Swordomatic, Alectai, Quest, TehChron, Insane-Not-Crazy, Humbaba, ReaderOfFate, Kaboomatic, no., BungieONI) letting them know what you want and they will update the spreadsheet here. To gain access, you will need a gmail account of some kind. Throwaway emails are fine (I'm using one for the spreadsheet), but to gain access it's as simple as sending me either your email via PM, via DM in Discord, or just in Discord's #spreadsheet-requests channel.

This is mandatory. If a Good Seed does not record their omake by pinging collabs (or just requesting access and editing things themselves - this is the preferred option), I won't give out awards. If a new Good Seed is not recorded here, they won't advance. By doing this it makes the whole thing manageable for me - it's gotten pretty unwieldy!

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Omake Writer Instructions:

There are four fields you need to fill out.

Omake Link, which is just a link to your first omake for the turn. This makes it easier for me to read them as I do the update - without this it's tough to know off the bat which omake were written this turn, and to properly

Requested Bonus, which is your requested bonus for your omake. You can leave it up to me if you like. You can see more info in the Good Seed infopost here.

Cultivation Aims. For those following unorthodox paths - higher than 9th Heavenstage or later than 7th Dao Pillar paths. Please put in what you are aiming for before you break through. I have left it as 'default'. If you do not edit it, I'll go with that.

Turn Notes - Do you want to do something specific? Enter a Secret Realm? Help the Clan out in some way? If you have something specific you want to accomplish on this turn, put it in turn notes so I can adjust your Fate around it.

All other fields are for QM use to record character information to properly run the flow of the game.

 

[BungieONI]

Do we have any good Seeds on this level?

Click to shrink...

We have three in the Foundation Building Realm I think, but all of them are near the beginning of the realm and so they don't really fit the criteria of ready or wanting to challenge for Core Formation.

 

[BungieONI]

@occipitallobe question actually that popped into my head. It seems pretty straightforward that the Pour wealth into your Foundation Building Experts replaces our normal Core Formation elder generation rate. What happens to our native Core Formation elder generation rate while we hire our mercenary CFs?

 

[Leon12431]

Ruin and destruction cast an unnatural pall over the world, the sky chocked with smoke and vapors of less pleasant origin, tortured colleagues trapped in eternal pain, countless bodies crushed to little more than paste covered the ground.

Yet, he remained strong, untouched in body and mind beyond the simple horror of the world at the moment. So many, individuals of grand power and intent lay broken by the greatest battle fought in their lives and yet he, the broken one, suffered not a scratch.

Was this yet another curse of the heavens? To ignore him and take those more worthy of the clan's efforts to ascend? As he walked though the burning city tending to those that he could, and giving peace to the few too injured for even the greatest healers to heal, where he could, a wellspring of grief and guilt surged within. For his recent reconnection with family and home, healed much and yet left new areas for battles to scar once more.

Sights that he would have accepted as his due only a few short months ago, now shone with all their horror. Being human only let the heavens harm him ever more, but even knowing that he should have taken the place of so many and suffered for them, he could not reject his own humanity so soon after its recovery. He had spent decades as a person fleeing from his own humanity, and found it unpleasant now that he had turned to face the truth.

Even as he walked he could feel his strength returning from the effort of repelling so many divergent Daos, even if they were only of the lowest realm. Perhaps, the elder that had given him this art, had not taught it properly or perhaps in the rush, he had misused it but he had gleamed knowledge of those that he had faced. Fragments of shards of slivers of knowledge but knowledge none the less, and that knowledge provided him with some measure of bitter happiness.

Where every single person within the clan that clawed their way up the ranks, were forced to master themselves and struggle for every step, the invaders were victims of their own power. Their daos were fragile compared to those of the clan within his realm, riddled with uncertainty and questions that made it easy to exploit, where he doubted that he could shake even five clan Daos, the invaders posed little challenge beyond weight of numbers. Their Seas grand energy, allowed even the unskilled and untalented to match the best that the clan had to offer, yet this left them vulnerable to his nearly gleamed art.

Yet, no matter how far he wandered from the site of their so called miracle, he could never escape the never ending destruction and senseless death that was their mark. Long since had time stopped to have any meaning to him as he walked trying to avoid the memories and experiences at the city, and their proclamation as unrivaled beneath heaven, such foolish nonsense. He understood the need of the clan to claim some form of victory in this time, yet to enforce such an unrealistic title upon a group merely thirteen large was folly of the highest order.

Already, he could envision assassins from other clans and sects seeking their heads and bodies for their own purposes. The enemies of the clan would focus their efforts upon the elimination of the bringers of the morale victory that the clan so desperately needed during the events of this trial, especially if the rumors were true.

Thus, he wandered the land doing what he could to aid the scattered clan members lost in the endless expanse of desert, or trapped within collapsing bolt holes. Yet for everyone save, a hundred died their bodies littering the ground, bones crunching under his feet more often than not as he walked the lands.

Blood had soaked the land, and in areas of high energy he could feel the energy altering as the potent blood of both third sea and fifth watered it with energy. Letting his energy flow outward, he slowly brought the energy tainting the land to him, allowing it to slowly disperse back into the empty air.

However, no matter how much he removed there was always more to withdraw from the land and no one in his realm could handle such effort on their own, and so with a sigh he released the effort and returned to his wandering across the land.

------------
not my best work, short and meandering, but didn't have anything better.

 

[Mochinator]

Reiterating my point here, if we go for " Pour Wealth " and it succeeds, we have a wider pool of talent to draw from for the Elder Council. Which we want great talents on over mediocrity.

Yes, it's a gamble. But any Core success will bring that power across to all future turns. Certainly at least till the next trials, probably in addition to the natural respawn rate for Core. This + the next turn should get us at least 5 Core's if the average roll is on the low side , which can help if hostilities reopen and take longer then 1 turn to settle.

 

[occipitallobe]

Do we have any good Seeds on this level?

Click to shrink...

Not a one.

 

[BungieONI]

Reiterating my point here, if we go for " Pour Wealth " and it succeeds, we have a wider pool of talent to draw from for the Elder Council. Which we want great talents on over mediocrity.

Yes, it's a gamble. But any Core success will bring that power across to all future turns. Certainly at least till the next trials, probably in addition to the natural respawn rate for Core. This + the next turn should get us at least 5 Core's if the average roll is on the low side , which can help if hostilities reopen and take longer then 1 turn to settle.

Click to shrink...

So here's my problem with this. We have a randomly sized increase to the talent pool from two vectors: how many we get, and how many are actually suitable for the slots we have open. Furthermore, that -7 inefficiency is what is keeping us from doing both, or something else and delaying it for a better pool to draw from leaves that in place which means next turn we will still be operating on restricted income. That's three things which stand in the way of me thinking its a good idea to use Pour Wealth with the combination of leaving Legates where they are. My biggest gripe though is leaving that inefficiency problem in play in its current form.

Additionally, in my mind because of our extra wealth stream due to having less cultivators we should still have some Foundation experts trying to become Elders every turn even if we hire mercs.

We have a threat coming on the horizon in the near future in the Blood Cannibals. The Jingshen are a threat right now in economic and diplomatic terms, as well as military ones. The Bees are also a threat of raiding, and their threat is specifically a spread out one that needs many forces able to respond swiftly.

All of these can be and are only dissuaded by what they can see and judge our strength to be. Therefore having 40 active Core Formation cultivators is directly more valuable for preventing conflict we cannot afford in the most literal monetary and forces sense than what we get out of Pour Wealth. Yes, that strength is more permanent, but that isn't a factor our enemies actually care about.

And while the Core Formation mercs won't fight to the point of desperation like the clan does they still fight, especially since some of the places we may be raided could be some of their homes in the Xin Kingdom and Hong Xuan Kingdom.

A set of the moves our enemies can make include stuff like this:
-Jingshen could move onto the Scorpion road. Best countered by Yao since that'd make it Righteous on Righteous conflict which Jingshen basically can't do. Once that's done they basically miss their best chance as Manuel comes back into play. After her departure the mercs help with this to keep things quiet after her passage through.

-The Blood Cannibals can't do anything directly besides put in spies and such for now. We need to recover and to have been recovering for a period before hostilities start with them in my mind because we'll need the resources. On the defense we have the advantage against them, so we need the money to fortify (in my mind we should spend turn 7 fortifying those territories on the border, and my perfect preference would be to do turn 7 fortify and pour wealth into FBs but we'll see). I'm not that worried about spies from them, since we can put Manuel onto that and he might discover them passively anyway, and unifying their army is going to be a pain even if Old Cannibal has an advantage in that regard compared to the usual.

-The Devil Bees could raid, it really just depends. There's enough of them and they're fast enough that I think the best way to handle it is more Core Formations instead of just our Core Formations. More merc Core Formations basically give Heraclius more operational flexibility in where he can put his legions because he has more force to play with.

So this is one set of problems, our others are our economic chaos and preparing for the Trials. The best moves I can think of are making use of our diplo person somehow, manning the council which starts working on the economic and administrative chaos, and then having mercs to at least blunt some of the damage from raiding and Cannibal activity. With more time put towards economic and admin recovery, plus actions to blunt damage we're better off for the trials.

 

[BungieONI]

Ruin and destruction cast an unnatural pall over the world, the sky chocked with smoke and vapors of less pleasant origin, tortured colleagues trapped in eternal pain, countless bodies crushed to little more than paste covered the ground.

Yet, he remained strong, untouched in body and mind beyond the simple horror of the world at the moment. So many, individuals of grand power and intent lay broken by the greatest battle fought in their lives and yet he, the broken one, suffered not a scratch.

Was this yet another curse of the heavens? To ignore him and take those more worthy of the clan's efforts to ascend? As he walked though the burning city tending to those that he could, and giving peace to the few too injured for even the greatest healers to heal, where he could, a wellspring of grief and guilt surged within. For his recent reconnection with family and home, healed much and yet left new areas for battles to scar once more.

Sights that he would have accepted as his due only a few short months ago, now shone with all their horror. Being human only let the heavens harm him ever more, but even knowing that he should have taken the place of so many and suffered for them, he could not reject his own humanity so soon after its recovery. He had spent decades as a person fleeing from his own humanity, and found it unpleasant now that he had turned to face the truth.

Even as he walked he could feel his strength returning from the effort of repelling so many divergent Daos, even if they were only of the lowest realm. Perhaps, the elder that had given him this art, had not taught it properly or perhaps in the rush, he had misused it but he had gleamed knowledge of those that he had faced. Fragments of shards of slivers of knowledge but knowledge none the less, and that knowledge provided him with some measure of bitter happiness.

Where every single person within the clan that clawed their way up the ranks, were forced to master themselves and struggle for every step, the invaders were victims of their own power. Their daos were fragile compared to those of the clan within his realm, riddled with uncertainty and questions that made it easy to exploit, where he doubted that he could shake even five clan Daos, the invaders posed little challenge beyond weight of numbers. Their Seas grand energy, allowed even the unskilled and untalented to match the best that the clan had to offer, yet this left them vulnerable to his nearly gleamed art.

Yet, no matter how far he wandered from the site of their so called miracle, he could never escape the never ending destruction and senseless death that was their mark. Long since had time stopped to have any meaning to him as he walked trying to avoid the memories and experiences at the city, and their proclamation as unrivaled beneath heaven, such foolish nonsense. He understood the need of the clan to claim some form of victory in this time, yet to enforce such an unrealistic title upon a group merely thirteen large was folly of the highest order.

Already, he could envision assassins from other clans and sects seeking their heads and bodies for their own purposes. The enemies of the clan would focus their efforts upon the elimination of the bringers of the morale victory that the clan so desperately needed during the events of this trial, especially if the rumors were true.

Thus, he wandered the land doing what he could to aid the scattered clan members lost in the endless expanse of desert, or trapped within collapsing bolt holes. Yet for everyone save, a hundred died their bodies littering the ground, bones crunching under his feet more often than not as he walked the lands.

Blood had soaked the land, and in areas of high energy he could feel the energy altering as the potent blood of both third sea and fifth watered it with energy. Letting his energy flow outward, he slowly brought the energy tainting the land to him, allowing it to slowly disperse back into the empty air.

However, no matter how much he removed there was always more to withdraw from the land and no one in his realm could handle such effort on their own, and so with a sigh he released the effort and returned to his wandering across the land.

------------
not my best work, short and meandering, but didn't have anything better.

Click to shrink...

I really like this, in contrast to the other omakes about the aftermath of Pleuron since they mostly took place a bit after everything calmed down a bit and recovery had started at least a little. This is literally while the fires are still burning.

 

[shortnmad]

-7 from sheer inefficiency).

Click to shrink...

Doesn't our contribution board help to avoid that?

 

[Liliet]

Eirene of Nowhere eleventh omake: inside and out​

Unlike many of her peers, Eirene of Nowhere actually enjoyed cultivation.

It was uncomfortable, yes. Scouring her body clean over and over again, itchy and painful and requiring focus on the itchy and the painful, to push through and towards the greatest itch and pain... but it was control. Control over herself, over her qi - even before Eirene knew what it was, she knew that she liked the sensation, in a perverse way.

Maybe that was part of what allowed her to surge so far ahead - she dedicated herself fully to the work, and did not need to fight herself on it. It wasn't even boring - a healer's knowledge of the body was only enhanced by hours of trance guiding qi around, and Eirene genuinely liked that as well.

For many others it was only a tool of advancement. A means of gathering power, a deal made and kept, hard work for results. Some grew bitter, some stopped upon reaching an arbitrary limit or just gave up. So many stopped at Qi Condensation - Essense Gathering, the clan called it among themselves, though Eirene still couldn't quite get used to the terminology. Oh, for some it was just a matter of insufficient innate talent, even in the clan not everyone's constitution was sufficiently compatible with the known techniques to advance quickly... and not everyone, to put it mildly, had the luck of running into an expert whose own method of cultivation was so well-suited to them and who was bored enough to share freely.

Eirene worked her ass off to make full use of the gift she'd been given. She owed it to herself and her vague but stubborn ambitions; to the Carnival, who were so proud of her and did not doubt that she'd rise meteorically even as they did not quite know what that meant (they were in awe of Qi Condensation already, and she could bask in their admiration for free even if she never rose above second Heavenstage or so, but deception was not her tool of choice when dealing with family). To her peers she outdid so dazzllingly; she knew that where her success inspired some it disheartened others, and she knew the Clan providing her with resources meant someone else, somewhere else, got less. So she owed it to the Clan as a whole, as well, and she particularly owed it to those who'd die in the coming Trials.

She'd decided to follow Andronike's - not even advice, just a sequence of raised eyebrows and thoughtful looks. And so instead of solidifying her Dao to construct her first Pillar, she focused on refining her body further, the known next step in Qi Condensation. Not a great difficulty, in truth: she knew her body inside and out, and every single obstacle destroyed, every single knot untangled, every single node weaved, filled her with satisfaction even as her muscles protested. Eirene had grown up among musicians and acrobats - there was no room for slacking off, and the greatest pride to boast was pushing themselves beyond what seemed like human limits. Not everyone could keep up the pace, many left; Eirene was raised by those who stayed.

And so she pushed and pushed and pushed, and found a reprieve from worries and fears and guilt and whatever else found her way into her head on her forays and quests in the purity of trance and of making her qi do what she wanted.

The breakthrough had come shortly before the Trials were due to start, after the Hammer Head council gathered; Eirene was taking a break from figuring out logistics and compatibility and how their arts worked together, where taking a break meant sitting in a meditative pose with her flute in her hands, qi flows through her body cleansing the impurities they found, refining her bloodline.

Then she could feel something snap, and her skin shone deep bronze; she knew the color without needing to open her eyes and look, for it was the color it was supposed to be. After so many years of weakening and wavering, the Clan's bloodline manifested itself in a dizzying variety of ways, only a few following the progression she knew there had once been, set almost in stone. But she knew her own; decades of passionate cultivation and studying healing arts, on and off as the study had been, left her thoroughly aware of every single nuance of what was due to awaken in her.

Her skin shone bronze, and channels within her body rearranged themselves, snapping to where they should be, and her cultivation surged. She knew the feeling of advancing between small realms; this was rather undoubtedly it, just... stronger.

She was still short; her body expanded in height only a little, before something like will stopped it. She wasn't supposed to be tall; cultivators were meant to leave mortal lives behind, but everyone brought something with them nonetheless. And Eirene was not abandoning this one thing: the position of looking at everyone from below, of fitting beneath people's eyesight, of being unexpected in calling attention to herself when she claimed higher ground. Her reach was short, but that mattered less for cultivators, even less than that for an illusion master; and having a lower center of mass was an advantage of its own - even more so now that her body had become heavier from the bronze awakening in it.

She pictured a bull, only small. A very small, very angry bull. Yeah, she liked that image, and her flute sang of it even as she felt her qi settling into its new configuration.

She was going to be very, very hard to budge, and basically impossible to topple.

end omake​

I've wanted to write this one for, like, ever, and kept having inspiration for it when I was decidedly NOT next to the computer. Fucking annoying. Well, it's done now, even if I forgot what title I liked for it and had to come up with something else.

 

[Liliet]

Doesn't our contribution board help to avoid that?

Click to shrink...

It does. It would have been worse otherwise.

 

[Alectai]

We can still maintain standard operations, most clans would be acting like a decapitated chicken by now.

 

[Garlak]

What about taking an "increase wealth" action, and then grabbing both the "expand Legion Contribution Board" and "Hire Core Formation mercs" actions?

What do people think. Is that a viable combo to make?

[ ] Increasing Wealth - More trade, more mines, more growth. Aim to find more Spirit Stones, tax more from traders, whatever works to increase your Clan Wealth. Increases Wealth by an average of 5.

[ ] Expand the Legion Contribution Board (7 Wealth)
"I've written this note to myself, but it seems plausible. Expand the Legion Contribution Board to allow Late and Great Circle Foundation experts some exposure to it. This will help manage the Legions more effectively in the interim, and will serve as an efficiency boost until we regain our Core Formation experts. It'll be more-or-less useless once that happens, but short-term Legion efficiency might be worth it."

[ ] Hire Core Formation (5 Wealth per turn for 3 turns)
"Archegetes, there are many vassals with many Core Formation elders. Let us spend wealth to hire them, and use them to supplement our forces for the next sixty years. It won't regain our Legion efficiency, but we need Core Formation power badly to be able to administer our borders, the Scorpion Road, and put down rebellions. I estimate we'll be able to hire twenty-five Core Formation elders for this price - though bear in mind we'll be strengthening our vassals at our own expense, and they're unlikely to stand and fight in any real war.'

If being at 11 instead of 12 wealth was such a 'dammit so close' pain, then maybe we could just, well, make more wealth and then take the combined 12-wealth-total-costing actions.

The Core Formation mercs vote doesn't boost our Legion efficiency... but the Legion Contribution Board does, so. Combined with either a "man the council properly" vote or a "leave the Legates in place" vote. Leaving the Legates in place, for a bit, would mean that... presumably those Legates would also be in place to oversee the expanding of the Legion Contribution Board. Not sure if worth it, though maybe leaving them in place for a turn and adding them to the Council the next turn maybe... On the other hand, filling out the Council properly and using the Legion Contribution Board's expansion to try to fill in for the vacated Legates seems like it'd work.

... Hm. I kind of feel like we're sadly likely to lose another Council member or two, in 2 more turns, when the ceasefire with the Blood Cannibals ends. Just feel like we're likely to lose a Council Member with each major event that comes up, you know? Hopefully that's less likely to happen, with our poor karmic luck discharged, but...

 

[Anders]

What about taking an "increase wealth" action, and then grabbing both the "expand Legion Contribution Board" and "Hire Core Formation mercs" actions?

What do people think. Is that a viable combo to make?

[ ] Increasing Wealth - More trade, more mines, more growth. Aim to find more Spirit Stones, tax more from traders, whatever works to increase your Clan Wealth. Increases Wealth by an average of 5.

[ ] Expand the Legion Contribution Board (7 Wealth)
"I've written this note to myself, but it seems plausible. Expand the Legion Contribution Board to allow Late and Great Circle Foundation experts some exposure to it. This will help manage the Legions more effectively in the interim, and will serve as an efficiency boost until we regain our Core Formation experts. It'll be more-or-less useless once that happens, but short-term Legion efficiency might be worth it."

[ ] Hire Core Formation (5 Wealth per turn for 3 turns)
"Archegetes, there are many vassals with many Core Formation elders. Let us spend wealth to hire them, and use them to supplement our forces for the next sixty years. It won't regain our Legion efficiency, but we need Core Formation power badly to be able to administer our borders, the Scorpion Road, and put down rebellions. I estimate we'll be able to hire twenty-five Core Formation elders for this price - though bear in mind we'll be strengthening our vassals at our own expense, and they're unlikely to stand and fight in any real war.'

If being at 11 instead of 12 wealth was such a 'dammit so close' pain, then maybe we could just, well, make more wealth and then take the combined 12-wealth-total-costing actions.

The Core Formation mercs vote doesn't boost our Legion efficiency... but the Legion Contribution Board does, so. Combined with either a "man the council properly" vote or a "leave the Legates in place" vote. Leaving the Legates in place, for a bit, would mean that... presumably those Legates would also be in place to oversee the expanding of the Legion Contribution Board. Not sure if worth it, though maybe leaving them in place for a turn and adding them to the Council the next turn maybe... On the other hand, filling out the Council properly and using the Legion Contribution Board's expansion to try to fill in for the vacated Legates seems like it'd work.

... Hm. I kind of feel like we're sadly likely to lose another Council member or two, in 2 more turns, when the ceasefire with the Blood Cannibals ends. Just feel like we're likely to lose a Council Member with each major event that comes up, you know? Hopefully that's less likely to happen, with our poor karmic luck discharged, but...

Click to shrink...

We can't use money we make this turn. We can only spend the money we already had saved up, so picking both is not an option.

 

[Garlak]

We can't use money we make this turn. We can only spend the money we already had saved up, so picking both is not an option.

Click to shrink...

Oh.

Well then, never mind then.

 

[FixerUpper]

Unlike many of her peers, Eirene of Nowhere actually enjoyed cultivation.

It was uncomfortable, yes. Scouring her body clean over and over again, itchy and painful and requiring focus on the itchy and the painful, to push through and towards the greatest itch and pain... but it was control. Control over herself, over her qi - even before Eirene knew what it was, she knew that she liked the sensation, in a perverse way.

Click to shrink...

I haven't stopped by to check on Eirene for quite a few omakes at this point so, point in your favor, the omake's very easy to pick up even without that knowledge. You've also - intentionally or not - managed to replicate the thought process of basically every high-achieving student in blaming the inability of others on being insufficiently dedicated.

Otoh... like... nothing... actually... happened? It was a lot of 'and then she broke through X' which is neat, but it's not very character-driven.

Ruin and destruction cast an unnatural pall over the world, the sky chocked with smoke and vapors of less pleasant origin, tortured colleagues trapped in eternal pain, countless bodies crushed to little more than paste covered the ground.

Click to shrink...

Yanno what I'm just going to fill in for Mochi while he takes a much deserved break. I'm not kind like he is so idk how much of a blessing this is for those of you who get to fall beneath my pitiless Sauronic gaze.

Reading both yours and Liliet's one after another really reinforces for me how much dialogue and... like, being present matters. I know show don't tell has its adherents and its detractors but even if your character doesn't interact with a single character there should be some sense of physicality - of being somewhere, doing something. This was kinda impersonal? Which might be the effect you're going for, but like... it's an odd choice.

If you don't want it to be meandering, have something specific happen to your character.

Also, haven't read anything else you've done but I wasn't lost, so again, good job there. I liked your little world-building segments - but if you're doing more world-building than character-writing it's going to come off as exposition.

Anyway, it's fine, but... lacking direction?

-----

Edit: Actually, I take it back, if you want a review and your omake is under say 3k let me know and I'll give it a gander. With my track record, I probably shouldn't do too many unsolicited reviews lest I do damage to someone's drive to create.

 

[Quest]

Edit: Actually, I take it back, if you want a review and your omake is under say 3k let me know and I'll give it a gander. With my track record, I probably shouldn't do too many unsolicited reviews lest I do damage to someone's drive to create.

Click to shrink...

I'm always looking for criticism. Here's my last omake. Should be 2k-ish. Let's see if I smolder.

 

[Liliet]

Eirene of Nowhere intermission art: darkest hour​

 

[Liliet]

Otoh... like... nothing... actually... happened? It was a lot of 'and then she broke through X' which is neat, but it's not very character-driven.

Click to shrink...

even if your character doesn't interact with a single character there should be some sense of physicality - of being somewhere, doing something.

Click to shrink...

so this is actually very valid and interesting criticism that I'm going to meditate on and possibly edit the omake
bless u

if you read the rest of my stuff and said things like this id also be very happy fyi

 

[Mochinator]

Yanno what I'm just going to fill in for Mochi while he takes a much deserved break.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, i think i'm gonna rest a while for Nov. Probably won't be as active for that month since i'll be busy playing Assassin Creed.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

[ ] Plan: Putting out fires
-[ ] Man the Council properly
-[ ] Deploy her to the Blood Cannibals
-[ ] Training Soldiers
-[ ] Fortify the Scorpion Road (10 Wealth)

We have two places we really need to cover this turn - the Road, and the Cannibal Border. Given we can only buy one thing this turn anyways, committing ourselves to hiring mercs seems wasteful - aswell as risky, as it empowers our vassals at the time their overlord is the weakest. While they are loyal, all loyalty is built on strength - it's in the rules that even the most loyal vassals will rebel if they are of sufficient strength. Instead of paying mercs to deal with the Blood Cannibals and having our Soul patrol the road, we send our Soul to the Blood Cannibals and invest in road defenses - achieving the same goal but cheaper, and more permanently. We also tell our clan to focus on rebuilding the shattered command structure we are undoubtedly going to cause by manning the council properly. We need a functioning council for the wealth it provides but also a functioning army for the upcoming war, and this is the least-bad compromise in the short term, rather than gambling on diplomacy with a Righteous Sect who will gladly leave us to drown.

 

[Mochinator]

[ ] Plan: Covering the basics
-[ ] Man the Council properly
-[ ] Deploy her to the Blood Cannibals
-[ ] Training Soldiers
-[ ] Fortify the Scorpion Road (10 Wealth)

We have two places we really need to cover this turn - the Road, and the Cannibal Border. Given we can only buy one thing this turn anyways, committing ourselves to hiring mercs seems wasteful - aswell as risky, as it empowers our vassals at the time their overlord is the weakest. While they are loyal, all loyalty is built on strength - it's in the rules that even the most loyal vassals will rebel if they are of sufficient strength. Instead of paying mercs to deal with the Blood Cannibals and having our Soul patrol the road, we send our Soul to the Blood Cannibals and invest in road defenses - achieving the same goal but cheaper, and more permanently. We also tell our clan to focus on rebuilding the shattered command structure we are undoubtedly going to cause by manning the council properly. We need a functioning council for the wealth it provides but also a functioning army for the upcoming war, and this is the least-bad compromise in the short term, rather than gambling on diplomacy with a Righteous Sect who will gladly leave us to drown.

Click to shrink...

While i personally would go for the Legate Option + throw money to roll for Core, speaking purely on this plan i would suggest switching the fortify and deploy actions.

One of the points being raised about the Deploy her to the roads option is that the main threat for the Road and the flow of trade is from the Jiang Shen who can use the excuse of trying to keep things stable via helping us to " protect " the road while we recover. But with the Flood Dragon NS, they can't really do that as the Flood Dragons are a all out Righteous side who have the Strength Purity backing. Having her guarding the road is not only a deterrence in terms of military might, it also adds political weight on the JS if they try to make a move.

Where as right now the Blood Cannibals cannot afford to engage in a proper war with us for the next two turns. So if we're worried about them pushing as soon as they can, fortifying the border might help because as we saw in the Devil Bees, it will help slow them down drastically. Which could even add maybe one more turn of actions, allowing us to get more Cores organically + restructure the legions since the Legates will be removed.

 

[Liliet]

But fortifying the Scorpion Road IS one of the non-wasteful money options we have right now.

 

[FixerUpper]

[Toad Hunters]​

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I made... quite a few assumptions here because while I've heard of the toad cultivator my awareness of that cultivator is extremely vague. Something something Qiguai Secret Realm.

First and most important assumption: the person speaking isn't actually your character, but rather a bit player. If it is your character... what I say might all be wrong.

So, let's start. I'm always happy to see people experiment and this style is clearly an experiment - I can't imagine anyone doing the one-sided dialogue thing for too long, but it's a nice thing to try. And having tried it myself and then read yours I noticed a common weakness in both of our omakes (so I'm glad I read yours because I didn't catch it the first time with mine).

No one... actually speaks like this.

I mean, they could but as an author you're trying to make things as clear to the reader as possible so you're forced to do a trick and that trick is for your guy to restate his silent interlocutor's statements as questions or statements or wtv. You use that trick... probably too many times, so what comes off as an affectation at first starts to become odder and odder.

Basically, it doesn't feel like a conversation that the character is having with me, it feels... more like a conversation he's having with himself and I just happen to be privy to it.

That's the main thing. I mean the details are great, there's a lot of fanservice in your omake - I understood at least half the references and was like ha! I know what's going on.

But yeah, there's still a part of me that can't help but think that if we wrote out both ends of the conversation and then subtracted one end, the dialogue would end up looking very different from the finished product in both our omakes.

 

[Mochinator]

But fortifying the Scorpion Road IS one of the non-wasteful money options we have right now.

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I think it kinda depends on your priorities?

Like fortify is good in that it's a flat buff to the place, but the Defs can't help much if JS tries to pull a stunt via on of their NS with the excuse of "securing" the road so that the stones can flow uninterrupted.

Flood Dragon NS guarding it is more of conveying that the road is already guarded and that any attempts to take it over has to go through the Flood Dragons and Strength Purity. I personally don't agree with the Mercs because of similar points mentioned about making the vassals stronger at our expenses

But my personal choice is on using that money to Gamble for Core because we do need to build up their numbers ASAP and i rather do it when we have another NS around that no one wants to offend for both power and political reasons. It's a gamble yes, but one i think worth taking because any Cores we do get from it will stay with the Clan and contribute.

 

[FixerUpper]

if you read the rest of my stuff and said things like this id also be very happy fyi

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Before I do that (and I probably won't be able to before the weekend) I will reiterate what I think is the most important pieces of writing advice I've come across:

If someone tells you something's wrong, they're almost always right. If that someone then tells you how to fix it, they're almost always wrong.

(I believe you can find the original statement in the author's notes of Gaiman's American Gods.)

Basically, accept all criticism as useful, but keep in mind I am kiiiinda presenting a remedy which may or may not work for you. I'm trying to keep things very general, but at the end of the day, you gotta write your story, not mine so don't push something in a direction you don't like just because some rando on the internet suggested it.