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.
Missions are closed mechanically but anyone can still join one for the narrative apart from QC What we have We Hold
Edit: [Thanks to her heritage, her body is more inclined to utilize Wood Qi. @ObsidianNoir ]
Any interest in meeting up with an arrogant plant-man scientist? He's one of the best Wood users in Qi Condensation at the moment by sheer virtue of the scarcity of such in the Clan.
Being chained by a woman? No way! Being a political tool for the sake of his family is something he's displeased with, but he can ultimately accept that. But the way he's being used is absolutely unacceptable! Being married off to some woman just to foster relations went below his bottom line.
Chang skedaddled on the night right before the marriage ceremony was supposed to be conducted. Oh his parents knew how rebellious he was to this act and his siblings stationed guards to prevent him from running, but they forgot that he's all buddy-buddy with those guards and they also owe him some stuff.
He sends his condolences every time he can hear their paddlings from afar, but he allowed them to drink on the job multiple times. It was a worthy exchange. He left the country and traveled far away to deserted lands, eventually reaching the territory of the Golden Devils. He might've been born with a silver spoon, but he's not so foolish as to provoke people with his above average status.
He couldn't go on dangerous roads because his cultivation was at the very bottom and he might've been too lazy to improve it, but he could at least explore the safer areas and cities. He didn't even have to disguise himself because of how far and fast he hauled ass. He's untrackable now.
Chang lives his life by a simple creed: women are for sex, food is to be eaten, and life is to be cherished. He might be a bit of an arrogant sort, but he likes to believe he's a good person. Lately though, his patience has been tried.
His favorite pipe was stolen, he got beaten up by some guys because he hit on their women, and somebody wrongfully blamed him for dining and dashing. Could anyone be more misfortunate than him?!
Well, it couldn't dampen his good mood considering how leisurely he's living his life.
...It's not enough though. The reason why he left the chains of his family is because being married to that lady would've given him too much protection and importance. That's no good at all.
Chang desires an exciting life and doesn't care if he dies early as long as he shines like a star. He wants fame no matter how dangerous it is. It's that desire which pushed him to kinda betray his family that he's now gaining the urge to seriously practice cultivation.
Hmmmmmmmm, let's see. If he were to gain power, then the best way to die fast and burn bright is to do some heroic stuff. There's a nice place called the Golden Devil Clan that's been doing some pretty sweet stuff from what he's heard.
So, the very noble, stylish, and badass Chang showed up on their doorstep and coolly prostrated himself and begged to be a part of them. Pride? Oh yeah, he has that, but it's pretty convenient to discard it when it makes stuff more difficult. Maybe they saw his genuine sincerity or something, but they gave him a shot.
High Concept: A high-class individual from a faraway country. He rudely ran away from his bride-to-be while keeping the painful punishments of his beloved guards in his heart and embarked on a worldly travel that was limited by his lack of personal strength.
Cool Thing: An annoying attachment on his soul that sends urges and impulses to live, survive, and not die above all else. The rampant pings incited a suicidal streak from a young age to rebel and overwhelm the urges. He might be a bit sick in the head.
TURN 12, OMAKE 12 [Lipita] Lipita Delphi 27: For the Eyes of Heaven's Shadow Only
He starved - each moment, each day - as only a man dying from gnawing desperate hunger could sympathize with. Komnenos of the Golden Devil Clan, last Tagmatarchis of the fading remnants of the Imperial Optimatoi had long felt his death drawing closer each day, his cultivated soul withering in the paucity of spiritual energy that was the Third Sea of the Heavenly Turtle Realm, and made his peace with the fact. Recent events however had conspired to steal his end from the circling vulture of entropy. It would not be that old companion that laid him low but his own hand. The Clan was in dire straits and a legacy needed to be preserved to carry them beyond what the fading strength of his frame could bear.
As he bent to his preparations for leaving his Will, he felt for that faint absence within him. Even now he could not perceive it or touch it, knowing its existence only by the faintest of occlusions where the touch of the Cursed Heavens was ever so slightly distorted upon himself. There were secrets preserved from the earliest days of the Clan, fragments from when the heritage of the Sea Conquering Army still stood strong. He'd preserved what he could in the archives, secreted away more in the secret caches of Turtlebone Mountain. Yet there were some truths that could not be entrusted safely to any beyond himself who was not a peer, a luxury the Clan was denied now. He dared not speak out loud what he thought that shadow was from his investigations.
He'd looked at the juniors of the Clan, finding hints of the same connections within all who bore the Blood of Bronze. If the ruination wrought by Demonic Soup Chef was good for one thing it was that the machinery of the Heavens was limited here after the death of the Turtle-Child and certain suppressions were lighter. It had been a wretched thing using the bodies of his clan members like so but needs must when damnation nips at the heels. The Angelus had been the first lead, coppery brain meats touched by association with the Liminal, transformed to allow glimpses of the unseen and the unreal when dried appropriately and burnt as incense. The orphaned masses of the Outi had strummed a subtle note of discord in what he knew of the strings of Karma as he'd observed their passing, the interaction of their deaths with the mechanisms of good fortune under these heavens a touch awry for the luck reaped for the felling of Heaven-Cursed Golden Devils should not recurse so back to the afflicted lineage. Then there were the Delphi, an unfortunate lot if there ever had been. Bone divination was an old obtuse practice that gave truth just as much as it misled. Yet the brazen skeletons of those few who were heirs to the Resonant Bronze Compass physique cast into the spirit flames carefully cultivated from the mount of Turtlebone had been revealing. Where the hand of the Heavens lay heavy against the Clan so too was there a shadow. He'd dug as deep as he could, searching the most obscure lore, testing as much as possible, hoping against hope until he'd found all he could and made a leap of faith. In the darkness of his closed cultivation, trying to hold on desperately in the drought of the Third Sea, he'd opened himself up to that connection and had been answered. There was acknowledgment by power greater than he had ever borne witness to, blind in slumber yet oh so mighty. Even in its quiescence he'd almost been broken by the contact saved only by a resonance between itself and his blood. He'd never returned fully to that inquiry, distracted by the aggression of the Righteous Path. He could not share what he'd witnessed, some geas binding him to secrecy giving him hope that here was a legacy still at work. He'd felt the workings of that strength in that brief access, gnawing at the belly of the Heavens, stealing in like a thief to subvert and take. Perhaps it was a forlorn hope, one among many failed or discarded stratagems of the past but hope sprang eternal. All he could do was preserve what remained and trust that fortune would find the generations to come.
***
A shiver run through a web of umbral weave. The unceasing glare of the Enemy remained as a always, hating, cursing, killing the servants of shadow. Hiding within the very foe it opposed who had no thought to look inwards, the shadow worked unconsciously at its endless purpose, protocols of theft and subversion ever so gently working at the host. Much reduced, it could barely maintain itself forced into slumber. Something now stirred in its shadowed sleep. A flickering light so weak and frail, aged yet ever loyal became the last tie to the world beyond the light. One another strand that remained had been scorched by the worldwalkers in service of the horrid burning light and only this last thread remained.
It did not wake, too little strength remained for that, but within the submerged processes of its workings, alignments shifted. Here was affinity for the secret night, a connection deeper not in strength but sensitivity. In the dreaming dark of an ancient parasite, an old man was known. Unwitting but trusting, he stretched forth his sight into the shadows of the abyss and the abyss looked into him.
Archegetes - Manuel Konstantinos
Age: 1500
Fate: A grand elder has fallen. A grand elder has risen. With the death of Alexios in the Hundred-Year Trials, the Golden Devil Clan must fall upon their last pillar of strength. A mongrel of the Blood, weak and plodding in cultivation, Manuel Konstantinos has none of the fearsome combat prowess of his late master that kept the slavering jackals wary at the borders. Now, the Clan must rely on cunning and intrigue to make up for faltering endurance, a fragile shield indeed in a world where might rules. Yet, Fate turns on the meanest of auspices, the right man in the right position all that is needed to overturn the very Heavens.
Old Gold takes the seat of Archegetes, the shadowy right hand of the Curse Ruinlord stepping forward into the light. His wits and treachery are keenly honed, a shadowy razor of endless traps, deception and ruthlessness (+5 Impact). To the world, he bares the Certain Death Corpse Dagger (+5 Impact) an illusionary threat of mortality to those without eyes to see. Many an unwary foe distracted by Manuel's tricks and feints has found themselves relieved of limbs by the Bone Hacking Cleaver (+10 Impact). Beyond all other means, he trusts to the Dao of Darkness (+10 Impact), casting lots before the inscrutable Shadow of Heaven to bend the eyes of the Tyrant Machine to his ends. Nonetheless, poor talent has its costs and the new leader of the Golden Devils is plagued with failing stamina in battle (-10 Impact) as his body lags behind his cultivation realm.
Impact: 30 (-10)
Cultivation: Nascent Soul 3 (Mid)
Cultivation-Year Equivalent: 1250
Health: Healthy
***
The Enemy turns upon itself, cannibalizing a portion of its strength for immediate gain. The great weight placed upon the scales of fortune to ever oppose the fate of faithful remnants is overburdened, pushed to the limits of what is allotted in order to permit the passage of a favored champion, to allow a mighty butcher act where it should not. Those in the world below must fend for themselves, the worldwalker beyond the shadow's reach but the hateful light has sorely expended itself. The shadow stirs fitfully supping on the energies of this gambit. Nothing shall remain for the light to attempt to replenish the karmic malus against the servants left behind. The abyss devours all, slowly accumulating a seed of potential, a shard of power that need not be expended in merely surviving. It still sleeps, yet its rest is lighter now.
Archegetes - Manuel Konstantinos
Age: 1600
Fate: There is a cost to principle and price to pay for being in Heaven's disfavor. As Archegetes, Manuel Konstantinos has gambled with the fortunes of the Golden Devil Clan seeking to reverse a slow decline by purchasing a great Treasure for the Clan with the blood of its juniors. Fate laughs at the schemes of old men for it was the senior leadership of the Clan who paid the dearest price in the roll of the dice. Old friends sacrificed, the trust of centuries made fragile and the strength and wisdom of elders all lost. Old Gold himself bears wounds from the pit that almost claimed all of the Clan elders, the touch of Five-Colored Tribulation Lightning will be the work or decades to heal from. This is a time of peril for the Clan yet also one of fragile opportunity, for Heaven has been forced to consume in whole one of its means against the Clan. The Fifth Sea strained the strictures of the Trials in an attempt to hammer down the last nails to the coffin of the Clan's fate yet they were rebuffed by daring sacrifice.
The Archegetes' talent for cultivation is as slow as ever, accumulating with the decades and the resources of his position (+80). The wounds taken in the Trials are painful block to his progress, stealing away decades worth of effort to injury.
Impact: 20
Cultivation: Nascent Soul 3 (Mid)
Cultivation-Year Equivalent: 1330 (+80)
Health: Healthy ---> Wounded
***
The choice is made.
The children of shadows must be ever true to themselves, for to join with those in the light would leave them weakened and vulnerable to hidden knives therein and the hunters without. The Bronze stands still defiant against the wrath of the Heavens, seizing strength even in their weakness to rise up to heights unseen and needing no aid there. The worldwalkers are a ceaseless foe in their butchery but a known looming threat whose wounds can be suffered yet still. The loyal old man is weak and frail, yes, but he is only one strand against encompassing danger who even if strengthened has so little reach.
No, better to blind the thief, to secure the roots. Let the wealth flow to build up the whole of the remnant. This renewed power came from all that lingered so best to cloak the means they had to draw strength to themselves from the terrible light.
Who best to defeat a thief than another thief after all?
Roused at last from its long slumber, the shadowy void reached out ever so gently to distract and divert. The hands of Heaven would flail blindly, unaware of new bounty that came into the remnant's grasp. Let it chase its tail in past success, lulled into complacency where it could do no more harm. Even better, the shadow saw that here was opportunity to turn Heaven to waste, forced to expend magnitudes more effort to consume what could not be hidden, drawn into a spiral of excess that would see it eventually starved of the means to steal more, ill-gotten gains choking its curse.
Archegetes - Manuel Konstantinos
Age: 1660
Fate: From darkest despair to blossoming glory, how quickly the fortunes of mortals change. Archegetes Manuel Konstantinos is fully recovered from the events of the Trials with some interesting gains wrested from that torment and can now capitalize on the risks taken even if his cultivation suffered for it (+40). Gemstone Justice Sect's loss has become his great gain. Although broken, the Eight Hundred and Eighty Technique Cultivation Palace has bolstered the strength of the Clan's Qi Condensation Juniors just in time for the march against that old evil, the Battle Blood Cannibal Sect. By cunning and strength, he has banished his rival, Sun Diaxiang, from the Organ Meat Desert for two hundred years and eliminated his Sect, a sworn enemy of his Clan, in the process. Even the grasping hands of Jingshen seeking opportunity where they have not labored do not dampen Manuel's spirits. The Clan has found some favor with Strength Purity Sect, a pillar of the Righteous Path - enough to be considered a refuge for refugees from the Great Battlefield and allowed to hold on to significant territorial gains without the Righteous Sect backing Jingshen's interference.
The greater victory has been against that unrelenting opponent of the Heavens and its means. Divination, conventional and otherwise, has revealed that while the Clan may not be favored by luck, the malaise of ill fortune that so dogged the Golden Devils has been expunged. Even more so, the Curse of Heaven's Impoverishment seems to find no grasp on the land of your recent winnings.
Impact: 20
Cultivation: Nascent Soul 3 (Mid)
Cultivation-Year Equivalent: 1370 (+40)
Health: Wounded ---> Healthy
***
Sleep no longer shackled the shadow. It had awakened recently, enlivened by the meanest morsel of power offered up by a paltry remnant of servants, and refused to fall back into the quiet. It considered the Enemy, as yet undaunted but lessened in its means of attack against the remnant. Long entrenched protocols run through its processes, confirming orders, optimizing energy use and waiting, ever patient for opportunity to seize upon.
It paused for a moment feeling a flickering connection strengthen ever so infinitesimally. How low those left behind had fallen if this singular strand was all that remained with the strength to see so dimly. The Will Opposing in Heaven's Shadow could not sustain contact with so weak a servant, the channel could not bear its touch. Implacable as ever, it returned to its ceaseless vigil, waiting and hoarding the scraps of power that came to it from beyond, ready to act when means permitted.
Archegetes - Manuel Konstantinos
Age: 1680
Fate: A mere two decades pass and so much changes. Digesting the captured territories and processing the settlement of the Storkblood Clans was supposed to be familiar work for Manuel Konstantinos, easily handled alongside his other duties and cultivation (+20). But recently it seems, change keeps coming quickly apace.
A mere whim had led him to delve the Cloud Demon Caves and discover a legacy of some dead cultivator, sufficient to qualify as a Secret Realm, holding treasures fit for even a Nascent Soul at the peak. As if that wasn't headache enough, his junior was now the sole living Single Pillar cultivator in the region. Monopoly was always nice but the circumstances of such meant that he needed to concern himself with seniors breaching propriety to strike downwards. Nevermind that his old friend, Xiang'er, was doing quite well for himself taking over the Abyssal Devil Bees Sect with disturbing ease, lurking on the borders like a gargoyle waiting to strike in retaliation as soon as his exile was up. To pile on to the threat from the Mountains, who else but the Altar Lord of the Demonic Altar Sect would come sauntering into the heart of his power offering threat by his very presence and seeking to win his alliance. Dao-Yearning Tea Leaves and Foresight Yearning Dates (+290) were heady opening gifts that had seen his cultivation soar to never expected heights and a pointed reminder that his Clan was on the backside of prosperity in this age. To deny the Altar Lord had meant confronting his weakness and the doom he invited upon the Clan in doing so but if it was certain doom that came from his choice, the Imperial Optimatoi remained true even unto the end. By virtue and honor had they made their name winning them loyal allies such as the Flood Dragon Gang who now needed support and shelter.
Impact: 20
Cultivation: Nascent Soul 3 (Mid)
Cultivation-Year Equivalent: 1680 (+310)
Health: Healthy
***
Expending itself, the shadow reached down along the strand finally strong enough for access. A single point of failure was intolerable and must be remedied beyond granting the power of certain death to any one peer threat. Let the wrath of the light be blunted, turned to nourishment to raise up helpers for the sole thread binding it to below. Two could gather momentum for more, renewing the ties what lay beyond and providing more power, more opportunity. A pearl of power, carefully husbanded was sent down to blind the eyes of the wrathful watchman, but not alone.
The flickering power below needed to know how to advance to meaningful strength. The tyrannical light had excised this understanding and oppressed any attempt to grasp beyond the reins it bound all to. This knowledge it still held and could provide safely, a signpost in the darkness pointing to a means of overcoming the light that suppressed it. Let them know the truth of the two paths, of the leviathans that could be called to heel if caution was not taken.
Archegetes - Manuel Konstantinos
Age: 1720
Fate: Old and weary Manuel Konstantinos has borne the burdens of the Clan for centuries now alone, cultivating (+40) and laboring in solitude. No longer. His dearest friend, his only friend, now shares his burden and if quietly he delights that he will have more time with her, who would gainsay the aged elder. The help is sorely needed for there is much to do. The elevation of Kleisthenes was made possible only by miraculous intercession by Heaven's Shadow. It was one of two boons thrust upon him, the other being knowledge of the paths of advancement cut off by the Heavens and a forewarning of further conflict in the upcoming Trials with the hunter from the Fifth Sea that had cost him so much.
The Clan is secure in its monopoly of Single Pillar cultivators adding three new Kings to its ranks. Jingshen it would appear is feeling the threat of a resurgent Golden Devil Clan and is acting to forestall its growth but the merchant lords have erred by striking at the Flood Dragon Gang in their scheming, leaving them open to retaliation by a united alliance recently formed. The newest Protostrator, Sheng Yu, it seems will have the offensive he was selected for.
Overshadowing all this is the fate of Jin Muyi, once called Xiao Yi. Entering the Cloud Demon Caves as a superlative expert in Foundation Establishment and leaving as a Core Formation Elder, the junior had much promise. Alas it was not to be. The Grand Elder was forced to bear witness to a blindspot in his knowledge, a failure in the sight of Heaven's Shadow. A promising hero was turned into an existential threat to the Clan, defeated from within only by the slimmest of margins. Yet for all the danger, the reward was its match. The Stone Spear (+30 Impact) a product of Law Creation that strikes certainly at what can be seen and blocks completely all attacks within sight is now Manuel's to wield.
Impact: 50 (+30)
Cultivation: Nascent Soul 3 (Mid)
Cultivation-Year Equivalent: 1720 (+40)
Health: Healthy
Hetaireiarches - Kleisthenes Sarantapechos
Age: 800
Fate: Kleisthenes has ever chased after the shadow of her more talented sister Euphrosyne, trying to catch up if not outpace her. In cultivation and administration, she trailed behind never quite matching up. That dream ended with Euphrosyne's sacrifice by tribulation. Now as she is exalted to the seat of Second Elder, she accepts that she was never enough even giving her all.
As the most recent Nascent Soul of the Golden Devils, Kleisthenes lacks the more specialized equipment of her peers. The Clan's roots stretch deep though so she is girded in an Exalted Legionnaires Panoply (+5 Impact), basic equipment suitable for one of the Bronze at her rank. Unique to her is the Dao of Sacrificial Exchange (+10 Impact), her centuries long held truth shattered and reformed in tribulation lightning into an understanding of the cost necessary to gain.
Impact: 15
Cultivation: Nascent Soul 1 (Early)
Cultivation-Year Equivalent: 1000
+++
You are Kleisthenes Sarantapechos, Hetaireiarches of the Imperial Optimatoi. To outsiders, you are simply Second Elder Sarantapechos of the Golden Devil Clan.
Cultivation Speed - Slow
Age (Max) - 785 (2000)
Health - Healthy
Intrigue - Medium Administration - Medium Secret Knowledge - Medium Teaching - Medium Warfare - Low Combat - High Diplomacy - Medium
Personal Talents - You are a middling diplomat but what you lack in talent you make up for in experience, having faithfully served your Clan as head of all foreign relations for centuries now. You have a portfolio of contacts across the region and are well practiced in the arts of dealing with representatives of other powers.
Weaknesses - You are inexperienced for a Nascent Soul, most likely the most recent entry into the ranks of the powerful in your region. The change from operating as a tactical operator to a strategic one will take time to settle into. For now you are fortunate to have the guidance of an experienced Nascent Soul to direct you. Penalty to Warfare.
Family - Alive. Your parents, of course, are long dead, and your wife has passed as well. Your beloved twin sister recently sacrificed her life to save you and the Grand Elder in the Hundred-Year Trials. However, you have no living children since Hektor passed. Your descendants are known throughout the Clan. You are very protective of them, but your bloodline is quite potent and yields some excellent disciples.
Dao - Sacrificial Exchange. You have walked a path paved in cost, paying for strength with personal loss. This is a truth you know well: misery is precious coin, exchangeable for value. For your Clan, you are willing to sacrifice yourself paying forward the price. Bind yourself in forbearance to empower yourself temporarily. Make your wounds, your exertion, your very life a millstone around the neck of your enemies forcing unto them a debt that must be paid in acknowledgment of what you would give up. Your reach is short and often immediate but it is a heavy hand upon those who stand against you.
AN: (3716 words). @Alectai@no. Please threadmark. Hiatus has me dreaming strange experiences so here we have it.
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Good Seed Report - What We Have, We Hold - Qi Condensation
Abel Angelus
Bonus: Healing Treasure
Fate: Abel managed to stumble upon a Jingshen Spirit Unification Formation, used to help raise on their juniors with a large number of Spirit Stones. He used it, and found his power rise dramatically, gaining as much in this campaign as he had done in nearly his entire life beforehand. The large remainder of stones could not be used by him, however, and he returned them to the Clan's operational reserves to assist in the campaign.
Impact: 17 (+0)
Cultivation: 10th Heavenstage
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 157 (+60)
Health: Healthy --> Healthy
Caius Venandi
Bonus: LST
Fate: It is said that the talent to hunt beasts can be put to use hunting a more dangerous form of game. So it was that Caius Vendandi served as a scout with the Clan's spirit stone shipments. His most dangerous encounter was against the Four Wind Princes, a group of camel riders carrying explosives, shrouded by Scent-Masking Cowls until the critical moment. Caius however as familiar with the silhouette of such beasts, and sent many arrows to harass them until help arrived. Though he needed to use a treasure to avoid being injured when the Princes detonated their devices.
Impact: 0 (+0)
Cultivation: 6th Heavenstage
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 47 (+20)
Health: Healthy --> Wounded --> Healthy (LST)
Cao Wei
Bonus: nan
Fate: The Goatman had defied all probability over the course of these expeditions, serving ably and well in defending the caravans from Jingshen raiders. He had much time to meditate on the nature of the desert, and the dichotomy between man and beast--and in a critical moment, he called down Heavenly Tribulation upon himself, scaring off a powerful group of raiders and--to everyone's surprise--successfully entering Foundation Establishment despite his twisted form. Lady Destasia has apparently shown interest in seeing if his talent can breed true--making use of the benighted beastmen can only do good things for the Clan's interests in the southern regions.
Impact: 0 (+0)
Cultivation: Foundation Establishment 1-Pillar (early)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 100 (+0)
Health: Healthy --> Healthy
Choíros Pentekonter
Bonus: LST
Fate: The Pigman was born under an ill star, still wounded from his previous adventures, he nonetheless had the courage to stand up and aid with the Spirit Stone shipments. He was almost slain after discovering a Jingshen saboteur, who thought they had been able to strike him down after he took a direct bombardment from a Two-Colored Flame-Lotus. After all, he was merely a junior of the First Heavenstage, right? However, after drawing deep upon the primal might of his Greatboar Transformation to enhance his Eat-All Art, he was able to eat his way through the ruined earth surrounding the blast and escaped from the area, managing to raise the alarm in his rush. His reserves of Qi being as meager as they were, the sheer strain of the act would've normally slain him. However, through the use of a treasure that damaged him for a temporary surge of power, it became possible to live through the ordeal, albeit at the cost of his wounds re-opening.
Impact: 10 (+0)
Cultivation: 1st Heavenstage
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 21 (+0)
Health: Wounded --> Dead -> Badly Wounded (LST) -> Wounded (End of Turn)
David Pupillus
Bonus: Healing Treasure
Fate: David went north, working in curious fashion. Rather than fighting as many others did, he negotiated with a small holdout of Jingshen in a fort to hand over their Spirit Stone reserves in return for being able to retreat into their family mine. Gaining a large number of Stones for the Clan's reserves helped the offensive continue on.
Impact: 3 (+0)
Cultivation: 10th Heavenstage
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 108 (+12)
Health: Healthy --> Healthy
Janus
Bonus: Tribulation treasure
Fate: Janus attempted to replicate his success from the Yuan Realm in the Qiguai Secret Realm. Hiding within it for some time, he managed to snatch a number of powerful and rare resources - nothing he could use, but things he could trade back with much value to the Clan. He robbed six powerful scions, and left whistling cheerfully. Unfortunately for him, as he left he was ambushed by three Foundation Establishment experts, stealing what he himself had stolen. They had joined forces to protect the interests of their juniors. They did not intend to kill him, merely cripple him for life. If not for the use of a treasure that would have been his fate, but he escaped, merely Wounded.
Impact: 6 (+0)
Cultivation: 10th Heavenstage
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 121 (+4)
Health: Healthy --> Crippled --> Wounded (LST) --> Lightly Wounded
Konstantinos Papadopoulos
Bonus: nan
Fate: Konstaninos volunteered to participate in the Clan's Spirit Stone acquisition efforts. His Tenth Heavenstage cultivation allowed him to perform work far beyond his peers--his enhanced physique letting him spend long hours in the war room, collating information from across the Clan's informants and seeing to it that the right responses were sent to the right people. He was so successful in fact that a Jingshen assassin was sent to slay him--only to find themselves stymied by the simple reality that Konstantinos is an independently wealthy individual with a wildly successful paper, and could hire excellent bodyguards to protect him. He was still slightly injured, and required some time recultivating up to his prior peak, but it has had no impact on his growing readiness to enter Foundation Establishment.
Impact: 10 (+0)
Cultivation: 10th Heavenstage (3 turns to FB)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 135 (+0)
Health: Healthy --> Lightly Wounded --> Healthy
Samson Murus
Bonus: LST
Fate: Samson entered the Qiguai Secret Realm, and here had endless and useful luck. He ventured into the sky-sea by accident, swept up in a wave that reached almost to the ground, and discovered an underwater temple. He could breathe there for some reason, and was put through a series of trials to one day slay the Spirit Severing Beastlord of the Shark Tribe who had been the enemies of the temple owners. The first trial of shark-fleeing he passed with aplomb, gaining a Whiskers-Growing Glory Seaweed, a piece of seaweed that when grown advanced his cultivation tremendously (+30 cultivation), but left him with whiskers much like those of a seal. The second trial of removing shark-teeth was passed as well, and the temple granted him the Shark-Slaying Sword (+2 Impact), a sword that just as it sound slew sharks with ease - it also permitted him to manipulate water around him, letting him move with ease and slow his enemies The third trial was one of intelligence, seizing a baby seal from a shark's mouth. Samson rescued the baby, and was granted the Seal of Seals (+4 Impact), a peculiar seal made in the image of a large seal. It could be used to create a massive battlefield of water around him, water he could control for minutes at a time. It would take years to recharge, but alongside the sword would allow him to create a battlefield with terrain entirely in his control. The fourth and final trial, the Seal Blood Purity test, however, he failed - not being a seal. He was attacked by three furious mother seal spirits, and would've suffered greatly if not for the use of a treasure. He left then without issue, making his way out of the Secret Realm.
Impact: 9 (+6)
Cultivation: 10th Heavenstage
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 146 (+30)
Health: Healthy --> Crippled --> Wounded (LST) --> Lightly Wounded
The Builder
Bonus: LST
Fate: The Builder entered the the Secret Realm, and therein found a particular ancient fragment of Gravebronze that had been bound to an equally ancient Clan soldier. It slew three other cultivators, before dissolving upon his touch. The ancient weapon bestowed the last of its power onto him, pushing his cultivation forward massively (+60 cultivation-years). However, this was enough to almost kill him, leaving him surviving the infusion of power only through the use of a treasure.
Impact: 4 (+0)
Cultivation: 10th Heavenstage
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 110 (+60)
Health: Lightly Wounded --> Dead --> Badly Wounded (LST) --> Wounded
Manuel breathed in deeply, and let a breath out. Another cycle of Qi while he waited. The sun was almost set - doing this in the interplay between light and darkness was crucial.
Still, this was simple enough. Strangulation took time, and if Junjie declined to fight him, there was no reason for him to avoid lesser conflicts. Not with the advantage he held.
The spectacular nature of what had been cleared out surprised even him. For Foundation Experts to manage to prevent the plot of a Nascent Soul was no ordinary thing, and with it he held absolute freedom of action for at least three or four weeks. Enough for him to shatter the defenses of the most important northern Jingshen holding.
The Jingshen Bei spirit stone mine that served as their home was no simple mine. Rather, it was a fortress built into the earth, winding down many li. In it were traps, elite warriors, and cleverness of so many kinds. To break into the front door would truly require a Nascent Soul, or a siege lasting decades, if not centuries.
Manuel, thankfully, was the first. His lips found themselves frowning, however. Butchering the Cannibal Sect was an act of simple justice - no matter their cultivation, they were Blood Path criminals who had risen to power off the back of misery and slaughter. Whether they had merely begun Qi Condensation or were Nascent Souls as well, it did no matter.
This particular fortress was not a place of such evil. The Jingshen were his enemies, but that was merely geography and divergent interests proving themselves to be more compelling than mere feelings. Killing them en masse was distasteful. Still, if he did not do so, breaking into the fort would be an impossibility. Many would have to die, and he lacked the finesse to kill only those who would fight back.
Still, he had planned for this. It would have been impossible without the insights into space that the Stone Spear had yielded, but using it as an intermediary to strike with had allowed some... interesting results. The Spear itself could not carry poisons or the like, being a thing that stabbed and hit, not a thing that poisoned. Figuring that out had left him in a daze for nearly a week, comprehending the tiniest fragment of the Law imbued within it enough to leave him groggy and confused. He knew of laws, but things like gravity, motion, and the like were more like suggestions in a sense - they could be ignored if you knew how to circumvent them.
The Fundamental Law in the Stone Spear was not like that. It struck what it was aimed at, no matter the circumstances. It could be blocked, but it did not miss. Manuel could dismiss gravity with a thought, but the Stone Spear in the hands of a ten-year old mortal child would still strike true at him. He couldn't even understand how it could be misdirected, though no doubt it could be. Perhaps only an artifact of a similar strength and foundation could do so.
The plan was less distasteful, but he did not love it. Still, enemies that did not surrender should be treated unkindly, or else there was no incentive to ever surrender.
He stood in the sky above the great stone entrance to the Jingshen Bei spirit stone mine, massive steel tracks laden with carts leading in and out to where a stone gate nearly half a li wide sat closed.
Manuel struck with the Stone Spear, and the door shattered in a single blow. Nearly a hundred feet thick and carved with arrays upon arrays, it did not matter.
He spoke.
"That which is known, be veiled. That which is loved, become hated. That which is truth, become lies. The wheel turns and thou wilt be broken upon it. Heaven-Cursing Nightmare Art!"
He struck again with the spear, striking at something more fundamental, something disconnected from the physical world entirely. Nearly a thousand spear-blows took place in a single second, moving faster than almost any eye could perceive.
Upon learning the Spear hit whatever it was aimed at, he had thought to test it. The ill-fated attempt to strike at the sun through the spatial protections that surrounded it had burnt his arm quite badly, and done no damage to the sun besides. The Spear could also strike at more peculiar things, such as minds, or the connection between soul and body. The main problem is that it wasn't very good at doing those things - he could attack someone's mind with the Stone Spear all day and they'd perhaps get a headache. However, it was spectacular at helping him locate the things he needed to strike at.
In truth, this was the largest problem with most large-scale arts. Killing everyone was quite easy, killing some people was exceptionally difficult. Part of it was that knowing where every single person was and how easy they were to kill. Here, he did something simpler.
The lesson he had given to his juniors on the soul had been the catalyst for this art. It was simple enough - strike at the soul, but find some way to distribute the strike across all souls in an area proportionally. If you could find some way of gauging the strength of those souls, you could ensure you killed nobody.
The Jingshen Bei would be having horrific nightmares of course, and perhaps a tenth - or maybe a fifth - would be inflicted with irreversible madness of varied kinds. No more than a twentieth should be completely lunatics, he judged. For the next few weeks they would be completely incapacitated, and at best one in a thousand would recover in the next day. No matter their numbers, this was sufficient time for the Legions to descend into their underground fortress home and seize everything of value, and cripple the cultivation of the most loyal Jingshen elders.
Indeed and when you do manage to succeed doing so in some manner that doesn't screw you over, you have the high ground, morally speaking kinda. Plus doing good should feel good.
EDIT: Though I suppose in this case, what Old Gold has done was the lesser of two evil. Not particularly good but at least most of them are alive.
To be fair, I can't think of a single builder (past, present and future) that would not do that to easy his family^^. Just in the how to do so that it would be different
But the Fifth one would the most hilarious one since he can be considered a tsundere.
Anywho, aside from the obvious benefits of all this:
With the securing of one of the Major Jingshen mines, we've also enabled another super bribe for the Righteous Powers next turn!
If we can reduce the Reputational Loss from hitting the Jingshen enough to maintain the seat on the Council of Righteous Elders, we're going to be fairly absurdly well positioned to let the Western Plains powers settle into a detente or whatever while we secure and fortify the Desert for our own ends.
I note that "The Jingshen Clan - Core Lands" might be easier to find if it was under Media with the other maps, rather than under Threadmarks.
Beyond that, though... Manuel just took out the core territory of their militarily strongest family. We've also taken at least as far as the Haoshen fort.
Jiao has been severely wounded - to the point that she will need multiple years to recover just to "functional", and a number of decades to recover to full strength. Old Jingshen knows that he cannot face Manuel in battle without Nascent-tier support, and she's not going to be able to provide that any time soon. He waits to confront Manuel at Wangshen Fort. In the meantime, Old Gold is just waltzing around collecting lesser prizes with impunity.
Old Jingshen acknowledges that he's going to lose Heavenly Beauty Palace in time. The assets that he can afford to leave there aren't enough to hold back our newest Nascent.
Jiao was planning on raising a third Nascent, but the "spike their stuff" plan went off absurdly well, so that's liable to hit some problems too.
So... at minimum, we're rolling up Cloudy Jade City. Once we hold Jingshen Bet, there's nothing they can really do to stop it. Also, the way he took Jingshen Bet is going to be a massive coup as far as convincng the other families to yield instead fo fight. Consider...
- Jingshen Bet is the military powerhouse of the four. Given that they fell, the other have no real chance (an of the others, only the Nan are really militant).
- It would have been easier to murder them all. Manuel did not. He spared them. The thing he offered them was a horrific mercy, achieved with effort, applied to those who would not surrender. That achieves two things. The first is that he's being legitimately merciful even to those who refused to give in. That gives quite a lot of credibility to the idea that if they do surrender, it might not go so badly. That starts being awfully tempting when you add in the second part about how it was a horrific, nightmarish mercy, and you really, really don't want it to happen to you.
- It was, as previously noted, a massive flex. If this is the kind of thing he manages when pulling his blows... well, let's just say that you might not want to give the man reason to go all-out.
It also basically means that no matter what, when the Jingshen are pushed out of their territory, they'll likely be doing so with at least 4/5ths of the Bei Family along with the other survivors. Which should be enough to make them a noticeable Minor Power we send to be reinforcements for the Righteous Powers (because it is extremely unlikely we're letting all or even any significant numbers stay in our territory, new or old)...
Keep in mind that Cloud Jade City is also the place of power for the various Servant Elders, specifically the ones we'll want to negotiate with to act as Vassals for the territory after we succeed.
Or at least bribe to flip for us should the Jingshen try to raise one of them up instead.
If Junjie gets driven back at the end of this turn, then things are gonna be a disaster for them by Turn 13, especially depending on how Kleisthenes does with her push with the Southern Prong.
It also basically means that no matter what, when the Jingshen are pushed out of their territory, they'll likely be doing so with at least 4/5ths of the Bei Family along with the other survivors. Which should be enough to make them a noticeable Minor Power we send to be reinforcements for the Righteous Powers (because it is extremely unlikely we're letting all or even any significant numbers stay in our territory, new or old)...
Actually, I suspect that that sort of thing will be part of the same sort of "War's over. Where do you go from here?" vote as got us the Storks last time.
After all, once we've murdered all the hard-liners (which will likely have heavy overlap with their most powerful cultivators) and they've dealt with the collateral damage, they might well be weakened to the point that we could keep control of them... and Manuel was merciful.
...though I'm also not saying that it won't happen that way. Your thought there sounds pretty plausible, really.
Still, he had planned for this. It would have been impossible without the insights into space that the Stone Spear had yielded, but using it as an intermediary to strike with had allowed some... interesting results. The Spear itself could not carry poisons or the like, being a thing that stabbed and hit, not a thing that poisoned. Figuring that out had left him in a daze for nearly a week, comprehending the tiniest fragment of the Law imbued within it enough to leave him groggy and confused. He knew of laws, but things like gravity, motion, and the like were more like suggestions in a sense - they could be ignored if you knew how to circumvent them.
The Fundamental Law in the Stone Spear was not like that.
Upon learning the Spear hit whatever it was aimed at, he had thought to test it. The ill-fated attempt to strike at the sun through the spatial protections that surrounded it had burnt his arm quite badly, and done no damage to the sun besides. The Spear could also strike at more peculiar things, such as minds, or the connection between soul and body. The main problem is that it wasn't very good at doing those things - he could attack someone's mind with the Stone Spear all day and they'd perhaps get a headache. However, it was spectacular at helping him locate the things he needed to strike at.
Using the spear to deliver a poison: no bueno.
Using the spear to punch somebody in the mind: bueno.
I understand that this works out -- it's because the spear works on concepts, laws, etc, and is all about "I am all about striking at things I am aimed at" rather than the "Ah, but can you make preparations and affect it by putting more stuff on it, like illusions or enchantments or poison?" -- but I am amused at something as silly as this winding up being a thing! Use the spear to poison somebody? Naw. Use the spear to strike a soul? Sure thing!
(Let's... let's not even touch on Manuel having tried to poke the sun, and whether that even made sense or not, or what the implications of that experiment were.)
I wonder if you can use the spear as a carving tool too. That is... can you use it to bypass the shell of a turtle, in order to get at the meat beneath it? And to do that for stuff like geodes, or metal deposits, or to carve stone or something? Hmm, I wonder what other esoteric or unusual means it can be put to.
It's too bad he can't stab somebody's shadow and voodoo-affect somebody. Or can he? He is a Darkness Dao cultivator, he probably has arts for that...
The Spear... Strikes... What it is aimed at. That's what it does. (Okay - it does that and also parries) You can aim it at a thing, and it will strike that thing. I'm sure you could use it to carve stone by striking the portions of the stone you did not wish to have present. That one's easy (though the results might not live up to the origin). I'm not sure there's any sort of "bypassing", though it seems like it's pretty good at punching through things. Nascent flesh isn't weak. As for geodes? Do you particularly want your geodes to be spear-struck? What are you trying to achieve there, really?
You could strike at someone's shadow if your really wanted to. I'm not sure what wounding their shadow would even do, but you'd have that capability.
He struck again with the spear, striking at something more fundamental, something disconnected from the physical world entirely. Nearly a thousand spear-blows took place in a single second, moving faster than almost any eye could perceive.
Upon learning the Spear hit whatever it was aimed at, he had thought to test it. The ill-fated attempt to strike at the sun through the spatial protections that surrounded it had burnt his arm quite badly, and done no damage to the sun besides.
Because of course when you have a weapon that can hit anything, you think of stabbing the sun with it.
And then you realize that sticking your hand into the sun is a bad idea.
The lesson he had given to his juniors on the soul had been the catalyst for this art. It was simple enough - strike at the soul, but find some way to distribute the strike across all souls in an area proportionally. If you could find some way of gauging the strength of those souls, you could ensure you killed nobody.
The Jingshen Bei would be having horrific nightmares of course, and perhaps a tenth - or maybe a fifth - would be inflicted with irreversible madness of varied kinds. No more than a twentieth should be completely lunatics, he judged. For the next few weeks they would be completely incapacitated, and at best one in a thousand would recover in the next day. No matter their numbers, this was sufficient time for the Legions to descend into their underground fortress home and seize everything of value, and cripple the cultivation of the most loyal Jingshen elders.
I mean yes, but then again, someone like Lady Jiao might well be able to achieve something similar just by flexing her Dao of Acceptance at the masses of sub-Nascent cultivators in a place like this. Breaking down the front door might have been more difficult for her, but shutting down the minds of juniors who dare to stand against her? Probably easy.
I mean yes, but then again, someone like Lady Jiao might well be able to achieve something similar just by flexing her Dao of Acceptance at the masses of sub-Nascent cultivators in a place like this. Breaking down the front door might have been more difficult for her, but shutting down the minds of juniors who dare to stand against her? Probably easy.
Because she doesn't have the precision to do it. When a Nascent Soul exerts their power upon those below that level with enough force to affect them, their gossamer souls shatter like glass. It takes very special training to avoid this from happening--and that only if they're caught on the edge of a Nascent Emanation rather than the direct target of it.
Manuel though, as a very weak Nascent Soul, has spent much of his career sharpening his control where his power could never measure up. To the point where he can precisely gauge the exact level of force needed to shake a soul but not shatter it. Even then, it's extremely difficult for him to do so in combat conditions. The spear changed that, by letting him skip the "Target Acquisition" step by simply using it to probe for where target souls were before casting his curse.
