Lead a fractured merchant clan in a moment of crisis to wealth and glory, or to your ignoble fall!
Money and Power: A Xianxia Merchant Quest
- Thread starter Mr. Prokosch
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Character Creation 1
The funeral was a lavish affair. The Patriarch came from the gutter, and so had a soft spot for the truly destitute. They marched through the city, throwing spirit chips worth a lifetime of peasant labor like they were grain. Behind the funeral train seeds of Saint's Grace bloomed under a magnificent gardening technique, a shower of shining black-purple petals scattered with the wind, each would heal a mortal of all illness. At the end of the procession kneeling mortals, lottery winners, received elixirs of exaltation and laughed with purest joy at the first kiss of immortality. The old money scoffed at this merchant house putting on airs. New money crowed that at this rate they'd be bankrupt in a week.
It was desperate. It was necessary. Honor, goodwill, and wealth would have to be their shield. With the Patriarch dead, they had nothing else. Adding the Core, Branch, Adopted, and Employed, the Clan had over 100,000 members. Most were mortals, or in Hungering, the first step on a long path. A few trusted agents and ranking members had the resources and talent to reach Building. They were wealthy, well-established, and well-organized. They were prey.
Clan members gazed at their Patriarch one last time as he proceeded inwards, to be interred with full honors in Sanctuary Hill, the second most prestigious cemetery in the Silver Rivers region. Deep in the Hall of Mourning, the innermost family stewed in dark silence over his corpse.
The Widow wore a mask of absolute grief, the better to hide the coldness she felt inside. The Old Man was dead, may his soul rot. Good that he'd died, bad that he'd done it just now. Her position was precarious. Her plans were still in their infancy, her loyalists unprepared. She had no blood connection to the Clan, even to most in this room. If she wasn't careful, she'd be back in the street. No, never that. She must remind herself, she'd grown too strong to think like that.
The Heir was composed, he pushed down waves of grief to plan the future of his House. There was much to do. Their rivals were sharks in bloody water. Their partners were snakes waiting to pounce. Their allies were vultures, eying a soon-to-be corpse. Without the Great Patriarch's power to protect them, without his wisdom to guide them, they were weaker than ever before. They needed leadership. They needed him.
The Spare watched his rivals as he schemed. All his life, he'd been second-best. Their cursed Patriarch pitted him against his brother, and forever found him wanting. But in the furnace of his father's scorn, he'd grown strong. His brother was a complacent fool. Their father's death was not a threat, it was an opportunity. There was profit to be made, where the Patriarch dared not tread. Chaos is a ladder.
The Exile paced with poorly contained fury. The shit smear that sired her was dead, and now she'd never be able to feel the old fool's face being crushed beneath her boot-heel. The Heir had called her back for this farce of a funeral, no doubt with plans to use her strength and connections in the Sect. She had other plans. Without the Patriarch to stop her, this Clan was hers.
The Prodigy cried silent, shuddering tears. Her beloved father was dead. Sweet moments played before her eyes. She remembered her tenth birthday, when he'd given her an Elixir of Deva Blood and Abyssal Tears and she'd broken through to Seeking then and there. He'd said she was his Golden Child. When she revealed her foundation technique, his booming laughter filled the estate. He said she was a perfect talent, perfectly shaped, her growth rivaling the crown prince of a True Noble. Her father said she'd be the new heir in a few more years. Now what would she do?
1. Which will be the new Patriarch, or Matriarch? Who are you?
[] The Widow, patient and ruthless
[] The Heir, skilled and loyal
[] The Spare, cunning and ambitious
[] The Exile, driven and aggressive
[] The Prodigy, young and talented
This vote will determine your character archetype. You will have a cultivation breakthrough in the aftermath of the Patriarch's death, allowing you to strong-arm the rest of the family into following your leadership, for now. There will be more character creation choices in the next vote.
2. Your family leads a merchant clan in a very vulnerable position. You trade in nearly anything now, but one thing is your foundation. Your resources for both personal and clan use are particularly rich in this area. What is it?
[] Spirit Beasts
[] Elixirs
[] Treasures
[] Essence Crystals
[] Rare Books
[] Art and Entertainment
[] Staples and raw resources
3. The Patriarch was the clan's founder and by far most powerful member, his leadership was absolute. His death was sudden. How did he die?
[] Poison
A rival no doubt, but who? Incredible wealth would be a prerequisite, but not sufficient. Poisons potent enough to kill a cultivator at his level would need to be tailored to his exact style of cultivation, a family secret.
[] Raid
The patriarch was always searching for new opportunities. He was ecstatic to find a new trade partner from well outside the Imperial borders, one that promised treasures of enormous value. Only he had the strength to travel so far into the Beast Lands, outside the Emperor's Light. A foreigner returned his body to you with an apology and a contract they mean to continue.
[] Duel
The Valiant Clan had long been jealous of your success. They manufactured an excuse and challenged your clan according to Imperial Law. You lost. Will that be enough to appease them, or will they only be satisfied with root and stem?
It was desperate. It was necessary. Honor, goodwill, and wealth would have to be their shield. With the Patriarch dead, they had nothing else. Adding the Core, Branch, Adopted, and Employed, the Clan had over 100,000 members. Most were mortals, or in Hungering, the first step on a long path. A few trusted agents and ranking members had the resources and talent to reach Building. They were wealthy, well-established, and well-organized. They were prey.
Clan members gazed at their Patriarch one last time as he proceeded inwards, to be interred with full honors in Sanctuary Hill, the second most prestigious cemetery in the Silver Rivers region. Deep in the Hall of Mourning, the innermost family stewed in dark silence over his corpse.
The Widow wore a mask of absolute grief, the better to hide the coldness she felt inside. The Old Man was dead, may his soul rot. Good that he'd died, bad that he'd done it just now. Her position was precarious. Her plans were still in their infancy, her loyalists unprepared. She had no blood connection to the Clan, even to most in this room. If she wasn't careful, she'd be back in the street. No, never that. She must remind herself, she'd grown too strong to think like that.
The Heir was composed, he pushed down waves of grief to plan the future of his House. There was much to do. Their rivals were sharks in bloody water. Their partners were snakes waiting to pounce. Their allies were vultures, eying a soon-to-be corpse. Without the Great Patriarch's power to protect them, without his wisdom to guide them, they were weaker than ever before. They needed leadership. They needed him.
The Spare watched his rivals as he schemed. All his life, he'd been second-best. Their cursed Patriarch pitted him against his brother, and forever found him wanting. But in the furnace of his father's scorn, he'd grown strong. His brother was a complacent fool. Their father's death was not a threat, it was an opportunity. There was profit to be made, where the Patriarch dared not tread. Chaos is a ladder.
The Exile paced with poorly contained fury. The shit smear that sired her was dead, and now she'd never be able to feel the old fool's face being crushed beneath her boot-heel. The Heir had called her back for this farce of a funeral, no doubt with plans to use her strength and connections in the Sect. She had other plans. Without the Patriarch to stop her, this Clan was hers.
The Prodigy cried silent, shuddering tears. Her beloved father was dead. Sweet moments played before her eyes. She remembered her tenth birthday, when he'd given her an Elixir of Deva Blood and Abyssal Tears and she'd broken through to Seeking then and there. He'd said she was his Golden Child. When she revealed her foundation technique, his booming laughter filled the estate. He said she was a perfect talent, perfectly shaped, her growth rivaling the crown prince of a True Noble. Her father said she'd be the new heir in a few more years. Now what would she do?
1. Which will be the new Patriarch, or Matriarch? Who are you?
[] The Widow, patient and ruthless
[] The Heir, skilled and loyal
[] The Spare, cunning and ambitious
[] The Exile, driven and aggressive
[] The Prodigy, young and talented
This vote will determine your character archetype. You will have a cultivation breakthrough in the aftermath of the Patriarch's death, allowing you to strong-arm the rest of the family into following your leadership, for now. There will be more character creation choices in the next vote.
2. Your family leads a merchant clan in a very vulnerable position. You trade in nearly anything now, but one thing is your foundation. Your resources for both personal and clan use are particularly rich in this area. What is it?
[] Spirit Beasts
[] Elixirs
[] Treasures
[] Essence Crystals
[] Rare Books
[] Art and Entertainment
[] Staples and raw resources
3. The Patriarch was the clan's founder and by far most powerful member, his leadership was absolute. His death was sudden. How did he die?
[] Poison
A rival no doubt, but who? Incredible wealth would be a prerequisite, but not sufficient. Poisons potent enough to kill a cultivator at his level would need to be tailored to his exact style of cultivation, a family secret.
[] Raid
The patriarch was always searching for new opportunities. He was ecstatic to find a new trade partner from well outside the Imperial borders, one that promised treasures of enormous value. Only he had the strength to travel so far into the Beast Lands, outside the Emperor's Light. A foreigner returned his body to you with an apology and a contract they mean to continue.
[] Duel
The Valiant Clan had long been jealous of your success. They manufactured an excuse and challenged your clan according to Imperial Law. You lost. Will that be enough to appease them, or will they only be satisfied with root and stem?
Chalchiuhxochitl of the Atlahau Clan
Archtype: Prodigy
Skills & Specialties
Cultivation Knowledge - 5
Business Sense - 4
Enlightenments
Heaven-Touched Dreamer - 1
Order-Aligned Spirit - 1
Destructive Abyssal Research - 1
SPECIAL:
Instinctive Adaption - 3
Diverse Strength - 2
Law's Guiding Grace - 1
Core Cultivation 1.2
Genius Talent
You have 1200 ATU (Arbitrary Teotl Units)
You are slightly above the known peak in Teotl control
You are approximately 20% more physically capable than Perfect cultivators without the use of techniques
You are 20 years old. You will not show your age until you are 600 years old
You inspire mild feelings of awe in people with lower cultivation
Trauma
Aggression (from near-death by Abyssals)
Foundation
Infinitely Perfect
This unique foundation technique gives you the ability to destroy and then remake any part of your own cultivation.
Growth: You may shatter and then reforge your own core. Each reforging makes it stronger, improving your basic cultivation (Teotl capacity, Teotl control, physical abilities, lifespan). Reforging takes time and cultivation resources, and you are mortal until it completes. Unlike other foundation techniques, this provides benefits indefinitely.
Refinement: You may shatter any Pillar Technique. You will still know the technique, but you will lose the Pillar Bonus. You lose any Mastery techniques based on that pillar. You can reforge the Pillar with a new technique. You can add additional Pillar Techniques at great difficulty up to a hard limit of 13.
Transformation: You can shatter your Transformation and choose a new thing to Merge with. You will have to restart the entire process and take on all the risks again. This isn't advisable unless you find something truly extraordinary to merge with or find a way to mitigate the risks.
Benefits after Transformation will be revealed if you reach that level of cultivation.
Techniques
Flesh Sculpting
The infamous, restricted technique for shaping living things with your will by flooding them with Teotl. This ability has enormous potential, its capabilities increase with Chachi's healing, anatomy, nature, crafting, and cultivation skills. At her current level of skill Chachi can heal very basic damage, turn simple living things into living treasures, and attempt to alter the natural abilities of spirit beasts.
You know a collection of unremarkable combat, movement, blessing, and utility techniques.
Pillars
Art of Evaluation
A mental enhancement technique that effects perception. You can extract maximal information from your senses. If you taste a pie with the Art of Evaluation, you will know the precise ingredients, how long it was baked, how sharp the knife was that cut it, etc. Sharpens the mind, not the senses. You won't see or hear a mosquito any faster, but as soon as you notice it you'll know its precise location, size, weight, and if it has blood in its stomach. Your father taught you this as your first technique. He created it himself, and sung its praises at any opportunity. He believed there was no greater virtue than a perceptive mind. Pillar bonus: Passive, switch on and off without cost.
Will of Creation
A general matter manipulation technique. You can alter the shape and composition of basic materials, turning objects suffused with your Teotl into other objects. With practice, you can mimic complex crafting practices, like distilling and forging, using only your Teotl control. For best results, you need an intimate understanding of the mundane process. This difficult to master technique is common among merchants and craftsmen in your clan. Pillar Bonus: You can do anything a mortal craftsman could near instantly and without tools, so long as you understand the process.
Touch of Destruction
A simple combat and utility technique. When used in combat, allows you to add destructive force to your strikes. Outside of combat, can be used to efficiently break down objects and structures. This basic technique is extremely common everywhere. Pillar Bonus: Gives an intuitive sense of natural weak points and increases base strength of the technique.
Blessing of Efficiency
An esoteric blessing technique. Shapes ambient Teotl around the target, making things faster, easier, and less wasteful. Works on anything that can be made more efficient, but most effective on complex systems. People, machines, businesses, even nations can benefit. Knowing this technique is a job requirement for Imperial Magistrates, though they don't have to integrate it. Pillar Bonus: Extreme improvement to base strength and scope, can maintain multiple blessings if you're willing to dedicate a constant drain of Teotl to each.
Basic Imbuing
A core treasure-forging technique. Allows you to shape the Teotl waterways of mundane objects, making them receptive to empowerment rituals that turn them into magical treasures. Anyone interested in making treasures learns this. Pillar Bonus: Objects can gain minor powers with imbuing alone and you can tweak the powers of existing treasures.
9999 Revelations Meditation
A powerful mental enhancement technique. You can shut off all your senses, entering a deep trance state where mind and spirit are in complete communion. Generates insights both profound and mundane. The longer you stay in the meditative state, the more effective the meditation. Favored by monks and inventors. Pillar Bonus: You can remain sensate with the meditation active and perform basic tasks, though you won't be able to use other techniques.
Secret Ritual of True Spirit Refinement
A special empowerment ritual. Can be used to channel heavenly power to items. Heavenly power improves them massively along every parameter. You may perform the ritual multiple times to incredible effect, but each time increases the risk of destroying the target. Attempts are fueled by natural sources of heavenly power. Known only by an exclusive group of craftsmen in high demand. Your father obtained this technique for you at extraordinary expense. Pillar Bonus: Reduced risk of failure.
The Cosmic Forge (Destruction-Creation-Imbuement-Efficiency-Refinement)
You can summon the Cosmic Forge, a workshop of pure will. With time the Cosmic Forge can break anything down into Essence Crystals and Pure Teotl, the building blocks of the universe. A small amount of the material is lost in conversion. The Cosmic Forge can be used to create anything you can imagine, so long as you have enough stored Essence Crystals of the appropriate type as material, Pure Teotl as fuel, and time to work the Forge.
Transformation - Heaven-Forged Diamond Spirit
Loving Domain – Spiritual effects, poisons, or diseases below transformation that will cause harm to you, or anything you love, will be disrupted. Effects below Lord level will be weakened. The Teotl effects of anyone who loves you will be slightly enhanced.
Prideful Order – You can restore things below transformation to their idealized form within the Perfect Order with a touch. With great effort you can Will very minor localized alterations to idealized forms within the Perfect Order. ALTERATIONS WHICH DEFY HEAVEN WILL BE PUNISHED.
Aura of Wrath – Anything hated by Heaven will be grievously harmed by your presence. Anything you hate will be weakened by your presence.
Loyal Refraction – You gain a blessing from those you are spiritually bound to, and grant a blessing to anyone loyal to you. YOU ARE BOUND TO LORD TLALOC, DUKE XIPETOTEC, AND THE EMPEROR OF LIGHT.
Heaven-Graced Fate – You will be shielded by fate as a reward for righteous action and loyal service to heaven, to a degree commiserate with your contributions. You will be punished by fate for unrighteous actions. YOUR SHIELD IS WEAK AND FADING.
Righteous Clarity – You are clearly marked by Heaven's Blessing. This mark cannot be obscured in any way. The righteousness (or lack) of your actions will be clear to all. You are a natural ally of those loyal to heaven and a natural enemy of those who defy Heaven.
Spiritual Severity – You can only use Orthodox Techniques.
YOU ARE BEING WATCHED. YOU WILL BE JUDGED BY THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIONS OF ALL WHO ARE BOUND TO YOU BY BLOOD, OATH, OR GIFT. YOUR CLAN IS UNCLEAN.
Archtype: Prodigy
Skills go from 1-7, they represent broad competency
Each skill level takes more effort to raise than the last.
- Competent
- Trained
- Skilled
- Expert
- Master
- Grandmaster
- Perfect
- Focus
- Specialty
- Pillar
- Insightful
- Enlightened
- Transcendent
Each skill level takes more effort to raise than the last.
Skills & Specialties
Cultivation Knowledge - 5
*The Orthodox Path - 2
Athletics - 3Business Sense - 4
*Bureaucracy - 2
Crafting - 4*Elixirs 1
*Treasures 2
*Jewels 1
Martial Arts - 3*The 7 Pillars (Spear, Staff, Saber, Broadsword, Hammer, Dagger, Chain-Whip) - 1
Charm 4*Beauty 1
*Etiquette 1
*Diplomacy 1
Intrigue 2Enlightenments
Heaven-Touched Dreamer - 1
Order-Aligned Spirit - 1
Destructive Abyssal Research - 1
SPECIAL:
Instinctive Adaption - 3
Diverse Strength - 2
Law's Guiding Grace - 1
Core Cultivation 1.2
Genius Talent
You have 1200 ATU (Arbitrary Teotl Units)
You are slightly above the known peak in Teotl control
You are approximately 20% more physically capable than Perfect cultivators without the use of techniques
You are 20 years old. You will not show your age until you are 600 years old
You inspire mild feelings of awe in people with lower cultivation
Trauma
Aggression (from near-death by Abyssals)
Foundation
Infinitely Perfect
This unique foundation technique gives you the ability to destroy and then remake any part of your own cultivation.
Growth: You may shatter and then reforge your own core. Each reforging makes it stronger, improving your basic cultivation (Teotl capacity, Teotl control, physical abilities, lifespan). Reforging takes time and cultivation resources, and you are mortal until it completes. Unlike other foundation techniques, this provides benefits indefinitely.
Refinement: You may shatter any Pillar Technique. You will still know the technique, but you will lose the Pillar Bonus. You lose any Mastery techniques based on that pillar. You can reforge the Pillar with a new technique. You can add additional Pillar Techniques at great difficulty up to a hard limit of 13.
Transformation: You can shatter your Transformation and choose a new thing to Merge with. You will have to restart the entire process and take on all the risks again. This isn't advisable unless you find something truly extraordinary to merge with or find a way to mitigate the risks.
Benefits after Transformation will be revealed if you reach that level of cultivation.
Techniques
Flesh Sculpting
The infamous, restricted technique for shaping living things with your will by flooding them with Teotl. This ability has enormous potential, its capabilities increase with Chachi's healing, anatomy, nature, crafting, and cultivation skills. At her current level of skill Chachi can heal very basic damage, turn simple living things into living treasures, and attempt to alter the natural abilities of spirit beasts.
You know a collection of unremarkable combat, movement, blessing, and utility techniques.
Pillars
Art of Evaluation
A mental enhancement technique that effects perception. You can extract maximal information from your senses. If you taste a pie with the Art of Evaluation, you will know the precise ingredients, how long it was baked, how sharp the knife was that cut it, etc. Sharpens the mind, not the senses. You won't see or hear a mosquito any faster, but as soon as you notice it you'll know its precise location, size, weight, and if it has blood in its stomach. Your father taught you this as your first technique. He created it himself, and sung its praises at any opportunity. He believed there was no greater virtue than a perceptive mind. Pillar bonus: Passive, switch on and off without cost.
Will of Creation
A general matter manipulation technique. You can alter the shape and composition of basic materials, turning objects suffused with your Teotl into other objects. With practice, you can mimic complex crafting practices, like distilling and forging, using only your Teotl control. For best results, you need an intimate understanding of the mundane process. This difficult to master technique is common among merchants and craftsmen in your clan. Pillar Bonus: You can do anything a mortal craftsman could near instantly and without tools, so long as you understand the process.
Touch of Destruction
A simple combat and utility technique. When used in combat, allows you to add destructive force to your strikes. Outside of combat, can be used to efficiently break down objects and structures. This basic technique is extremely common everywhere. Pillar Bonus: Gives an intuitive sense of natural weak points and increases base strength of the technique.
Blessing of Efficiency
An esoteric blessing technique. Shapes ambient Teotl around the target, making things faster, easier, and less wasteful. Works on anything that can be made more efficient, but most effective on complex systems. People, machines, businesses, even nations can benefit. Knowing this technique is a job requirement for Imperial Magistrates, though they don't have to integrate it. Pillar Bonus: Extreme improvement to base strength and scope, can maintain multiple blessings if you're willing to dedicate a constant drain of Teotl to each.
Basic Imbuing
A core treasure-forging technique. Allows you to shape the Teotl waterways of mundane objects, making them receptive to empowerment rituals that turn them into magical treasures. Anyone interested in making treasures learns this. Pillar Bonus: Objects can gain minor powers with imbuing alone and you can tweak the powers of existing treasures.
9999 Revelations Meditation
A powerful mental enhancement technique. You can shut off all your senses, entering a deep trance state where mind and spirit are in complete communion. Generates insights both profound and mundane. The longer you stay in the meditative state, the more effective the meditation. Favored by monks and inventors. Pillar Bonus: You can remain sensate with the meditation active and perform basic tasks, though you won't be able to use other techniques.
Secret Ritual of True Spirit Refinement
A special empowerment ritual. Can be used to channel heavenly power to items. Heavenly power improves them massively along every parameter. You may perform the ritual multiple times to incredible effect, but each time increases the risk of destroying the target. Attempts are fueled by natural sources of heavenly power. Known only by an exclusive group of craftsmen in high demand. Your father obtained this technique for you at extraordinary expense. Pillar Bonus: Reduced risk of failure.
The Cosmic Forge (Destruction-Creation-Imbuement-Efficiency-Refinement)
You can summon the Cosmic Forge, a workshop of pure will. With time the Cosmic Forge can break anything down into Essence Crystals and Pure Teotl, the building blocks of the universe. A small amount of the material is lost in conversion. The Cosmic Forge can be used to create anything you can imagine, so long as you have enough stored Essence Crystals of the appropriate type as material, Pure Teotl as fuel, and time to work the Forge.
Transformation - Heaven-Forged Diamond Spirit
Loving Domain – Spiritual effects, poisons, or diseases below transformation that will cause harm to you, or anything you love, will be disrupted. Effects below Lord level will be weakened. The Teotl effects of anyone who loves you will be slightly enhanced.
Prideful Order – You can restore things below transformation to their idealized form within the Perfect Order with a touch. With great effort you can Will very minor localized alterations to idealized forms within the Perfect Order. ALTERATIONS WHICH DEFY HEAVEN WILL BE PUNISHED.
Aura of Wrath – Anything hated by Heaven will be grievously harmed by your presence. Anything you hate will be weakened by your presence.
Loyal Refraction – You gain a blessing from those you are spiritually bound to, and grant a blessing to anyone loyal to you. YOU ARE BOUND TO LORD TLALOC, DUKE XIPETOTEC, AND THE EMPEROR OF LIGHT.
Heaven-Graced Fate – You will be shielded by fate as a reward for righteous action and loyal service to heaven, to a degree commiserate with your contributions. You will be punished by fate for unrighteous actions. YOUR SHIELD IS WEAK AND FADING.
Righteous Clarity – You are clearly marked by Heaven's Blessing. This mark cannot be obscured in any way. The righteousness (or lack) of your actions will be clear to all. You are a natural ally of those loyal to heaven and a natural enemy of those who defy Heaven.
Spiritual Severity – You can only use Orthodox Techniques.
YOU ARE BEING WATCHED. YOU WILL BE JUDGED BY THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIONS OF ALL WHO ARE BOUND TO YOU BY BLOOD, OATH, OR GIFT. YOUR CLAN IS UNCLEAN.
Cast list
Our Family:
Chalchiuhxochitl Atlahau - or Chachi, our protagonist, a prodigy and the new matriarch of her clan as a result of her father's death.
Okuillin Atlahau - our protagonist's sister, a bastard of our father, was hated by her mother, which showed her hate by naming her worm, our father banished her to the Blue River sect, she returned in his funeral to attempt and take control of the clan, was stopped by Chachi who than offered her friendship. She is on the supreme combat path of black lighting, she is our body guard. A Heterodox cultivator.
Teokuitlatlkopilli Atlahau - our eldest brother, the initial heir before we took the clan upon our ascension, pretty useless in a fight, has a pretty weak cultivation, but is extremely knowledgeable in matters of bussines. Currently has a clone, creating said clone seriously harmed him, his clone will last for a year if nothing changed.
Itstlixochitl Atlahau - our mother, we are her only known child, all our siblings are related to us through our father. Can read emotions without tells, has powers that effect the mind, fears being thrown out. She used to work in the shady side of the bussiness, and continues to do so on a need to know basis with Chachi, currently our head of PR. A Heterodox cultivator.
Tetlkoto Atlahau - our brother, he betrayed the empire and us when he made contact with the abysalls and took on abysall cultivation, a form of illegal cultivation punished by death to the entire clan should it be found out. We thought we captured him but it turned out to be a clone, is currently being hunted. Chachi's recent trauma is likely to make her more hostile than she would have otherwise been towards him.
Our bosses:
Lord Tlaloc - our most immediate boss, a very big guy (both metaphorically and literally), likes animals and nature. Had some secret agreement with our father that gave our father free access to the heavenspan river, willing to extend it to us once we advanced a little in our cultivation. Seems considerate of his subjects, a kind lord. Lives in Tlaloc city and is the head of the Tlaloc clan, a creative guy.
Duke Xipetotec - not much known about him.
Emperor of light - a deva that created the lordly system and rules the empire, currently in the realm of sovereign, equal to a demi god. Has the first known heaven forged diamond (which he used as his crown jewel), and our one is a replication of his.
Other powerful beings:
The final beast/the first beast - thought to he the ancestor of all spiritual beasts, a demi god level being, as seemingly intelligent as a regular beast, but much bigger and stronger. Known abilities are the creation of powerful spiritual beasts from anything his body leaves behind (blood, spit, anything) and shapeshifting (mostly known to use a stag or a bear form). The emperor fought him off twice, he seems to react badly when lords get near his territory.
Lord Huitzilopochtli - a rival to Tlaloc, one of the three lords of the 1000 rivers.
Lord Ehecatl - a rival to Tlaloc, one of the three lords of the 1000 rivers.
Lady Chalchiuhtlicue - the lady of the turtle isles, currently in war with abysalls for control over the territory, she didn't seem to do so well, which is an opportunity for Chachi to help.
The Saint of Arts and Crafts - a saint focused on crafting, Chachi is her fan and keeps her public saying written on a scroll in her room. Trained and cybernetically enhanced cute giant turtles into cute giant submarines.
The Saint of Crimson Blessings - a medical saint.
Saint of Life Formed True - a medical saint
Duke Tezcatlipoca - Chalchiuhtlicue's father, she shares her power with him.
The Laughing Judge - a demi god
Pazkanon - a demi god
Magog - king of the giants, basically owner of the world tree, a demi god.
The world tree - a suspected equal to the final beast, produce a world seed once every thousand years, produce lesser seeds more frequently. Probably non sentient, his seeds are ritually launched to space to give life to new worlds.
The Red Champion - also called "The Fire King," or just "The Lord of the Volcanic Mountains", using his personal name is considered rude unless you are close friend or family member, he is the lord of the volcanic regions.
The turtle isles inhabitants:
Tlaaquiani - minister of trade in the turtle isles, daughter of lady Chalchiuhtlicue
Quauhcalli - a son of lady Chalchiuhtlicue, was cursed by a saint for breaking an oath, the curse took from him his ability to speak, Chachi lifted that curse and was granted in return a flesh sculpting technique. A warrior.
Ayotlmacehual, The Triumphant Turtle - a cybernetically enhanced super turtle who is also a submarine, the rooms inside of her aren't that comfortable but she is pretty cool, was a gift sent to the lady by the saint of arts and crafts. She is the flagship of the lady's fleet and the lady hold court on her.
Captain Yecteltlamatqui - a diamond cultivator and a cool guy, gave us some helpful advices for own cultivation, saved us from abysalls.
Engineer guy - He is a secretive disciple of the Saint of Arts and Crafts, kind of an ass with his refusal to share some things, even when they relate to our cultivation like our new diamond materials, but he did give us advice for books.
Tehuilotl - a diamond cultivatior married into the Chalchiuhtlicue house.
The clan:
Tepak - a dashing shade llama, formaly our father's companion beast, use to move our carriage, capable of understanding human speech but incapable of speaking it. Has the ability to project a thin shadow platform in front of her, incapable of flight but capable of running smoothly over any surface.
Atlikiti Atlahau - the head of production, oldest living member of our clan, having co-founded it with our father, their agreement was that he makes the elixirs and our father sells them. Has a foundation that extends his life past the limits of a normal perfect and is an extremely accomplished elixir brewer, he disdain salesmanship, but good at what he does.
Ueuetlasa Atlahau - The head of finance, she is our cousin, unknown if first degree.
Teokuitlatlkopilli Atlahau - head of administration, there are many departments under him
The Xochipixqui clan - remnant of our mother clan, working for us under our mom now.
The Cacalotl clan - Teo's Maternal Clan, The Cacalotl remnants are prominent in the production and administration of the Atlahau Clan. Unhappy with us taking the heir position from Teo.
1000 rivers:
The Nepoualistli clan - They are an ancient Great Clan of proud warriors, sworn to the True Lord. The Thousand Rivers has been at peace for centuries, so they are also remarkably useless, and poor. This has made them bitter and prickly in their pride. Rationally, they would want to cozy up with a wealthy but less prestigious clan, like you. Perhaps even intermarry. They are not rational. They resent you for your new wealth and status, for your ability to thrive in a world that's passed them by. Likely to attempt an ambush or a dual soon, unlikely to attempt assassination.
Ueyak clan - rivals, the Ueyak clan 'hates' you. You are direct competitors in the Thousand Rivers, producing nearly identical elixirs. Their clan is older than yours, but you've now taken the better part of their market share. Your elixirs are higher quality, and you used to produce them for less. You are bitter enemies in the market, but your interests and philosophies often align.
Okichiltekitki - the head of the Special Farmer's Union, the largest supplier of Essence rich plant materials in the Thousand Rivers. Someone behind her leaned on her to provike us and not help us stretch our heavenspan water reverses, seems to also dislike us personally thanks to our father trying to break the union.
Kalchiuani clan - a construction clan that helped build the Walking Fortresses with you. When the crafting clans scoffed at your plans, they got to work. It was your first time working with them, but their support was invaluable.
Zhezhurani of the Kalchiuani - member by adoption, He's their chief materials engineer. Nearly a mortal in cultivation, flawed foundation, but brilliant in his specialty. Not native to the thousand rivers.
The Iknotl clan - Iknotl owes you money. They made a bulk purchase of Dreaming Wisdom Elixirs on credit before your father died. Now they claim the product was defective and refuse to pay for any of it.
Cuāpitzīniā - favored grandson of Lord Tlaloc, sometimes called Tlaloc's left hand.
The Iquitini Clan - The Iquitini Clan has traditionally made your specialized tools and minor treasures. Chachi has been bypassing them with the Forge and they're unhappy.
The Tehuilotl Prospectors Union - crystal prospectors, are very pleased with your recent orders, their only concern is how to meet your seemingly endless demand.
The Blackwater Security Union - a mercenary group composed of sect dropouts.
Beast lands:
King of mountain - killed our father by sending hunters after him, hate walking people.
Garcino the giant - strongest of the walking people, very big, very strong.
Crystal Desert:
The Crystal Cartel - recently sent your clan the corpse of one of your merchants stuffed with a message-stone. They claim that any merchant who sets foot in the Crystal Desert without their permission will give their life-water to the sand.
They offered us a disadvantageous deal, we replied by sending our walking fortressses.
Empire:
The Bull-Frog - He traveled the span of the Empire working as a private investigator, an odd, rare, dangerous profession in a land where secrets were valued more highly than lives. Revealed the Tet clone and is helping us hunt our brother down.
Our Family:
Chalchiuhxochitl Atlahau - or Chachi, our protagonist, a prodigy and the new matriarch of her clan as a result of her father's death.
Okuillin Atlahau - our protagonist's sister, a bastard of our father, was hated by her mother, which showed her hate by naming her worm, our father banished her to the Blue River sect, she returned in his funeral to attempt and take control of the clan, was stopped by Chachi who than offered her friendship. She is on the supreme combat path of black lighting, she is our body guard. A Heterodox cultivator.
Teokuitlatlkopilli Atlahau - our eldest brother, the initial heir before we took the clan upon our ascension, pretty useless in a fight, has a pretty weak cultivation, but is extremely knowledgeable in matters of bussines. Currently has a clone, creating said clone seriously harmed him, his clone will last for a year if nothing changed.
Itstlixochitl Atlahau - our mother, we are her only known child, all our siblings are related to us through our father. Can read emotions without tells, has powers that effect the mind, fears being thrown out. She used to work in the shady side of the bussiness, and continues to do so on a need to know basis with Chachi, currently our head of PR. A Heterodox cultivator.
Tetlkoto Atlahau - our brother, he betrayed the empire and us when he made contact with the abysalls and took on abysall cultivation, a form of illegal cultivation punished by death to the entire clan should it be found out. We thought we captured him but it turned out to be a clone, is currently being hunted. Chachi's recent trauma is likely to make her more hostile than she would have otherwise been towards him.
Our bosses:
Lord Tlaloc - our most immediate boss, a very big guy (both metaphorically and literally), likes animals and nature. Had some secret agreement with our father that gave our father free access to the heavenspan river, willing to extend it to us once we advanced a little in our cultivation. Seems considerate of his subjects, a kind lord. Lives in Tlaloc city and is the head of the Tlaloc clan, a creative guy.
Duke Xipetotec - not much known about him.
Emperor of light - a deva that created the lordly system and rules the empire, currently in the realm of sovereign, equal to a demi god. Has the first known heaven forged diamond (which he used as his crown jewel), and our one is a replication of his.
Other powerful beings:
The final beast/the first beast - thought to he the ancestor of all spiritual beasts, a demi god level being, as seemingly intelligent as a regular beast, but much bigger and stronger. Known abilities are the creation of powerful spiritual beasts from anything his body leaves behind (blood, spit, anything) and shapeshifting (mostly known to use a stag or a bear form). The emperor fought him off twice, he seems to react badly when lords get near his territory.
Lord Huitzilopochtli - a rival to Tlaloc, one of the three lords of the 1000 rivers.
Lord Ehecatl - a rival to Tlaloc, one of the three lords of the 1000 rivers.
Lady Chalchiuhtlicue - the lady of the turtle isles, currently in war with abysalls for control over the territory, she didn't seem to do so well, which is an opportunity for Chachi to help.
The Saint of Arts and Crafts - a saint focused on crafting, Chachi is her fan and keeps her public saying written on a scroll in her room. Trained and cybernetically enhanced cute giant turtles into cute giant submarines.
The Saint of Crimson Blessings - a medical saint.
Saint of Life Formed True - a medical saint
Duke Tezcatlipoca - Chalchiuhtlicue's father, she shares her power with him.
The Laughing Judge - a demi god
Pazkanon - a demi god
Magog - king of the giants, basically owner of the world tree, a demi god.
The world tree - a suspected equal to the final beast, produce a world seed once every thousand years, produce lesser seeds more frequently. Probably non sentient, his seeds are ritually launched to space to give life to new worlds.
The Red Champion - also called "The Fire King," or just "The Lord of the Volcanic Mountains", using his personal name is considered rude unless you are close friend or family member, he is the lord of the volcanic regions.
The turtle isles inhabitants:
Tlaaquiani - minister of trade in the turtle isles, daughter of lady Chalchiuhtlicue
Quauhcalli - a son of lady Chalchiuhtlicue, was cursed by a saint for breaking an oath, the curse took from him his ability to speak, Chachi lifted that curse and was granted in return a flesh sculpting technique. A warrior.
Ayotlmacehual, The Triumphant Turtle - a cybernetically enhanced super turtle who is also a submarine, the rooms inside of her aren't that comfortable but she is pretty cool, was a gift sent to the lady by the saint of arts and crafts. She is the flagship of the lady's fleet and the lady hold court on her.
Captain Yecteltlamatqui - a diamond cultivator and a cool guy, gave us some helpful advices for own cultivation, saved us from abysalls.
Engineer guy - He is a secretive disciple of the Saint of Arts and Crafts, kind of an ass with his refusal to share some things, even when they relate to our cultivation like our new diamond materials, but he did give us advice for books.
Tehuilotl - a diamond cultivatior married into the Chalchiuhtlicue house.
The clan:
Tepak - a dashing shade llama, formaly our father's companion beast, use to move our carriage, capable of understanding human speech but incapable of speaking it. Has the ability to project a thin shadow platform in front of her, incapable of flight but capable of running smoothly over any surface.
Atlikiti Atlahau - the head of production, oldest living member of our clan, having co-founded it with our father, their agreement was that he makes the elixirs and our father sells them. Has a foundation that extends his life past the limits of a normal perfect and is an extremely accomplished elixir brewer, he disdain salesmanship, but good at what he does.
Ueuetlasa Atlahau - The head of finance, she is our cousin, unknown if first degree.
Teokuitlatlkopilli Atlahau - head of administration, there are many departments under him
The Xochipixqui clan - remnant of our mother clan, working for us under our mom now.
The Cacalotl clan - Teo's Maternal Clan, The Cacalotl remnants are prominent in the production and administration of the Atlahau Clan. Unhappy with us taking the heir position from Teo.
1000 rivers:
The Nepoualistli clan - They are an ancient Great Clan of proud warriors, sworn to the True Lord. The Thousand Rivers has been at peace for centuries, so they are also remarkably useless, and poor. This has made them bitter and prickly in their pride. Rationally, they would want to cozy up with a wealthy but less prestigious clan, like you. Perhaps even intermarry. They are not rational. They resent you for your new wealth and status, for your ability to thrive in a world that's passed them by. Likely to attempt an ambush or a dual soon, unlikely to attempt assassination.
Ueyak clan - rivals, the Ueyak clan 'hates' you. You are direct competitors in the Thousand Rivers, producing nearly identical elixirs. Their clan is older than yours, but you've now taken the better part of their market share. Your elixirs are higher quality, and you used to produce them for less. You are bitter enemies in the market, but your interests and philosophies often align.
Okichiltekitki - the head of the Special Farmer's Union, the largest supplier of Essence rich plant materials in the Thousand Rivers. Someone behind her leaned on her to provike us and not help us stretch our heavenspan water reverses, seems to also dislike us personally thanks to our father trying to break the union.
Kalchiuani clan - a construction clan that helped build the Walking Fortresses with you. When the crafting clans scoffed at your plans, they got to work. It was your first time working with them, but their support was invaluable.
Zhezhurani of the Kalchiuani - member by adoption, He's their chief materials engineer. Nearly a mortal in cultivation, flawed foundation, but brilliant in his specialty. Not native to the thousand rivers.
The Iknotl clan - Iknotl owes you money. They made a bulk purchase of Dreaming Wisdom Elixirs on credit before your father died. Now they claim the product was defective and refuse to pay for any of it.
Cuāpitzīniā - favored grandson of Lord Tlaloc, sometimes called Tlaloc's left hand.
The Iquitini Clan - The Iquitini Clan has traditionally made your specialized tools and minor treasures. Chachi has been bypassing them with the Forge and they're unhappy.
The Tehuilotl Prospectors Union - crystal prospectors, are very pleased with your recent orders, their only concern is how to meet your seemingly endless demand.
The Blackwater Security Union - a mercenary group composed of sect dropouts.
Beast lands:
King of mountain - killed our father by sending hunters after him, hate walking people.
Garcino the giant - strongest of the walking people, very big, very strong.
Crystal Desert:
The Crystal Cartel - recently sent your clan the corpse of one of your merchants stuffed with a message-stone. They claim that any merchant who sets foot in the Crystal Desert without their permission will give their life-water to the sand.
They offered us a disadvantageous deal, we replied by sending our walking fortressses.
Empire:
The Bull-Frog - He traveled the span of the Empire working as a private investigator, an odd, rare, dangerous profession in a land where secrets were valued more highly than lives. Revealed the Tet clone and is helping us hunt our brother down.
Internal Divisions
Administration
Leader: Teo
Cultivators: 7 Perfect, 14 Advanced, 55 Lesser
Special Traits: Teo's Blessing, Clan HQ
Production
Leader: Atlikiti
Cultivators: 12 Perfect, 22 Advanced, 241 Lesser
Special Traits: Innovative, Insular, Stubborn, Elixir Production Facilities
Sales
Leader: Teo's Clone
Cultivators: 1 Perfect, 3 Advanced, 80 Lesser
Special Traits: Teo's Blessing, Demoralized, Harried
Finance
Leader: Ueuetlasa
Cultivators: 1 Advanced, 5 Lesser
Special Traits: New, Over-leveraged, Harried
Charity
Leader: Itstlixochitl
Cultivators: ???
Special Traits: Need to Know, Intelligence, Espionage
Security
Leader: None
Cultivators: 3 Advanced, 153 Lesser
Special Traits: Dispersed, No Leadership
Known Clan Factions
Teo's Faction (Xochipixqui Remnants + Teo Descendants)
Mom's Faction (Cacalotl Remnants)
Tet Remnants (Purged???)
Mortal Workforce
Allies
River Captains (Acallachiani Clan) - Pleased, taking over all river transport
Crafting Clan (Iquitini Clan) – Appeased, long-term contract to repair the walking fortresses
Construction Clan (Kalchiuani) - Very happy, currently courting several members of your clan
Crystal Prospectors (Tehuilotl Prospectors Union) - Overjoyed at loans and record sales, expanding the business
Partners
Special Farmer's Union – Appeased, happy to be making a reliable profit
Lady Chalchiuhtlicue – Happy at a large shipment, expecting more
Known Enemies
The Crystal Cartel – Sworn Feud
The Swordmasters (Nepoualistli) – Suppressed
The Rival Brewers (Ueyak) - Silent
The Abyss – Lurking
The Mountain Lord - Plotting
Notable Assets
Elixir Production Facilities (Medium Security, Cutting Edge Tools, Attractive, Well-Funded, River Extractors)
Clan Compound (Low Security, Prestigious, Shadowed Guardians, Anti-Abyssal Tea)
Clan HQ (Low Security, Well-Organized, Advanced Communications System, Anti-Abyssal Tea)
Walking Fortresses [5] (Medium Security, Mobile, High Capacity)
Clan Library (Fair Quality, Bolstered by the Turtle Isles Collection)
Heavenly Conduits: 13
General Cultivation Resources
Hungering – Excellent (Elixir Clan)
Seeking – Good (Expanded Library)
Building – Fair (Expanded Library)
Administration
Leader: Teo
Cultivators: 7 Perfect, 14 Advanced, 55 Lesser
Special Traits: Teo's Blessing, Clan HQ
Production
Leader: Atlikiti
Cultivators: 12 Perfect, 22 Advanced, 241 Lesser
Special Traits: Innovative, Insular, Stubborn, Elixir Production Facilities
Sales
Leader: Teo's Clone
Cultivators: 1 Perfect, 3 Advanced, 80 Lesser
Special Traits: Teo's Blessing, Demoralized, Harried
Finance
Leader: Ueuetlasa
Cultivators: 1 Advanced, 5 Lesser
Special Traits: New, Over-leveraged, Harried
Charity
Leader: Itstlixochitl
Cultivators: ???
Special Traits: Need to Know, Intelligence, Espionage
Security
Leader: None
Cultivators: 3 Advanced, 153 Lesser
Special Traits: Dispersed, No Leadership
Known Clan Factions
Teo's Faction (Xochipixqui Remnants + Teo Descendants)
Mom's Faction (Cacalotl Remnants)
Tet Remnants (Purged???)
Mortal Workforce
Allies
River Captains (Acallachiani Clan) - Pleased, taking over all river transport
Crafting Clan (Iquitini Clan) – Appeased, long-term contract to repair the walking fortresses
Construction Clan (Kalchiuani) - Very happy, currently courting several members of your clan
Crystal Prospectors (Tehuilotl Prospectors Union) - Overjoyed at loans and record sales, expanding the business
Partners
Special Farmer's Union – Appeased, happy to be making a reliable profit
Lady Chalchiuhtlicue – Happy at a large shipment, expecting more
Known Enemies
The Crystal Cartel – Sworn Feud
The Swordmasters (Nepoualistli) – Suppressed
The Rival Brewers (Ueyak) - Silent
The Abyss – Lurking
The Mountain Lord - Plotting
Notable Assets
Elixir Production Facilities (Medium Security, Cutting Edge Tools, Attractive, Well-Funded, River Extractors)
Clan Compound (Low Security, Prestigious, Shadowed Guardians, Anti-Abyssal Tea)
Clan HQ (Low Security, Well-Organized, Advanced Communications System, Anti-Abyssal Tea)
Walking Fortresses [5] (Medium Security, Mobile, High Capacity)
Clan Library (Fair Quality, Bolstered by the Turtle Isles Collection)
Heavenly Conduits: 13
General Cultivation Resources
Hungering – Excellent (Elixir Clan)
Seeking – Good (Expanded Library)
Building – Fair (Expanded Library)
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Informational: The Cultivator's Journey
Introduction to Cultivation: A Primer. Produced by the Floating Mountain Sect.
There are as many ways to cultivate as there are roads in the empire. Yet, there is only one Imperial Highway, and there is only one Orthodox Path. Do not be tempted by other methods and their false promises. Any peasant knows that the well-trod road is fastest and safest.
The Orthodox path is long but fruitful. It is properly divided into three journeys. Each journey with two phases, each phase three steps.
The first journey is called Perfection. Those who reach the end are called Perfect, and they are at the peak of human potential.
The first phase of Perfection is Growth. Its steps are Exalting, Hungering, and Seeking. On occasion a mortal will spontaneously exalt but an elixir of exaltation guarantees the process. The exalted may begin cultivating the pure energy of the world through breath. Talent and further elixirs can smooth this step, but anyone can complete it with hard work. Next, there is Hungering. Cultivators will soon find that they can no longer grow stronger from breath exercises alone. They must consume precious cultivation resources to proceed. Typically this is the most expensive phase for a cultivator. Ancient clans will begin assembling everything their scions will require at their birth, and may push them through hungering in a week. The sects prefer their Hungering students earn their resources through loyal service. The less fortunate may end their journey here, on the second step. Hungering ends much as exalting, when the benefits of consuming resources dwindle to nothing. They must seek another method of growth. This is called a Foundation Technique. A proper Foundation Technique will be appropriate to the cultivator's skills, personality, and circumstances. Most importantly, it will resonate with the cultivator's soul. Success in the Seeking step will determine much of a cultivator's potential. Access to a variety of techniques to sample and skilled tutors to guide the cultivator will smooth this step. The Sects, which gather cultivators from many backgrounds and retain vast technique libraries have shown even greater success than the great clans in finding perfect Foundation Techniques for their students.
The second phase of Perfection is Refinement, and it begins as soon as a cultivator has integrated their Foundation Technique. The first step is simple to explain but infinitely diverse: they must use their Foundation Technique to refine their being. The specifics vary with each technique. In the next step, Building, they must develop, practice, and perfect a number of Pillar Techniques. The more Pillar Techniques a cultivator masters the stronger they will be, but each addition risks unbalancing the soul and crippling their cultivation. The greatest cultivators in history, such as Sect Elder Luxing mastered 7 Pillar techniques, most settle for 3 to 5. The final stage is Perfecting. The Pillars are combined into Master Techniques. Cultivators can develop more than one Master Techniques, but with the first they earn the title of Perfect and are able to continue on the next journey.
Most remain at Perfect and improve only in their experience and their Master Techniques. Perfect is the peak of humanity. A Perfect will be healthier, faster, stronger, smarter, and more beautiful than any mortal could possibly aspire to be. Through their techniques, they can perform incredible feats of power. They can live for over five hundred years, only showing age in the last decade as their vitality runs low. They are, however, fundamentally human. They have blood, and breath, and tears. The next journey is to become something more than human. It is called Transformation.
The leap to Transformation is dangerous. Half of all cultivators who make the attempt die instantly. Half of those who survive eventually lose their selfhood, their body, mind, or soul irrevocably corrupted. The reader is well advised to deeply consider if they wish to take this step, and to settle any loose ends if they do. For some the reward, the promise of freedom from the ravages of time, and of even greater power, is worth the risk.
The first step is Merging. The cultivator must introduce a foreign element, something utterly inhuman, into their body, mind and soul. Each is a step, but which is taken first depends on the cultivator. The second phase is Mastering. They must learn to master the new element, taming it to their will. The first step is Transposition, mastering the ability to switch between Human and Other. Then there is Liminal, learning to merge the two. Finally, there is Harmonic, learning to make them both improve the other, to become greater as a whole than either is alone. Once a cultivator perfects the Harmonic step, they earn the title of Transcendent.
The third journey begins with a fork. Nobility or Divinity? By taking an outside force into their being, the Transcendent become open to the fundamental forces of the universe. They can choose to channel the powers of earth, or of heaven. Those who channel the earth walk the path of Nobility. They claim a piece of land and all the creatures who dwell upon it. They become the land, and the land becomes them. The two shape one another and draw strength from each other. They are called True Nobles. This is to distinguish them from the masses of simple nobility, distant relatives of the True Noble that heads their family. A True Noble's growth depends on the size and quality of their land. Most True Nobles are Lords, the first step, and will remain there in perpetuity. A few, either by gaining great favor with the Emperor or by expanding their land in conquest, manage to reach the Duke step. There is only one Sovereign: The Emperor of Light. If he ever chooses to enter the second phase and Ascend, another may theoretically take his place.
A handful of cultivators have taken the other path. The steps of Divinity are Saint, Deva, and Demigod. The Empire has 22 Saints and 3 Devas, yet none have ever shared how they managed to draw directly on the power of heaven. The Final Beast, the Laughing Judge, Pazkanon, and Magog are known demigods. Others may dwell far beyond our borders. Only the Emperor has the power to protect us from such terrors.
Little is known of the final step of the final journey. All who walked that path are gone from our perceptions. We surmise that they joined their soul fully to heaven and earth, becoming one with all existence much as the Noble becomes one with his land.
Voting is still open, I'm just excited to explain my Cultivation scheme.
There are as many ways to cultivate as there are roads in the empire. Yet, there is only one Imperial Highway, and there is only one Orthodox Path. Do not be tempted by other methods and their false promises. Any peasant knows that the well-trod road is fastest and safest.
The Orthodox path is long but fruitful. It is properly divided into three journeys. Each journey with two phases, each phase three steps.
The first journey is called Perfection. Those who reach the end are called Perfect, and they are at the peak of human potential.
The first phase of Perfection is Growth. Its steps are Exalting, Hungering, and Seeking. On occasion a mortal will spontaneously exalt but an elixir of exaltation guarantees the process. The exalted may begin cultivating the pure energy of the world through breath. Talent and further elixirs can smooth this step, but anyone can complete it with hard work. Next, there is Hungering. Cultivators will soon find that they can no longer grow stronger from breath exercises alone. They must consume precious cultivation resources to proceed. Typically this is the most expensive phase for a cultivator. Ancient clans will begin assembling everything their scions will require at their birth, and may push them through hungering in a week. The sects prefer their Hungering students earn their resources through loyal service. The less fortunate may end their journey here, on the second step. Hungering ends much as exalting, when the benefits of consuming resources dwindle to nothing. They must seek another method of growth. This is called a Foundation Technique. A proper Foundation Technique will be appropriate to the cultivator's skills, personality, and circumstances. Most importantly, it will resonate with the cultivator's soul. Success in the Seeking step will determine much of a cultivator's potential. Access to a variety of techniques to sample and skilled tutors to guide the cultivator will smooth this step. The Sects, which gather cultivators from many backgrounds and retain vast technique libraries have shown even greater success than the great clans in finding perfect Foundation Techniques for their students.
The second phase of Perfection is Refinement, and it begins as soon as a cultivator has integrated their Foundation Technique. The first step is simple to explain but infinitely diverse: they must use their Foundation Technique to refine their being. The specifics vary with each technique. In the next step, Building, they must develop, practice, and perfect a number of Pillar Techniques. The more Pillar Techniques a cultivator masters the stronger they will be, but each addition risks unbalancing the soul and crippling their cultivation. The greatest cultivators in history, such as Sect Elder Luxing mastered 7 Pillar techniques, most settle for 3 to 5. The final stage is Perfecting. The Pillars are combined into Master Techniques. Cultivators can develop more than one Master Techniques, but with the first they earn the title of Perfect and are able to continue on the next journey.
Most remain at Perfect and improve only in their experience and their Master Techniques. Perfect is the peak of humanity. A Perfect will be healthier, faster, stronger, smarter, and more beautiful than any mortal could possibly aspire to be. Through their techniques, they can perform incredible feats of power. They can live for over five hundred years, only showing age in the last decade as their vitality runs low. They are, however, fundamentally human. They have blood, and breath, and tears. The next journey is to become something more than human. It is called Transformation.
The leap to Transformation is dangerous. Half of all cultivators who make the attempt die instantly. Half of those who survive eventually lose their selfhood, their body, mind, or soul irrevocably corrupted. The reader is well advised to deeply consider if they wish to take this step, and to settle any loose ends if they do. For some the reward, the promise of freedom from the ravages of time, and of even greater power, is worth the risk.
The first step is Merging. The cultivator must introduce a foreign element, something utterly inhuman, into their body, mind and soul. Each is a step, but which is taken first depends on the cultivator. The second phase is Mastering. They must learn to master the new element, taming it to their will. The first step is Transposition, mastering the ability to switch between Human and Other. Then there is Liminal, learning to merge the two. Finally, there is Harmonic, learning to make them both improve the other, to become greater as a whole than either is alone. Once a cultivator perfects the Harmonic step, they earn the title of Transcendent.
The third journey begins with a fork. Nobility or Divinity? By taking an outside force into their being, the Transcendent become open to the fundamental forces of the universe. They can choose to channel the powers of earth, or of heaven. Those who channel the earth walk the path of Nobility. They claim a piece of land and all the creatures who dwell upon it. They become the land, and the land becomes them. The two shape one another and draw strength from each other. They are called True Nobles. This is to distinguish them from the masses of simple nobility, distant relatives of the True Noble that heads their family. A True Noble's growth depends on the size and quality of their land. Most True Nobles are Lords, the first step, and will remain there in perpetuity. A few, either by gaining great favor with the Emperor or by expanding their land in conquest, manage to reach the Duke step. There is only one Sovereign: The Emperor of Light. If he ever chooses to enter the second phase and Ascend, another may theoretically take his place.
A handful of cultivators have taken the other path. The steps of Divinity are Saint, Deva, and Demigod. The Empire has 22 Saints and 3 Devas, yet none have ever shared how they managed to draw directly on the power of heaven. The Final Beast, the Laughing Judge, Pazkanon, and Magog are known demigods. Others may dwell far beyond our borders. Only the Emperor has the power to protect us from such terrors.
Little is known of the final step of the final journey. All who walked that path are gone from our perceptions. We surmise that they joined their soul fully to heaven and earth, becoming one with all existence much as the Noble becomes one with his land.
Voting is still open, I'm just excited to explain my Cultivation scheme.
Character Creation 2
You are the Prodigy.
Your clan business is diversified but you focus on elixirs.
Your father died in battle outside the borders of the empire. At your clan estate a strange man wearing spirit beast leather is resting. He brought back your father's corpse and a signed trade agreement. You will provide a substantial amount of Heavenspan Water over twenty years in exchange for a viable herd of quality Dracoxen, whatever those are, and a yearly exchange of plant and beast products you've never heard of. Even you know that your clan gets Heavenspan Water for free (minus transportation logistics) so you think this is a deal to trade dirt for spirit ore. Thanks dad!
1. What is your name? Please include both personal and clan name.
[] Write in
This vote will determine the naming conventions in general. If you are Mo Hanying we'll see a bunch of Chinese names. If you are Shining Lotus of the Flowing Silver Clan than your rival might be Black Thunder of the Dancing Winds Clan. If your name is Jane Smith, you might get in a duel with Skylar Sanderson.
Your foundation is exceptional. When you were in the Seeking step your tutors introduced you to a dozen of the most powerful foundation techniques in the empire. Each resonated, yet another sign of your incredible talent, but none called to you. That night, you dreamed.
2. What was your dream?
[] The Supreme Panoply
A twelve headed dragon descended from the void between the stars, breathing rainbow fire. It was nothing before your shield of MercyWood and armor of HonorSteel. You leapt into the sky with boots of ValorStone, then flew on wings of GraceLight. You struck the beast a single blow with your sword of JustFire and it burned to nothing. The endless masses beneath you gazed adoringly up as you unfurled your cloak of SkyGlory and donned your Crown of StarWisdom. You proclaimed the truth of the universe. They bowed. You were their Queen. You were their God. You were Supreme.
[] The Legion of One
You were one and many. You were growing. With a hundred eyes you saw the world. You raced forward on a thousand legs. You grasped with ten thousand arms. With a hundred thousand voices you sang in glorious harmony. With a million throats you drank rivers. With ten million jaws you ate cities. With a hundred million minds you planned. The world shattered and a billion seeds shot to the stars.
[] The Infinitely Perfect
You worked a cosmic forge. Planets were your crude matter, stars were your fuel. With each blow of your titanic hammer, your ultimate creation became more perfect. It was the work of eternity, the masterpiece of the ages. It was you. You were the smith and the creation. With each forging, you are were greater still. Perfection unbound, a singularity of infinite refinement.
It felt so real and so glorious! You channeled the feeling of the dream and it resonated perfectly. A new Foundation Technique! Your father laughed with such pride when you showed him, and you basked in the familiar glow of his love and approval.
You are at the end of the first journey. Your father was at the end of the second before he died. Your tutors spoke with terrible fear of the deadly leap between the first and the second journeys. You felt no fear. Failure was for other people. You had a perfect foundation. You forged seven pillars. Your master technique was incredible. Your family needed a Matriarch with the power of Transformation, and you trusted in your destiny.
3. What did you merge with for your Transformation? Most choose an element, material, or supernatural creature. A few are able to merge with something more esoteric, like a concept. You can pick whatever you want and it will synergize well with your Foundation and Pillars.
SPECIAL RAFFLE VOTE! I will pick this randomly, not by majority rules. I reserve the right to veto things I really don't like, such as a clear joke or meme. Otherwise just pick whatever sounds cool to you personally.
This character creation post is focused almost exclusively on your cultivation build. As the prodigy, that's pretty much all you have. Other characters would have allies, connections, maybe a spy network or special mundane skills. The heir would have a bunch of that stuff. You are dreadfully inexperienced and unprepared when it comes to conventional assets, but your cultivation is super-charged. You have a protagonist-tier foundation and 7 pillars. A true "punch God at 20" protagonist would have 13, but people here don't even know that's a thing.
Your clan business is diversified but you focus on elixirs.
Your father died in battle outside the borders of the empire. At your clan estate a strange man wearing spirit beast leather is resting. He brought back your father's corpse and a signed trade agreement. You will provide a substantial amount of Heavenspan Water over twenty years in exchange for a viable herd of quality Dracoxen, whatever those are, and a yearly exchange of plant and beast products you've never heard of. Even you know that your clan gets Heavenspan Water for free (minus transportation logistics) so you think this is a deal to trade dirt for spirit ore. Thanks dad!
1. What is your name? Please include both personal and clan name.
[] Write in
This vote will determine the naming conventions in general. If you are Mo Hanying we'll see a bunch of Chinese names. If you are Shining Lotus of the Flowing Silver Clan than your rival might be Black Thunder of the Dancing Winds Clan. If your name is Jane Smith, you might get in a duel with Skylar Sanderson.
Your foundation is exceptional. When you were in the Seeking step your tutors introduced you to a dozen of the most powerful foundation techniques in the empire. Each resonated, yet another sign of your incredible talent, but none called to you. That night, you dreamed.
2. What was your dream?
[] The Supreme Panoply
A twelve headed dragon descended from the void between the stars, breathing rainbow fire. It was nothing before your shield of MercyWood and armor of HonorSteel. You leapt into the sky with boots of ValorStone, then flew on wings of GraceLight. You struck the beast a single blow with your sword of JustFire and it burned to nothing. The endless masses beneath you gazed adoringly up as you unfurled your cloak of SkyGlory and donned your Crown of StarWisdom. You proclaimed the truth of the universe. They bowed. You were their Queen. You were their God. You were Supreme.
[] The Legion of One
You were one and many. You were growing. With a hundred eyes you saw the world. You raced forward on a thousand legs. You grasped with ten thousand arms. With a hundred thousand voices you sang in glorious harmony. With a million throats you drank rivers. With ten million jaws you ate cities. With a hundred million minds you planned. The world shattered and a billion seeds shot to the stars.
[] The Infinitely Perfect
You worked a cosmic forge. Planets were your crude matter, stars were your fuel. With each blow of your titanic hammer, your ultimate creation became more perfect. It was the work of eternity, the masterpiece of the ages. It was you. You were the smith and the creation. With each forging, you are were greater still. Perfection unbound, a singularity of infinite refinement.
It felt so real and so glorious! You channeled the feeling of the dream and it resonated perfectly. A new Foundation Technique! Your father laughed with such pride when you showed him, and you basked in the familiar glow of his love and approval.
You are at the end of the first journey. Your father was at the end of the second before he died. Your tutors spoke with terrible fear of the deadly leap between the first and the second journeys. You felt no fear. Failure was for other people. You had a perfect foundation. You forged seven pillars. Your master technique was incredible. Your family needed a Matriarch with the power of Transformation, and you trusted in your destiny.
3. What did you merge with for your Transformation? Most choose an element, material, or supernatural creature. A few are able to merge with something more esoteric, like a concept. You can pick whatever you want and it will synergize well with your Foundation and Pillars.
SPECIAL RAFFLE VOTE! I will pick this randomly, not by majority rules. I reserve the right to veto things I really don't like, such as a clear joke or meme. Otherwise just pick whatever sounds cool to you personally.
This character creation post is focused almost exclusively on your cultivation build. As the prodigy, that's pretty much all you have. Other characters would have allies, connections, maybe a spy network or special mundane skills. The heir would have a bunch of that stuff. You are dreadfully inexperienced and unprepared when it comes to conventional assets, but your cultivation is super-charged. You have a protagonist-tier foundation and 7 pillars. A true "punch God at 20" protagonist would have 13, but people here don't even know that's a thing.
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Family Fued
Chalchiuhxochitl, Chachi to her friends, wiped tears from her eyes and struggled to concentrate. Her family was fighting. Dad wasn't even in the ground, and they were already close to blows. She wasn't paying attention, but she was sure Okuillin started it. This was her first time seeing her half-sister, and the sect student gave off the energy of a mad beast. Unlike the rest of the clan, who all wore white robes to honor the dead, she had black armor made of layered chitinous plates.
"You think you're in charge now?" Oku spat, "because a corpse said so? Old shit should have switched our names. Strength is everything. Any passing shithead can kick your ass. I'm the only real fighter in the clan. You need me. I'm in charge."
Chachi's eldest brother, Teokuitlatlkopilli, sighed, "You're right, we need you. Your strength would be a great asset to the clan, and for what it's worth I think the Great Patriarch was wrong to keep you so far from the family. But if you're demanding full control like our honored father had, then we might as well disband the clan here and now. I cannot conceive of a swifter path to destruction than submitting to your leadership. You know nothing of business."
She sneered, "Yeah, well, you don't know the world. Nobody cares if you can rock a spreadsheet. As soon as you have something worth having, someone stronger will stroll by, smash your face, and now they have it. Here, I'll show you!"
Chachi watched listlessly as her sister's aura cackled with black lightning. Storm and Destruction? Her father disdained paths like that, only good for killing. When you turn yourself into a weapon, you become someone else's tool.
"Not now!" Chachi's mom's voice cut through the argument, reverberating in their souls with the power of a pillar technique. Oku shook off the effects in a second, but it was enough for her to turn away with a dismissive gesture.
"You dishonor your father," Itstlixochitl continued. At Oku's withering look she modified her approach, "if you wish to lead this clan, do not begin by wounding your own face."
Chachi nodded, glad that her mother's wisdom managed to calm the wild woman down. Her half-sister was embarrassing everyone, maybe that's how she expressed her grief.
"A duel then," Oku shot back, "one week. Enough time to get this sack of meat in the ground and pretend to be sad."
Teokuitlatlkopilli frowned, considering, but his stepmother answered before him, "A formal duel then. I have witnessed the challenge. I will register it with the adjudicator."
"I have not accepted," Chachi's eldest brother answered, "nor am I required to. This is foolish, and would relinquish my central point. I do not doubt your strength in combat, I doubt your ability to do anything else. If you want to duel, let it be on some other basis."
Chachi tuned them out again, reminiscing about her father. His delight in teaching her his favorite technique, the Art of Evaluation. That night they spent together, brainstorming on the possibilities of the Celestial Forge, on how it could someday revolutionize the business.
She's jolted back at the crack of a broken jaw. Her eldest brother was on the ground. The exiled followed up with a savage kick to the gut. Chachi moved without thinking. Suddenly she's between them. Her opponent threw a vicious combination of quick fist strikes. Her style was brutal and efficient, all pinpoint strikes, each enhanced with enough unshaped Teotl to end a life. Chachi responded with the Flowing River style, deflecting and redirecting the attacks with constant movement. For a moment they were evenly matched. Okuillin was more experienced, but thanks to her cultivation base, Chachi had the edge in speed and strength. Then a cruel light came to Okuillin's eyes. She attacked again, but now rather than carrying unshaped Teotl each strike was accompanied by a burst of black light and a shock of pain. Chachi grimaced as putrid entropic energy polluted her internal rivers. This was the power of a proper sect combat foundation, something her clan otherwise lacked.
She couldn't last long. Thankfully, she didn't need to. Her mother joined in with another mental technique, forcing Oku to hesitate as she fought through a mental fog. Then Tetlkoto came out of nowhere (if Chachi was being honest she'd forgotten he was here) and slipped a knife in the small gap between Okuillin's plates. The combat focused cultivator responded admirably, striking instinctively at both Chachi and her brother, then leaping away in a burst of black lightning. She snagged the knife from her back and a steady trickle of blood poured down her leg.
In the reprieve, Teokuitlatlkopilli staggered to his feet and began cycling his own Teotl. The true family stood together against their father's exiled progeny.
"Just the four of you weaklings then?" she snarled, "good, might get some exercise. Can't hold back against so many though. Come at me and you die."
To emphasize her threat, the cackle of entropic power around her grew to a roar.
"One week," Chalchiuhxochitl heard herself speak, "I will stand for my family. Alone. If you can beat me then, I will acknowledge you as Matriarch."
Itstlixochitl squeezed her daughter's shoulder and voiced her support, "I will do the same. We will have a proper duel according to Imperial law at the family estate, with all the branch heads in attendance."
---
A week later and Chachi was confident. The Infinite Perfect gave Chachi an inherent advantage against all other cultivators. At the moment she was just a hair better than Perfect, and the gap would only grow over time. It wasn't enough against the raw power of her sister's combat techniques. She would have lost a week ago and Oku wouldn't have broken a sweat. With the power of the Celestial Forge and a week of preparation, she had a counter to her sister's more destructive abilities. It might have been enough to just barely win.
Unacceptable. Her triumph had to be absolute. For that she needed the power of Transformation. With her mother and brother's permission she'd claimed the Eye of the Mountain, an enormous perfectly cut diamond, from their central purifier on the sagesludge river. Diamond was a popular Transformation for good reason. Over time, it would give her unmatched spiritual and physical defenses, and the ability to divine truth from lies. It was also highly compatible with her Path, and her family owned one notable enough to form a strong conduit. Sure, it wasn't a World Seed or a Jade Rabbit, but she was the scion of a humble merchant clan, not the Emperor's daughter.
She strolled to the center of the estate courtyard, hastily repurposed as a dueling circle. An audience of merchants and managers stood nervously around the ornamental plants and burbling fountains. She could feel their fear and uncertainty. This family spat right after the Patriarch's death frightened them. They needed to know that everything was under control.
1. You are in Transformation (Merging) and your opponent is only in Perfection (Building). Your victory is assured. How do you want to win?
[] Honorable victory
Let her show off her well-earned strength for a bit and make her look like a clan asset. Then display your own power and beat her with ease. Play the whole duel off as an exhibition match. This saves face for everyone and leaves the possibility of recruiting the exile.
[] Humiliate her
Mock her, toy with her, then crush her. Break her pride and carve fear in her heart. Show everyone how weak she really is. Send her back into exile without any hope of ever again rebelling against the clan.
[] Kill her
You don't have it in you. If The Spare was standing in this ring, then absolutely. The Prodigy can't kill her own sister. This is just here to point out that the choices on offer are being constrained by your archetype, so if you feel you only have dumb or naïve options, that might be why. It's also why you tend to forget that your other older brother exists.
I'll have a character sheet up between this update and the next.
"You think you're in charge now?" Oku spat, "because a corpse said so? Old shit should have switched our names. Strength is everything. Any passing shithead can kick your ass. I'm the only real fighter in the clan. You need me. I'm in charge."
Chachi's eldest brother, Teokuitlatlkopilli, sighed, "You're right, we need you. Your strength would be a great asset to the clan, and for what it's worth I think the Great Patriarch was wrong to keep you so far from the family. But if you're demanding full control like our honored father had, then we might as well disband the clan here and now. I cannot conceive of a swifter path to destruction than submitting to your leadership. You know nothing of business."
She sneered, "Yeah, well, you don't know the world. Nobody cares if you can rock a spreadsheet. As soon as you have something worth having, someone stronger will stroll by, smash your face, and now they have it. Here, I'll show you!"
Chachi watched listlessly as her sister's aura cackled with black lightning. Storm and Destruction? Her father disdained paths like that, only good for killing. When you turn yourself into a weapon, you become someone else's tool.
"Not now!" Chachi's mom's voice cut through the argument, reverberating in their souls with the power of a pillar technique. Oku shook off the effects in a second, but it was enough for her to turn away with a dismissive gesture.
"You dishonor your father," Itstlixochitl continued. At Oku's withering look she modified her approach, "if you wish to lead this clan, do not begin by wounding your own face."
Chachi nodded, glad that her mother's wisdom managed to calm the wild woman down. Her half-sister was embarrassing everyone, maybe that's how she expressed her grief.
"A duel then," Oku shot back, "one week. Enough time to get this sack of meat in the ground and pretend to be sad."
Teokuitlatlkopilli frowned, considering, but his stepmother answered before him, "A formal duel then. I have witnessed the challenge. I will register it with the adjudicator."
"I have not accepted," Chachi's eldest brother answered, "nor am I required to. This is foolish, and would relinquish my central point. I do not doubt your strength in combat, I doubt your ability to do anything else. If you want to duel, let it be on some other basis."
Chachi tuned them out again, reminiscing about her father. His delight in teaching her his favorite technique, the Art of Evaluation. That night they spent together, brainstorming on the possibilities of the Celestial Forge, on how it could someday revolutionize the business.
She's jolted back at the crack of a broken jaw. Her eldest brother was on the ground. The exiled followed up with a savage kick to the gut. Chachi moved without thinking. Suddenly she's between them. Her opponent threw a vicious combination of quick fist strikes. Her style was brutal and efficient, all pinpoint strikes, each enhanced with enough unshaped Teotl to end a life. Chachi responded with the Flowing River style, deflecting and redirecting the attacks with constant movement. For a moment they were evenly matched. Okuillin was more experienced, but thanks to her cultivation base, Chachi had the edge in speed and strength. Then a cruel light came to Okuillin's eyes. She attacked again, but now rather than carrying unshaped Teotl each strike was accompanied by a burst of black light and a shock of pain. Chachi grimaced as putrid entropic energy polluted her internal rivers. This was the power of a proper sect combat foundation, something her clan otherwise lacked.
She couldn't last long. Thankfully, she didn't need to. Her mother joined in with another mental technique, forcing Oku to hesitate as she fought through a mental fog. Then Tetlkoto came out of nowhere (if Chachi was being honest she'd forgotten he was here) and slipped a knife in the small gap between Okuillin's plates. The combat focused cultivator responded admirably, striking instinctively at both Chachi and her brother, then leaping away in a burst of black lightning. She snagged the knife from her back and a steady trickle of blood poured down her leg.
In the reprieve, Teokuitlatlkopilli staggered to his feet and began cycling his own Teotl. The true family stood together against their father's exiled progeny.
"Just the four of you weaklings then?" she snarled, "good, might get some exercise. Can't hold back against so many though. Come at me and you die."
To emphasize her threat, the cackle of entropic power around her grew to a roar.
"One week," Chalchiuhxochitl heard herself speak, "I will stand for my family. Alone. If you can beat me then, I will acknowledge you as Matriarch."
Itstlixochitl squeezed her daughter's shoulder and voiced her support, "I will do the same. We will have a proper duel according to Imperial law at the family estate, with all the branch heads in attendance."
---
A week later and Chachi was confident. The Infinite Perfect gave Chachi an inherent advantage against all other cultivators. At the moment she was just a hair better than Perfect, and the gap would only grow over time. It wasn't enough against the raw power of her sister's combat techniques. She would have lost a week ago and Oku wouldn't have broken a sweat. With the power of the Celestial Forge and a week of preparation, she had a counter to her sister's more destructive abilities. It might have been enough to just barely win.
Unacceptable. Her triumph had to be absolute. For that she needed the power of Transformation. With her mother and brother's permission she'd claimed the Eye of the Mountain, an enormous perfectly cut diamond, from their central purifier on the sagesludge river. Diamond was a popular Transformation for good reason. Over time, it would give her unmatched spiritual and physical defenses, and the ability to divine truth from lies. It was also highly compatible with her Path, and her family owned one notable enough to form a strong conduit. Sure, it wasn't a World Seed or a Jade Rabbit, but she was the scion of a humble merchant clan, not the Emperor's daughter.
She strolled to the center of the estate courtyard, hastily repurposed as a dueling circle. An audience of merchants and managers stood nervously around the ornamental plants and burbling fountains. She could feel their fear and uncertainty. This family spat right after the Patriarch's death frightened them. They needed to know that everything was under control.
1. You are in Transformation (Merging) and your opponent is only in Perfection (Building). Your victory is assured. How do you want to win?
[] Honorable victory
Let her show off her well-earned strength for a bit and make her look like a clan asset. Then display your own power and beat her with ease. Play the whole duel off as an exhibition match. This saves face for everyone and leaves the possibility of recruiting the exile.
[] Humiliate her
Mock her, toy with her, then crush her. Break her pride and carve fear in her heart. Show everyone how weak she really is. Send her back into exile without any hope of ever again rebelling against the clan.
You don't have it in you. If The Spare was standing in this ring, then absolutely. The Prodigy can't kill her own sister. This is just here to point out that the choices on offer are being constrained by your archetype, so if you feel you only have dumb or naïve options, that might be why. It's also why you tend to forget that your other older brother exists.
I'll have a character sheet up between this update and the next.
The Diamond Matriarch
Oku leaped into the dueling ring from her hiding spot behind the chimney. She slowed her landing at the last moment with her signature cackling black lightning. She maintained it for a moment, floating just above the ground on streams of shrieking Teotl before settling on the earth with a swooping gesture. Immediately she went into an energetic kata, revealing a treasure spear and twirling it with clear skill. She wore the same black chitinous armor as before, maybe she always wore it. Chachi had to keep herself from smiling in approval. What drama, what showmanship! She expected her sister to just stomp in and curse, but clearly she's fought in duels before and knew how to play it up for the audience. She must think it would help when she becomes Matriarch, but it served Chachi's purposes fine.
With the same drama in mind, Chachi quickly imbued her tasteful robes to give off a soft blue glow. She lifted her arm and the Cosmic Forge appeared above her head, to awed murmurs from the audience. The Forge was an impressive sight. At the bottom it was a mass of machinery whirling to some unknown purpose. The machines were connected by a piping system to barrels, casks, and vials, her essence storage. Moving up there was the forge proper, geometric lines of power around a flat surface, a crystalline hammer inscribed with runes suspended in the air above it. At the very top a tiny planet spun, connected to the machine with rivers of power. Her Teotl storage was a genuine ecosystem, complete with white mountains, green trees, flowing rivers, and drifting clouds. Chachi took a moment to admire it herself. There was something special about the Cosmic Forge. It didn't feel like she'd created it, it was more real than that. It could also somehow store Essence and Teotl on its own when she dismissed it, and that was beyond any of her Pillar Techniques. It was like she was only summoning it from some other place. Heaven maybe.
She had other concerns today. She held an image in her mind, a simple object with a complicated network of waterways, and willed it to be. Sharp, Stone, and Shadow Essence pumped up from the containers to the forge's surface and pure Teotl flowed down from the planet. The hammer struck once and a wave of pressure pushed back the audience. Twice and they felt like the whole estate was being pulled inward. The hammer struck a third time with a ring of finality.
Chalchiuhxochitl dismissed the forge and lifted her hand. An onyx saber fell into her waiting fingers. Just for fun she fed it some of her own Teotl and activated its core. It seemed to devour the light around it.
All of it was strictly unnecessary. This was her first idea to beat her sister, a saber perfectly designed to devour her signature Teotl attacks. She'd discussed it with her mom, but together they realized it was too risky without perfect knowledge of Oku's abilities. Besides, the family needed more than just one win in a duel, and an internal conflict at that. They needed someone in Transformation.
Chachi didn't believe in the myth that she had 50/50 odds to survive Transformation. Sure, yeah, half died. Can't argue with the numbers. The weaker half, the half without Heaven's blessing, they died. She was destined for something greater. She had no fear of the leap and had always planned to do it when she got her father's blessing. Now he couldn't give it, but her mother and brother gave it in his stead.
The saber wasn't necessary, but it was very cool. Even the arbiter, a round faced woman in Imperial white, had an appreciative expression. Then she returned to a flat mask of neutrality and did her job.
"This is an official duel between Chalchiuhxochitl and Okuillin for leadership of the Atlahau mercantile organization. It is a test of combat ability. You will fight until incapacitation or surrender. This is not an official dueling ring with proper safety precautions, so watch your strikes. If either of you wound a spectator or willingly step out of the ring that is an automatic disqualification."
That audience shuffled back a few more feet. Chachi rolled her eyes, they were in no danger while she was here.
"Are you ready?" the arbitrator looked at both fighters. Chachi gave a gracious bow, Oku a curt nod.
"Fight!"
Oku struck instantly, a black bolt of lightning firing from her fingers and hitting Chachi faster than her eyes could track. Chachi faked a pained grimace. In truth, it didn't hurt in the slightest. Tickled a little, maybe.
Chachi activated her saber, drawing the harmless lightning into its hungry depths. Her sister frowned and cut off the attack. Instead of firing bolts, she channeled Teotl to her spear. The same lightning arched through the weapon, but it also glowed a fiery red. An aura of more natural white lightning, not the putrid black she used before, cloaked her body. She must be using a body enhancement technique, powering the weapon's core and channeling a technique through it. She planned to fight with three distinct techniques active at once? Impressive Teotl control. If she completed her Pillars, Mastery wasn't far behind.
Not wanting to look like she was mocking her sister by just fighting defensively, Chachi rushed forward. Saber met spear. Where they touched, the black lightning snuffed out but waves of fire spilled over the weapons. If Chachi didn't have crystal rivers, it would have burned. Instead, the flames washed over harmlessly.
Oku's black eyes widened in recognition. To her credit, she made the best tactical choice she could under the circumstances. She dropped both techniques on the spear and dedicated her Teotl to body enhancement and her concentration to the physical conflict. In a furious series she stabbed, cut, and swirled, looking for an opening in Chachi's physical defense.
This was the hardest part for Chachi. Diamond Spirit granted her powerful defenses against Teotl based attacks but did nothing against a simple spear. Her superior cultivation base lent her greater speed and strength, but her sister more than made up for that with the enhancement technique. Gamely, she tried to match her sister in pure martial arts skill. She barely blocked a twirling slash and tried to dodge the follow up. Oku effortlessly matched her footwork, striking her in the ribs with the butt of her spear. Chachi flinched, feeling real pain for the first time in the fight, and her sister immediately pounced on that moment of weakness with a low stab, scoring a thin line of blood.
Ok, time to cheat. She wanted to play her sister up, not embarrass herself. With an overly clumsy swing, she batted at her sister's spear. Her sister spun to take advantage of the opening… And stumbled. With a thought, Chachi's clear domain disrupted her sister's enforcement technique. The sudden loss unbalanced Oku and left her back open.
Chachi was ready for it. She was already channeling the Touch of Destruction and feeding the core in her robes for a burst of speed. She tapped a snarl in the waterways of Oku's armor, a remnant from some clumsy repair. The plates shed from her sister's body like dandruff. Another touch, and destructive Teotl snapped a sensitive vertebrae.
Her sister threw herself back to create distance and warded Chachi off with her spear. Chachi lowered her saber and spoke, loud enough for the audience to hear, "it's admirable that you fought so hard and so well, even after you realized the truth. But it's time to end this."
She fully unveiled her spirit. The air became crisper, the sound of fountains clearer, the earth cleaner. She expressed her aura, and the natural blue-green of her power sparkled with crystalline perfection.
The pure spiritual pressure shook Oku, but she steadied her spear. They both knew she was still a threat in physical combat. Chachi nodded respectfully at that show of will and courage. Then she lifted her saber. While she was talking, she was also tweaking its waterways with basic imbuement, reversing their flow.
She fed the core again, and this time it didn't suck in. It shot out. All the lightning it absorbed raced at Chachi's sister. Oku cycled defensively to reabsorb the lightning before it did damage. Normally assaulting someone with their own technique was a fool's gambit. Normally. Chachi reached out again with her clear domain and disrupted her sister's spiritual defense. The lightning struck hard. Oku screamed and charged through what must have been debilitating pain.
Chachi neatly stepped aside and struck her sister on the back of the head, hard. She collapsed. Her sister's black lightning didn't just attack the body, it weakened the spirit. With that reduction in strength and speed. Oku wasn't a match for Chachi. Not that she ever really was.
The moment the arbiter declared her victory, Chachi reached down and healed the damage to her sister's riverways. She couldn't do anything about the physical damage, so she waved over the volunteer healer.
"She'll be fine?" It was more a statement than a question, and the healer nodded, "she'll be good as new in a few hours."
Chachi turned back to the awed crowd.
"Good! She fought well. This was an enlightening exchange of techniques. My clan will need warriors like my sister to protect us."
Her mother kneeled on both knees on cue and proclaimed, "thank you for your wisdom, Matriarch. Thank you for guiding us in these difficult times." She pressed her forehead to the ground. The clan followed suite. Chachi noted that her older brothers went to their knees, but kept their backs straight. Was that correct? She honestly wasn't sure. It was fine, it was hard enough to watch her mother grovel like this. But Itstlixochitl had insisted. It was part of being Matriarch, and her father would have been shown the same respect on formal occasions.
1. Chalchiuhxochitl has done little else except cultivate, but no one can cultivate non-stop. What was her non-cultivation hobby?
[] Pets!
[] Gardening
[] Painting, Sculpture, and other fine arts
[] Fashion
[] Playing games with her friends. Well, her servants. Her friend/servants.
[] Write in. It doesn't have to be useless, but learning the family business or skills that compliment her techniques isn't a hobby.
I posted the character sheet. Here's the transformation section:
Transformation - Diamond Spirit
Aura of Purity – Undead, Abominations, Abyssal Beings, and other foul creatures are grievously harmed by your presence. You have a mild purifying effect on your environment.
Cleansing Touch – You can heal poison, disease, and spiritual damage with a touch.
Clear Domain – With a simple act of will you can disrupt all Teotl effects below transformation level and weaken all effects below Lord level.
Crystal Rivers – You are immune to anything that may cause harm to your spirit below Lord level. You are immune to poisons and diseases. You are resistant to all harmful Teotl.
Shining Fate – Fate will bend slightly to shield you from humiliation and degradation. People will find it easy to recognize your value and difficult to insult you.
Rigid Spirit - You cannot use normal techniques, limiting you to Foundation, Pillar, or Master techniques.
With the same drama in mind, Chachi quickly imbued her tasteful robes to give off a soft blue glow. She lifted her arm and the Cosmic Forge appeared above her head, to awed murmurs from the audience. The Forge was an impressive sight. At the bottom it was a mass of machinery whirling to some unknown purpose. The machines were connected by a piping system to barrels, casks, and vials, her essence storage. Moving up there was the forge proper, geometric lines of power around a flat surface, a crystalline hammer inscribed with runes suspended in the air above it. At the very top a tiny planet spun, connected to the machine with rivers of power. Her Teotl storage was a genuine ecosystem, complete with white mountains, green trees, flowing rivers, and drifting clouds. Chachi took a moment to admire it herself. There was something special about the Cosmic Forge. It didn't feel like she'd created it, it was more real than that. It could also somehow store Essence and Teotl on its own when she dismissed it, and that was beyond any of her Pillar Techniques. It was like she was only summoning it from some other place. Heaven maybe.
She had other concerns today. She held an image in her mind, a simple object with a complicated network of waterways, and willed it to be. Sharp, Stone, and Shadow Essence pumped up from the containers to the forge's surface and pure Teotl flowed down from the planet. The hammer struck once and a wave of pressure pushed back the audience. Twice and they felt like the whole estate was being pulled inward. The hammer struck a third time with a ring of finality.
Chalchiuhxochitl dismissed the forge and lifted her hand. An onyx saber fell into her waiting fingers. Just for fun she fed it some of her own Teotl and activated its core. It seemed to devour the light around it.
All of it was strictly unnecessary. This was her first idea to beat her sister, a saber perfectly designed to devour her signature Teotl attacks. She'd discussed it with her mom, but together they realized it was too risky without perfect knowledge of Oku's abilities. Besides, the family needed more than just one win in a duel, and an internal conflict at that. They needed someone in Transformation.
Chachi didn't believe in the myth that she had 50/50 odds to survive Transformation. Sure, yeah, half died. Can't argue with the numbers. The weaker half, the half without Heaven's blessing, they died. She was destined for something greater. She had no fear of the leap and had always planned to do it when she got her father's blessing. Now he couldn't give it, but her mother and brother gave it in his stead.
The saber wasn't necessary, but it was very cool. Even the arbiter, a round faced woman in Imperial white, had an appreciative expression. Then she returned to a flat mask of neutrality and did her job.
"This is an official duel between Chalchiuhxochitl and Okuillin for leadership of the Atlahau mercantile organization. It is a test of combat ability. You will fight until incapacitation or surrender. This is not an official dueling ring with proper safety precautions, so watch your strikes. If either of you wound a spectator or willingly step out of the ring that is an automatic disqualification."
That audience shuffled back a few more feet. Chachi rolled her eyes, they were in no danger while she was here.
"Are you ready?" the arbitrator looked at both fighters. Chachi gave a gracious bow, Oku a curt nod.
"Fight!"
Oku struck instantly, a black bolt of lightning firing from her fingers and hitting Chachi faster than her eyes could track. Chachi faked a pained grimace. In truth, it didn't hurt in the slightest. Tickled a little, maybe.
Chachi activated her saber, drawing the harmless lightning into its hungry depths. Her sister frowned and cut off the attack. Instead of firing bolts, she channeled Teotl to her spear. The same lightning arched through the weapon, but it also glowed a fiery red. An aura of more natural white lightning, not the putrid black she used before, cloaked her body. She must be using a body enhancement technique, powering the weapon's core and channeling a technique through it. She planned to fight with three distinct techniques active at once? Impressive Teotl control. If she completed her Pillars, Mastery wasn't far behind.
Not wanting to look like she was mocking her sister by just fighting defensively, Chachi rushed forward. Saber met spear. Where they touched, the black lightning snuffed out but waves of fire spilled over the weapons. If Chachi didn't have crystal rivers, it would have burned. Instead, the flames washed over harmlessly.
Oku's black eyes widened in recognition. To her credit, she made the best tactical choice she could under the circumstances. She dropped both techniques on the spear and dedicated her Teotl to body enhancement and her concentration to the physical conflict. In a furious series she stabbed, cut, and swirled, looking for an opening in Chachi's physical defense.
This was the hardest part for Chachi. Diamond Spirit granted her powerful defenses against Teotl based attacks but did nothing against a simple spear. Her superior cultivation base lent her greater speed and strength, but her sister more than made up for that with the enhancement technique. Gamely, she tried to match her sister in pure martial arts skill. She barely blocked a twirling slash and tried to dodge the follow up. Oku effortlessly matched her footwork, striking her in the ribs with the butt of her spear. Chachi flinched, feeling real pain for the first time in the fight, and her sister immediately pounced on that moment of weakness with a low stab, scoring a thin line of blood.
Ok, time to cheat. She wanted to play her sister up, not embarrass herself. With an overly clumsy swing, she batted at her sister's spear. Her sister spun to take advantage of the opening… And stumbled. With a thought, Chachi's clear domain disrupted her sister's enforcement technique. The sudden loss unbalanced Oku and left her back open.
Chachi was ready for it. She was already channeling the Touch of Destruction and feeding the core in her robes for a burst of speed. She tapped a snarl in the waterways of Oku's armor, a remnant from some clumsy repair. The plates shed from her sister's body like dandruff. Another touch, and destructive Teotl snapped a sensitive vertebrae.
Her sister threw herself back to create distance and warded Chachi off with her spear. Chachi lowered her saber and spoke, loud enough for the audience to hear, "it's admirable that you fought so hard and so well, even after you realized the truth. But it's time to end this."
She fully unveiled her spirit. The air became crisper, the sound of fountains clearer, the earth cleaner. She expressed her aura, and the natural blue-green of her power sparkled with crystalline perfection.
The pure spiritual pressure shook Oku, but she steadied her spear. They both knew she was still a threat in physical combat. Chachi nodded respectfully at that show of will and courage. Then she lifted her saber. While she was talking, she was also tweaking its waterways with basic imbuement, reversing their flow.
She fed the core again, and this time it didn't suck in. It shot out. All the lightning it absorbed raced at Chachi's sister. Oku cycled defensively to reabsorb the lightning before it did damage. Normally assaulting someone with their own technique was a fool's gambit. Normally. Chachi reached out again with her clear domain and disrupted her sister's spiritual defense. The lightning struck hard. Oku screamed and charged through what must have been debilitating pain.
Chachi neatly stepped aside and struck her sister on the back of the head, hard. She collapsed. Her sister's black lightning didn't just attack the body, it weakened the spirit. With that reduction in strength and speed. Oku wasn't a match for Chachi. Not that she ever really was.
The moment the arbiter declared her victory, Chachi reached down and healed the damage to her sister's riverways. She couldn't do anything about the physical damage, so she waved over the volunteer healer.
"She'll be fine?" It was more a statement than a question, and the healer nodded, "she'll be good as new in a few hours."
Chachi turned back to the awed crowd.
"Good! She fought well. This was an enlightening exchange of techniques. My clan will need warriors like my sister to protect us."
Her mother kneeled on both knees on cue and proclaimed, "thank you for your wisdom, Matriarch. Thank you for guiding us in these difficult times." She pressed her forehead to the ground. The clan followed suite. Chachi noted that her older brothers went to their knees, but kept their backs straight. Was that correct? She honestly wasn't sure. It was fine, it was hard enough to watch her mother grovel like this. But Itstlixochitl had insisted. It was part of being Matriarch, and her father would have been shown the same respect on formal occasions.
1. Chalchiuhxochitl has done little else except cultivate, but no one can cultivate non-stop. What was her non-cultivation hobby?
[] Pets!
[] Gardening
[] Painting, Sculpture, and other fine arts
[] Fashion
[] Playing games with her friends. Well, her servants. Her friend/servants.
[] Write in. It doesn't have to be useless, but learning the family business or skills that compliment her techniques isn't a hobby.
I posted the character sheet. Here's the transformation section:
Transformation - Diamond Spirit
Aura of Purity – Undead, Abominations, Abyssal Beings, and other foul creatures are grievously harmed by your presence. You have a mild purifying effect on your environment.
Cleansing Touch – You can heal poison, disease, and spiritual damage with a touch.
Clear Domain – With a simple act of will you can disrupt all Teotl effects below transformation level and weaken all effects below Lord level.
Crystal Rivers – You are immune to anything that may cause harm to your spirit below Lord level. You are immune to poisons and diseases. You are resistant to all harmful Teotl.
Shining Fate – Fate will bend slightly to shield you from humiliation and degradation. People will find it easy to recognize your value and difficult to insult you.
Rigid Spirit - You cannot use normal techniques, limiting you to Foundation, Pillar, or Master techniques.
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A Quiet Coup?
With the Arbiter off to record the results of the match, and the branch heads dispersed back to their duties, Chachi's reward for a battle won and a clan seized was a mountain of paperwork. She was rushed off from the Clan Estate to the Head Office, a modest tower located prestigiously close to the central palace of Tacuba, capital of the Thousand Rivers region. Designed to invoke respectability without provoking envy, the tower was a clean gray accented with hanging gardens fed by an artificial waterfall on the south side. Teokuitlatlkopilli practically lived there, but Chachi had only visited a handful of times. The foyer was also gray with tasteful aquamarine accents, the family colors. Chachi waved excitedly at the receptionist, who waved back, stopped with a look of horror, and then fell hard to her knees in a rushed bow. Ouch.
Teokuitlatlkopilli led the way to the Clan Archives. "We'll throw you a huge party soon, once the mourning period has passed completely. This will be mind-numbing for you, I'm sure, but it is very necessary. Bureaucracy is the beating heart of the Empire. Nothing is real until you've submitted a T-32, S-87, and EZ-499 in triplicate."
With the help of her brother and six assistants it only took four hours. Chachi couldn't wait to escape and visit her sister. Maybe she'd want another fight!
Okuillin was just finishing with the healers when Chachi arrived back at the estate. She was dressed in spare blue robes. She looked thin without her armor. Short too. Did she wear boots to make her taller?
"So…" Chachi wasn't sure what to say.
"So…" Maybe her sister didn't either? She looked uncertain. Troubled even. They stared at each other for a bit, waiting for the other to decide how things would go. Then something broke in Oku's body language.
"It takes huge balls to dive for Transformation like that," she grinned uncertainly.
"My balls would crush Mount Tai" Chachi quipped back, and her sister laughed. It was a surprisingly sweet sound, when it wasn't laced with rage and scorn.
"I thought I could maybe get you, even with all that. You fight like someone with too many tutors and not enough enemies. But it was clever to turn off my technique like that. Couldn't believe you threw my own lightning back at me and it actually worked!" She punched Chachi's shoulder with a bit more force than she would have preferred.
"You fought well… Given the circumstances," Chachi allowed.
"So…" Oku scratched the back of her neck, the uncertain look creeping back to her face, "look. I got issues with, the, uh, you know, our dad." It looked like using that word physically pained her, "but I guess he's dead, so I can bury the grudge right along with him. But just so you know, both your brothers didn't fall far from that rotten tree. Fucking snakes. They'd drown a baby for his smile and they'd grovel in shit at his frown. I know them, and if they were drowning I'd piss in the river…. But I don't know you."
Chachi had to consciously unclench her fists at such unkind words towards her family. The only thing she could agree with is that her brothers and her father came from similar stock. Her honored father was the best man she ever knew, and her brothers were much like him. On the other hand, if her father had one flaw it's how he treated his first daughter. It was a shame that he let his passions overcome him after his first wife's death and had a child out of wedlock, but that wasn't the child's fault. She supposed, if she'd been traded to the Blue River Sect for the sake of propriety she'd be mad too.
1. What should you do about your sister?
[] Keep her close
You can use her. You might have to keep her away from your brothers, or find some way to make nice, but her sect connections and strength are worth it. Besides, she's family.
[] Back to the sect with your blessing
Officially recognize her as a core member of the clan, but ask her to return to the Blue River Sect. She can continue her training and try to dig up some opportunities there. You will keep in regular contact and expect some support, like any scion in the sects.
[] Back to the sect as an exile
She dishonors your father constantly with her words, and now she is disrespecting your brothers. Tell her that she does not belong with the Clan and should not use your name.
---
Three days later, Chachi was painting Lord Tlaloc's palace. Her penthouse office had an excellent view of the lower complex, she could even see the enclosure for his Resplendent Quetzals. Being the Matriarch was surprisingly easy. Her brother was such a worrywart, but the business seemed to be doing just fine. All humming along, just like it always had. She was just working on the floating islands when her mother burst in.
"You cannot allow this!" she cried.
Chachi stared at her blankly, "allow what?"
Itstlixochitl slammed a document on Chachi's enormous empty desk: one of the transition papers. Chachi skimmed it. Yep, looked all in order. She raised an eyebrow at her clearly disturbed mother.
"What?"
"Foolish girl! You granted your brother power of representation! This document gives him full authority to act in your name and speak with your voice! You made him the Patriarch in all but name. In the last two days you've issued over four hundred orders to the clan. Did you write a single one?"
Chachi bit her lip, "I don't see any problem with him handling the little details. Father trusted Teokuitlatlkopilli to handle all kinds of clan business."
"Your father always kept a close eye on the business. He'd never give anyone his voice, even his eldest son. You are the Matriarch. You can't delegate everything. You have to lead. If you don't…. Look, see here," Itsli revealed a second document, a list of names.
"He fired all these employees. These are good workers, very loyal. You understand, they were extremely loyal. He replaced them with less reliable new hires, people who answer directly to him. People we might not be able to count on in hard times. Loyalty is very important."
"Yeah… I guess."
"Don't guess. Know. You're in charge now. Your vision guides this Clan, not your brother's. I know you're young, and you're used to being told what to do. If you need any help, just ask me."
So Chachi found herself marching down to her brother's office. She burst through the door, filled with righteous indignation. Those feelings popped like a balloon when she saw her brother. She stood just inside the threshold suddenly uncertain, as a small mob of workers flung themselves into full kowtows. Her brother's office was smaller than hers, but while most of her space was filled with fine statues, his was crammed with eight paper-swamped desks and a flowing river of workers who just moments ago were rushing on some business that was, no doubt, extraordinarily important. As she hesitated, another one burst in behind her, realized who she was, and also went into a bow. Chachi realized, with dawning horror, that if she just stood here they would just keep piling up. The only person not bowing was her brother, who remained seated at his desk. He was scribbling something down.
"Please… um…. Be about your business. I just want to speak with my brother for a moment. When, uh, you have the time. I want you to come up to my office."
Chachi rushed back to her office in a matter of seconds, her own door rattling at the wave of air she drew with her. She took a deep breath and rubbed her giant desk for comfort, suddenly ashamed of its pristine surface. A few minutes later, her brother entered.
"How can I help you, Great Matriarch?"
"About… About your power of representation," she could hear the wheedling in her own voice.
Her brother sighed and took a seat. He looked haggard. As a cultivator in Perfect, that took a lot. Chachi wondered if he'd slept at all since their father's death.
"In many great Clans, the Matriarch does not take a direct hand in business. It's too much busywork. A Matriarch's duty is strength. You are our face, you are our greatest asset, but you do not need to be our mind. Your goal should be to reach Transcendent as soon as possible. No other action would benefit the clan more," he explained.
"Father led the business directly," Chachi countered.
"You are not the Patriarch. Our honored father started this business with a cart, a dream, and a friend who was a pretty good refiner and a very bad salesman. You are a child with a freakish talent for cultivation that he spoiled incessantly. You can't replace him." Teokuitlatlkopilli sighed and stared forlornly at the same palace she'd been painting. "Neither can I. I don't have his talent, or his courage. But I learned from him for, what, seven times your years? Do you really think you can manage the business better than me?"
Chachi grimaced. This was worse than her fight with Oku. Couldn't she just hit him? Oku would hit him. Oku did hit him. "You're underestimating me. Father wanted me to take over the business someday."
Teokuitlatlkopilli smiled with a touch of bitterness, "If he wanted you to take over he would have trained you for it, and he never made those intentions known to me. But, let's concede that. You were his Golden Child, and he loved you unreservedly. Surely someday is not today. You are not ready."
"How do you know? Okuillin was sure surprised by what I could do."
"Alright," he countered, "a duel then. Of a different sort. We'll do this one casually, just between us. If you win, we rescind the order and you take over the business in truth. If I win, you admit that we're better off with you as a more distant Matriarch. I will present a problem, a very real one that is vexing me. As far as I can see, there is no good answer. Give me your solution, and I will give you the best idea I have so far. For better or worse, you are the Matriarch now. I can only present my views and hope that you will accept them. Therefore, you will judge the duel. If you honestly believe that your answer is better, then you win."
"Lord Tlaloc, the fellow whose palace you're painting so skillfully, was a personal friend of our father. Centuries ago, he granted our father rights in perpetuity to harvest water from the Heavenspan River, which runs through his lands. Heavenspan water is useful in a wide variety of elixirs and free access to it is the cornerstone of our business. Now that our father is dead, Lord Tlaloc has withdrawn our Clan's harvesting rights. He doesn't just want to charge us taxes, he wants to charge us rent for our riverside facilities and charge us for every gallon we extract. If we pay, we will need to raise prices to the point where we are no longer competitive, or we will need to sell all Heavenspan based elixirs at a loss. If we move operations, we risk enraging a powerful Lord, one who owns this very land we're speaking on."
2. What should the Clan do?
[] Write-in.
Each novel solution in the thread will be an idea Chachi has. Very good ideas will help the Clan. Novel solutions are what matter for this, so you should present new ideas instead of supporting ones that have already been posted.
3. What does Chachi decide?
[] The Matriarch Leads
Claim that your idea is better than his. Implement it for better or worse. Rescind the power of representation and handle the business. If your brother has a problem with it, he can step down.
Meta: You'll dive into a Xanxia Merchant Clan Simulator, giving CKIII style orders in addition to managing Chachi's time, with some adventures between timeskips.
[] Figurehead is fine
Admit that he's right. You will focus on cultivation or pet projects, and he'll call you if he needs you.
Meta: You're not abandoning the premise, but the actual business end will be mostly on the backburner. As Matriarch you will work on cultivation, put out fires, and look for new opportunities for the clan to capitalize on. Less CKIII, more Dragon Age Inquisition.
[] Mother knows best
Ask your mom to join the duel, then support her idea. Change the power of representation to her. She'll be delighted. Your brother will be enraged.
Meta: Figurehead with a bit more direct involvement, also you're trusting your mother to handle things over your brother.
[] I can learn
Admit that he's right, but argue that the Patriarch really did intend for you to lead. Someday is not today, but it's coming soon. Your brother needs to teach you in his place.
Meta: Easing into management with more 'tutorial scenes.' Chachi's cultivation will slow down as she tries to learn the family business.
The Tlaloc Dilemma
Keep Her Close and I Can Learn won.
Chachi stood awkwardly with her sister. She had to break the tension. She swooped in! Her sister danced away, her eyes searching for a weapon, cycling lightning in her aura at the unexpected attack. Chachi easily disrupted the enhancement, and had an inherent speed advantage. A few more steps, and victory! Her arms fully encircled her sister in a masterful hug!
She could feel Oku very hesitantly pat her back. "I know you've been away and things have been hard. I know you have grudges. Can you please let them lie? I don't know you either, but I know you're my only sister and I'd like to learn more about you. Will you stay for a while?"
Oku carefully extracted herself and rubbed the back of her neck, "yeah, I guess. I done my duty to the Sect. When I hit Transformation, I can take the Core test. Until then I'm free… And it's not like I have to take the test, if stuff works out."
"Great!" Chachi beamed, "and please don't punch my brother again."
"Don't knock it till you try it sister."
Chachi screwed up her face in an exaggerated frown.
"Have you seen his smug 'I know better than you because of my hundred years of selling used wagons' smile?"
"Oku…"
"Yeah, fine. I'll try not to punch his supremely punchable face until you give the OK."
---
Chachi stared down her older brother from her Giant Intimidating Executive Chair, but he wasn't impressed, at least not as far as she could see. His face was perfectly controlled. She switched off the Art of Evaluation. It could help her read the subtle expressions and underlying emotions of people but it was no help against her brother, who only showed exactly what he intended. She traded it for her other mental art, the 9999 Revelations Meditation. As her mind and spirit aligned, a flood of ideas entered her. She intuitively rejected unhelpful revelations, no, I can't just beat them up. The most valuable ideas, those blessed by heaven, naturally rose to the top of her mind. The meditation became more powerful with time, but she could only afford to use it for a few minutes with her brother staring at her.
She smiled confidently, "well, first of all we need to fix our relationship with Lord Tlaloc. Maybe a gift will help? I could look for something appropriate in the clan vaults, reproduce it, maybe make some improvements and personalize it, and then give it a few refinements. Three should be enough to make a gift fit for a Lord."
Her brother nodded curtly, "of course. We can only benefit by continuing to build positive relations with the lord. It will not be enough to make him drop these demands. Lord Tlaloc values sincerity, a gift at this moment will strike him as… Mercenary. Not an entreaty of friendship, but an attempted bribe. You have a certain charming sincerity to you, so perhaps if you present it in person he won't take it as what it is."
"A wedding is always sincere," Chachi mused. She wasn't sure where she got that, maybe her mother?
Teokuitlatlkopilli's expression became much more considered, "you're right. Even if it's offered for purely cynical reasons, there's nothing stronger than a bond of blood. Sadly, entering into their Lord's direct line is a popular ambition among the clans. We'd be marrying significantly up in status. It would need to be someone very important in our family, a direct descendant of our father, marrying someone unremarkable in his. He would not accept one of his children as a second spouse, so that rules out Tet and I. Oku is Oku. I would say we have just a single bachelorette with the status, charm, talent, and closeness to our father to appeal to the Lord." He quirked up an eyebrow.
Right, ok.
Moving on, "then there's the specific issue of the Heavenspan water. I have a few questions. Is there a reason we can't just get it somewhere else?"
"Like many of the 1000 Rivers, the Heavenspan River is a unique natural wonder. It runs through three territories: Lord Huitzilopochtli, Lord Ehecatl, and our own Lord Tlaloc. They are bitter rivals. I'm sure I can get a better deal from Lord Huitzilopochtli, but that would sabotage our other significant interests in Lord Tlaloc's territory and we would gain a powerful enemy. He would see it as a betrayal. We should consider it a last resort."
"Why is this such a problem to begin with? Aren't we in the same position as our rivals, now that we all have to pay for the water?"
Teokuitlatlkopilli's tone sounded much like her tutors when she asked a particularly remedial question, "recipes and infrastructure, the heart of the elixir business. There are many ways to reach more or less the same result but everyone who makes elixirs protects their formulas so rivals can't steal them. We developed many of our elixirs to use Heavenspan Water because of its availability to us. Our rivals use different bases. Even if we did steal our rival's recipes, we would need to shift our infrastructure so we can acquire their other rare ingredients in mass. Perhaps an illustrative example will help. BLUE-C-3 is our internal term for the elixir we currently sell under the name Revitalizing Dew of Spring. If the imbiber is in Hungering, the elixir will quicken their waterways, permanently increasing their ability to restore Teotl. Outside of hungering, it will refresh the imbiber and hasten Teotl restoration for the next few hours. The primary ingredients are Heavenspan Water, 100-sunny-day sunflower seeds, and 1000 year cinnamon. Therefore, we need access to Heavenspan Water, and the facilities to safely extract and dilute it. Then we need fields of sunflowers and treasures that absorb and emit sunlight to insure they have 100 sunny days. We also need a supplier of 1000 year cinnamon, a remarkably easy ingredient to produce so long as you started 1000 years ago. Even if our rivals had our exact formula, it would still take significant effort to reproduce our network of suppliers and investments. The Ueyak clan sells LIQUID TEOTL – MAX POWER EXTREME. It increases the Hungering imbiber's ability to restore Teotl, outside of Hungering it will refresh the imbiber and hasten Teotl restoration. The effects are not technically identical, our elixir is of higher quality and lasts longer, but they are close enough for the non-discerning consumer. I do not know their full formula, but I know it does not use Heavenspan but does use the milk of a very powerful Cow Spirit and Crimson Grass. So if we stole their formula, we'd need to find a cow of our own and a field saturated with blood essence."
"I don't suppose we have a contract?"
"Nothing binding. It was a gentleman's agreement. Lord Tlaloc's word is his bond. Personally, I believe he made the promise in haste and regretted it since, but honor bound him to keep it. We exploited the river much more heavily than he anticipated and he saw none of the vast profits besides a few gifts and tax revenue on the elixirs themselves. He conveniently doesn't recall that the river was a novelty, even a hazard, before our honored father discovered its potential."
"Doesn't he benefit from our other businesses here? Surely our many investments in his territory have created prosperity in his cities and strengthened his cultivation?"
"Of course. In the centuries since our father started his business, Lord Tlaloc's portion of the 1000 Rivers has developed substantially. Much of that can be attributed to us. I do not believe Lord Tlaloc sees it that way. From his perspective, our prosperity is due largely to his largesse, and his own prosperity to his savvy and the blessings of heaven. I doubt we can convince him otherwise with words alone."
Chachi nodded, her 9999 Revelations finally settling on a single plan.
"We bring him into our latest deal. We need Heavenspan Water for the Dracoxen, and they're like cool oxen or something, so they'll need a place to graze? If he can continue to give us access to the Heavenspan River, we'll make sure the entire herd stays on his land. We can even give him the prize males in the herd while we keep the mares. We pay him for breeding rights so he can see the income coming in directly. Lord Tlaloc loves exotic animals, and he'll like having such a direct hand in our business. If we can't sell him on rights in perpetuity, we sell him on twenty year increments for a flat payment. We can diversify the business in the meantime."
Your brother listens closely, "It's an interesting approach. We'd need to convince him, which is not certain, and you assume we will honor our father's last deal. You are the only person in the Clan who can survive a trip to the Beast Lands. I was not inclined to risk you in the same place that killed our honored father, but perhaps it is necessary.
"Here is my idea," your brother waves his hand, and a dynamic image floats in front of him. Ohhhh, visual aids! That's a neat technique. Maybe once the rigid spirit is under control….
He displays the Heavenspan River, and the flow of water from the extraction facilities. The facilities shut down, and key parts marked in red disintegrate.
"We decline the deal. We give him our facilities instead of paying rent for them, but we strip them down first so he cannot uncover our extraction and distillation techniques. It is a difficult and dangerous process, I believe more so than he realizes, I doubt he will be able to reproduce it with other partners in the next few years. We do not move operations to his rivals, it will only provoke him, but we stop selling elixirs entirely in this saturated market. Instead we invest more heavily in transportation and sell them further afield where we can get higher profit per unit."
He shows a huge map 1000 Rivers Region and its neighbors in the Empire, the Vast Swamp, the Crystal Desert, and the Turtle Isles. A network of trade routes crawls out from the 1000 Rivers to these distant lands.
"We've been over-extracting for some time now to establish a strategic reserve. We can continue production at the current rate for three years without any new extraction. We can stretch it to five years by selling fewer elixirs in distant markets. The Lord will see a marked decrease in prosperity in that time, while we maintain something resembling our current profits. After three years we offer to manage our former facilities on his behalf, for a share of the water we extract."
He sighed, "it's a gamble. We cannot hope to get free access again without a marriage and we cannot negotiate for a more reasonable deal when he is being obstinate. I am hoping that he will understand the valuable service we provide in processing this water into elixirs for his region once he sees what our absence looks like."
Chachi titled her head, considering his idea versus hers. Her idea wasn't bad, she felt it was brilliant. But maybe it would have been better if she knew about the strategic reserve, or the difficulty involved in processing Heavenspan water, or the relative profitability of the different markets. She lacked fundamental knowledge about the business.
"We'll go with your idea."
Teokuitlatlkopilli's smiled.
"But I'm taking back the power of representation anyway, for now."
His smile died, "we agreed…"
"I agreed to nothing. You proposed a duel and barreled through like I'd already accepted. I am the Matriarch. You're right that I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm the Matriarch regardless. We cannot have the Matriarch acting in ignorance. You will move your desks to my office immediately, from now on we work side by side. You will explain every order you want to give in my name. You have to teach me the fundamentals as well, like our father would have. I will consider restoring your power to speak with my voice once I really understand what I'll be saying.
"If I have to slow down right now…"
"You'll figure it out. You have your orders."
Teokuitlatlkopilli bowed.
1.Do you want to marry one of Lord Tlaloc's younger sons?
[Marriage]
[] Yes
[] No
[] Try to sell him on a cousin
2. Do you want to go on a personal expedition to the Beast Lands to trade Heavenspan Water for Dracoxen and a sampling of exotic ingredients? You will have to leave sometime this year to fulfill the first part of the contract.
[Trade]
[] Yes
[] No
Chachi stood awkwardly with her sister. She had to break the tension. She swooped in! Her sister danced away, her eyes searching for a weapon, cycling lightning in her aura at the unexpected attack. Chachi easily disrupted the enhancement, and had an inherent speed advantage. A few more steps, and victory! Her arms fully encircled her sister in a masterful hug!
She could feel Oku very hesitantly pat her back. "I know you've been away and things have been hard. I know you have grudges. Can you please let them lie? I don't know you either, but I know you're my only sister and I'd like to learn more about you. Will you stay for a while?"
Oku carefully extracted herself and rubbed the back of her neck, "yeah, I guess. I done my duty to the Sect. When I hit Transformation, I can take the Core test. Until then I'm free… And it's not like I have to take the test, if stuff works out."
"Great!" Chachi beamed, "and please don't punch my brother again."
"Don't knock it till you try it sister."
Chachi screwed up her face in an exaggerated frown.
"Have you seen his smug 'I know better than you because of my hundred years of selling used wagons' smile?"
"Oku…"
"Yeah, fine. I'll try not to punch his supremely punchable face until you give the OK."
---
Chachi stared down her older brother from her Giant Intimidating Executive Chair, but he wasn't impressed, at least not as far as she could see. His face was perfectly controlled. She switched off the Art of Evaluation. It could help her read the subtle expressions and underlying emotions of people but it was no help against her brother, who only showed exactly what he intended. She traded it for her other mental art, the 9999 Revelations Meditation. As her mind and spirit aligned, a flood of ideas entered her. She intuitively rejected unhelpful revelations, no, I can't just beat them up. The most valuable ideas, those blessed by heaven, naturally rose to the top of her mind. The meditation became more powerful with time, but she could only afford to use it for a few minutes with her brother staring at her.
She smiled confidently, "well, first of all we need to fix our relationship with Lord Tlaloc. Maybe a gift will help? I could look for something appropriate in the clan vaults, reproduce it, maybe make some improvements and personalize it, and then give it a few refinements. Three should be enough to make a gift fit for a Lord."
Her brother nodded curtly, "of course. We can only benefit by continuing to build positive relations with the lord. It will not be enough to make him drop these demands. Lord Tlaloc values sincerity, a gift at this moment will strike him as… Mercenary. Not an entreaty of friendship, but an attempted bribe. You have a certain charming sincerity to you, so perhaps if you present it in person he won't take it as what it is."
"A wedding is always sincere," Chachi mused. She wasn't sure where she got that, maybe her mother?
Teokuitlatlkopilli's expression became much more considered, "you're right. Even if it's offered for purely cynical reasons, there's nothing stronger than a bond of blood. Sadly, entering into their Lord's direct line is a popular ambition among the clans. We'd be marrying significantly up in status. It would need to be someone very important in our family, a direct descendant of our father, marrying someone unremarkable in his. He would not accept one of his children as a second spouse, so that rules out Tet and I. Oku is Oku. I would say we have just a single bachelorette with the status, charm, talent, and closeness to our father to appeal to the Lord." He quirked up an eyebrow.
Right, ok.
Moving on, "then there's the specific issue of the Heavenspan water. I have a few questions. Is there a reason we can't just get it somewhere else?"
"Like many of the 1000 Rivers, the Heavenspan River is a unique natural wonder. It runs through three territories: Lord Huitzilopochtli, Lord Ehecatl, and our own Lord Tlaloc. They are bitter rivals. I'm sure I can get a better deal from Lord Huitzilopochtli, but that would sabotage our other significant interests in Lord Tlaloc's territory and we would gain a powerful enemy. He would see it as a betrayal. We should consider it a last resort."
"Why is this such a problem to begin with? Aren't we in the same position as our rivals, now that we all have to pay for the water?"
Teokuitlatlkopilli's tone sounded much like her tutors when she asked a particularly remedial question, "recipes and infrastructure, the heart of the elixir business. There are many ways to reach more or less the same result but everyone who makes elixirs protects their formulas so rivals can't steal them. We developed many of our elixirs to use Heavenspan Water because of its availability to us. Our rivals use different bases. Even if we did steal our rival's recipes, we would need to shift our infrastructure so we can acquire their other rare ingredients in mass. Perhaps an illustrative example will help. BLUE-C-3 is our internal term for the elixir we currently sell under the name Revitalizing Dew of Spring. If the imbiber is in Hungering, the elixir will quicken their waterways, permanently increasing their ability to restore Teotl. Outside of hungering, it will refresh the imbiber and hasten Teotl restoration for the next few hours. The primary ingredients are Heavenspan Water, 100-sunny-day sunflower seeds, and 1000 year cinnamon. Therefore, we need access to Heavenspan Water, and the facilities to safely extract and dilute it. Then we need fields of sunflowers and treasures that absorb and emit sunlight to insure they have 100 sunny days. We also need a supplier of 1000 year cinnamon, a remarkably easy ingredient to produce so long as you started 1000 years ago. Even if our rivals had our exact formula, it would still take significant effort to reproduce our network of suppliers and investments. The Ueyak clan sells LIQUID TEOTL – MAX POWER EXTREME. It increases the Hungering imbiber's ability to restore Teotl, outside of Hungering it will refresh the imbiber and hasten Teotl restoration. The effects are not technically identical, our elixir is of higher quality and lasts longer, but they are close enough for the non-discerning consumer. I do not know their full formula, but I know it does not use Heavenspan but does use the milk of a very powerful Cow Spirit and Crimson Grass. So if we stole their formula, we'd need to find a cow of our own and a field saturated with blood essence."
"I don't suppose we have a contract?"
"Nothing binding. It was a gentleman's agreement. Lord Tlaloc's word is his bond. Personally, I believe he made the promise in haste and regretted it since, but honor bound him to keep it. We exploited the river much more heavily than he anticipated and he saw none of the vast profits besides a few gifts and tax revenue on the elixirs themselves. He conveniently doesn't recall that the river was a novelty, even a hazard, before our honored father discovered its potential."
"Doesn't he benefit from our other businesses here? Surely our many investments in his territory have created prosperity in his cities and strengthened his cultivation?"
"Of course. In the centuries since our father started his business, Lord Tlaloc's portion of the 1000 Rivers has developed substantially. Much of that can be attributed to us. I do not believe Lord Tlaloc sees it that way. From his perspective, our prosperity is due largely to his largesse, and his own prosperity to his savvy and the blessings of heaven. I doubt we can convince him otherwise with words alone."
Chachi nodded, her 9999 Revelations finally settling on a single plan.
"We bring him into our latest deal. We need Heavenspan Water for the Dracoxen, and they're like cool oxen or something, so they'll need a place to graze? If he can continue to give us access to the Heavenspan River, we'll make sure the entire herd stays on his land. We can even give him the prize males in the herd while we keep the mares. We pay him for breeding rights so he can see the income coming in directly. Lord Tlaloc loves exotic animals, and he'll like having such a direct hand in our business. If we can't sell him on rights in perpetuity, we sell him on twenty year increments for a flat payment. We can diversify the business in the meantime."
Your brother listens closely, "It's an interesting approach. We'd need to convince him, which is not certain, and you assume we will honor our father's last deal. You are the only person in the Clan who can survive a trip to the Beast Lands. I was not inclined to risk you in the same place that killed our honored father, but perhaps it is necessary.
"Here is my idea," your brother waves his hand, and a dynamic image floats in front of him. Ohhhh, visual aids! That's a neat technique. Maybe once the rigid spirit is under control….
He displays the Heavenspan River, and the flow of water from the extraction facilities. The facilities shut down, and key parts marked in red disintegrate.
"We decline the deal. We give him our facilities instead of paying rent for them, but we strip them down first so he cannot uncover our extraction and distillation techniques. It is a difficult and dangerous process, I believe more so than he realizes, I doubt he will be able to reproduce it with other partners in the next few years. We do not move operations to his rivals, it will only provoke him, but we stop selling elixirs entirely in this saturated market. Instead we invest more heavily in transportation and sell them further afield where we can get higher profit per unit."
He shows a huge map 1000 Rivers Region and its neighbors in the Empire, the Vast Swamp, the Crystal Desert, and the Turtle Isles. A network of trade routes crawls out from the 1000 Rivers to these distant lands.
"We've been over-extracting for some time now to establish a strategic reserve. We can continue production at the current rate for three years without any new extraction. We can stretch it to five years by selling fewer elixirs in distant markets. The Lord will see a marked decrease in prosperity in that time, while we maintain something resembling our current profits. After three years we offer to manage our former facilities on his behalf, for a share of the water we extract."
He sighed, "it's a gamble. We cannot hope to get free access again without a marriage and we cannot negotiate for a more reasonable deal when he is being obstinate. I am hoping that he will understand the valuable service we provide in processing this water into elixirs for his region once he sees what our absence looks like."
Chachi titled her head, considering his idea versus hers. Her idea wasn't bad, she felt it was brilliant. But maybe it would have been better if she knew about the strategic reserve, or the difficulty involved in processing Heavenspan water, or the relative profitability of the different markets. She lacked fundamental knowledge about the business.
"We'll go with your idea."
Teokuitlatlkopilli's smiled.
"But I'm taking back the power of representation anyway, for now."
His smile died, "we agreed…"
"I agreed to nothing. You proposed a duel and barreled through like I'd already accepted. I am the Matriarch. You're right that I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm the Matriarch regardless. We cannot have the Matriarch acting in ignorance. You will move your desks to my office immediately, from now on we work side by side. You will explain every order you want to give in my name. You have to teach me the fundamentals as well, like our father would have. I will consider restoring your power to speak with my voice once I really understand what I'll be saying.
"If I have to slow down right now…"
"You'll figure it out. You have your orders."
Teokuitlatlkopilli bowed.
1.Do you want to marry one of Lord Tlaloc's younger sons?
[Marriage]
[] Yes
[] No
[] Try to sell him on a cousin
2. Do you want to go on a personal expedition to the Beast Lands to trade Heavenspan Water for Dracoxen and a sampling of exotic ingredients? You will have to leave sometime this year to fulfill the first part of the contract.
[Trade]
[] Yes
[] No
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Ram Q1
It isn't long before Teokuitlatlkopilli has most of Chachi's art in the Foyer and his desk set up in her office. At first, he tries to continue his work as before, but at Chachi's insistence he pauses to explain each order as best he can. His focus seems to be split three ways:
1) He's trying to expand to neighboring regions and there's a lot of resource allocation involved in that.
2) He's trying to resolve a gaggle of small problems with the supply lines of various elixirs. It seems the elixir business involves a lot of fiddly and fragile logistics.
3) He's trying to ferret out embezzlers and other bad actors, mostly in middle management.
"What about all those people you fired?" Chachi asked
Teo sighed, "they can't account for their time. They were all being paid for work they weren't doing, and I don't know what they were doing. At best they were just cultivating on the company dime. We can't afford to pay people who aren't working."
"I guess that makes sense," Chachi shrugged, "Mom said they're very loyal."
Teo's placid smile didn't change, his face remained unreadable even under the Art of Evaluation, but he did freeze for just a breath, "did she? I don't see how your mother would know much about the loyalty of a handful of employees across several different branches. She doesn't even have a job with us. Maybe it would be best if she continued her closed door cultivation on the estate instead of worrying about our work."
---
Mom didn't seem to like that idea. They were taking a brief tea break in the rooftop garden among the singing Fuchsia, the purple and red flowers serenading them with gentle humming. Teokuitlatlkopilli was allocating funds for new guards, they'd need more warriors to escort their caravans outside of the 1000 Rivers. The work was as boring as it was straightforward, so Chachi didn't feel she was missing much. Besides, her mom was very insistent that they meet a few times a day and chat. She must be lonely with father gone.
"I'd rather be here honey, the estate is so empty without you or your father. What would I even do there? My cultivation is… Adequate. I'd rather be helping you with the business. You need people beside you that you can trust, and who can you trust more than your own Mom? It's good that you kept Oku close, and it's even better than you're trying to learn the business for yourself and you took back that power of representation but…. You are still far to reliant on Teokuitlatlkopilli."
Chachi shrugged noncommittally, "I can trust him too, right? He's my brother, and he's always thinking about what's best for the clan."
Her mom smiled patiently, "yes, of course. But people can disagree about what's best for the clan. You might trust him, but does he trust you? I believe in your leadership. I trust you to do what's right. I'm not sure he feels the same. He wants to be in charge. You can't just let him. You need to believe in yourself."
"Yeah Mom, you're right…"
"Now, I do think it's a problem that I don't have an official job here. Rather than resolve it by going home and meditating for a hundred years, which I'm sure would suite your brother just fine, I would prefer to help you directly. I believe Head of Finance and Investment would position me ideally to assist you."
---
Chachi's brother had a surprise for her when she got back. He introduced her to a placid woman with blank grey eyes. There was a strange pattern in her irises, and under the Art of Evaluation she could read divinatory symbols. Prosthesis perhaps? Or a sign of an unusual foundation.
"Uehkaitta is one of our best divination specialists. She's both a state-reader and a fate-reader. Employees like her are vital to reading business trends and keeping in touch with the present state of the Clan. She should be able to answer many of your questions."
Her face remained utterly blank as she bowed and stood at attention.
"I have also taken the liberty of arranging a tour of the business. We'll have you meet the branch heads and see the business in operation for yourself. I cannot accompany you for most of it, but Uehkaitta here will."
Q&A Time! Uehkaitta isn't omniscient but she can answer many questions about the business and the state of the world in general.
---
Clan Management Sim!
Mechanics note: I'm not a huge fan of mechanically dense systems. I will mostly use your character sheet to inform the narrative. You will succeed at things you are good at in proportion to how good you are at them. I'll get out the dice when you do something described as risky, when chance is an important factor, or when you make a poor decision or do something Chachi is bad at and I need to decide if she will squeak by or faceplant (I'm too gentle to really make you face the consequences of your actions unless the dice tell me I have to). If your stability is low and orders have the potential to go wrong, I'll think up some odds and roll for them. If I'm getting out the dice you can expect a universal bonus based on your cultivation and then +5 per skill level if it applies, or +10 if it's a perfect fit. Techniques or diamond abilities will translate to a massive bonus when they don't resolve things automatically.
We'll organize time by Quarters. You won't see another Quarter report for a few updates because rather than generate a roll and then report back with results, most of your options will generate a scene and you will have choices within the scene.
You have a Priority, Orders, Decisions, and Actions.
You can only have one general priority per quarter. Your priority dictates a lot of your organization's efforts and internal funding.
Orders are your most powerful management tool. What do you want the clan to do? Write in whatever you want as orders, that's the beauty of a CYOA! They will often impact $, prestige, or stability but you won't know the full effects until after the orders are issued. You can add orders of your own, but Teokuitlatlkopilli will veto orders he sees as unwise. You can overrule his orders and his vetos, but that will hurt your relationship. Orders are for things that don't take more than a few minutes of your time, but might have a huge impact on the Clan. Please vote for Orders in plan format.
Decisions are big deal choices for the Clan. I'll list out some of the important decisions you've already made, but there will often be more to vote on during the Quarter Report. Please vote for each decision individually, not in plans.
Actions are about how you use your time. I've divided them by self-improvement actions and clan work. Please vote for actions in plan format.
Since you're in I Can Learn mode, your brother will be issuing orders, making recommendations on decisions, and dictating some of your actions. When you vote for orders you can vote to veto one of his, otherwise they go through.
Ram Q1
Profit: -$15 per quarter
Reserves: $175
Status: 3 (Regional Power)
Prestige: 0.7 (Weak)
Stability: 0.5 (Uncertain)
To keep the numbers low for such a huge business the quarter reports deal in Supreme Spirit Stones, represented by the $ symbol. Supreme Spirit Stones are very rare, the business tends to use much lower denominations in the day to day. $1 is roughly enough wealth to bring a cultivator through hungering, but since your business is invested heavily in elixirs you can do that at the wholesale price of $.5.
Due to numerous breaches of contract and unpaid debts, you are currently operating at a loss for the first time this decade. You have reserves to maintain this state of affairs for 11 quarters.
You are well known throughout the 1000 Rivers Region and its neighbors but have little reach in more distant imperial territories.
Prestige is how respected you are by the population at large. Prestige is measured relative to your status. At 1 Prestige you have the exact respect your status warrants. At 2 Prestige you would be the most impressive regional merchant Clan, clearly superior to your direct competitors, though still nothing compared to the Noble or Ducal clans.
Stability is a measure of both the competence and the loyalty of your employees and partners. It is measured much like prestige. 1 is necessary for your business to operate well. 2 would mean you can trust everyone in your organization absolutely. As stability increases, so does the chance that orders will be carried out without problems and departments will operate well without direct supervision. At your current low stability, you can expect moderate mismanagement and some betrayals. Several people are probably embezzling in the chaos.
General Priority
Expand
Your brother wants to expand sales to neighboring regions so he can increase profit per unit. Expansion is risky and expensive, particularly with your low stability, but could increase both income and prestige.
Orders
Invest in caravans
Invest in training guards
Cut superfluous employees
Cut charity spending
Sponsor the growth of five highest performing mortal salesmen
Secure new suppliers
Diversify by investing in Essence Crystals
Send a thoughtful gift and note to Lord Tlaloc
Use strategic reserves freely
Decisions
NO to Lord Tlaloc's new deal
Lord Tlaloc wants to charge rent for your Heavenspan extraction facilities and tax each gallon extracted. You have decided to stop Heavenspan extraction for now.
YES to the Beast Lands deal
Guarcino is waiting for you to confirm that you will honor his contract with your father. You have decided to do so.
Duel over contracts?
A number of your partners are refusing to honor their contracts or pay their debts. You could challenge them to a duel over this. Duels are not necessarily fights, the most common duel in this scenario is a 'law duel' where you try to prove to the arbiter using evidence that they are in breach of contract. The Matriarch is expected to represent the clan in any duels. Teokuitlatlkopilli advises you let it go for now, he believes they will pay in time after they see the Clan is still strong. He fears if you duel now you will lose.
[] Prepare to duel!
[] Let it go for now
Oku?
You've decided to keep your sister in the Clan. Most core members have duties, what are hers? If you don't assign her anything, she'll spend her time training, cultivating, loitering around you, and likely making trouble. You could keep her very close as your honor guard, you will be vulnerable if you reforge your core and she's strong enough to help you in a fight even at your peak. She could pass on some of her sect training to your clan guards. She could also just escort caravans herself for less long-term gain but a more immediate boost to their safety. Oku is also a risk-taker with little respect for honor and propriety and if she's loyal to anyone it's to you personally. That can be useful for special missions. Teokuitlatlkopilli advises you to put her on training clan guards, where she is least likely to provoke an incident.
[] Nothing right now
[] Honor guard
[] Training clan guards
[] Escorting highest risk caravans
[] Black Ops
[] Write in
Mom?
Your mother also doesn't have a formal position in the clan business. She wants you to put her in charge of Finance and Investment. The current head of that department is Ueuetlasa, the oldest daughter of your father's long-dead younger brother and current head of that branch family. She has held the position for twenty years. Teokuitlatlkopilli strongly believes that your mother should not have an official position, and thinks her occupying this one is absurd.
[] Give mom the job
[] Give her something else (write in)
[] No official position
Personal Actions
You have 5 personal actions a quarter. Currently three are locked by "I can learn." Your brother is monopolizing much of your time.
Locked
[X] Grand Tour
[X] Train Business Sense
[X] Train Bureaucracy
Self-Improvement
[] Reforge your Core x10
Spend $5 and 10 weeks reforging your core. This will leave you vulnerable this quarter, so duels and other dangerous actions are inadvisable. You cannot pursue other cultivation based actions when you Reforge your core.
[] Acclimate to Diamond Spirit
Perform special meditations to reduce your spiritual corruption and prepare for the next step. This action and simple time spent in Diamond Spirit will reduce the risk of taking Diamond Mind or Diamond Body.
[] Diamond Body
Merge your body with Diamond. The Merging phase is marked by sudden bursts of power and then time spent acclimating. It is possible to ignore the acclimation periods. The faster you push through Transformation the higher your risks. Most people who rush their Merge become mad abominations, but you are an incredible talent. Surely it won't happen to you?
[] Diamond Mind
Merge your mind with Diamond. This has the same risks as Diamond Body.
[] Train a Skill (write in the skill)
Skills names are free-form. The more skilled Chachi is in an area the better she will perform in the narrative. They will add bonuses to relevant actions if I feel the need to roll.
[] Practice the Forge
You have only scratched the surface of the Forge's potential. Spend time gathering Essence and Teotl and then experimenting with what your Mastery technique can do. The 9999 Revelations Meditation will help you come up with new ideas. This will produce useful treasures as a byproduct but also waste resources on failed experiments.
[] Copy with the Forge
Use the Forge to reproduce rare treasures. You will develop your Mastery technique more slowly, but you will produce many useful items.
[] Develop another Mastery Technique (describe what you want, write in the pillar techniques you want to use)
Developing Mastery Techniques is difficult, but the 9999 Revelations Meditations will help keep you on the right track. Mastery Techniques must match thematically with your Foundation and Pillar techniques.
Clan Work
[] Look for New Opportunities
Your father spent much of his time as Patriarch investing in new materials, recipes, and trading partners. Do the same. Will probably get you nothing, but might provide massive benefits.
[] Charm Partners
Re-affirm existing business relationships. Make gifts, go to meetings, attend parties. Could increase prestige, stability, or even income if you do well.
[] Make Money
The Forge can make a lot of money if you spend the time to man it. This is similar to Copy with the Forge but the Clan is buying the materials and you are mass producing Treasures for sale, not keeping them for yourself.
[] Build Infrastructure
Instead of making things for sale, make things to help the clan grow, like flying armored caravans instead of wagons. This will drain money from your reserves, but should improve your chances of expanding successfully and improve income.
[] Oversight
Personally check up on your employees and solve internal problems. Should increase stability and you might head off crises before they start.
[X] Grand Tour
Tour your business, meet the branch heads, give inspiring speeches and smile a lot. This is a lot more friendly and controlled than oversight, you almost certainly won't catch people doing things they shouldn't, but you will learn about the business and leave a positive impression on your employees. Should increase stability. Teokuitlatlkopilli is insisting you do this as soon as possible.
1) He's trying to expand to neighboring regions and there's a lot of resource allocation involved in that.
2) He's trying to resolve a gaggle of small problems with the supply lines of various elixirs. It seems the elixir business involves a lot of fiddly and fragile logistics.
3) He's trying to ferret out embezzlers and other bad actors, mostly in middle management.
"What about all those people you fired?" Chachi asked
Teo sighed, "they can't account for their time. They were all being paid for work they weren't doing, and I don't know what they were doing. At best they were just cultivating on the company dime. We can't afford to pay people who aren't working."
"I guess that makes sense," Chachi shrugged, "Mom said they're very loyal."
Teo's placid smile didn't change, his face remained unreadable even under the Art of Evaluation, but he did freeze for just a breath, "did she? I don't see how your mother would know much about the loyalty of a handful of employees across several different branches. She doesn't even have a job with us. Maybe it would be best if she continued her closed door cultivation on the estate instead of worrying about our work."
---
Mom didn't seem to like that idea. They were taking a brief tea break in the rooftop garden among the singing Fuchsia, the purple and red flowers serenading them with gentle humming. Teokuitlatlkopilli was allocating funds for new guards, they'd need more warriors to escort their caravans outside of the 1000 Rivers. The work was as boring as it was straightforward, so Chachi didn't feel she was missing much. Besides, her mom was very insistent that they meet a few times a day and chat. She must be lonely with father gone.
"I'd rather be here honey, the estate is so empty without you or your father. What would I even do there? My cultivation is… Adequate. I'd rather be helping you with the business. You need people beside you that you can trust, and who can you trust more than your own Mom? It's good that you kept Oku close, and it's even better than you're trying to learn the business for yourself and you took back that power of representation but…. You are still far to reliant on Teokuitlatlkopilli."
Chachi shrugged noncommittally, "I can trust him too, right? He's my brother, and he's always thinking about what's best for the clan."
Her mom smiled patiently, "yes, of course. But people can disagree about what's best for the clan. You might trust him, but does he trust you? I believe in your leadership. I trust you to do what's right. I'm not sure he feels the same. He wants to be in charge. You can't just let him. You need to believe in yourself."
"Yeah Mom, you're right…"
"Now, I do think it's a problem that I don't have an official job here. Rather than resolve it by going home and meditating for a hundred years, which I'm sure would suite your brother just fine, I would prefer to help you directly. I believe Head of Finance and Investment would position me ideally to assist you."
---
Chachi's brother had a surprise for her when she got back. He introduced her to a placid woman with blank grey eyes. There was a strange pattern in her irises, and under the Art of Evaluation she could read divinatory symbols. Prosthesis perhaps? Or a sign of an unusual foundation.
"Uehkaitta is one of our best divination specialists. She's both a state-reader and a fate-reader. Employees like her are vital to reading business trends and keeping in touch with the present state of the Clan. She should be able to answer many of your questions."
Her face remained utterly blank as she bowed and stood at attention.
"I have also taken the liberty of arranging a tour of the business. We'll have you meet the branch heads and see the business in operation for yourself. I cannot accompany you for most of it, but Uehkaitta here will."
Q&A Time! Uehkaitta isn't omniscient but she can answer many questions about the business and the state of the world in general.
---
Clan Management Sim!
Mechanics note: I'm not a huge fan of mechanically dense systems. I will mostly use your character sheet to inform the narrative. You will succeed at things you are good at in proportion to how good you are at them. I'll get out the dice when you do something described as risky, when chance is an important factor, or when you make a poor decision or do something Chachi is bad at and I need to decide if she will squeak by or faceplant (I'm too gentle to really make you face the consequences of your actions unless the dice tell me I have to). If your stability is low and orders have the potential to go wrong, I'll think up some odds and roll for them. If I'm getting out the dice you can expect a universal bonus based on your cultivation and then +5 per skill level if it applies, or +10 if it's a perfect fit. Techniques or diamond abilities will translate to a massive bonus when they don't resolve things automatically.
We'll organize time by Quarters. You won't see another Quarter report for a few updates because rather than generate a roll and then report back with results, most of your options will generate a scene and you will have choices within the scene.
You have a Priority, Orders, Decisions, and Actions.
You can only have one general priority per quarter. Your priority dictates a lot of your organization's efforts and internal funding.
Orders are your most powerful management tool. What do you want the clan to do? Write in whatever you want as orders, that's the beauty of a CYOA! They will often impact $, prestige, or stability but you won't know the full effects until after the orders are issued. You can add orders of your own, but Teokuitlatlkopilli will veto orders he sees as unwise. You can overrule his orders and his vetos, but that will hurt your relationship. Orders are for things that don't take more than a few minutes of your time, but might have a huge impact on the Clan. Please vote for Orders in plan format.
Decisions are big deal choices for the Clan. I'll list out some of the important decisions you've already made, but there will often be more to vote on during the Quarter Report. Please vote for each decision individually, not in plans.
Actions are about how you use your time. I've divided them by self-improvement actions and clan work. Please vote for actions in plan format.
Since you're in I Can Learn mode, your brother will be issuing orders, making recommendations on decisions, and dictating some of your actions. When you vote for orders you can vote to veto one of his, otherwise they go through.
Ram Q1
Profit: -$15 per quarter
Reserves: $175
Status: 3 (Regional Power)
Prestige: 0.7 (Weak)
Stability: 0.5 (Uncertain)
To keep the numbers low for such a huge business the quarter reports deal in Supreme Spirit Stones, represented by the $ symbol. Supreme Spirit Stones are very rare, the business tends to use much lower denominations in the day to day. $1 is roughly enough wealth to bring a cultivator through hungering, but since your business is invested heavily in elixirs you can do that at the wholesale price of $.5.
Due to numerous breaches of contract and unpaid debts, you are currently operating at a loss for the first time this decade. You have reserves to maintain this state of affairs for 11 quarters.
You are well known throughout the 1000 Rivers Region and its neighbors but have little reach in more distant imperial territories.
Prestige is how respected you are by the population at large. Prestige is measured relative to your status. At 1 Prestige you have the exact respect your status warrants. At 2 Prestige you would be the most impressive regional merchant Clan, clearly superior to your direct competitors, though still nothing compared to the Noble or Ducal clans.
Stability is a measure of both the competence and the loyalty of your employees and partners. It is measured much like prestige. 1 is necessary for your business to operate well. 2 would mean you can trust everyone in your organization absolutely. As stability increases, so does the chance that orders will be carried out without problems and departments will operate well without direct supervision. At your current low stability, you can expect moderate mismanagement and some betrayals. Several people are probably embezzling in the chaos.
General Priority
Expand
Your brother wants to expand sales to neighboring regions so he can increase profit per unit. Expansion is risky and expensive, particularly with your low stability, but could increase both income and prestige.
Orders
Invest in caravans
Invest in training guards
Cut superfluous employees
Cut charity spending
Sponsor the growth of five highest performing mortal salesmen
Secure new suppliers
Diversify by investing in Essence Crystals
Send a thoughtful gift and note to Lord Tlaloc
Use strategic reserves freely
Decisions
NO to Lord Tlaloc's new deal
Lord Tlaloc wants to charge rent for your Heavenspan extraction facilities and tax each gallon extracted. You have decided to stop Heavenspan extraction for now.
YES to the Beast Lands deal
Guarcino is waiting for you to confirm that you will honor his contract with your father. You have decided to do so.
Duel over contracts?
A number of your partners are refusing to honor their contracts or pay their debts. You could challenge them to a duel over this. Duels are not necessarily fights, the most common duel in this scenario is a 'law duel' where you try to prove to the arbiter using evidence that they are in breach of contract. The Matriarch is expected to represent the clan in any duels. Teokuitlatlkopilli advises you let it go for now, he believes they will pay in time after they see the Clan is still strong. He fears if you duel now you will lose.
[] Prepare to duel!
[] Let it go for now
Oku?
You've decided to keep your sister in the Clan. Most core members have duties, what are hers? If you don't assign her anything, she'll spend her time training, cultivating, loitering around you, and likely making trouble. You could keep her very close as your honor guard, you will be vulnerable if you reforge your core and she's strong enough to help you in a fight even at your peak. She could pass on some of her sect training to your clan guards. She could also just escort caravans herself for less long-term gain but a more immediate boost to their safety. Oku is also a risk-taker with little respect for honor and propriety and if she's loyal to anyone it's to you personally. That can be useful for special missions. Teokuitlatlkopilli advises you to put her on training clan guards, where she is least likely to provoke an incident.
[] Nothing right now
[] Honor guard
[] Training clan guards
[] Escorting highest risk caravans
[] Black Ops
[] Write in
Mom?
Your mother also doesn't have a formal position in the clan business. She wants you to put her in charge of Finance and Investment. The current head of that department is Ueuetlasa, the oldest daughter of your father's long-dead younger brother and current head of that branch family. She has held the position for twenty years. Teokuitlatlkopilli strongly believes that your mother should not have an official position, and thinks her occupying this one is absurd.
[] Give mom the job
[] Give her something else (write in)
[] No official position
Personal Actions
You have 5 personal actions a quarter. Currently three are locked by "I can learn." Your brother is monopolizing much of your time.
Locked
[X] Grand Tour
[X] Train Business Sense
[X] Train Bureaucracy
Self-Improvement
[] Reforge your Core x10
Spend $5 and 10 weeks reforging your core. This will leave you vulnerable this quarter, so duels and other dangerous actions are inadvisable. You cannot pursue other cultivation based actions when you Reforge your core.
[] Acclimate to Diamond Spirit
Perform special meditations to reduce your spiritual corruption and prepare for the next step. This action and simple time spent in Diamond Spirit will reduce the risk of taking Diamond Mind or Diamond Body.
[] Diamond Body
Merge your body with Diamond. The Merging phase is marked by sudden bursts of power and then time spent acclimating. It is possible to ignore the acclimation periods. The faster you push through Transformation the higher your risks. Most people who rush their Merge become mad abominations, but you are an incredible talent. Surely it won't happen to you?
[] Diamond Mind
Merge your mind with Diamond. This has the same risks as Diamond Body.
[] Train a Skill (write in the skill)
Skills names are free-form. The more skilled Chachi is in an area the better she will perform in the narrative. They will add bonuses to relevant actions if I feel the need to roll.
[] Practice the Forge
You have only scratched the surface of the Forge's potential. Spend time gathering Essence and Teotl and then experimenting with what your Mastery technique can do. The 9999 Revelations Meditation will help you come up with new ideas. This will produce useful treasures as a byproduct but also waste resources on failed experiments.
[] Copy with the Forge
Use the Forge to reproduce rare treasures. You will develop your Mastery technique more slowly, but you will produce many useful items.
[] Develop another Mastery Technique (describe what you want, write in the pillar techniques you want to use)
Developing Mastery Techniques is difficult, but the 9999 Revelations Meditations will help keep you on the right track. Mastery Techniques must match thematically with your Foundation and Pillar techniques.
Clan Work
[] Look for New Opportunities
Your father spent much of his time as Patriarch investing in new materials, recipes, and trading partners. Do the same. Will probably get you nothing, but might provide massive benefits.
[] Charm Partners
Re-affirm existing business relationships. Make gifts, go to meetings, attend parties. Could increase prestige, stability, or even income if you do well.
[] Make Money
The Forge can make a lot of money if you spend the time to man it. This is similar to Copy with the Forge but the Clan is buying the materials and you are mass producing Treasures for sale, not keeping them for yourself.
[] Build Infrastructure
Instead of making things for sale, make things to help the clan grow, like flying armored caravans instead of wagons. This will drain money from your reserves, but should improve your chances of expanding successfully and improve income.
[] Oversight
Personally check up on your employees and solve internal problems. Should increase stability and you might head off crises before they start.
[X] Grand Tour
Tour your business, meet the branch heads, give inspiring speeches and smile a lot. This is a lot more friendly and controlled than oversight, you almost certainly won't catch people doing things they shouldn't, but you will learn about the business and leave a positive impression on your employees. Should increase stability. Teokuitlatlkopilli is insisting you do this as soon as possible.
The New Partners
Her brother was less than impressed with her proposal to form a new branch.
"You want to keep the charities going, fine. I'll begin auditing them and the suspicious employees immediately. But Public Relations? Headed by your mother? And you want to gut the Sales branch to do it, right before this risky expansion? It'll be chaos. Even more chaos! You want to give your mom a job, fine. Just give her the charities and let her prep you for public appearances, please do not touch Sales yet."
1. What is your vision for PR?
[] Small
PR will be a handful of employees administering the charities, planning events, and dealing with Chachi personally as the face of the clan. Your mom did all those things informally before, but now she'll head an official branch.
[] Big
Small + take brand management, advertising, and relations with large trade partners from Sales. Give them a discretionary fund to deal with any potential PR problems. PR will match your other branches in size. Your mother prefers this. Your brother fears this will decrease stability, but you think it will work better in the long run.
[] Huge
Big + give them salesperson recruitment, training, and price setting. Sales becomes Distribution, focused purely on the logistics of moving product. Your brother insists this will be disastrous.
That night Chachi took her father's… Her formal carriage back to the family estate. She had rooms in the Main Office, but there was more business to take care of back home. On the outside, her carriage looked like a bit like a giant blue dragon fruit, a central bulb with gray petals swaying gently in the wind. It was attached to Tepak, her fa… Her loyal companion beast.
The Dashing Shade Llama gently bleated as Chachi approached. She petted his furry neck, "let's go home." Tepak never took to human speech, but he understood it fine. The beast projected a thin layer of shadow on the ground in front of it. It couldn't fly, but it could run smoothly over any surface.
The carriage unfurled at a touch of Chachi's Teotl and she stepped inside. She fed the simple fire core in her teapot a burst of Teotl and threw herself on the lounging couch. Soooo much paperwork! With another flick of Teotl she unfurled the roof and watched the stars pass by. Tepak would move steadily through the city, careful not to hurt anyone in the streets, then really let go when he hit the ancient yucca fields. If a mortal tried to walk the same distance it would take them at least a week, but Tepak could do it in less than an hour and his passengers would barely feel the journey.
She sipped tea, looked at the stars, and entered the 9999 Revelations meditations. She spent most of her time in either Revelations or Evaluation, and she didn't feel like measuring the stars today. There was work to do here on earth, decisions to make about the future of the company. The carriage soon stopped and she jumped out.
There was a momentous decision waiting for her in the guest suites.
She stopped by Oku's guest room first. Her half-sister was inspecting her armor, "at least you broke the piece that was already half-broke. You wanna do your hammer thing on it?"
2. What do you want to do about Oku's equipment?
[] Good as new! (No cost)
[] Better than new! ($2)
[] Thrice Refined (Random cost between $2 - $20)
Chachi shrugged, "sure, but I expect a return on my investment. Do you want to be my honor guard?"
Okullin rubbed the back of her neck, "you know I was one solid stab away from being the Matriarch, right? You don't have anything more, like, fancy?"
Chachi grinned, "As my honor guard we'll work together every day, train together, fight together, deal with boring bullshit together. You'll be able to give advice on everything and be my second when it matters, it's like being Matriarch without the headache. Just please don't strangle me in my bed."
The exile laughed, "don't give me cause and you'll be fine."
They walked a few doors over to the largest guest suite.
A servant announced her entrance, but the giant didn't stand or bow, he just kept devouring the pile of cow meat in front of him. The vegetables were untouched. He was a true giant, at least twice Chachi's modest height and three times her weight. They put him in the guest suite with the highest ceilings, and he still couldn't stand comfortably. Even seated, he made the room feel like a playhouse. She'd only seen such exaggerated size in Transformation cultivators who'd merged their body with an enormous beast. He wore leather clumsily stitched into pants and a fur vest, marking him instantly as an outsider.
"I am Chalchiuhxochitl, the new Matriarch of the Atlahau clan. I believe you made a deal with my father?"
The foreigner's voice was a deep rumble, "yes. We make trade. Heaven Water for [gibberish]" It was a strange, broken impression of Language. The last word was absolutely unpronounceable. She'd never heard a person make noises like that. Did his people not know how to speak?
"You mean dracoxen?" she replied diplomatically.
He nodded, "his word. They are [gibberish]. He make trade with walking people. King of mountain people hate walking people. Want us weak. They send hunters. Trade man is weak baby and die. I am most strong in walking people. I take him back to light baby lands. We trade?"
Most strong? "Are you the leader of your people, then?"
He humphs, "most strong, not most smart."
"How… Enlightened. What are the logistics," Chachi corrects herself at the blank look, "how we make trade?"
"Meet in good valley. Land of no fight. You give water. We give [gibberish]. Good trade."
"How do I get a herd of large animals, they are large, yes?" he nodded, "through the Beast Lands?"
He stood in a hunch to keep his head from crashing into the ceiling and searched through his baggage. Finally he retrieved a giant collar. Under the Art of Evaluation, Chachi could see it was a treasure of strange construction, several cores interwoven with Teotl receptive strands.
"He say you make more. Need…" he flashes his ten fingers three times, then holds up three fingers, "one for one. Make bad smell and good smell."
Oku laughed behind her, "oh yeah, make bad smell AND good smell. Perfect!"
The giant laughed along with her, "Yes! I show you good valley way on small land. Hard is go to good valley. You are baby. Must learn not see or learn fight good fast."
Oku rolled her eyes, "that shit again. You think you're so tough, let's have a spar. Show me I'm a baby."
Chachi drew her sister back, "you can see him right? That body means he's at least in Merging."
"Yeah, so? Not like I haven't taken a few hundred beatings. He says he's the strongest of his people. Let's see how good he is."
So Chachi found herself back in the courtyard. It was deep in the night, so with the possible exception of a nosy servant peering through the windows, there were no witnesses.
Not bothering with showmanship, Oku opened with her usual bolt of black lightning. It washed over the stranger like a splash of water on a cliff face. Chachi barely saw him move but with the Art of Evaluation, she was able to gauge it accurately: 3.2 times the speed of sound. Oku put her spear in the way, but he flicked it aside with his hand. He grabbed Oku by the head with one giant paw and lifted her off the earth.
"Fight done!" he announced. He then very gently put her back down.
"All light baby weak. All but god. Baby, baby, god. We fear god, not baby."
Chachi felt a spike of fear, but something else quickly overcame it: greed. These strange people had a secret to cultivation, something that could increase their physical abilities far more than anyone in the Empire of Light thought possible. Something on par with the Infinite Perfect? She was sure she could match him if she kept reforging her core, but could she incorporate whatever secret of cultivation they held and skyrocket her own abilities? Did her father know this, were the Dracoxen and the collection of Beast Land trade goods a means to reproduce their abilities? Could they sell it? Could they bottle it?
She just had to find a way to survive the trip.
"You want to keep the charities going, fine. I'll begin auditing them and the suspicious employees immediately. But Public Relations? Headed by your mother? And you want to gut the Sales branch to do it, right before this risky expansion? It'll be chaos. Even more chaos! You want to give your mom a job, fine. Just give her the charities and let her prep you for public appearances, please do not touch Sales yet."
1. What is your vision for PR?
[] Small
PR will be a handful of employees administering the charities, planning events, and dealing with Chachi personally as the face of the clan. Your mom did all those things informally before, but now she'll head an official branch.
[] Big
Small + take brand management, advertising, and relations with large trade partners from Sales. Give them a discretionary fund to deal with any potential PR problems. PR will match your other branches in size. Your mother prefers this. Your brother fears this will decrease stability, but you think it will work better in the long run.
[] Huge
Big + give them salesperson recruitment, training, and price setting. Sales becomes Distribution, focused purely on the logistics of moving product. Your brother insists this will be disastrous.
That night Chachi took her father's… Her formal carriage back to the family estate. She had rooms in the Main Office, but there was more business to take care of back home. On the outside, her carriage looked like a bit like a giant blue dragon fruit, a central bulb with gray petals swaying gently in the wind. It was attached to Tepak, her fa… Her loyal companion beast.
The Dashing Shade Llama gently bleated as Chachi approached. She petted his furry neck, "let's go home." Tepak never took to human speech, but he understood it fine. The beast projected a thin layer of shadow on the ground in front of it. It couldn't fly, but it could run smoothly over any surface.
The carriage unfurled at a touch of Chachi's Teotl and she stepped inside. She fed the simple fire core in her teapot a burst of Teotl and threw herself on the lounging couch. Soooo much paperwork! With another flick of Teotl she unfurled the roof and watched the stars pass by. Tepak would move steadily through the city, careful not to hurt anyone in the streets, then really let go when he hit the ancient yucca fields. If a mortal tried to walk the same distance it would take them at least a week, but Tepak could do it in less than an hour and his passengers would barely feel the journey.
She sipped tea, looked at the stars, and entered the 9999 Revelations meditations. She spent most of her time in either Revelations or Evaluation, and she didn't feel like measuring the stars today. There was work to do here on earth, decisions to make about the future of the company. The carriage soon stopped and she jumped out.
There was a momentous decision waiting for her in the guest suites.
She stopped by Oku's guest room first. Her half-sister was inspecting her armor, "at least you broke the piece that was already half-broke. You wanna do your hammer thing on it?"
2. What do you want to do about Oku's equipment?
[] Good as new! (No cost)
[] Better than new! ($2)
[] Thrice Refined (Random cost between $2 - $20)
Chachi shrugged, "sure, but I expect a return on my investment. Do you want to be my honor guard?"
Okullin rubbed the back of her neck, "you know I was one solid stab away from being the Matriarch, right? You don't have anything more, like, fancy?"
Chachi grinned, "As my honor guard we'll work together every day, train together, fight together, deal with boring bullshit together. You'll be able to give advice on everything and be my second when it matters, it's like being Matriarch without the headache. Just please don't strangle me in my bed."
The exile laughed, "don't give me cause and you'll be fine."
They walked a few doors over to the largest guest suite.
A servant announced her entrance, but the giant didn't stand or bow, he just kept devouring the pile of cow meat in front of him. The vegetables were untouched. He was a true giant, at least twice Chachi's modest height and three times her weight. They put him in the guest suite with the highest ceilings, and he still couldn't stand comfortably. Even seated, he made the room feel like a playhouse. She'd only seen such exaggerated size in Transformation cultivators who'd merged their body with an enormous beast. He wore leather clumsily stitched into pants and a fur vest, marking him instantly as an outsider.
"I am Chalchiuhxochitl, the new Matriarch of the Atlahau clan. I believe you made a deal with my father?"
The foreigner's voice was a deep rumble, "yes. We make trade. Heaven Water for [gibberish]" It was a strange, broken impression of Language. The last word was absolutely unpronounceable. She'd never heard a person make noises like that. Did his people not know how to speak?
"You mean dracoxen?" she replied diplomatically.
He nodded, "his word. They are [gibberish]. He make trade with walking people. King of mountain people hate walking people. Want us weak. They send hunters. Trade man is weak baby and die. I am most strong in walking people. I take him back to light baby lands. We trade?"
Most strong? "Are you the leader of your people, then?"
He humphs, "most strong, not most smart."
"How… Enlightened. What are the logistics," Chachi corrects herself at the blank look, "how we make trade?"
"Meet in good valley. Land of no fight. You give water. We give [gibberish]. Good trade."
"How do I get a herd of large animals, they are large, yes?" he nodded, "through the Beast Lands?"
He stood in a hunch to keep his head from crashing into the ceiling and searched through his baggage. Finally he retrieved a giant collar. Under the Art of Evaluation, Chachi could see it was a treasure of strange construction, several cores interwoven with Teotl receptive strands.
"He say you make more. Need…" he flashes his ten fingers three times, then holds up three fingers, "one for one. Make bad smell and good smell."
Oku laughed behind her, "oh yeah, make bad smell AND good smell. Perfect!"
The giant laughed along with her, "Yes! I show you good valley way on small land. Hard is go to good valley. You are baby. Must learn not see or learn fight good fast."
Oku rolled her eyes, "that shit again. You think you're so tough, let's have a spar. Show me I'm a baby."
Chachi drew her sister back, "you can see him right? That body means he's at least in Merging."
"Yeah, so? Not like I haven't taken a few hundred beatings. He says he's the strongest of his people. Let's see how good he is."
So Chachi found herself back in the courtyard. It was deep in the night, so with the possible exception of a nosy servant peering through the windows, there were no witnesses.
Not bothering with showmanship, Oku opened with her usual bolt of black lightning. It washed over the stranger like a splash of water on a cliff face. Chachi barely saw him move but with the Art of Evaluation, she was able to gauge it accurately: 3.2 times the speed of sound. Oku put her spear in the way, but he flicked it aside with his hand. He grabbed Oku by the head with one giant paw and lifted her off the earth.
"Fight done!" he announced. He then very gently put her back down.
"All light baby weak. All but god. Baby, baby, god. We fear god, not baby."
Chachi felt a spike of fear, but something else quickly overcame it: greed. These strange people had a secret to cultivation, something that could increase their physical abilities far more than anyone in the Empire of Light thought possible. Something on par with the Infinite Perfect? She was sure she could match him if she kept reforging her core, but could she incorporate whatever secret of cultivation they held and skyrocket her own abilities? Did her father know this, were the Dracoxen and the collection of Beast Land trade goods a means to reproduce their abilities? Could they sell it? Could they bottle it?
She just had to find a way to survive the trip.
Oku's Armor
The giant couldn't explain himself coherently when Chachi asked about his cultivation. He didn't seem to understand her questions, and couldn't answer without resorting to his nonsense noises. After an exhausting hour, the best clue she could uncover is that she was a child, but Oku was a baby. Did they start off with the second journey instead of the first? She also discovered that he used the word 'god' loosely. At first she'd assumed he was referring to the Emperor, but he seemed to extend the term to anyone at the Lord or Saint level. He was far stronger than any Transcendent Chachi had ever heard of, but he couldn't compare to the miraculous abilities of cultivators on the final journey. Perhaps he was on a weaker variant of the third journey?
Her work on her sister's armor was a more fruitful use of her time. She wanted to show off for her sister by transforming her armor into a princely gift. The materials came from a giant sacred beetle, the overlapping plates made for low-weight comprehensive protection. The plates would shatter rather than cut or bend, lending it an ablative quality. It wasn't a treasure though, not in the traditional sense. No core, and the separate layers resisted a coherent riverway structure. She'd need to add a heart-plate to the base structure to bear the core, then weave a lattice through the layered outer plates. What ability should she give it? Her sister's foundation gave her a natural resistance to lightning and corrupting attacks, and the armor's properties protected her from physical strikes. She was still vulnerable to sudden temperature changes and more esoteric approaches, like mental techniques. A purification shield? Chachi had an intuitive understanding of them now, since diamonds were natural purifiers. It might add too much of a burden to Oku's Teotl control though, and she didn't seem the type to rely on defensive techniques. She wore armor so she could fight more aggressively, trusting it to block stray blows while she pressured her opponent…
A few minutes of consideration with 9999 Revelations, and Chachi had her answer. Her sister didn't need another combat technique in the armor, she needed a crafting technique. If the armor was self-repairing, she could lean on the ablative properties. Then Chachi could redesign the outer plates to explode outward at a strong enough blow, sacrificing themselves to defend and counter at the same time. With that design goal in mind, she had a much easier time selecting the proper Essences. Self-repair was a difficult trick with inert materials, but her sister made the armor from the carapace of a living thing. Build the core from Beast, and the riverways from Blood, and the armor could have a semblance of life again. Bonus, if it had pseudo-life it could repair itself instinctively, without Oku's conscious guidance, so long as she kept feeding a stream of Teotl to the core.
The design made sense in Chachi's head, but bringing it to fruition proved difficult. The blood waterways were too delicate. They were being damaged in the ablation, so each plate loss was treated more like a severed limb than a mendable cut. It healed lighter damage, but even that was too slow to matter in a fight. She couldn't reinforce the waterways without making them into a visible target.
Chachi sighed, Revelations wasn't helping, the only answer she could drum up was to brute force it. "She better be grateful…"
The prodigy carefully retrieved her most valuable collection. To the untrained eye it would look like random knick-nacks, or even trash. There was a doll, a nail, a white elephant carved from bone, a bit of blue cloth, a hat with a hole in the top. Few were precious in the reckoning of mortals, the ways of heaven were not for men to understand. Each carried a spark of divine will. The touch of a saint, the memory of a sacred moment, the remnant of a blessing. The heavenly power they contained was absolutely miniscule, but they could serve as a conduit to something greater.
At this point, Chachi was comfortable with the first refinement. At the end of the ritual, a rusted nail burned with blue fire. She touched to nail to the armor, and the nail turned to ash. The fire sunk deep into the armor and it felt more solid, more real, not changed in a conventional sense, yet spiritually, fundamentally, better. Better on every axis without a visible change, in the way an Exhalting cultivator was better than a mortal.
Chachi tested the armor and frowned. It could heal plates now, but it wasn't fast enough. She could feel a spark of life in the core, but it was like an egg. She needed it to hatch, to defend itself, to bond.
Another refinement. Blue fire on an old coin. The armor was now a conduit all its own. When she touched the coin to the armor, it acted as a trigger for something greater. She could feel a river of invisible power, sensed only as a pressure, a feeling of significance, flow into the armor.
It was much better. It weighed threats instinctively and shifted its plates to deflect blows. It responded to strikes powerful enough to punch through with an explosive wave and a shower of shrapnel. With sufficient Teotl, the plates healed in a few seconds. Better, but not perfect. One more. Just one more and she'd have something to be proud of.
The final ritual was a disaster. At the last moment the invisible power gained such depth and pressure that Chachi collapsed, gasping for breath. She looked up and found the armor she'd worked so hard on melted to slag. Like Chachi, it wasn't able to handle the power she'd channeled, even bolstered by the previous refinements.
Stubbornly, Chachi summoned the Cosmic Forge. She fed it the remnants of the armor, including the lingering heavenly power, and added more Essence to replace what was lost to entropy. She still had a perfect model of the armor in her mind, so remaking it was quick work. In fact it was better this time! None of those old scars to get in the way, none of the imperfections from its old life as a beast, and a bit of heaven's touch still in it. Good! Great! This time it would work.
It took Chachi four tries. By the end, she'd burned through a quarter of her heavenly conduits and all of the Clan's beast and blood essence. Tet was going to be mad. But it's fine, her brother was investing in lots more anyway. Fiiiiine.
More importantly, she had a masterpiece. She could feel a pulsing pseudo-heartbeat in the core of the armor, and beneath it a primitive will. It was alive! It would bond with Oku, protect her, even grow with her. Over time, the will should sharpen, and each time it sacrificed a plate it could adjust its own waterways and develop more abilities.
"Cool!" Oku smiled a little uncertainly at the now living carapace armor. "Ah, thanks. I'll… I guess I'll run through my forms, see how it feels…."
She wasn't nearly grateful enough to receive a priceless artifact, but Chachi forgave her. Her sister just didn't have an eye for real quality. She'd understand when it saved her life.
You've created your first masterpiece!
-$8
You have enough Heavenly Conduits for 27 more Refinement attempts
The crafting scene went long, next time we'll start the tour
Her work on her sister's armor was a more fruitful use of her time. She wanted to show off for her sister by transforming her armor into a princely gift. The materials came from a giant sacred beetle, the overlapping plates made for low-weight comprehensive protection. The plates would shatter rather than cut or bend, lending it an ablative quality. It wasn't a treasure though, not in the traditional sense. No core, and the separate layers resisted a coherent riverway structure. She'd need to add a heart-plate to the base structure to bear the core, then weave a lattice through the layered outer plates. What ability should she give it? Her sister's foundation gave her a natural resistance to lightning and corrupting attacks, and the armor's properties protected her from physical strikes. She was still vulnerable to sudden temperature changes and more esoteric approaches, like mental techniques. A purification shield? Chachi had an intuitive understanding of them now, since diamonds were natural purifiers. It might add too much of a burden to Oku's Teotl control though, and she didn't seem the type to rely on defensive techniques. She wore armor so she could fight more aggressively, trusting it to block stray blows while she pressured her opponent…
A few minutes of consideration with 9999 Revelations, and Chachi had her answer. Her sister didn't need another combat technique in the armor, she needed a crafting technique. If the armor was self-repairing, she could lean on the ablative properties. Then Chachi could redesign the outer plates to explode outward at a strong enough blow, sacrificing themselves to defend and counter at the same time. With that design goal in mind, she had a much easier time selecting the proper Essences. Self-repair was a difficult trick with inert materials, but her sister made the armor from the carapace of a living thing. Build the core from Beast, and the riverways from Blood, and the armor could have a semblance of life again. Bonus, if it had pseudo-life it could repair itself instinctively, without Oku's conscious guidance, so long as she kept feeding a stream of Teotl to the core.
The design made sense in Chachi's head, but bringing it to fruition proved difficult. The blood waterways were too delicate. They were being damaged in the ablation, so each plate loss was treated more like a severed limb than a mendable cut. It healed lighter damage, but even that was too slow to matter in a fight. She couldn't reinforce the waterways without making them into a visible target.
Chachi sighed, Revelations wasn't helping, the only answer she could drum up was to brute force it. "She better be grateful…"
The prodigy carefully retrieved her most valuable collection. To the untrained eye it would look like random knick-nacks, or even trash. There was a doll, a nail, a white elephant carved from bone, a bit of blue cloth, a hat with a hole in the top. Few were precious in the reckoning of mortals, the ways of heaven were not for men to understand. Each carried a spark of divine will. The touch of a saint, the memory of a sacred moment, the remnant of a blessing. The heavenly power they contained was absolutely miniscule, but they could serve as a conduit to something greater.
At this point, Chachi was comfortable with the first refinement. At the end of the ritual, a rusted nail burned with blue fire. She touched to nail to the armor, and the nail turned to ash. The fire sunk deep into the armor and it felt more solid, more real, not changed in a conventional sense, yet spiritually, fundamentally, better. Better on every axis without a visible change, in the way an Exhalting cultivator was better than a mortal.
Chachi tested the armor and frowned. It could heal plates now, but it wasn't fast enough. She could feel a spark of life in the core, but it was like an egg. She needed it to hatch, to defend itself, to bond.
Another refinement. Blue fire on an old coin. The armor was now a conduit all its own. When she touched the coin to the armor, it acted as a trigger for something greater. She could feel a river of invisible power, sensed only as a pressure, a feeling of significance, flow into the armor.
It was much better. It weighed threats instinctively and shifted its plates to deflect blows. It responded to strikes powerful enough to punch through with an explosive wave and a shower of shrapnel. With sufficient Teotl, the plates healed in a few seconds. Better, but not perfect. One more. Just one more and she'd have something to be proud of.
The final ritual was a disaster. At the last moment the invisible power gained such depth and pressure that Chachi collapsed, gasping for breath. She looked up and found the armor she'd worked so hard on melted to slag. Like Chachi, it wasn't able to handle the power she'd channeled, even bolstered by the previous refinements.
Stubbornly, Chachi summoned the Cosmic Forge. She fed it the remnants of the armor, including the lingering heavenly power, and added more Essence to replace what was lost to entropy. She still had a perfect model of the armor in her mind, so remaking it was quick work. In fact it was better this time! None of those old scars to get in the way, none of the imperfections from its old life as a beast, and a bit of heaven's touch still in it. Good! Great! This time it would work.
It took Chachi four tries. By the end, she'd burned through a quarter of her heavenly conduits and all of the Clan's beast and blood essence. Tet was going to be mad. But it's fine, her brother was investing in lots more anyway. Fiiiiine.
More importantly, she had a masterpiece. She could feel a pulsing pseudo-heartbeat in the core of the armor, and beneath it a primitive will. It was alive! It would bond with Oku, protect her, even grow with her. Over time, the will should sharpen, and each time it sacrificed a plate it could adjust its own waterways and develop more abilities.
"Cool!" Oku smiled a little uncertainly at the now living carapace armor. "Ah, thanks. I'll… I guess I'll run through my forms, see how it feels…."
She wasn't nearly grateful enough to receive a priceless artifact, but Chachi forgave her. Her sister just didn't have an eye for real quality. She'd understand when it saved her life.
You've created your first masterpiece!
-$8
You have enough Heavenly Conduits for 27 more Refinement attempts
The crafting scene went long, next time we'll start the tour
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