Money and Power: A Xianxia Merchant Quest

[Mr. Prokosch]

To make the stages of transformation more clear for you guys then they are for Chachi:

Step 1: Figure out what Diamond is and be that.

Step 2: Figure out what Chachi is that definitely isn't Diamond and be that.

Step 3: Figure out how Chachi can be better if she was a bit more Diamond and how Diamond could be better if it was a bit more Chachi. Or in other words Critique Diamond with Chachi and Chachi with Diamond.

Anything that's more of a critique of diamond or a really nuanced take (Diamond really wants to be flawless, but mortals recognized that the most beautiful Diamonds are the flawed ones) instead of a description will be noted for later but doesn't help in this step.

 

[Rockeye]

There's a beauty in being perfect-rigid-order-alignment. Diamond IS order and purity; It cannot be any other way. Anyone who observes it can see this clearly, and trust it as an obvious fact of the world that they can hang their understanding from. The incorruptibility of diamond is essential; A corruptible diamond IS NOT A DIAMOND. And because it is incorruptible, it can be predicted. And because it can be predicted to be incorruptible and pure, the whole world knows this. No filth will even ATTEMPT to touch Diamond's purity, for the world itself knows such a thing is futile. There is great strength in being so obviously principled, a divine purity that will never betray itself and will always maintain its obvious promises inherent to its very nature, such that foulness will not even dare look upon you.

(Or basically, game theory)

Of course, such strong principles are also a prison. Many paths are closed to diamond, because it cannot be what it isn't - a true diamond is not a multitude of colors or a riot of sensation. A true diamond is unchanging, unliving. These self-made shackles are what allows it to emblemize purity in the first place; The eternal law of diamond is both immense strength and a prison. Even when cooperation and compromise may be the best option, diamond is incapable of it. It will always be pure and always favor order. It cannot be any other way. In this it both gains great benefits of purity, but also great drawbacks in action. A being of pure diamond would never accept compromise if it went against its order, even if such a compromise benefitted it.

 

[mastigos]

[Experiment] Take some diamonds and polish/cut them to a sphere (sharp edges are BAD in this case). Ritualistically eat one with each morning. Try to track the flow of teotle in your body and how it interacts with the diamond, especially if it can be infused into or flowed through the diamond. Try to lean into the tie between diamonds and divination to divine its location as it travels through the body. Have some sort of detection method for when a diamond passes. Retrieve the diamond and cleanse it (VERY VERY THOROUGHLY) while reflecting on and invoking the Pure nature of diamonds and their rejection of contaminants. Prayer and spiritual cleansing rituals (ex. holy water) should also be used to invoke the heavens. Test to see if its properties have changed. Return the (VERY THOROUGHLY) cleansed diamond to the queue awaiting later consumption.

[Insight]The slight bending of fate to the favor of a Diamond Soul is tied to the way that Diamond corresponds to the heavens and their fated plan. While the heavens (may) favor such a soul, there is more to it than that. Diamonds are good tools for divination and so therefore a diamond soul on some unconcious level can perceive the same light of fate emanating from heaven that divination reads. Perhaps even interact with and nudge it.
[insight]Light can flow through a cable/channel of crystal, bound and reflected ever inwards. Perhaps teotle flows though your body not as liquid through the banks of a river but instead as light through wires of crystal
[insight]For all that diamond is tied to the Heavens and Light, so too is it clearly tied to the Earth and Stone that birthed it and the Dark that it was buried in for untold millennia. Perhaps it is a bridge between the two, or perhaps this is merely an example of the way that all things are tied together
[insight] Diamond is OLD. Even the oldest human or human institution is insignifcant on the geological scale that dictates the pressures and motions of the earth that create diamonds and bring them shallow enough to be mined.
[insight] perhaps then it is age that ties diamonds to the heavens despite being born of the earth. An affinity for divination and millions of years for that affinity to steep the stone in the heavenly light of fate that shines unobstructed through such banal barriers as miles of stone and dirt.

[]experiment idea: Use the celestial forge to try to improve a diamond towards being the platonic exemplar of the spiritual nature of Diamond. Aka burn reasources to skip steps towards revealing deeper spiritual truths. Sheer away the "just a rock" and examine what is left

 

[Blonddude42]

Even odder, they did not disrupt all Teotl, only techniques that would do the diamond harm. But also, her Forge broke them down with ease.

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Huh, to the diamonds, Forging isn't harm. That must be from an inherent recognition of improvement, or more likely that our Forge is a Pure action.

Also, I think this suggests that Harm against the Pure is Impure and thus Wrong

It didn't feel good at all, like a job half-done. But, it was better, wasn't it? They didn't need pure water. Right?

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Huh, so Diamond sees that impurity is Wrong, but Chachi can recognize that there is need for impurities.

It could be said that the Pure World of Diamond is improved by the contrast of that which is Impure.

I'd think that you'd need to be able to detect the impurities so you can remove all but that which is truly necessary.

She imagined some Heavenly Bureaucrat with a grand list of Pure Things, which diamond liked, and Impure Things which diamond destroyed.

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Possibly true, but an alternative explanation is that poison is impure because it causes harm.

But then what about medicine? Medicine and poison can often only differ by the size of the dose. Can Diamond recognize the difference?

They argue that diamonds are a Perfect Structure, and harmed Impure Things, such as Abyssals, because their touch attempted to re-order them into something more favorable to heaven.

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... Diamonds are Ridgid. Because of this nature of theirs, they must follow an unwavering interpretation of Purity. To a Diamond there is only Pure and Impure. All things are one or the other, and a Diamond cannot be deceived into viewing the Impure as Pure.

The converse (or maybe the contra positive) is that False Impurity cannot hide that which is Pure. A Diamond can also recognize the truly Innocent and thus Pure.

Based on previous results I feel like this might give a harmonic bonus? I don't know what that means.

[Insight] The perfection of a diamond is inherently unstable. The world will reject its flawless order and force it to decay into baser matter.

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That's probably my favorite diamond fact -- they've been found to not really be forever chemically. And I would agree that corruptive forces of the world inherently reject that which is Pure Perfect Order.

 

[mastigos]

[insight] Diamond is. It exists. It is not just a concept or something ephemeral like Dreams but a concrete corporeal object.

 

[Rockeye]

Impurity has another name: Entropy. Creating order and maintaining it takes work, it is a constant effort. Everything from the heat in a room to the air and water to nature itself will break down into formlessness without some orderly influence to prevent that, and keep a structure. Mortals die, plants and animals die, inevitably, because their structure is weak. All life consumes something to maintain its order- But Diamond does not. Diamond's structure is strong enough to greatly resist this slow, corruptive decay, to hold together in order despite the natural tendency towards disorder.

 

[mastigos]

[insight]"Diamonds are associated with strength, love and health. Throughout history, diamonds have been worn by leaders or power figures to symbolise strength and invincibility. Diamonds have also been associated with good health and represent long life and good heart health. Diamonds have long been linked to the heart and are often associated with an everlasting love. It is one of the reasons why diamond rings are offered during a marriage proposal today." What greater strength and invincibility can there be than the heavens? What else can love eternal? Diamonds bind and link but also are of great use as cutting tools. When diamonds cannot bind they cut away cleanly and without hesitation.

[insight]Diamonds are not merely tied to Order but to a specific order. Diamonds do not merely enforce patterns in their structure but a specific pattern. Order is not enough, it must be the right Order.

[insight]Given enough heat, even diamond burns. Though it requires air of sufficient purity to be a self sustaining reaction

 

[Roth963]

What is our ethnicity, are we Aztecs or Chinese?

 

[inverted_helix]

The most beautiful diamonds are cut, reshaped, polished, and have enough contaminants... Oh... It feels right and wrong at the same time. Diamonds must be IMMUNTABLE AND PURE. Contamination is WRONG. What do human aesthetics matter? Why do I feel sick? This is weird. (No bonus at merging. Harmonic Bonus)

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Diamond is impossibly strong in some ways but weak in others. It can be shattered with a hammer or consumed in a fire. Nothing is truly invincible. A cultivator must be strong, but humans must work together to cover each other's weaknesses. Oh, there's that sick feeling again. (No bonus in merging, small harmonic bonus).

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So these two results indicate that harmonic bonuses are connected to how humanity and diamond can be greater than the sum of its parts I think, or at least interact with each other.

Turns out the GM ninja'd me on that.

Chachi spent some time pushing diamonds to their limits. The best way to destroy one, she found, was to strike it in the correct place. She could do it with her hand. However, almost every other method was foiled. She could not generate enough natural heat to melt them, and whenever she tried to enhance the fire with Teotl it was disrupted. In fact, every hostile use of Teotl at the Perfecting level was rebuffed by even a small diamond. She didn't have anything destructive at Transformation to try. Very odd, since all her tests showed that the diamonds were entirely mundane. Even odder, they did not disrupt all Teotl, only techniques that would do the diamond harm. But also, her Forge broke them down with ease.

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Considering you can burn diamond with mundane fire, it seems like her diamond transformation somehow prevents her from burning diamond. Breaking diamond results in more diamonds, so maybe that doesn't count as destroying it. I don't see why this wouldn't be a problem with the forge though.

Chachi tried to purify impure things. She started by turning a brown alcohol clear. That actually made it a lot less valuable, but it worked! It was not a separation or extraction, presumably the valuable 'contaminants' were obliterated. She wasn't much of a drinker, but this got her on a tangent. It turned out she had another minor weakness she hadn't considered: a great many things that people thought were delicious became pure, clean water when she tried to drink them. A few became clear alcohol mixed with water. Then, she tried to purify poison. It became water, which wasn't what she wanted. She wanted it to be pure poison. She tried a deadly poison powder, and it became a kind of spicy dust that even a mouse could eat unharmed. Finally she tried to purify dirt mixed with lead, to remove the harmful lead and make the dirt safe for growing. Nothing happened at all, completely non-reactive. Could lead then be used as a poison even against her? Troubling. She concluded that purification was not, in fact, subjective. Or, not dependent on her subjectivity? Diamond, or maybe Heaven, decided what was pure and what was impure regardless of what she wanted. She imagined some Heavenly Bureaucrat with a grand list of Pure Things, which diamond liked, and Impure Things which diamond destroyed.

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The most curious part of this to me is the lead. What makes lead not count as a poison?

Step 1: Figure out what Diamond is and be that.

Step 2: Figure out what Chachi is that definitely isn't Diamond and be that.

Step 3: Figure out how Chachi can be better if she was a bit more Diamond and how Diamond could be better if it was a bit more Chachi. Or in other words Critique Diamond with Chachi and Chachi with Diamond.

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I was kind of right on step 3.

 

[Roth963]

Considering you can burn diamond with mundane fire, it seems like her diamond transformation somehow prevents her from burning diamond. Breaking diamond results in more diamonds, so maybe that doesn't count as destroying it. I don't see why this wouldn't be a problem with the forge though.

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Burning and melting it are different things.

 

[Spoit]

[insight] In addition to the incredible force and heat needed to make them, diamonds are only able to be surfaced through a rare kind of volcano that reaches deeper and stronger than most. The normal geological forces that would bring them up would have them break back down into baser carbon. To ascend to a higher realm, diamonds must reach deeper and rely on greater pressure (and no small measure of luck), rather than taking the well trodden path

She created a diamond in the Forge. Cool. The strength of diamond was in its structure, not in its essence. So, could she mass produce them? She tried it, and it worked for a few diamonds, but then the Teotl Storage Chamber turned all weak and brown, telling her that she'd burned through a substantial store of her Teotl. It seemed that producing the internal structure of diamonds was essence cheap but costly in Teotl. Essence was matter, Teotl was change. Interesting, but that told her more about the Forge than Diamond.

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[experiment] If diamonds are a matter of structure, and she can recreate that structure ex nihilo, what would happen if she tried to impose order on an unordered system. Take the broken diamond shards and dust from her previous experiments and try to reconstruct the diamonds by imposing structure back onto them. Is it the same structure it had before, or is it a new diamond?

 

[The Froggy Ninja]

[Insight] Diamonds are old. Inherently. Putting aside the mystical influences of Essence and Teotl, diamonds take over a billion years to form.
[Insight] Diamonds are a result of significant effort. The right materials, placed in the right conditions and kept there for over a billion years without being shifted into suboptimal conditions that might halt or reverse the process of their formation.
[Insight] Diamonds subdue. To be Adamant is to be Unbreakable, only ever cleaving in the ways it already was, but never shattering to brute force.
[Insight] A Diamond's extreme durability comes from its capacity to transfer energy, with any force acting on one portion of the diamond, acting on many others, distributing the force to the point it becomes negligible. This additionally makes them excellent conductors of heat, and excellent insulators of lightning.
[Insight] The crystalline structure of diamond forms both a cube, and a hexagon. The most common, and most efficient shape for storage. Hexagons are the bestagon.
[Insight] Diamonds are epiphany. Rigid, yet illuminating. Focusing both light and the mind. All truths exist in the universe, and diamond reveals those truths to those who know how to use it.
[Insight] Diamonds care not for context or situation, only for what is. All poison is poison, regardless of if it is being moderated into medicine. Similarly, while you may want flint or coal or some other stone in a given situation, Diamond doesn't give a shit. It is what it is.

 

[inverted_helix]

Burning and melting it are different things.

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I suppose technically true, but my post suggested burning them. Unless she did it in a vacuum chamber they would have caught fire long before it got anywhere close to melting. It only takes 700 degrees celsius to light a diamond on fire. It takes 4000 degrees celsius to melt one, so I could understand if she couldn't reach the temperature needed to melt them.

 

[Mr. Prokosch]

What is our ethnicity, are we Aztecs or Chinese?

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You're not either of those things, they don't exist in this fantasy world where you can't assume that life is even carbon based.

As far as inspiration goes though, you are an originally Aztec inspired culture that has partially assimilated into a hybrid Chinese-English one.

 

[Roth963]

You're not either of those things, they don't exist and this is a fantasy world where you can't assume that life is even carbon based.

As far as inspiration goes though, you are an originally Aztec inspired culture that has partially assimilated into a hybrid Chinese-English one.

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I was mostly asking about how we look, since we have aztec names but the picture you showed of imperial agents was asian, so I was wondering if we look Chinese, or look Aztec, or even completely differently from bith since this isn't earth.

 

[Rockeye]

I like the opportunity to brainstorm. It's fun.

 

[Mr. Prokosch]

I don't lean very much on character descriptions. The phenotypical divisions you see among humans on our planet aren't in the Empire, because the history and evolutionary forces at work are just too different. All imperials besides the ones with really exotic origins (like "my father was a barbarian from the beast lands who crossed through the Vast Swamp to go on an adventure and fell in love here") trace their history to the 7 Heroes Liberation and an exodus from the Sea to the Paradise Hills, then further movements often related to warfare in the Age of Barbarism.

Like everyone else in her known world who haven't had their body altered from cultivation, Chachi's skin is a shade of brown. She's between her lighter-brown mom and her darker-brown dad. People typically describe her as petite, pretty, and oval-faced. She has black hair that's naturally straight, like her mother's. If you want to fill in the rest with your own mental picture of Aztec or Chinese features I won't quibble with you. Her father was tall but thin, he had darker skin than her and a long face. The main difference in appearance between her and her half-sister Oku is that Oku has more curly hair and she's physically even more delicate, if she didn't cover it up with attitude people would say Oku is notably small. Teo and Tet are significantly larger and more broad-shouldered than their sisters, their mother was a stockier woman than Chachi's or Oku's.

Her whole family (except Oku who wears Military Chic) wear Imperial Fashion, which resembles the more elaborate Ming dynasty robes. That's common for the Clans and many cultivators, but most mortals and some cultivators in the 1000 Rivers still wear simple single-cloth smocks that are the native style. Imperial Agents wear the specific uniform pictured.

 

[UDwarf]

Not sure if this is better on the "critique diamond" or "define diamond" part (and admittedly it may be too close to the existing insights to help much), but given that it quite literally can't hurt...
[Insight] A diamond is formed of earth Essence under pressure, yes, but it is as much a structure of that Essence as the Essence itself. Which of these, then, is the true diamond? The essence of a diamond is not just a physical instantiation, it is also the ideal of that structure, an order imposed upon base materials which converts them into a greater, stronger, more pure whole.
[Experiment] The Cosmic Forge can produce diamonds from earth Essence easily, spending Teotl to impose the proper structure on them. What else can that structure be imposed upon? Attempt to form a diamond structure from other Essences, and determine what properties are needed to acquire the benefits diamond's structure gives earth Essence. Once those are known, try forming things with those properties and giving them that structure. Can this be done with, say, fire Essence? Other physical objects? The more metaphorical "interlockings" of bureaucracy, even? Test just how far the definition of diamond stretches, and how far its structure can be applied, and reflect upon their differences.

 

[The Froggy Ninja]

[Insight] Diamonds naturally and artificially form facets, and when light is shined through them they divide it into its components. Diamonds are truth but they are also, literally, multifaceted and help with separating the different aspects of the single, unified truth of a situation into smaller, but no less true, truths that are more easily analyzed.
[Insight] Diamonds are unstoppable. There is no natural material diamond cannot cut, including being the only natural material capable of cutting diamond.

 

[Blonddude42]

The most curious part of this to me is the lead. What makes lead not count as a poison?

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It could be that there's nothing to purify it into, but then that brings into question what counts as poison.

Because Diamond shouldn't understand nuance. Something either is or isn't. So if it didn't treat lead as something to be purified, then how would something like fluorine or chlorine gas get treated? Something in it's base state with no contaminates to remove but still toxic.

Could the Abyssals be seen as similar to that? Something where there is nothing to be done but destroy it utterly? But that comes back to the question of why was lead not purified through destruction?

Could it be that Diamond based purification recognizes certain things as pure that we wouldn't normally consider such? For example, what counts as "Pure Earth"? Can it even be pure?

 

[The Froggy Ninja]

It could be that there's nothing to purify it into, but then that brings into question what counts as poison.

Because Diamond shouldn't understand nuance. Something either is or isn't. So if it didn't treat lead as something to be purified, then how would something like fluorine or chlorine gas get treated? Something in it's base state with no contaminates to remove but still toxic.

Could the Abyssals be seen as similar to that? Something where there is nothing to be done but destroy it utterly? But that comes back to the question of why was lead not purified through destruction?

Could it be that Diamond based purification recognizes certain things as pure that we wouldn't normally consider such? For example, what counts as "Pure Earth"? Can it even be pure?

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Well, we know it allows for some nuance. Some alcoholic beverages become pure water, some pure ethonol and some a mix of the two without any other contaminants. Perhaps lead in dirt isn't impure but lead in blood or muscle would be.

 

[Sigil]

[Insight] The purity of a diamond tends towards specific materials, it can only purify things down to "base materials" such as water, alcohol, or lead.
[Insight] Diamond affects living and nonliving matter differently, this is because the effects of Diamond are changed when it comes into contact with living things, they are protected by their own concept of perfection/purity, whereas nonliving material can only be rendered down into base matter.
[Insight] To gaze on a true Diamond is to be purified by it, no action from the Diamond is necessary
[Experiment] Does how something is used affect how pure it is? If our assistants hand us the sword of a local hero and the sword of a terrible bandit without telling us which is which, does our aura affect them any differently?

Could the Abyssals be seen as similar to that? Something where there is nothing to be done but destroy it utterly? But that comes back to the question of why was lead not purified through destruction?

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Maybe the lead would be purified if we did try to eat it? Or maybe the lead filled dirt was part of the ground and we can't purify things that are part of the ground because it's part of Lord Tlalocs domain.

 

[The Froggy Ninja]

[Insight] Diamond is truth, regardless of what any noble or law may have to say on the matter. Become ungovernable.

 

[Blonddude42]

Well, we know it allows for some nuance. Some alcoholic beverages become pure water, some pure ethonol and some a mix of the two without any other contaminants. Perhaps lead in dirt isn't impure but lead in blood or muscle would be.

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Right, it seems that mixtures can be seen as pure. That complicates things, but there are paths we could check to better understand that. For example, does how the alcohol is made effect what the pure state is?

I'd assume non distilled drinks have water for their pure state since they could be described as contaminated water.

Distilled drinks on the other hand would be ethanol contaminated by other things (since part of the refining process is removing water, and thus considering it akin to a contaminant).

...Does this mean that the act of Refinement not only Makes something more Pure, but Defines what is Pure?

It could be seen differently admittedly -- something cannot be refined without defining how it's supposed to be refined is another explanation. But that draws back to the question of how diamond defines the state it refines (purifies) things to.

It seems like to know Diamond we need to know Purity


And drawing back to the cases where we got water and ethanol, did those come from "mixed drinks" or at least things where something that is purified into water and something that purifies into ethanol are mixed? Because that's my only idea for how that'd work right now

 

[Paloneia]

[Insight] The diamond is LIGHT, life, the SUN; it is an emblem of purity and perfection, of invincible spiritual power, and it is the stone of commitment, faithfulness, and promise between husband and wife. Symbol of light and brilliance; unconquerable; treasures, riches, and intellectual knowledge.

This is what I found by looking up the spiritual meaning of diamonds.