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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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So... if we want to have an ongoing relationship with the Fox, the path that would be most thorough would be...

- Convince her to swear to the Cai.
- Earn enough points with the Cai leadership to cash in a favor.
- Pick the favor of "put Su Ling's barony next to mine".
- Do a bunch of cooperative work with your new neighbor.

The Cai have power, and through excellence, we are permitted to occasionally grasp threads of that power.

The next most thorough would be
- Marry the suitor that the Bao have handpicked for being deeply appealing to us personally.
- Have her either swear to the Bao or marry into their clan (or both).
- The Bao figure out that we like the fox and would enjoy spending more time with her, and arrange things so that she just happens to be around more, in a way that is reasonably pleasing for all involved.

The Bao are really good at currying favor, even when you don't mean to let them curry favor. We've reached a position in life where it benefits them to curry favor with us. That means that there are times where it will be possible to have nice things happen to us just by not fighting it too hard.

Note that both of these involve making decisions for Su Ling that she might prefer to make for herself, perhaps in very different ways.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by EternalObserver on Nov 9, 2019 at 7:06 PM, finished with 192 posts and 78 votes.
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FallenPears said:
Then how could she stay in the sect? Surely she should already have left to go administrate her land, or is it just being delayed for the moment she's paid her debt?

Do we actually know how land is attributed to new Barons? The Empire seems to always be in need of new land and there's plenty around with all the untamed wilderness, but is it the case that the moment a Baron decides to leave a sect/military after paying their debt they get given a slot of land, told to go subjugate it and we'll be sending a couple hundred mortals over in a month or two?

I understand the Empire wants to tie cultivators into it's system, but this seems like it would result in those who don't want to administer causing horror stories, if not through malevolence through incompetence. Can you imagine if Ji Rong didn't get a crush on Liling and was just thrown out with a a new villages worth of people relying on him? It would be an absolute disaster. Perhaps this is offered with some big hints and benefits, but forcing it seems like a bad idea.

I'm sure there's got to be a grace period or something, and as long as they're working for the good of the Empire, which as an effectively professional monster hunter she definitely would be, I can't see any ministries or anything getting on her case about it.
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Man, I don't get the rule against snake-posting. I am sure it has a reason, but it'd really help me answer questions like these point by point.

Either way, land is administered through vassalage. The barons aren't given land, they have to find their own employers, though this, typically, ain't hard. There is indeed a grace period, if I remember correctly, of about a decade after leaving the sect and paying it your debt, but after that you get increasingly pushy MoI agents who really don't like wild cards.

In order to not be a wild card, one has to be tied up to the system in one of multiple specific ways. Being a landed noble is not the only way (one can be a sect lifer, or work at the ministries, or the military, or marry/get adopted into another family) but none of the alternatives to being a landed baron allow her to work for us in a way the system would approve, not really (well... unless we adopt her).

I guess it is possible, if we really want her to work for us, to make our darndest to strike it rich within the seven years of her military service (rich enough to employ another green at prime rates), then give her a groundskeeper employment while in her grace period, tell her to use "gathering funds to make my barony succeed" as an excuse to the MoI in order to stave them off for another decade (giving us about 27 years to reach Indigo), then employ her officially once we reach Viscount. It is a plan that exploits all the right loopholes and presumes everything will go allright, is really jumping around the hoops and presumes she'll accept but I guess if we want her so much, it is the best one.

Question is... why do we want her so much? And I am saying that as a big fan of hers.
 
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Edit:

the way i combined the votes:

1) i put aranfan's '2 Resolve' vote under 'resolve' since 2 Resolve is an invalid option, but i think it is obvious what they want
2) a discussion yesterday on discord convinced me that every vote that goes '[] Skill' is to be treated as '[] 2 Skill', so i folded those votes under the corresponding plan

But i guess we could discuss if point 2) is the correct approach, since deciding if those 8 '[] War' votes count towards 'plan pokemon' too might actually matter in the end
Adhoc vote count started by naths on Nov 9, 2019 at 7:12 PM, finished with 194 posts and 78 votes.
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I didn't want to make Su Ling a vassal to keep her close. I wanted to do it so she would be able to become a wandering monster hunter, protecting the common folk of the Empire from gribblies.
 
Aranfan said:
I didn't want to make Su Ling a vassal to keep her close. I wanted to do it so she would be able to become a wandering monster hunter, protecting the common folk of the Empire from gribblies.
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Cai vassal whose lands sit right besides our works very well for that too.
 
[X]Plan: Painting with Sixiang

We'd be training War next turn regardless so I'm leaning towards picking the skill with potential narrative development, when it's usually not a priority.
 
Does anyone know what the silk guards cost? Is it a yellow stone for a set or a yellow stone per unit?

Of the ways I see Ling Qi reacting to this event, three make sense to me:

1) A scene where someone goes over her battlefield actions with her. This is probably a little expository, so I'm not the hugest fan, but it does make a lot of sense and could be pretty satisfying if later on there's a subtle nod that she has learned from this experience. (war)

2) A scene where she and Sixiang compose something related to the battlefield. I'm not sure if this would fall under art, like, I'm fundamentally a writer, when shit happens to me, my instinct is not to start drawing. However, she has a dream space within which to reenact the battlefield and it's past time we see it again so I wouldn't be surprised if it got busted out so that she could review the enemy again and during the dream she is unconsciously like painting a picture of the assassin or something (art and war)

3) Collaborate with Li to build a home defense formation for her family. This feels like it can be pushed back, but not forever. It ties into our forge thread focus on formations, our link with Li Suyin, the comment by suitor Bao and Ling Qis own focus on family. Also, it's a good way to divide pre-war and post-war footing. (formations)
 
FixerUpper said:
Does anyone know what the silk guards cost? Is it a yellow stone for a set or a yellow stone per unit?
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It's about 40 red stones (4 yellow) to set up the home defense network and than an additional 20 red stones (2 Yellow) per guard. It than has an upkeep of 1 yellow stone per month. I'm not sure if it is per guard or per home defense network though.

yrsillar said:
Utility
Cost: 40 Red Stones, Plus 20 for each guard. Upkeep 1 yellow stone per month
Currently requires assistance from Li Suyin to create.

This home defense formation allows the operation of up to three semi autonomous bone puppets within a one hundred meter range of the formation location. Bone Puppets can operate beyond this range, but will lose power after five minutes, and require replacement of their individual power source. The creator may designate up to ten individuals as friendly in addition to themselves, upon creation, allowing them to bypass the formation freely. The user may extend this friendly designation to up to three other individuals at a time for up to 24 hours.

Bypassing the formation requires C rank stealth. Warriors prioritize the nearest hostile unless otherwise instructed.
Yellow/Silver 2
Health E, Qi E
Speed E, Initiative D
Hit E, Penetration F, Damage G(base)
P. Armor F, P. Avoid E
S. Armor F, S. Avoid E
Base Attributes: Str, Dex, Sta, Res E. Others G

Receive additional damage from fire-based attacks.
Warriors count as Mid yellow/silver combatants. They may be equipped with weapons and armor to modify base statistics.
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Thor's Twin said:
It's about 40 red stones (4 yellow) to set up the home defense network and than an additional 20 red stones (2 Yellow) per guard. It than has an upkeep of 1 yellow stone per month. I'm not sure if it is per guard or per home defense network though.
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Yeah, that was my reading comp stumbling block too. I think if it's per skellie, guards might be cheaper and more effective, but if it's per formation, the opposite is true. Speculation on my part, admittedly.
 
FixerUpper said:
Yeah, that was my reading comp stumbling block too. I think if it's per skellie, guards might be cheaper and more effective, but if it's per formation, the opposite is true. Speculation on my part, admittedly.
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An additional problem comes from the Silk Guard's IFF. Only having 11 people that are safe to enter their zone a is pretty low number in comparison to the number of servants we might have running around the place. With Mom, Biyu, and us, there would only be eight other people that could regularly enter their zones. And I'm not sure that our staff is eight or fewer people.

While I'm sure that the IFF of the Guards could be improved, that would also likely increase the cost to create and maintain them. So unless we have an area where we don't want a lot of people entering, like Li Suyin has her workshops, then I think the flexibility which comes from guards is likely going to meet our needs better.
 
Thor's Twin said:
An additional problem comes from the Silk Guard's IFF. Only having 11 people that are safe to enter their zone a is pretty low number in comparison to the number of servants we might have running around the place. With Mom, Biyu, and us, there would only be eight other people that could regularly enter their zones. And I'm not sure that our staff is eight or fewer people.

While I'm sure that the IFF of the Guards could be improved, that would also likely increase the cost to create and maintain them. So unless we have an area where we don't want a lot of people entering, like Li Suyin has her workshops, then I think the flexibility which comes from guards is likely going to meet our needs better.
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The thing with guard guards is that there a) aren't enough in the village as is and b) subvertable.

The current needs to the problem of home defense are:

1. cheap
2. effective
3. trustworthy

I currently can't think of a way that meets all three needs.

I mean our options are:

1) human guards which are likely expensive and dubiously trustworthy. I feel the best option here is a bodyguard that we personally know: some yellow/silver on the edge of retirement or already retired, looking for a safe and cushy assignment to live out their last years, but completely willing to throw down when their charges are threatened.

Sadly, we don't know any convenient cool auntie/uncle mentor figures for Biyu.

2) Skeleton Guards: cheap (?), but dumb. Trustworthy because dumb. Dubiously effective. The best package deal is probably emergency home defense that can be set to defend a fixed location (panic room!) + one of the poke ball heroic skellies that Li Suyin made for real emergencies.

3) Escape formation leading to inner sect safezone. This is probably exorbitant in cost, but the most dependable one. Out of our budget (my assumption).

4) Mom. Now that mom's a cultivator, she can use those fancy-shmancy Qi cards that record techniques. This has the advantage of being all three things mentioned above: cheap, effective, trustworthy; but the disadvantage of having mom be forced into the role of a combatant.

There are probably more that I am missing, but these are the ones I can think of. When we move to a real barony I feel like this will become a legitimate concern - having the sect's support as we explore options wouldn't be a bad thing.
 
Thor's Twin said:
An additional problem comes from the Silk Guard's IFF. Only having 11 people that are safe to enter their zone a is pretty low number in comparison to the number of servants we might have running around the place. With Mom, Biyu, and us, there would only be eight other people that could regularly enter their zones. And I'm not sure that our staff is eight or fewer people.

While I'm sure that the IFF of the Guards could be improved, that would also likely increase the cost to create and maintain them. So unless we have an area where we don't want a lot of people entering, like Li Suyin has her workshops, then I think the flexibility which comes from guards is likely going to meet our needs better.
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Naw, the IFF has an easy bypass. Have the Silk Guards be a panic button arming. Normally they are shut down and thus not fighting anything. Hit the panic button and they'd kill everything not family once you get the servants into panic rooms.
 
veekie said:
Naw, the IFF has an easy bypass. Have the Silk Guards be a panic button arming. Normally they are shut down and thus not fighting anything. Hit the panic button and they'd kill everything not family once you get the servants into panic rooms.
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That would likely reduce the cost of maintaining them as well.
 
[X] Plan: Knowing is half the battle
-[X] 2 War

I am voting this because it brings voting options closer to balance that reflects my personal uncertainty about which choice is the best.
 
Aranfan said:
I didn't want to make Su Ling a vassal to keep her close. I wanted to do it so she would be able to become a wandering monster hunter, protecting the common folk of the Empire from gribblies.
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Which will bring active disapproval of every noble around us. High end cultivator fights tend to destroy land and people; if she comes and goes, how do you imagine those who are left behind with the mess will feel like?
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Arkeus on Nov 10, 2019 at 8:04 AM, finished with 212 posts and 82 votes.
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[X]Plan: Painting with Sixiang

Changed my mind, we're likely to max out on spirit ken anyway, and we'll probably train war next turn, so I'll go with art for now. I'd like art to not just be a tool of war for Ling Qi.
 
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