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

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huh... first time their names are mentioned anywhere...

In which border territory do you guys think we'll end up? Will it be a white (Cai) one, or a wilderness one (in order to expand influence). Personally, I think we'll be somewhere in the white terittory next to the argent sect... but the wilderness territory of the Meng and the white territory near both the Jia and the Luo also seem interesting places to be sent to, not to say territories Shenhua would consider fun... Then again, even if we are sent to the last one, we won't border both the Luo and Jia ourselves, after all, I do not think we'll control the whole of a territory that big as a baron, I think every small bordered patch is the territory of a whole Viscount or Marquis.

Edit: wait, a Marquis matches a Count, not a viscount. D'oh. My bad.
 
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The Cai territory sitting in that patch of wilderness east of Wang and South of Jia seems to match the description of "room to grow". The concern there is the isolated pocket kind of implies a high value resource development, which seems a bit above our paygrade, especially with the Cloud Nomads riled up and organizing.

My favourite bit on the map is the Meng territory floating in Diao territory, which has a spot of Wang territory floating in it.
 
Anyone else finding those 'Wilderness' bits kinda sketchy? In a 'Here Be Dragons' kinda way?

Like most everything else is claimed and I bet much of that is technically just wilderness nominally under control of someone, plenty of those Cai controlled bits I bet just defaulted to the Cai as leaders of the province. Then just untouched 'Wilderness'?

I'm guessing something else has claimed those bits, wonder if it's a spooky level spirits nest or a weaker but cooperative spirits territory.

Also, seems like although Xiangmen is Cai owned the land around it is Bao, huh.
 
storryeater said:
Edit: wait, a Marquis matches a Count, not a viscount. D'oh. My bad.
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A Marquis is technically higher ranked than a Count. Sort of. It's in a weird position as nobility goes, but it's a position with some benefits.

It's...sort of the equivalent of a Count, but it being a border territory means they somewhat more respect/power as they're responsible for defending the border of the nation and also because (where possible) they're who trade with foreign powers goes through. Not the case in the South with the Cloud Tribe obviously, but we saw at the end of the last thread that there's trade with a foreign nation overseas in the far north.

One thing that makes the higher rank of a Marquis somewhat mitigated though, is that as they rule a border province they're naturally at the farthest remove from the seat of internal power.

In the case of this setting...it's also complicated by the fact that the three internal provinces have much more prestige and accumulated power, further muddying the waters on the Count vs Marquis issue.
 
FallenPears said:
Like most everything else is claimed and I bet much of that is technically just wilderness nominally under control of someone, plenty of those Cai controlled bits I bet just defaulted to the Cai as leaders of the province. Then just untouched 'Wilderness'?
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Huh, I, on the other hand, figured all those small white patches are outposts, fortresses, areas extremely rich in some special resources and/or important civic locations. Sort of neurons of control the Cai use to maintain power that are small in size but big in importance, be it because they produce an important resource or service or because they point a sword at the throat of the Counts... or maybe because they are central for defense/ last lines of defense.
 
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storryeater said:
Huh, I, on the other hand, figured all those small white patches are outposts, fortresses, areas extremely rich in some special resources and/or important civic locations. Sort of neurons of control the Cai use to maintain power that are small in size but big in importance, be it because they produce an important resource or service or because they point a sword at the throat of the Counts... or maybe because they are central for defense/ last lines of defense.
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Or they might be spots where the previous lords of whatever house fucked up so badly that Shenhua went "nope, you don't get to have this anymore" and joinked it under direct ducal control.
 
So, if we are going to be given new fiefs to control and manage, then it is likely that we'll be getting some of the wilderness between Wang and Jia which has some Cai territory nearby. That would make the most amount of sense to me so that no land is taken away from anyone and new territory can be developed.

I, personally, would love that option as it would mean being able to explore some of the wilderness of the Wall while interacting with the spirits that reside there. Which I think would be a pretty phenomenal experience.
 
I believe it would be southeast land yes. Neighbors of Dogboy, trade straight up through them to Bao to Empire. It's why Shen Hu is unlikely to be around during that part of the story. He needs to be home, and home for him is southwest. Maybe he stays as Sect forces and sticks around a little longer that way? but his family *needs* him back, so like. It won't ever be permanent.
interestingly, our Punk friend is probably from a disgraced house that lost their land to Cai. One of the random spots of Cai somewhere.

if I remember the map right, there's a Cai hub there that could be uplifted as CRX's holding. A place that trade coming in from GF and leaving for GF could be managed, as well as profiting the Luo (dog?) and Bao greatly (as well as Cai). Lanlan's house has a good spot to benefit from opened trade, rebuild a bit more. It wouldn't be our holding, we'd be on the front harvesting raw trade goods, but it'd be a place that could reasonably hold Meizhen, CRX, Lanlan, Spiderbao, Dogboy, Xuan Shi (if the Xuan are interested in Bao trade, and they want an agent upstream), Fen, and a smattering of characters we may or may not know yet. Hell, depending on how far upstream various GF houses wanna be we could see some of them return.

we would, of course, be managing our own new house and would likely not be able to sit at court. Depending on how dangerous it is, we might be able to put Mom and Biyu there but it'd be a bit frustrating for the smallfolk that we don't trust the safety of whatever we build enough to put our fam there. This is all speculation of course, but it's also the potential outcome where basically everyone sticks around.
 
In retrospect, what was yunuan doing during the attack? Defender?

And lol apparently only we got hurt among absolutely everyone we know. And Senior bro
 
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Is, ah, anyone taking seriously the idea that this is a war that could be lost? Like, with the new allies the cloud barbarians are poised to do more than just wreck a province like last invasion. And that means that Argent gets evacuated or destroyed.

Either characters on story or people in thread, question applies to both.
 
So, for those interested, the Churning Xiulan interlude has been commissioned and is now out for those on Yrsillar's Patreon. It's heart wrenching.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
At long last, the map of the Emerald Seas is complete!
And a quick explanation of what this map is showing:
The colours on the map are determined by de facto county rulership. That is, if your county-level liege is the Luo, directly or indirectly, then your spot on the map is Luo red, even if you're geographically within Diao county. Note that it's not just the borders where these things are happening, it's just that within a county all bordergore shenanigans between viscounties will end up the same colour anyways.
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Man the Bao are going to make mad bank off the Bai trade.
deadcrystal said:
A Marquis is technically higher ranked than a Count. Sort of. It's in a weird position as nobility goes, but it's a position with some benefits.

It's...sort of the equivalent of a Count, but it being a border territory means they somewhat more respect/power as they're responsible for defending the border of the nation and also because (where possible) they're who trade with foreign powers goes through. Not the case in the South with the Cloud Tribe obviously, but we saw at the end of the last thread that there's trade with a foreign nation overseas in the far north.

One thing that makes the higher rank of a Marquis somewhat mitigated though, is that as they rule a border province they're naturally at the farthest remove from the seat of internal power.

In the case of this setting...it's also complicated by the fact that the three internal provinces have much more prestige and accumulated power, further muddying the waters on the Count vs Marquis issue.
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The big clincher should be that Marquis are allowed much larger armies(and more favorable taxes) than Counts. More military power, but its all tied up in garrisons, and the downside is you only have frontier industry(mainly raw material extraction, the rest go back into domestic use) and your route for growth is getting wealth from trade or raiding.
 
Glau said:
Empire suffers enough loses to destabilize internal politics, borders shift, territory is lost, potential fissure into kingdoms.
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Destabilize internal politics. Not sure if the internal politics are stable, probably not, some houses might get replaced, some rise, others lower, but when dust settles i would assume that the biggest shift would be moving away/towards centralization of the imperial power.
Borders shift. Possible, some shift is going to happen, just no idea in which direction, but i don't find it likely, borders are where they are for a reason, these peaces were, at some point, found defensible enough so i doubt Empire will allow them to be lost.
Fissure into kingdoms. Very, very unlikely.
 
Glau said:
Is, ah, anyone taking seriously the idea that this is a war that could be lost? Like, with the new allies the cloud barbarians are poised to do more than just wreck a province like last invasion. And that means that Argent gets evacuated or destroyed.

Either characters on story or people in thread, question applies to both.
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Maybe, but not quickly. The Argent sect does, after all, have two Prism cultivators. One is seriously old and the other unwilling to put a lot of work into the conflict, but the fact they exist means a decisive clash shouldn't really be an option on the table for the barbarians. If they're a serious dedicated force, the fighting can be expected to drag out over years or even decades. Imperial forces on a total war footing are pretty formidable too. The barbarians are a threat via mobility and force concentration, but those advantages start to diminish in the face of a united Imperial front.

One concern is the lack of slack for other provinces to lend to the aid of Emerald Seas war woes, in extremus. Western territories is at constant existential war with the environment and don't like Emerald Seas right now anyway. Thousand Lakes lost a huge number of its established noble holdings and is pretty well obligated to invest any bounty from opening trade into their recolonization efforts, which further obligates their standing forces of powerful nobles to be ready at hand to deal with stirred up spirits and the like that fresh vassals are incapable of putting down. Alabaster Sands may or may not have its shores secure, but they're being stand-offish with Shenhua's regime and don't approve of Bai port building, which she is deliberately aiding. Golden Fields is focused on nursing their poisoned environment and also ash zombies. Savage Seas doesn't have people to spare. Ebon Rivers isn't facing any dangers we're aware of and might actually be willing to throw some people at a barbarian problem, but garrisoning Zheng sounds like it inherently introduces decades-long issues to the region they're housed, and I'm not sure Shenhua would be up for that.

Basically, extra-provincial help, if needed, is going to source most prominently from Heavenly Peaks and the Throne itself. Now, the good news here is they're actually obligated to support the Great Sects, being projects of the throne. We can expect Imperial reinforcement in some capacity pretty early in the conflict. Materials, Throne-sponsored supply agreements, easing of procurement red tape, and such at first. Direct reinforcement with central soldiery seems like it would be a last resort so as to not make the Great Sects look useless and to maintain some rhetorical distinction between the two- Capital militaries being active in the provinces has people on edge and resentful already. If Celestial Peaks shiny bois get sent in, expect it to be on a technically separate negotiation track with Shenhua than the Great Sects themselves.

The bad news is there's some potential to see a reversal of the previous barbarian invasion response's fundamental flaw. Then, it was a lack of coordination and central direction. Here, there's potential the response gets muddled by power struggles between Cai Shenhua and the Empress over whose toys the Sects really are. We've seen Shenhua lean on the Argent Sect, and we've seen that the Argent Sect is to a degree turning to Shenhua for support it wants that hasn't been coming from the Empress. Now, neither the Empress nor Shenhua are idiots, they aren't going to sabotage things out of petty spite or greed. However, the situation with the sects has got to be legally and politically complicated and delicate; there's no guarantee that actions taken towards their legitimate interests do not disrupt things. The biggest flag for me is that we know Shenhua is limited in her ability to not improve things. Any tool she uses, like the Great Sects, she is going to want to modify to best suit her designs. While she is running a campaign against rallying barbarian forces to the south, there's a very high chance the Sects fall into her mental category of "tool" even stronger than they already were for her political aims. If the Empress doesn't consider the invasion a true threat, or simply a lesser threat than the consequences of her sway over the Great Sects diminishing, things could get ugly and confusing for them.
 
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AbeoLogos said:
Golden Fields is focused on nursing their poisoned environment and also ash zombies.
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I could actually see the Golden Fields being able to help out, if indirectly.
We know both the Luo and the Gu at least prefer the trade routes to remain open, and wolf bois uncle was apparently putting forward a suit towards one of Xiulan's sisters.
It might be possible for the Gu to increase security on their side of the border, thus allowing the Luo to shift more of their troops down south? It might be an admission of weakness to others looking in, but depending on how bad it gets they might not care.
 
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