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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Florida
Well that's not ominous at all
- Location
- Greece
Spirit bats can be trans women too.
oh boy it thickens
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
While we're waiting for an update, here's some math/plans info I've been working on.
AP costs for all art levels + meridians needed up to the tournament:
AP availability:
Some stretch goals:
And as a final note, on the possibility of G6 by tournament:
With all that said, here's how that looks like with some tentative plan-lines:
Do note that most art levels are basically modular 2-3AP chunks and can be moved around as needed.
This should hopefully answer most questions about our cultivation plans leading up to the tournament. There's also a complementary plan for skills and attributes with ties to the cultivation plan but that's a matter for another time.
AP costs for all art levels + meridians needed up to the tournament:
Assumptions:
G4 core
- FSS+ creation with 6 levels as an art created both for its combat and narrative use and to unlock the requirement for G6.
- We need a successor mastered (G6 requirement) and FSS has more going for it of our available mastered arts.
- It's possible to start FSS+ later than ~mid G4 but given its narrative scope we probably don't want to delay too much.
- Conservative +15 dice to base, moon and yin (each) from SSC per cultivation stage (G3>G4, G4>G5).
- Current heart demon gets fixed by the end of next turn (mostly relevant for base).
- Full GSS all the time, medium pills.
- Water pill used in G4 with 10AP water, 4AP spiritual, 5AP physical.
- 5th phys AP looks needed for current breakpoints. A good site bonus or high EPC drip can prevent the need.
G4 core
- SSC5 - 6, mandatory
- LFWT3 - 2, (1 spine open for it)
- LFWT4 - 2
- LFWT5 - 2.5 + 1 leg, 2-3 depending on lv3 moon or not
- PLR8 - 2, risky, wait for ssc/b4
- PLR9 - 3 + 1 lung, risky, wait for ssc/b4
- SNR4 - 1
- SNR5 - 2 + 1 spine, risky, wait for ssc/b4 for better odds
- SNR6 - 3
- BKSD2 - 1
- BKSD3 - 1 + 0.5 lung (BKSD3+RME3 need 1 lung between them with 1 already open)
- BKSD4 - 1
- FSS+ creation:
- 10AP nominal + 3 scrunch(2 lung, 1 arm) for 6 levels
- hopefully Hanyi/narrative discount brings it down to 8AP + 3 scrunch
- lung scrunches can be used for above BKSD/RME and PLR levels
- SSC8 - 6, mandatory, gets lv8 in 1 turn for 6 rather than lv7 then 8 in 2 turns for 5
- LFWT6 - 2
- LFWT7 - 2, no moon yet means +1 cost
- BKSD5 - 2 + 1 heart, should be done in G5 to save AP
- BKSD6 - 2
- BKSD7 - 2 + 1 lung
- BKSD8 - 2
- lv2
- PMR2 - 1
- MSS2 - 1
- MoSS2 - 1
- lv3
- PMR3 - 1 + 1 head
- MSS3 - 1
- MoSS3 - 2 + 1 heart
- lv4
- PMR4 - 2
- MSS4 - 1, risky in G4, wait for ssc for lv2+3 to guarantee
- MoSS4 - 2, risky
- lv5
- PMR5 - 2 + 1 head
- MSS5 - 2 + 0.5 head (shared with MoSS)
- MoSS5 - 3 + 0.5 head
- early water pill turn
- Water Turn (~turn 12, as soon as SSC is done)
- RME3~5 - 4 + 1 head + 0.5 lung (see BKSD3), pill saves 2
- UGM3-4 - 3 + 1 spine, pill saves 1
- WHR2-4 - 3 + 1 heart, pill saves 1
- Afterwards in G5
- WHR5 - 1 + 1 spine, may do 1AP for lv2 + water 3AP for lv5 instead
- WHR6 - 2, close to breakpoint if lv5 is done in G5, ssc music lowers to 1AP
- UGM5-6 - 2, arm already open for it, 2AP if both done in G5, 3AP if lv5 in G4
- FSS+ to (soft)cap - ~7 + 1 lung, cost estimate assumed done in G5
- Water Turn (~turn 12, as soon as SSC is done)
- early FSS+ before water turn
- In G4 before water turn
- RME3 - 2 + 0.5 lung (see BKSD3)
- UGM3 - 2 + 1 spine
- WHR2 - 1
- Water turn(turn 13-14, as soon as FSS+ is done)
- RME5 - 2 + 1 head, pill saves 1
- UGM4-5 - 2, arm already open, pill saves 1
- WHR3-5 - 3 + 1 heart + 1 spine, pill saves 1
- FSS+2~4ish - 3 + 1 lung, pill should save 1, lung probably available from prep scrunch
- Afterwards in G5
- UGM6 - 2
- WHR6 - 2 (lv2-4 water turn and 5-6 in G5 as with the other line are also an option)
- FSS+ to cap - ~3, arm should be available from scrunch
- In G4 before water turn
- Water turn meridians need to be prepared ahead of time, won't be room on the turn itself.
- Should also prep meridians for immediate B4 turn arts using turn 11-12 AP due to high value AP sinks (PLR, LFWT etc).
- Lv5 socials are likely stretch goals we won't have time for unless we tradeoff among social arts (e.g MoSS3+MSS3 only but get PMR5).
- Some G4 levels slide to G5 due to lack of AP in G4, tentatively: BKSD4, LFWT5, WHR/UGM lv5+.
- SSC applying to music helps with BKSD and WHR (needs lv5+6 done in G5), less with MoSS. In total ~2AP saved if we get that early.
- FSS scrunches have to happen before we start working on it.
AP availability:
- G4 over turns 10-14 needs 41 base AP invested (5 phys on water turn to get B5 on time).
- assuming 19AP/turn, this leaves 54 AP to spend between cultivation and other obligations.
- In G5 (turns 15-18) there are 76AP, earmarking 19 toward base leaves 57 free AP.
- The total cost of the above table (minus lv5 socials) is 101.5-102.5 for early water/early FSS+ respectively. Potential savings/increases are in the ±2-3AP total range.
- This leaves a total of 9-10 free AP for stretch goals and unexpected obligations.
Some stretch goals:
- Green or Bronze 5 a turn earlier (4AP each).
- Socials level 5s (3 for PMR, 2.5 for MSS, 3.5 for MoSS).
- Build 8-level FSS+ and not 6-level, costs 2AP in creation and another + ~3 in cultivation.
- Jobs for equipment purchases or exploration for gacha (2AP for senior talisman, 4AP for weapon talisman).
And as a final note, on the possibility of G6 by tournament:
- Viability:
- Current plan earmarks only 19 base AP of 32 in G5 up to the tournament, allocated in such a way that we reach symmetric G6/B6 at the end of turn 20.
- The allocated base AP can be shuffled to allocate full spiritual to potentially reach G6 on turn 18.
- This requires 4AP worth of spiritual (~1.5k xp) from EPC drip, which is higher than current rate so will need assistance from SSC, better argent vent, or omake.
- It's only worth going for if it looks like we're clearing the much harder 3 advanced insights required for G6
- Overall: currently not viable without drugs but by G5 it may be possible or even likely, provided we have the insights.
- Pros:
- This gets us G6/B5 for the tournament (+10 to all spiritual-governed stats).
- More importantly, allows Domain A which is G6-gated (along with mastering + integrating the domain weapon).
- Cons:
- Without allocating free AP to base, this delays B6 (and therefore LFWT mastery) by 2 turns to turn 22.
With all that said, here's how that looks like with some tentative plan-lines:
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- We will likely face AP obligations in G4 and can't actually plan on fully executing at 19AP/turn, so more art levels will get pushed to G5.
- Early FSS+ water turn may be pushed to turn 14, switching with most of turn 13.
- Early water turn pros:
- Allows more flexibility since it doesn't have the pressure of completing FSS+ creation before it (used for more social and SNR levels in the tentative plan).
- Access to UGM4, WHR4 (and vision of level 5s) before we even start working on FSS+, letting us better craft the successor to work with those.
- Early FSS+ pros:
- Starts working on FSS+ a full 2 turns earlier, only 2 turns into G4 as opposed to 4, getting this hugely important narrative arc off the ground faster to benefit LQ and Hanyi.
- Likely slightly faster offensive potential growth as a result (~G4 FSS+ by turn 13-14 vs 15-17).
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Do note that most art levels are basically modular 2-3AP chunks and can be moved around as needed.
This should hopefully answer most questions about our cultivation plans leading up to the tournament. There's also a complementary plan for skills and attributes with ties to the cultivation plan but that's a matter for another time.
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- Location
- The Space Between
Liao Zhu is a good sect contact for our sect friends. The Good Fluff Encounter is that every man that is concerned with Justice is always complementing Su Ling and it makes her uncomfortable and flustered but in a different way from "I'm the only danger sense for ranks 1, 2 of the inner sect, one of my friends, a ducal scion, some fox-smelling ES noble on comms and goddam Ji Rong of all people. Fukcfuckfuckufckufuckkufckufukcf"
my gut would say Liao Zhu is going to be diplomatic. Prodding, but relatively tame. He's uh. He's *very* much part of the structures of power that have cornered Su Ling into this descent. It's not ideal, but we want him to interact with the paranoid bat in order to get Su Ling to trust him more easily. Frankly though, we don't know nearly anything about Cibei other than that they like Su Ling and Great Justice (and is probably correctly paranoid about the potential cruelty/injustice in others).
Assuming that Cibei is actually able to smell/hear Justice and assuming that Cibei gets that vibe from Liao Zhu, everything's gonna be alright.
Speaking to Abeo's critique, part of the long-term interesting interaction with Liao Zhu could be whether or not *we* start to smell like justice and if that prompts him to pursue us beyond the borders of Affable Professionalism. Unlike the typical shadowy archetype, we don't seem to hold/care much for grudges. We do care about protecting others, and not just preemptively through murder. We do care about helping others succeed/recover. We do care about Ending threats. Not in cruelty, but in uncaring statement of fact. We have resolved to give only so much ground, and no further (so that we never Plague Tale swarm-of-rats eat humans alive again). We care for Power as the practical method through which systems are administered (including Justice systems).
I'm interested in LQ engaging with Justice not because I want to see LQ become justice obsessed. She very much isn't that. Her formative years were very Reactive. Not a ton of philosophizing or forming grand plans. Just navigating the day to day, week to week reality of street life.
I want to see LQ grapple with Justice as a part of her reclaiming of Agency. Now that she has power and time I want her to consider how important it is to her. Yang Justice is the typical superhero-y Punch Bad Protect Good. Big Fan. It's Great Justice.
But how does someone that's typically very Yin and reactive go about forming a sense of active justice, especially when that cheesy Great Justice schlock is more propaganda than good practice? What actions will LQ take towards Justice, if she chooses any at all? I mean. Caring for you and yours can be Right but unjust. Caring for your own friends and family first at the expense of others is adjacent to (or simply *is*) nepotism. But how else can Justice be properly practiced, if not from small ways on out towards greatness?
Ji Rong is our rival and mirror in many ways. One of the ways is that we've both fallen in with some big players who have concepts of Justice close to their hearts. Sun follows a belief system I think can be summed up as "Right Makes Might" in which anyone concerned with righteousness *must* cultivate power to enforce that justice, and in turn can draw strength from it. Similar to how we've seen Liling's blood-feedback-loops work actually. That's some good ludo-narrative synchronicity I tell u h'what
CRX is stranger. If you think of Order, Power, Justice and Law to be four separate things for a moment then Sun is saying Power is the only practical way to enforce Justice, with the Law and Order being that of the Jungle. CRX seems to want to say that Power Itself is Unjust without an Order and Law that binds it to Justice in the first place. Very philosophical, very theoretical, very puritanical. While it's capable of more accurate, precise and far reaching Justice than Law of the Jungle can provide, it only works if it can get out of the house sometimes and Practice instead of simply preaching and pontificating.
I'm not sure what Ji Rong is bringing to Liling in terms of philosophy, but our *extremely* practical approach to life is almost certainly a valuable voice of practicality cutting through the theoretically gordian knots that can paralyze the overly philosophical.
I duno. I love Su Ling because she's very concerned about Justice and is properly skeptical of the system that is helping empower her, while simultaneously not getting so spooked as to deny/stunt the good that could be accomplished simply because the Empowering Machine might be a bit sticky and gross with a few . . casualties.
I'm proud of her <3
Abeo is right that Liao Zhu has been thoroughly professional with us. Fun at times, but Professionally Distanced. I chalk it up to us not being super Justice oriented and him being like, "eh. That's okay. Many faces light the night and all that. I can help as a professional" not exactly like. Interested. Even as a connection to CRX/Cai for him.
my gut would say Liao Zhu is going to be diplomatic. Prodding, but relatively tame. He's uh. He's *very* much part of the structures of power that have cornered Su Ling into this descent. It's not ideal, but we want him to interact with the paranoid bat in order to get Su Ling to trust him more easily. Frankly though, we don't know nearly anything about Cibei other than that they like Su Ling and Great Justice (and is probably correctly paranoid about the potential cruelty/injustice in others).
Assuming that Cibei is actually able to smell/hear Justice and assuming that Cibei gets that vibe from Liao Zhu, everything's gonna be alright.
Speaking to Abeo's critique, part of the long-term interesting interaction with Liao Zhu could be whether or not *we* start to smell like justice and if that prompts him to pursue us beyond the borders of Affable Professionalism. Unlike the typical shadowy archetype, we don't seem to hold/care much for grudges. We do care about protecting others, and not just preemptively through murder. We do care about helping others succeed/recover. We do care about Ending threats. Not in cruelty, but in uncaring statement of fact. We have resolved to give only so much ground, and no further (so that we never Plague Tale swarm-of-rats eat humans alive again). We care for Power as the practical method through which systems are administered (including Justice systems).
I'm interested in LQ engaging with Justice not because I want to see LQ become justice obsessed. She very much isn't that. Her formative years were very Reactive. Not a ton of philosophizing or forming grand plans. Just navigating the day to day, week to week reality of street life.
I want to see LQ grapple with Justice as a part of her reclaiming of Agency. Now that she has power and time I want her to consider how important it is to her. Yang Justice is the typical superhero-y Punch Bad Protect Good. Big Fan. It's Great Justice.
But how does someone that's typically very Yin and reactive go about forming a sense of active justice, especially when that cheesy Great Justice schlock is more propaganda than good practice? What actions will LQ take towards Justice, if she chooses any at all? I mean. Caring for you and yours can be Right but unjust. Caring for your own friends and family first at the expense of others is adjacent to (or simply *is*) nepotism. But how else can Justice be properly practiced, if not from small ways on out towards greatness?
Ji Rong is our rival and mirror in many ways. One of the ways is that we've both fallen in with some big players who have concepts of Justice close to their hearts. Sun follows a belief system I think can be summed up as "Right Makes Might" in which anyone concerned with righteousness *must* cultivate power to enforce that justice, and in turn can draw strength from it. Similar to how we've seen Liling's blood-feedback-loops work actually. That's some good ludo-narrative synchronicity I tell u h'what
CRX is stranger. If you think of Order, Power, Justice and Law to be four separate things for a moment then Sun is saying Power is the only practical way to enforce Justice, with the Law and Order being that of the Jungle. CRX seems to want to say that Power Itself is Unjust without an Order and Law that binds it to Justice in the first place. Very philosophical, very theoretical, very puritanical. While it's capable of more accurate, precise and far reaching Justice than Law of the Jungle can provide, it only works if it can get out of the house sometimes and Practice instead of simply preaching and pontificating.
I'm not sure what Ji Rong is bringing to Liling in terms of philosophy, but our *extremely* practical approach to life is almost certainly a valuable voice of practicality cutting through the theoretically gordian knots that can paralyze the overly philosophical.
I duno. I love Su Ling because she's very concerned about Justice and is properly skeptical of the system that is helping empower her, while simultaneously not getting so spooked as to deny/stunt the good that could be accomplished simply because the Empowering Machine might be a bit sticky and gross with a few . . casualties.
I'm proud of her <3
Abeo is right that Liao Zhu has been thoroughly professional with us. Fun at times, but Professionally Distanced. I chalk it up to us not being super Justice oriented and him being like, "eh. That's okay. Many faces light the night and all that. I can help as a professional" not exactly like. Interested. Even as a connection to CRX/Cai for him.
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Hey, you know what could be neat? If Ling Qi recognized some of the formations style from her time studying that tome she had, when she hits the enemy settlement. Enjoying a little bit of advantage in navigating their defenses would be a nice callback to our very first exposure to underground influence and to our neglected formations studies.
Alternatively, the enemy formations could also totally mess us up and set off a cascade of failures to keep things interesting.
Alternatively, the enemy formations could also totally mess us up and set off a cascade of failures to keep things interesting.
- Location
- Required Location
IIRC, the shaman apprentice we killed and took the book from was from the thunder crow tribe (jiao interlude), which doesn't sound like a cave dwelling animal. Furthermore, it seems to be a very different style of formations from the (living in caves and are bigly into ambushes and suicide attacks, I'm gonna go with) jihadis that we saw during our first incursion with Li Suyin.
The formations were all designed around using people as fuel and materials for formations. Blood sacrifice, giant constructs made of corpses and grave soil, that kind of thing. It's not really all that far off, conceptually. The former site of his ritual totem is also the exact same spot we just went underground at. It'd be a pretty big coincidence.
There's suggestive hints the shaman's work has some link to the apparent collaboration between the barbarian forces.
- Location
- Required Location
True, in retrospect you might be right, there is also that whole Gnawing Ones business, which I for some reason had connected to AE. Devouring earth-themed worms and that entire thingamajig.
While I see no reason for barbarians not using human sacrifices to fuel their spells, I suspect that the major difference is that barbarians are likely to sacrifice prisoners of war, empire or other tribes, primarily. In addition to the usual sacrifices of unneeded/unwanted children, and the old and/or the sick, that is standard for civilizations of that level of development.
I doubt that this kind of formation is a standard thunder crow or even sky barbarian style. Seems to me as if some formations were traded as a sort of cultural Exchange with the jihadi? (Which in and of itself is weird. Wth?).
The barbarian way of powering up seems to be only similar, insofar as that there are techniques, which bolster all members of a group that join in in group actions. See the barbarian raiders joining in the song of their shaman to gain better resistance or dispels against Ling Qi's techniques or even back in FoD during the Jiao test were we saw a giant horde of barbs chanting Ogodei's name to empower him. However, I bet that every single civilization on the planet has some kind of war/army formations of some kind or another. We know that the Argent Sect even specializes in it, e.g.
The jihadi, have that whole suicide attack thing going on and their fusing and "giving up their lives for the greater good" in combination with their usage of centipedes and other creepy crawlies, might mean that they have a hive thing going on. Likely a very heavy focus on the many over the few, at the very least. A bit unlike the whole seeking combat for personal renown as the raiders were described. Communist jihadi launching attacks in order to topple the empire way of live. Fun!
Regarding the ritual spot, I am less convinced, as there seems to be an entire underground society below ES and beyond. Cai Senior is off on her "walk" and count clans hundreds of miles from the sects report troubles popping up. I guess the shaman dude, after seeing his tribe slaughtered and escaping with a ritual book he does not quite understand, went for the first vulnerable mortal settlement he could find. I suppose that the major reason that the attacks are launched from here is that it is still fairly close to the sect proper, while out of the way of all civilians or other settlements. Despite the fact the Ratmen popped in from the sewers, it would be silly to launch the prelude to our genocide campaign from the Ling manor's basement. For one, LQ's mom would FREAK.
While I see no reason for barbarians not using human sacrifices to fuel their spells, I suspect that the major difference is that barbarians are likely to sacrifice prisoners of war, empire or other tribes, primarily. In addition to the usual sacrifices of unneeded/unwanted children, and the old and/or the sick, that is standard for civilizations of that level of development.
I doubt that this kind of formation is a standard thunder crow or even sky barbarian style. Seems to me as if some formations were traded as a sort of cultural Exchange with the jihadi? (Which in and of itself is weird. Wth?).
The barbarian way of powering up seems to be only similar, insofar as that there are techniques, which bolster all members of a group that join in in group actions. See the barbarian raiders joining in the song of their shaman to gain better resistance or dispels against Ling Qi's techniques or even back in FoD during the Jiao test were we saw a giant horde of barbs chanting Ogodei's name to empower him. However, I bet that every single civilization on the planet has some kind of war/army formations of some kind or another. We know that the Argent Sect even specializes in it, e.g.
The jihadi, have that whole suicide attack thing going on and their fusing and "giving up their lives for the greater good" in combination with their usage of centipedes and other creepy crawlies, might mean that they have a hive thing going on. Likely a very heavy focus on the many over the few, at the very least. A bit unlike the whole seeking combat for personal renown as the raiders were described. Communist jihadi launching attacks in order to topple the empire way of live. Fun!
Regarding the ritual spot, I am less convinced, as there seems to be an entire underground society below ES and beyond. Cai Senior is off on her "walk" and count clans hundreds of miles from the sects report troubles popping up. I guess the shaman dude, after seeing his tribe slaughtered and escaping with a ritual book he does not quite understand, went for the first vulnerable mortal settlement he could find. I suppose that the major reason that the attacks are launched from here is that it is still fairly close to the sect proper, while out of the way of all civilians or other settlements. Despite the fact the Ratmen popped in from the sewers, it would be silly to launch the prelude to our genocide campaign from the Ling manor's basement. For one, LQ's mom would FREAK.
- Location
- Boston
@Black Noise , thanks for that really detailed breakdown. As a new reader I followed the gist of what you are saying but a lot of the details go over my head. Still very cool to see all of the thought that goes on behind the scenes to make Ling Qi so awesome. Is there a list of all the abbreviations used? I assume they are all Arts?
Also, I may have missed it in my binge-ing of the story but do we have another Tournament at the end of the year? or are we just using that as a time point to mark our calendar?
Also, I may have missed it in my binge-ing of the story but do we have another Tournament at the end of the year? or are we just using that as a time point to mark our calendar?
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
Relevant abbreviations:
While there's no indication there's a sect-internal tournament for inner sect at the end of the year (turn 13), the outer sect tournament should still be a fairly significant political event, and afterwards we can expect more allies making it into inner sect.
EDIT: the lines I use between turns 9-10 and 14-15 are for expected increases in cultivation stage.
Cultivation:
Songseeker's Ceremony (SSC)
Combat arts:
Frozen Soul Serenade (FSS)
Phantasmagora of Lunar Revelry (PLR)
Laughing Flight of the Wind Thief (LFWT)
Starless Night's Reflection (SNR)
Beast Kings' Savage Dirge (BKSD)
Ephemeral Night's Memory (ENM)
Unstoppable Glaciers March (UGM)
Winter Hearth Resounding (WHR)
Perception/Social:
Roaming Moon's Eye (RME)
Melody of the Spirit Seekers (MoSS)
Moonless Saboteur's Smile (MSS)
Playful Muse's Rapport (PMR)
Songseeker's Ceremony (SSC)
Combat arts:
Frozen Soul Serenade (FSS)
Phantasmagora of Lunar Revelry (PLR)
Laughing Flight of the Wind Thief (LFWT)
Starless Night's Reflection (SNR)
Beast Kings' Savage Dirge (BKSD)
Ephemeral Night's Memory (ENM)
Unstoppable Glaciers March (UGM)
Winter Hearth Resounding (WHR)
Perception/Social:
Roaming Moon's Eye (RME)
Melody of the Spirit Seekers (MoSS)
Moonless Saboteur's Smile (MSS)
Playful Muse's Rapport (PMR)
While there's no indication there's a sect-internal tournament for inner sect at the end of the year (turn 13), the outer sect tournament should still be a fairly significant political event, and afterwards we can expect more allies making it into inner sect.
EDIT: the lines I use between turns 9-10 and 14-15 are for expected increases in cultivation stage.
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- Location
- Boston
Thanks for the clarification! How confident are we that the Duchess will let Cai and us attend for a 2nd year in the inner sect?
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
Considering the inter-sect tournament happens mid-second year and she also expects us to breach ranks 525 (CRX) +5 (LQ) by the end of our second year in inner, fairly high.
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
I mean
it's not just about being confident, cause we are completely sure we're having a 2nd year in inner sect. Also what Black Noise just said
- Location
- Boston
Okay, I originally read that as you will have a 2nd year at the sect (total 1 outer + 1 inner). I now see she was referring to time in inner sect! Glad to hear that the rank >=530 goal is also end of the 2nd year at inner sect, I was starting to get worried about hitting it this year. Thanks for the clarification all!
- Location
- Required Location
That would be pretty much impossible due to the rank 500 cut-off. Noone that has not committed to at least some period of service to the sect may advance past rank 500. this means that the area arround rank 500 is crowded by powerhouses who are strong but whose familes/clans need them to be flexible enough to drop what they are doing and come home. For example, if Gu Xiulan had followed her sister and promised a few years to the sect, her family would not have been able to recall her this easily. Same with CRX and LQ, if Cai Senior wants her daughter and retainers to come home we will drop what we are doing and go to xiangmen. If we were committed to the sect… probably the same but at least with some benefits to give the sect some face.
I wouldn't be suprised if the ranks 505-500 are full of Fortification or Completion stage cultivators and the ranks 499-495 full of foundation/threshold production students.
Have you any favorite ideas about what our personal Art that we're supposed to create far in the future? We can't predict what we'll need that far ahead (pre Green 8) but we can still bounce ideas that says "This is Ling Qi" as much as FSS describes Zeqing.
The Darkness keyword is closest at heart to Ling Qi herself, with its focus on being hidden (safety, loneliness, fear) and hungry (want, ambition, daring) it defines who Ling Qi was before the Sect and who she never deep down stopped being. As an example SCS was always impressive to me because movement to Ling Qi was never about going somewhere specific, instead she was a thief to whom moving stealthily then running and hiding was synonymous with survival. Movement without stealth means violent death, stealth without movement means starving death, and that Art perfectly surmises Ling Qi's past. Ling Qi sees the world as hostile, that is the source of her cultivating Cold. So once she did not need to steal to survive survival became not dying by greater forces in the world. Movement became less about immediate survival and more about freedom and growing in strength, both of which are primarily means to an end rather than the end itself. Her goal then became to hide and gain a defensive strength to protect herself and her wants.
I was thinking of combining this as a defensively aligned ENM replacement. Rather than focusing on memory it'd instead be about escaping the world like in Zeqing's dream, Ling Qi's ability to move liminally and her tendency to mentally wander beyond the reach of mere immortals. The first technique would be something like "The user fades from the world, partially shifting into the Dream. User becomes immaterial and enters stealth. Grants a significant bonus to Stealth and Physical and Spiritual Avoid." Something that both represents the ability to hide and the overlap that has with defense.
Ling Qi is a selfish, greedy girl and she wants to protect what she loves. The second tech would be taking our allies with us and growing stronger from them. "The user possessively embrace their allies with dark mist, partially shifting them out of the material realm through the users own self. Up to five allies gain a significant bonus to Physical Armor and Spiritual Avoid and the user gains a bonus to Physical and Spiritual Armor per ally affected. Each ally increases to cost of the technique." Caring isn't cheep and Ling Qi takes as much from it as she can manage.
We don't know where Ling Qi's attempts with entering the Dream with Sixiang is headed or where it will be in more than a years time. But something that'd be very useful for the role CRX have in store for us would be the ability to discretely travel through the Liminal Realm as a third non combat technique. You can enter the Dream through dreams and mirrors so it'd be a pretty cool mode of travel going between them. By the time we get this Art up and running we're likely to at least be about to leave the Sect and join CRX, which will probably mean more than guard duty at the border. Traveling through the Dream on covert missions on our liege's behalf combines all three of our Moon matrons and our role as CRX's diplomat/spy/infiltrator/etc left hand.
This Art idea isn't necessarily great and could probably do with some more interesting mechanics, but that's the point! Taking something integral and universal to Ling Qi and turning it into a handful of techniques that fit and define her isn't easy. While Yrs probably has a few ideas on how to construct it and quests makes planning for the future utter madness, I feel like I haven't seen much discussion on what we might generally want conceptually in Ling Qi's future.
The Darkness keyword is closest at heart to Ling Qi herself, with its focus on being hidden (safety, loneliness, fear) and hungry (want, ambition, daring) it defines who Ling Qi was before the Sect and who she never deep down stopped being. As an example SCS was always impressive to me because movement to Ling Qi was never about going somewhere specific, instead she was a thief to whom moving stealthily then running and hiding was synonymous with survival. Movement without stealth means violent death, stealth without movement means starving death, and that Art perfectly surmises Ling Qi's past. Ling Qi sees the world as hostile, that is the source of her cultivating Cold. So once she did not need to steal to survive survival became not dying by greater forces in the world. Movement became less about immediate survival and more about freedom and growing in strength, both of which are primarily means to an end rather than the end itself. Her goal then became to hide and gain a defensive strength to protect herself and her wants.
I was thinking of combining this as a defensively aligned ENM replacement. Rather than focusing on memory it'd instead be about escaping the world like in Zeqing's dream, Ling Qi's ability to move liminally and her tendency to mentally wander beyond the reach of mere immortals. The first technique would be something like "The user fades from the world, partially shifting into the Dream. User becomes immaterial and enters stealth. Grants a significant bonus to Stealth and Physical and Spiritual Avoid." Something that both represents the ability to hide and the overlap that has with defense.
Ling Qi is a selfish, greedy girl and she wants to protect what she loves. The second tech would be taking our allies with us and growing stronger from them. "The user possessively embrace their allies with dark mist, partially shifting them out of the material realm through the users own self. Up to five allies gain a significant bonus to Physical Armor and Spiritual Avoid and the user gains a bonus to Physical and Spiritual Armor per ally affected. Each ally increases to cost of the technique." Caring isn't cheep and Ling Qi takes as much from it as she can manage.
We don't know where Ling Qi's attempts with entering the Dream with Sixiang is headed or where it will be in more than a years time. But something that'd be very useful for the role CRX have in store for us would be the ability to discretely travel through the Liminal Realm as a third non combat technique. You can enter the Dream through dreams and mirrors so it'd be a pretty cool mode of travel going between them. By the time we get this Art up and running we're likely to at least be about to leave the Sect and join CRX, which will probably mean more than guard duty at the border. Traveling through the Dream on covert missions on our liege's behalf combines all three of our Moon matrons and our role as CRX's diplomat/spy/infiltrator/etc left hand.
This Art idea isn't necessarily great and could probably do with some more interesting mechanics, but that's the point! Taking something integral and universal to Ling Qi and turning it into a handful of techniques that fit and define her isn't easy. While Yrs probably has a few ideas on how to construct it and quests makes planning for the future utter madness, I feel like I haven't seen much discussion on what we might generally want conceptually in Ling Qi's future.
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DeusExBritannia
Red-White-Black-White
- Location
- Texas
@Black Noise Of the two plans you listed, which do you prefer?
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
- Pronouns
- She/They
Uh, do you mind using a different word to 'jihadi' to describe the ghouls/dwellers/mole-people/whatever? It's a bit of a loaded term to toss around like that, especially since it doesn't really mean what you seem to think it means.
- Location
- United States of America
So, speaking of... peculiar possibilities, how do you think MoSS would work down in the corrupted zones underneath the earth? Like, if we had it equipped and stumbled across another impure antlion thing, would we be able to communicate with it, or this the difference too great for the art to bridge? Would the qi used to activate the art just rile up the thing even more?
- Location
- Florida
I think it depends on how powerful it is and whether or not its a Zerg with no mind but unending hunger for anything it spots as dinner, with the impurity cultivation nonsense they get up to down in the depths. And I'm pretty sure regular Qi would be "meh" to him and not like the little breeze in a bottle Suyin tossed at him reacting with-
OH GOD IM DYING IT BURNS WHY DOES EVERYTHING HURT!?!?!?
I'm not sure if you meant she actually built it but that was Cai Shenhua. She can take shapeshift into a woman but her true form is that giant, ordered city and all it's inhabitants. Though it'd be pretty cool if Ling Qi's future domain looked like a shadowy mist with music hiding dreams that one could walk through.
That'd be pretty cool to build a castle with the Dream too. Ling Qi enters the Liminal Realm and plays music to craft dream rooms, connecting scenes to build a mansion that doesn't have rooms so much as physical concepts with mostly Euclidean space. Building it partially in a non-material realm might pose some issues but it'll make it more suitable for spacial enlargement, making it possible to build the entire thing on Zhengui's back with just an entrance anchored in the physical world.
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
I think it's too early to even speculate properly, by the time that's relevant we'll have done the following:
- Slotted way more insights and advanced our Domain to A rank, maybe S
- Have at least 2 more advanced insights
- Completed a domain Name quest
I think each of those are so big that they'd contextualize the entire decision around them, let alone all of them.
Currently unsure but leaning early water turn because it'll likely let us craft a better fitting FSS+, probably depends on how LQ's relationship with Hanyi and Sixiang progresses.
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