Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
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[X] Confident Approach (Base Success 45+, 2 rolls, less time consuming, lower cost.)
I like the idea of Ling Qi going "No worries bro, I'm after WAY bigger prey than anything you have in your larder."
It defrays the thing's personal worry while capitalising on its fear by presenting a confident face that's way too dangerous to tangle with. Just gotta sell it. It even has the advantage of being true.
I like the idea of Ling Qi going "No worries bro, I'm after WAY bigger prey than anything you have in your larder."
It defrays the thing's personal worry while capitalising on its fear by presenting a confident face that's way too dangerous to tangle with. Just gotta sell it. It even has the advantage of being true.
I know this is being nitpicky, but for versimultude's sake
JR should either have given LQ a stink eye on a more generic spiritual level, or not given us an eye at all.
And JR knows this because? And also somehow better than LQ does - picking up a counter to the single dream art LQ has before she even learned of its full dream nature (just last month) that had its dream natures only just trained this month, and that has never been shown?
JR should either have given LQ a stink eye on a more generic spiritual level, or not given us an eye at all.
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Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You were also talking about LQ not knowing about PLR's nature, but I just ascribe that to her relative lack of education. She might not know the etymology of 'phantasmagoria,' or its in-universe equivalent. I figure Ji Rong probably did quite a bit of research in the Archives for various arts and descriptions that matched closely with PLR, and sussed out that it had a Dreaming connection.
I don't exactly remember what happened last month, so you'll probably need to give some quotes or something, but I'm vaguely recalling that the recent development was about the fact that knowledge from PLR could let her physically walk into the Dream.
- Location
- Florida
Well there is Sun Liling, his own teacher a library he's been perusing and a bunch of other things and people we didn't know about that he could've been snooping around in while we were off doin our own thing.
Also he really wants to face punch us for turning his tournament match into dance dance revolution so that's motive if there was any.
As I said, he JR should have given LQ a stink eye on a more generic spiritual level rather than knowing more about her arts before she does.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
The deduction had bothered me at first, but I guess it does make sense that if you use an art with obvious special effects, people are gonna be able to draw conclusions from that if they do some research. "How the hell did she do that" is a really reasonable question to ask under the circumstances; that was our reaction to meeting Dharitri, after all. "Summoning partying spirits to bewilder and distract you is a Dreaming Moon thing" doesn't seem like something that would be hard to figure out.
- Location
- Florida
Ye we also don't know about what our unlearned arts do but chances are good that Meizhan some of the ES Nobles the Heavenly Peak Nobels for Coldstar and maybe asking the around the sect elders if they recognize that Audacious Lark, just do a little digging and your bound to find some good info they can do later down the line.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I don't think it had the Dream element back when we used it on him, which is why I was originally kind of iffy on the "Ji Rong has been developing anti-Dream countermeasures," but then I was like "wait, Meizhen almost certainly didn't have the Poison advanced element back when she was a Yellow, but arts she used definitely involved poison, and it wouldn't have been bullshit for someone to go 'maybe I should figure out how to defend against poison' after seeing e.g. the stunt she did with Loser McDumbass." So even though we didn't have the Dream element for someone to see with a perception art, we were using a Dreaming Moon art in a really obvious way, which changed my mind and made it OK in my book.
The logic of the complaint would be PLR's dancers were not actually Dreams at the time of the tournament, they were just generic-ish illusions. PLR was also virtually inconsequential in the tournament. Yes, we tagged him with it in the end, but the fight was already over. He should have anti-cold countermeasures. Or even anti-formations, since we demonstrated some ability later on in the tournament, and he already had enmity with Xuan Shi. Being prepared for our most esoteric and neglected specialty looks suspicious.
Further, Sixiang's nature has been explicitly non-obvious to the public, and Ling Qi has only had PLR in its "true" form for a couple weeks PLUS she should generally be less obvious to the eyes of others than the norm owing to her stealth mojo.
I think there's legitimate grounds to have misgivings about the specificity and readiness of Ji Rong's apparently targeted countermeasures.
But I think the shape of those misgivings is more along the lines of NPCs being able to coherently pursue objectives or call on their support networks without making large opportunity cost choices with limited available narrative space. And a side order of grumpiness at us apparently still not having our stealth game working.
Edit: put another way, it's frustrating when an NPC has less issue matching an obscure and only recently properly redeveloped specialty of ours than we have matching our own first spirit we've had for forever. We explicitly go to the library looking for something, and it turns into a wishy-washy mess. The fact he can just casually grab things like Dream countermeasures is galling.
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Mmm, not really. The thing is that our tournament run highlighted the importance of being able to deal with spiritual shit, which is a more general issue than specific elements. If he was looking into defending himself from spiritual shenanigans, with moon being a part of that, it wouldn't be surprising if he'd end up having some awareness of dream shit and illusions.
I'd look at this as product of anti-spiritualist training more than anything else I think.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
One thing I would like to point out is that while Ji Rong states his arts shred dreams that doesn't mean that his arts only shred dreams. Ji Rong seems like the kind of guy that enjoys shredding things so getting an art that allows him to shred the immaterial, and dreams just happen to be part of that, seems very in character to him.
That's a bit of a stretch when he calls out dreams specifically. The implication of his phrasing isn't generalist spiritual countermeasures, really. At least not in terms of why he has them in the first place. I'll grant that wild parties in the context of Moon stuff is definitely Dreaming leaning, but that's a weird ass thing to keep in mind for like 8 months and maintain through the art swaps that come with the territory of sect archive arts for niche coverage.
Maybe he picked into something high quality that happens to spank Dreams that's still a part of his loadout, but that seems strange in and of itself.
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- Location
- United States of America
Hmmmm just a throwback but I do remember that luo uncle was able to look at us and sense sixiang in us and immediately reference the dreaming moon. Though obviously he was of a higher cultivation level I'm pretty sure there are easy ways to find out sixiangs nature, let alone the fact that before they were bound sixiang did go gallivanting in the outer sect for a bit causing mischief, enough that the one ma sister wanted to try to get a moon husbando.
It's really not a hard deduction to make that lq=moon , and uses music, I wonder what moon shed be associated with..hmmmm.
Big brains here guys
It's really not a hard deduction to make that lq=moon , and uses music, I wonder what moon shed be associated with..hmmmm.
Big brains here guys
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
The issue here being that PLR used to be more physical illusion bulshit than actually spirit stuff last year, and it was the least of what happened to Ji Rong. Like, I could buy if he had said he was taking anti-illusion measures because that's apparently a thing shamans do (hence Argent Mirror), or even general anti-spiritual damage (because FSS) or debuff.... But pointing out dream in particular, when we didn't even know dream was a big thing until a couple weeks beforehand while Ling Qi had all the reasons to be one who knows it is a thing, is definitely the kind of things that reminds of us "and then X character can do thing the moment they want to and have no trouble getting what they look for" which is impossible for Ling Qi.
It's just off. PLR didn't have dream thing before, and not even in a "At yellow someone who uses poison that's not Meizhen doesn't have poison element" (Meizhen did have it) way, it was in a "PLR was generic physical illusion stuff that wasn't esoteric at all". That, and it not mattering for the fight.
Honestly, I think people are reading far too much in to Ji Rong just being his normal confrontational self. Ling Qi returned and gave her report about the fungus and its dream abilities to the group. He heard and suggested brute forcing it and also took the opportunity to needle Ling Qi a bit. Him referencing dreams specifically is appropriate given they are currently discussing how to get past a dream focused obstacle.
Ling Qi finished him off with PLR in the tournament, and illusions are close enough to dreams that his comment works as a jab at Ling Qi whether or not he knows she can actually use dream qi. Similarly, we have no idea if he can actually shred through dreams despite what he claims. It's completely possible that he's worked on arts to counter illusions, but like us was unaware of techniques using dreams.
Ling Qi finished him off with PLR in the tournament, and illusions are close enough to dreams that his comment works as a jab at Ling Qi whether or not he knows she can actually use dream qi. Similarly, we have no idea if he can actually shred through dreams despite what he claims. It's completely possible that he's worked on arts to counter illusions, but like us was unaware of techniques using dreams.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
The problem is born from the fact that not only is Dreams not synonymous to illusions, Ling Qi didn't finish him off with PLR or illusions in the tournament, really. It was tacked on at the end of the fight in a weird way when the fight was already over.
I can get 'random jabs at Ling Qi are fun', but this was actually strangely specific in a "Ling Qi beat JR using gauntlets, Ji Rong comments on how he has been preparing to fight against Chakrams since then because Ling Qi got a chakram last week" way.
It's just a very frustrating way to retcon what happened as well as instantly make X character prepared for something Ling Qi just got.
- Location
- United Kingdom
We've done the same. In Luo's party we noted that one of the twins was vaguely aligned with the Grinning Moon.
Tbf, they were surprised we could tell, and my reading on that was that the ability to differentiate Moon that finely was probably a mark of LQ's experience with it.
Ling Qi absolutely did finish him off with PLR in the tournament. She wore him down and distracted him, and then at the end trapped him in an illusion he couldn't escape. The fight ended with a full minute of him caught in the revel until it drained the last of his qi. That's the sort of thing which will leave an impression.
Dream doesn't have to be synonymous with Illusion for his comment to make sense. Being trapped in a confusing whirl of illusory dancers has some broad similarities to a dream, and that is enough for it to work as a jab at Ling Qi given their history. They are already discussing dreams because of the fungus, which is why he referenced them specifically.
- Location
- United States of America
Also again for the people in the bacckkkkk
Dreaming moon is associated with MUSICCCCCCCC.
LQs main abilities involve MUSICCCCCCC.
She summoned a dancing party of naked ethereal spirits dancing and shit.
geeeeeeee, I freaking wonder what moon shes associated with, clearly her abilities and aura scream reflecting moon right? Nah its gotta be mother moon.
Dreaming moon is associated with MUSICCCCCCCC.
LQs main abilities involve MUSICCCCCCC.
She summoned a dancing party of naked ethereal spirits dancing and shit.
geeeeeeee, I freaking wonder what moon shes associated with, clearly her abilities and aura scream reflecting moon right? Nah its gotta be mother moon.
About this specifically, we don't know if Ji Rong actually is prepared to deal with dreams. For all we know he, like Ling Qi until recently, is unaware of the difference between illusions and dreams. In that case he would be underestimating the danger and may believe a technique designed for illusions would be able to deal with the dream fungus. We have no evidence of his abilities except for a boast that he could easily handle an enemy that he hasn't even seen.