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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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That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die

This thing is waking up when it should be dead in a time stop prison dream realm
 
Hmm... I think I would have voted for this insight if it was more about general reality rather than self. A bit post-modernist with the idea that the real is composed of a million, billion stories that sentients tell themselves and others at every moment of their life. We are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee. It could tie in well with LQ's connection to Dream and the liminal. ENM's insight references only the self though, so I can't see myself voting for it.

For e.g. I think I could vote for an insight that said something similar to this: "The self is a story, and memory the teller of tales, and everyone has a story to tell."

Spitballing here, perhaps we could get or make an Art in the future that would be a something like ENM but with more themes of connections or storytelling?
 
Asael said:
The weilu bones have shown zero signs of hostility. Why are people jumping to the conclusion that it's bemusement is sinister?
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You're not seeing ominous foreshadowing from the description itself? Also the high level Weilu dude we met from the Bloody Moon Dream wasn't exactly the nicest guy.
 
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Lena27 said:
Edgier than the Prism-level creature of Darkness we met then? You really do have a high opinion of her then.
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Power has nothing to do with it. It's about aesthetics.

LQ is a smoky black shadow festooned in silver eyes, stutter stepping around a thick fog filled with bony, toothy horrors. A fog that it is all to easy to get lost in forever. She even has her own horror movie background music.

The other is a shadowy skeleton that makes flowers bloom.

There isn't really any indication the bag of bones is hostile. Really, his theme is more unrested forest god.
 
Asael said:
Power has nothing to do with it. It's about aesthetics.

LQ is a smoky black shadow festooned in silver eyes, stutter stepping around a thick fog filled with bony, toothy horrors. A fog that it is all to easy to get lost in forever. She even has her own horror movie background music.

The other is a shadowy skeleton that makes flowers bloom.

There isn't really any indication the bag of bones is hostile. Really, his theme is more unrested forest god.
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yrsillar said:
Towering over her, tall enough to look down upon any human. He was nonetheless slender and androgynous, similar to Sixiang's briefly held flesh and blood form in a way. Long, luxurious black hair tumbled down past his shoulders, loose and wild, kept from his face by curving, branched horns like a stags, which rose from his temples.

He wore a an emerald robe of many layers, that draped his form and rippled in the suddenly chill wind. Despite those trapping's of humanity though, there was something off. Even considering the billowy robe, the motion she could see of his legs beneath it was… wrong and his footfalls were more like the sound of hooves than any human feet. His handsome features and dark eyes seemed perfect, but the lines of it were subtly off, like a mask that did not fit quite right. The burning viridian light of his pupils reminded her unsettlingly of Cai Shenhua.

That was not even to mention his entourage. In his wake, trees writhed, nightmarish faces forming and disappearing in the lines of the dark, and the shadows seethed with hungry eyes that gleamed in the night. She saw predator and prey alike among the unnatural darkness, shadowed even to her gaze. Wolves stalked amidst stags, and the earth writhed with vermin under the hungry eyes of raptors perched in living branches. Behind him stretched a vast swarm of beasts, more than she could ever name. Yet there was something unreal about it, the vast menagerie, the forest made manifest, was eerily quiet and dim, and remained behind him, as if it were only his shadow.
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Ehhh...Don't think you're really doing the guy justice, tbf.
 
Asael said:
The weilu bones have shown zero signs of hostility. Why are people jumping to the conclusion that it's bemusement is sinister?
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IIRC, that's because it's sitting on a throne surrounded by a barrier of twisted time and space, with a viridian spear in its chest, black flowers sprouting from its body, dozens or hundreds of bones lying at its feet, in the middle of a lake of pure death qi, and leaking a black fluid that drains into the lake.

If that doesn't say "a very bad dude dealt a grievous wound and sealed away for eternity" then I don't know what does.
 
Jensaarai said:
IIRC, that's because it's sitting on a throne surrounded by a barrier of twisted time and space, with a viridian spear in its chest, black flowers sprouting from its body, dozens or hundreds of bones lying at its feet, in the middle of a lake of pure death qi, and leaking a black fluid that drains into the lake.

If that doesn't say "a very bad dude dealt a grievous wound and sealed away for eternity" then I don't know what does.
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Actually, in's story, it sounds like that's typical for a Weilu tomb.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Killer_Whale on Jul 3, 2020 at 11:41 PM, finished with 207 posts and 89 votes.
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Asael said:
Actually, in's story, it sounds like that's typical for a Weilu tomb.
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Ooh, that sounds interesting. Do you have a quote for that?

Also, here's the segment I was talking about. Got a couple things wrong, but I just want to continue to completely nerd out about how cool this weird skeleton is.
yrsillar said:
The tunnel she had crept down came to an end at the shore of a lake of viscous black fluid. It wasn't water, Ling Qi was sure enough of that. It was utterly opaque, and glimmered strangely under the faint light of glowing lichen that coated the ceiling. It formed a wide lake stretching away in both directions. Several meters away, an island of stone rose from the black muck. It was littered with bones, carpeting the ground such that there was nothing visible beneath the yellowed carpet of human remains.

She thought they were human anyway, the skulls visible seemed strangely shaped. They didn't hold her attention though. In the center of the island was a single corpse, seated on a twisted throne of rotten wood. Roots and branches speared their way between bones and intertwined with mummified flesh, and black flowers bloomed from empty eye sockets. The corpse was taller than a normal man, even sitting down, and a pair of pronged, branching horns sprouted from its forehead. A glimmering viridian spear taller than Ling Qi, was planted in the rock and bones to its right.

Most importantly, she could see the source of the black liquid. It seeped slowly from beneath the tattered lower of the open chested robe the corpse wore, running sluggishly downhill into the pool. More than anything she saw with her physical sight though, what Ling Qi could feel through her spiritual senses brought her up short. The fluid was liquid darkness, purer than the qi flowed in her meridians, cloaking her from sight. It was a sucking, hungry void drinking in even the simple qi of air and rock. The island beyond though… she couldn't look at it for long. The fractal web of twisted energies she saw there made her head pound after only a few seconds of viewing.

Looking away from it, however, drew Ling Qi's attention to something rather newer, a shining plaque of steel laid into the floor just a short distance from the shore of the 'lake'

Alone, even the strongest foundation crumbles.

Brave Disciple, treasures lie in the darkness, yet beyond lies only death.

Know thy limits, and let not greed be your end.

Ling Qi couldn't help but smile, it seemed even a place like this was known to the Sect. The small part of her excited by the discovery of something new was a little disappointed, but she supposed it was silly to expect the Sect not to know of any major sites on their land. They probably exploited it for treasure materials themselves, and by discovering it, she earned the right to take a few. Still, she couldn't help but wonder. Crouching down, Ling Qi picked up a stone, and gently tossed it across the lake.

The moment it crossed into the broken field of qi that covered the island, the stone exploded into powder. No, more accurately, it aged. In the fraction of a second that she had to watch it, she had seen pockmarks and cracks forming at impossible speed across the rock.

Which left the lake she supposed, as the plaque said. Expressing from her ring a small tree branch she had taken from outside for just this kind of purpose, she prodded at the liquid, and noted the way that the bark came away withered and gray. As she thought, it drank in Qi and vitality.

She would only get a few tries to grab something out, however… there were signs of where the treasure lay, places where the smooth surface of the liquid was troubled it's flow diverted by objects beneath the surface.

In the end though, all she could do was guess.
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Jensaarai said:
Ooh, that sounds interesting. Do you have a quote for that?

Also, here's the segment I was talking about. Got a couple things wrong, but I just want to continue to completely nerd out about how cool this weird skeleton is.
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When we described it to Meizhen back in the first thread, she pretty much immediately identified it as a Weilu tomb, and said similar tombs dot the province.

I'm not going to go look for it.
 
Asael said:
When we described it to Meizhen back in the first thread, she pretty much immediately identified it as a Weilu tomb, and said similar tombs dot the province.

I'm not going to go look for it.
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Here it is.
yrsillar said:
She still wasn't sure how something so common counted as a noble hobby, but she didn't feel the need to question Meizhen on it either. She was a little disapointed at the other girls lack of reaction when she informed her of what she had found.

"Oh, you've found more treasures then?" Meizhen asked calmly from her seat at the lakeside, her white gown somehow untouched by stains of dirt or grass. She glanced only briefly at Ling Qi as she sat down beside her friend, her own gown billowing around her legs in a faint breeze.

"It's less fun when you don't react you know," Ling Qi replied with a huff.

"I am no longer surprised by your fortune," Bai Meizhen replied. "And you did sound quite certain, when we left the market. As for the rest… I do not find it shocking that the Sect has access to a Weilu tomb, that clan left many ruins."

"Weilu?" Ling Qi asked curiously, glancing at the still lure bobbing in the lake waters. "I came across that name a few times looking around, but the books never explained what that was."

"The Weilu were the rulers of Emerald Seas during the time before the Sage," Meizhen replied. "The Horned Lords of the South. They were also the first of the founding families to fall."

Ling QI frowned, feeling slightly alarmed. "Ah, is that so? I didn't mean to do anything so disrespectful, I assumed the corpse was a barbarian or a spirit..." she was surprised the Sect would so easily allow the defilement of the tomb of such an important figure

"The overwhelming pride and isolationist nature of the Weilu was well known, few were sad to see them fall. I feel no offense, the Bai do not worship the dead the way others do," her friend replied, and Ling Qi boggled at how bad they must have been, for her Bai friend to comment on it. "I presume if the Sect allowed you entry, that there is no crime against propriety."
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I agree that I don't think it's necessarily a bad dude. Just a spooky dude who had enemies. We're a spooky lady who will undoubtedly continue to amass enemies. It might be a bad dude, but I don't think it's a settled issue.
 
Erebeal said:
I disagree? I think you're getting too hung up on an overly restrictive notion of "+avoid" here.

It's more avoid because it removed the attack usage of SCS in favour of damage through dodge.

Similarly, I think the fact that it now incorporates a counter into it makes it quite strong as a dodge, and realistically I don't think that giving it Black Mirror's "can also negate A-ranks" would actually help as much here, as A-rank single targets are probably also perfects.

In contrast, Black Mirror is as much as anything anti-artillery, and A-rank artillery techs probably aren't perfects, because that would be OP and render armies even more irrelevant.
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That just kind of makes it worse. It means Ling Qi can't personally dodge anti-target OR anti-army A rank techs, and implies B rank anti-target techs are a serious risk for her in terms of dodging, while SNR can nope all but the most OP. You're highlighting the problem, not refuting its existence.

Edit: to be clear, the problem is "when does Ling Qi ever use Wind Thief's perfect dodge?". SNR's tech is the same price, and affects a higher grade of tech. If Ling Qi is being personally targeted, she should use Black Mirror because it erases the incoming attack completely, and any allies who happen to be nearby get free bonuses for the turn. If Ling Qi is being targeted as part of a large-scale attack, she should use Black Mirror because it covers all of her allies better and cheaper than Wind Thief + PLR dodging, for more allies, and then gives free bonuses to nearby allies.

The dodge effect which gives bonuses to allies is instead of the personal dodge effect, and only moderately good for a B tech.

C rank damage with zero side effects is a terrible justification for using the dodge unless we're solo fighting someone who isn't a real threat.

Lena27 said:
Aren't you comparing LFWT 2 to SNR 3? I'm not sure if I'm correct but if so, it makes sense that SNR's techs would seem better at this point, no?
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Wind Thief is capped for our current cultivation, a successor art, and nothing I'm talking about changes for its next level, so no.
 
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AbeoLogos said:
That just kind of makes it worse. It means Ling Qi can't personally dodge anti-target OR anti-army A rank techs, and implies B rank anti-target techs are a serious risk for her in terms of dodging, while SNR can nope all but the most OP. You're highlighting the problem, not refuting its existence.
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A B-rank perfect-hit attack should be a serious threat. Why in gods name would you expect otherwise? We may be able to handle it, but we shouldn't be able to lol-nope it at our level (and we will in fact be able to once we get Black Mirror as long as we read the attack correctly anyway).

And an A-rank tankbuster would beat Black Mirror because it's higher level anyway. The "can negate A-ranks" is only actually useful against normal attacks.

(otoh, we should be able to WWS an A-rank tankbuster if it doesn't have any special accuracy anyway, so)
 
Erebeal said:
A B-rank perfect-hit attack should be a serious threat. Why in gods name would you expect otherwise? We may be able to handle it, but we shouldn't be able to lol-nope it at our level (and we will in fact be able to once we get Black Mirror as long as we read the attack correctly anyway).

And an A-rank tankbuster would beat Black Mirror because it's higher level anyway. The "can negate A-ranks" is only actually useful against normal attacks.

(otoh, we should be able to WWS an A-rank tankbuster if it doesn't have any special accuracy anyway, so)
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I added an edit to my post. To the extent that I expect us to be able to nope a perfect B tech, I expect Wind Thief to not be worse at it. That's my whole beef.
 
AbeoLogos said:
I added an edit to my post. To the extent that I expect us to be able to nope a perfect B tech, I expect Wind Thief to not be worse at it. That's my whole beef.
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It's wrong though. From a defensive standpoint, the ideal move is that we use WWS to negate tankbusters, while we use Black Mirror to negate artillery and auto-hit gae-bolgs. WWS's movement is also arguably really good because it allows us to potentially juke more than just the main attack we're dodging.

If you use WWS against auto-hits it just becomes a clash, while Black Mirror on tankbusters is also a clash. Not the end of the world, but not as good as negating entirely.
 
[X] The self is a story, and memory is the teller of tales.

I like this insight, memory is unreliable but it still is an integral part of the story that is I.
 
Erebeal said:
If you use WWS against auto-hits it just becomes a clash, while Black Mirror on tankbusters is also a clash.
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This distinction does not exist as the techs are currently written, in context of the mechanics. Black Mirror is simply better. For everything. A B rank tech that can stop A rank and lower techs is simply not susceptable to being overcome by another B rank tech. The tech even mitigates the effects of S rank techs, for god's sake.

You're confusing how you think it ought to work with how it does work.
 
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