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

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yrsillar said:
Liao Zhu straightened up, his customary good humor twinkling in his eyes. "Father is most honored by his position. But age leeches at his bones he hopes that my eldest sister might be ready to take up the family's mantle soon."

"Physician Liao is truly skilled, but if it is Liao Jiu, then I believe his shoes will be well filled indeed," Cai Renxiang replied diplomatically. Her eyes flicked over to Ruan Shen. "Sir Ruan, it is unlike you to join such operations."

"Ha well, Sister Bian made it clear that I should make myself useful," he chuckled. "It will be an honor to serve with you, Lady Cai."

"It will please me to attain victory at your sides," the heiress replied. "May I ask what matters were being discussed in my absence?"

"Only small personal matters my lady," Ling Qi said. "Ruan Shen and I sometimes discuss musical matters with a few other disciples."

"Is that so?" Cai Renxiang said.

"Junior Sister Ling can be quite insightful in her way," Ruan Shen said lightly.

Cai Renxiang gave Ling Qi a look out of the corner of her eye. "Hm, quite. In any case, I believe we should be taking our places for the orientation meeting."
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I got interested in CRX view of these preperations. Therefore I looked at the other Threads in this Quest. Two higher ranking sect brothers praise Ling Qi infront of CRX. That is unusual. Lady Cai also delberately agreed with LQ being insightful, which few can match.
yrsillar said:
above at or above the Foundation stage
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This sentence could be remade better. Maybe "(...)at or above the Foundation stage(...)"?

yrsillar said:
"The target is thus," Diao Gen continued gesturing at the empty stone between the expeditions three leaders. The flat ground rippled like water, and shapes arose, mountain peaks, valleys and hills, rendered in miniature. The detail of the 'sculpture' was exquisite, tiny trees and plants rendered in darker stone and rivers glittering in crystal. Diao Gen's extended hand pointed to a peak in the center as it finished. It was shorter than the others, as if someone had come along and scooped the top half of the peak away, leaving a cavernous pit. "Earthwound Peak is believed to be a dormant volcano, although it has never erupted in the history of the Empire."

"The obvious implication is incorrect however," Guan Zhi said crisply. "To awaken the mountain would be beyond the abilities of any Cloud tribesman yet recorded. There is some possibility of cooperation with their allies, but we do not believe that to be the purpose of the meeting taking place."
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Cloud nomads gain, according to their scraps of myths we gathered, power from falling stars, which the Elder indicates are currently falling. This caldera, called Earthwound peak, is supposedly a dormant volcano. In this caldera the Shishigui can cast the starstones into the light. Shishigui and Cloud Nomads close to the border hate the Empire and therefore both polities share an enemy in the Celestial Empire.

yrsillar said:
"It will please me to have your participation," Guan Zhi added evenly. Ling Qi met the older girl's eyes, and received a small nod of acknowledgement.
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Guan Zhi remembers Ling Qi and appreciates her actions in the caverns, I reckon.

yrsillar said:
"It is known that before this storm bloomed and made reconnaissance difficult, that members of uninvolved tribes were beginning to move in this direction, if only in small numbers," Guan Zhi said.

"You suspect alliance and confederation," Cai renxiang observed.

"Just so, lady Cai," Diao Gen said. "Although, given the lack of presence from true chieftains, it is unlikely that matters are so advanced yet."
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Members of uninvolved tribes were already moving beforehand. Could this be Winterlady and her husbands faction? I am trying to figure out the endgame of Winterlady, since she and her Faction are the big wildcard in this conflict.
yrsillar said:
So this was also meant to discredit the efforts of the tribes at war with them then, by crushing it early, the Empire would dissuade other tribes from joining the cause.

Still, something about that logic niggled at her.

"It's kinda arrogant and high handed isn't it?" Sixiang observed. "What if these other tribes just get mad instead of scared?"
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Even Ling Qi could sense the terrible set up this early. Wow.
yrsillar said:
"We have said many times that our allies are different, if you-" another, younger barbarian spoke up, his voice hot and irritated. She recognized him, surprisingly enough. She remembered the ozone crackle of lighting, and the taunting song that had almost baited her into chase. There on his red maned horse was the Barbarian singer she had faced in the village. He wore a mask of painted bone, and thick armor of leather and metal studs.

He was silenced as one of his companions raised a clawed hand. Beside him was a shishigui.
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Bardbarian and his faction is allied with the Shishigui. I conclude that Bardbarian is an emissary for the Khan and hopes to use this meeting to convince this cyan to join him and his new conquest of the lowlanders.Note that Bardbarian is irritatet, which means he has been trying to convice the cyan for some time. One would think that a tribe so close to the border would be more interested in some form of payback. The Khan definitely does not have the confidence of this cyan. How wrong am I this time, I wonder?
 
TehChron said:
Lionizing conquest by the means that the Mongols used no matter the culture is uh...no bueno you know
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...I dunno, I'd have thought the "Fun way to figure out who you are as a culture neh?" bit was pretty readably "so that sucked"...


EDIT: also, maybe just me, but whenever someone defines themselves by "not X" I tend to go "man, X must have been a total dick to Y"
 
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World Map
  • Informational
    • I present to you all the past week's worth of effort - nothing less than a fully-realised world map for Forge. Do note that it's an equirectangular projection, so things at the poles appear much larger than their equivalents at the equator.




    Please note that the civilisations on here are not exhaustive, and there are many others around the world not listed.



     
  • Informational
    • Xepheria said:
    I present to you all the past week's worth of effort - nothing less than a fully-realised world map for Forge. Do note that it's an equirectangular projection, so things at the poles appear much larger than their equivalents at the equator.




    Please note that the civilisations on here are not exhaustive, and there are many others around the world not listed.



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    What a beautiful map. Thank you for sharing.
     
    That is so damn cool! Thank you, Xeph!

    Quick rundown of the listed civilizations:
    • Qin: Us
    • Khusan: Name hasn't appeared in either thread. Maybe that's the Hundred Kingdoms of not-India? EDIT: Yep, confirmed as such: the name for the Hundred Princes cultural sphere.
    • Pyrrhos: Greece-esque. From Discord: "pyrrhos is very much mycenean greece in flavor, think achilles and herakles, not alexander"
    • Khem: Egyptish, Pillarmen (see the Xuan interlude from the last thread)
    • Banbar: As yet unmentioned, but from an old WoG: "based off a combination of old ghana and mali and those stone ruins discovered in south central africa way back"
    • Emerald Isle: Mentioned in "Qi, Shen, and Greater Cultivation Theory." Called the Conqueror's Graveyard. No other details. Maybe mythic Ireland?
    • Kasin: As yet unmentioned, but confirmed by Xeph in Discord to be Black Forest-esque, which ties it in to this old WoG:
    Nah, elves only exist obliquely in FoD
    like the Weilu or the cannibals living in FoD's equivalent of the Black Forest
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    • Nildavar: As yet unmentioned, but judging by the name, Scandinavia-ish?
     
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    ...It's so big.

    The entire Celestial Empire is tiny. It isn't even one-third of one continent. To think such a story of epic proportions can cover such a small space... There's so much more to this world we don't see. It's incredible.
     
    ImperatorV said:
    ...It's so big.

    The entire Celestial Empire is tiny. It isn't even one-third of one continent. To think such a story of epic proportions can cover such a small space... There's so much more to this world we don't see. It's incredible.
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    My napkin math was that this world has something like 10 times the surface area as Earth, and Xeph confirmed that he was modeling from around 8x, so that works out.

    Our province -- not even the Empire, just Emerald Seas by its lonesome self -- is about the size of China, nineish million square kilometers.
     
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    Do you guy think there are any not!heros of myth like Hercules alive ?
    I hope the ship argonaut exist a there are a lot of Demi gods on the crew
    I am fan of fgo :V
     
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    Faceless said:
    Do you guy think there are any not!heros of myth like Hercules alive ?
    I hope the ship argonaut exist a there are a lot of Demi gods on the crew
    I am fan of fgo :V
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    I mean, basically any white-level cultivator probably counts, and their equivalents are also likely to.


    By the way, the hurricane-bets on whether that's a temporary event or pernament? because my bets are on "permanent maelstrom full of monsters older then the empire, and likely angry"
    EDIT:
    And given relative sizes, we're talking something the size of the Great Red Spot before thinking about supernatural involvement!
     
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    One thing that I see as interesting is the fault lines around the Grave. They don't actually make full plates. They look more like spiderweb cracks. Like the Phoenix cracked the plate when it exploded.
     
    GlassMask said:
    I trust you on the geography part, but I do question how much real world geography is relevant here. This requires the author to have the knowledge and use it. I'm not sure of how true that is with Yrsillar
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    AbeoLogos said:
    I wouldn't be super surprised if a falling star roused the spirit of a mountain it was smacking into, and the resulting contest made the impact's results wonky from a real world geological perspective. But ultimately we just kind of don't know.
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    I could see how a falling star might do it, but its a lot different from meteoric crater.
    You're looking at a chunk of starstone plowing through rock like its an armor piercing bullet cutting through butter. It'd have to hit a mountain, and then melt through it, leaving a 'clean' tunnel, not one shattered by impact shock, then create an expanding volume of high density liquid somehow, AND have the initial tunnel become clogged somewhere higher up.

    The simplest answer would seem to be a meteor breaching a preexisting and already overpressurized, but trapped by too much solid stone to vent magma chamber. Which is a lot more complicated than a regular old exploding volcano.
    Xepheria said:
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    I'm tickled by the tiny plate in the archipelago rotating.
    Whee~
    Alectai said:
    I don't know how I feel about the Hellstorm apparently being right over Forgeverse Australia.
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    "Stands to reason"
    Neshuakadal said:
    One thing that I see as interesting is the fault lines around the Grave. They don't actually make full plates. They look more like spiderweb cracks. Like the Phoenix cracked the plate when it exploded.
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    Looks like the blast almost outright punched through the plate at the epicenter.
     
    Neshuakadal said:
    One thing that I see as interesting is the fault lines around the Grave. They don't actually make full plates. They look more like spiderweb cracks. Like the Phoenix cracked the plate when it exploded.
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    Huh I'd almost say the the Phoenix cracked the plate intentionally with the goal of making an entirely new spirit as a result, and isolating the fallout from soul qi through doing so, but was neither able to split the plate in half nor isolate the epicenter of their fall.
     
    My take away from these maps.

    Nope Storm go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

    Not!Babylonians go AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

    Tectonic plate goes Owie!
     
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