BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
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- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Canada
That's why I love terraria different slot for what you look like and the gear you wear for stats.
- Location
- United States of America
I think that there is actually a lot more circumstantial evidence to support the second theory about Weilu Cultivation then what appears at first glance. First, we have Meizhen's cultivation art which is derived from a clan as old, if not older, than the Weilu. Their cultivation art draws qi from large bodies of water which would be a common geological feature in a province named "Thousand Lakes." Given this, it seems likely that other clans who rose to prominence in their respective region would also use prominent geological features to fuel their own cultivation, given the permanence of those features and accessibility to the sites. The Emerald Sea is known for its forests and groves, and we have an old polished defensive art where it's theme is drawing on the strength and vitality of the forest. An art, I might add, which is recognizable to a Weilu at least 12,000 years in the past.
Given that, I find it more likely that the Weilu drew strength from the forest and used that to power their cultivation efforts. This is also supported by the idea that the current forest is a resource that can be denied to the conservative half of the Weilu. If this forest, at this time, is a potent cultivation site for the Weilu, then burning it down would slow down Weilu cultivation in the area for generations. Which is probably more important than simply denying them a nice source of wood.
Also, I don't think that tea was used for cultivation until much later for the Weilu. It's noted that the tea was simply to fortify the body and help prevent diseases, and it's implied there that it wasn't used for cultivation. Which makes me think that it was only until later that the Weilu figured out how to process the qi in a plant in such a way so as to produce cultivation aids from teas.
Hey, Wind is friendly too. Ling Qi's solidly aiming at a pro-social interpretation of the element. She just has to... actually get around to it.
Pfft, wasting feat slots on exp multipliers makes you weaker long-term!
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It's a pretty stinking long curve though, since it would also increase the growth rate of Domain.
Well, I'd kinda want a bit more than that tbh since we already have that FX at low level.
Have we had any kind of IC hint towards the "pass as a mortal" technique?
- Location
- scrabbling
If you mean hiding your cultivation from cursory inspection, along the lines of Heijin or Ruan Shen, it's a stealth art thing.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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- Lickwidget
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Erebeal. Who is Ling Qi biting?
That is one of life's great mysteries.
Could be Renxiang I guess.
Mostly I went with the black haired version because I thought the colour scheme pulled the whole avatar together better there.
I choose to believe it's Xiao Fen.
So, what? We're establishing dominance in the traditional Bai way?
Sure that's a good excuse. I was going to play it off as training, but this is more culturally sensitive and definitely a rationale she can't be mad at us for in any way shape or form.
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The thing where she's visibly inhuman to her mom and her mom muses that Ling Qi hasn't realized yet.
I'd take note that the Weilu are in the completely wrong biome for traditional water and silt intensive agrarian development based on grains cultivated along floodplains. Its heavily forested, and prior to the Bais developing Bronze, there was no practical way to clear land for that. And that early grains were pretty crappy to subsist on, they were pretty tiny and hard to digest.
What they DID have was:
-An abundance of fruit and nut bearing trees, bushes and vines.
-An abundance of foraging animals to convert inedibles into meat.
-Very little 'free' water thats not taken up by the forest, but no arid areas for the same reason, the forest will conserve water within biomass.
So a possible approach for them to start agriculture was:
-Discover fruit or nut bearing trees.
--While previously they'd have harvested and moved on, the cheat was simply to make a deal with the plant's spirit, to help plant more of it and to swear off harming the plant, in exchange for getting larger bounties on a regular, seasonal schedule, which was probably innovated with a Calendar such that theres always some plant providing sufficient food by Tsu.
--Once the system was set up, the 'human allied' tree crops are going to outcompete their rivals unless they made similar deals, functionally dragging the spiritual ecosystem into one that favored those who pacted with the mortals. Think WWI-esque chain of alliances.
--With that, drag the spirits of weather and rivers, etc into the same chain of pacts, in exchange for services rendered, they would provide sun, rain and flood at the right times every year, rather than whenever they feel like it.
Basically, leverage humans as the middleman broker between spirits, using the services of some spirits to pay off others.
This would work fine with a migatory cycle to have the tribes live wherever there was more food that season.
But if you yanked out a plug on some points, like clear cutting trees for land to cultivate more productive crops, you're going to break the pact cycle where by the river floods on the regular as long as you tribute it its favorite fruit every year. A fruit which isn't available anymore because you cleared that grove
...so you dam the river and get it to irrigate the crops on YOUR terms rather than be held hostage by some sulky spirit. Which probably didn't play well with everything else up and down the river as the river's spirits are displeased, but which DID mean that instead of one harvest a year you could manage three.
Alternatively spirit pacts and spirit cores. They're spiritblooded, they can eat cores raw, and the Sun/Moon are patrons sufficient to get to pretty high level cultivation if you can meet their standards.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
What are you talking about? There is only 2 humans Ling Qi has 4 dots relationship with, and you only did two versions of this.
One white haired, one burning with the power of the sun hair.
I imagine it's sort of like flexing, but inside out.
Alright, to get a better overview of things, I threw together a visual timeline of the various dynasties:
You can really see the difference in stability between different provinces. Also highlights the influence of the Weilu - they were ruling Emerald Seas for almost half its history.
You can really see the difference in stability between different provinces. Also highlights the influence of the Weilu - they were ruling Emerald Seas for almost half its history.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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What is immediately apparent as well is that the Weilu disappeared during the 1000 year Interregnum of the Strife of Twin Emperors, but it'd be a silly assumption to say that the strife caused it.Alright, to get a better overview of things, I threw together a visual timeline of the various dynasties:
You can really see the difference in stability between different provinces. Also highlights the influence of the Weilu - they were ruling Emerald Seas for almost half its history.
Given the chaos of the time, I imagine something happened to them that was lost and then voila it was like they "up and disappeared one day". Also one of the first things the Ao dynasty did was seat the Xi in Emerald Seas. Which makes sense given their geography.
Double posting weehaa but need to ask Yrs a question.
@yrsillar is it possible for higher level cultivators to possess other beings? Spirits are described as doing something similar here:
And we know about the contract thing, with what I'm asking about being more conventional possession.
E: and now he should have gotten the tag so I can fuse it.
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Some idle ponderings... I was recently watching this video discussing Dragonball GT, and something he said prompted me to think about FoD. He describes the core theme and appeal of Dragonball as "growth through struggle". It's that intensity of striving against the impossible, to grow and overcome one's limits, that creates much of the emotional draw of the story.
Such themes are of course ubiquitous throughout shounen to varying degrees, and would seem to have significant relevance to xianxia and the story here as well. Anyway, I was pondering over the application of these ideas in the story so far, and my question would be: are they strongly shown in the story?
Certainly Ling Qi showed significant growth over the course of FoD, and that was shown very well. However, thinking about the narrative itself I kind of feel like that sense of struggle and striving was, perhaps, not shown as strongly. Much of the struggle that we as the questers experience is outside the writing itself. The emotional struggles of optimising our cultivation schedule and maintaining that breakneck pace don't necessarily come through in the narrative, and in many ways Ling Qi's growth comes off as kind of easy and handed to her through good luck.
A lot of the cultivation was, of course, also pushed off screen as we progressed. Part of the problem here perhaps the quest structure. From a writing standpoint it wouldn't really work if everything was constant cultivation all the time. It would get boring and lose meaning. At the same time though, without showing the challenges of training, and the work that goes into it, that sense of growth perhaps loses some of its emotional weight. It doesn't feel as much like Ling Qi has overcome great obstacles.
Thoughts?
Such themes are of course ubiquitous throughout shounen to varying degrees, and would seem to have significant relevance to xianxia and the story here as well. Anyway, I was pondering over the application of these ideas in the story so far, and my question would be: are they strongly shown in the story?
Certainly Ling Qi showed significant growth over the course of FoD, and that was shown very well. However, thinking about the narrative itself I kind of feel like that sense of struggle and striving was, perhaps, not shown as strongly. Much of the struggle that we as the questers experience is outside the writing itself. The emotional struggles of optimising our cultivation schedule and maintaining that breakneck pace don't necessarily come through in the narrative, and in many ways Ling Qi's growth comes off as kind of easy and handed to her through good luck.
A lot of the cultivation was, of course, also pushed off screen as we progressed. Part of the problem here perhaps the quest structure. From a writing standpoint it wouldn't really work if everything was constant cultivation all the time. It would get boring and lose meaning. At the same time though, without showing the challenges of training, and the work that goes into it, that sense of growth perhaps loses some of its emotional weight. It doesn't feel as much like Ling Qi has overcome great obstacles.
Thoughts?