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

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Basically it's between the last two options I feel

The second one is the most tempting, because as long as we succeed we get to have our cake and eat it too. Pretty standard, boosts our reputation, makes hanyi happy, etc.

The third one is weird, because it's an auto success with a mystery consequence. It probably heavily hinges on why the spirit was left out, because there's a boatload of things it could be from. The priesthood might not like Ling Qi muscling in on their turf, Ling Qi might be being tested, their might be sabotage, who knows.
 
adaer said:
If the person sabotaging things isn't clergy, then they may be trying to drive a wedge between us and them. Since I'm similarly torn between the last two options, that's enough reason for me to try to not pick an enemy yet.
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The clergy has to put up with the long term consequences of this problem, as well as take a reputation hit because if they hadn't agreed to take our help in the first place it wouldn't have happened. It is almost certainly not them, but one of the barons or possibly an agent of the viscount clan instead. They would have sources inside the clergy, and they don't necessarily take any political flak nor actual financial losses from this shitshow.
 
And here we see the first consequences of those negative reputations we've been cultivating. There will doubtless be more, and even more if we fail here (or take the third option, but that I'm counting that as a failure because the goal here is to improve relations, not make even more people inclined to sabotage us in the future.)

[] Learn the missing piece yourself and take part in the performance (80% Success. Improved relationship with Clergy on success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Reduced benefits for Hanyi's reputation. Annoyed Hanyi)

Best chance of success, at the cost of being a helicopter parent. Success means positively-inclined clergy helping us find the saboteur. The option to pick if your primary concern is denying the saboteur a victory.

[] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)

Still help, but be hands-off about it. More of a gamble, but the best of all worlds on success.

[] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

Impose your will on your own, heedless of consequences. 100% chance of short-term success for us, 100% chance of long-term success for the saboteur, since the priesthood will be both inclined and able to blame us for everything that goes wrong and we'll have alienated our natural allies at spirit relations. Hard pass.
 
And it begins. Politics is coming.

I'm inclined to go for the 2nd choice, because no way in heck am I ruining this for Hanyi. Even on a failure, I'd still see it as worth it to give Hanyi the experience of dealing with a pressure situation without actually doing much harm to Family.

Hanyi having a character moment is worth the hassle of failure to my eyes.
 
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)

Gonna X this up when moratorium ends, because, fuck it, we promised our family we would rely on them more and not try to do everything ourself. Even if Hanyi fails, we will have trusted her and that will matter to her.

(Also, I fundamentally don't care enough about the negative consequences of failure to hold Hanyi back for their sake. We'll have opportunities to salvage things with these people, Everything is not Ruined Forever.)
 
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picklepikkl said:
[] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)

Gonna X this up when moratorium ends, because, fuck it, we promised our family we would rely on them more and not try to do everything ourself. Even if Hanyi fails, we will have trusted her and that will matter to her.

(Also, I fundamentally don't care enough about the negative consequences of failure to hold Hanyi back for their sake. We'll have opportunities to salvage things with these people, Everything is not Ruined Forever.)
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You bring up a good point. We said we would trust them, let's trust them.

Failure is a learning experience and not a disaster. This isn't Xiangman's court.
 
I don't like 1 because even if it succeeds we have Hanyi mad at us and it just plunges us back into another round of everyone saying (reasonably) that Ling Qi doesn't trust other people to handle responsibility. 3 just seems... reckless and plays into the hands of whoever is manipulating us. 2 if we fail I just honestly don't even care that much to be completely honest. We can do digging into the cause of what happened and other damage control later if we fail.
 
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[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
 
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
 
interesting that there's no option to begin an investigation immediately. Instead we're orienting ourselves in the immediate term around Hanyi, which is nice! I like that <3

note that while we have reduced Nobles opinion on any failure, we only have reduced Clergy opinion in the last option. The Nobles may not mind.
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one of the things Su Ling has pointed out about us is that we really don't care for the smallfolk.
The issue, as described, is "I will not have my charge's fields flooded because the pride of the spirit of the Seven Hills Stream has been trampled upon."

sounds to me as if this woman has already had her pride trampled on, by us waltzing in and attempting to increase the prosperity of the lands under her charge in a new and untested manner, in a way that will likely not increase her fame if it succeeds but be on her head if it fails.

the question then is whether she would be willing to risk her charges (and the consequences of flooding) for the sake of spiting us?
or one of the nobles with darker feelings shifting some words around a page as it passes through their lands

we've been caught flat footed. We haven't built a research base about the situation on the ground here (and didn't see the need to) and it turns out enemies of our way of doing things have decided to tamper with us
and even then they have an, at best, 40% chance to succeed. Unless they want us to have a bad relationship with the clergy, in which the last option would guarantee their success.

[] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)

it seems we'll be active in this region for some time, given how we've seen a vision of the Bleeding Mountain and have gained a Black Lotus Idol as well as that flowering Weilu in the Shattered Gaol
whoever tampered with this has gotten their first shot in, and we either 60% no sell it while getting Hanyi more bonuses or it succeeds and we have to repair the damage done.

Going forward it seems we should expect some tampering. How interesting.
 
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[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
 
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)

Haven't been convinced enough by option 3. Let's see if Luck Qi strikes again
 
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)

I think we need to talk to Bao, he is the one setting things up, so mixup like this is partially on him.
I don't blame him, as such, but he probably wants to start digging into this himself.
 
[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

We are literally playing with peoples lives here. Either do it properly or just don't. Result of failure is not bad performance, it's flood, possible deaths and certain starvation (even if helped) of affected families.
 
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
 
[X] Learn the missing piece yourself and take part in the performance (80% Success. Improved relationship with Clergy on success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Reduced benefits for Hanyi's reputation. Annoyed Hanyi)

[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
 
al103 said:
[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)

We are literally playing with peoples lives here. Either do it properly or just don't. Result of failure is not bad performance, it's flood, possible deaths and certain starvation (even if helped) of affected families.
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I don't think this is the only chance to placate the steam that this clergy have. Even if Hanyi does fail I doubt they will throw up their hands and call it a day. Saying we are playing with people's lives feels overblown.
 
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)

[X] Learn the missing piece yourself and take part in the performance (80% Success. Improved relationship with Clergy on success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Reduced benefits for Hanyi's reputation. Annoyed Hanyi)
 
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[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
 
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)

Well here is to hoping the good fortune Ling Qi has by reputation rubs off enough on Hanyi for a success, or spectacularly enough to wake a sleeping dragon* who was there for the second great retreat of Winter.

*Look Hanyi is a greedy young lady, and thus an earth dragon would make for an excellent mentor on how to maximize horde acquisition from humans while insuring the risk threshold is low! :V
 
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