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

[Valmond]

We aren't forcing her too so that isn't a issue. It will however, probably be something she'll have to address if she ever gets further along her cultivation, as doubtful as that is at the moment, so it's mostly a non-issue.

This all started with the assertion that Ling Qingge's traumas would be a waste of narrative space since the story has a finite amount of focus and words, rather than anything about her autonomy. I still believe it isn't a waste of narrative space if the story ever runs into that direction.

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Please don't put words in other peoples mouths.
Not Ling Qingge's traumas, fate and/or identity of Ling Qi's father.
Not the same thing, even if they may be related.

 

[LucidProp]

Please don't put words in other peoples mouths.
Not Ling Qingge's traumas, fate and/or identity of Ling Qi's father.
Not the same thing, even if they may be related.

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That's, uh, a bit too much of a accusation. I've never put any words into your mouth.

Here's what you said before:

I don't care about the guy, and i'd rather he never becomes relevant to the quest in anyway.

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When i say relevant, i mean, not mentioned, period.
This need to find out makes it relevant.
I find it much better for Ling Qi to not care at all about it, and never bother going out searching.
There is a finite amount of words we get, and i do not wish to waste any on this.

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Your intention here was clear, it isn't enough that he doesn't appear on screen. You'd rather not see any mention of him at all, and you consider his mere existence and thus, any events related to him as a narrative waste.

I suspect Ling Qingge has, in the past 15 years, confronted, resolved, and moved on.
Can Yrs write a compelling story about this? Certainly.
But they can also write a compelling story about something else.

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Here you dismiss that he has had any lasting impact on Ling Qingge's current behavior.

Has the narrative provided hints that Ling Qingge has not done so?
All the behaviours she has shown are consistent with a person who has spent 15 years living as someone powerless surrounded by the powerful, no extra issues from some guy who left her needed.
Her issues with Xuan Shi are easily explained by the fact that Ling Qi is a 15 year old girl.

This is schrodingers trauma, it may or may not exist until such time the story wants to pull it out.

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Here you even doubt that she has any trauma related to the man, calling it non-existant until the narrative needs it which is clearly not the case.

Ling Qingge's traumas is tied to the man's identity. I'm not sure how you could even write anything about Ling Qingge's past or her addressing said past without at least talking about one of the central characters in it.

 

[Random Shinobi]

When i say relevant, i mean, not mentioned, period.
This need to find out makes it relevant.
I find it much better for Ling Qi to not care at all about it, and never bother going out searching.
There is a finite amount of words we get, and i do not wish to waste any on this.

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So... If Biyu were to suddenly die/disappear, you would find it much better for Ling Qi to not care at all about it, and never bother going out searching?

There is a finite amount of words we get, after all, and why would we waste any on that?

 

[Valmond]

So... If Biyu were to suddenly die/disappear, you would find it much better for Ling Qi to not care at all about it, and never bother going out searching?

There is a finite amount of words we get, after all, and why would we waste any on that?

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I am honestly unable to parse how you could see the two in any way equivalent.

 

[Random Shinobi]

I am honestly unable to parse how you could see the two in any war equivalent.

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They are both close relatives, are they not? Or did you mean storywise? Biyu is cute, but she's also a rather boring character due her age. The mystery surrounding Qi!Dad is much more interesting. Even if he turns out to be a deadbeat, I would still like to know the truth.

 

[LittenLeKitten]

So... If Biyu were to suddenly die/disappear, you would find it much better for Ling Qi to not care at all about it, and never bother going out searching?

There is a finite amount of words we get, after all, and why would we waste any on that?

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I don't really care one way or the other about the current argument, but c'mon. This is a terrible example. Biyu is part of our family, and is someone we've resolved to care for and protect. Father dearest has never once been a part of Ling Qi's life, and Ling Qi has never seemed to give a damn about her father in any capacity.

These two things ain't equal.

 

[Valmond]

If people are curious about the mystery of a deadbeat dad, i do not begrudge them that.
I am not, i have zero interest in him, and would rather the words we have be spent on other things.
But claiming that i don't care about Ling Qingge, or i would not favor searching for Biyu, are god damn ludicrous claims.

So with that, i am out of this conversation because i don't see there being anywhere it can really go from here.

 

[JowKeen]

They are both close relatives, are they not? Or did you mean storywise? Biyu is cute, but she's also a rather boring character due her age. The mystery surrounding Qi!Dad is much more interesting. Even if he turns out to be a deadbeat, I would still like to know the truth.

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Ling Qi runs off of the "Chosen Family" model. Blood relatives aren't automatically family, because sometimes people are unsupportive shitbags that only roll around when they need something from you. "blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb" and all that. Screw blood ties. We chose to reconnect with mom and make her part of our Family by choice. Biyu is our family by choice. Pops is a stranger, just like Zhengui's bio parents are strangers to him. If any of them wanna be family, they gotta be chosen for it.

 

[yrsillar]

Under the new system non-cultivation actions are divided into two categories. These categories are Professional and Personal. Professional actions are those which involve the duties of your position as Baroness and Retainer of the Cai. These will typically seek to advance political goals, expand your social power and pursue major projects for yourself or your liege. Because you are Cai Renxiang's retainer, one of your professional options will be locked to a specific action or small set of actions required by her. Professional actions will be the primary source of Questlines and the advancement thereof.

Personal Actions on the other hand are as named personal projects. Investigations into your own matters, interacting with friends and aquaintances outside of professional contexts, etc. Personal projects also include Exploration and Investigation actions. These actions will be tagged. Exploration actions are spent surveying a selected area for sites of interest or for further exploring sites already found. Investigation actions are for studying treasures or specific things, typically in search of cultivation aid or insights into arts

Exploration and Investigation actions will often be part of other personal actions to give them interaction with other characters. Some however will be blank and you may be able to vote to include characters from a curated list.

Exploration and Investigation actions will include a d100 roll without a DC to decide the outcome of the action. Higher numbers will result in more thorough and rewarding results. Some explorations or investigations may take multiple actions to complete.

The final aspect of personal actions to consider is synergy. Often personal actions will state that they synergize with a professional action. This means that choosing both in your turn plan will improve the results of the professional action in various ways.

For the tutorial period, exploration and investigation are locked since this arc only covers the tournament. The number of Personal and Professional actions you will have in a given turn will vary based on the length it covers and any other obligations taking place in that period.


For the purposes of this Tutorial you will have four professional actions(1 retainer locked), and two personal Actions.


Professional Actions

• Wang Clan Solutions: You have many reasons to pursue strong connections with the Wang Clan. Their knowledge of the Wall and its environs, their proximity to your project and eventual lands, and even their dependable reputation. You have already made a connection here and now it is time to leverage that. Begins the Mountain Halls Quest line. Advances the Old Road/New Road Quest. Chance of Raising Wang Clan reputation.
• Meng Clan Inroads: You have at least gotten the attention and approval of one faction of the isolationist Meng clan. However there is much you do not know of them and where your sponsors stand in their clan. It is time to gather more intelligence, you can't fight on a battlefield you cannot see. Begins the Labyrinth Lords Quest Line. Reveals reputation and faction composition of the Meng. Chance of Raising reputation with ??? Meng faction.
• Luo Clan Herding: Your experiences with the Luo clan have been mixed, but you can hardly ignore them. They do not dislike you, and so it is only sensible to gauge how far they may support your actions. Begins the Houndmasters Questline. Updates faction information with the Luo. Chance to acquire a new Luo contact.
• Diao Clan conciliation: You have earned some minor ire with the counts of the central Emerald Seas, they took the implied connection to foreigners and the older people of the Emerald Seas as an insult. See if it is possible to sooth some feelings and shore up your reputations. Begins Garden of Sinners Questline. Reveals faction information on the Diao. Stabilizes reputation at current level
• Jia Clan Discovery: The Jia have rarely entered their mind, their lands and interests far from yours. You know only the most basic of information about them. Investigate and establish where they stand. Begins the Heavenly Bureaucracy Questline. Reveals faction information of the Jia. Chance of raising Jia Clan reputation
• Bao Clan Welcome: The Bao have been very supportive in general, and very generous with their offers. You do not know if you will seek to deepen your connection to the idiosyncratic clan of traders and craftsmen, but you do wish to know more of them. Begins the Glittering Halls Questline. Reveals faction information of the Bao. Chance to acquire resources for future projects.

Retainer Action

• Attend to the Cai: Your liege has meetings with the Bai delegation and her own mother's traveling court ahead, attend to and support her in navigating it all. Characters: Cai Renxiang, gan Guangli, Bai Meizhen, Xiao Fen, Cai Shenhua

Personal Actions

• The Craftsmen's Tourney: You don't have much interest in this competition yourself, but you know Li Suyin does, and you have not had a chance to spend time with your friend in too long. Settle in relax for a moment and just enjoy some time with your friends Characters: Li Suyin, Su Ling, Sixiang, Bao Qingling. Synergizes with Diao Clan Conciliation
• Boulders and Bluster: Wang Chao and the others in your little training group might not be friends precisely, but you've grown a little fond of them. Spend some of your free time at the tournament following up with some of them and their families. You could take this opportunity to introduce Xuan Shi too, he needs every good contact he can get. Characters: Wang Chao, Luo Zhong, Xuan Shi, Zhengui. Synergizes with Wang Clan Solutions
• Diamonds and the Rough: You have not often seen bao Qian really at work, your curious to see what he is like, what masks he wears with other people about. Plus, hanyi needs to promote herself and this gathering is quite the chance. You'llpull Yu Nuan along too, if she wants into the Ling then she needs to deal with this kind of thing too. Characters: Bao Qian, Hanyi, Yu Nuan. Synergizes with Bao Clan Welcome.
• Travelers Corner: It seems Meng Dan is among the visitors, you find him deep in discussion with Xia Lin and another face you have not seen in some time. Liao Zhu is back on his feet it seems,nothing seems to keep your Senior Brother down. Characters: Meng Dan, Liao Zhu, Xia Lin. Synergizes with Meng Clan inroads

So with the menu above, votes on the turns action should be structured like this. In the vote plans please just use the bolded title of the action rather than the full blurb. Since there is only one retainer action for the tutorial you don't need to vote on that.

[]Plan Name
-[] Professional
-[] Professional
-[] Professional
-[] Personal
-[] Personal

 

[Aranfan]

I want the crafters tournament. THere has not been enough Li suyin lately.

 

[EternalObserver]

Well, this is an interesting mechanic

 

[glyph]

For the professional actions, I definitely want to do the Diao Action. "Stabilizes reputation" seems to imply that it's gonna go down otherwise. I also like the Craftmen's Tourney personal action which synergizes nicely.
I also want to do the Wang Clan Solutions to advance our Road quest. Maybe Bao clan to round it out?

So my preferred plan right now is something like:

[] Plan Smoothing Waves
- [] Wang Clan Solutions
- [] Diao Clan conciliation
- [] Bao Clan Welcome
- [] The Craftsmen's Tourney
- [] Boulders and Bluster

 

[Ayashi]

Out of curiosity:
-where does cultivation falls in, personal actions?
-at the risk of appearing as a workaholic (again), can we spend personal action(s) on a professional project?

 

[Aylor_Aivo]

This bit seems to be phrased poorly to me:

For the purposes of this Tutorial you will have three professional actions(1 retainer locked), and two personal Actions.

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I read this first quote as "three actions, one of which is locked"

Since there is only one retainer action for the tutorial you don't need to vote on that.

[]Plan Name
-[] Professional
-[] Professional
-[] Professional
-[] Personal
-[] Personal

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But this second quote is "you don't need to vote for the locked action, just the other 3"

 

[glyph]

Out of curiosity:
-where does cultivation falls in, personal actions?

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As far as I understand, cultivation is separate from social actions.

-at the risk of appearing as a workaholic (again), can we spend personal action(s) on a professional project?

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Oh, please, no. We already don't have enough control over how and when we see our friends. This mechanic update fixes that, and I don't want to water that down by introducing a forced compromise between work and personal actions again.

 

[EternalObserver]

I agree with @glyph with his plan, either that or Meng replaced with Bao as a plan

[] Plan Smoothing Waves
- [] Wang Clan Solutions
- [] Diao Clan conciliation
- [] Bao Clan Welcome
- [] The Craftsmen's Tourney
- [] Boulders and Bluster

[] Plan Misty Connections
- [] Wang Clan Solutions
- [] Diao Clan conciliation
- [] Meng Clan Inroads
- [] The Craftsmen's Tourney
- [] Boulders and Bluster

 

[CatOnTheWeb]

Out of curiosity:
-where does cultivation falls in, personal actions?
-at the risk of appearing as a workaholic (again), can we spend personal action(s) on a professional project?

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They very first sentence is that these are non-cultivation actions.

 

[Kai Merah]

-Boulders and Bluster

I really want to do this one. Xuan Shi needs more friends, especially with that nightmare whispering in his ear.

 

[DragonWyrm]

I am interested in the crafting tournament, but Boulders and Blusters sounds good too. But we haven't seen senior brother in a while either.

For professional actions.
I feel we should at the very least do Diao.

For others I am not sure.
The isolationist Meng sound interesting. Especially since it has ???.
We probably should talk with the Jia. Because of Bureaucracy quest (we did vote for getting justice through bureaucracy).
Wang are near us so it's best to build on that relationship.
Lou, did we already adopt the rock girl into ou family? If we didn't it may be better to wait for nus to have her (spirit beast companion). Probably not.
Bao. They seem to like us and we do need traders.

 

[EternalObserver]

ngl I really really want to get that Luo professional action, but there's just so many stuff to do and so little time

 

[Remake]

Do we have a Moratorium?

 

[NoxOfUmbra]

[] Plan Stabilizing foundations
-[] Wang Clan Solutions
-[] Diao Clan conciliation
-[] Meng Clan Inroads
-[] The Craftsmen's Tourney
-[]Travelers Corner

[] Plan Misty Connections

 

[EternalObserver]

Do we have a Moratorium?

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2 hour moratorium

 

[JohnnieBoy123]

[] Jeweler's Turn
- [] Wang Clan Solutions
- [] Diao Clan conciliation
- [] Bao Clan Welcome
- [] The Craftsmen's Tourney
- [] Diamonds and the Rough


[] Jeweler's Turn w/Meng
- [] Wang Clan Solutions
- [] Diao Clan conciliation
- [] Meng Clan Inroads
- [] The Craftsmen's Tourney
- [] Diamonds and the Rough

 

[ElizatronicWarfa]

[X] Plan Rock & Stone
-[X] Wang Clan Solutions
-[X] Diao Clan conciliation
-[X] Bao Clan Welcome
-[X] The Craftsmen's Tourney
-[X] Diamonds and the Rough

We should capitalise on the gains we have already, but also balance it with bandaging bleeding wounds. Trying to please everyone will get us nowhere - once half the province thinks we're hot shit, we can at least stabilise the rest - but we need to make sure we don't lose any clans in the meantime.
As far as personal actions go, the Craftsmen's Tourney both shores up our important Diao time-buying action and lets us see more of Li Suyin and Bao Quingling - who are fantastic characters to read about. Diamonds and the Rough may even let us deepen our bond with Hanyi, or at least work on our relationship with her.