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

[TimEd]

Similarly LQ is absolutely not the sort of person who is the big ticket negotiator for a summit. Rather she's the one reaching out through backchannels to create connections where there publicly shouldn't be any.

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Yes, this. Let us not conflate LQ's needed role overmuch when there are lots of other people who specifically have the diplomatic training for the 'main' event. LQ's value is in the confluence of events that places her in a uniquely valuable position. Definitely not an irreplacable position, but certainly unique.

That uniqueness means we have that "what you make of it" role.

 

[Killer_Whale]

He's honestly in a similar to position to Bao Qian, where there really just isn't any trauma that LQ (or the thread) can latch onto to understand him. Xiulan is similar but she had enough (self) destructive tendencies to provide something.

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Please don't compare the brat Luo Zhong, to Bao Qian who has been a absolute gentleman.

 

[AbeoLogos]

Luo Zhong has a couple problems. The first is that our first impression of him was him behaving like a boor, which is not great. He's a kid and it was partly due to a confluence of really unfortunate events that portrayed him in truly awful light but first impressions matter and he botched his.

The other problem is that the "here's who he truly is" scene revealed that he is a count scion dedicated building up broad connections at school while drawing power and support from his clan and heritage all with the goal of empowering his family. Which is... the default noble scion position? He's honestly in a similar to position to Bao Qian, where there really just isn't any trauma that LQ (or the thread) can latch onto to understand him. Xiulan is similar but she had enough (self) destructive tendencies to provide something.

Compared to the half-barbarian outcast Xuan Shi, the necromancer with impostor syndrome Li Suyin, Justice Fox Su Ling, the [Lonely Royal Serpent] Bai Meizhen, and so on, what's Luo Zhong's hook?

...Yrsillar should make him into a rival. Not an enemy but his approach to politics is completely opposed to ours (not in principles but in method) so we'd be able to prove our convictions. Honestly he'd probably eventually "win" compared to us and end up being in charge of trade between White Sky and Emerald Seas because he would ultimately be far more invested in succeeding there (whereas we are going for a much broader appeal of trying to have them respected as people).

Let's be honest here, LQ is not really interested in money except insofar as she needs it to fulfill her other goals. Political power is generally more useful for her to pursue but its also pretty strictly valued for its utility. When it comes to cultivation, it makes vastly more sense for the Ling to lean on those very strong connections that she has formed rather than a bunch of purely mercantile ones.

Similarly LQ is absolutely not the sort of person who is the big ticket negotiator for a summit. Rather she's the one reaching out through backchannels to create connections where there publicly shouldn't be any.

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The frustrating thing is Ling Qi is on record as not actually disliking the guy. She was explicitly not that put out by the hunting party or the argument she saw at Renxiang's party. Her official internal narrative line on him has been "I dunno". But then she decided to be randomly concerned about something she previously outright wasn't, while deciding to be overtly welcoming of him, for no payoff or reason with no actual goal in mind, for either decision.

I soft don't consider the last scene with Luo Zhong to be canon because Ling Qi's characterization and motivations were completely inconsistent, with none of her decisions making sense in conjunction with any of her other choices in it. There's no narrative that can encapsulate her behaviour consistent with her characterization.

The hook that should have been in play with Luo Zhong was that he's desperate for some kind of Big Thing as an accomplishment he can claim to boost his position in his clan and that's leverage we could have exercised over him. But like half that leverage got blown for no reason in the last scene. He didn't outplay us and we didn't shoot and miss for anything, it was just farted into the wind in a misguided attempt to make him look less of a douche but just made him look like a more powerful douche with more options at his disposal and less excuse for losing his cool.

I'd be perfectly happy to jockey against him in competition as our primary interaction, but the thread overall 100% will not tolerate that as things stand. If that was going to be the outcome, he might as well have been ditched. But the thread chose not to do that, multiple times, and even chose to be overtly accommodating to him. The fact that half-baked senseless antagonism which addressed and resolved nothing is what spilled out of that choice instead is pretty frustrating.

Wires keep getting crossed. Ling Qi is an unreliable narrator and actor. It sucks. It'd suck no matter which characters were involved. Heck, it's arguably the same issue that was happening with Xuan Shi, where we couldn't actually manage to approach him. And that sucked big time.

The thing is we need somebody else in our corner, in a domestic Emerald Seas capacity, for this summit. And we've got zero candidates. Diao Hualing makes no sense because she has an established career, she's kind of inherently not that trustworthy, and the Diao are officially unhappy with our project; Bian Ya joining wouldn't make sense because she's busy with her own political project; there's no line on a Bao rep; there's no line on a Wang rep; there's no line on a Jia rep; we deliberately turned down 2 opportunities to grab a Luo contact that would replace Luo Zhong. And, like, someone with broad Emerald Seas political connections and/or insight is exactly the thing we need/are missing.

I really don't get why there's such dedication to do this thing worse, because that's what it feels like we're pouring all of our effort into at times.

 

[Glau]

Our value in personal political connections are the ones from outside the emerald seas. Let Lady Cai deal with the noble clans and the weeds of their wants and needs: our value is in spreading the neo-weilu aesthetic that lets our lady make peace with the older traditions of the land in a way her mom can't, and in the way we personally facilitated the Bai-Cai bonds that are developing. We've got golden fields and living islands scions that will return our calls in a heartbeat.

So I figure let Rexiang handle the here and now overall. Let us shore up the past and the distant realms.

 

[AbeoLogos]

The Luo are the other Weilu-traditionalist representing clan! That our aesthetic is supposed to pave connections with! At the last year's tournament, we met with a Luo clan uncle dude specifically for that reason. Our neo-Weilu-ness is valuable specifically in its capacity of enabling relations with noble clans.

I'm not all that picky in who else we pick up in a personal capacity, but for us to be able to navigate our side of things there needs to be somebody else. The decision making process of the quest can't function if we're half or three-quarters blind. On a practical level, Ling Qi needs personal stake and awareness of the Emerald Seas side of things, or we can't actually make informed, meaningful, or compelling decisions on the issues that do enter our circle of influence.

It doesn't need to be Luo Zhong. But there's no real reason it shouldn't be, and he checks a large number of really useful boxes here already. It'd be sillyto toss him out now. Especially since, again, we already chose not to do that, multiple times, with essentially the same set of facts about the dude. I don't want us to waste our time for no reason. There's no reason we should waste our time for no reason.

 

[Zithinoth]

The thing is we need somebody else in our corner, in a domestic Emerald Seas capacity, for this summit.

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So my issue with your argument rests on this line here: we already have domestic Emerald Seas support. Cai Shenhua is supporting us here. That's all the backing we really need to get the ball rolling. Now, would buy in from the young comital scions in the Argent Peaks sect at the very start of the project be nice? Yeah, it sure would, and it would make things easier in the short term. But you haven't articulated why they're necessary to the short term success of the summit, and so I remain unconvinced that they are. If the duchess wants it done, it will be done, and she'll give us barely enough support to make it work. If we want more than that, well that's where the comital scions and other allies come in.

Honestly, the lack of options to bring on here feels about right. LQ has been in the inner sect for 14 turns now, and we spent what, 6 turns doing our best to avoid any politics whatsoever and pissing everyone else off, and then 3 or 4 turns dealing with the fallout from that. Of course LQ doesn't have any comital scions that want to stake their future on this project. But we really haven't earned that from any of them. Wang's the closest, but we'd have to marry him to get him in right now, and that's not happening. We'll have to try and pick some up after we have some success to show, and we'll have less support to get this project working in the meantime. Actions and consequences, eh?

 

[AbeoLogos]

So my issue with your argument rests on this line here: we already have domestic Emerald Seas support. Cai Shenhua is supporting us here. That's all the backing we really need to get the ball rolling. Now, would buy in from the young comital scions in the Argent Peaks sect at the very start of the project be nice? Yeah, it sure would, and it would probably make things easier in the long term. But you haven't articulated why they're necessary to the immediate short term success of the summit, and so I remain unconvinced that they are. If the duchess wants it done, it will be done, and she'll give us barely enough support to make it work.

Honestly, the lack of options to bring on here feels about right. LQ has been in the inner sect for 14 turns now, and we spent what, 6 turns doing our best to avoid any politics whatsoever and pissing everyone else off, and then 3 or 4 turns dealing with the fallout from that. Of course LQ doesn't have any comital scions that want to stake their future on this project. Wang is the closest, but we really haven't earned that from any of them. We'll have to try and pick some up later, when it'll cost us more, and we'll have less support to get this project working in the meantime. Actions and consequences, eh?

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Fair, I can be more explicit.

Shenhua isn't really in our corner. She's entertaining our involvement in the project because she has an ideological commitment to giving Renxiang as much rope to hang herself with as she asks for. The Duchess demands excellence, and if we don't deliver it, according to whatever arbitrary standards she chooses to apply that day, she can trivially carve us out of the process and any and all benefits we've worked towards if she finds our performance lacking.

The Duchess isn't a political asset. She's the sword hanging over our head. We need reliable, or at least workable, assets to prevent its swing. We currently are grossly underequipped to navigate the domestic half of the foreign diplomatic summit, which sharply limits the options we have for achievement in the foreign half of the negotiations. The offers, guarantees, and asks we can make are all influenced by the priorities of domestic powers, which we currently only have an elementary understanding of. We need to fill out our roster with people who can communicate those priorities to us in good-faith and advise us on the priorities of the less forthcoming domestic partners.

Shenhua can make the diplomacy work, for various values of "work", but she doesn't need us to do it. The necessity of pulling Emerald Seas political operators into our team is to facilitate personal achievement which justifies our continued favor, and presence, under Shenhua's eye.

 

[Zithinoth]

Fair, I can be more explicit.

Shenhua isn't really in our corner. She's entertaining our involvement in the project because she has an ideological commitment to giving Renxiang as much rope to hang herself with as she asks for. The Duchess demands excellence, and if we don't deliver it, according to whatever arbitrary standards she chooses to apply that day, she can trivially carve us out of the process and any and all benefits we've worked towards if she finds our performance lacking.

The Duchess isn't a political asset. She's the sword hanging over our head. We need reliable, or at least workable, assets to prevent its swing. We currently are grossly underequipped to navigate the domestic half of the foreign diplomatic summit, which sharply limits the options we have for achievement in the foreign half of the negotiations. The offers, guarantees, and asks we can make are all influenced by the priorities of domestic powers, which we currently only have an elementary understanding of. We need to fill out our roster with people who can communicate those priorities to us in good-faith and advise us on the priorities of the less forthcoming domestic partners.

Shenhua can make the diplomacy work, for varies values of "work", but she doesn't need us to do it. The necessity of pulling Emerald Seas political operators into our team is to facilitate personal achievement which justifies our continued favor, and presence, under Shenhua's eye.

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I disagree that Shenhua is solely a liability. She is the duchess, so when we act in her name our words carry some of her weight. That's an asset if we use it well, but you're right about the dangers of that too. And she absolutely will just shuffle us off the A-team if we don't produce results, and that's the reason why we'll need domestic allies in the medium and long term. I imagine the B- and C-teams don't get nearly as much drug funding.

While I think we agree that the sooner we get some domestic allies the better, I remain unconvinced that we must have them by the summit. It would be nice, and if we can grab one (or more) by then I'll vote for it, but I really don't think we'll get the chance. Entirely because of the 9-10 turns of potential networking our political engagement blunder ate up.

 

[AbeoLogos]

I disagree that Shenhua is solely a liability. She is the duchess, so when we act in her name our words carry some of her weight. That's an asset if we use it well, but you're right about the dangers of that too. And she absolutely will just shuffle us off the A-team if we don't produce results, and that's the reason why we'll need domestic allies in the medium and long term. I imagine the B- and C-teams don't get nearly as much drug funding.

While I think we agree that the sooner we get some domestic allies the better, I remain unconvinced that we must have them by the summit. It would be nice, and if we can grab one (or more) by then I'll vote for it, but I really don't think we'll get the chance. Entirely because of the 9-10 turns of potential networking our political engagement blunder ate up.

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I think we're speaking past each other. I'm not looking for a domestic partner in the broader sense of clan-scale politics. I'm looking specifically for an individual agent to act at the scale of the summit itself, who can advise on domestic politics and ideally also act as an intermediary with a Count power. They don't need to represent a commitment from the clan as a whole to our cause.

For example, Meng Dan is a member of a non-ruling clan faction, but he's still useful. The reason he's not sufficient to have in our corner isn't because he can't speak for the ruling Meng faction, it's because the Meng are deliberately politically isolated from other clans, and Meng Dan isn't exactly a socialite build in the first place. His presence still fills out our political knowledge, just not that broadly. Not broadly enough, in my opinion.

Our current main political task is to put together/ready the summit taskforce. Both in the broader sense of everybody who is going and the narrower sense of everybody in our/Renxiang's corner. Right now that's Ling QI, Renxiang, Gan Guangli, Xia Lin, Meizhen's team, Meng Dan, and probably Xuan Shi. None of those is really impressive in terms of Emerald Seas political connections. It's the glaring gap in our roster.

We're going to -or definitely should- be taking actions/projects which prepare for the summit, explicitly. I genuinely don't understand how we can do that and not try to fill out our team. Doesn't make any sense; team-filling is the obvious effort to undertake in summit prep.

Edit: thanks for poking me in the holes of my case, it really helps put together my ideas better, if not more succinctly.

 

[Zithinoth]

I think we're speaking past each other. I'm not looking for a domestic partner in the broader sense of clan-scale politics. I'm looking specifically for an individual agent to act at the scale of the summit itself, who can advise on domestic politics and ideally also act as an intermediary with a Count power. They don't need to represent a commitment from the clan as a whole to our cause.

For example, Meng Dan is a member of a non-ruling clan faction, but he's still useful. The reason he's not sufficient to have in our corner isn't because he can't speak for the ruling Meng faction, it's because the Meng are deliberately politically isolated from other clans, and Meng Dan isn't exactly a socialite build in the first place. His presence still fills out our political knowledge, just not that broadly. Not broadly enough, in my opinion.

Our current main political task is to put together/ready the summit taskforce. Both in the broader sense of everybody who is going and the narrower sense of everybody in our/Renxiang's corner. Right now that's Ling QI, Renxiang, Gan Guangli, Xia Lin, Meizhen's team, Meng Dan, and probably Xuan Shi. None of those is really impressive in terms of Emerald Seas political connections. It's the glaring gap in our roster.

We're going to -or definitely should- be taking actions/projects which prepare for the summit, explicitly. I genuinely don't understand how we can do that and not try to fill out our team. Doesn't make any sense; team-filling is the obvious effort to undertake in summit prep.

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Ok, yeah, that clears things up. Maybe the mandatory retainer action next turn should be to scout out someone for that role. Too bad the thread doesn't like Luo Zhong's untraumatized and honestly fairly well adjusted ass. He would fit the role pretty nicely, and I do kinda like watching him constantly stepping on landmines because he doesn't get how messed up most of the cast is.

 

[Erebeal]

The thing is we need somebody else in our corner, in a domestic Emerald Seas capacity, for this summit. And we've got zero candidates. Diao Hualing makes no sense because she has an established career, she's kind of inherently not that trustworthy, and the Diao are officially unhappy with our project; Bian Ya joining wouldn't make sense because she's busy with her own political project; there's no line on a Bao rep; there's no line on a Wang rep; there's no line on a Jia rep; we deliberately turned down 2 opportunities to grab a Luo contact that would replace Luo Zhong. And, like, someone with broad Emerald Seas political connections and/or insight is exactly the thing we need/are missing.

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I mean, we already have Bao Qian. I assume we haven't had anything else be brought up for the Bao because he's already available as a contact.

Similarly, Wang rep was what Wang Chao's sister was supposed to be being contacted for... but then we got sidetracked by fief stuff so I'm not sure what's going on there.

 

[AbeoLogos]

I mean, we already have Bao Qian. I assume we haven't had anything else be brought up for the Bao because he's already available as a contact.

Similarly, Wang rep was what Wang Chao's sister was supposed to be being contacted for... but then we got sidetracked by fief stuff so I'm not sure what's going on there.

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Yeah, Bao Qian's likely on the basis of being around and wanting to Make His Own Destiny and all that, but in practice there's... issues. Perverse incentives and conflicts of interest, from his courting us. Where do his interests start and end, how much of siding with us on an issue is what the Bao want or what the Bao are investing in that future connection? His distance from the authority and influence of a powerful Count clan that comes from literal distance on the ass-end of the province and his own personal conviction to forge his own way gets pared back to almost nothing. The boundaries get really messy.

It'd shoot our dynamic in the face and rip open a giant can of courtship drama worms. Do we have space to do that any justice, with everything else going on?

 

[Erebeal]

Yeah, Bao Qian's likely on the basis of being around and wanting to Make His Own Destiny and all that, but in practice there's... issues. Perverse incentives and conflicts of interest, from his courting us. Where do his interests start and end, how much of siding with us on an issue is what the Bao want or what the Bao are investing in that future connection? His distance from the authority and influence of a powerful Count clan that comes from literal distance on the ass-end of the province and his own personal conviction to forge his own way gets pared back to almost nothing. The boundaries get really messy.

It'd shoot our dynamic in the face and rip open a giant can of courtship drama worms. Do we have space to do that any justice, with everything else going on?

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Point.

Though, tbf, isn't that the entire point of noble relationships?

 

[AbeoLogos]

Point.

Though, tbf, isn't that the entire point of noble relationships?

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I thought it was magical eugenics.

 

[TheCount]

Idk, that whole directionlessness inregard to Lou Zhong seems pretty human.

He fucked up his first impression, yes, but not to the degree to earn enmity. And he really didn't, as he was ignored until he came to get himself relevant. And did so in a way that, again, didn't really earn enmity, at most annoyance.

Sure it's a story for us, but it seems like a pretty mundane thing that easily happens IRL.

 

[JowKeen]

Here's a question:
is the role about Inward Facing Politics and the ability to meet with a Count tier person a role of Renxiang's Retainers? Or is it someone that will work as a step away from Retainer?

because if Gan Guangli, Ling Qi, Xia Lin and Meng Dan are collectively unequipped for it . . . that's not just a Ling Qi issue at that point. That's a set of retainers made and uplifted that continually reinforce the fact that current inward-facing politics aren't much of a priority for Cai Renxiang at the moment. Honestly, I wonder about that.

 

[Glau]

So, ignoring the boring dude...

I like the idea of our Bao. I'm not sold on him at all as a husband, but I would like to court for a while, and I think he is in an excellent position to tell us who will get rich from any given offers, perhaps be able to put numbers on proposals we can send to clans without representatives. I think our data from the spy master will keep us from making any obvious missteps in terms of not knowing political stances so I'm not worried about that in the short term.

We should actually be in very good shape.

The other thing to consider is our imperial minder. He is not enthusiastic about foreigners, or bringing their culture into the empire, or making the empire the slightest bit 'dependent' on them, or provinces having potential allies against the throne.

I think succeeding too hard will be seen as threatening by him.

 

[JohnnieBoy123]

Here's a question:
is the role about Inward Facing Politics and the ability to meet with a Count tier person a role of Renxiang's Retainers? Or is it someone that will work as a step away from Retainer?

because if Gan Guangli, Ling Qi, Xia Lin and Meng Dan are collectively unequipped for it . . . that's not just a Ling Qi issue at that point. That's a set of retainers made and uplifted that continually reinforce the fact that current inward-facing politics aren't much of a priority for Cai Renxiang at the moment. Honestly, I wonder about that.

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Of the retainers that CRX is accumulating, I feel like Gan is better suited for big obvious political gestures. He's a moral paragon for whom the only real criticism is that he's too principled (and that this gets in the way of his effectiveness at times).

LQ's job is to reach out to the sort of people who wouldn't be comfortable with all that light upon them, who don't really belong in society. She regularly violates societal taboos in empathizing and assisting the people around her. Combined with her general stealthiness and bizarre luck, she'll be able to bring in support from the darnedest places. At the same time she struggles when brought into public light and in conventional social situations.

As CRX's Right and Left Hands respectively, the two of us demonstrate that CRX is fundamentally interested in reaching out to help those around her.

Lets not undersell Gan here, I'm sure he's been having his own reckoning about whether he wants to adopt parts of Koliada's faith into his cultivation and has been gathering his own political allies.

 

[AbeoLogos]

I'm honestly not sure about the politics of Bao Qian advice.

If he's not part of the summit crew, then there's potential conflicts of interest with whatever presence the Bao do have there, if he's giving us advice on the goings on. At worst, we couldn't fully trust what he's telling us. If he is part of the summit crew, then he's suddenly responsible for bigboy Bao interests, in a way that hasn't really been in play with the courtship thing. Which feels like the kind of clan attention and interference he came down to the south to avoid in the first place. Also got the same issue of not necessarily being able to trust his advice tells the full story.

The Bao are a tricky subject on the whole. We absolutely want to get along. But at the same time, Bao interests cover some things which are zero sum games. Because they're tangible products. We're very lucky that we're on the far end of the province from their powerbase, but they've still got heaps of specialists, inter-provincial trade networking, and so on that mean they have a good chance of exploiting resources coming across the border in ways we can't even dream of. The small trade bandwidth we'll be dealing with doesn't help. We need to tread very carefully, it'll be all too easy to slip into accepting graciousness that carves us out of long-term benefit.

 

[Valmond]

Bao Qian wants to marry Ling Qi, and in doing so join the Ling Clan.
Therefore any advice he will provide us will be given in our best interests, as far as Bao Qian understands it, which may not be the same as our understanding.

But that is kinda true of everyone, no advice should be accepted without thought into the viewpoint to advicer has.
Also, Bao are at the moment all in on Emerald Seas, what with the whole "murder to previous head who wanted to leave and march to the god tree" thing.
Every person who joins us should always be assumed to, at some level, be pulling for their clan and family, that's just politics.

 

[AbeoLogos]

What makes the Bao stand out is the distribution of their interests. The border Counts value a non-aggression agreement because it's just good sense when the Cloud Nomads and Ith-Ai are causing headaches. Our cultural appeals to shared past/heritage with the ice folk has attracted attention, good and bad, from some of the Count clans. These are intangible or universal goals that don't "cost" us beyond our specific positions maybe being unpopular with certain factions and the opportunity costs inherent to complex negotiation.

But there's also the prospect of trade goods crisscrossing the borderlands. In pretty tiny trickles at first, and not a substantial flow anytime soon, but still bilateral movement of goods. Here, prioritization and apportionment is much more win/lose/miss out for potential parties. It's also what piques Bao interests the most, while they're a lot more indifferent about the other things in play, because they're far from the border and don't really care about the historical legitimacy debate.

Basically, the Bao are in a position to hold their support in other contested measures in reserve pending agreement to allow their "logistical assistance" or similar ins where they can then bring their greater resources to bear capitalizing on the limited trade stream. They're arguably the clan with the most flex room going into the negotiations, and if they mainly care about one aspect, they have a lot of freedom to leverage that slack towards securing influence in it. But influence in trade is the lunch we want to be eating moving forwards!

Edit: @JohnnieBoy123 made a good point in the Discord that we probably actually want to minimize initial trade agreements at the summit, because that's when our personal leverage is at its absolute weakest. The more developed our fief, and the stronger our cultivation, the easier it is for us to justify a larger slice of the trade pie staying in our hands.

 

[Orkus Majorkus]

Of the retainers that CRX is accumulating, I feel like Gan is better suited for big obvious political gestures. He's a moral paragon for whom the only real criticism is that he's too principled (and that this gets in the way of his effectiveness at times).

LQ's job is to reach out to the sort of people who wouldn't be comfortable with all that light upon them, who don't really belong in society. She regularly violates societal taboos in empathizing and assisting the people around her. Combined with her general stealthiness and bizarre luck, she'll be able to bring in support from the darnedest places. At the same time she struggles when brought into public light and in conventional social situations.

As CRX's Right and Left Hands respectively, the two of us demonstrate that CRX is fundamentally interested in reaching out to help those around her.

Lets not undersell Gan here, I'm sure he's been having his own reckoning about whether he wants to adopt parts of Koliada's faith into his cultivation and has been gathering his own political allies.

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Remember that Renxiang see's Ling Qi's job as her Herald, using her musical talents and apparent whimsy to convey Renxiang's message. I wouldn't cross out Qi's ability to be in the spotlight.

Gan is more her Champion. Similar role but in different spheres.

 

[JohnnieBoy123]

Remember that Renxiang see's Ling Qi's job as her Herald, using her musical talents and apparent whimsy to convey Renxiang's message. I wouldn't cross out Qi's ability to be in the spotlight.

Gan is more her Champion. Similar role but in different spheres.

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We would be a truly shitty Herald/Harbinger. If Renxiang wants someone to shout "Lo, the benevolent heir of the Cai has come!" she should look to Gan.

As you say, herald and champion are similar roles in different spheres. It makes sense to have the same person do both. We would be in charge of reaching out to those who aren't comfortable having a spotlight shone on them or whom Renxiang would prefer people overlook.

People keep thinking of Gan as primarily martial. I think that's a big mistake. Between his Rising Sun cultivation, his emphasis on the pursuit of virtue, and his receiving tutelage in the ways of Koliada, he has so much more going for him than just combat.

 

[AbeoLogos]

Discounting Gan Guangli from a cultural/political role is silly.

But at the same time, Ling Qi's explicitly embarked on a cultural project that she is, in many ways, the face of. She's got the absolute paper-thin-iest cover in Renxiang at the moment, but that's it. Our speech to the Xiangmen throne room is part of it. Hanyi's performances are part of it. We are very overt in this.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

We just really need LQ to be a really diligent letter writer (It even should receive bonuses from Community and Isolation because you're attempting to build a community while isolated from the people you're building community with). It might be worth to see if CRX makes use of an art for speed writing and score it for ourselves/make a letter writing art for our clan.

She's made enough friends that if she writes letters to them, for letter introductions to other important people, that she'll get insight into news and politics around the province. This is, in effect, a low risk spy and propaganda network. That she already got a major boost in due to Snek!Not!Snek Dad. And some of the people she can pass on to CRX.

Have Ling Qingee be a letter writer for low end mortal and average cultivator assets, like regular merchants. She'd probably even like it. You can give her the old Hui brush too. Being separated like we are, and the fact that Ling Qingee is our head of household who has to recruit more of the household itself and we're literally building our fief, it's a perfect set up. That's at least a few decades of establishing contacts.

Leverage the gossip network. Input news+rumours, output political+economic analysis.

Isn't that what the Diao faction wanted? I mean it goes both ways. We should definitely leverage it for insight into the Diao clan, and convince them to at least spread tolerance of a Weilu-Imperial mix as a cultural identity.

We're already working on that part via vote, though.

And then when LQ can be spared from the fief to go on tour with Hanyi or as herself, she makes more letter friends. So when CRX (or LQ) goes and does something in the rest of the province and parts of the Empire, LQ already has letter friends on site.

All of this lets us be a low risk spymaster with only a slight emphasis from us/LQ. Perfect for a Green-Cyan Cultivator who is founding a Clan. It's utterly normal, perfectly deniable as an intelligence operation, and even good sense for a brand new clan to build contacts and make friends.

Of course, spooky teacher spook will hopefully teach us more spymaster-y stuff, and maybe the not so nice wetworks stuff.