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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
"It is as you see around you. The three aspects of the sun are the three aspects of men. Joyous, inspirational Koliada, Lord of the dawn, Raging, mercurial Perkunas, the Stormbringer, and the wise, mysterious Crowfather, who walks beyond the Gates.

Gan Guangli grunted in affirmation. "Their Crowfather seems an oddity. None begin devoting themselves to his path. He is a spirit of fall, wisdom, old age and widowers. It seems common for men of their land to outlive their wives, and among their priests, this means making oaths to the Crowfather. They, it seems are trusted to do violence, as they leave their communities to wander, carry news and stories between settlements during the deep winter. They are empowered to hunt demons and outlaws How can one change their way so drastically late in life though?"

These are the info's we got for the Crowfather as of now.

The look definitely fits as a kind of Odin entity, but his way seems to be less of a leader and more a Wiseman/Storyteller/wandering problem solver.

I am kind of exited for LQ to meet him and maybe exchange some stories.
 
The Astronomer is doing his trade proud.
The First Astronomer learned how to Name the stars.
Her successors must keep a close eye on things and update the record for changes.
 
"Those who claim there are things not to be understood have ever been wrong," he said haughtily. "If it exists, then we must comprehend it, and catalog that existence. "
I think Astronomer Wu made himself a friend this day, unknowingly or not.
That guy is heavily inspired by Odin, and Odin is all about "the will to sacrifice/suffer for wisdom/insight/runes".
 
The first stop on the week long tour was the largest venue. Bao Qian had begun by soliciting the barons of the south central valley region, and he had secured agreement from several before his efforts had attracted the attention of Vscount Chao. In this region, so close to the Wall, all but a handful, of families were relatively young. This Viscounty was no different, and its current owners had only held the title for some two hundred years.

"The Springmist Temple," Bao Qian replied. "The second largest temple in the south central valley, it looks after the yearly flooding and the fertility of the valley."

They couldn't expect to be directly supported by the Count clan of the area, the Diao, at least not at first.

Bao Qian rubbed a finger across the text of one of the offending letters. "I had no reason to find it suspect before, but the ink used in the altered letters is different. "The soot in it comes from a specific grove of valley pines."

Like a candy, Hanyi spent a few long moments chewing and rolling it around in her mouth before swallowing. She grinned and the rest of the faeries cowered. "Oh this one's easy. It's from the Green Stone Gleaming, its tangy."

Ling Qi frowned in confusion.

"Mount Tong," Chao Yanlin said. "That would be…"

"In the same viscounty as the pine groves. It is the great quantities of copper in the soil which lends the pine soot its properties after all," Bao Qian said triumphantly. "Our letters would have passed through the Ministry of Communication office in Ganjian, would they not?

Diao Hualing smiled faintly, taking her words with good humor. Sixiang thought her reaction was genuine. "I am an investigator for the ministry of Law in the Central Valley. Your case has come to my attention."

To be honest, I'm not sure why all the focus on The Foundations in the same turn we're really digging into the Long Arm of the Law quest, considering every named point of interest so far has been in the Central Valley. I also checked, and there's no prior mention of this Feixian, so I've got no clue where that's actually supposed to be.

@yrsillar I'm genuinely pretty confused by the geography here and when it is or isn't relevant, stretching back to, well, Hanyi's concert arc that kicked things off. We didn't know what the Central Valley was back then, and now we don't know if the town we're investigating, which we haven't heard of before, is in or out of it.

And it's hard to know when votes even matter? Last time we had this same choice in Hou Zhong's Gift, we went with the Central Valley after a buttload of debate, but the payoff/payout for that choice was slated for the end of the arc-chain. (And apparently we flubbed the roll, so it's nothing) This time the result's hitting, at least in terms of info/fluff, immediately as part of the turn's setup for stuff, so... there's a marked discrepancy in player agency. This choice, now, gets to matter, but that last one kind of really doesn't, it turns out. Even though all the same reasons underpinning the choice are still in play... they won't be serviced because of quirks of pacing.

Plus the distance from all that contextual foundation means weaker discussion for this swing at the subject. Plus, to the extent it is remembered, "we picked that last time" is a heavy selection bias against the Central Valley, even though we didn't receive any of the info we picked it for. Plus we don't really have the present info to determine the relevance to this month's tasks at hand. It's a frustrating headache all around.

We really need to stop getting promised payouts "later" because so much can go wrong/it's so easy to completely flip our direction even in the absence of new information out of sheer inattention. Diao Hualing's scenes have been kind of similar, where we've had two whole scenes(and months) in between launching the Long Arm of the Law quest and actually starting it, which were arguably just padding? And we spent (edit: part of) an action on one of those. The implied immediacy of information turnaround in this vote is a big improvement, doing things right, but in the context of the last go at it... ugh. A headache.

My meta, not directed at yrsillar directly, argument here is that we should actualize the prior -unfulfilled- intent of the prior vote on this topic, now that we will actually be getting the result we wanted, by picking

[X] The Central Valley
 
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To be honest, I'm not sure why all the focus on The Foundations in the same turn we're really digging into the Long Arm of the Law quest, considering every named point of interest so far has been in the Central Valley.

I don't see why these two actions should be connected. The gift is imo a baseline infoset with contacts of various people in areas that are relevant for us. I personally fine it odd that we could even choose information about the same place two times in a row. When the infos are not only for that area. One could argue that the gift just contains that much information and contacts so we can chose were to focus but that does not really add up with us finishing 2/3 now and only getting information's for one area. When we eventually get to 3/3 we should be finished with it. Getting only contacts and information bits about the central valley when we are done would be odd.

Plus, to the extent it is remembered, "we picked that last time" is a heavy selection bias against the Central Valley, even though we didn't receive any of the info we picked it for.

If we choose an option and the result of that option are not specifically stated in those options, we do not pick and option "for" those results since we can't know if the QM is going to give us what we want. We did not know what kind of connections or information we would get when we voted for it.

The last Vote was "Focus your network building effort on the Central Valley (+1 to region rep on completion of the Hou Zhuang's gift project. 50% chance on completion of gaining a +1 rep boost with Thundering Hills or South River Jing region)"

And we got the rep and a connection we could use to get us some nice ministry workers. We got what we voted for or am a missing something here?

We really need to stop getting promised payouts "later" because so much can go wrong/it's so easy to completely flip our direction even in the absence of new information out of sheer inattention.

Yea here I agree with you. There are too many things to keep track of and to many payouts that would be absolutely awesome in any other game or story's but just does not work in this quest. (I'm looking at you Meng favour)

Man writing sound arguments is hard when English is not your first language … they sound so much better before I translated them.
 
This being Hou Zhuang's Gift 2 of 3 actually reminds me of something else I wanted to mention.

Generally, these days we're trying to pick actions that synergize with each other. Partly to add more oomph and detail when we're focusing in one place, but mostly it's an attempt to cut down on narrative bloat by letting one scene cover multiple, related topics. This is a good thing.

We're already doing Hou Zhuang's Gift 2 of 3. So, the next action in the project chain will be the last one, and it's the most focused effort on establishing broad political knowledge/contacts that we have access to. Next turn onwards, we are going to be getting actions that relate directly to making preparations for the peace summit with the White Sky. That's also a good thing, it's a bit overdue at this point.

However, if you look at the political contacts, interests, and networking we have access to, there is essentially no chance of summit prep actions having direct synergy with the Central Valley region. The Diao don't want anything to do with the summit, and we do not have contact with any other interests in the region. This means, following from the premises that a) we have been trying to synergize actions with one another, and b) we will be focusing on summit prep as much as feasible, there is almost no possibility that we will use Hou Zhuang's Gift 3 of 3 to focus on networking in the Central Valley region.

This winds up meaning the region is essentially locked off to us, but critically, annoyingly, it's because we picked it first. Structural elements of the quest mean we won't pick it moving forwards, narrative elements of the new projects we will have mean it won't be a viable option(the Hou Zhuang chain itself is our opportunity to spread out our political networking/the summit doesn't have hooks in the region), and this is entirely because there was a lack of development which could feed into the region's relevance when we picked it the first time.

It's annoying, because it's not like the Central Valley is unimportant to us. It's growing more and more important in the narratives that are developing: Su Ling, our growing Cai rebellion, general quirks and plays with the history and future of Emerald Seas cultural identity, etc. We just can't do anything about it because the specific lineup and order of the choices available to us is going to cause us to shoot ourselves in the foot without even realizing it. It's irritating.

Edit: tl;dr:
Hou Zhuang's Gift is a limited resource for expanding political ties and awareness beyond their relation to tasks flying directly into our face, but because of the way we are trying to compress narrative space it's very unlikely it gets paired with future actions that leave Central Valley as an option. This undermines the value of the flexibility the action chain offers. This also sucks because the narrative attached to our Central Valley choice in the first leg of the chain fell through cracks in the floor, meaning there's even less chance to connect it to anything moving forwards. It's a compounding cycle of bleh.
 
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These are the info's we got for the Crowfather as of now.

The look definitely fits as a kind of Odin entity, but his way seems to be less of a leader and more a Wiseman/Storyteller/wandering problem solver.
Oldest stories about Odin is about him being wandering little shit to people. He and Loki got along very well when they met. So much so that he declared him his blood brother (essentially).

It is pretty interesting how well this guy fits really.
 
We are voting which region we want to focus our exchange of letters with. By doing so we get the general info of the area and befriend people already positively aligned with us. That results in a better standing in that region and maybe some named contact which provides different services or benefits.

Last time we had this same choice in Hou Zhong's Gift, we went with the Central Valley after a buttload of debate, but the payoff/payout for that choice was slated for the end of the arc-chain. (And apparently we flubbed the roll, so it's nothing)

I think there is misunderstanding here. What we failed was the roll to get the bonus rep in the adjacent regions to (Central Valley Thundering Hills or South River Jing). We already got the +1 to Central Valley. Not only that, we got the Ministry School contact, a great asset.

I think the problem is that you see the Gifts actions as "miniadventures", bringing the problem of it needing synergy with others adventures or risking to be diluted. That's not really what the Gift actions are.
In that line, we don't need Gift to synergize with Law. We aren't going to the Central Valley to some gala or to a business meeting. We are going to detain a dude we already have all the information of.

I also don't understand how you conclude that not choosing Central Valley twice in a row means we are giving up that region forever? In any case, Foundations getting to rank 3 will make more likely to choose Central Valley in Gift 3.
Also remember that Hanyi's next turn, as we discussed with Menga Dan's grandmother at the tournament, will be in the southern Meng lands. In other words, in the Foundations. So there is plenty of synergy there.
 
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We are voting which region we want to focus our exchange of letters with. By doing so we get the general info of the area and befriend people already positively aligned with us. That results in a better standing in that region and maybe some named contact which provides different services or benefits.



I think there is misunderstanding here. What we failed was the roll to get the bonus rep in the adjacent regions to (Central Valley Thundering Hills or South River Jing). We already got the +1 to Central Valley. Not only that, we got the Ministry School contact, a great asset.

I think the problem is that you see the Gifts actions as "miniadventures", bringing the problem of it needing synergy with others adventures or risking to be diluted. That's not really what the Gift actions are.
In that line, we don't need Gift to synergize with Law. We aren't going to the Central Valley to some gala or to a business meeting. We are going to detain a dude we already have all the information of.

I also don't understand how you conclude that not choosing Central Valley twice in a row means we are giving up that region forever? In any case, Foundations getting to rank 3 will make more likely to choose Central Valley in Gift 3.
Also remember that Hanyi's next turn, as we discussed with Menga Dan's grandmother at the tournament, will be in the southern Meng lands. In other words, in the Foundations. So there is plenty of synergy there.
I don't really care about the roll. My complaint is that we did not get general info on the Central Valley after the last vote in this project-chain. On a narrative level, the vote didn't develop anything. The mechanical representation of our rep in the region doesn't mean much at all if we have no information on the region and there are no narrative cues or ties available to make that rep +1 relevant. Not introducing or developing narrative on the region is a compounding factor which prevents the introduction or development of narrative on the region.

My view on project synergy is based on how voters act. Members of the thread have been trying to synergize actions by picking things that can be combined. It doesn't actually matter if yrsillar does this for a specific project, because players are still going to do this. The way that our project options are likely to open up in the near future has a very, very low chance of offering clear synergy with networking in the Central Valley region. Selecting for synergy is generally good, but I am not advocating for it. I am pointing out how it influences player decisions.

The fact that pretty much all future projects we're aware of or can speculate about focus on the border regions is exactly why it's unlikely Central Valley will be chosen in its third stretch, because players will try to pair up similar/synergistic projects to cut down on narrative bloat. The fact that pretty much all future projects we're aware of or can speculate about focus on the border regions also means that the opportunity in Hou Zhuang's Gift to focus our attention on other areas is uniquely valuable. Combined, this is a frustratingly suboptimal situation, where we are effectively locking ourselves out of something we want, without realizing that's what we're doing.

It would be less of a concern if the first installment of the project had given us information on the Central Valley or built any narratives related to it, but it didn't. Even though we were travelling through it and conducting business meetings in it last turn. This leaves the future of networking in that region very fragile, especially because our pending projects are unlikely to focus in places other than the border. There are essentially no opportunities that we're aware of, moving forwards, to actually engage in the region and building a network that's useful inside of it. But there are some important narratives being built that rely on those things. It's worrying.

And tacking on some kind of generic +Central Valley project with Diao Hualing onto our list of projects would not be a solution, because it'd be fundamentally hostile to the overarching narrative focus of our crowded summit-oriented schedule. There's no room for it, and drafting the option would only mean locking away loose potential narrative threads behind a locked case of an option we'll never pick. It'd be promising us future rewards, that we have to pay for, instead of just letting us have them, again.

I don't consider the Ministry School contact a Central Valley contact. Xiangmen is its own political region on our list of regional reputations, and if you look at the map, Xiangmen is actually solidly within the borders of the North Jing River Valley region. The school contact region was a result of our generalized efforts to build contacts, it didn't come out of the focus on the Central Valley region. Nothing has come out of our focus on the Central Valley region. I am most concerned about our continuing lack of information about the Central Valley region. It's especially concerning because we keep finding ourselves operating in it without understanding what we're doing, at all. The trade road and Hanyi sabotage quests both arose out of Central Valley territory, and they're both tied up in that region's politics, but we have no idea if we're even in it half the time, and that's a problem.

Edit: thanks for engaging with me, by the way. It's helping my refine my thoughts a lot.
 
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I just don't agree that the development of the fief and the diplomatic effort will cut us off enterely from Central Valley. Once we start to actually build facilities, produce materials and trade with the White Sky, we will have a great need for commerce. And Central Valley will be one of our main partners in that.

I'm not enterely sure what you expect out of the Gift actions. To meet a handful of barons from the selected region and gossip with them?
We already met a lot of nobles from Central Valley at Hanyi's concert. Where we started the Old Road/New Road quest, which is going to take place entirely in Central Valley.
Not only that, once we finish the first part we'll be able to start the Craftsmen quest. Which will also take place at Central Valley.
Central Valley, it's southern reaches, is going to be heavily present in the foreseeable future.
During those quests, Ling Qi will recall the information and contacts she learned from the Gifts action. Smoothing things over and opening up new avenues.

Not only that. Remember that when we started the Gifts actions we chose the Emerald Seas identity over the more Imperial one. Once we start to try expanding the Neo-Weilu culture, a higher rep will help it prosper.
Specially as we have a dreadful -2 with the Central Valley cleregy.

Just because we don't get a giant sign with exclamations telling us the immediate results from the Gifts actions doesn't mean we won't get any.
We have seen several times how previous votes have cascading repercussions later on.

P.S.
Of course the School contact counts as a Gift action benefit. We explicitly started changes letters with the director thanks to the info given to us by Meizhen's dad.
 
Most of the problem I believe is, that no one can remember what info's we got on the central region from the first part of the gift.
That is because all the Infodump LQ got from the gift was put Offscreen, we know she exchanged letters with a lot of people and that there is a baby thought of a national spirit growing.
The rest of it, what was said in those letters, who likes whom and what not. Those are Infos LQ does have, but we don't.

Now don't get me wrong I don't want to have Yrs write 2500 Words of letters from people we may never meet. But there still exists a disconnect between what LQ knows and what we as a reader know about the central region.

But that disconnect is a reoccurring thing, in Threads at least.
That is not a problem for me as a voter, but I can see why it would be problematic for some.
 
What I would like is actionable information we can use to guide our decisions and/or plot how to leverage known assets. This doesn't have to come in the form of named NPCs, it could just be general descriptions and/or summaries of regional priorities/concerns/conflicts/etc. But we basically have none of that.

Old Road/New Road progress is locked behind a liminal exploration commitment. Which is a pretty hard sell to do for the sake of opening up even more of an action commitment, so we can open up more avenues of developing political narratives (read: commitments) in a region with admittedly secondary importance. Not with all of the other super high priority stuff going on with international politics and a two-front war.

I want the Central Valley region to matter to some of the political narratives going on. But the way to do that is to introduce it properly, now, so that its issues can be referenced or incorporated as relevant into the developing narratives we experience elsewhere. This makes the province and society we're playing in feel lived in and alive! It doesn't work if you lock all development behind actions we can't take without derailing the main story plot, because we simply don't have time for both.

Early introduction is vital. Most of the narrative problems we run into stem from a lack of information being given to us before we make decisions relying on that information (which we don't have). This is appropriate to create dramatic tension at times, but it doesn't make sense in the context of Ling Qi networking places. Especially when Ling Qi previously made a commitment, in narrative, to develop her contacts in the Central Valley region, even beyond just Diao Hualing, and then we have not seen her do that. Not even in summary.

We need some details to actually exist on the page, or they may as well not exist (on account of they literally do not) for the purposes of creating a dynamically engrossing narrative. The Central Valley cannot be relevant to Ling Qi's politics if there's nothing to be relevant to Ling Qi's politics. But we're in the awkward situation of there being some specific niche issues established that matter quite a bit to her that involve Central Valley... but no established tools to deal with them, no hints or opportunities to getting those tools, and narratives in other regions are currently unlikely to bridge the gap on those issues in Central Valley.

P.S.
Of course the School contact counts as a Gift action benefit. We explicitly started changes letters with the director thanks to the info given to us by Meizhen's dad.
I didn't say it wasn't. I said it wasn't a result of our focus on the Central Valley region. The Hou Zhong's Gift action has broader, generic effects than the main thrusts of our focus. That's irrelevant to my argument, which is that it's bad that we did not get any tangible returns on our prior choice of primary focus.
 
What you want is way too granular to fit into the thread.
You want to know which barons families have grudges against each other? Which wants to really dive into the Neo-Weilu and which ones want a more moderate approach? Which ones want to increase internal production and which ones want to import more goods?
As @Kirr said, we aren't going to get over 2k letters detailing all the minute factors that constitute specific territories.

Not like Ling Qi has the capacity to plan and act on such individual basis. Most of her efforts are going to be dedicated, as is expected, in developing a fief from zero in a conflicive area and ensuring the success of an unprecedented diplomatic effort with a foreign nation.
So all dealings with our neighbouring regions are going to be done in big strokes. Which is perfectly fine. We aren't going to solve the internal problems of other regions nor catter to the wants of increasingly small and fragmented groups.

But that doesn't mean the Gift actions sre useless. At some point we will attempt an action that will be kind of "Stablish commerce agreement with the Central Valley" or "Organize a gathering of nobles to showcase the White Sky's culture". The chance of success for those actions, from a dice perspective, is going to greatly depend on our rank rep with the neighbouring regions.
The same in the case we face a catastrophic event in the fief and request for assistance. So anything that increases rep is valuable on itself.

I guess we will have to disagree about the School contact being due to us choosing Central Valley previously, even if Xiangmen is technically in the North Jing River Valley
 
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On the Gold Autumn School reward I will have to agree with Abeo. That was clearly the reward for picking the first option here:
[ ] Your eyes in the city itself are still woefully undeveloped, find your new 'friend' among the Court clans to have a conversation and perhaps receive a few more introductions. It can't hurt to build up an important contact more.

[ ] It's important to keep up with the biggest players. Make your way to the Luo attendee and chat a bit about history and current events, perhaps speaking to the Golden Fields as well about their own problems in the south.

[ ] You are in the rare position of being the center of this whole gathering, being the sellers of this auctions lots, perhaps it is better to only lightly mingle and instead see who comes to you. It may be more revealing than making advances yourself

That said, I still think we haven't seen the payoff from the [Gift1] action. The bonus roll only happened after the last update and the +1 to Central Valley hasn't gone through yet. I have hope that we will get both the mechanical and narrative reward with the next update. It is admittedly a bit jarring to have vote and reward be offset by a full turn. However, even in Forge it makes sense for the letters and networking to take up a full month.
 
What I would like is actionable information we can use to guide our decisions and/or plot how to leverage known assets. This doesn't have to come in the form of named NPCs, it could just be general descriptions and/or summaries of regional priorities/concerns/conflicts/etc. But we basically have none of that.
So in easy terms you want a simple info text about what LQ did or did not learned in her letters.
Understandable, I for one find exposition chapters or sections to be exhausting but that could be just me.

Old Road/New Road progress is locked behind a liminal exploration commitment.
A Action we have no option of even taking at the moment.
And have no idea in what way shape or form it will be integrated into our later options.
Why even bring it up?

I want the Central Valley region to matter to some of the political narratives going on.
Why? Why the Central Valley specificly instead of any other region is ES?
Is it because there are some (I think two?) minor plots going on there? If yes I think you are inflating the value that has a sample size so small.
Im not more or less interested in the central valley then any of the other regions really.

his makes the province and society we're playing in feel lived in and alive!
An info dump would make feel sth. Alive? Really? There are better way of doing that and it does not involve some letter that tells us "1 in 4 Barons in the central Valley likes our project"
And if you want a flashed out narrative of the central valley, just think about how much narrative that would eat. At least a whole chapter + setup. A whole chapter + Setup that would just be a prelude for our trip there?

Especially when Ling Qi previously made a commitment, in narrative, to develop her contacts in the Central Valley region, even beyond just Diao Hualing, and then we have not seen her do that. Not even in summary.
We have seen that she did that, we have no specifics of what was said in those letters but she did start networking in the central region. We as a reader just did not see it beyond the conversation she had as a result of it with Six.
There are a lot of things we as a reader don't see LQ doing until it gets relevant later.

I think you want more out of these votes then was ever intended, and never communicated.

You could argue that "Focus your network building effort on the Central Valley" would include fluff infos about the the Central Valley. But building a network and getting an in-depth picture about the state of a region are two different things.
 
Honestly, the issue mostly exists in the crossroads of this turn's Hou Zhuang's Gift action potentially being used as a lead-in to the Long Arm of the Law quest action. In that using it that way causes the issues. If crunching politics with Sixiang is handled as its own largely independent scene, then poking around at the Foundations subject matter is fine. Long Arm of the Law can be used to recoup the narrative deficits surrounding the Central Valley and probably the Garden of Sinners questline too, both with Diao Hualing.

It's only when merging Hou Zhunag's Gift into Long Arm of the Law as its subject matter intro vehicle for the Foundations that you're left with a hole we have no viable way of filling.

What you want is way too granular to fit into the thread.
You want to know which barons families have grudges against each other? Which wants to really dive into the Neo-Weilu and which ones want a more moderate approach? Which ones want to increase internal production and which ones want to import more goods?
As @Kirr said, we aren't going to get over 2k letters detailing all the minute factors that constitute specific territories.

Not like Ling Qi has the capacity to plan and act on such individual basis. Most of her efforts are going to be dedicated, as is expected, in developing a fief from zero in a conflicive area and ensuring the success of an unprecedented diplomatic effort with a foreign nation.
So all dealings with our neighbouring regions are going to be done in big strokes. Which is perfectly fine. We aren't going to solve the internal problems of other regions nor catter to the wants of increasingly small and fragmented groups.

But that doesn't mean the Gift actions sre useless. At some point we will attempt an action that will be kind of "Stablish commerce agreement with the Central Valley" or "Organize a gathering of nobles to showcase the White Sky's culture". The chance of success for those actions, from a dice perspective, is going to greatly depend on our rank rep with the neighbouring regions.
The same in the case we face a catastrophic event in the fief and request for assistance. So anything that increases rep is valuable on itself.

I guess we will have to disagree about the School contact being due to us choosing Central Valley previously, even if Xiangmen is technically in the North Jing River Valley
Please don't invent ridiculous positions to ascribe to me, it's really annoying. I didn't ask for minutiae, I haven't suggested shifting our focus to small-scale issues of neighbouring regions, and I never said the Gift actions are useless.

My argument, this entire time, has been that in the Hou Zhuang's Gift 1 of 3 project action we voted for exactly the kind of "big strokes" focus on the Central Valley region you're saying we should expect, and then we did not get the big strokes. That's it. That's my argument. Everything else you've been picking apart has been me elaborating on why, and in which ways, we are facing problems because of that gap of information and how it's difficult to make up for in other ways, given the narrative commitments we're operating under.

I appreciate that there's a language barrier, and I apologize for any areas I've been unclear, but to at least some extent you're just making things up. It's rude.

Why even bring it up?
I didn't bring it up. It was in response to somebody else who brought it up, in response to a previous post of mine. Don't pester me with nitpicking spaghetti posting if you aren't going to read the context of what you're picking apart.

The only other thing I'm interested in responding to is that if you look at the phrasing of this vote, it very clearly promises regional information. Therefore, the Hou Zhuang's Gift project-chain is intended to impart information on the subjects chosen within it. It is reasonable to expect that some regional information would have accompanied the first regional selection. The reason I was not critical before now(mostly, I've raised some concerns with Diao Hualing's handling before, but that's only semi-related) was because the phrasing and context of that vote backloaded it. It premised gains by the project-chain's end, so I was in no hurry for particular feedback. This portion, however, is promising us immediate engagement on the subject of regional information; there's a discrepancy and it calls the lacking information on the Central Valley region into contrast.
 
She got her first look at the creature then. It had the vague silhouette of an eagle or condor, but only in vague terms, like something Biyu might squash together from a handful of clay and present as a 'bird'.
Bird shaped
It had no feathers, only slick, transparent flesh that had the texture of a maggot.
No feathers, generic skin texture used
It's wings were thus nothing more than misshapen membranes, shot through with twitching pulsing veins of wormy color.
Has wings, but not properly implemented.
Has veins, but no blood
Shapes that might be bones or organs squirmed within its body distorted by the light passing through, but its transparent flesh darkened to a deep gray black where taloned feet emerged, more like sickle blades of bone than something that could be walked on.
Has internal structure, but not properly defined, not like anyone sees it anyway.
Has talons, those are weapons right?
Also not very sure about how talons become legs, so just apply a gradient shader.
Worst was the beasts 'head' which was nothing more than a wedge like lump, lined with four pairs of beady eyes.
Head has eyes. Not sure how many, better make sure it can see in all directions.

As the spirit dove, that head split apart into four sections, lined by crystalline teeth, exposing a black gullet full of glimmering rainbow color that seemed to have little too do with its physical form.
Has a mouth, implemented a worm's mouth since it was already in the cache.
The sound that erupted from that well of nauseating color could not be called a roar or a screech, but only a horrible, indefinable noise so high as to be at the very edge of hearing.
Birds sing with their mouths right? Yeah, it can sing.
The rock crumbling, disintegrating into a cloud of sickening dust, and its glistening form shot up. Ling Qi saw in the blur of motion, the beast inhaling, its chest and the strange organs within inflating, and the dust was drawn in.
Birds eat sand(sometimes), so sure, it eats sand.
Birds breathe...eh, just tie it to the eating animation.
A scythe like talon lashed out as the beasts limbs abruptly reversed, flesh tearing and squirming as its back became a front, and Ling Qi barely had the time to throw herself out of the way as a line of scouring unmaking light caught her across the flank, shearing unneringly past the images that fled in every other direction.
Could not be arsed to put in the between frames of the turning animation, just rotate.

Conclusion: Starbeasts are made by developers who have had a bird vaguely described to them, and were working blind. Devs could not be arsed to put solid effort in, if it compiles its ok.
Its bugging out all the models its touching, but not the dev's problem since it was hacked into the main server
 
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