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

Doramas · Jul 14, 2022

Next turn's plan proposals, at least the part regarding arts, are going to be very similar yet really contested.

We'll do FSS+ for sure, no doubt there.

Next will be either the Hidden Moon II or Dreaming Moon II from SSC. Maybe Grinning Moon II if it turns out to be really good. I would prefer to do Hidden together with Paying Respects, though.
A lot of people are going to want to do Dreaming Songstress. the Nigthmare Tribulation, immediately now that it has become available. I would like to ask them to wait. Mainly because of three reasons:

The Nightmare Tribulation has huge narrative weigth, and it's likely going to be the source of Ling Qi's second Advanced Insight. I think it would be better to have it in it's own turn instead of competing for attention with FSS+ turn. FSS+ deserves the spotlight here.
I think it would be better to undergo such a trial after we update our main offensive skill, FSS+, to our cultivation level. Sure, there is going to be a lot of self-refelction and self-discovery involved in such a tribulation; but there is also going to be a lot of freezing and smashing nightmare spirits.
And talking about nightmare spirits, I think we should do Dreaming Songstress after the new Xuan Shi's action. Or at least in the same turn. Get some experience with nightmare spirtis, maybe improve the Dreamwalker trait a bit more.

The last spot will be contested by BKSD, my personal pick, and LFWT, which I wouldn't mind at all. There will also be a significant push for a SNR project. I don't think any of the others will gain enough traction, but I could be wrong.

Now, the Personal and Proffessional Actions are going to be an entirely different issue.
The turn's locked Retainer Action is probably going to be going to the summit place and meet with the White Sky's representatives. Not sure if there will be Personal or Proffesional locked Actions like in previous turns.
We have a few new shinies: Meizhen updated Serpent Whisperer in the weilu party (like Suyin's action was when we bought the puppet), we got Eyes of Grudges from Shu Yue and the dream action with Xuan Shi.
We can finish Hou Zhuang's Gift and we can do the final survey of the fief. Of course, we can do Paying Respects together with Hidden II. We can also do the Bian Ya action (Root Inroads) that we have had since the begining. It would narratively fit after her involvement in the play, and we could use the information on Cai Vassals now that we have started to stir up political trouble.
A lot of good and tempting options. It will be hard for a specific plan to come up top.

Talking about stirring up political trouble, though. If there is one plea I would like to make to the thread it would be this:
I don't know when Organization Influence Quests will become available, but I think it's imperative we take this quest as soon as we have the option to:

yrsillar said:
Organization Influence Quests:
-Labyrinthian Lords-Meng

The Meng lands were already in a tense situation between the Reformists and Reactonaries, but we set that wasp nest on fire with our Tsu play. We need to get involved before the Reactonaries really have the time to muster support against us and start boycotting and sabotaging our endeavours.

Also, unless I'm understanding this bit at the start of the turn wrong:

yrsillar said:
Expand Snowblossom Outpost; Raise Settlement size rating from Military Outpost to Resource Outpost. Increased Manpower Capacity to 10. Decrease Defense Bonus to 25. Unlocks Basic Projects. Cost 50 Material. 1/2 months complete

This means that we can already start the Basic Fief Management Projects this very turn. This is going to be fun!

Oliver_Twister · Jul 14, 2022

DeadmanwalkingXI said:
The first of those quotes is hardly an unbiased source. The second is after Fuxi betrayed him and Sun Shao went full-on batshit insane. His behavior during his final...campaign? Ascension? Whatever you want to call it, is informed by who he was before that, but not necessarily reflective of that person

But my point was not that Sun Shao didn't sacrifice people. My point was that he was a brilliant general and an asset that was difficult to replace. I assure you that 'being willing to sacrifice people' is not an uncommon skill among generals, and it does not, as a rule, gain them reputations for brilliance, the loyalty of their men, or actually win them any battles on its own. Sun Shao had all three of those things.

Whatever his faults, Sun Shao won...basically every battle he fought, and eventually all the wars except his ongoing cold war with the Bai. He was, and to all appearances still is, a brilliant general very capable of winning individual battles and indeed whole wars. He's not nearly as good a politician, which is why he's had problems since becoming a King, but even the Bai, his very worst enemies, acknowledge that he is a brilliant general.

No, I'm well aware of that. Sun Shao was even aware of that...he was well aware that the high-ranked Bai behind the plot was basically untouchable. He did, however, expect that with iron-clad evidence the low-ranked pawn used to execute the plot would receive meaningful punishment, and doing that was well within Bai Fuxi's capabilities. Bai Fuxi chose not to do that.

Listen, if you're allowing your own lands to be repeatedly ravaged by enemies (thus costing you huge amounts of money even if you ignore the civilian casualties) and having members of your family die in pointless and preventable battles they are undertrained for? That is screwing up. I'm sure the Bai at the time would try to claim it isn't, but that's just a lie to make them feel better about their utter failure.

He didn't actually try, is the thing. He put up the shallowest pretense of trying, but he wasn't willing to actually do anything that involved real effort or cost anything that mattered. He wanted them to improve magically, for free, but wasn't willing to actually pay the costs necessary to make them. Inasmuch as he was a reformer, he was a fake one, who said the right stuff but refused to actually act.

No, it means killing one or two as an example to the others. This is very doable, and there were even provably Bai willing to kill each other (they killed the Empress after all, and she was a White Serpent)...Bai Fuxi was just apparently not one of them. Or, at least, unwilling to do it to actually achieve reform.

Fuxi wasn't really trying to fix it though, not by anything he actually did. He paid lip service to the idea and that's about as far as it went. That makes him a waste of space every bit as much as the Weilu were at the end. The Hui were worse, but then I wouldn't refer to them as wastes of space as that implies uselessness. The Hui were significantly worse than useless.

Hmm. Well...

1. There's a reason I think he's worse than Shenhua. Shao still spends lives like water. He's still a general rn. From my understanding, he leads the WT army, and he still spends lives like water. There's a reason why I see Lao Keung as Shao 2.0, except better. Generals know that sometimes you need sacrifice to win. But for Lao Keung, if he sacrifices something, he wants to waste as little lives as possible while dealing 200% damage to the enemy. Shao...goes on a mad dash in anger that his family died, even though that ended up killing even more of his family than what that Bai did because in the end, even though there was so much unnecessary sacrifice and death, he "won" in the end. Shao, before he went off the deep end, didn't see the large number of deaths caused to win one battle as someone wrong. He glorified the sacrifice. So yeah, I don't really think he's a good general because he doesn't know how to manage his resources at all. He doesn't know when to stay his hand or fight. He's not a good general because he doesn't fight to win, he fights to survive. Like, LQ did the same thing to survive, on a very, very inconsequential scale, sure. But she acknowledges that it wasn't really good. He doesn't. This might just be a bad comparison overall because there's a different context here. Ultimately, you can think he's a good general, but I don't see it. Winning battles does not a good general make I guess this is just another difference in opinion then

2. I don't really see how Fuxi betrayed him. At all. Shao went for help. He didn't get the answers he was looking for. He FELT betrayed, but he actually wasn't imo. It's like that rooftop scene with All Might in BNHA. Everyone calls AM a traitor and a bad hero, but he's really not. You ask for something. You get a response. It's not what you needed/wanted to hear, but you asked for it, and they tried to help, even if it doesn't end well.

Plus, Fuxi did give meaningful punishment, in one of the only ways a politically focused snakepit like the Bai would acknowledge as painful: Loss of face and public humiliation

. That's definitely more painful than death and more resourceful too. Seriously though, capital punishment isn't the only punishment there is, and for some people, that's more painful.

3. You're missing a huge point here. This battle has been going on since the time of the Sage Emperor! More than 10k years! In fact, more than that! Don't forget it took He, Qin, like 50 years of constant battle and struggle to move in and get to the priestess. Don't forget Momma Dragon tried to throw down with the Jungle and had to ran away to go lick her wounds.
Seriously, if it's been going on for that long, you can't expect it to be solved so quickly. Killinf the Jungle inhabitants is NOT easy. Killing a sublime is NOT easy. The only one who's done that is the Twilight King, and even then the Purifying Sun is not dead, though that may be more conceptual stuff since it's phoenix with rebirth. And undertrained? The Bai are literally experts on how to kill things, and THE foremost experts on how to combat the Jungle. The soil samples Uncle Genocide gave us help with agriculture AND help kill the Jungle

. That's how good they are.

4. The thing is, he did do stuff. He just didn't kill anyone to punish. And that's what got Shao angry

. Magically, for free? Huh, I guess all the self reflection and learning you're supposed to do when punished is magically for free. So much time writing apology letters, wasted (T_TT). (I hope this comes out more jokingly and less mocking. My intent was the former but it's a thin line and it's difficult to carry hard to carry tone across).

Also, things the Bai do to punish non-Bai people and things the Bai do to punish Bai people are very different. This is an ethnic group that's grown to control and rule others by fear. It's not going to work on themselves

5. Did we get to see the fallout of the punishment outside of Shao's POV, you know, the fallout politically since Shao doesn't care for those things? Nope. For all we know, it was really effective, and then completely countered because Shao run off and proved all his haters right.

6. Please stop with the spaghetti posting (T_T). Well, I'm assuming this counts as spaghetti posting. Jist quote my whole message and type a response (T_TT)

7. And like I said, I guess we'll just disagree then.
As I said earlier, fuck the Bai. Shao is definitely a tragic character, I agree, and lots of things could have been prevented if things went differently. But be also made mistakes too. And I don't really see Fuxi as a bad character or a waste of space or anything. He was trying to make due with what he had and his fixed Way so I don't see him as a bad guy or a bad White, just like how I don't see Shenhua as bad in the end. Shao though, the context that led to his position is different from say, fighting centuries of corruption or trying to wrangle and hold in the Bai at their most toxic. Like, he's not as scary as say Xia Ren because fuck she's scary, but he's still the worst living high realm I've seen so far. So, again. I guess it's just a difference in opinion

MrRageQuit · Jul 14, 2022

Doramas said:
We have a few new shinies: Meizhen updated Serpent Whisperer in the weilu party (like Suyin's action was when we bought the puppet), we got Eyes of Grudges from Shu Yue and the dream action with Xuan Shi.
We can finish Hou Zhuang's Gift and we can do the final survey of the fief. Of course, we can do Paying Respects together with Hidden II. We can also do the Bian Ya action (Root Inroads) that we have had since the begining. It would narratively fit after her involvement in the play, and we could use the information on Cai Vassals now that we have started to stir up political trouble.

My personal opinion is that we should save Paying Respects, Root Inroads, Serpent Whisperer, and Xuan Shi's Dream Adventure for Turn 17 - allowing us to set a Sect-theme. Also, I think it thematic that we do Eye of Grudges this turn, coming off the ridiculous grudge Yan Renshu just displayed. We did not have the luxury of grudges before, as Shu Yue put it, but now we are dealing with people who assuredly do.

Doramas said:
This means that we can already start the Basic Fief Management Projects this very turn. This is going to be fun!

No, my understanding is that we started and completed the first month of the two month completion process. Thus this turn will be locked for month 2 of 2, and then we get to start Fief Projects on Turn 17.

Killer_Whale · Jul 14, 2022

If we're running short on arts to learn, ASA is always an option.

Imugi · Jul 14, 2022

I'd like to see Coldstar Blade Foundations be turned into a formations art like we could do for Winter Hearth Resounding. Coldstar but for formations seems like it could work really well with Ling QI's formation specialty.

DeadmanwalkingXI · Jul 14, 2022

Oliver_Twister said:
Hmm. Well...

1. There's a reason I think he's worse than Shenhua. Shao still spends lives like water. He's still a general rn. From my understanding, he leads the WT army, and he still spends lives like water. There's a reason why I see Lao Keung as Shao 2.0, except better. Generals know that sometimes you need sacrifice to win. But for Lao Keung, if he sacrifices something, he wants to waste as little lives as possible while dealing 200% damage to the enemy. Shao...goes on a mad dash in anger that his family died, even though that ended up killing even more of his family than what that Bai did because in the end, even though there was so much unnecessary sacrifice and death, he "won" in the end. Shao, before he went off the deep end, didn't see the large number of deaths caused to win one battle as someone wrong. He glorified the sacrifice. So yeah, I don't really think he's a good general because he doesn't know how to manage his resources at all. He doesn't know when to stay his hand or fight. He's not a good general because he doesn't fight to win, he fights to survive. Like, LQ did the same thing to survive, on a very, very inconsequential scale, sure. But she acknowledges that it wasn't really good. He doesn't. This might just be a bad comparison overall because there's a different context here. Ultimately, you can think he's a good general, but I don't see it. Winning battles does not a good general make I guess this is just another difference in opinion then

2. I don't really see how Fuxi betrayed him. At all. Shao went for help. He didn't get the answers he was looking for. He FELT betrayed, but he actually wasn't imo. It's like that rooftop scene with All Might in BNHA. Everyone calls AM a traitor and a bad hero, but he's really not. You ask for something. You get a response. It's not what you needed/wanted to hear, but you asked for it, and they tried to help, even if it doesn't end well.

Plus, Fuxi did give meaningful punishment, in one of the only ways a politically focused snakepit like the Bai would acknowledge as painful: Loss of face and public humiliation . That's definitely more painful than death and more resourceful too. Seriously though, capital punishment isn't the only punishment there is, and for some people, that's more painful.

3. You're missing a huge point here. This battle has been going on since the time of the Sage Emperor! More than 10k years! In fact, more than that! Don't forget it took He, Qin, like 50 years of constant battle and struggle to move in and get to the priestess. Don't forget Momma Dragon tried to throw down with the Jungle and had to ran away to go lick her wounds.
Seriously, if it's been going on for that long, you can't expect it to be solved so quickly. Killinf the Jungle inhabitants is NOT easy. Killing a sublime is NOT easy. The only one who's done that is the Twilight King, and even then the Purifying Sun is not dead, though that may be more conceptual stuff since it's phoenix with rebirth. And undertrained? The Bai are literally experts on how to kill things, and THE foremost experts on how to combat the Jungle. The soil samples Uncle Genocide gave us help with agriculture AND help kill the Jungle . That's how good they are.

4. The thing is, he did do stuff. He just didn't kill anyone to punish. And that's what got Shao angry . Magically, for free? Huh, I guess all the self reflection and learning you're supposed to do when punished is magically for free. So much time writing apology letters, wasted (T_TT). (I hope this comes out more jokingly and less mocking. My intent was the former but it's a thin line and it's difficult to carry hard to carry tone across).

Also, things the Bai do to punish non-Bai people and things the Bai do to punish Bai people are very different. This is an ethnic group that's grown to control and rule others by fear. It's not going to work on themselves

5. Did we get to see the fallout of the punishment outside of Shao's POV, you know, the fallout politically since Shao doesn't care for those things? Nope. For all we know, it was really effective, and then completely countered because Shao run off and proved all his haters right.

6. Please stop with the spaghetti posting (T_T). Well, I'm assuming this counts as spaghetti posting. Jist quote my whole message and type a response (T_TT)

7. And like I said, I guess we'll just disagree then.
As I said earlier, fuck the Bai. Shao is definitely a tragic character, I agree, and lots of things could have been prevented if things went differently. But be also made mistakes too. And I don't really see Fuxi as a bad character or a waste of space or anything. He was trying to make due with what he had and his fixed Way so I don't see him as a bad guy or a bad White, just like how I don't see Shenhua as bad in the end. Shao though, the context that led to his position is different from say, fighting centuries of corruption or trying to wrangle and hold in the Bai at their most toxic. Like, he's not as scary as say Xia Ren because fuck she's scary, but he's still the worst living high realm I've seen so far. So, again. I guess it's just a difference in opinion

1. I think you're misunderstanding my point. My goal has never been to defend Sun Shao, the man's a monster. My point was that we have good, strong, evidence that he was a very effective general and I don't think denying or diminishing that is useful. You brought up 'he spends lives like water' as a reason he was replaceable and not valuable...my response is that someone who spends lives like water and always wins is in fact still a very valuable tactical and strategic asset. There's a down side to his style of generalship, sure, but he's still verifiably a brilliant and effective general...the down side does not make him replaceable in the way you imply.

He's also pretty much certainly gotten much worse about sacrificing people since his...'enlightenment' so using recent events to gauge how he was before Bai Fuxing betrayed him is probably not fair, but that's honestly a side issue.

2. He came to his liege lord with proof that another noble had murdered his family by proxy and committed gross dereliction of duty that should probably qualify as treason. Absolute, ironclad, unshakable proof. His liege lord had a moral and legal duty to take appropriate action (and no, a slap on the wrist does not count) and did not, making it clear that Sun Shao and his people had all the obligations of service but no commensurate protection from those they served. In a feudal society I think that's just about the worst betrayal possible for a liege lord. The whole point of feudalism is the contract that vassals obey and their liege lords protect them...violating that makes the whole social structure fall apart in the worst way. This was a predictable betrayal in some ways, but it remains a betrayal nonetheless.

3. I'm not saying they're failures for not killing the jungle. I'm saying they're failures for not mounting a remotely effective defense. Which they were, in fact, not doing before Sun Shao stepped in to do it for them. Previous generations of Bai had done so, but not that one.

4. He gave the person who provably murdered Sun Shao's family by committing treason a slap on the wrist. Not even real imprisonment, but house arrest for a period of time that is, for a cultivator, very brief indeed. Based on what we've seen the punishment is equivalent to...something like a year's probation in a real world court. It's a punishment and it exists, but it's far too light for the crime committed and not a meaningful deterrent to others doing exactly the same thing.

5. Putting someone on house arrest for a brief period can't be more than a slap on the wrist in context. Public shaming and not imprisoning could be, potentially, as it opens one up to immediate reprisals and cutthroat politics, but house arrest protects from exactly that kind of thing and gives people time for the memory to fade so that when the person placed on house arrest returns they can do so with, if not a clear slate, at least a blurring of one's crimes. It is quite seriously the least severe punishment I can imagine. Fuxi also treats it as a light punishment, and the death of Shao's family as a very minor matter barely worthy of comment beyond mild disappointment. Literally all evidence is that this was a slap on the wrist...any other conclusion is assuming huge swaths of facts we have no inkling of the existence of. It's the equivalent of saying 'Ling Qi's biological father is a swell guy and he only left because he absolutely had to.' It could theoretically be true, but it's pretty unlikely based on the actual evidence.

6. Sorry, still new to this forum and etiquette differs. It's also difficult to respond to multiple different points without some sort of referent. The numbers work fine, so thanks for that.

7. Shenhua is a monster and she is entirely correct that she needs to be put down like a mad dog. Fuxi may well not have been a monster in the same way, actually...but his utter uselessness at accomplishing anything except the near destruction of his clan is a damning indictment of him as a leader.

CuriousRaptor · Jul 14, 2022

Sun Shao's insight that the Bai treat EVERYONE else as other was not mistaken. They really do treat everyone else as lesser than them, Meizhen to an extant does too, and she was essentially an outcast raised to be the least of her kin until she started making waves and political capital by making inroads to the Cai and opening a can of hissy snek on Sun Liling's face. Given the Bai a victory over the Suns and allowing more such victories to be made. The Bais in general due to the rigidity of their caste system as well as how long they were at the top made them complacent, and such complacency bred decadence and lassitude, which in turn came back to roost under Fuxi's reign.

Bai Fuxi saw everyone under him as tools, with only the White Bai possibly being 'Human' to his eyes, but even then, they were more likely more useful and important tools. His outlook personified the Bai where hundreds of thousands of mortals and lesser Bai could die in seconds and they'd not bat an eye, but the single death of a white Bai was something that could not be borne.

He absolutely dropped the ball on this and did not give punishment taht was deserved. The loss of so much out of petty spite would have Shenhua or the Empress making multiple heads roll at minimum. His follow was equally poor and if he had ANY inkling of Sun's way which he very well might given how massively he eclipsed his cultivation, he'd have known how terribly his words would be received. But it simply didn't matter to Fuxi because Sun Shao was a tool and he would continue his function or be removed, rendered down and replaced by someone who could.

In Short something like this was bound to happen because the Bai only caring for the Bai and the Bai alone was alienating everyone with their casual and thoughtless cruelty.

Tamwin5 · Jul 15, 2022

For I Am The Sun

I am joy, he exclaimed, for I am the sun!
Through music and laughter will my will be done.
So follow my measure, as dawn breaks the day!
Sing with the sun as my light shines the way.

I am growth, he exclaimed, for I am the sun!
Through struggle and trial will my will be done .
So reach for the heavens, refine every skill!
Be like the sun and refuse to be still.

I am might, he exclaimed, for I am the sun!
Through conflict and triumph will my will be done.
I'll shield all the worthy, defeat every foe!
Bask in my light and my strength I'll bestow.

I am rest, he exclaimed, for I am the sun!
Through comfort and leisure will my will be done.
Your work is all done, enjoy what you've earned!
Bring in the harvests and sleep unconcerned.

I am death, he whispered, for I am the sun.
Through endings and stillness will my will be done.
Pass on your life's teachings, in the end all must die.
Sleep with the sun as I slip from the sky.

—Traditional Emerald Seas festival song praising the five phases of the Sun.

Omake for the omake throne! I swore my first post here would be one, so here it is. A short little song celebrating the five phases of the sun. Pretty sure we still don't know exactly what falling sun is, so I went with a sort of rest/harvest combo. Similarly, setting is both about natural endings and passing on knowledge.

Feedback is much appreciated!

barty · Jul 15, 2022

Doramas said:
Next turn's plan proposals, at least the part regarding arts, are going to be very similar yet really contested.

We'll do FSS+ for sure, no doubt there.

Next will be either the Hidden Moon II or Dreaming Moon II from SSC. Maybe Grinning Moon II if it turns out to be really good. I would prefer to do Hidden together with Paying Respects, though.
A lot of people are going to want to do Dreaming Songstress. the Nigthmare Tribulation, immediately now that it has become available. I would like to ask them to wait. Mainly because of three reasons:

The Nightmare Tribulation has huge narrative weigth, and it's likely going to be the source of Ling Qi's second Advanced Insight. I think it would be better to have it in it's own turn instead of competing for attention with FSS+ turn. FSS+ deserves the spotlight here.

I think it would be better to undergo such a trial after we update our main offensive skill, FSS+, to our cultivation level. Sure, there is going to be a lot of self-refelction and self-discovery involved in such a tribulation; but there is also going to be a lot of freezing and smashing nightmare spirits.

And talking about nightmare spirits, I think we should do Dreaming Songstress after the new Xuan Shi's action. Or at least in the same turn. Get some experience with nightmare spirtis, maybe improve the Dreamwalker trait a bit more.

I see we're discounting Soul of Ice in the turn we do Frozen soul serenade's successor art... Other than that, I agree doing Hidden and paying respect is a solid plan, as would be continuing either BKSD or FLTW. Also, I'd like finishing up he fief's survey toget that out of the way, and doing serpent whisperer because we clearly need some snek action (and we're getting low on turns at the sect, so we really need to do that or roots inroad this turn and the other one next turn)

FriedIce · Jul 15, 2022

I'm tentatively agreed we should delay Dreaming Songstress by a turn so we get an extra turn of Dreamwalking practice and so it's not competing for narrative attention with Frozen Soul Serenade Successor.

I also think that taking Soul of Ice on the same turn as FSS+ makes excellent sense. If we're going to take it, we should take it now.

As for the final option, Grinning II, Hidden Scribe and The Laughing Wind are all good picks. But if I focus on the narrative, an excellent counterpoint to FSS+ and SoI would actually be Garden of Mists. FSS and SoI focus on Isolation and Want, whilst GoM focusses on Community and Cycles.

barty · Jul 15, 2022

ooooh, that makes sense. It's also a good counterpoint to Frozen soul to inform what FSS+ should look like. (My opinion might not be popular, but I'm adamant that FSS+ should be an art to End those who threaten LQ, her friends, and her budding ideals of peace through communication and reform)

veekie · Jul 15, 2022

On the Sun Shao/Bai Fuxi situation:
-Sun Shao was Peter Principled. His Way was one that worked for a soldier, but became an awkward fit as he rose to command, and his blind spots are no less significant than Fuxi's, having the political warfare going on completely go over his head, simply assuming it to be beneficial, and then later assuming it to be malicious. He was raised to command because he was competent enough, and positioned correctly.

Certainly defending against the endlessly adaptive Red Garden involves sacrifice. Theres always a new trick, or technique, by enemies who value your death more than their lives. But engaging into politics, this would be a death by inches, when objectives are fluid and relative positions matter much more than specific ones.

Even now, his known methods are closer to a soldiers'. Thinking in terms of tactical objectives. This to hold. This to trade as dearly as possible. This to strike to destroy the foe. Die if you must to win victory for the cause. It makes sense that he manages to make contact and pact with the Sunflower, since their natures are so alike.

-Bai Fuxi is working with an institution that has caste privilege baked in on a physics level by Great Spirits and literally extending beyond recorded history into full on mythology.

It doesn't much matter whether he had intention to reform.
If he had challenged White Caste privileges on his way to White, he'd never had made White, being dealt with well before he became unassailable. His Way inherently has to allow flexibility in such dealings.
And observe the flagrant sabotage and malicious compliance as a White, for an minor attack on White Caste privileges. Sun Shao didn't realize because he's explicitly not a politician just how big a political move that was. How Sun Shao's own success and failures would be considered an extension of Fuxi's. Its a lot of trust to grant to an outsider.

Fuxi has to act like he had absolute power even when he's finding practical political power draining away with every strike at entrenched Bai interests. If he did not, he'd lose whatever he still had. When Sun Shao went rogue, his only hope of recovery was to personally slay Sun Shao, and even then he'd have been a lame duck leader for the rest of his reign.

Suzhen is working with the legacy of both. The White Caste no longer has hold on absolute power, and can no longer pretend to. The Bai's current situation is one wrought of tremendous inertia, that had finally run aground and stopped. Allowing her to course correct without being simply flattened beneath the wheels.

If Fuxi did what she's doing now on his ascent he'd simply have been assassinated in Prism.

agumentic · Jul 15, 2022

I would say that Bai Fuxi being as bad a liege lord as he was because the Bai system couldn't produce anyone better doesn't really excuse his behavior, it merely adds another reason to the list of why it was necessary for someone like Sun Shao to tear that system apart so someone better could come afterwards and fix it.

Imugi · Jul 15, 2022

yrsillar said:
Primacy of Beasts: Learn the song of nature, the melody of tooth and claw. Where lies the line between beasts and men, which brings us to war? Mere greed and pride, or something more? Alters the primal War Calling technique. Advances the Power and Want Projects by one step. (0/3)

I'd like to do Primacy of Beasts on the turn when Eye of Grudges is chosen. Also I'd prefer to not have Serpent Whisperer in the same turn as the Eye of Grudges, it's too rote and typecasted. Far be it from me to want interaction with Meizhen without the reason being a grudge turn, but when the thread decides the turn's theme to be is Grudges, what can you do?

veekie · Jul 15, 2022

The issue is institional momentum. Whoever tried to take the system down a notch would have done much the same.

Erebeal · Jul 15, 2022

Honestly serpent whisperer shouldn't even be available anymore

barty · Jul 15, 2022

Erebeal said:
Honestly serpent whisperer shouldn't even be available anymore

It should probably have another name by now (though I would certainly not begrudge yrs for not thinking one up). But why should it not be an option anymore? So long as we're in the sect, having fun with meizhen certainly should be an option.

AbeoLogos · Jul 15, 2022

For this upcoming turn, turn 16, I'd like to grab the Dream adventure with Xuan Shi. Partly I think the recruitment effort is timely with the preliminary diplo meeting. Partly I like the pairing of meditating on FSS's insight with a project trying to forge the start of new collaboration, even if the projects don't directly interact with each other. Partly letting our remaining big Dream projects drift too long feels messy to me. The biggest chunk of my motive though is looking at our timeline left and what we need to accomplish and realizing we just kinda got to do it as soon as possible.

Turn 15: Agree to drag him on adventure with a side-ordering of trying to bully him into joining diplo team.
Turn 16: ice turn with pre-summit politics. No Xuan Shi Dream adventure. No Dream/Nightmare tribulation.
Turn 17: Yes Xuan Shi Dream adventure. No Dream-Nightmare tribulation because double dream adventures that touch on nightmare stuff in one turn is awkward and probably interfere with each other by demanding certain outcomes or threatening to derail everything. First turn of post-pre-summit political projects on menu, probably lots of competition.
Turn 18: Yes Nightmare tribulation. Absolute bloody knife fight over remaining actions.
End of turn 18: Summit

tl;dr: We need to do either Xuan Shi's team adventure project or the Nightmare Tribulation this turn or they'll run all the way into turn 18 because they don't play nicely in a single turn.

That'd cramp our remaining time at the sect. I'd rather have more flexibility to respond to the political situation that gets spelled out for us with the summit-related retainer action this turn. And that means knocking one of our Dream adventures out of the way right away.

I think general consensus is Xuan Shi's project should be more "lightweight" than the Nightmare Tribulation, so it's a better match for FSS+ turn. It also just makes sense to do Xuan Shi's action earlier because we're trying to recruit him for the summit. The earlier we recruit him for the summit, the more room and time there is for him to show up in summit-related scenes. Which strengthens the narrative of his recruitment. If we leave recruiting him till the last minute, it'd really undermine the narrative. Nightmare Tribulation has a more flexible impact window.

Vote tortle.

Lanthanoid Slime said:
I generally agree with most of Abeo's "State of the Arts" post for FSS, SCC, and MoSS. To me UGM was competing with Eagle God's Cry as a reposition + middling attack, and with Phantasmal Mastery BKSD now matches UGM's potency and offers more flexible targeting. I see WHR's Garden of Mist project (Fire/Music to Dream/Formation) as appealing to people who want something tied to the Formation skill that the thread dabbled in early in the quest, or those who are attracted to WHR as a source of concept XP. Maintains the narrative callback, appeals to RPG crafter fantasies, stops us from feeling like the time spend developing it was wasted. Note that the project loses the [Fire] tag that WHR shares with Zhengui. I can't say that I have an informed opinion on whether all the other WHR projects are effectively dead and irrelevant options or not.

I'm low-bullish on exploring Void from SNR. More relevantly, I consider SNR's Armor as core to maintaining LQ's identity of having multiple defensive layers (Qi pool/Regen/Armor/Flicker/Dodge/Speed/Stealth). My impression is that the Cai archive consisted of a few peer-level arts that we now cultivate, but was mostly valuable for having the wide base of Red to Low-Green arts that stop a new Baronial clan from dying out as it grows. I'm personally cautious about assuming that there is more G5+ tier arts in the archive, so for our personal cultivation I see the Cai archive as a non-factor going forward.

I'm guessing that we are not going to be limited by domain insight slots. And that the reward for the third Dreaming project in SSC is just going to be the tribulation for an advanced insight, not that and another Dream art just as we master PLR.

WHR turning into a Cold/Dream art is kind of interesting in the context of Zhengui's themes and Ling Qi's own take on the elements. It looks like it's mapping onto Zhengui's elemental metaphors for Destruction and Creation/Renewal. In the revamped art, Cold is the destructive element while Dream is the creative/growth element. I'm pretty sure that's the intent, anyway.

barty said:
I see we're discounting Soul of Ice in the turn we do Frozen soul serenade's successor art... Other than that, I agree doing Hidden and paying respect is a solid plan, as would be continuing either BKSD or FLTW. Also, I'd like finishing up he fief's survey toget that out of the way, and doing serpent whisperer because we clearly need some snek action (and we're getting low on turns at the sect, so we really need to do that or roots inroad this turn and the other one next turn)

I would prefer not to do Soul of Ice on the same turn as FSS+. If you read Soul of Ice, it's a project focused on expanding Ling Qi's understanding of Winter/Cold/Ice. At the same time, FSS+ is a project that's really about Ling Qi defining her understanding of Winter in the context of her relationships with Zeqing and Hanyi and the insight she drew from FSS. Rather than synergizing, these two projects are in tension with one another. They're just about pretty different things.

We really want the process of making FSS+ to go smoothly and be a tight arc that focuses on the existing narrative cues, imo. The stakes on getting it right are pretty high. Adding in a new angle at the last minute seems likely to either be ignored, in which case it's a waste, or cause disruption, which would be a shame.

Remember that FSS+ is also an art that we will be cultivating and continuing to refine our understanding of. We can take Soul of Ice and pair it with later FSS+ cultivation and get narratives on expanding our understanding of Winter, without complicating an already delicate project yrsillar really wants to get right.

Erebeal · Jul 15, 2022

Abeo's right.

Trying to get successor arts to work at all is already going to be challenging, and FSS already has two arcs tied up in it with Hanyi's action. It has its own clear arc here, and trying to get clever and muddy a very delicate process isn't going to help matters. Moreover, Soul of Ice fits very neatly into later FSS+ cultivation when we're wanting to develop it further - as well as likely benefiting from us having already better defined our starting position and what we're working with.

My general thoughts is that, taking FSS+ as a given next turn, likely priorities are probably:

getting LFWT further unlocked - we really haven't cultivated it much and it does a lot for us. It would be really good to see what the rest of the art has to offer, and it could fit well into adventuring
maintaining momentum on BKSD - if we're getting into fights, getting Bear Paw would give us some really nice CC with a stun

With secondary priorities probably being:

Bastion - could be a solid pick if we're expecting to meet dangerous spirits, though could also be something we leave until later
SSC hidden or grinning if they fit well since it's always good to maintain momentum on base

Though honestly I expect things will largely be a response to what else we've got going on next turn.

Mr.Kittens · Jul 15, 2022

I don't see how FSS+ and Soul of Ice are in tension tbh. They're both about Winter, Cold and Endings. Yeah, the context through which we understand them is different but they share the same fundamental concepts. Doing both simultaneously could lead to an interesting dialogue between the arts.

LFTW def needs more love but Soul of Ice would fit pretty well imo.

AbeoLogos · Jul 15, 2022

Mr.Kittens said:
I don't see how FSS+ and Soul of Ice are in tension tbh. They're both about Winter, Cold and Endings. Yeah, the context through which we understand them is different but they share the same fundamental concepts. Doing both simultaneously could lead to an interesting dialogue between the arts.

LFTW def needs more love but Soul of Ice would fit pretty well imo.

This is a good metaphor and it'll help me explain my stance, hopefully.

The reason I consider them in tension is that the process of making FSS+ is already its own standalone dialogue on fixed subjects. Soul of Ice, then, is a separate conversation entirely. Fusing the two of them necessarily shifts the topic of discussion in FSS+, but that undermines FSS+ because the entire point of it as an art and dialogue is those specific topics it's already concerned with. Making the conversation more about Soul of Ice makes it less about FSS+, essentially by definition.

That's not the interplay you want during a successor creation process, but that's the only way the two projects can interact on the same turn. Well, unless you realize this mid-process and drop Soul of Ice to preserve focus on the more important subject, but then there's no benefit in combining them anyway.

GlassMask · Jul 15, 2022

AbeoLogos said:
This is a good metaphor and it'll help me explain my stance, hopefully.

The reason I consider them in tension is that the process of making FSS+ is already its own standalone dialogue on fixed subjects. Soul of Ice, then, is a separate conversation entirely. Fusing the two of them necessarily shifts the topic of discussion in FSS+, but that undermines FSS+ because the entire point of it as an art and dialogue is those specific topics it's already concerned with. Making the conversation more about Soul of Ice makes it less about FSS+, essentially by definition.

That's not the interplay you want during a successor creation process, but that's the only way the two projects can interact on the same turn. Well, unless you realize this mid-process and drop Soul of Ice to preserve focus on the more important subject, but then there's no benefit in combining them anyway.

FSS+ and Soul of Ice having slightly different narratives is fine, there being differences yet synergy makes the narrative easier to write and more interesting.

Why are these narratives so incompatible as to make it something we can't do during successor creation? They seem pretty compatible and nice to me.

I personally like the idea of FSS+, Soul of Ice, and whatever else else (presumably SSC, but I could be convinced to do BKSD or LFWT).

AbeoLogos · Jul 15, 2022

GlassMask said:
FSS+ and Soul of Ice having slightly different narratives is fine, there being differences yet synergy makes the narrative easier to write and more interesting.

Why are these narratives so incompatible as to make it something we can't do during successor creation? They seem pretty compatible and nice to me.

Because this

Soul of Ice: Blizzard and glacier, fine snow and driving sleet. cruel wind and soft snow. Stasis, Inevitability, Endings and Renewal. There is more to ice, more to winter than meets the casual eye. Is your own understanding too narrow? Advances Isolation and Want Projects. Advances Winter's Heart by 1. Begins Trait Quest Chain. (0/5)

and these

Frozen Soul Serenade: The crystallization of the lessons you learned from Zeqing on the high, snowy mountaintops. Yet the form she taught you an echo of her own nature, is falling behind you cultivation. The time has come to make it your own. Requires selection of the Idols and Ancestors Social Action
Idols and Ancestors: It has been awhile now, since Zeqing found her End. In many ways both you and Hanyi have grown. It is time to take a little time aside to walk the high mountain peaks, to think and listen and remember. [Must be taken with the Frozen Soul Serenade Successor project. Character's Hanyi and Sixiang]

point in different directions.

FSS+ is centered on past experiences and insight gained through very intimate circumstances and bonds. Soul of Ice is a deliberate effort in looking outside of that to other meaning. If you want to be curt, and I do, Soul of Ice can accurately be defined as "Not FSS+" in its intent. Which lands it firmly in tension with the other. This isn't a case of slightly different narratives; the narratives are starkly different in their core objectives.

But none of that really matters because of the simple fact that introducing a new heretofore unseen take on Winter/Cold(which is the entire objective of Soul of Ice) at the 11th hour is not going to make the successor project go more smoothly. It can't, it won't, and it shouldn't. That's just not... what a successor art is? It wouldn't make no sense.

Foursteps · Jul 15, 2022

Why not? After all, that's what an successor art is, trying to take a set of concepts and making them our own. To me it seems like deeper understanding into Ice and Want would give us a deeper understanding into FSS and more options and possible synergies when trying to design FSS+. The whole point of an successor art is that it surpasses the art it comes from, in the same manner that soul of ice tries to surpass our previous understanding of related concepts. Otherwise we would just be making FSS 2.0 with higher realm potency, which to me is not all that appealing from a narrative standpoint.

kfrar · Jul 15, 2022

AbeoLogos said:
FSS+ is centered on past experiences and insight gained through very intimate circumstances and bonds. Soul of Ice is a deliberate effort in looking outside of that to other meaning. If you want to be curt, and I do, Soul of Ice can accurately be defined as "Not FSS+" in its intent. Which lands it firmly in tension with the other. This isn't a case of slightly different narratives; the narratives are starkly different in their core objectives.

But none of that really matters because of the simple fact that introducing a new heretofore unseen take on Winter/Cold(which is the entire objective of Soul of Ice) at the 11th hour is not going to make the successor project go more smoothly. It can't, it won't, and it shouldn't. That's just not... what a successor art is? It wouldn't make no sense.

If Soul of Ice were a one-and-done project I might agree, but given that, like FSS+, it just starts a process, I feel like it works fine. When we make FSS+, we're going to work through our understanding of Winter, Hanyi's understanding of Winter, and everything else we know and think about Winter, and then refine that down to an evolution of FSS and our existing Winter themes.

That's going to leave a lot of Winter lying on the cutting room floor, and having Soul of Ice around to collect bits for future examination in the quest chain seems reasonable to me.

I don't care if we do the project now or later, but doing it now isn't nonsensical.

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