Woooo!!! Thief of Names is awesome. Looking forward to seeing more of it.
Since the next section is military and borders, we're going to see Xia Ren, and by extension, the White Plumes a lot. With our current bonuses and our current White Plumes rep, we'll have 5% + 5% + 20% = 30% bonus to rolls.
With full omake points, that's +50%. So, as long as the base roll chances aren't lower than 30% (and that's a big ask), rolls may be okay-ish. With the MoI, that's...+35%. Which is still good, imo. Less okay-ish, but still okay-ish, as long as he base chance is 40/50
[ ] [name] Intruding Thoughts
I think we can all agree on this name 😉. Gotta keep Ling Qi's pun game going.
Anyway, back to Thief of Names. Looking at Perception trait, it's increased by +2 since Eyes of Grudges was brought up. That's insane. Almost all our primary traits are now G9, meaning the peak of Green, all while we're still at G5!
The only primary trait not at that G9 is...Unbroken Will, our primary defense. Hence why I think Lake Hei Is Wide is good right now.
[ ] Lake Hei is Wide
The great lake is bottomless, but it is also wide, a sea in its own right, there is nothing which cannot vanish into its depths. So to can you render inert even assaults that would strike down a whole company. Improves Rippling Starless Shroud and adds +1 modifier to your Primary Defense Trait in the arts passive. (0/3)
A lot of times, when SNR is brought up, one major argument (apart from the Void roll) is it never fits, either LQ or the scene. But here, we have author confirmation that it can fit! Otherwise, it won't be on the list!
I think with our near death experience in the Liminal and the assault the workers, working on our defense would be good in case there's another attack.
Also, it'll be a good place to continue Ling Qi's thoughts on defense and protection from Paying Respects. Not everyone is a friend, and we need to think of the best way to do go about things.
And so the nature of defense is as complex as the ways of harm, ever changing with the needs of the moment, the battlefield, the opponent, your goals, what is wanted, what is needed. There can be no universal shield, anymore than there may be a universal blade. To think in such terms is itself a failure of thought, a foolish dead end which has ensnared growing cultivators since before the founding."
Todays lecture was a meditation on the nature of defensive arts. Not merely arts which armored or arts developed to dodge, but on the concept of 'Defense' and 'Protection' itself. What those things truly meant, in their contexts on the battlefield and off.
Ling Qi herself had many small answers to that percolating in her mind, developing and clinging to the edges of other ideas and concepts.
"What most consider the fundamentals of defense, are Armor and Motion. That is the ability to endure and the ability to avoid. But these are only the simplest methods suitable for the lower realm battlefield. Absorption, diffusion, redirection, causal disruption, even these are but slightly more advanced examples of defensive techniques. Consider then, defense is not only a thing for war. Perception is itself a layer of defense, prediction, organization, administration, these things too must be considered, for life is not only war, can never be only
war…"
It was true, Ling Qi thought. She could absorb an attack which would slay a dozen third realms into the impenetrable depths of her Mist, but that was an ability with little use in the project before her. Her foes were not hurling bolts of power from the sky or striking at her with blade and fist. Even the powerful spirits and high cultivators who she dealt with were ofte as not really trying to harm her. Their nature itself wrought harm by their mere existence. Black Sky's Yearning, a hungry void that could only devour. The great thundering beast in her fief, ruinous in its indifference to their small lives, the strange beasts emerging from the glacier.
Xia Ren, an engine of metal and flame that could only keep churning forward, seeking more fuel to burn. Even the Duchess herself, though she did not dare make judgements on what precisely she was. Even with the General she only had the beginning of an impression.
…She had a hunch that she would need to meet and understand all of those who had followed and supported the Duchess onto her throne, if she was ever going to help Renxiang topple her from it.
"It is the nature of defense to be reactive, but this too is not universal, but to prepare effectively, the nature of the assaults such a project will suffer must be deeply understood, and incorporated into the foundation of your technique."
Ling Qi nodded faintly, the Elder's words echoing her own thoughts. She thought there was something else there though. It wasn't enough to stop an attack. A defense, a good defense, should put you in a position to take advantage of your enemy. It wasn't enough to react, though she knew she did enough of that. The knife she had taken to the throat, her family and friends may not have liked that choice but she was not ashamed of it.
Because it had given Xiulan the opportunity to end the threat then and there, and Ling Qi had lived.
The best defense was one which positioned your enemies to be ruined.
Well that was probably a little too martial, for her current problems. The best defense made their position untenable to hold? That forced them to cede to her advance. Could her negotiating partners be considered enemies in this analogy or just the ones out to obstruct her?
There was no answer, and that made her snowballing thoughts peter out.
"It seems like it will be impossible to fully sway him then. Our goals are misaligned."
"Quick, that's good, not bothering to waste time agonizing over the idea that you can't be everyone's friend. You've grown, a little, better than I expected with what I can see you cultivating," Elder Jiao said.
Ling Qi remained silent for a moment. "I am going to be condescended too a lot, aren't I? I want to understand. I want to be understood. There is nothing about that which precludes me from recognizing an enemy, and opposing them."
He met her eyes, and she did not lower her head or look away. Let him see the truth of her conviction.
"You will be," Elder Jiao said bluntly. "Understanding, as you put it, is something which most will see as inherently weak and compromising. It most often is, after all. The domain of mush mouthed courtiers seeking to slide between arguments and differing positions while never once committing to anything."
Something I find really interesting too, is this bit from our talk with Elder Ying.
Protection aims to preserve Choice, whether your own, or that of those you are protecting," Ling Qi said thoughtfully.
"Not an answer I have heard before," Elder Ying admitted. "You have come to some interesting insights, dancing in the shallows of the Dream."
"It's my answer for now," Ling Qi said. "I… know its more complex than that. That there are a hundred ways one could pick at it, but I think its the best I can do."
"I wonder, what do you do when those beneath you choose to hurt themselves?" Elder Ying said kindly.
"I… it depends on whether they are hurting themselves or I am only perceiving it that way," Ling Qi said with furrowed brow. "I know many people I know think I hurt myself, putting myself in danger, but…"
"Hm, you've put some thought into it at least," Elder Ying said. "It is true that a protector can crush those they protect. That must be confronted, if you wish to have your compassion."
Protectors can crush who they're trying to protect if they lack compassion for them or lose their sight.
As we've seen, that happened to the Bai. LQ should and would learn to do something different. The choices we're going to make during the next section, bordes and military/war, will affect so many people on both sides. Meditating on how to protect our companies, our interests in the face of dangers, and how our choices will impact them (instead of being ignoring everything), especially when votes start to get MORE complicated, is fertile ground for character development. Especially after we've developed a new form of defense, a perception art that lets us divine people's intentions.
Plus , it'll leave one SNR with one more project too!
