What if...what if that's Xuan Shi's ascension perk???
The Zheng made booze, Ling Qi will make some kinda instant translator empathy vibes, but Xuan Shi.
Xuan Shi will make video games! The pinnacle of fiction!
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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
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The Zheng made booze, Ling Qi will make some kinda instant translator empathy vibes, but Xuan Shi.
Xuan Shi will make video games! The pinnacle of fiction!
Ah, makes sense. Yeah I was asking after the Doylist purpose/cause.
I think If we'd gone with the Palace of One waybreaking meditation with Shu Yue, this
Since we didn't, I think we're likely to see some toying with the Choice/Truth/Sincerity/Clarity stuff we committed to poking the Jia patriarch about, at the behest of Huisheng. It's more or less a propaganda selection segment, as described, and Meng Dan's got usefully cynical views in that arena to help out with poking at the relevant concepts. A good way to prime some of the subject matter ahead of the actual meeting with the big guy. Let Ling Qi stumble over some of her issues with her own perspective, maybe.
Tangentially related to discussing Ling Qi and the Husbando Wars, do folks think it's possible Ling Qingge reenters the ring?
I could see a gruff second realm veteran, maybe widower, quietly courting her or something. She now is safe under the aegis of her daughter, so maybe her continued cultivation and reflection would open back up romance for her mentally.
Aka I would love to see Ling Qi deal with a lower realm step dad, AND POSSIBLY MORE SIBLINGS!
Tiny Ling Tots running around, ready to play with Cai Tienli.
I could see a gruff second realm veteran, maybe widower, quietly courting her or something. She now is safe under the aegis of her daughter, so maybe her continued cultivation and reflection would open back up romance for her mentally.
Aka I would love to see Ling Qi deal with a lower realm step dad, AND POSSIBLY MORE SIBLINGS!
Tiny Ling Tots running around, ready to play with Cai Tienli.
Perhaps one day we will meet a tiny Lord.
Karthak said:
Yrsillar said:
- Location
- CA
Using one of the least valuable members of your clan to make a connection with a rising star is an obvious calculation. More than that, you can't honestly say a Red who may never make Yellow can provide anything of value to your family outside of that connection to her daughter(s), so even attempting would be crassly transparent. I don't think this sort of maneuvering is outright taboo or anything, but I do expect that there's some social pressure against it... But if there's social pressure and not a taboo, then indicating that the Ling clan is open to such a match might just kick off a feeding frenzy.
No reason to open that Pandora's Box.
I was imagining a rando sect soldier, not a noble. Marrying into the Ling, not her leaving the Clan.
And a reason would be, Ling Qingge maybe wanting love again? She wanted it once, and it went horribly. But her cultivation seems to be about reflection, I could see her being ready for romance again someday. And she was a whore, I don't think any clan would see her marrying some nobody as opening a feeding frenzy or meaning much of anything really.
Generally agree with you. But I don't think a noble marrying Qingge into the Ling is too much for some clans. Not count clans probably(at least at this point, things might change in a century if it becomes clear LQ will reach sovereign and quite possibly white). But viscount clans having one of their lesser scions, those who have a hard time reaching green, to get a connection with LQ? marrying in is probably worth it even with marrying in.
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
Yeah, it's weird to think about but Quingge is like, 30. Theoretically, if she was interested in romance it should be pretty feasible. However, I suspect that her experiences have pretty thoroughly soured her on the topic - every time romance is brought up for LQ Quingge is always extremely cynical and cautious about it.
I think you're underestimating how brutally unfair society is to Qingge. Absolutely no noble family is going to tolerate a scion marrying a former prostitute, even if she was forced into it. And it will be worse if that noble is a weak cultivator - that means they won't be able to retaliate for insults or discrimination aimed at Qingge, which their rivals will start doing on day 1. Someone like Jiao or Shenhua can casually shatter marital traditions or taboos, but someone low in society is just painting a bullseye on their back.
We need a martial teacher for the young Zhang wanna-be-soldier and GG's father is a washed up one with nothing better to do. It could be a cute redemption sidestory or background development between GG's father and Ling Qingge since he would be working under her in this arrangement. The major problem is that even GG has given up on redeeming him so creating this scenario might seem forced.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yeah, she's been burned badly, and then burned even more, not just romantically but even in terms of sexual relations. Not being able to get a solid commitment is what wound her up with two children and no father in the picture, and the closest thing she ever got to a "solid commitment" was her family's commitment to sell her into concubinage of a sort that would leave her and her child vulnerable.
So neither being casual nor being serious and committed feel like they'd feel safe at ALL for her.
IT'S ALL COMING TOGETHER
I didn't even consider him, though yeah might be a bit forced. Would be funny to have a 'meet the parents' of all the retainers though, teeheehee. Mid tier Mengs (smith and Law respectively, right?), an incredibly grumpy / drunk low realm soldier, whatever Xia Lin has going on, and Ling Qingge. Cue the awkwardest of silences.
Yeah I don't think it would happen anytime soon. Just that it seems possible under the sheltering mists of her daughter! Eventually!
The nobility of the Emerald Seas when they hear of Xuan Shi wanting to marry into the Ling clan, and his clan being okay with that:Yrsillar said:
She's a fricking Baroness. It'd be an enormous social coup for the Ling clan.
Ling Qingge and the Dream Horse 4
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Ling Qingge and the Dream Horse, Gallop 4/Trot 1: The Bold Adventurer Pure And True
"You could have just said, because while I do hunt, and I will not apologize, I do not poach," Ling Qingge insisted. If someone was taken, or even if they were anything close to it, she didn't step in and cause a problem. She looked over toward the stables, because of course she was headed that way. Lightning was not some cart to be parked outside a gate and left alone, she was a beautiful and clever horse, and a partner and friend, and so she was not surprised that Ling Qi, who seemed to call her spirits her family, understood that.
"I… see," Ling Qi said, and LIng Qingge felt the annoyance of being judged, and evaluated.
This supposed daughter of hers, or the daughter of some other her that sounded entirely alien, was… she did not want to say a prude, but that was what she thought to herself.
"Quit worrying, rider, her opprobrium means nothing, her approval even less," Lightning said, haughtily. "She is not you, and you are not her."
"Ask the wise man, is there any harm, is there any harm?" Ling Qingge sung to herself, remembering it, losing herself in an olden song, not sung much in these days. One of those songs meant to teach a lesson, voices and words forming meaning… yet while she was not always a great fan of lyrics, she remembered these as if they were engraved upon her heart.
(He is not you/ you are not him/ Ask the wise man/ Is there any harm? Is there any harm?)
"Hmm?" Ling Qi asked.
"It's nothing. I'll need to make sure that she's comfortable here. I don't let anyone else care for her, or me."
Ling Qi considered that and asked, "What do you mean by that?"
"I cook my own food, I wash my own clothes," Ling Qingge said. "Help's fine, but demanding others serve me doesn't fit with my Way." Ling Qi was definitely looking at her, because she was well aware that as a Way it was one that clashed in some ways with the entire functionality of the whole of the system of nobility. "I… can explain it to you later, or exchange pointers as to my Way and Arts."
Of course, subordinates, or being a subordinate, is not quite the same thing. It is servants. People to cook her food, clean her clothes, clean her room. People who do menial things for her… it makes her itch.
And it is the other side. If you refuse to be someone's servant but demand others serve you, it is not freedom but power you seek, and tyranny that you wield. She'd met those sorts, those who if they could would be petty tyrants, barons who were more like robbers.
Of course, they came in… no.
She did not think of that, and for the moment she shrugged and decided that Ling Qi could talk about it later if she was so interested.
It was a good stable, and she was going to take advantage of it. Lightning needed her own stall, of course, and she needed to brush Lightning as a reward for having gone with her on this crazy adventure. It was definitely one of the odder ones they'd found themselves in… even more so if it turned out that they really were in some alternate dimension where she was old, like really old… okay, she knew that everyone who mattered in this messed up world was centuries old, but her thirties still felt like an age away.
"I wanted to ask you something, just to be sure that this is not a trap," Ling Qi said, as sheu watched Ling Qingge working. She breathed in and out, taking in the earthy, real smell of a stable, and considered it.
"What?"
"How did you become a Cultivator?"
Oh, now there was a story she mostly liked to tell, and so she found herself smiling almost against her own suspicion.
"When I was twelve, I hung around the main branch house of the Liu often enough, because my mother was a servant there. One day, one of the horses, a second-grade one from the main house, was feeling riled up. A number of Young Masters were there, making it worse, spooking the poor beast. They'd just come from Sage knows what mischief, and were worn out and exhausted, especially the leader of the pack, Liu Fong." She kept her voice level, but she could not help it. The memories drew themselves up, the scars that she preferred not to have, the weakness and selfishness that she feared rested at the heart of all of her ideals.
The alleys pressing in, the smell of raw sewage, the fact that she'd let them take Lightning--
"But I knew the horse was about to do something stupid, because she was panicking. She really was a good horse, not nearly as easy to rile up as some of them, but those Young Masters sure excelled at being bad at everything," Ling Qingge said, as she began checking Lightning's hooves just to be sure. "So, I went forward to calm the horse. I just… knew what needed to be said. It was my sense of spirits, my Talent, but I knew just how to soothe her. It wasn't hard, it really wasn't. It was the most natural thing in the world." She couldn't help it, even with everything that happened after… even with all of that, it was a memory that she held close to her, a memory and a feeling, the joy and freedom of her heart aligning with the animal's, and the subsequent adventures in learning to go from merely liking horses to loving them, to setting herself on the course that ended here.
"I saved them some trouble, though later I'd wish I'd let the horse kick Liu Fong in the head… but it would have probably ended in the animal being punished, and the man being left untouched. But having saved them all some trouble, I was given Cultivation training. I had other duties, but within a bit over two weeks I was a Cultivator, and I spent a lot of my time caring for the horses. It was a way to be a servant and use my Cultivation abilities, but I found myself growing fast. By the time I was the age to be sent away to the Sect, I was Late Gold and Mid-Red," she said, consideringly, "Which was enough for them to think they might get something out of their servant spending a few years among the Outer Disciples before coming back to serve them better. Sometimes I wish I'd let Liu Fong get hit." Perhaps he would have died. "I was Third Realm by the tournament, though just barely: my spiritual cultivation lagged behind." To Lightning she said, in her mind: 'Keep an eye out. I will make sure it does not happen again.'
It would be cowardice to hide Lightning in her Dantian, when she could instead be spending time
"But I did as I did, and I cannot imagine doing otherwise," Ling Qingge admitted, her back turned to Ling Qi. So she couldn't see how Ling Qi was reacting, but she could imagine. Pity? Lack of understanding? Either would be painful. She knew it would not be anything special, but. "That's a definition of contentment, when you realize you cannot do anything other than what you've done, not if you want to be who you are. I rejected the Liu because of their immorality and evil. They were tyrants, and if my family, He, went along with their evil… then that itself was a form of tyranny."
She meant it, meant every word. But a part of her knew she was a hypocrite. Knew that she was not saying some very important things.
Nothing she was saying was untrue, but…
Ling Qingge thought her daughter was the kind of lucky that justified rubbing her eyes and staring at her flabbergasted, so she did it. She'd had a normal enough day, glad that her daughter was temporarily back from the war and overseeing Biyu's continued childhood, one that she hoped would be better by far than either her own or her first daughter's.
Ling Qi was standing in front of her now when what was supposed to be a normal enough patrol had turned into… what, exactly?
She certainly felt old when she saw Ling Qi's sheepish conduct around her.
"Can you repeat that?"
"She… may be some dream version of you, or from some alternate… reality? Universe? Sixiang hasn't heard much about anything like that, but that doesn't mean that it isn't the case."
They were in a small side room, there were quite a few rooms like that, places to meet if nothing else. She lived in the kind of luxury where she could have rooms that were "just rooms." Places to put guests, or have little meetings, or do a half-dozen other things with the addition of a bit of furniture that the servants could easily move… or even just imagination.
She'd been thinking of riding her horse around today, since she hadn't found too much else to do, and perhaps practice her cultivation later? "And you believe we're the same?" she asked, because Ling Qi had described a warrior, and a cavalrywoman who was brash and bold. She'd even muttered something about being "too bold."
Despite all the manners she'd learned, Ling Qi did still mumble to herself, though to be fair she now seemed to have a Spirit that could talk back, so perhaps that explained it. But then, she'd always been an odd child… or rather a lot of things about an odd child were also things about someone sensitive to spirits, someone with talent to spare. She'd had a few moments looking back, but Ling Qingge had been far more of a 'normal' child, and more vulnerable for it.
"Do you think she is real?"
"I've looked as closely as I can without picking a fight, and… there's a story I can run by you. I asked how she became a Cultivator, and she told me that when she was twelve she saved a Liu from harm by calming down a second-grade horse…"
Ling Qingge could not help it. She froze, her heart fixed in place by the sudden realization. "I… remember that," she said. "Liu Fong had his arm broken. Later, I remember wishing… wishing it'd been more than that." She'd almost forgotten it, but now it came back, a fresh memory, like a song she'd sung before. "I'd moved to go forward, because I'd… noticed…"
It was remarkable, the way that each time she turned over and over her memories of her childhood she found another moment like this. Another moment of "might have been" perhaps even literally. She'd been very good at knowing what horses wanted, what their strange and yet fascinating minds were aiming toward. Even without being spirits, horses were the same: if they trusted their rider, they'd begin trying to understand them in turn. They'd take cues from their riders, being afraid when they were afraid, or mastering their naturally skittish temperament if only their rider was calm and brave.
"But my mother stopped me. She hardly wanted me to be hurt. I did not see much of him after that. I didn't even know him at the time, and Fong was old. Or he seemed so at the time, to a twelve year old."
"How old was he?"
"Almost twenty at the time," Ling Qingge said, after considering it for a moment. "At the time that felt old, and at the time twenty-five felt old, when he wanted me to be his mistress. But that wasn't why I said no. It was the… bad feeling I got from him." She thought about it. "And this… other me, what is she now?"
"She said she abandoned her name when she learned the Liu were evil, and she's only a step behind me. She reached Third Realm in her first year at the Sect, so I am sure she won her tournament, especially with how good of a fighter she is. She helped me out there, she is no… paper Cultivator," Ling Qi admitted. "And if you remember…"
"Yes," Ling Qingge said, to not say other things. Because within her was growing, like a weed, a horrible surmise. A guess about the possible shape of the world that had led to such thoughts and feelings. But she could never be certain, not until she saw her. "Please, send her in."
She wanted to meet herself… but that did not mean that she was not surprised, when Ling Qi returned.
It was her. She knew her jawline, she knew the structure of her bones, she knew a lot about herself back then… and nothing at all. This other her was dressed in riding leathers, smelling faintly and constantly of horse, or so she guessed from the way her own daughter had been affected by her Cultivation. She was athletic and strong, without a hint of obvious weakness, eyes fierce and then wide, staring at her.
This other her, saw it too. Felt it too, perhaps. That moment of recognition, the realization that she was in front of herself, and that they were so very different. But perhaps… not as different as one might wish.
It was odd, looking at herself. But she knew it was herself, but older, but weathered, but worn down just a little bit by the misery and… and what? She'd not asked what happened to her, hadn't been able to stand the thought. But now she stood before a worn down version of her, someone who'd been through a harder life, or so it seemed…
And yet, who also seemed to have survived it. There was something like a worn down strength to her body, the strength of having gone through horrible things and emerged out the other side still alive and still intact. Not only that, but she seemed so ladylike.
Ladylike and Ling Qingge should have only passing resemblance, but it really did feel like being in front of one of her Aunties, or something like that. The older her was looking at her thoughtfully, curiously.
The question she asked, though. It froze Ling Qingg in place.
"Your clan attempted to force you to marry Liu Fong, didn't they?" Ling Qingge asked, thoughtfully, her voice even and level and yet the words slamming the young warrior back years.
However she tried to live in the present, the past loomed large and dangerously before her.
How had 'she' known?!
The Laurent: A little bit less joking, a little bit more trauma. Young LIng Qingge's backstory is something I've been kinda hinting at, but you're gonna see more of it coming up. And we finally got them meeting! @yrsillar
"You could have just said, because while I do hunt, and I will not apologize, I do not poach," Ling Qingge insisted. If someone was taken, or even if they were anything close to it, she didn't step in and cause a problem. She looked over toward the stables, because of course she was headed that way. Lightning was not some cart to be parked outside a gate and left alone, she was a beautiful and clever horse, and a partner and friend, and so she was not surprised that Ling Qi, who seemed to call her spirits her family, understood that.
"I… see," Ling Qi said, and LIng Qingge felt the annoyance of being judged, and evaluated.
This supposed daughter of hers, or the daughter of some other her that sounded entirely alien, was… she did not want to say a prude, but that was what she thought to herself.
"Quit worrying, rider, her opprobrium means nothing, her approval even less," Lightning said, haughtily. "She is not you, and you are not her."
"Ask the wise man, is there any harm, is there any harm?" Ling Qingge sung to herself, remembering it, losing herself in an olden song, not sung much in these days. One of those songs meant to teach a lesson, voices and words forming meaning… yet while she was not always a great fan of lyrics, she remembered these as if they were engraved upon her heart.
(He is not you/ you are not him/ Ask the wise man/ Is there any harm? Is there any harm?)
"Hmm?" Ling Qi asked.
"It's nothing. I'll need to make sure that she's comfortable here. I don't let anyone else care for her, or me."
Ling Qi considered that and asked, "What do you mean by that?"
"I cook my own food, I wash my own clothes," Ling Qingge said. "Help's fine, but demanding others serve me doesn't fit with my Way." Ling Qi was definitely looking at her, because she was well aware that as a Way it was one that clashed in some ways with the entire functionality of the whole of the system of nobility. "I… can explain it to you later, or exchange pointers as to my Way and Arts."
Of course, subordinates, or being a subordinate, is not quite the same thing. It is servants. People to cook her food, clean her clothes, clean her room. People who do menial things for her… it makes her itch.
And it is the other side. If you refuse to be someone's servant but demand others serve you, it is not freedom but power you seek, and tyranny that you wield. She'd met those sorts, those who if they could would be petty tyrants, barons who were more like robbers.
Of course, they came in… no.
She did not think of that, and for the moment she shrugged and decided that Ling Qi could talk about it later if she was so interested.
It was a good stable, and she was going to take advantage of it. Lightning needed her own stall, of course, and she needed to brush Lightning as a reward for having gone with her on this crazy adventure. It was definitely one of the odder ones they'd found themselves in… even more so if it turned out that they really were in some alternate dimension where she was old, like really old… okay, she knew that everyone who mattered in this messed up world was centuries old, but her thirties still felt like an age away.
"I wanted to ask you something, just to be sure that this is not a trap," Ling Qi said, as sheu watched Ling Qingge working. She breathed in and out, taking in the earthy, real smell of a stable, and considered it.
"What?"
"How did you become a Cultivator?"
Oh, now there was a story she mostly liked to tell, and so she found herself smiling almost against her own suspicion.
"When I was twelve, I hung around the main branch house of the Liu often enough, because my mother was a servant there. One day, one of the horses, a second-grade one from the main house, was feeling riled up. A number of Young Masters were there, making it worse, spooking the poor beast. They'd just come from Sage knows what mischief, and were worn out and exhausted, especially the leader of the pack, Liu Fong." She kept her voice level, but she could not help it. The memories drew themselves up, the scars that she preferred not to have, the weakness and selfishness that she feared rested at the heart of all of her ideals.
"But I knew the horse was about to do something stupid, because she was panicking. She really was a good horse, not nearly as easy to rile up as some of them, but those Young Masters sure excelled at being bad at everything," Ling Qingge said, as she began checking Lightning's hooves just to be sure. "So, I went forward to calm the horse. I just… knew what needed to be said. It was my sense of spirits, my Talent, but I knew just how to soothe her. It wasn't hard, it really wasn't. It was the most natural thing in the world." She couldn't help it, even with everything that happened after… even with all of that, it was a memory that she held close to her, a memory and a feeling, the joy and freedom of her heart aligning with the animal's, and the subsequent adventures in learning to go from merely liking horses to loving them, to setting herself on the course that ended here.
"I saved them some trouble, though later I'd wish I'd let the horse kick Liu Fong in the head… but it would have probably ended in the animal being punished, and the man being left untouched. But having saved them all some trouble, I was given Cultivation training. I had other duties, but within a bit over two weeks I was a Cultivator, and I spent a lot of my time caring for the horses. It was a way to be a servant and use my Cultivation abilities, but I found myself growing fast. By the time I was the age to be sent away to the Sect, I was Late Gold and Mid-Red," she said, consideringly, "Which was enough for them to think they might get something out of their servant spending a few years among the Outer Disciples before coming back to serve them better. Sometimes I wish I'd let Liu Fong get hit." Perhaps he would have died. "I was Third Realm by the tournament, though just barely: my spiritual cultivation lagged behind." To Lightning she said, in her mind: 'Keep an eye out. I will make sure it does not happen again.'
It would be cowardice to hide Lightning in her Dantian, when she could instead be spending time
"But I did as I did, and I cannot imagine doing otherwise," Ling Qingge admitted, her back turned to Ling Qi. So she couldn't see how Ling Qi was reacting, but she could imagine. Pity? Lack of understanding? Either would be painful. She knew it would not be anything special, but. "That's a definition of contentment, when you realize you cannot do anything other than what you've done, not if you want to be who you are. I rejected the Liu because of their immorality and evil. They were tyrants, and if my family, He, went along with their evil… then that itself was a form of tyranny."
She meant it, meant every word. But a part of her knew she was a hypocrite. Knew that she was not saying some very important things.
Nothing she was saying was untrue, but…
Ling Qingge thought her daughter was the kind of lucky that justified rubbing her eyes and staring at her flabbergasted, so she did it. She'd had a normal enough day, glad that her daughter was temporarily back from the war and overseeing Biyu's continued childhood, one that she hoped would be better by far than either her own or her first daughter's.
Ling Qi was standing in front of her now when what was supposed to be a normal enough patrol had turned into… what, exactly?
She certainly felt old when she saw Ling Qi's sheepish conduct around her.
"Can you repeat that?"
"She… may be some dream version of you, or from some alternate… reality? Universe? Sixiang hasn't heard much about anything like that, but that doesn't mean that it isn't the case."
They were in a small side room, there were quite a few rooms like that, places to meet if nothing else. She lived in the kind of luxury where she could have rooms that were "just rooms." Places to put guests, or have little meetings, or do a half-dozen other things with the addition of a bit of furniture that the servants could easily move… or even just imagination.
She'd been thinking of riding her horse around today, since she hadn't found too much else to do, and perhaps practice her cultivation later? "And you believe we're the same?" she asked, because Ling Qi had described a warrior, and a cavalrywoman who was brash and bold. She'd even muttered something about being "too bold."
Despite all the manners she'd learned, Ling Qi did still mumble to herself, though to be fair she now seemed to have a Spirit that could talk back, so perhaps that explained it. But then, she'd always been an odd child… or rather a lot of things about an odd child were also things about someone sensitive to spirits, someone with talent to spare. She'd had a few moments looking back, but Ling Qingge had been far more of a 'normal' child, and more vulnerable for it.
"Do you think she is real?"
"I've looked as closely as I can without picking a fight, and… there's a story I can run by you. I asked how she became a Cultivator, and she told me that when she was twelve she saved a Liu from harm by calming down a second-grade horse…"
Ling Qingge could not help it. She froze, her heart fixed in place by the sudden realization. "I… remember that," she said. "Liu Fong had his arm broken. Later, I remember wishing… wishing it'd been more than that." She'd almost forgotten it, but now it came back, a fresh memory, like a song she'd sung before. "I'd moved to go forward, because I'd… noticed…"
It was remarkable, the way that each time she turned over and over her memories of her childhood she found another moment like this. Another moment of "might have been" perhaps even literally. She'd been very good at knowing what horses wanted, what their strange and yet fascinating minds were aiming toward. Even without being spirits, horses were the same: if they trusted their rider, they'd begin trying to understand them in turn. They'd take cues from their riders, being afraid when they were afraid, or mastering their naturally skittish temperament if only their rider was calm and brave.
"But my mother stopped me. She hardly wanted me to be hurt. I did not see much of him after that. I didn't even know him at the time, and Fong was old. Or he seemed so at the time, to a twelve year old."
"How old was he?"
"Almost twenty at the time," Ling Qingge said, after considering it for a moment. "At the time that felt old, and at the time twenty-five felt old, when he wanted me to be his mistress. But that wasn't why I said no. It was the… bad feeling I got from him." She thought about it. "And this… other me, what is she now?"
"She said she abandoned her name when she learned the Liu were evil, and she's only a step behind me. She reached Third Realm in her first year at the Sect, so I am sure she won her tournament, especially with how good of a fighter she is. She helped me out there, she is no… paper Cultivator," Ling Qi admitted. "And if you remember…"
"Yes," Ling Qingge said, to not say other things. Because within her was growing, like a weed, a horrible surmise. A guess about the possible shape of the world that had led to such thoughts and feelings. But she could never be certain, not until she saw her. "Please, send her in."
She wanted to meet herself… but that did not mean that she was not surprised, when Ling Qi returned.
It was her. She knew her jawline, she knew the structure of her bones, she knew a lot about herself back then… and nothing at all. This other her was dressed in riding leathers, smelling faintly and constantly of horse, or so she guessed from the way her own daughter had been affected by her Cultivation. She was athletic and strong, without a hint of obvious weakness, eyes fierce and then wide, staring at her.
This other her, saw it too. Felt it too, perhaps. That moment of recognition, the realization that she was in front of herself, and that they were so very different. But perhaps… not as different as one might wish.
It was odd, looking at herself. But she knew it was herself, but older, but weathered, but worn down just a little bit by the misery and… and what? She'd not asked what happened to her, hadn't been able to stand the thought. But now she stood before a worn down version of her, someone who'd been through a harder life, or so it seemed…
And yet, who also seemed to have survived it. There was something like a worn down strength to her body, the strength of having gone through horrible things and emerged out the other side still alive and still intact. Not only that, but she seemed so ladylike.
Ladylike and Ling Qingge should have only passing resemblance, but it really did feel like being in front of one of her Aunties, or something like that. The older her was looking at her thoughtfully, curiously.
The question she asked, though. It froze Ling Qingg in place.
"Your clan attempted to force you to marry Liu Fong, didn't they?" Ling Qingge asked, thoughtfully, her voice even and level and yet the words slamming the young warrior back years.
However she tried to live in the present, the past loomed large and dangerously before her.
How had 'she' known?!
The Laurent: A little bit less joking, a little bit more trauma. Young LIng Qingge's backstory is something I've been kinda hinting at, but you're gonna see more of it coming up. And we finally got them meeting! @yrsillar
How many years until a play is made based on the events of Qi's courting and she's absolutely mortified?
"...And it is said that in those days, the then Baroness Ling was courted by various remarkable men and women, scions from each Major Clan flocked from every corner of the Empire, from pure-blooded Bai to the recluse Xuan, hoping to curry favor and earn her affections or even just her friendship, for only a fool could not see she was destined for greatness, even back then.
Daos were changed, lives upended, spirits roused and driven to the heights, yet many were left pining for even the kiss of her heel. For, alas, only one could emerge victorious and earn her heart's favor."
-Extract from the opening scene of The Courting of Qi: Fleet of Infatuated Hearts, a famous theatre play of the Emerald Seas, testified to be 100% historically accurate by several sources.
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- Location
- Staring into the void
Ling Qingge x Dong Fu
So I've been thinking about ~the economy~. The link between wealth and cultivation has always been an important part of the setting, and has provided one of the core parts of our gameplay historically.
Over time, this relationship has broken down, partly because we ended up wealthy enough that we could always mainline full resources, partly because dice bloat made variance too small, and partly because changes to cultivation in third realm made arts have much more narrative and character importance that was hindered by having art cultivation decisions jerked around by mechanical whims.
The current system only has cultivation "mechanics" for base cultivation, and has no rolls. We have no choices or agency, and it is assumed that we always get the same xp each turn because we always have full resources. There was clearly an intention to eventually bring spirit stones back into the system at some point when we actually needed to manage our wealth - indeed our cultivation art and many of our sites still refer to related bonuses - however this has yet to happen.
This is an issue across multiple facets. Firstly, cultivation has become increasingly unengaging over time as we have lost agency. Secondly, it harms the meaningfullness of fief development. Perhaps the main purpose of our fief development is to fuel our insatiable lust for power, but currently there is no real connection to our cultivation. The wealth system is theoretically supposed to do that at some point, but - and this may be premature - my feeling is it lacks the tangibility of spirit stones. The system is partially designed to limit the need to actually manage our accounts, but we already have accounts in agriculture and materials, and account management is a form of gameplay. It gives us something to manage and the ability to make decisions such as using more than our income one turn and have to save up in others. Site development is similarly currently kind of meaningless, as most of our site effects don't work right now beyond the ones that give a small bonus to base cultivation xp.
Also thinking about how many spirit stones we're throwing around is just cooler than "wealth", whatever that is.
Over time, this relationship has broken down, partly because we ended up wealthy enough that we could always mainline full resources, partly because dice bloat made variance too small, and partly because changes to cultivation in third realm made arts have much more narrative and character importance that was hindered by having art cultivation decisions jerked around by mechanical whims.
The current system only has cultivation "mechanics" for base cultivation, and has no rolls. We have no choices or agency, and it is assumed that we always get the same xp each turn because we always have full resources. There was clearly an intention to eventually bring spirit stones back into the system at some point when we actually needed to manage our wealth - indeed our cultivation art and many of our sites still refer to related bonuses - however this has yet to happen.
This is an issue across multiple facets. Firstly, cultivation has become increasingly unengaging over time as we have lost agency. Secondly, it harms the meaningfullness of fief development. Perhaps the main purpose of our fief development is to fuel our insatiable lust for power, but currently there is no real connection to our cultivation. The wealth system is theoretically supposed to do that at some point, but - and this may be premature - my feeling is it lacks the tangibility of spirit stones. The system is partially designed to limit the need to actually manage our accounts, but we already have accounts in agriculture and materials, and account management is a form of gameplay. It gives us something to manage and the ability to make decisions such as using more than our income one turn and have to save up in others. Site development is similarly currently kind of meaningless, as most of our site effects don't work right now beyond the ones that give a small bonus to base cultivation xp.
Also thinking about how many spirit stones we're throwing around is just cooler than "wealth", whatever that is.
I am loving this Omake, and I'm laughing at Qingge being a horse girl. Wondering if we should bring her along when we negotiate with the dragon horses in a few years. Is Lightning the same horse she stepped in to calm in the story?
Well, Renxiang did say "By the time we are all fourth realm we will need to reassess. So self-sufficiency will need to be addressed within a few years" which is the author's way of showing in-story that the system will be at play, right?
Also, I'm unsure what you mean by we lost agency in cultivation, when we are constantly voting on decisions that affect Ling Qi's insights and thus her cultivation development. We have a lot of agency, no?
Also, I think the system is in place to save the author the problem of having to actually spend time and energy on the math, calculating hard numbers and instead focus on the narrative developments, which I think it's a wise choice.
Besides, it was already shown in-story that "Spirit stones above green quality had no set price because they were effectively strategic resources" so there are in-story reasons for moving out of Spirit Stone and simply call it Wealth as Ling Qi will be fueling her cultivation with various treasures and reagents rather than simply absorbing Qi from spirit stones, and the wealth of the Ling Clan and the Cai Renxiang Faction is also not just measured in spirit stones but the various assets under control that provide tangible benefits.
So, how can we get cultivation working again? What would we need to do? In my opinion there are several key points to address:
My suggestion is that we could instead use stat or trait cultivation as something to be used for background cultivation gameplay instead. Give us the ability to choose to feed cultivation xp into those to level them up instead. Heck, we could even do the same with art potency. Focus the narrative art projects on the big philosophy stuff and techniques, but allow us to sink points into raising their potency in the background. Set it up so that the total trait xp needed to max everything is higher than our base cultivation xp requirements for green, and that way we need to make meaningful choices about what we prioritise, as well as yrs having the ability to reward us with things that give us bonuses to idk frozen soul cultivation etc. If our stats or traits or whatever feel like they're getting too out of sync with our art development, yrs can always put temporary softcaps on them until we've done more art projects.
Now there's the question of variance. Cultivation rolls can be fun! It's neat to see if we get good progress or bad progress for this turn. The problem is that increasing dice numbers meant that variance dropped too much and everything became very predictable, which was boring. I toyed here with an idea of instead of getting 40/80 dice per GSS we could instead have a system where we have get "green dice" that give 40 xp on success or whatever. This would increase variance (with current numbers ~+/- 20% per month), but could also fail again, especially if yrs increased turn length. A simple solution to maintain high variance could be to instead disconnect the stones from dice entirely. Have our stones and drugs etc. provide base xp. Then, each turn, we simply roll a d100, which is applied as an adjustment factor to our base xp. Rolls over 50 are "good cultivation", and we get up to 150% xp depending on the roll. Rolls under 50 are bad, and we instead get reduced xp down to 50%. This makes every turn dramatic and exciting, while allowing our long term trajectory to be relatively predictable.
Sites and other resources could similarly have their bonuses adjusted to also apply to related trait projects etc., so e.g. our cold sites would also help frozen soul. Darkness/wind would help sable grace etc.
This could provide a way to fix some of the things we lost along the way, and bring back more engaging gameplay while not interfering with our Art and Way project development systems.
- Making the economy and resources matter
- Creating decisions and options
- Adding excitement and uncertainty via rolls with meaningful variance
- Not interfering with the narrative of Art/Way/concept cultivation
My suggestion is that we could instead use stat or trait cultivation as something to be used for background cultivation gameplay instead. Give us the ability to choose to feed cultivation xp into those to level them up instead. Heck, we could even do the same with art potency. Focus the narrative art projects on the big philosophy stuff and techniques, but allow us to sink points into raising their potency in the background. Set it up so that the total trait xp needed to max everything is higher than our base cultivation xp requirements for green, and that way we need to make meaningful choices about what we prioritise, as well as yrs having the ability to reward us with things that give us bonuses to idk frozen soul cultivation etc. If our stats or traits or whatever feel like they're getting too out of sync with our art development, yrs can always put temporary softcaps on them until we've done more art projects.
Now there's the question of variance. Cultivation rolls can be fun! It's neat to see if we get good progress or bad progress for this turn. The problem is that increasing dice numbers meant that variance dropped too much and everything became very predictable, which was boring. I toyed here with an idea of instead of getting 40/80 dice per GSS we could instead have a system where we have get "green dice" that give 40 xp on success or whatever. This would increase variance (with current numbers ~+/- 20% per month), but could also fail again, especially if yrs increased turn length. A simple solution to maintain high variance could be to instead disconnect the stones from dice entirely. Have our stones and drugs etc. provide base xp. Then, each turn, we simply roll a d100, which is applied as an adjustment factor to our base xp. Rolls over 50 are "good cultivation", and we get up to 150% xp depending on the roll. Rolls under 50 are bad, and we instead get reduced xp down to 50%. This makes every turn dramatic and exciting, while allowing our long term trajectory to be relatively predictable.
Sites and other resources could similarly have their bonuses adjusted to also apply to related trait projects etc., so e.g. our cold sites would also help frozen soul. Darkness/wind would help sable grace etc.
This could provide a way to fix some of the things we lost along the way, and bring back more engaging gameplay while not interfering with our Art and Way project development systems.
Yrs mentioned that he's attempting to bring back pills which would be super helpful for things like this but it keeps getting put off. And yeah we'll definitely be running max stones all the way until cyan because Renxiang said we are completely set that way with her stipend.
Mmm, to an extent the simple answer is that we had far more control over our cultivation decisions and they felt more impactful back in Forge, and this has been decreased over time.
These days due to the need for yrs to try to work our art projects and philosophical exploration into the narrative, we have relinquished a most of our control. Now we occasionally get given the option of a couple of art projects we could take, rather than being able to make plans independently. Similarly, the effective removal of cultivation resources as a factor has removed the need to play with and optimise our usage there. Gameplay and control are massively reduced, but so are many of our motivating factors. Currently there is, frankly, little point to site development - most of our sites barely do anything right now! Their bonuses have no mechanical function! Half our cultivation art doesn't do anything! Many of the things that motivated us to acquire resources and wealth just don't work anymore, which makes chunks of our fief development less meaningful.
Partly this is of course just a matter of us currently having little resources constraints which does make it hard for anything to matter really, but it is also a long term concern since the mechanics to make things matter aren't really there.
That being said, a lot of the issues relating to our reduction in agency are structural and difficult to "fix". Back in Forge we were making important decisions and plans every week. Who we talked to, what adventures we went on, what arts we cultivated were all questions we were constantly grappling with and were a regular part of our engagement. Now, due to the general narrative shift of the quest, we tackle those questions maybe once every three months. They're not a regular part of our engagement anymore - we're mostly reading a story. Similarly, the perceived impact of those decisions was partly due to greater perceived danger in the Outer Sect and the mechanical tangibility of our arts. There was a real sense that if we didn't have enough dice, if we failed the wrong roll, we could get beaten up and have all our lunch money stolen.
Does anyone really feel these days that if we make the "wrong" art decisions it really matters? That if, say, we fail to level our defense arts enough we'll lose an important fight? That's a harder issue to deal with, so I'm ignoring it here
Also tbh most of our time these days doesn't involve fighting at all, so it does make a lot of our arts feel not overly important. In that space I would like to see more use of things like the summit mechanics if we are going to be juggling more politics and diplomacy etc. The summit was a lot of fun.
Math management getting too complicated I feel is not too big a concern since we'll just solve that with spreadsheets regardless. We already have an accounts spreadsheet for the fief