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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Gabrloi said:
We do in fact, we make 52 greens a month due to cai stipend. So we'll make back the 100 in two months, less if we go back to investing in the fief and do adventures.
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Once you account for expenses, our drug habit etc. our actual surplus was 15 GSS this month. That's still ~175 a year depending on variability, so we can afford 100GSS but it would be a significant amount.
 
It's hard to make this decision without knowing what else we might spend stones on, but I do think we can get a general sense of the types of things we might be investing in:
  1. Personal Power - stuff like our new flute, more drugs, enchanted items, etc. Things that are only really useful to us
  2. Clan Growth - beginner arts, basic talismans, etc. Things that will help the other members of our clan in their cultivation journey, and broaden the strength of the Ling clan to not just be riding on our coattails.
  3. City Growth - Workers, infrastructure, and resources for Shenglu. Help the city grow faster and grow bigger, which is important because it will end up as our power base eventually.
  4. Provence Influence - Connections, relations, and image. How we are seen by both high and low cultivators, how far our words may spread. Essential for long term goals, but doesn't do a lot to help short term (with Ith, Cloud tribes, and city development)
  5. Diplomatic Influence - Connections and relations with other provinces and the Polar nations. I think it's unlikely we'll be able to spend money here to advance this, but it's a possibility.
  6. Future Income - Spend money to make money. I think it's unlikely we will see this on it's own, but it's possible other opponrtunities (in particular City Growth ones) may lead to a direct return on investments.
I think it's a mistake to think about this vote as a 3 purchase. It might have some effect there, but we already have the administrators for Shenglu. Even if we don't donate anything personally, Cai Renxiang still will be, and she will still be in charge of Shanglu for a while yet. I don't think it's really a 2 purchase either. We are a bit far from the capital to be sending people there for education, and I don't think we are going to be adopting people without some sort of personal bond to them. It might open up the door to having a Gold Autumn branch school be built in Shenglu, but that would be a different decision at a later date.

This is a 4 purchase: Provence Influence. It's about being a name to the school, it's students, and it's funders. Now, 50-100 green stones is a sizeable chunk of money: Even just the 50 is 25,000 red stones. Of course, divided across a 13 month year it's only 481 per week, but that's still enough to fund a large amount of mortal and red students, or a solid class of yellows. It's more than just the money though. If we invest, we will be seen as a major advocate for the system and it's goals, and the larger Cai subsidies will be attributed in part to us.

We are trying to forge a central Emerald Seas identity, and bring Neo-Weilu faith into fashion. Having a network of friendly administrators across the south will give us the opportunity to help shape the collective community and culture of the emerald seas. Being friends with a network of charitable forward thinkers in Xiangman will help us keep a finger on the pulse of opinion there. When we push for more radical changes and initiatives, we'll have support.

If we want to be seen as a player, then we need to put money where our mouth is.

[X] 100 Green Stones per year

I think this is worth going full spend for. It's an investment, and it may mean on missing out on future opportunities. But I'd like for us to start work on spreading our net more, not just relying on gifted addresses from Meizhen's dad for our contacts. We do also have a large stockpile of green stones, so if we do run into a must purchase later on, we have enough float to take it.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Killer_Whale on Dec 4, 2024 at 1:03 AM, finished with 84 posts and 50 votes.
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[X] 50 Green Stones per year

If we already owned a stable source of GSS, I would be all in for donating even more. But at this moment, everything comes from the Cai stipend.

Shenglu isn't nowhere near producing even a fraction of such. And any business opportunities we run into during the weddimg will take a while to turn in a profit.

This is just the range of donations for usual donors, and I bet none of them are newly minted barons. I'm sure that the established barons give mostly 50-75, and the 100 comes from the really wealthy ones or a viscount or two.
Between all of those and the prospective Cai subsidization, ours donation won't make much of a dent.

This is about waving the flag that we are also directly involved in the schooling efforts, that it isn't a Cai exclusive venture.
In fact, investing too much may result in some backlash, being seen as a rookie baron irresponsibly throwing our money around to ride on Renxiang's coattails.
 
I do not want to spend so much of our actual surplus on uncertain and probably quite a bit in the future lying gains when we need to get our fief and family off the ground. I believe we also have to put some GSS aside for an upgrade to our talismans (new flute?) and possibly ingredients for the break-through drugs (iirc we do not have everything yet).

[X] Do not
 
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