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

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Karthak Urzak said:
Per Yrs a Cloud cultivator is worth approximately 1.75 of an Imperial cultivator of the same realm. And that's with two souls united. How powerful might those restored to the full glory of their ancestors be?
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Isn't that only because the Imperial mooks cannot fly? I don't think the higher realm tribesmen enjoy any qualitative advantage over their Imperial peers.

LQ, with her ability to fly at Green, killed Cloud cultivators pretty easily.
 
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Karthak Urzak said:
Imagine if the Ith'ia-aligned Cloud hadn't attacked early and Galidan had had a century or two to to cultivate his White arts, prepare his forces and bond warriors with more Stars.
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Maybe? The problem is that it's also a century or two for the Emerald Seas to get stronger, and possibly more importantly, if the Empire gets confirmation Galidan is a White, then IIRC Yrsillar said it would mean the Empress would have to divert resources towards bolstering the defences of the Emerald Seas.

And given that over time the Cloud Tribes are getting increasingly pushed out, then it suggests the long-term trend favours the Empire militarily, not the Cloud Tribes.
 
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Personally, i'd be more interested in how things between the Cloud, the White Sky, and the various other related factions turned out if the original attack was offset by a century or two. Cause, from what i recall, they weren't really fans of each other even before things got…complicated.
 
Karthak Urzak said:
No. Yrs explicitly said on the discord that a Cloud White is 1.75 of an Imperial White, and I quoted his comparison with Zhengui that explains why.
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That being said, I'm pretty sure that's not taking bound spirits into account? Shenhua's got her absurd wardrobe of object spirits plus maybe a fallen star spirit, Yuan He's got his dragon, Jiao's got Xin, Linqin has the dress Shenhua made her, etc. The higher up you go the less common peer level spirits to bind are, but most of the big shots we know have one to back them up. I'm not sure how exactly the math changes there, but I'm pretty sure it does still change.

Yrsillar's statement was also an average, and there's at least one guy we know, Elder Zhou, who made a career out of killing Khans all the way up to being peer level with him despite not having a bound spirit as far as we know. I wouldn't want to bet on a random Cloud Tribe Violet over Xia Ren, even if I'd expect one to come out on top against the average Imperial Violet.
 
memoryofglory said:
the average Imperial Violet.
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No such thing as an average Violet. That's the first stage of Sovereignty, so they're all special snowflakes. (I know what you mean, but I suspect that rather than 'average strength level' you're doing a lot more rock-paper-scissors about whether one Violet is a good match against another. Is rock stronger than scissors? Is paper stronger than rock?)
 
Briefvoice said:
No such thing as an average Violet. That's the first stage of Sovereignty, so they're all special snowflakes. (I know what you mean, but I suspect that rather than 'average strength level' you're doing a lot more rock-paper-scissors about whether one Violet is a good match against another. Is rock stronger than scissors? Is paper stronger than rock?)
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This entire discussion is based around the author themselves putting an average numerical value on the average Imperial and Cloud White. If you want to have a discussion about how there's no such thing as average I'm not the one you need to take it up with.
 
yrsillar said:
Battered, slain by dying sun laid low?

O Brother…
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Sounds like Totality might have been associated with the stars. Does that mean a star helped create the Twilight King? It sounds like an attempt to bring it back.

Edit: Would the stars consider Totality a form of liberation from free will/division?

Karthak Urzak said:
Per Yrs a Cloud cultivator is worth approximately 1.75 of an Imperial cultivator of the same realm. And that's with two souls united. How powerful might those restored to the full glory of their ancestors be?
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I think that would depend on if they can reach the full power that their ancestors had, or if they would run into the patch the Nameless Mother/Father did across the world due to the Dragons.
 
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memoryofglory said:
That being said, I'm pretty sure that's not taking bound spirits into account? Shenhua's got her absurd wardrobe of object spirits plus maybe a fallen star spirit, Yuan He's got his dragon, Jiao's got Xin, Linqin has the dress Shenhua made her, etc. The higher up you go the less common peer level spirits to bind are, but most of the big shots we know have one to back them up. I'm not sure how exactly the math changes there, but I'm pretty sure it does still change.

Yrsillar's statement was also an average, and there's at least one guy we know, Elder Zhou, who made a career out of killing Khans all the way up to being peer level with him despite not having a bound spirit as far as we know. I wouldn't want to bet on a random Cloud Tribe Violet over Xia Ren, even if I'd expect one to come out on top against the average Imperial Violet.
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I'd also note Cloud tribe cultivators advance by hunting worthy opponents(which is why they are having a hard time after having culled the upper range of the ecosystem for millennia). Basically all of them are some variety of Warrior Cultivator, while imperials are spread wider.

So Cloud Khans vs imperials Sovereigns:
Cloud
-Higher raw potency and thus bigger resource pool due to twin souled. Triple souled if they had a star bond.

-They got there via very lethal fights with peers. Of the Imperials this is much rarer, though they exist(see Sun Shao). Combat oriented Ways matter significantly in a fight.

-Mobility advantage, they've been flying since Red(with props), they are just going to be better at 3d combat.

-Action Economy. While an imperial cultivator Could have peer spirit partners making up for the twin/triple soul, the imperial method would generally have the spirit lagging somewhat behind in raw cultivation, as the areas of responsibility needed to grow are largely spoken for in the Empire.

Imperial
-Better equipment. A Cloud Khan's equipment supply diminishes dramatically as they advance, and would be more along the lines of leveraging high quality materials inherent qualities. Imperial crafter sovereigns are numerous enough that its quite reasonable to expect to be able to commission a full kit of whatever high end gear you need eventually, though it won't be cheap. Added to this Imperial formationcraft is worldclass.

-Better arts. Owing to the jade slips being invented in antiquity, imperials are far better at preserving and iterating on their arts, with considerable references and theory when you need to innovate. Cloud tribes basically have to do master-apprentice, which limits this.

-Numbers. Even the ES, as depleted as it had been by the Hui's mismanagement and the civil war, has more high cultivators than the cloud tribes combined. If they are 1.75x as strong we have thrice as many, even if only one out of three is a dedicated fighter.
 
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I think this pretty roundly answers some prior madness-theories that Shenhua "did a Barbarian style fusion of soul, but instead of with a beast it was with star-stuff so people didn't recognize it as uber heresy"

Apparently there's an existing Barb tradition of performing soul fusion with stars!

New Madness Theory:
The barbs tend to loathe going beneath the earth, so any of the surface star stuffs they would have fused with . . after thousands of years they've run out. Just like they've hunted the mega-fauna out of existence in the pursuit of power. They thought they were renewable resources but exhausted them even if they are/were to some extent. So the power lines and Laws are in place for binding Star to Soul, but the Stars are generally missing and have been for a very long time.

Shenhua is very talented. So let's say she bumps into Star underground at some point. The prior assumption was that whatever Star-thing she bumped into was unformed enough for her to impress her will upon it. With this new knowledge, what if it simply resonated deeply with her rage and fury at the status quo of existence? What if it told her about the Laws and Rites of binding Star to Self? What if she simply had the instincts to follow along with the ancient rites accurately on her first try? She was already pretty far along her Way, but maybe the bonding with star-selves always came later on for the tribes? If this sidestory is any indication, the need of a Beast-self to be able to travel far enough distances to find a Star to attempt to fuse with might mean the Star-self was always a fusion that came later for the tribes involved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Separately, this talk of Grudge makes me think the peace offer could be something Yan Renshu is involved with. I actually somewhat suspect that Shu Yue/Shenhua'sFaction already know that Yan Renshu is still involved, and leaving it up to the Heiress (and her retainers) to handle. I think teaching Ling Qi the knowledge of Grudge+Spite before the rootways journey is important. But I also think it's likely timely if Yan Renshu is still involved with the plots of the war.

I could imagine a group in the Ya wanting a terrible cataclysm as a cultural unifier. So long as the remnants survive a much larger union can be supported tied back to that one cataclysm that happened. Similar to a group of radicals preferring for the Meng to die than to lose their personal interpretation of traditions, but focused on a future rather than the loss of a past. "We must create a grand unifying invasion like the star-beasts that drove our ancestors deeper still beneath the cold pillar! Then we shall be able to create a grand League like that unity which came from those terrible days!" This would be the faction utilizing Yan Renshu, and potentially using him as a useful propagandist to convince the citizenry that the attacks on mortals will actually bring about a surrender and not a cataclysm. Taking someone that lived in the polity that you're fighting and sending them on propaganda tours is a pretty old trick, including when the person actually lived in that polity and isn't just a wholesale fiction by the state!

Insane. Insanely spiteful, but in character for Yan Renshu to wish cataclysm upon the Empire for not giving him his due. I think he makes sense as a target for us being Shu Yue's successor. So far we've only really been killing in skirmish. Soon we'll be killing in war. From Shu Yue, I think we'll be finding the boundaries of when/why to execute in cold blood. Which sucks, yes. But when you're a cultivator at Shu Yue's level can the targeted killing of a Green be anything but an execution? When we get to that higher realm will we let the Yan Renshu's of the world live when we could otherwise intervene? I think an important boundary for us to find for ourselves is when in the timeline of Yan Renshu's fall we would intervene, and with what actions at various times?

Obviously if we were the Sect and had intervened sooner, Yan Renshu might have not gone on so dire a path. Obviously we could have let Meizhen kill him when he was powerless and broken before us. Do we intervene in the aftermath of that if we're the Sect? Do we intervene earlier, attempting to curb the aggrieved pride of the Yan clan story from him? Do we wait for him to commit to the betrayal and then kill him before he follows through with it?

A very interesting life to follow in an attempt to find when and how we may wish to intervene in the lives of lower cultivators, when we have even more explicit power over their lives as a ruler and as the Left Hand of Renxiang.
 
JowKeen said:
I think this pretty roundly answers some prior madness-theories that Shenhua "did a Barbarian style fusion of soul, but instead of with a beast it was with star-stuff so people didn't recognize it as uber heresy"

Apparently there's an existing Barb tradition of performing soul fusion with stars!

New Madness Theory:
The barbs tend to loathe going beneath the earth, so any of the surface star stuffs they would have fused with . . after thousands of years they've run out. Just like they've hunted the mega-fauna out of existence in the pursuit of power. They thought they were renewable resources but exhausted them even if they are/were to some extent. So the power lines and Laws are in place for binding Star to Soul, but the Stars are generally missing and have been for a very long time.
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Running out of stars is not going to be an issue. From the prologue of the newest book (available as a free sample on Amazon):

His voice was many, the man's own the most prominent, but in it was a bird's shriek, a star's incomprehensible song, and more distantly the voices of the others who had been able to bond. First seven, from the recovered stones, each a great Khan or ancient shaman, and now increasingly the younger star souls beginning to be born from them, bonding with warriors like his grandson.
 
veekie said:
-Mobility advantage, they've been flying since Red(with props), they are just going to be better at 3d combat.
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By the time someone is white that gap in experience especially if you compare the Mortal mind to a sovereign mind is negligible. Whites have at minimum been around for hundreds of years (excluding the obvious exception). With how often Cultivators clash especially in recent Imperial History it is unlikely for a White not ti be familiar with 3d and Soverign lvl combat.

veekie said:
-Numbers. Even the ES, as depleted as it had been by the Hui's mismanagement and the civil war, has more high cultivators than the cloud tribes combined. If they are 1.75x as strong we have thrice as many, even if only one out of three is a dedicated fighter.
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And those who survived are on average stronger than the norm as they underwent serious Tribulation all their lives.
Imperials: Cloud invasion -> Civil War -> Hui Hunting -> Probably Southern Reclamations/Punitive Strikes.
vs.
Clouds: Invasion + Fall of many high end fighters -> Diaspora (Into Hundred Princes & Grave of Sun area) -> Long Attrition from Polar Nations + Cultural disintegration

edit: The Cloud Tribes are slowly dying as a culture, certainly parts of it will survive via integration with new homelands but their ways of cultivation will fundamentally change in the long run, and by the time any Revanchist sentiment emerges the descendants of those Tribes will be so different that they'll clash and be unable to form a cohesive whole (ie: Final Wall command of Imperial Fist Legion Chapters in 40k).

Also, the Cloud have had a harder time producing Skys (equivalent Whites) in the first place I think 6 or 7 have appeared and the closest contemporary was the Khan who the Sect Master & Friends final bossed. This stems from a chronic lack of population base (killing mortal children) + their diaspora has left the remaining tribes with precipitously low population bases not helped by the recent expansion/squeeze from North and South.
 
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weeblypanda said:
By the time someone is white that gap in experience especially if you compare the Mortal mind to a sovereign mind is negligible. Whites have at minimum been around for hundreds of years (excluding the obvious exception). With how often Cultivators clash especially in recent Imperial History it is unlikely for a White not ti be familiar with 3d and Soverign lvl combat.
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I'll be honest, I'm not sure practical experience matters at all any more for personal combat by the time you're a Sovereign. Well, it does, but only inasmuch as it has shaped your Way. Fights at that level are pretty much purely conceptual, with the person whose Concepts are most suited to the current conflict tending to win...long experience in battle shapes your Concepts in the direction of winning such conflicts, mind you, but that's the part that matters, not the specific tactics you had to use when you were weaker.

Strategic and tactical insights, and especially logistics, remain relevant for choosing what battles to fight and what match-ups to have, but personal combat ability seems like it's only relevant inasmuch as it has shaped your cultivation.
 
weeblypanda said:
By the time someone is white that gap in experience especially if you compare the Mortal mind to a sovereign mind is negligible. Whites have at minimum been around for hundreds of years (excluding the obvious exception). With how often Cultivators clash especially in recent Imperial History it is unlikely for a White not ti be familiar with 3d and Soverign lvl combat.
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The issue is that their Way and combat is from the start structured around 3d combat, while Imperials do not generally pick up flight related insights until well after they narrowed(since imperial flight starts at 4th realm, and they already picked their first dozen insights as well as their first Word by then).

In general you can expect Cloud tribe combat insights to be fundamentally based around maneuverability and to entirely discard the need to hold ground.
 
Kanue Tomkin said:
So do the Cloud Tribes cultivation method only work for combat? Do they not have any cultivators who are in other fields like medicine or such?
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They have Shamans which can do some pretty potent Spiritual stuff but overall the Clouds are a very martial culture and cultivation can soothe a lot of the issues of how little focus their culture gives to other fields. Who cares if you don't have a blacksmith to Forge a super sword with when you can kill a kick ass monster to turn its spine into a spear or whatever.
 
Fair
Though a shame at the same time. Imagine if one of those Cloud Nomads got their hands on that Sky Metal stuff from the golden fields and went wild on art projects.
 
veekie said:
In general you can expect Cloud tribe combat insights to be fundamentally based around maneuverability and to entirely discard the need to hold ground.
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That's actually a potent disadvantage for the Cloud Tribes though, as the entire point of the upcoming war is about holding ground, as the Empire is expanding and the Cloud Tribes want to stop them.
 
sstabeler said:
That's actually a potent disadvantage for the Cloud Tribes though, as the entire point of the upcoming war is about holding ground, as the Empire is expanding and the Cloud Tribes want to stop them.
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It means they lose the strategic exchanges more yes, but they're going to bleed us tons along the way until they finally run out of retreat room
 
True, the war is not going to be bloodless for Emerald Seas.
But ourside is aware of that, so they will be seeking to force the tribes to attack fixed positions as much as possible, instead of open warfare.
 
veekie said:
It means they lose the strategic exchanges more yes, but they're going to bleed us tons along the way until they finally run out of retreat room
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Unfortunately, the Province can afford to since they have a much wider population base. And as you pointed out this is effectively a war of annihilation so in the end ES will have made net gains since the surviving Cultivators will have undergone Tribulation boosted by UoB and PoO while all the "mortal" Cloud tribes will have been (horrifically) sent to re-education villages
 
the Sect really helped us immediately remedy the privations of body and mind, but the loneliness took longer to mend because cultivator society (that we have been exposed to, the high aristocracy) is full of loneliness. We've advanced our understanding of Isolation and Community well, and I see these as being foundational to one of the cores of our cultivation. Three cores initially. Body, Mind and Spirit. Grinning, Hidden and Dreaming.

The Rootways should remind us of the privations of body and mind. Mystery is a seed for the mind stuff related to Hidden, but we don't really have a dedicated seed for the bodily privation stuff (that doesn't also apply to the other kinds of privation).

Isolation is privation of the spirit, loneliness the pain that drives the Want to seek a solution. Community (as we define it) is our answer to Loneliness.

Starvation is privation of the body, hunger the pain that drives the Want to seek a solution. We could say Power is an answer to Hunger, but that's also true for the Power to reach out and connect with others and form Community. I think it's not specific enough.

our Mystery insight says that Ignorance is privation of the mind, but I think it might be Stagnation actually. The point of starvation or isolation when you're caught in such lack that you cannot even pursue the solution anymore. Confusion is the pain that drives the Want to seek a solution. Our answer to Confusion would be Clarity, understanding that begets the most desirable outcomes. That said, if the privation of the mind is Ignorance as stated, then Communication is probably our answer to the pain of confused ignorance. Or perhaps Mystery is our answer to a state of true ignorance, Mystery that stokes the curiosity that drives out the state of true ignorance.

This ties back into the Confusion that we sow amongst our enemies, as an additional weapon in our arsenal that sits next to Isolation. Three weapons (Starvation, Isolation, Confusion/Occlusion/Ignorance) and three answers (unknown (Sacrifice ? ), Community, Communication/Mystery) to make 3 cores (Body, Spirit, Mind) for our cultivation.

Many concepts that are shared between the three, keeping them balanced and tied together. I think that's where the Rootways journey will take us. A concept for Starvation and a concept for Privation of Mind (ignorance or confusion, something like that). These were things that Ling Qi suffered but were also the easiest for the Sect to remedy. Time for a reminder, and for us to start digging into our other two cores.
 
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