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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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Erebeal said:
The other thing I'd say is that it feels like Grinning has a significant presence in all the options?

Like, I'd characterise them as:
  1. Grinning > Hidden
  2. Dreaming > Grinning
  3. Hidden > Grinning
The one we choose might be dominant, but sneaky trickstery stuff seems to permeate them all.
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I would have said Hidden for the second one, but wriggling knowledge out from under suppression is pretty Grinning too, you're right.

[x] Take the Grinning Moon's suggestion
[x] Take the Hidden Moon's suggestion
 
So:
Grinning, Dreaming or Hidden
Scout, musician or courtesan.
+stealth, +music or +social combat.


I honestly don't have much idea on what to base our next cultivation art and our Dao upon...
 
[X] Take the Grinning Moon's suggestion
[X] Take the Hidden Moon's suggestion
 
[X] Take the Hidden Moon's suggestion

Indecision growing.....

I don't know what I want. I like all of them. I like Dreaming option, but I also like being a contrarian so....
 
[X] Take the Grinning Moon's suggestion
[X] Take the Hidden Moon's suggestion

I want Ling Qi to be a sneak using music, rather than a musician who occasionally sneaks (badly)
 
yrsillar said:
"Unprovoked assault on a mortal, charged and fined after report by the establishments owner to the district magistrate," Xin said, and it was Xin, she could tell.

Ling Qi glanced her way. She would trust the spirits word on that but… did it really change anything? Yet, she found herself remembering things that she had forgotten. She remembered her mother and the owner talking, and other girls contributing coppers to a growing pouch. She never had seen that girl again, which she had seemed sinister, but… "Do you know what happened to the girl?"

"She recovered on the back of communal funds," Xin began.

"She purchased an apprenticeship with a seamstress using the restitution paid from the fine," The Dreaming Moon said absently.

"Never got her smile back though," the Grinning Moon said flippantly. "If ya know what I mean."
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yrsillar said:
It was funny, in a twisted sort of way that the cultivator had been the one who actually got punished. She wasn't sure what to think of that. Leaving that aside however… running away really had been a sideways step, hadn't it.
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What in the actual hell happened in Ling Qi's head in this update to get her to leap to this sort of ridiculous conclusion? How high on moon power is she?

Oh a woman got all her teeth permenently knocked out (we know mortals don't get access to easy superhealing without a stupid huge expense of hiring a high tier cultivator doctor becasue cultivator medicine is essentially poison) but it's allright because she got a pittance worth of pity money and a trade. Really the guy who will live much longer and much more healthily (due to being any sort of cultivator) but got a small fine is the one who really got it worse here.

Just what?

Honestly the more I read it the more the whole brothel part of the update felt quite weak to me. There was no real feeling like Ling Qi was actually confronting a long held issue, no real sense of lingering horror or emotional payoff. I get that this is SV and we need to be very careful around certain topics, but any sort of horror Ling Qi felt seemed purely an informed attribute here, with too much telling what she felt and not enough showing. The whole tone of the update feels like "it really wasn't that bad, it's fine... oh I guess you still don't like it.". It also feels like it's trying to walk back too much of the horror, even the mundane horror (like the aformentioned removal of the guards can be utter bastards and reporting this to other guards will at best do nothing because no one wants to care aspect).

The mental comparison against the streets and their "mundane everyday horror" also feels rather weak, becasue we don't go and see the streets again to actually feel that conclusion. It also glosses over the other personal issues, like the Liu's interest in this place, forcing Qingge into this life.* Or the frankly very real possibility of Qingge being unable to prevent Ling Qi from being forced into things (though I recognise how difficult this may be to address in a way that is safe for SV).

Honestly I think the biggest problem to me was that this was essentially trying to deal with a very key part of Ling Qi's backstory and personal trauma in essentially half an update, complete with irreverent commentary from Ling Qi's spirits. This whole arc is a key part of Ling Qi's character and cultivation development. Choosing Tongou was a clear indication that we wanted to explore Ling Qi's past and it's effect on her self and her future, but it really feels like we got the whistlestop tour of character development. Ling Qi's interactions with the spirits of the moon are great, but it detracted from dealing properly with the actual issue.

Don't get me wrong I love the grinning moon's efforts to heer up Ling Qi and how all three of the moon spirits are clearly trying to support Ling Qi but this entire thing reads like Ling Qi is on heavy painkillers; completely outside of her own emotions and is due to have a massive freakout when she comes down.

*Although this could suggest a nice bit of fridge horror to hit Ling Qi later. The guard only got punished and the woman got any sort of compensation because the business belonged to the people forcing her mother into prostitution.

As to the vote:
[X] Take the Grinning Moon's suggestion
[X] Take the Hidden Moon's suggestion

Really not a fan of the whole "must pick dreaming to get mechanical bard bonuses" some people seem to be suggesting.

 
Humbaba said:
What in the actual hell happened in Ling Qi's head in this update to get her to leap to this sort of ridiculous conclusion? How high on moon power is she?

Oh a woman got all her teeth permenently knocked out (we know mortals don't get access to easy superhealing without a stupid huge expense of hiring a high tier cultivator doctor becasue cultivator medicine is essentially poison) but it's allright because she got a pittance worth of pity money and a trade. Really the guy who will live much longer and much more healthily (due to being any sort of cultivator) but got a small fine is the one who really got it worse here.

Just what?
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I think this was how wealthy mortals could abuse the women without punishments, but the cultivators doing it were punished because they were held to a higher standard.

Not that the victim wasn't punished.
 
[X] Take the Grinning Moon's suggestion
[X] Take the Dreaming Moon's suggestion
[X] Take the Hidden Moon's suggestion

This, truly, is the grinning moon option. Be so indecisive that you take all of them!
 
[X] Take the Hidden Moon's suggestion

I like this because it is really where the rubber meets the road with regards to social power and struggles. We can learn a bunch of things we aren't supposed to, we can be a brilliant artist and much admired- but if we can't break an opponent without going physical, then for all of our social we lack teeth. This is the path that let's us learn how to use social as a weapon.
 
Man, I am so torn. I feel like these are all good options and frankly I'll be fine with any of them. I think I want to lean towards the more fun and IC choice, Grinning Moon. Honestly I never liked the bard build we've been building towards as much as the rogue build. Music is important to her but she never had as much fun as she did when stealing things. I remember she was described as having this sort of delighted thrill when stealing those spider eggs for instance. And someone recently said that she doesn't take the initiative to steal, she just enjoys it when she ends up having to do it. That's not true, she decided to steal from many of the student nobility who looked down on h her in Forge. And it wasn't purely the satisfaction of payback but her actual enjoyment of the thrill that comes with stealing.

But choosing Grinning twice in a row is kinda meh. I'm curious about the other choices as well and I like it when we change it up.
Grr can't decide.
 
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Leaving out the characterisation question, Dreaming Moon is pretty much the best choice just from a pure mechanics perspective since we already get bonuses to our cultivation from sneaking and larceny (grinning) and from finding hidden or forgotten knowledge (hidden) but we don't get any cultivation bonuses from playing music (despite two of our main Arts being music based) nor from socialising.

Dreaming's suggestion in addition to sounding fun can give us mechanical stuff that we're lacking right now in EPC.
 
[X] Take the Hidden Moon's suggestion

I like the methodology of telling a certain person a certain piece of info to accomplish our goals.
 
Lena27 said:
And someone recently said that she doesn't take the initiative to steal, she just enjoys it when she ends up having to do it. That's not true, she decided to steal from many of the student nobility who looked down on h her in Forge. And it wasn't purely the satisfaction of payback but her actual enjoyment of the thrill that comes with stealing.
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She only ended up doing that after being convinced to by her doppelganger in the dream she had after the second Thunderdome. She had the option of doing so several times beforehand but chose not to.
 
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Zaealix said:
Transgressing where we should not...That's a strong theme here.
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yrsillar said:
place where the dullards at the top of this heap would much rather we not go
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yrsillar said:
spread of art too long forgotten and suppressed
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yrsillar said:
we will see that a certain secret makes its way to the appropriate ears,"
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It seems to me more like transgressing against what we're supposed to do, rather than should, taking what's right as a higher authority than...well, Authority.


yrsillar said:
Once, a long long time ago, there was a little girl who stole the sovereignty of wind from the cruel and fickle gods
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Once, it would have been blasphemy to hope for a cool breeze on a hot day, or for a rest at the oars.

One girl watched her gown twist in a storm, and grinned, because she knew she could do better.
 
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