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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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I'm sympathetic to @yrsillar's surprise over our choices here, honestly. The sequence went a bit like this: voted to stick together with 3 underlings for scouting -> voted to investigate earth spirits and discovered weird otherwordly tainted region; moon sempai dumped some lore on similarities to Cloud Nomad founding myth -> voted to split off and scout to the south for barbarian activity near the border; saw some barbs and ranked up Steatlh -> voted to break off instead of tailing them.

It's a little bit all over the place, and the coherent thread there was to follow... we snipped off before its end.

That's not to say we chose wrongly. We're being supervised, we were explicitly advised not to attempt to bite off more than we can chew, Ling Qi's ability to accurately gauge cloud nomad cultivation isn't, and there was ambiguity over whether the pursuit would violate a serious face sect rule re: the border. Since that didn't actually come up in her reasons to withdraw in this past update, I assume the "Imperial Borders" rule is more related to the inter-provincial borders(which makes sense since the Great Sects are direct arms of Imperial authority that not all provinces have assented to) than the external borders which have no relevant political body to complain about. Still, the concern was valid. More immediate concerns over our ability to stay concealed and performance if it came to a fight played a part too.

Nonetheless, our decisions lead to an awkward situation where all of the accumulating plot points were pointing in the one direction we ultimately decided not to travel. It's no surprise the narrative's inertia is spent.
 
AbeoLogos said:
I'm sympathetic to @yrsillar's surprise over our choices here, honestly. The sequence went a bit like this: voted to stick together with 3 underlings for scouting -> voted to investigate earth spirits and discovered weird otherwordly tainted region; moon sempai dumped some lore on similarities to Cloud Nomad founding myth -> voted to split off and scout to the south for barbarian activity near the border; saw some barbs and ranked up Steatlh -> voted to break off instead of tailing them.

It's a little bit all over the place, and the coherent thread there was to follow... we snipped off before its end.

That's not to say we chose wrongly. We're being supervised, we were explicitly advised not to attempt to bite off more than we can chew, Ling Qi's ability to accurately gauge cloud nomad cultivation isn't, and there was ambiguity over whether the pursuit would violate a serious face sect rule re: the border. Since that didn't actually come up in her reasons to withdraw in this past update, I assume the "Imperial Borders" rule is more related to the inter-provincial borders(which makes sense since the Great Sects are direct arms of Imperial authority that not all provinces have assented to) than the external borders which have no relevant political body to complain about. Still, the concern was valid. More immediate concerns over our ability to stay concealed and performance if it came to a fight played a part too.

Nonetheless, our decisions lead to an awkward situation where all of the accumulating plot points were pointing in the one direction we ultimately decided not to travel. It's no surprise the narrative's inertia is spent.
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I'm somewhat confused by the surprise myself.
Every action was, at the time, with the information at hand, perfectly reasonable to take considering our situation and instructions.
We moved together to learn more about our destination and troops, we acted together when the option arose to take the action most within our mission statement, we split to cover more ground and trusted our people to do their jobs, and then we got back after discovering enemies too risky for us to deal with instead of over reaching and seeking glory (which we most specifically were instructed against).
 
Valmond said:
I'm somewhat confused by the surprise myself.
Every action was, at the time, with the information at hand, perfectly reasonable to take considering our situation and instructions.
We moved together to learn more about our destination and troops, we acted together when the option arose to take the action most within our mission statement, we split to cover more ground and trusted our people to do their jobs, and then we got back after discovering enemies too risky for us to deal with instead of over reaching and seeking glory (which we most specifically were instructed against).
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Yeah.

It's a bit awkward for some of the broader themes playing out in arcs recently, though. You have Ling Qi's burgeoning understanding of cultures alien and past, which stalking barbarians would probably have furthered in some way. It would be a crystallization of Ling Qi's New Moon curiosity/Song Seeking to stalk the barbarians, tying into the previous point. There's the overarching hints of resurgent barbarian activity, which stalking barbarians would presumably offer a more intimate perspective on, since it's currently mostly meta-speculation and a few hints/teases.

I think there's a fair argument to make that there were clear intangible rewards inherent to the pursuit that we as players are doing a poor job of emulating consideration for on behalf of Ling Qi. It's not a problem in the immediate, but if it continues as a trend then we have in a very real sense taken steps down a false path. That's a biiiig problem for cultivators. If nothing else, the conversation around the decision on our part highlights a disconnect between aspects of Ling Qi's chosen portfolio and the hierarchy of our priorities as players.

On the other hand, that kind of personal opportunity seeking is indeed something we were explicitly preemptively chastised over and Ling Qi is being a Good Girl. Ten bux our supervisor's spirit was the one talking to us because the guy went off to stalk the barbarians himself though.
 
On the OTHER other hand, during our moon dream, where we were explicitly warned the character of our decisions echo into the waking world and our self, we were like "Oooh forgotten and inconvenient truths that challenge Imperial hegemony!" and now we're like "Better not take risks. It might upset the sect :("

Which is a bit of a disconnect, ya know? In a sense, it's a repeat of the bloody moon dream. Willing to do things in the abstract, but folding when things get Too Real. Did Ling Qi choose to be a horrible gremlin of lunar curiosity, or didn't she?
 
[x] Fire and Water (Gu Xiulan and Shen Hu)

I'm voting for this, because if it's military-exercise related hijinx, then it can plausibly be a tale retold to Ling Qi.
 
AbeoLogos said:
On the OTHER other hand, during our moon dream, where we were explicitly warned the character of our decisions echo into the waking world and our self, we were like "Oooh forgotten and inconvenient truths that challenge Imperial hegemony!" and now we're like "Better not take risks. It might upset the sect :("

Which is a bit of a disconnect, ya know? In a sense, it's a repeat of the bloody moon dream. Willing to do things in the abstract, but folding when things get Too Real. Did Ling Qi choose to be a horrible gremlin of lunar curiosity, or didn't she?
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Personally my motivation wasn't "It might upset the Sect" but more "These guys might kill us", or at least force senpai to intervene resulting in a mark against us we can't afford.

Gan's a big dude, we can't share the doghouse with him.
 
My motivation was from this line "Ling Qi collapsed back into a single shape, her shoulders hunched as she wheezed in a breath of moist storm charged air.". We barely avoided a fight and were exhausted. Restraint is the better part of valor and attempting a stealth mission where we had already used our 1/turn +30 wasn't a risk, it was being actively stupid.
 
Rayous said:
My motivation was from this line "Ling Qi collapsed back into a single shape, her shoulders hunched as she wheezed in a breath of moist storm charged air.". We barely avoided a fight and were exhausted. Restraint is the better part of valor and attempting a stealth mission where we had already used our 1/turn +30 wasn't a risk, it was being actively stupid.
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Now, maybe this would be different if we were on our fief as a Baron and discovered these three scouts.

We're not.

This isn't our land, this isn't our bosses land, we're paying tuition right now and our supervisor told us to not go chasing glory.
 
To be honest, I don't feel cultivation is supposed to be a suicide pact where your duty is to run off screaming at the first plot hook.

Literally everything leading up to this has hammered in "Run off for opportunities on your own time, right now, you're working for a living"
 
[X] The Snake and the Spider(Bai Meizhen and Bao Qingling)
[X] Needle and Thread (Li Suyin and ???)
 
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