>>71963084
Here's some lore for my own setting:

>The Middle Kingdom as understood by humanity is a massive expanse of terrain, hundreds of thousands of miles across, with countless beings dwelling inside of it and all manner of mystical energies at play.
>The area outside of this region is many times larger, filled with even stranger things like beasts the size of mountains, trees stretching above the clouds, swarms of insects trillions in strength, and civilizations which make even the strangest within the Middle Kingdom seem barely odd at all.
>The vast majority of the land in the world is either incredibly savage wilderness or barren wasteland, often riddled with mountains, with the patches that can support civilization almost completely cut off from one another. Only a settled area completely unified by a single ruler has a chance of breaking through to another area, and so for the most part the regions are cut off from one another for long periods of time, though the odd merchant caravan or mad explorer, or particularly competent parties of adventurers or settlers, will make their way to a foreign land. Many end up becoming permanent minority residents rather than attempting the risky trip back home, if they ever intended to return at all. A phenomena called the Great Winds blows across the entirety of existence from an impossibly far north origin point, shaping the terrain such that the isolated patches of civilized land always develop a cold northern region and a warm southern region, with individual variations and a greater tendency towards warm or cold in general depending on how far north or south in terms of reality something is. The Middle Kingdom is in a sweet spot where all types of biospheres may be created in a single patch of land. In terms of our own reality, it can be considered to be in this massive plane's "Goldilocks Zone", with each habitable area being equivalent to a small planet.

>>71963084
Too bad nobody care about wuxia stuff. Its too obscure in the west and has no particular RPG dedicated to it that's any good.

>>71963264
I really think people would enjoy playing a cultivator TTRPG. You thought western games had resource management autism? Try a setting where your stats depend in how well you can manage the ecosystem and aesthetics of a small world inside your soul. I mean, that's high level shit but the players will get there eventually.

>>71963338
There's potential and Wuxia stuff has enough elements to appeal to a variety of RPG playstyle, from combat to social to role play (so much drama and revenge and rivalries) to sandboxing. However right now there's not really any good RPG for it. Only major one I can think is Legend of the Wulin and that one is pretty odd.

>>71963615
I feel you might be able to rejigger Exalted. That's my plan anyway.

>>71963720
No, Exalted is so fundamentally flawed and bad it cannot be used for anything.

>>71963084
>no Jin Yong

literally wut

>>71964701
His stuff is good but it's not high fantasy cultivator autism

>>71964950
To elaborate on this you need

>geography measured in billions and trillions of miles
>heaven-defying cheat tools
>tournament arcs
>mystic realm arcs
>more tournament arcs
>outcast/amnesiac with famous father/mother/clan
>x-colored, yin-yang, five-elements tribulation/divine lightning at regular intervals
>impossibly beautiful female companion/weapon/spirit/rival/wife
>blood spraying out of mouth
>tumbling backwards x distance, like a kite with its string cut
>intense sense of deadly crisis
>jade-like skin/twin peaks/peerless beauty in every city/world/realm, each somehow more peerless than the last
>x girl's primordial yin is a perfect cultivation furnace for young master y
>x incense sticks of time
>I, your father/grandfather am not someone you can afford to offend
>trash believes he can jump cultivation levels to fight esteemed young master
>I will give you this face today
>frog in a well, could not recognize mt. tai, eyes but cannot see
>you mildly inconvenienced me, so I will cripple your cultivation, kill your entire family and dig out your ancestor's graves
>MC, you are going too far
>don't know whether to laugh or cry
>time it takes a spark to fly off a piece of flint
>takes some time to describe, but happened in an instant
>x flicking his sleeve
>this cultivation ground in x world/realm is y times better than the one I just left, twice the results with half the effort
>didn't know whether to laugh or cry
>wry smile
>time it takes for an incense stick to burn
>trash from the XYZ clan!
>her flawless white/jade-like skin
>have eyes but cant see mt tai
>the difference between heaven and earth
>even though it takes a while to describe something, it happened within the span of a single breath/moment
>bitter smile
>young master, you dare?
>I, your father/grandfather
>you are courting death
>how dare you not give me my face
>spits blood/coughs up blood
>arrogant young master

>>71965045
I need more explanation of these cliches because it sound cheesy as fuck and seems I'd love it.

>>71965247
This should help with the basics

https://immortalmountain.wordpress.com/glossary/wuxia-xianxia-xuanhuan-terms/

One thing not mentioned in here though is that its a common wuxia thing to assert your dominance by calling yourself someone's grandfather. In the west a cool experienced dude might say
>"Heh, you're ten years too early to challenge me, kid."
but in wuxia they would say
>"Heh, you really think you could defeat me, your grandfather?"
and mean basically the same thing. But the shitty translations in a lot of novels mean that it sounds schizophrenic. Here's an example of some dudes having friendly banter about who is stronger.

>“Three scums, do you truly think you can catch up to your grandfather, me, with your tiny short legs?”
>“I know that the three of you hiddenly love Zi Ling, but let me, your grandfather, tell you this. Sooner or later, Zi Ling will be mine. The three of you shouldn’t even think about getting her.”
>“Come! Chase! Continue chasing! Come chase your grandfather! If today, you are able to catch up to me, I’ll say that all of you are impressive; if you can’t catch up to me, then go and regret.”
>“Not only you three, the powers behind your backs will also pay the price for today’s actions. Wait for me, your grandfather, to go over to your Fire God School, Hidden White Sect and Free and Unrestrained Valley to pay some visits.”

Every antagonist must be a young master, rapist or both

>>71965045
>the difference between heaven and earth
This one is a classic.

>"Ah, you pitiable fool. Do you not realize that the power of X Realm I have achieved to yours is the difference between heaven and earth?"

>Hmph! You still stand in front of this senior, you worthless goat! With such terrible stratagems, even if you meditated on the heavens and the earth for a hundred samsara cycles, you would not qualify for me to fart in your general direction! If you cripple your cultivation and kowtow to me, your daddy, for a thousand years then I might just let you live! With this measly amount of skill, how is it that you have such thick skin that you can parade yourself around without shame! This senior is embarrassed just looking at your displays, such ugly debate arts! For this embarrassment, it can be considered good for me to only cripple you, be thankful and kowtow to me every day for the gift I give today, the gift of your life! This daddy has the strength to kill you with nothing but a look, do you not consider your life a gift from this senior, and is it not proper and respectful for you to kowtow to me for every moment extra you may live! To continue parading around in your mockery of a fight, such action is

>~ C O U R T I N G ~ D E A T H ! ~

>Such a worthless junior to stand in front of this senior, if you do not immediately tear off your arms then it is an offense to the heavens and the earths!

Seems Wuxia and Xianxia stuff is full of shameless pulp fantasy princess and the like, where western fantasy is now afraid to indulge in it. Am I correct its full of cute princess and hot warrior ladies (who both always fall for the hero) who are all somehow the prettiest evar?

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>>71965859
you tell me

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>>71965045
The shamelessness of it all is what really makes it all endearing.

>>71965932
>>71965973
>chinamind

/tg/ is truly cultured

>>71965973
Agreed. Ever since getting into reading the pulp era classics like John Carter and Conan I've realized how stupidly neutered fantasy and scifi has become, trying to be seen as intelligent, refined, nay tamed and squeamish. That stuff? yeah its stupid and lowbrow but compared to modern crap it is refreshingly honest about being what is now called 'male power fantasy'. Its also funny how scifi and fantasy is allergic to it when videogames show us there is still a market for going 'fuck you, I'm blowing shit up'.

>>71963084
Xianxia game. How would that even work? Maybe as a video game, since it would be level grinding to an autistic degree.

>>71963264
>>71963615
I like wuxia, but never did many games of it. We had to build our own out of universal systems -- you do not want to know. There are a few workable games. Legends of Wulin is light/medium crunch and scattered across several badly organized books. It does work, but you have to house rule it.

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate looks good and solid -- but I haven't tried it yet. If you like FATE, Tianxia is supposed to be good. I don't like FATE, so who knows. People recommend Qin, but I haven't tried that one -- it looks Feng Shui like iirc.

Anima is apparently wuxia-ish, but it is a "brick and stone" d20... Either you like it or you will die trying to change it. Jesus, how did anyone ever convince me to d20? There is a Spanish version of Anima up on the Trove, if that helps.

>>71963720
Not him. Sorry, but that probably won't work. Good luck.

>>71964301
Based. Well you could use it for inspiration. Not the mechanics, never the mechanics. But the lore...kinda sucks too now that I think about it. Um? You can keep your coffee from staining your table with it.

>>71965436
Same with all protagonists.

>>71966272
>But the lore...kinda sucks too now that I think about it. Um? You can keep your coffee from staining your table with it.
Whatever may be good in the lore itself is tainted by all the stupid layers of equally stupid baggage tied with terrible incoherent mechanics that can't decide if its a high power wuxia high fantasy world or a grimdark rapefest where you will always fail.

>>71966272
>Xianxia game. How would that even work? Maybe as a video game, since it would be level grinding to an autistic degree.
Not necessarily. I mean different realms of xianxia are really just new coats of paint, so you could probably get away with not having a very robust progression system, and just telling players to refluff their attacks every few levels.

>>71963084
Water Margins / all men are brothers

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>>71963084
>Ctrl+F Thunderbolt Fantasy
>0 results
It's not a great classical work, admittedly, but it manages to walk the line between being self-aware and still being relatively faithful to the genre.

>>71964950
Good lord, it's high fantasy cultivator enough for me! You want even MORE cultivator fantasy?!

>>71965045
>geography measured in billions and trillions of miles
>tournament arcs
>outcast/amnesiac with famous father/mother/clan
>x-colored, yin-yang, five-elements tribulation/divine lightning at regular intervals
>impossibly beautiful female companion/weapon/spirit/rival/wife
>tumbling backwards x distance, like a kite with its string cut
>frog in a well, could not recognize mt. tai
>you mildly inconvenienced me, so I will cripple your cultivation, kill your entire family and dig out your ancestor's graves
>MC, you are going too far
>trash from the XYZ clan!
yeah, all regular wuxia staples

>intense sense of deadly crisis
>blood spraying out of mouth
>I will give you this face today
>x flicking his sleeve
>wry smile
>bitter smile
>X, you dare?
>you are courting death
>how dare you not give me my face
>arrogant young master
these are universal across chinese media though

>x incense sticks of time
Chinese equivalent of candle clock

>the difference between heaven and earth
is an identical simile across all three languages I know, anon; probably every culture has a phrase more or less the same

>>71965400
>grandfather
I suspect this could be a mistranslation of a slang phrase that is akin to "old bugger"

Kinda like how "I'm your daddy" doesn't actually mean "I am your father"

But I don't read much xianxia or any manhua so... what do I know

>>71963084
I'm reading I Shall Seal the Heavens and A Will Eternal right now, and both are bretty good.

>>71966688
While I love Thunderbolt Fantasy to bits, it's more wuxia than xianxia.

>>71965400
>>71966711
An actual translator did a video on the "I, your father" thing, it's pretty informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--AiLV1PQK0

>>71966688
Oh yeah I forgot about that one, I've seen it too.

>>71966711
>Good lord, it's high fantasy cultivator enough for me! You want even MORE cultivator fantasy?!
Still takes place on earth though doesn't it?

Also, the cliche list is less about just the phrases existing and more about how amusingly overused they are in the lower tiers of wuxia fantasy. You could make a drinking game out of finding every reference to frogs in wells or courting death.

>>71966800
huh, neat

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>>71966448
Believe me, I know. Don't lose your houserules y'all -- that is one fix you do not want to pull twice.

>>71966563
I think that would work for everyone *except* the hardcore xianxia fans. They want their 5 years digging toxic herbs on a mountaintop, damnit. What I meant was that the actual cultivation is the major draw for xianxia. Sure the weird abilities keep it interesting -- but wuxia has that. Hell, western occult has that. The cultivation is the major theme -- and it is kinda like watching paint dry when done in game form. You could do the whole plane and realm bits, true -- but that's like starting 3/4 of the way through the book/movie/story.

I wouldn't bitch about it, but I'm a *wuxia* fan -- getting trapped in the Verdigris Butterfly Realm is fine if you can punch your way out, even if it is pretty damn weird for wuxia. But xianxia folks will bitch about the lack of rock collecting or some shit like that.

There are no xianxia games because all of the characters would be the magic hoboes that keep vanishing in wuxia games, after accumulating piles of fungus or whatever. Pic related is your average xianxia protagonist, clearly he just wants to do his cabbage related shit and transmigrate the fuck outta there.

>>71965045
your dragon

>>71966711
>grandfather
No, it's a cultural thing. In china, the father is the most respected of the family. Well. He's the father of this man.

Calling yourself someone's grandfather is a big fucking insult. Not only you insult his lineage, but it also means you claim you own the man that owns him (grossly explained).

"Bow to your grandfather" is common wuxia banter

>>71966964
>I think that would work for everyone *except* the hardcore xianxia fans. They want their 5 years digging toxic herbs on a mountaintop, damnit. What I meant was that the actual cultivation is the major draw for xianxia. Sure the weird abilities keep it interesting -- but wuxia has that. Hell, western occult has that. The cultivation is the major theme -- and it is kinda like watching paint dry when done in game form. You could do the whole plane and realm bits, true -- but that's like starting 3/4 of the way through the book/movie/story.
I think some kind of party-wide timeskips where they say what kind of autistic grinding they get up to between events would be helpful here.

>>71966879
>You could make a drinking game
I only have the one liver, anon.

>>71966800
Yeah that's one of the ones I had in mind - there are others, all lao-something. About the same as old man, old fart, old soak, old codger, etc

>video
I like his philosophy of translation. I've been thinking of doing translations myself too, but using more natural English expressions to better get the spirit of the words across

>shyeah
>if I had all the time in the world

>>71966879
the ones on my "universal" list are often used because they are either common cinematic tropes or actual sayings

>one of the few actual fist fights I have had began with a loud shout of "YOU DARE?!"
>actually it's just "DARE?!"

>>71966964
Kinda this: >>71967020
You have an adventure where they must defeat the guardians of the super sacred ghost mountain, then when they have done that, you fast forward through all the herb gathering and meditating for five bazillion years and pick up when they need a new super rare cultivation resource to continue.

>>71967016
I believe it's the same in America too, that's why Americans always say to each other, after a duel, "I'm your daddy, female dog"
/s

>please refer to >>71966800's video

>>71967020
>timeskips
>not "his cultivation is so great he can cultivate 20 years in the time it takes to boil tea"

>>71966741
OP asked for
>Suggestions for more wuxia/xianxia
so I figured it counted.

>>71967020
So a Wuxia/Xianxia system needs a lot of stuff to upgrade/buy for a character, basically?

>>71966272
>Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate looks good and solid
It can feel a bit wargamey at times cause you do the roll to hit, roll to wound thing. However it's really solid.

>>71967238
I recommend reading Reverend Insanity for an idea of how cultivation autism works, you'll get the gist in a few chapters. It is super power fantasy wankfest but it's amusing to see this completely amoral sociopath protagonist con his way into increasingly greater heights of power. You may thing I'm exaggerating his personality but no, this guy is pure evil.

>>71967020
>>71967159
I'm not trying to be that guy, but the cultivation autism isn't like "For a year, I hid on an island that tried to eat me and made up a mask" or "I lost an eye from fighting the world's best swordsman everyday". In wuxia, you could just say "I found the Sinew Changing Classic and practiced it until breaking stone with my dick was child's play".

I don't even know what kinds of cultivation autism would be needed to stick to xianxia genre. Once again, I'd play it like you guys mention -- since you make it sound like wuxia. Except you punch the Delightful Monkey Ghost Clan in the face to steal all of their Most Beneficent Ginseng supply. The timelines are still so autistic that I can't even bother to think of them.

>>71967238
Not him. Not in wuxia, they're two different genres. In wuxia everyone might fight over something, but it really doesn't matter what it is. The point is that everyone has a reason to kick the shit out of each other, with plenty of betrayal, significant looks and 10 minute speeches made on death's door.

>>71967259
Cool, I might have to go further into it.

>>71967238
Yes, but it's a bit more complicated. As I understand you have your cultivation techniques, your divine/daoist/whatever abilities and your alchemy. Cultivation techniques are kind of like a DnD class, with a linear progression, and new abilities every few levels. A suitably powerful MC usually has more than one of these, and they can be of varying difficulty with the easier ones being quicker to cultivate, but being less powerful. Divine abilities and daoist magics are basically spells: you learn them independently of everything else, and they one thing when activated. Lastly alchemy is this sprawling subsystem that lets you make "medicinal pills" that can have a variety of effects, and of course they too have levels, and you need to be good enough in alchemy to make the high-tier ones. What's interesting, is that there is a soft-cap on your alchemy based on your overall cultivation level.

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What's the difference between Xianxia and Wuxia anyways?

>>71967345
>Not him. Not in wuxia, they're two different genres. In wuxia everyone might fight over something, but it really doesn't matter what it is. The point is that everyone has a reason to kick the shit out of each other, with plenty of betrayal, significant looks and 10 minute speeches made on death's door.
That seems to be true for both genres. Here's some quotes from an anon

>" That's the basis of all xianxia - a zero-sum game all for a limited amount of precious cultivating resources, secret legacy techniques and equipment, and good locations to cultivate that improve you faster than normal. Even people that would otherwise be considered spotless heroes that protect the weak and battle the wicked will kill one another in an instant should something valuable enough show up. With that in mind, imagine the most treacherous, backstabbing, scrabbling, greedy, vindictive, disloyal, and cruel bastard imaginable."
>"That's xianxia, not wuxia. The life of "immortals" is one of treachery, murder, and above all, the desire to achieve true immortality. To do so, they stomp on friendship, spit on love, and stab family in the back to achieve their goals. They might not all be TOTALLY heartless bastards, but you bet your ass they are out for number one. The road to immortality, in the zero-sum resources setting that basically all xianxia is, is not one you can share with others. "

>>71967419
Sounds like you'd need some seriously in depth system for this shit.

>>71967452
I think it's mostly about power levels. It's a bit of a blurry distinction so think of it like a spectrum. Pure Wuxia is kung fu sects which may have some kind of mild chi powers doing relatable human intrigues and is probably set in real ancient china, while pure Xianxia is 100000 year old immortals throwing swords the size of planets at each other to steal the Supreme God Yellow Flower that only blooms once every billion years, with most stories being somewhere in between these two, or start at the former and end at the latter.

>>71967345
>I'm not trying to be that guy, but the cultivation autism isn't like "For a year, I hid on an island that tried to eat me and made up a mask" or "I lost an eye from fighting the world's best swordsman everyday". In wuxia, you could just say "I found the Sinew Changing Classic and practiced it until breaking stone with my dick was child's play".
I will admit, I only read two cultivation novels, but both seem to be doing a stable loop of
>protagonist goes on an adventure getting all the overpowered items he needs
>protagonist sits in a cave for X amount of time, reaching an unspecified, but very powerful enlightenment regarding the true nature of whatever he busted his ass to get on his trip
>he develops a super special awesome technique that utilizes said enlightenment and heads out, effortlessly massacring some local bully
>local bully turns out to have an older brother, who is after the MC, so the MC needs overpowered items to advance his cultivation
Rinse and repeat.

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Your character is sitting down alone at a table, where dragons and snakes intermingle.

An arrogant young master enters the establishment. Others present, including a peerless beauty with jade-like skin and eyes like limpid autumn water, comment on how the young master is a dragon among men, who produces clouds with one turn of the hand and rain with another.

After tens breaths of time, the arrogant young master bares fangs and brandishes claws. The young master, as your character's grandfather, demands that your character vacate the table, lest your character court death.

How does your character surmount these winds and waves, and overturn heaven and earth?

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>geography measured in billions and trillions of miles
>heaven-defying cheat tools
>tournament arcs
>mystic realm arcs
>more tournament arcs
>auction arcs
>outcast/amnesiac with famous father/mother/clan
>x-colored, yin-yang, five-elements tribulation/divine lightning at regular intervals
>impossibly beautiful female companion/weapon/spirit/rival/wife
>blood spraying out of mouth
>tumbling backwards x distance, like a kite with its string cut
>intense sense of deadly crisis
>jade-like skin/twin peaks/peerless beauty in every city/world/realm, each somehow more peerless than the last
>x girl's primordial yin is a perfect cultivation furnace for young master y
>x incense sticks of time
>I, your father/grandfather am not someone you can afford to offend
>trash believes he can jump cultivation levels to fight esteemed young master
>I will give you this face today
>frog in a well, could not recognize mt. tai, eyes but cannot see
>you mildly inconvenienced me, so I will cripple your cultivation, kill your entire family and dig out your ancestor's graves
>MC, you are going too far
>don't know whether to laugh or cry
>time it takes a spark to fly off a piece of flint
>takes some time to describe, but happened in an instant
>x flicking his sleeve
>this cultivation ground in x world/realm is y times better than the one I just left, twice the results with half the effort
>raping cute girls to cure their incurable illnesses

>didn't know whether to laugh or cry
>wry smile
>time it takes for an incense stick to burn
>trash from the XYZ clan!
>her flawless white/jade-like skin
>have eyes but cant see mt tai
>the difference between heaven and earth
>even though it takes a while to describe something, it happened within the span of a single breath/moment
>bitter smile
>young master, you dare?
>I, your father/grandfather
>you are courting death
>how dare you not give me my face
>spits blood/coughs up blood
>arrogant young master

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1 - MC is eating at a restaurant when an arrogant young master arrives. Random side characters talk about how awesome the young master is, how he is one in a million, a dragon among men, yadda yadda.

2 - Young master wants MC's table to which MC refuses causing random side characters to think MC is an idiot, and he is gonna get beaten up, crippled, yadda yadda.

3 - Young master takes it as an insult, MC faceslap him, "You're courting death", random side characters talk.

4 - Young master attacks, random side characters say MC will die, MC easily blocks.

5 - "That was just luck, take this", random side characters say this time MC will die, MC blocks it once again.

6 - "You have some ability, but this is the end of it. Take my ultimate attack" RSC say THIS time MC dies, MC Blocks once again.

7 - "How is this possible!?", no one can believe their eyes, "Now taste my attack."

8 - "MC may have some ability to defend, but defeating young master won't be that easy."

9 - "My god, he defeated young master then crippled him. And MC took all his items and clothes to humiliate him. And the young master has a tiny little dick."

10 - "How dare you do this to me, my uncle/father/grandfather will avenge this offense."

Repeat 4 to 10 against uncle/father/grandfather

Rinse and repeat when done, this time changing table at a restaurant for an item at an auction/an item at a shop/a rare treasure and add some heavenly beauties in between.

Also, each paragraph was a chapter that you paid SS to read.

>>71967457
That says something about Chinese culture and I don't know what

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Some mundane activities that are easy to do, but extremely difficult to do WELL. Can only be accomplished with insane amounts of Qi, Energy, Essence or Intents (whatever that means) and what-have-yous.

Sitting down and meditating in hostile environments (extremely hot, extremely cold, infested with ghosts).

Painting or practicing calligraphy. You think it's easy? Nope! Look at this letter "SWORD." Each stroke carries the sword intents of a warrior with thousands of years of experience! Just looking at this one character can make you level up eleventy times in sword use, and also makes you amazing in bed!

Climbing a set of stairs. The higher you climb, the higher the pressure/ heat/ blah blah blah that will test your fortitude and willpower and whatchamacallit (I shit you not: Tales of Demons and Gods had like a dozen chapters just focusing on a stair-climbing competition).

No matter how awesome or epic the description is, eventually you will sit back and realize you just watch a bunch of people doing inane shit and wonder why you wasted your time reading about them. Excellent entertainment value!

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Hmph! You still stand in front of this senior, you worthless goat! With such terrible stratagems, even if you meditated on the heavens and the earth for a hundred samsara cycles, you would not qualify for me to fart in your general direction! If you cripple your cultivation and kowtow to me, your daddy, for a thousand years then I might just let you live! With this measly amount of skill, how is it that you have such thick skin that you can parade yourself around without shame! This senior is embarrassed just looking at your displays, such ugly debate arts! For this embarrassment, it can be considered good for me to only cripple you, be thankful and kowtow to me every day for the gift I give today, the gift of your life! This daddy has the strength to kill you with nothing but a look, do you not consider your life a gift from this senior, and is it not proper and respectful for you to kowtow to me for every moment extra you may live! To continue parading around in your mockery of a fight, such action is

~ C O U R T I N G ~ D E A T H ! ~

Such a worthless junior to stand in front of this senior, if you do not immediately tear off your arms then it is an offense to the heavens and the earths!

>>71967475
Eh, I'd be happy if I could get it to something between DnD 4e and Ars Magica.

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Why do they gotta explain the entire cultivation process every couple chapters? That shit is retarded. Or, chapter starts, MC starts a sword swing, explains everything about sword from forging to enchants, explain years of practice of style of swing, sword connects, chapter ends. Wouldn't be so bad, except the previous 100 chapters explained all that in detail. Explaining the cultivation process over and over again is like if an alien were trying to write a story about humans, and felt the need to explain puberty ever 5 chapters, just in case you didn't understand it the first time it was explained.

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there are two problems with the majority of chink shit (I still read the ones that avoid these problems tho):
>1: cultivation is cancer.
Worse than rpg systems. I could not give a fuck if grand junior elder young master dong is one of the top youngsters of the later outer ki grand blossoming heavenly soul stage and thus would normally destroy our protag, who is only of beginning inner ki grand budding heavenly body stage
it's all fucking annoying. At least with rpg systems you get just "oh no he's level 40 and the protag is level 10" without the fucking grandiose prose.
>2: the supporting cast is almost non-existant
while reading jap light novels, the protag almost always is walking around with a friend/harem member who he can talk to, a lot of chink shit will spend 20 chapters in a row with nothing but the protag inner dialogue.
>3: chinks are monsters
too many chink protags are massive fucking assholes, and everyone who doesn't like them is portrayed as moustache-twirling villains
>4: chinese love repeating phrases
your grandaddy me is coughing blood after seeing all those maidens with jade-like skin
jap novels also have the same problem, but I'll admit I'm a hipocrite and say for some reason "it can't be helped", "he's fast" and other jap cliches aren't as annoying to me

The chink novels that aren't xianxia tend to be much better, like amber sword, which while still having flaws, doesn't really have to deal with most of these

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>auction arcs
>evil uncle/elder that wants to take over the clan/sect
>mother is concubine that was bullied to death by main wife and was probably from famous sect/clan
>awesome immediate family, shitty relatives
>outer/inner/core disciples
>sect contribution points
>famous powerful mentor that saves the MC at the last minute

>>71967569
In context these Immortals are usually "defying the Heavens", so they are kinda the cultural equivalent of the Punisher. Someone people secretly (and edgelords not so secretly) want to be, but most people agree we shouldn't be like that.

>>71967618
Because most of it is written as a weekly serial and intended for new readers to be able to jump into at any time.

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I Shall Seal the Heavens has a word count of 3.3 million words.
https://twitter.com/deathbladeissth/status/882429642346450945?lang=en

For comparison, the Wheel of Time has 4,082,987 words across 15 books.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/6caja4/what_is_the_longest_fantasy_series_by_wordcount/

What are the riveting developments to be found across ISSTH's 3.3 million words?

https://i-shall-seal-the-heavens.fandom.com/wiki/Meng_Hao/Cultivation

Qi Condensation First Layer — Chapter 3
Qi Condensation Second Layer — Chapter 7
Qi Condensation Third Layer — Chapter 9
Qi Condensation Fourth Layer — Chapter 14
Qi Condensation Fifth Layer — Chapter 22
Qi Condensation Sixth Layer — Chapter 25
Qi Condensation Seventh Layer — Chapter 44
Qi Condensation Eighth Layer — Chapter 55
Qi Condensation Ninth Layer — Chapter 71
Qi Condensation Tenth Layer — Chapter 86
Qi Condensation Eleventh Layer — Chapter 87
Qi Condensation Twelfth Layer — Chapter 87
Qi Condensation Thirteenth Layer — Chapter 88

First Dao Pillar — Chapter 99
Second Dao Pillar — Chapter 132
Third Dao Pillar — Chapter 132
Fourth Dao Pillar — Chapter 174
Fifth Dao Pillar — Chapter 198
Sixth Dao Pillar — Chapter 228
Seventh Dao Pillar — Chapter 263
Eighth Dao Pillar — Chapter 265
Ninth Dao Pillar — Chapter 272
Tenth Dao Pillar — Chapter 273

Early Core Formation — Chapter 304
Mid Core Formation — Chapter 338
Late Core Formation — Chapter 386
Wood - Greenwood Tree Totem — Chapter 409
Metal - Golden Crow Totem — Chapter 432
Fire - East Pill Everburning Flame Totem — Chapter 449
Earth - Frost Soil Totem — Chapter 473
Water (Life) - Blood Totem — Chapter 513
Water (Death) - Violet Sea Totem — Chapter 521

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First Nascent Soul — Chapter 522
Second Nascent Soul — Chapter 522
Third Nascent Soul — Chapter 522
Fourth Nascent Soul — Chapter 522
Fifth Nascent Soul — Chapter 522
Sixth Nascent Soul — Chapter 523
Seventh Nascent Soul — Chapter 527
Eighth Nascent Soul — Chapter 603
Ninth Nascent Soul — Chapter 626

First Spirit Severing — Chapter 677
Second Spirit Severing — Chapter 693

I am not going to bother with the rest. There are a total of 1,614 chapters.

https://i-shall-seal-the-heavens.fandom.com/wiki/Bag_of_holding
>Bags with varying inner storage. It is a spatial storage bag that cultivators use to store pills, magical items, scriptures, spirit stones, herbal plants and other miscellaneous items related to cultivation.
>Bag of Cosmos - substantially bigger than a bag of holding; inner storage is big enough to store a mountain

Never forget that Meng Hao has something as utilitarian as a Bag of Holding.

>>71967634
>too many chink protags are massive fucking assholes, and everyone who doesn't like them is portrayed as moustache-twirling villains
Honestly this is half the fun for me, it's refreshing to just see total psychos out-crazying each other compared to normal protagonists.

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my biggest problems are:
- power creep is hilariously fast, protagonists are expected to level up faster than shounen manga, it reminds me of freeform games with anime-like, unkillable protagonists that are already godlike that somehow continue to accumulate even more powers, weapons, techniques
- remember how in every single isekai visual novel with RPG elements, everybody has a character sheet in-universe? cultivation levels work like that, and you read stuff like: "oh look, an 8th level expert came with four 7th level experts, but wait, how is our 6th level expert protagonist even able to fight back??!!!" in dialogue

https://www.wuxiaworld.com/novel/martial-god-asura/mga-chapter-364

“Three scums, do you truly think you can catch up to your grandfather, me, with your tiny short legs?”

“I know that the three of you hiddenly love Zi Ling, but let me, your grandfather, tell you this. Sooner or later, Zi Ling will be mine. The three of you shouldn’t even think about getting her.”

“Come! Chase! Continue chasing! Come chase your grandfather! If today, you are able to catch up to me, I’ll say that all of you are impressive; if you can’t catch up to me, then go and regret.”

“Not only you three, the powers behind your backs will also pay the price for today’s actions. Wait for me, your grandfather, to go over to your Fire God School, Hidden White Sect and Free and Unrestrained Valley to pay some visits.”

>your grandfather
>your grandfather
>your grandfather
>your grandfather

Four consecutive paragraphs.

>>71967753
Like half the stuff you posted was already posted here anon, try reading the thread before dumping

>>71967521
That's why I never really got into the genre, too light on the kung-fu fights, too heavy into what the hell even is this. It goes from bandits to some kind of weirdo spirit realm doesn't it? C'mon, be honest.

>>71967457
I never really got into xianxia, as I mentioned. It gets really weird. There is some betrayal and such in wuxia, but the actual honest to goodness totally evil unrepentant bastard isn't very common. In wuxia, people will literally go against their earlier double cross in the face of certain death because they shared a drink one time with that guy -- honor stuff like that is all over the place, even from the bad guys.

One thing that probably separates the two on that topic is that I have never heard of anything seriously significant happening because of actually getting the thingawhatsit that everyone fights over. Not in wuxia anyway.

One big thing is that in wuxia you will not end up in the Plane of Purple and Green Electric Dragon Gods. You won't be some immortal ghost king who eats the heart of the Dali Lama to live for a thousand years or whatever. That's not a wuxia thing. You are not that guy, and you will not meet that guy. He is not the sort of person who is assumed to actually exist in most wuxia. If you do meet him, he is a lying bastard who is faking it with some super kung-fu technique.

Xianxia is basically full of all kinds of weird magic and psychedelic travel bullshit -- but you have to collect a bunch of strange junk to even do it.

>>71967452
Wuxia is mostly 'grounded'. Sure, you can have powerful magic users and martial artists, but most Wuxia notably lacks giant skyscraper sized monsters as the weakest mooks, flowers that can kill with a touch, and most battles in Wuxia are rarely city or mountain-destroying, let alone planetbusting.

In Xianxi, not only is crazy shit like that prevalent, but it's the kind of shit where you get single planet's larger than the entirety of 40k's Imperium of Man as starting areas, cosmic kungfu gods who can casually destroy whole multiverses being mook villains, mass rape and defilement out the ass on part of the villains and even the MC usually, quadrillions of years having to pass just to advance up the lowest levels of cultivation, etc.

Xianxia is crazy bullshit of all kinds.

>>71967634
Yeah yeah, but you aren't discussing Xianxia without those aspects. Basically anyone knows what they're getting with Xianxia. If you're expecting Western standards of writing with this stuff, then find another genre.

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>>71967569
A lot less than what Marvel superheroes say about Western culture, since wuxia let alone its retarded brother xianxia is acknowledgedly juvenile fantasy while superheroes in the West are used as out and out social commentary

>Pic related

>>71967796
Dunno man, I'm reading xianxia explicitly for the weirdo spirit realms, the psychedelic travel bullshit and the Planes of Purple and Green Dragon Gods. It's in the same category as Lovecraft and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. You don't really care about the story or the characters, you are just curious what kind of crazy bullshit will the author think of next.

>>71967976
>the psychedelic travel bullshit and the Planes of Purple and Green Dragon Gods
How weird is it?

>>71966272
>Legends of Wulin is light/medium crunch and scattered across several badly organized books.
That's weird. The one I know exists in a single book, with a solid homebrew collection called the half-burnt manual.

>>71968108
Depends on the author I guess. But in the one I'm reading right now the MC just gained the ability to transform into a planet, and I'm at like chapter 1000 of 1600.

>>71968177
Where does one read such insanity in English?

>>71968176
In terms of power level,

Wuxia = Marvel/DC/Star Wars

Xianxia = Galactus, Dr Manhattan, Sandman Endless, and similar

>>71968247
I read it on wuxiaworld.com. You can read a few chapters for free every day, and you can pay for more. The advantage is that is has some translators who actually know what they are doing, like the guy in >>71966800.

>>71968294
You can also get some free stuff on boxnovel.com

>>71968294
>>71968336
What's a good beginner's novel?

>>71967634
Bland MCs that don't know what sex or a sexdrive even is and that act like sexless polite automatons turn me off so much I'll take crazy rapist xianxia autists over them any day. The last one is at least a person, if a horrible shitstain. The bland jap isn't even recognisable as a person with real reactions. It's like a disturbing uncanny doll.

>>71968122
Afaik, the Half-Burnt Manual was superseded by two versions of changed rules. Also, how many pages of hotfixes were in the Half Burnt? Jokes aside, is there a common set of rules for conditions based on Rippling Rolls AND the Secret Arts? I mean an actual table to consistently generate values for Interval, Duration, and Recovery? There should be one...

>>71967976
I know there are exceptions to this, but will say it anyway. The people in xianxia suck. Wholesale suckage from what little I've seen. The dreams and goals are odd and esoteric and have a freakishly long timeline. If you look at Lovecraft or Jojo, most people who match these things are the designated bad guys.

In xianxia, this could easily be your protagonist. They probably don't have any honor, camaraderie or morality -- which is a part of wuxia that is almost always present. The evil bandit gang in wuxia are all best friends and reminisce over the big village murder-rape of '33. They will spit blood in anger that you dared to kill their pal Dogfucker Chu. They will give a fucking speech about it while trying to murder you.

If xianxia actually started with human protags I might be able to stand all of the weirdness. The weirdness isn't the bad part, but the bad parts are difficult to explain. Xianxia characters don't really begin or end as humans. Wuxia goes out of its way to show that the bandit you rightfully murdered was sort of human, even if everyone thinks he deserved to die holding his own entrails.

And the biggest point is that there is not enough realistic kung-fu fights in most xianxia. That is saying something from a guy who can stomach all kinds of hollywood bullshit fights.

I don't know for certain if the things I mentioned are truly widespread in the genre. It honestly is unfair for me to treat it as really really bad wuxia -- but I don't really get the appeal. Y'know what? I'll give it another go.

Hey anons, what are some ggod xianxia you've actually read or watched?

So, Xianxia is basically a whole genre of chinese Suggsverse?

>>71968351
OP's recommendation of Reverend Insanity is pretty good. The protagonist is a bit unorthodox on account of being a no-holds-barred chaotic evil schemer but its a good introduction to a lot of the general concepts of xianxia through the lens of a bad guy.

>>71968417
So if everyone is an autistic asshole who would be an 'endgame villain' by Wuxia or other standards wtf is the point? Or are the chink so morally bankrupt that pass for heroes?

>>71968460
I find their evil autism to be endearing within the context of the world and want to see how they defeat other autistic assholes.

>>71968460
Considering that Wuxia is more common and has characters that are sort of normal, I'm guessing that its only chinese turbo-autists are that bad

>>71968505
Who the hell does Xianxia even appeal to anyway?

>>71968537
Whoever's tired of this>>71968380 for one.

>>71968537
Nerds with chinese autism, the difference of chinese autism and regular autism being like the difference between the heaven and the earth

>>71968582
Aren't all asians genetically autistic anyway?

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>>71968427
>Suggsverse
What the fuck am I looking at?

>>71968537
People with resource management autism and people who like crazy worldbuilding. Even if the characters are all sociopaths the world around them can be really interesting.

>>71968417
>Hey anons, what are some ggod xianxia you've actually read or watched?
A Will Eternal is kind of a xianxia parody, where the MC's goal is simply to live forever and he's actually the biggest coward ever. He actually hates fighting, and wants to be left in peace. Unfortunately he also has an ego the size of a planet, and that always gets him into trouble. Also he seems to be a walking disaster magnet, so being left in peace isn't really an option for him. The highlight is that the novel doesn't portray him as anything other than a hypocritical coward with an ego problem, and does it in a pretty funny way.

>>71968351
I started with I Shall Seal the Heavens.

>>71968460
See
>>71967703

So that's cool and all but how is this useable for tabletop if every Xianxia protag is a self-serving asshole? Unless you are running something solo it doesn't seem very workable for tabletop sadly

>>71969131
>So that's cool and all but how is this useable for tabletop if every Xianxia protag is a self-serving asshole?
That's basically oldschool DnD. I fail to see the problem.

>>71969169
Because at the very least there was an agreement they wouldn't be assholes to each others.

>>71968427
Not even close. And nowhere near as poorly written either.

Like, Xianxia is silly and ridiculous but not even it reaches Suggsverse levels of pants-on-head retardation.

>>71968265
>Galactic
Galactus would fall under Wuxia. Too low tier.

>>71969185
You can have that in xianxia too. Turboautism isn't a requirement in xianxia MCs, some coast along on regular autism.

>>71969190
The fuck is a Suggsverse?

>>71969363
https://suggsverse.fandom.com/wiki/Suggsverse_Wiki

This I guess. I can't really make much sense of it, so I'm assuming some shit ass writing

>>71969402
>https://suggsverse.fandom.com/wiki/Suggsverse_Wiki
Jesus fucking christ it sounds like a parody of Fate and all those anime whose powerlevel get so high they battle via concepts
>There can be Nothing existing outside of THE ALL; else, THE ALL would not be THE ALL
>Outside of THE ALL exists Regions.

>>71969402
>>71969607
That's basically it. It's effectively Powerman to win playground arguments of what setting waifu is the strongest.

>>71969363
Imagine one man got so painfully and obsessively autistic over on the Narutoforums because a setting he wanked to high heavens turned out to be WAY weaker than initially thought. Now imagine that man going on to create and self-publish some nonsensical fuckery where even literal cockroaches are "beyond omnipotent" or "panomnipotent/thetapotent" or other such nonsense. Solely for the express purpose of winning all VS debates for all time.

That's Lionel Suggs' Suggsverse in a nutshell.

>>71969651
>even literal cockroaches are "beyond omnipotent" or "panomnipotent/thetapotent"
Those aren't words.

>>71969665
They are potentially words, which means by suggsverselogic cockroaches are indeed panomnipotent

>>71969665
It doesn't matter to Suggsverse. The gist of it is that becoming omnipotent means little because you're just playing on the next layer of reality's level, and it keeps going up. It's effectively just SCP metafiction shitpositng

>>71969717
>>71969729
Who the fuck wrote this, the western equivalent to Kinoko Nasu?!|

>>71969756
Looks that way. See >>71969651
He's just turbo autism.

>>71967618
Because chinese authors are paid in pages

>>71963084
/tg/ is a Tolkienesque medieval Christian mythology inspired TTRPG board please take your toxic bat soup eating weeb shit some where more cancerous. Thanks.

>>71970001
Have you tried not playing D&D?

>>71970041
No and I have every intention of continuing to play D&D.

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>>71970001

>>71969127
>A Will Eternal
I'll give it a read, thanks for the suggestion. I'm on the exploding butts chapter of the other one. This most definitely isn't like wuxia. which (afaik) has *never* had a description of an exploding butt. Wtf, I just *know* he's going to eventually murder people for parts or something. Probably poor fatty...

Before anyone asks, there is no amount of fun in these kinds of exploding butts. If you thought that combination of words conveyed something metaphorical, fun, amusing, or sexy -- it doesn't. I'm three chapters in, it isn't bad. Just... I don't know. Maybe some part of me feels that it is bit too early for the protag to look forward to causing ass explosions. I typed those words correctly. What even.

>>71970001
why don't you get your boyfriend to take his ball of your face so you can see exactly how stupid the shit was you just posted was

>>71970041
Me, on the other hand, have never played D&D and even I agree with >>71970001

This was still more interesting and informative than 'could character X survive in 40k' thread number 98147

>>71970216
>t.assblasted chink

And here we go thread ruined prepare for 300 posts of fecal torrents

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>>71970315
Yeah I saw this thread hanging around for too long and thought no I don't like that.
So behold I am the shit maker and have come to poop down a deluge upon it.

>>71970381
Does shit based kung fu exist in wuxia and xianxia? Can anyone tell me that?

>>71970405
I think you could probably use it as a weapon to distract, you could throw it and your opponent would receive -2 penalty on attack rolls if you hit them squarely in the face. It would be a standard action to clear the feces from the eyes thus negating the penalty.

>>71970315
It's called reporting and ignoring anon

>>71969729
As someone who enjoys SCP cosmic lore, I can safely say that it never once slips into the same levels of madness as Suggsverse.

Suggsverse is the literary equivalent of HYBRID RPG. It's just raw mental illness given firm.

>>71969363
>>71969402
>>71969607
>>71969640
>>71969651
>>71969665
>>71969729
>>71970476
The best part is, it isn't even the strongest setting ever as what Suggs intended. Not only does it contradict itself and collapse itself into a logical paradox due to being an affront to language and not knowing how words like omnipotence work, even if you take its nonsense at face value, it's STILL not that strong.

Why couldn't Exalted be more like this insanity?

>>71971047
It's honestly a shame there isn't a proper game like this. I think you might be able to use Ars Magica for it if you could just refluff all the attacks as magical kung fu and require more materials to be needed, but I'm not sure.

>>71971138
Im trying to read the wiki to 'I Shall Seal the Heavens' and the density level seems pretty nuts and make so little sense its either super dense shit or just a big tangled pile of asspull and either way it make Creation seem tame

>>71971047
>>71971138
A Nobilis hack might be a good fit for the insanity. A few levels and extra steps between you and completely becoming a concept might simulate the Xianxia leveling just fine.

>>71963264
The entire genre sucks dick. Isekai except it's made by the fucking chinese, dropping the quality of a 0 quality style into the fucking negatives

>>71971047
Because Exalted quite literally has no idea what it wants to be and keeps pussyfooting around whether it wants to be high concept fantasy (which it can't even do particularly well) or ultra-heavy grimdark where you don't matter for shit.

>>71971219
I've read all of "I Shall Seal the Heavens" and no it's just super fucking long and has all the time in the world to slowly explain things.

>>71965045
Don't forget "Imperial Examination" arcs.

>>71971219
It's an endless flowchart. Don't bother reading past book what, 8? Really don't bother reading at all since that's only 10% of the total content of that shit so it's not worth it

>>71963084
Anyone have any suggestions for good Wuxia/Xianxia? Ive read 5 or so, and they mostly all follow the same formula.

>>71971606
From what I understand, it's modern day Chinese pulp just as LN are Japanese pulp. Its just in the west the pulp crap seem to fly under the radar.

>>71972065
Will Wight's Cradle series. It's not made in china so you can raise your standard

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>>71971606
>wuxia is isekai
How can one person be so wrong? Your ancestors are weeping. Look at this faggot and laugh.

>>71966800
So he has a whole playlist of this stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLePGrb0Dfz31452ZGb-MrvPSPgy47WcFF
Time for this frog to leap out of the well.

>>71970212
The author finds exploding butts and animals raping things hilarious. I don't know why, or how. It's in his other novels too. Sometimes it leads to something actually funny/important. I just reflexively ignore it by now.

Thunderbolt fantasy

>>71970560
>even if you take its nonsense at face value, it's STILL not that strong.
What works are stronger? I'd like to dive into this.

>>71973309
>>71973309
A lot of the genre stats with a guy from a different world bring reincarnated into a cultivation world though

>>71974925
no

>>71967542
>You dare!?
>very hihg speed running away
>breakthrough for some reason/obtain some treasure/both
>come back and kick the guy's ass
>impregnate the jade female

>>71967723
It seems each series is slightly different, a lot of them go from Qi Condensation > Foundation Establishment > Core Formation > Nascent Soul and then shit goes wild from there. IIRC Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality and Refining the Mountains and Rivers have variations on this.

Martial God Asura has Spirit Realm > Martial Realm > Profound Realm > Heavenly Realm > Martial Lord > Martial King > Half Martial Emperor > Martial Emperor > Martial Emperor > Martial Ancestor > etc.

But the one thing they all have in common is that power levels increase logarithmically, certain treasures can surmount the gap, and in MGA's case people have Heaven-Defying Battle Power (heaven-defying stuff in general seems to be genre code for "brokenly OP") that surmounts gaps.

Bloodlines are also a big deal, having a bloodline gives yo ua source of supplementary power or lets you level up faster.

>>71967753
MGA is really bad about this because the plot is incredibly cyclical (I got tired of it around chapter 2148 when I realized they repeated the same conceit three times in a row, just with increased power levels and rubberbanding opponents/NPCs).

>>71974925
I have never read a single xianxia novel where this happens.

>>71975064
Dude is probably like me and only mostly have read shit that has translated manhwa adaptations among which there seems to be a lot of shit with 'city', 'metropolitan', 'young master' or 'trash' or whatever in the title.

>>71963084
How about some crazy magitech xianxia space battles shit, like the stuff they have in Iron Ladies Though I suppose that might not necessarily be a xianxia title, the setting and concept seems pretty adaptable to one.

Or something less serious like Cultivation Chatroom?

If you ever want to go off the more standard kind of settings that is.

>>71963084
How would you make xianxia skinned fantasy or fantasy skinned xianxia? One thing I always unsatisfied with wuxia was that there are only humans and no other races/monsters

>>71976048
Higher-end xianxia features humanoid demon beasts, who are equivalent to human cultivators' cultivation levels. It's just that most demon beasts at low cultivations are little more than feral animals.

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What's all this talk about cultivation?

>>71976814
You kid, but raising a field of spiritual plants and consuming them to break through cultivation bottlenecks is a legit tactic that many xianxia protagonists use.

>>71965045
>>x girl's primordial yin is a perfect cultivation furnace for young master y
This sounds lewd.

>>71976841
I'm just fun posting because I'm entirely ignorant of xianxia as a genre. So far all I gather that it's about young masters cultivating shit and fucking jade bitches, also big numbers and weeaboo fightan magic.

>>71976048
Xuanhuan (玄幻) is a genre of fantasy that mixes Chinese folklore and myth with foreign (i.e.: Western) fantasy elements.

>>71976914
Yep, its basically chink fighter wizards fighting for supreme godhood in the most overblown and cheesy way possible.

>>71976914
jade face/maidens are an overly-literal translation of 玉面/女, which basically means a face/girl as beautiful as jade.

Also some anon posted the difference between wuxia and xianxia, namely that wuxia characters are rogues, while xianxia characters are gods I mean mages.

Cultivation (修真) in this case refers to spiritual enlightenment/evolution/refinement/rarefaction, where you gain increasing control over the spiritual energies of your body and the world. This manifests as incredible strength, senses, supernatural abilities and other such things.

>>71976907
There's a trope called dual cultivation, where a male and female cultivate by having sex.

>>71977082
>Cultivation
So basically an rpg-like leveling system

>>71977082
Do they get cultivation montages with the Chinese equivalent of cheesy motivational 80s music?

>>71977144
if the leveling system was designed to classify beings from mortals to supreme deity, rather than what is your level in a character class, the analogy could work

"challenge rating", rather than character level seems to be a more obvious comparison

>>71977144
Yeah, pretty much. Except, as mentioned above, the power levels are logarithmic and everyone is a wizard. What >>71977187 said also works.


>>71977169
Cultivation montages are actually closer to extremely long timeskips in absolute silence, performed on or near some kind of dragon line/earthbound energy source. A big thing about cultivations is "bottlenecks", which basically means you've absorbed enough passive XP/qi to level up but you need to perform some introspection or overcome some kind of challenge to cash in all those XPs. Bottlenecks seem to exist so extremely old cultivators are not necessarily much more powerful than the MC.

>>71963084
>filename
heh

>>71974925
Not in wuxia.

>>71976814
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub1cpd2Qg90&t=1m51s

>>71973309
>>71974953
>>71975064
Every MC had a cheat that lets them beat whoever the fuck comes up, and the "strict" power levels don't fucking matter at all because he beats people above his weight constantly. All party members, when they exist, are useless. Constantly unestimated because of the autistic attention to power levels, despite point 1 happening for in story years. Sounds fucking familiar because every xianxia protagonist is fucking Kirito

>>71978864
Would you believe I've never watched SAO? Anyway, of the xianxias I've read, usually the MC runs away from enemies that are too strong for him until he can power up elsewhere and exact messy revenge on them if his Heaven-Defying Battle Power or the equivalent doesn't let him stomp them right away.

The cheat item doesn't necessarily have to aid in direct combat either. For example, Martial God Asura's cheat means the MC has no problems breaking through, but he needs shittons of cultivation resources to level up. Meanwhile, Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality's MC has a bottle that can level up plants so our hero can obtain super ancient herbs that would normally be unavailable elsewhere, while Refining the Mountains and the Rivers' MC has a little blue lamp that detoxes him AND levels up plants which are exposed to its light.

Meanwhile, there's also the tensei version: Demoness' Art of Vengeance and Attack of the Wastrel) where the MC is a girl who died and was reincarnated to her youth, thus giving her the benefit of her various experiences.

>>71966563
Anima would do that pretty well.
It's already got a power range that goes up to smashing mountains, and its combat resolution can just scale up the raw numbers forever without breaking.

>>71967020
They basically want Ars Magica, but for punching people.

Which... could actually work pretty well. Ars Magica already has most of the elements, just with a western lens - sect building, personal research, corruption, etc.

Using Ars Magica as a template would result in a low power cultivation game, but it'd hit all the right points.

>>71967569
That they understand capitalism a helluva lot better than the rest of us?

>>71979253
Shut the fuck up pinko

>>71979330

China is producing what the world actually wants while the U.S. wallows in aristocratic stupidity. Cry harder republcuck.

>>71974443
Well to start with, most Xianxia. Usually in the form of Desolate Era or such. Shinza is another. Uminsko and Doctor Who at the very highest tiers as well. Apparently, the unironic biggest case is Twin Peaks, going by one /co/ thread I read, but outside of reposting some of what the guy wrote (if I can find it) I wouldn't be able to tell you much about it.

>>71975064
The only case I know of is Ji Ning in Desolate Era, and he acclimatizes so quickly that there's little point in calling it Isekai. On top of the fact that his Earth was actually a lesser world created by one of the setting's gods alongside its whole universe, making him part of the setting by default rather than someone who got ported in like most isekai.

>>71977169
More like they sit and meditate for a trillion+ years.

>>71979384
China isn't producing anything anymore lmao. Get used to the gutter oil, it's the one you're getting from now on

>>71963084
I have read Journey to the West and rally enjoyed it, but never read Xianxia novels.

Are they similar? I'm reading this post and it all seems to pain xianxia as the worst parts of power rank.
I really like the idea of a high-power chinese fantasy setting, but is it really just 'your kung-fu is inferior', training montage 'you're already dead' ad infinite? Because hell Monkey King was broken but at least he had to think around some problems.
I'm currently trying to spitball in my mind a system for it though. Maybe homebrew as I can't think of anything that really covers it well.

>>71980276
Xianxia MC's have to plan around things too and a lot usually run from higher scale opponents. But the core of the setting is built for high tier cosmic kungfu wizard conflicts.

Also, Journey To The West is more wuxia-styled than xianxia.

>>71977210
>Bottlenecks seem to exist so extremely old cultivators are not necessarily much more powerful than the MC.
Used well, they're a good source of motivation for all kinds of characters - villains who began pursuing ever more corrupt methods to try and break through, etc.

But yeah, they're normally just there to show how the MC is so awesome that he smashed the bottleneck without noticing, or when the author gets bored of describing how he meditated for ten years and wants them to go get in a fight.

>>71977169
>>71979472
>Montage of shots from different angles of a chinese guy meditating set to Eye of the Tiger

>>71980276
What >>71980513 is saying is "yes, this is the worst parts of power wank"

>>71980611
Most devil cultivators tend to be hyper dicks either way though, their chosen cultivation paths tend to require things like mass murder and refining the released souls to either help in breaking bottlenecks or making some kind of necromantic treasure.

>>71980513
Honestly I respect that, if that's what the genre is about it sounds like its not my cup of tea, but I can imagine it being like cocaine to those it appeals to.
I just like stealing bits of setting information to include in my I guess now more wuxia campaigns.

>Journey To The West is more wuxia-styled than xianxia.
I thought the moment you got to super powered demons it was Xianxia.

>>71980792
>I thought the moment you got to super powered demons it was Xianxia.
You need Cultivation and various Relams of increasing levels of transcendence to get even close to counting as a Xianxia, on top of bullshit sizes and scales for everything. Journey To The West is more classic mythological romp than Xianxia insanity.

For tabletop how many layers of power would be manageable anyway?

>>71980908
From what I've seen you power up until you become the biggest cheese in your current world, then you go to the heavens and start from the beginning as a pleb until you become the big shot there too, then repeat ad nauseam.

>>71980908
Definitely not the number most Xianxia use. Even some of the most abstract game systems usually have like 5 - 7 major spheres of power.

Anyone got some of these books to download?

>>71981641
You can have an infinite number of "layers" because the last layer doesn't matter anyone and the next one is untouchable

>>71982144
Wuxiaworld.com has a bunch of them. You'll need to register to read more than 50 chapters but it's free.

I should also warn you that these things are written in "chapters" of 2-3 pages because the authors get paid by the chapter, so there is usually a ton of filler in them.

>>71982248
Man, Chinese really are the Jews of Asia aren't they?

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Which of these Chinese novels have interesting locations and people then? Cool places to inspire the imagination

>>71982245
>You can have an infinite number of "layers" because the last layer doesn't matter anyone and the next one is untouchable
There are plenty of instances in xianxia where people of inferior cultivation stages can have an impact on a fight. It can range from providing a useful distraction, to even killing a stronger cultivator by themselves (through great numbers, formations or protagonism).

Even when you have a difference of many cultivation stages, so that a direct fight would indeed be useless, relative ability can still matter. For example, how much of a headstart you need to be able to successfully run away.

>>71982802
If by "plenty of instances" you mean "the main character", you're right. Otherwise, you're wrong.

So basically if I got this right, this is basically where Dragon Ball kind of get its post-Namek saga stuff, especially into DB Super with multiple universes, the kai, gods of destruction, god ki and shit, right? All filtered through Toriyama's own weirdness I guess.

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>>71978509
Neat

I don't even know why you guys bother with this preadolescent power fantasy trash

t. chinese

>>71983448
Because it's funny

>>71983539
Soup is the plebbiest possible option. At least you get some decent flavour with a nice stew.

I ran a Xianxia game once. Didn't want to spend too much time preparing so we used DnD 4th Edition. Just refluffed literally everything and scale everything up. Used a single orc minion statline to represent three-dozen lesser cultivators, etc.
Didn't last too long due to IRL commitments but it was cheesy fun.

>>71982276
>A lot of asian cultures still have class stratification hard-wired in Mao didn't go far enough
>Romanticize upper class luxuries about as much if not more so than the west
>Overpopulation has economic ramifications
>People have to be extra stingy because there are millions more people out there trying get by or live the dream
It all adds up

>>71983727
I think this guy 'gets it' more than we might realize.

>>71982635
Sadly few. Interesting names, interesting implications - very rarely are there any actual details, or descriptions, or... anything. A couple that spring to mind as having some interesting locations and actual descriptions worth a damn:

>Ascending, Do Not Disturb
Comfy romantic comedy, the MC female lead is a naive-but-terrifyingly-talented new cultivator with boundless optimism and good will, exploring a world she learned about from reading the awful Young Adult Cultivation Novels (full of all the normal tropes) secretly written by the male lead.
>40 Milleniums of Cultivation
A Warhammer 40k fusion, liberally translating elements of the setting to a sci-fi Xianxia format - so infantry standard weapons are bolters using powdered ki crystals, etc. But, while the majority of the galaxy is a 40k-shithole, the MC and his world are relatively (relatively!) modern, so it's a much less crushingly nihilistic story (and in fact a major theme is the refusal to succumb to the horror of the universe and become the kind of bastards that a xianxia/40k setting demands). Started off as yet another fucking isekai with a mildly different spin, then discarded most of that to become interesting.

What are some of the top tier waifus of Xianxia stories?

>>71983755
>Romanticize
Just human nature IMHO. I've never seen a culture not abo that doesn't want possessions and luxuries.

Understanding oriental asians in broad terms is actually really simple for Muricans. Just think traditional Protestant American Dreamers. That's really it.

>>71983755
>Unironically believes mao
>CDF
How do you even live with yourself

>>71984070
>Unironically believes mao
>CDF

No, I said that that the cultural revolution did jack shit about actually changing the culture. In what way am I defending China? I think it's shitty.

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>>71974014
It really does read as if written by someone who is into all kinds of weird stuff. Real life Daoists must be irritated by these novels -- this isn't how Daoism works at all. Much like how Catholics (probably) find anime misconceptions irritating.

In terms of pure strangeness, it is pretty interesting. As I expected, almost all of the people are absolute bastards who are weirdly petty for having supermagic -- which isn't so common in wuxia. Is that a genre difference or just in the few xianxia I've read? Most wuxia plots are "because honor code or face", so I'm not complaining, just trying to make sure it is a genre thing and not an assumption.

>>71983448
You only think it sucks because you are Chinese. Or pretentious. Everyone feels that way about their *own* culture's preadolescent power fantasy stuff. I find most superhero stuff to be old fashioned, worn-out -- but wuxia is interesting. Same themes of honor, supranormal powers and fighting. Humans are weird.

I'm not into xianxia, and I don't know about xianxia's Western version -- but the same thing is probably going on there too. Wait, what the fuck is the Western version of xianxia? Evil wizard serial killers? That's a serious question.

>>71984726
>Wait, what the fuck is the Western version of xianxia? Evil wizard serial killers? That's a serious question.
Sadly it doesn't exist as a full blown genre.

>>71984702
>the cultural revolution did jack shit about actually changing the culture

No it killed off pre-Mao chinese basically

>>71984726
>Everyone feels that way about their *own* culture's preadolescent power fantasy stuff
>I'm not into xianxia

Yeeeeaahh, I don't think you know enough about the genre yet

>what the fuck is the Western version of xianxia?
Take Rey Wars and multiply that x1000, you might get close

>>71984726
>Wait, what the fuck is the Western version of xianxia? Evil wizard serial killers? That's a serious question.

As a genre, the equivalent is probably LitRPG stuff, which is like a western encystment of xianxia and gamer-themed manga (there's also just western xianxia, but it's not that common yet).

LitRPG doesn't really have much of the horror to it though, but only by accident. It's generally little more than a skein of clumsy words stretched over numberwank - the cynical end result of formative primary media being videogames. Very big on wiping out humanity though (and all those pesky emotional ties), post-apocalypse is a big segment of it.

As for characters being fucking awful superpowered scum, uh, maybe the closest is the rapey end of the supernatural romance genre? Also a lot of the LitRPG adjacent stuff, there's some real creepshow stuff with mindraped harems and whatnot floating around on Amazon.

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>>71983448
>I don't even know why you guys bother with this preadolescent power fantasy trash

>>71963084
My only knowledge of the genre is playing Amazing Cultivation Simulator.

>>71985631
You have a point

What system would you use to run a setting like this, other than Exalted that is?

>>71985948
D&D 3.5 using the Immortal's Handbook

>>71986008
Oh god why

>>71984726
>Wait, what the fuck is the Western version of xianxia?
Marvel Comics

>>71987042
Too tame.

>>71987042
>Marvel Comics
Wuxia yes, xianxia no

>>71986128
It has a similar powerscaling

>>71988272
Well, I went and checked back and you're correct in so much as power scaling and overall setting scope.

>>71986008
Honestly the Immortal's Handbook is way more interesting than any Xianxia cosmological heirarchies I've read - they always end up being "asshole humanoids, but with BIGGER NUMBERS".

>>71979422
Thank you for the suggestions.
I've taken a look at those, and they don't seem to be more powerful than Suggsverse. But works with comparable power do exist - I recall something about a blog and a few Western webnovels inspired by Suggs, though I can no longer find them.

>>71965973
This picture is totally accurate however the chink novels don't actually end up more fun to read than the jap ones. Reading the same arc over and over again for 5000 chapters is not enjoyable.

Seems like Xianxia cultivation is best read sparingly, otherwise it become utterly redundant quick.

>>71988959
Think of it as cultivating, anon...

>>71989094
The appeal of cultivating is that you advance. But you don't advance in these novels. It's the same shit repeated however many times it takes for the author to get cancelled.

>>71979422
>Apparently, the unironic biggest case is Twin Peaks, going by one /co/ thread I read, but outside of reposting some of what the guy wrote (if I can find it) I wouldn't be able to tell you much about it.

Not the anon you were originally responding to, but any chance you could find this? I'd be interested in it.

>>71989110
But you have cultivated yourself to the point that you are now aware of that fact...you HAVE advanced.

But, yeah, I know...

>>71971884

>not having the players compose essays and having two different anons mark them separately

>>71983946
They're all irrelevant.

>>71988959
The chinks at least have this>>71968380 going for them over the japs. I'll take a shitty person over a sexless doll any day.

For all the power level stuff, Xianxia sounds pretty sucky in comparison to Wuxia so far.

>>71992575
It's more interesting in concept than in practice.

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>>71988705
Honestly Xianxia+Westen Fantasy+Occultism seems like a good seed for something.

>>71985063
>I don't think you know enough about the genre yet
Possibly true, I've only read a few and they are all much more formulaic than wuxia. I think wuxia kicks ass, but xianxia...

>Rey Wars x1000
Not feeling very charitable, I see.

>>71984855
What exactly are you imagining here? Post-human drug addicts with Sooperscience seems like the western equivalent to xianxia -- I might be wrong here...

>>71985204
>LitRPG
Plausible. It certainly has the clumsy numberwank down to an (ugh) art form. I've noticed several of the things you mention. There's a lot of room for improvement...

The major exception is the ones by sci-fi authors, but the only thing in common there is a virtual world. The difference may as well be... between heaven and earth. Then again, Stross and Vinge probably don't really count do they?

>>71987042
That's wuxia, but with crappy clothing choices being common.

At this point, I'm almost willing to blame the crappy xianxia genre conventions on *paying authors per page*. That won't help quality at all. Technically 'classic' ones aren't nearly so autistic as what I've seen from the modern ones. But they still have the old timey oddities that happen in folk tales, but aren't filled with ridiculously evil bastards.

What would you say are particularly notable instances of brutality by xianxia characters? How bad are the atrocities of the WH40k universe compared to xianxia in general?

>>71996453
I haven't read that many xianxia, but in MGA our hero gets his nearly his entire extended family exterminated before he even leaves his starting province (he returns the favor afterwards). Xianxia in general works on the principle of might makes right, anyone of Nascent Soul rank or above tends to be the near the top of the pecking order in their world, and the devil cultivators regard mortals as cultivation resources rather than actual people. The only real check on a cultivator's capacity for atrocities is other cultivators of comparable power and the everpresent need to enter seclusion to meditate in order to break through bottlenecks.

>>71994301
Have you read GURPS Cabal?
It's a fantastically well written modern-fantasy spin on hidden hermetic occultism (being the actual, objectively correct, understanding of the cosmos) - and the realms of existence and higher cosmic understanding, the things needed to be done to actually prosper on such levels, and the system of Cabalistic heirarchy... it could actually work out very similarly to the way that Xianxia sect progression goes.

Bump

>>71988895
>>71989126
Found the thread. I'll only be posting some f it because it's exceedingly long but is also a pretty good read that's suitably well-informed on the setting. Unfortunately, the thread it's from isn't even half as good.

>Question, what’s Cardinality?
>Cardinality is the size of a number set. Slept zero is the cardinality of all natural numbers, and is the lowest possible cardinality of any infinite set. Whilst there is no technical limit to the aleph number under Cantor's Theorem, going up by one is a massive truly exponential increase, the type of which the vast, vast majority of fiction flat out does not achieve, even if you break out shit like multi, mega or omniverses.

>To sorta illustrate my point, the concept of Infinity isn't really that big until we reach inaccessible cardinals. Suppose a universe to be of the smallest possible infinite size, thusly being either or Aleph_0, which are pretty much the same size no matter how we slice it. Then consider a multiverse. An entire multiverse could be a neat cluster of infinitely many universes, in such a manner as we could list them ("So this is the 1st, the 2nd, 3rd, etc"). In this scenario, we'd say that the multiverse is ω copies of a universe, which we can then take to be of size ω, and so we would have ω copies of something with a complexity equal ω, giving us ω*ω=ω^2. We can use this with basic shit like say, ordinals, but the resultant multiverse is still sized at Aleph_0. ω*ω can be interpreted as something with infinite tables and layers and columns, but since you start in X corner, and then go back and forth diagonally, you can label each square of each table and not need more than the natural numbers, making it still Aleph_0, countable.

>(cont because long).

>>72000828
>cont
>The table would function kinda like such:
>0, 1, 4, 7, 11,
>2, 3, 6, 12,
>5, 8, 13,
>9, 14
>15...

>...
>Continuing as such without a truly finite limit. Whereas an ordinal interpretation would look like such or something similar:

>0,1,2,3,4...
>ω,ω+1,ω+2,ω+3...
>ω*2,ω*2+1,ω*2+2,?*2+3...
>ω*3,ω*3+1,ω*3_2,...
>Again going on without finite limitation.

>The upper table indicates that it's Aleph_0, the lower one means it has an ordered complexity equated to ω^2. If a megaverse is the smallest thing that is infinitely many neatly (for a certain interpretation of the term) arranged multiverses, then it's then it's ω copies of ω^2, or ω^2*ω = ω^3. If an omniverse is infinitwly many neatly arranged multiverses, then its thusly ω of ω^3 or ω^4. And so on for anything else.

>...Unless we go by the other interpretation of this, where a multiverse is the largest thing with a strictly larger total *size* than a universe. The smallest such multiverse would then be one that contains *every possible iteration of the Aleph_0 universe*. We can incorporate other definitions that don't include EVERY possible such iteration of that universe, but they're the same size, so it's pointless. We can almost equate this to power set operation, but not truly. This puts a multiverse at aleph_1. If a megaverse is aleph_2, then it must be (or at least, contain/retain the sane size as) *every possible Aleph_1 multiverse*. That is, if even a single particle in the back end of nowhere is in a slightly different position at a particular point in time, in one particular universe contained in one particular multiverse, then the whole thing is an entire different multiverse. Akeph_2 is the result of having EVERY possible multiverse.

>An omniverse, to continue in this pattern, would be every possible megaverse, to reach Aleph_3. Anything beyond an omniverse, containing every possible omniverse, is Aleph_4.

>cont

>>72000916
>cont
>Aleph_4 is not a big infinity in the slightest. Its bigger than we could ever reasonably need for the majority of math, but when it comes to differently sized infinities, it's like a mote of dust.

>And since we've established what cardinality is, and why it matters, it's time to get into how it relates to Twin Peaks and the strength of the Black Lodge, which I will continue in a separate post.

>cont

>>72000949
>Since its getting quite late on my end, I'll cap this off by looping it back around to Cardinality and it's importance to the Lodges in terms of trying to denote 'strength'.

>Basically, not only is the Unified Field of Consciousness something Lynch subscribes to, but he also subscribes directly to the association of it with the Universe of Sets as defined in Set Theory, as John Hagelin did. On top of being one of the primary founders for an entire foundation of it.

>Basically, they (Hagelin & Lynch) associates each of the deeper levels of consciousness that are traversed through transcendental meditation with the infinite of set theory, and argues that these subtler levels of mind are reflected upon the physical world in the sense that we need deeper levels of mathematical abstractions and "strengths" in order to properly codify our world.

>Lynch at one point directly explains that the Unified Field is a boundless expanse of nothingness from which everything in our Universe is sprung from, be it on a Mental or Material level. In the material side of things, he describes that as one delves into increasingly deeper and smaller chains of matter, physical reality can be perceived as slowly disappearing and being reduced into more minute things, until they disappear into the purest unmanifest. But factor in the fact that he very much associates both the Unified Field and the Universe of Sets together as functionally one and the same, and that the Mauve Zone draws directly from both as the basis of all things (supported in Secret History by the Lodges outright being described as the embodiments of the deepest levels of the uncosncious), and things become clear.

>The Unified Field/Universe of Sets is outright described as being something "Beyond the largest possible infinity that can be conceived by the human intellect lies the Universe of Sets, an infinity which transcends all mathematically definable infinities, and includes them all."

>cont

>>72000991
>cont
>This is referring to cardinals by the by, much like what we started this off with. But unlike those, these are more than a fair bit larger. Recall how we dealt with even something beyond omniverses simply being Aleph_4 In scale?

>This is entirely beyond that. More to the point, it's beyond the things that are beyond that. The Universe of Sets, that the Mauve Zone in Twin Peaks is very clearly based on, is beyond even the highest points of the inaccessible cardinals and includes them all into itself. And Lycnh very much used this as his general outline when going into the Mauve Zone/Sea as we've established. And the Lodges are either direct embodiments of this deepest point beyond and transcending all else, or they're implied to be beyond even it in some way (as is quite likely the case with Judy)

>TLDR: Twin Peaks is an absolute clusterfuck of stuff from all over that really doesn't work in versus debates because there's so much to go into, and even just saying "it transcends inaccessible and inordinate cardinals" really doesnt put it into perspective how mindboggingly incomprehnsibly massive both the Mauve Zone and the Lodges are. They don't work in powerlevel debates, flat out.

There's a bunch of other stuff there that I cut for time that explain and inform about the setting, but these are the major points. I can drop a link to the thread archive if anyone wants to read the whole thing.

>>71996453
In Reverend Insanity the protagonist kidnaps a virgin maiden and has her eaten alive by a fucking bear so he can craft a cool magical item.

>>72001766
wtf

>>71996453
>>71997479
>>72001766
>>72002024
As a rule, Cultivators are monsters. Depending on the setting, higher tier Cultivators can make even the worst atrocities in 40k look like a child's first tantrum. The heights of depravity they'll sink to in order to attain more power know no limits.

>>72002024
Not to mention the time the same guy dug up and killed a hibernating guy who was a legendary hero of the northern plains to con a girl into thinking he was that guy so he could gain her trust and then kill her, eat her soul, and use his reputation to win over her father and use his tribe as an expendable stepping stone to grow his fake reputation as the returned hero so he could fight his way into the big tournament of the Northern Plains to steal some magical trinkets and fuck off.

To be fair, the protagonist of Reverend Insanity is out and out specified to be a complete psychopath. Not unintentionally like "haha wacky Chinese morality", but explicitly stated to be an amoral bad guy who happens to be the main character. It's just fun to see what this absolute mad lad will get up to next. There's even a lot of legitimately good and honorable people in the setting too, they just aren't the focus of the story.

>>71971666

This

The fanbase is really torn in two. Some want it to be gonzo xianxia tier stuff whereas others want five well trained mortal soldiers fighting a Dawn at once to be a tense encounter. It cannot happen both ways.

>>72000916
Haven't seen someone construct the Aleph tables in a while. The mathematical underpinnings of Cantor's set theory are put well enough. If this is being used for any sort of power scaling then the autism would truly be as far beyond ω as the earth is from the farthest stars. Truly an transfinite degree of autism.
>Lynch
Oh that explains it. That guy is doorhingefuckinginsane. I was going to ask about the term 'Mauve Zone', (it doesn't occur in set theory), but the quote makes it clear that it means "superset of infinity". Kind of a pointless notion, it isn't as if more than a few grades of infinity are even needed in applied mathematics. Lynch is a crackhead, how surprising.

>>72002391
One problem of Exalted is that its power level issue are also a paradox. Solars (and variant) are supposed to be top tier and godlike...but to even offer them a challenge, you really need to crank everything else up, which end up often making Solars (and variants) quite shit.

>>72002789
The Mauve Zone is basically the seat of all consciousness at the lowest level of being, with the Lodges being either parts of it or completely transcendent over even that, beyond even inaccessible cardinals.

Lynch's autism is great enough to turn a surreal horror murder drama mystery into one of the strongest things in all of fiction. I'd like to pick his brain if I weren't so terrified it would destroy me completely.

I've been reading "A Very Cliche Xianxia Harem Story". Which is cliche but actually not.

>>72002988
But are there any good waifu in there?

>>72003031
Sort of, i guess?
Thing is, the MC doesn't actually have a harem yet, even though he's married.
He's 12.

How much better or worse would Exalted be if the writers knew wtf they were doing when it came to the martial arts/wuxia/xianxia side?

>>72004241
The main issue is the mechanics, which wouldn't change at all.

>>72004330
Eh fair enough.

>>72003031

Gregor mode would be the player characters are all maidens.

>>72002839

This is why I often play with mods, like Essence Overwhelming. Causes other things to go to shit, but does make you feel like a vengeful god.

>>72004241
I actually think it's basically there already - the martial arts sects and culture described fits wuxia well enough. But mechanically of course it's so low-resolution and clunky that it's just unfun to care about when you could skip it and be an Exalt... and be low-res and clunky with Real Power.

>>72004984
A lot of Exalted is nonsense cobbled together from different genre and nobody is sure wtf anything is supposed to be

>>72005766

This. As I stated before, there are people who want to use it to run gritty games and others like Gurran Lagann level craziness.

>>72005794
Exalted tries to do too much as a kitchen sink and fail at all of them, be it non-Tolkien high fantasy, wuxia/xianxia, pulp fantasy or mythology-inspired stuff

>>72005794
The problem is that the games are not gritty nor ever have been, they’ve always been crazy awesome animeshit. It’s just not as crazy-anime as TTGL/DBZ. The game is Iliad-Bleach and always has been.

>>71967564
3real5me

>>72006168
There's no such consensus to be found in the lore or the mechanics.

>>72006168
>Bleach
and yet, only sorcerers can actually fly

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I've always wanted to write a Xianxia book myself but I've never had the patience to actually read a full story or two to get a good grip on it, nor do I think I could actually write something with the insane garbage high level stuff that later chapters I've skipped to include. It's just a little silly.

>>72008102
I'm pretty sure you need Chinese Autism to write something truly structured like some Xianxia shit, which is apparently very, very repetitive.

>>72008102

I kinda wanted to write a Xianxia/Wuxia Quest of sorts, but that's been placed on the backburner since I started my job.

>>72008313
So basically, Huge Quest with buffness and swole replaced by Daoism and kung fu?

>>72008401

Basically.

>>72008485
Sounds great.

>>72001041
>There's a bunch of other stuff there that I cut for time that explain and inform about the setting, but these are the major points. I can drop a link to the thread archive if anyone wants to read the whole thing.
Never thought I'd see "Twin Peaks" and "transcends inaccessible and inordinate cardinals" in the same paragraph. Please do, this is trippy stuff.

I'm looking into Xianxia and I gotta ask: How are normal mortal folk portrayed in the setting of Xianxia? Something to be casually killed by the millions? With all the monsters and demigods running around I kinda wonder how humanity itself hasn't died off yet.

>>72010017
Normal folk know better than to piss off a high level cultivator. There's usually no reason to kill them.

>>72010017
In one novel, an evil protagonist (pretending to be good for the time being) happens upon a hunting party of young mortals under his clan's protection, who mistake him for a poacher. The protagonist allows them to attack him and then proceeds to kill them all and collect their heads, dumping them on the group before their shocked elder in order to manipulate him into giving the protagonist a map of boar herds on the mountain so he can feed his magical item. When this is going on, another cultivator comes over and asks what the ruckus is about. The protagonist casually explains that the hunting party attacked him after mistaking him for a poacher, and he killed them for their insolence. The senior cultivator, who is just a normal member of the clan and not a secret evil protagonist, responds something like this:
>"Ah, I see. You killed well! The lives of mortals are as cheap as grass, it is good they remember their place below us."
He then proceeds to leave the protagonist to his business.

On the other hand, if a mortal impresses a cultivator to a significant extent, he may have his soul awakened and gain the ability to become a cultivator as well. But if this does not happen, then a mortal in this world is basically expendable fodder.

>>72010368
>on the group
*on the ground

>>72009451
Here you go:
https://boards.fireden.net/co/thread/113877843/

Keep in mind that it's a thread where capefags spend the majority of it being disengenuous little fucks with zero arguments, so you can ignore like a straight 90% of it. The explanation stuff is a bit further down in the thread, and after that, it's followed by basically the biggest case of seething I've ever seen in a powerlevel thread, because the capefags just degenerate into attacking fans of the show instead of what's being discussed as they clearly lose the argument. You can write the rest of it off at that point.

>>72010017
Mortals in basically any proper Xianxia world are treated as goddamn fodder at best, usually bieng regarded as less than bacteria in almost every case. Most high-ranking cutlivators see very little point in slaughtering them because of how hopelessly irrelevant they are, and only do so if they make a nuisance of themselves or otherwise get in their way.

How does Xianxia cosmology/world design work? I see people mention planet when discussing Xianxia but I thought it was Chinese mythology stuff

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>>72002948
>I'd like to pick his brain if I weren't so terrified it would destroy me completely.

Oh, it would. You might get a good quinoa recipie out of it though

https://youtu.be/uSP-ewdJYJc

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>>72010583

Other anons in this thread have mentioned it before but if you want a solid grasp on crazy Xianxia check out Reverend Insanity. The protagonist is evil but the world is autistically detailed and explains why everything is the way it is. Pic related for example is the author explaining how being able to just meditate really hard and BTFO groups of lesser people ruins the social contract as we understand it, forcing all societies to adopt a policy of might makes right.

You can read the whole thing here: https://boxnovel.com/novel/reverend-insanity/

It starts out rough but gets better over time.

>>72010454
Thanks anon. Guess I should try to look for the blog and the Suggsverse-inspired webnovels I mentioned earlier, I genuinely find all this power-level shit interesting.

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What do you roll to eat a live animal?

>>72010792
>trying to out-magick Lynch
The fool.

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>>71963084
Really good wuxia books/novels are

>Libarary of Heavens Path = this is real good
>Goumet of another world = this is also awesome + cheat + mythology
>King of Gods
>True Martial World
>Gate of God

You can just use https://www.novelupdates.com to search for new books. They even got a ranking for Wuxia novels. Can even be searched by tags like "cultivation, from weak to strong, alchemy" etc.

>>72010583
It's basically higher dimensions/Realms at the more cosmic scales, but even world sizes are ridiculous. Desolate Era for instance has single planets larger than the entirety of the Imperium of Man, and those are jsut the *starting areas*. Big nonsense sizes beyond easy comprehension are a common trope across pretty much all Xianxia.

>>72013087
Why do Asians like big numbers so much? You see it a lot in east asian pop culture, but also in a lot of their mythology. India too. Why? Why do they like using numbers so inordinately large they become meaningless?

>>72013479
As demonstrated by many posts here and other threads, autist who can conjure the bigger numbah wins the argument.

>>71995522
>Thor was originally Donald Blake, a guy who found a magic hammer and fought bank robbers
>then he was actually a god-prince exiled for hubris who fought galactic conquerors
>then he was a god-prince who challenged the celestials, drivers of evolution
>then he was the god-king of the holy realm of Asgard
>then he was the god other gods prayed to
>then he fought the nonbeings from beyond the universe to hold back the end of all things
>now he is the all-father, herald of galactus, preparing to fight yet another potentially universe ending threat
No that's Xianxia.

>>72013586
>autist who can conjure the bigger numbah wins the argument.
Victory through convoluted, overpowered hax/magical abilities can also be obnoxious, though in a different way.

>use Ars Magica for Xianxia
I think you could use Mage: the Ascension for it, if you wanted to play a relatively low-power Xianxia Urban Fantasy game. Just play as members of the Wu Lung, and take the Life, Forces, and Prime Spheres.

>>72016389
M20 How Do You do that has a lot of rules for magic martial arts, and then you can emulate a lot of the Xianxia stuff with spells.

>Core Formation: Life 3/Prime 3 to create a Periapt inside your own body
>Life magic to purify your body of impurities
>Life 3/Forces 2 to create a Domain of altered physics around your body
>Life 2/Prime 2 to make healing pills, Life 3/Prime 2 to make physical enhancement pills
>Create a Nascent Soul with Prime 2 Body of Light plus Life 3 to bind it inside yourself. even if it won't actually do anything

>>71966741
Thunder bolt fantasy have dragon and demon, its 100% Xianxia.

>>71967452
Wuxia-->No pure magic or supernature beings
XianXia-->With pure magic and supernature beings

>>72017142
Please do not insult TBF by calling it xianxia

>>72017574
Its simply what it is,

Xianxia is a much older genre than you think
the first book is ShuShan knight-errant swordsman biography in 1932.

Just because modern Xianxia novels tend to go the "popular way" doesn't mean the genre is always like this.
By that same logic all vampire stories would Twilight.

>>72013479
It's just how they are, I guess.

>>72017574
>>72017606
So basically, its like calling John Carter and Alice in Wonderland an 'isekai'? They technically are but aren't what people negatively assume an 'isekai' to be

>>72018142
It's just that the typical elements of xianxia are cultivation levels, being a dick to everyone, planet-shattering kung fu, repetitive plots and TBF has none of that. It's closer to wuxia than anything else.

>>72018271
Well, TBF has people being dicks to each other, even in the MC camp. But not to the point where they start mindlessly slaughtering and raping countless like in your average Xianxia.

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>>71963084

>>72018727
This is really cool. Thanks anon.

>>71985204
>LitRPG
There's only like 4 good series that use that. There's a couple authors that understand using the rpg element as a framework for the story instead of the point of it, and there's one or two wuxia authors that do the same.

>>71967634
>while reading jap light novels, the protag almost always is walking around with a friend/harem member who he can talk to, a lot of chink shit will spend 20 chapters in a row with nothing but the protag inner dialogue.
This is my biggest problem
Why the fuck is every MC a literal loner. How the fuck do they never make a single friend?

>>72019926
Because chink are weirdoes

>>72019926
Because unlike say, shonen bullshit where every character is a fight-happy friendship autist, most Xianxia and Wuxia protags literally don't care about continued connections beyond building up webs of contacts to use as thry please. With Wuxia, it's less prominent because the MC's there usually get at least a couple true companions per story arc, but most Cultivators coukdnt care less about the concept of "friendship." If you aren't immediately aiding their goal to reach the next Cultivation Level or break past a bottleneck, you're irrelevant at best. An outright obstacle at worst.

>>71967634
>>3: chinks are monsters
Chinese culture is so radically different.
Once watched a chinese cartoon thinking it was an anime, and the kids in it where acting so differently.
going on how everyone in the city would deceive them and trick them.

also wonder if the obsession with the power levels relates to being a more hierarchical society.