Goliathus
Literate
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2019
- Messages
- 11
I am a Chinese on a quest to spread the love of Chinese games throughout the world. My quest led me to this board so...let's play Scrolls of Taiwu, again! Props to benzine for introducing the game to this forum and starting the first LP.
[Disclaimer: Some of the Chinese words are different from the screenshots. That's because I am inputting the character in Trad. Chinese whereas the game runs in Simp. Chinese, but it's not like many gives a f*** about foreign alien characters.]
What is Scroll of Taiwu?
Scroll of Taiwu is a sandbox wuxia(with a bit of xianxia or xuanhuan[mythical] elements) RPG that mixes a lot of wacky ideas into a pot of gold. In this sandbox open world RPG, you are the chosen one, the Taiwu, who is on a quest to defeat the everlasting threat of Xiangshu.
You might have a lot of questions like wtf is Taiwu and wtf is Xiangshu? Worry not, some of the lore will be explained as we go through the intro portion of the game. Do note that this game is still in EA and is merely on v0.2, a lot of the story and lore are not established yet as the devs are still focusing on mechanics at the moment.
As I am Chinese, I will be using the original Chinese version instead of the translation mod. The UI also makes it harder for English due to the lack of word space on some part of it. Hence, I believe running the Chinese version is better. I will be translating and explaining the game as we go, so fear not. Also, my translation is more freestyle and on-the-go. I don't think I have to waste time to think and find the most suitable word for everything as a proper official translation will be there eventually. So I didn't.
So, let's start...by creating a character! The game is pretty deep on the math side and a true munchkin can certainly enjoy minmaxing the crap out of the character. But I am not a munchkin, I am a storyteller, who plays for the experience and story more than the taste of victory, so don't worry about the mechanical details, just pick the things you like and let's go from there!
As we can see, there are five main categories. On the first one, as shown in the SS above, we shall decide on the name and life philosophy of our character. For name, I am a serious RPer and I would prefer a proper name instead of some wacky, supposed-to-be-funny name. We can randomize it for ease of access, or just choose our preferred Chinese surname, or you all can suggest a theme for our name and I will find a name suitable to the theme. For instance, you can say I want a name that sounds bad ass but also gentlemanly, then I would find a more "scholar-ish" surname and name. Maybe you want "wind" in the name, we can do it. Unisexual name, no problem. Just suggesting anything. But as this is a game that lasts for a lot of generations, the name is really not super important. We can random it and move on or whatever.
Philosophy though, is important, as it affects how the character does thing, what action he prefers and such. A character is happy if we perform an action suitable to his alignment and I am a serious RPer so I am sticking to the alignment like a D&D paladin, choose wisely. We have 5 choices:
剛正(Upright; Honorable; Rightousness; Conscientious): The Lawful Good paladin type. Rough translation of the Chinese description:
A Xia(martial warrior) of rightousness, the world is firmly black and white(to you).
Evil shall be perishly thoroughly, morally right shall be supported and nourished. A world might be everchanging, but there is only one path to righteousness!
仁善(Benevolence; Kindness; Good-hearted): Closer to True Good or Chaotic Good. Translation:
The action of a person of kindness and benevolence are pure and above.
Willing to make a sacrifice to help out people in danger, willing to forget about one self to help thje world. Able to repay hate with kindness, you shines like the brightest gold and jade.
中庸(Neutrality; Moderation; the word can also be used in negative way to insult people who are strictly average and have achieved nothing): Closer to True Neutral. Translation:
A man of neutrality do no extra action, he takes the world without any bias.
Anything shall be according to nature, and keeping everything on the middle is the priority. When thy heart is without justice and evil, shall thy be able to open the brightest path of all?
叛逆(Rebellious): Chaotic, and leaning toward the evil side but not a must. You just don't give a f*** about social protocol and such. Translation:
A world who live with rebellious in his heart, thou shalt flip the script of the black and white. "Supposed to smile" yet you don't (smile); "Supposed to be happy" yet you don't (be happy); "Supposed to be generous" yet you don't (be); "You heard of/acknowledged/saw evil" but you don't change (your evil way); "You did something good" but you aren't happy.
唯我(literally "Only Me";Selfish): Cao Cao once said "I would betray the entire world, but not let the entire world(as in literally anyone) betrays me". Is this evil? Or just brutally honesty to selfishness? Either way, the game portrays this alignment in an extremely evil way so yeah, this is the evil alignment by game's mechanics even though we can argue about the philosophy all day long. Translation:
I live for myself in this world, I shall hurt the weak, kill those different from me, ally with the evildoers and bully the kind and good-hearted.
There shall be no justice, emotion and humanity on my way to my goal.
My previous run through is Rebellious, so I would prefer the other 4, but not so much as to outright ban Rebellious. Vote with your heart.
On the second part, we will decide our character's look, gender, age and time of birth. Look has no bearing on the numbers, and I usually just roll until I find a look I like. If you all prefer to be more specific, then give me a "theme"(handsome, ugly, monster-like" and I will see if I can replicate that theme. If you prefer specific colors on the clothings, hairs and whatever, we can do that too.
For gender, there are male and female and also you can be female-looking male and male-looking female(Cheers for the rainbow army!). You can do some funny stuff like be heavily involved a female-oriented sect as a female-looking male and then sleep around with all the girls as if this is an eroge game. But I personally prefer a more "typical" playthrough with a male-loomking male or a female-looking female.
Age I suggest starting young, as it would give us more time to mess around with our created character(Like really, why waste so much time to create if we will have him die so quickly?) The starting age is 16-30. Standard dying age of the Taiwuverse is 40 and above. Many don't live to 45. It's a surprise that people in a wuxia world would live for so few years but it is what it is. Oh, if we want a moustache on the (male) character, we have to start at 20. So let's vote on either 16 or 20.
Season of birth will have +/- on some of the character's stats. I did not do hardcore research to see all the +/- of every possible option. So I say screw all of that and let's just vote or random it. There are 24 "seasons" so let's do "First Half" or "Second Half" and then months. For example, you can vote for First Half of January. Winter is January to March in Taiwuverse. You want a child of autumn, then vote between July to September.
Like every good RPGs out there, you start with a plethora of options and each of them gives you bonus of some kind. As you can see on the SS, the lower options are in red because we have not accumulate enough points in that category. We have 10 points to spend the amount of dots are the amount of points we need to invest in that category before those options are unlocked. To go deep down a single category, we will have to invest a lot of points in it. So, we can be a jack of all trades and go all three, or we can go hard into 1 and a bit on 2, or an average for 2 of them and so on. I will list every option below:
[First, I apologize for the translation on this part. This game's Chinese is closer to the ancient form of it, so it's hard even for a nature Chinese speaker. Kind of like Shakespherean English or Old English. A lot of the terms used here aren't used in daily life]
TX: tier X, X is the amount of points invested in the branch for this skill to be unlockable.
PX: point X, X is how many points needed to unlock said bonus.
I think it's hard for us to land on a specific sets of bonus. So let's vote on the type of character we want. Is he a wealthy mofo? An artist? A born-to-be martial artist?
As if the current post isn't long enough, we have the toughest part of the character selection -- picking the starting place and most important of all, our first sect! Due to travel time, it is unwise to go to a sect far away in the beginning so most players will go to the closest sect at the same region as you start in. But before we go to sect, I would also point out that starting location also affects travel time to other region, so a central position is great for a minmaxer, which I am not. So f*** that, we will drop our character on any place we want.
There are 15 sects in this game, distributed over the 3 alignments(good, neutral, bad) and 5 philosophies. There are 5 elements in this game and each elements have 3 sects, balanced between each alignments.
Before we get to sects, let's get some basic and advanced concepts done so we can properly plan out our character:
金 - 金剛 = Gold/Metal (Yellow)
木 - 紫霞 = Wood (Purple)
水 - 玄陰 = Water (Blue)
火 - 純陽 = Fire (Red)
土 - 歸元 = Earth (Green)
Let's break it down based on the picture. Check out the hand-drawn starry graph with the correct colors. The blue line circling on the outsides are supporting element. So water supports wood and wood supports fire. The red arrows on the inside are the anti-elements. So water is anti-fire and fire is anti-gold.
We then look on the graph below that singles out all the relationship of the wood element. Water supports wood and wood suports fire, so these are the alliance and the elements you should consider if you are going multi-elements. Gold kills Wood and Wood kills Earth, so you really don't want to pair them up together.
As Gold kills Wood, any Wood internal point you have over the Gold internal point you have are x2. So, if you have 10 Wood internal point and 5 Gold internal point, your would have 5 + (5*2) = 15 Wood internal points. The core idea is you want to abandon and not train anything related to the element who kill yours.
As Wood kills Earth, if your primary internal is Wood(as in Wood is the one you have the most internal point among all 5), all your Earth martial art has their effectiveness reduced by XX%, depending on how far is the gap between the two I belive. Also, when you use Earth skills as a primary Wood martial artist, you will inflict internal damage on yourself. The core idea is that you also want to abandon and not training anything related to the element your primary element kills, and this is arguably worst than the relation above.
This is an example of Gold killing the Fire. As you can see, the character is primary Fire, having 1271 fire internal point, but his high Gold point of 1101 is triggering the bad relation. It reads "Fire·Exhausting of Fire Bring Death", all Fire skill effectiveness are reduced by 20%. You don't want that.
Now, let's explain the friendly relations.
This is when the assisting element of yours(second high) is a friendly element of your main and is between 40% - 80% of your main element's total point. In this case, they are merely supporting your main elements. As you can see, the primary bonuses are the same but they do provide different sub-bonus.
This is when your secondary element is 80%+ close to your primary element. In this case, the skills of both elements both get bonus and two other elements are decreased.
Then, we have the ultimate hybrid of five elements; yes, you can go Avatar in this game. 混元 represents the true master of all and it requires all your element points to be within 10% of each. For this, you will get 10% boost on all skills, but as you can learn all the martial arts of all kinds, you have less raw bonus(10% vs 20% for two-three colors or 30% if you go pure mono) but all the versatility in your arsenal. You are like the card game P2W dude who bought every cards in the game and can make any deck you want. The possibility is endless. Also, for a more advanced setup, there are internal arts that can convert X element points into Y. So you can use those and manipulate into Pure 1 Element for a fight if you want, like you can go Pure Water against a Fire dude, then Pure Gold against a Wood dude. Again, flexibility.
Knowing all these, we have these viable options:
Mono-Element: You go hard on one, boring but effective with the highest bonus.
Duo-Element: You pick one main and another support element for increased versatility.
Triple-Element: You pick one main and the two support elements, and switch things up. Harder to control your element points while you play but with more options than duo-element.
All-in-one: The toughest to achieve but the greatest(and most boring? Cuz the end game is the same) of all.
Now that we understand the elements, and I feel like I have written 15 pages of a D&D rulesbook already. Let's move on to the sects! Final-f***ing-ly, I think we will start with alignment and go from there:
*There are two type of books in this game: authentic and handwritten. Handwritten are known as the "reverse" book as in it is an incomplete version written and passed around by the thief and betrayers and what not. They are the bootlegged copies that tend to not have the full information. Authentic books are what you will find in the Emei library. For external arts, training it "reversely" merely means that you need lower stats requirement to perform well with those arts, but the maximum efficiency you can achieve in those arts are lower than what you can get from "positive" learning. For an example, the authentic book have all 67 kodakan judo throws, but your bootlegged copy might only have 40 of them. So you only learn 40 of them if you read the whole bootlegged copy and you can certainly do well with 40 throws, but not as great as those who learnt and mastered all 67 throws. For the internal art though, "reverse" training is extremely dangerous. Successful training it "reversely" and using them will provide a different (and usually opposite) of the default, positive effects. But as this is the incorrect way of training, you will get internal damage from using an internal art "reversely". For example, if say an internal art required you to flow your chi from your lungs to your heart and then back to your head. You stick to it or you are supposed to die. This bootlegged copy of yours said "lungs to legs then head", so you trained it wrong, and it caused you internal damage, but surprisingly, it worked. It is really a game-oriented design. In wuxia story, if you train an internal art wrong, you die, and the only survivor of this "inverse" training is Ouyang Feng, from the Condor Heroes duology. While he didn't die, he went crazy and became more like a berserker than a composed martial artist from training it wrong. Neutral means that you are half-half in both authentic books and pirated books, which brings another kind of effect I believe.
Do note that despite the alignment of the sects, there will always be people of different alignment and philosophy within each sects. Shaolin will have some selfish a-holes and there are good fellows in the most evil sects. It's just that the majority of the students will be close to the sect alignment, so you will have an easier time befriending the clan people(and you need to to unlock higher tier martial arts). Also, some good sects will refuse teaching stuff to you if you were evil. Like they don't care if they all die and you can't save the world as the Taiwu, they ain't teaching you jacks***.
Support skills are important as you have to be good in your support skills to increase the potency of your martial arts. There are two type of support skills, your physical attributes(like strength, vigor and so on) and artistry skills(medicine, toxic, fortune telling, and so on). It is ideal that you find a sect that is ideal for your body type, like a muscular guy joining a sect that is more about brute force or tankiness, but body type is hard to change and the attributes aren hard to increased. Thus, artistry skills actually affect more as you can work hard on those to easily increase how good you are with some martial arts.
I think we will stop here and vote on the stuffs first. To summarize, we are voting on:
1. Character name
2. Philosophy
3. Look
4. Gender
5. Age
6. Starting bonuses
7. Location(which indicates the first sect we will learn from)
[Disclaimer: Some of the Chinese words are different from the screenshots. That's because I am inputting the character in Trad. Chinese whereas the game runs in Simp. Chinese, but it's not like many gives a f*** about foreign alien characters.]
What is Scroll of Taiwu?
Scroll of Taiwu is a sandbox wuxia(with a bit of xianxia or xuanhuan[mythical] elements) RPG that mixes a lot of wacky ideas into a pot of gold. In this sandbox open world RPG, you are the chosen one, the Taiwu, who is on a quest to defeat the everlasting threat of Xiangshu.
You might have a lot of questions like wtf is Taiwu and wtf is Xiangshu? Worry not, some of the lore will be explained as we go through the intro portion of the game. Do note that this game is still in EA and is merely on v0.2, a lot of the story and lore are not established yet as the devs are still focusing on mechanics at the moment.
As I am Chinese, I will be using the original Chinese version instead of the translation mod. The UI also makes it harder for English due to the lack of word space on some part of it. Hence, I believe running the Chinese version is better. I will be translating and explaining the game as we go, so fear not. Also, my translation is more freestyle and on-the-go. I don't think I have to waste time to think and find the most suitable word for everything as a proper official translation will be there eventually. So I didn't.
So, let's start...by creating a character! The game is pretty deep on the math side and a true munchkin can certainly enjoy minmaxing the crap out of the character. But I am not a munchkin, I am a storyteller, who plays for the experience and story more than the taste of victory, so don't worry about the mechanical details, just pick the things you like and let's go from there!
As we can see, there are five main categories. On the first one, as shown in the SS above, we shall decide on the name and life philosophy of our character. For name, I am a serious RPer and I would prefer a proper name instead of some wacky, supposed-to-be-funny name. We can randomize it for ease of access, or just choose our preferred Chinese surname, or you all can suggest a theme for our name and I will find a name suitable to the theme. For instance, you can say I want a name that sounds bad ass but also gentlemanly, then I would find a more "scholar-ish" surname and name. Maybe you want "wind" in the name, we can do it. Unisexual name, no problem. Just suggesting anything. But as this is a game that lasts for a lot of generations, the name is really not super important. We can random it and move on or whatever.
Philosophy though, is important, as it affects how the character does thing, what action he prefers and such. A character is happy if we perform an action suitable to his alignment and I am a serious RPer so I am sticking to the alignment like a D&D paladin, choose wisely. We have 5 choices:
剛正(Upright; Honorable; Rightousness; Conscientious): The Lawful Good paladin type. Rough translation of the Chinese description:
A Xia(martial warrior) of rightousness, the world is firmly black and white(to you).
Evil shall be perishly thoroughly, morally right shall be supported and nourished. A world might be everchanging, but there is only one path to righteousness!
仁善(Benevolence; Kindness; Good-hearted): Closer to True Good or Chaotic Good. Translation:
The action of a person of kindness and benevolence are pure and above.
Willing to make a sacrifice to help out people in danger, willing to forget about one self to help thje world. Able to repay hate with kindness, you shines like the brightest gold and jade.
中庸(Neutrality; Moderation; the word can also be used in negative way to insult people who are strictly average and have achieved nothing): Closer to True Neutral. Translation:
A man of neutrality do no extra action, he takes the world without any bias.
Anything shall be according to nature, and keeping everything on the middle is the priority. When thy heart is without justice and evil, shall thy be able to open the brightest path of all?
叛逆(Rebellious): Chaotic, and leaning toward the evil side but not a must. You just don't give a f*** about social protocol and such. Translation:
A world who live with rebellious in his heart, thou shalt flip the script of the black and white. "Supposed to smile" yet you don't (smile); "Supposed to be happy" yet you don't (be happy); "Supposed to be generous" yet you don't (be); "You heard of/acknowledged/saw evil" but you don't change (your evil way); "You did something good" but you aren't happy.
唯我(literally "Only Me";Selfish): Cao Cao once said "I would betray the entire world, but not let the entire world(as in literally anyone) betrays me". Is this evil? Or just brutally honesty to selfishness? Either way, the game portrays this alignment in an extremely evil way so yeah, this is the evil alignment by game's mechanics even though we can argue about the philosophy all day long. Translation:
I live for myself in this world, I shall hurt the weak, kill those different from me, ally with the evildoers and bully the kind and good-hearted.
There shall be no justice, emotion and humanity on my way to my goal.
My previous run through is Rebellious, so I would prefer the other 4, but not so much as to outright ban Rebellious. Vote with your heart.
On the second part, we will decide our character's look, gender, age and time of birth. Look has no bearing on the numbers, and I usually just roll until I find a look I like. If you all prefer to be more specific, then give me a "theme"(handsome, ugly, monster-like" and I will see if I can replicate that theme. If you prefer specific colors on the clothings, hairs and whatever, we can do that too.
For gender, there are male and female and also you can be female-looking male and male-looking female(Cheers for the rainbow army!). You can do some funny stuff like be heavily involved a female-oriented sect as a female-looking male and then sleep around with all the girls as if this is an eroge game. But I personally prefer a more "typical" playthrough with a male-loomking male or a female-looking female.
Age I suggest starting young, as it would give us more time to mess around with our created character(Like really, why waste so much time to create if we will have him die so quickly?) The starting age is 16-30. Standard dying age of the Taiwuverse is 40 and above. Many don't live to 45. It's a surprise that people in a wuxia world would live for so few years but it is what it is. Oh, if we want a moustache on the (male) character, we have to start at 20. So let's vote on either 16 or 20.
Season of birth will have +/- on some of the character's stats. I did not do hardcore research to see all the +/- of every possible option. So I say screw all of that and let's just vote or random it. There are 24 "seasons" so let's do "First Half" or "Second Half" and then months. For example, you can vote for First Half of January. Winter is January to March in Taiwuverse. You want a child of autumn, then vote between July to September.
Like every good RPGs out there, you start with a plethora of options and each of them gives you bonus of some kind. As you can see on the SS, the lower options are in red because we have not accumulate enough points in that category. We have 10 points to spend the amount of dots are the amount of points we need to invest in that category before those options are unlocked. To go deep down a single category, we will have to invest a lot of points in it. So, we can be a jack of all trades and go all three, or we can go hard into 1 and a bit on 2, or an average for 2 of them and so on. I will list every option below:
[First, I apologize for the translation on this part. This game's Chinese is closer to the ancient form of it, so it's hard even for a nature Chinese speaker. Kind of like Shakespherean English or Old English. A lot of the terms used here aren't used in daily life]
TX: tier X, X is the amount of points invested in the branch for this skill to be unlockable.
PX: point X, X is how many points needed to unlock said bonus.
Life Experience Branch
T0 P1 锋从磨砺(Sharpness of Blade came from long time of crafting): You often wrestled with the tiger and bear living in the valley, thus you have incredible arm strength.
Effect: Strength ++
T0 P1 迅由危亡(Speed in the crucial moment of danger and death): You are often involved in dangerous situation and that trained your awareness.
Effect: Agility ++
T1 P1 香自苦寒(Sweetness came from the hard, tough life): As you have been living the tough life for very long, you have great composure.
Effect: Composure ++
T1 P1 純憑自然(Pureness of nature): You live a druid-ish life around nature, pure and simple, and that has strength your body.
Effect: Body ++
T2 P1 形因境變(Adapt the environment): You have been to the weirder parts of the valley a lot to learn and play, and your experience has improved your vigor.
Effect: Vigor ++
T2 P1 意随心寂(Follow your heart through solitude): Your lonely life has given your a lot of time to think and stimulate your brain, and that has made your smarter and an excellent learner.
Effect: Comprehension ++
T3 P2 谷中密友（Secret friend in the valley): You have a childhood friend(of opposite sex, wooooooo~~~) who no one elses know, but very close to you.[Childhood sweetheart is a very common trope in Asian story]
Effect: Childhood Sweetheart +1
T3 P2 梦境中人（Man in the dream): You have a weird aura of charisma, it seems like everyone has dreamed about you at some point, and what you look like in real life is no big deal when people are charmed to you in the mysterious way.
Effect: +600 Charmisma on your gene(no effect on current character but your children's charisma will be off the roof)[Changed recently, if you are curious about the differnt effect in case you had followed other Taiwu LP]
T5 P3 白額靈蛇(Snake with white head): You had spent a day with a mysterious, gigantic white head snake in the valley(for context, it is probably one of the godlike entity or spirit who blessed your character)
Effect: Pure Qi +1[Pure Qi is super hard to get and Pure Qi advantage gives you great bonus against your opponent as you just have the internal qi advantage, important in wuxia setting)
T5 P3 服芝食玉(Eater of Ganoderma and Jade): Growing up, you have consumed a lot of ganoderma and spiritual jade. These godly medicine makes you super healthy and strong.
Effect: No negative traits upon creation
Wealth Branch
T0 P1 东搜西罗(Search the East and take from the West): You have accumulate and horde a plethora of resource in your storage.
Effect: Starting Resource ++
T0 P1 十枚碎金（Ten pieces of tiny gold): You have ten pieces of tiny gold that you mixed with stone and played with in your childhood
Effect: Starting Money ++
T1 P1 褓衣似锦(Swaddle of Silk): The swaddle of your infacthood is a blood-stained silky cloth. Perhaps this is the memento of your biological parents.
Effect: Grade 5 Clothes +1
T1 P1 桂酒椒浆(Wine of Chinese cinnamon): You have found a few jars of old wine at the mountain behind your home
Effect: Wines of Grade 4-6 ++
T2 T1 驰马试剑(Testing your blade on top of a running horse): You have a horse who has been with your since your childhood
Effect: Grade 5 Horse +1
T2 P1 泥封古罐(Mud-sealed ancient tin): You have an old-ass cricket pot.
Effect: Old-Ass Grade 4 cricket pot +1
T3 P2 怪窟诡物(Weird stuffs from strange cave): You have found some weird bugs and grasses from a mysterious, strange cave.
Effect: Weird and strange Grade 4 poison materials ++
T3 P2 灰炉遗药(Leftover medicine from the stove): You have found some leftover pills in an abandoned furnace.
Effect: Grade 4 pills ++
T5 P3 家传宝物(Family treasure): You possess a treasure passed down generation to generation in your family
Effect: Random Grade 1 item +1
T5 P3 盛世集录(Memory of the peak of prosperity): You heard about the prosperity of the world in the past, and those stories still have a place in your heart these days
Effect: Default space in village +10(Good for going hardcore Stardew Valley early on, which I don't think is necessary for many walkthrough and play style, definitely not worth being a T5)
Artistry Branch
T0 P1 琴棋书画(Piano, chess, book[includes calligraphy, poem writing and such] and painting[or in short, the four mainstream art form of ancient China]): You are a fan of the various art form, and you are a natural-born artist.
Effect: Musicianship ++, Chess ++, Poetry ++, Painting ++
T0 P1 一任自然(Master of nature): You see through nature, as if all are just one path to greatness.
Effect: Buddhism ++, Daoism ++, Apparaisal ++, Cooking ++
T1 P1 医相星卜(Healing, look(as in fortune telling from your look), star and divination): You are a master of the divine art and the five ways of yin and yang.
Effect: Medicine ++, Toxicology ++, Maths ++, Knowledge ++
T1 P1 天工开物(Crafted by the work of nature): You are a creator, who turned raw materials into tools.
Effect: Blacksmithing ++, Carpentry ++, Gemsmithing ++, Weaving ++
T2 P1 璞玉韬光(A jade without the smithering): You are a jade that has not been processed, raw but with tremendous potential
Effect: Skill breakthrough success rate ++
T2 P1 神锋敛彩(A colored, sharp blade): Like a sharp blade in the hilt, you awaits your unsheating moment with impatient dragon's roars
Effect: Martial art breakthrough success rate ++
T3 P2 天材地宝(Materials and treasure from the sky and Earth): A gift from the nature, you have found some valuable materials deep inside the valley
Effect: Various kind of Grade 3 materials ++
T3 P2 先利其器(Sharpen your tools): To do things well, you must first sharpen your tools. You have spent a few years fixing the various abandoned tools in the valley.
Effect: Various Grade 3-4 crafting tools and raw materials ++
T5 P3 天人造化(A blessing from Heaven): The God gives you two scoops and you are a natural-born martial artist
Effect: Internal Art ++, Qin Gong ++, Stunts ++
T5 P3 古冢遗刻(Words from the ancient graves): You have found some written words on what seems to be an ancient relic, an abandoned landmark perhaps, and you copied those words into a manual book.
Effect: Random grade 3 martial art of your starting location +1
T0 P1 锋从磨砺(Sharpness of Blade came from long time of crafting): You often wrestled with the tiger and bear living in the valley, thus you have incredible arm strength.
Effect: Strength ++
T0 P1 迅由危亡(Speed in the crucial moment of danger and death): You are often involved in dangerous situation and that trained your awareness.
Effect: Agility ++
T1 P1 香自苦寒(Sweetness came from the hard, tough life): As you have been living the tough life for very long, you have great composure.
Effect: Composure ++
T1 P1 純憑自然(Pureness of nature): You live a druid-ish life around nature, pure and simple, and that has strength your body.
Effect: Body ++
T2 P1 形因境變(Adapt the environment): You have been to the weirder parts of the valley a lot to learn and play, and your experience has improved your vigor.
Effect: Vigor ++
T2 P1 意随心寂(Follow your heart through solitude): Your lonely life has given your a lot of time to think and stimulate your brain, and that has made your smarter and an excellent learner.
Effect: Comprehension ++
T3 P2 谷中密友（Secret friend in the valley): You have a childhood friend(of opposite sex, wooooooo~~~) who no one elses know, but very close to you.[Childhood sweetheart is a very common trope in Asian story]
Effect: Childhood Sweetheart +1
T3 P2 梦境中人（Man in the dream): You have a weird aura of charisma, it seems like everyone has dreamed about you at some point, and what you look like in real life is no big deal when people are charmed to you in the mysterious way.
Effect: +600 Charmisma on your gene(no effect on current character but your children's charisma will be off the roof)[Changed recently, if you are curious about the differnt effect in case you had followed other Taiwu LP]
T5 P3 白額靈蛇(Snake with white head): You had spent a day with a mysterious, gigantic white head snake in the valley(for context, it is probably one of the godlike entity or spirit who blessed your character)
Effect: Pure Qi +1[Pure Qi is super hard to get and Pure Qi advantage gives you great bonus against your opponent as you just have the internal qi advantage, important in wuxia setting)
T5 P3 服芝食玉(Eater of Ganoderma and Jade): Growing up, you have consumed a lot of ganoderma and spiritual jade. These godly medicine makes you super healthy and strong.
Effect: No negative traits upon creation
Wealth Branch
T0 P1 东搜西罗(Search the East and take from the West): You have accumulate and horde a plethora of resource in your storage.
Effect: Starting Resource ++
T0 P1 十枚碎金（Ten pieces of tiny gold): You have ten pieces of tiny gold that you mixed with stone and played with in your childhood
Effect: Starting Money ++
T1 P1 褓衣似锦(Swaddle of Silk): The swaddle of your infacthood is a blood-stained silky cloth. Perhaps this is the memento of your biological parents.
Effect: Grade 5 Clothes +1
T1 P1 桂酒椒浆(Wine of Chinese cinnamon): You have found a few jars of old wine at the mountain behind your home
Effect: Wines of Grade 4-6 ++
T2 T1 驰马试剑(Testing your blade on top of a running horse): You have a horse who has been with your since your childhood
Effect: Grade 5 Horse +1
T2 P1 泥封古罐(Mud-sealed ancient tin): You have an old-ass cricket pot.
Effect: Old-Ass Grade 4 cricket pot +1
T3 P2 怪窟诡物(Weird stuffs from strange cave): You have found some weird bugs and grasses from a mysterious, strange cave.
Effect: Weird and strange Grade 4 poison materials ++
T3 P2 灰炉遗药(Leftover medicine from the stove): You have found some leftover pills in an abandoned furnace.
Effect: Grade 4 pills ++
T5 P3 家传宝物(Family treasure): You possess a treasure passed down generation to generation in your family
Effect: Random Grade 1 item +1
T5 P3 盛世集录(Memory of the peak of prosperity): You heard about the prosperity of the world in the past, and those stories still have a place in your heart these days
Effect: Default space in village +10(Good for going hardcore Stardew Valley early on, which I don't think is necessary for many walkthrough and play style, definitely not worth being a T5)
Artistry Branch
T0 P1 琴棋书画(Piano, chess, book[includes calligraphy, poem writing and such] and painting[or in short, the four mainstream art form of ancient China]): You are a fan of the various art form, and you are a natural-born artist.
Effect: Musicianship ++, Chess ++, Poetry ++, Painting ++
T0 P1 一任自然(Master of nature): You see through nature, as if all are just one path to greatness.
Effect: Buddhism ++, Daoism ++, Apparaisal ++, Cooking ++
T1 P1 医相星卜(Healing, look(as in fortune telling from your look), star and divination): You are a master of the divine art and the five ways of yin and yang.
Effect: Medicine ++, Toxicology ++, Maths ++, Knowledge ++
T1 P1 天工开物(Crafted by the work of nature): You are a creator, who turned raw materials into tools.
Effect: Blacksmithing ++, Carpentry ++, Gemsmithing ++, Weaving ++
T2 P1 璞玉韬光(A jade without the smithering): You are a jade that has not been processed, raw but with tremendous potential
Effect: Skill breakthrough success rate ++
T2 P1 神锋敛彩(A colored, sharp blade): Like a sharp blade in the hilt, you awaits your unsheating moment with impatient dragon's roars
Effect: Martial art breakthrough success rate ++
T3 P2 天材地宝(Materials and treasure from the sky and Earth): A gift from the nature, you have found some valuable materials deep inside the valley
Effect: Various kind of Grade 3 materials ++
T3 P2 先利其器(Sharpen your tools): To do things well, you must first sharpen your tools. You have spent a few years fixing the various abandoned tools in the valley.
Effect: Various Grade 3-4 crafting tools and raw materials ++
T5 P3 天人造化(A blessing from Heaven): The God gives you two scoops and you are a natural-born martial artist
Effect: Internal Art ++, Qin Gong ++, Stunts ++
T5 P3 古冢遗刻(Words from the ancient graves): You have found some written words on what seems to be an ancient relic, an abandoned landmark perhaps, and you copied those words into a manual book.
Effect: Random grade 3 martial art of your starting location +1
I think it's hard for us to land on a specific sets of bonus. So let's vote on the type of character we want. Is he a wealthy mofo? An artist? A born-to-be martial artist?
As if the current post isn't long enough, we have the toughest part of the character selection -- picking the starting place and most important of all, our first sect! Due to travel time, it is unwise to go to a sect far away in the beginning so most players will go to the closest sect at the same region as you start in. But before we go to sect, I would also point out that starting location also affects travel time to other region, so a central position is great for a minmaxer, which I am not. So f*** that, we will drop our character on any place we want.
There are 15 sects in this game, distributed over the 3 alignments(good, neutral, bad) and 5 philosophies. There are 5 elements in this game and each elements have 3 sects, balanced between each alignments.
Before we get to sects, let's get some basic and advanced concepts done so we can properly plan out our character:
金 - 金剛 = Gold/Metal (Yellow)
木 - 紫霞 = Wood (Purple)
水 - 玄陰 = Water (Blue)
火 - 純陽 = Fire (Red)
土 - 歸元 = Earth (Green)
Let's break it down based on the picture. Check out the hand-drawn starry graph with the correct colors. The blue line circling on the outsides are supporting element. So water supports wood and wood supports fire. The red arrows on the inside are the anti-elements. So water is anti-fire and fire is anti-gold.
We then look on the graph below that singles out all the relationship of the wood element. Water supports wood and wood suports fire, so these are the alliance and the elements you should consider if you are going multi-elements. Gold kills Wood and Wood kills Earth, so you really don't want to pair them up together.
As Gold kills Wood, any Wood internal point you have over the Gold internal point you have are x2. So, if you have 10 Wood internal point and 5 Gold internal point, your would have 5 + (5*2) = 15 Wood internal points. The core idea is you want to abandon and not train anything related to the element who kill yours.
As Wood kills Earth, if your primary internal is Wood(as in Wood is the one you have the most internal point among all 5), all your Earth martial art has their effectiveness reduced by XX%, depending on how far is the gap between the two I belive. Also, when you use Earth skills as a primary Wood martial artist, you will inflict internal damage on yourself. The core idea is that you also want to abandon and not training anything related to the element your primary element kills, and this is arguably worst than the relation above.
This is an example of Gold killing the Fire. As you can see, the character is primary Fire, having 1271 fire internal point, but his high Gold point of 1101 is triggering the bad relation. It reads "Fire·Exhausting of Fire Bring Death", all Fire skill effectiveness are reduced by 20%. You don't want that.
Now, let's explain the friendly relations.
This is when the assisting element of yours(second high) is a friendly element of your main and is between 40% - 80% of your main element's total point. In this case, they are merely supporting your main elements. As you can see, the primary bonuses are the same but they do provide different sub-bonus.
This is when your secondary element is 80%+ close to your primary element. In this case, the skills of both elements both get bonus and two other elements are decreased.
Then, we have the ultimate hybrid of five elements; yes, you can go Avatar in this game. 混元 represents the true master of all and it requires all your element points to be within 10% of each. For this, you will get 10% boost on all skills, but as you can learn all the martial arts of all kinds, you have less raw bonus(10% vs 20% for two-three colors or 30% if you go pure mono) but all the versatility in your arsenal. You are like the card game P2W dude who bought every cards in the game and can make any deck you want. The possibility is endless. Also, for a more advanced setup, there are internal arts that can convert X element points into Y. So you can use those and manipulate into Pure 1 Element for a fight if you want, like you can go Pure Water against a Fire dude, then Pure Gold against a Wood dude. Again, flexibility.
Knowing all these, we have these viable options:
Mono-Element: You go hard on one, boring but effective with the highest bonus.
Duo-Element: You pick one main and another support element for increased versatility.
Triple-Element: You pick one main and the two support elements, and switch things up. Harder to control your element points while you play but with more options than duo-element.
All-in-one: The toughest to achieve but the greatest(and most boring? Cuz the end game is the same) of all.
Now that we understand the elements, and I feel like I have written 15 pages of a D&D rulesbook already. Let's move on to the sects! Final-f***ing-ly, I think we will start with alignment and go from there:
Yuanshan (Good Rightousness)
Yuanshan is a sect who prides themselves in maintain the rightousness of wulin. There are two mountains in the clan: in Big Yuan Mountain are daoists who focus on blade skills and in Small Yuan Mountain are buddhists who focus on sword skills. In a perfect harmony of daoism and buddhism, the student of Yuanshan shall perish all evils from wulin!
Element: Earth
Martial art skills: Sword, Blade, Kicks
Support skills: Buddhism, Taoism
Clan Specialty: The Path of Righteousness -- if your philosophy is Rightousness or Kindness, your reading comprehension on Yuanshan arts are increased by 100%; otherwise, decreased by 50%
Valley of Hundred Flowers (Good Kindness)
Known for its medicine skill, this is the wulin doctors who travel the Taiwuverse and save people's life. Respected by everyone out there(except maybe the evil sects).
Element: Water
Martial art skills: Fingering, Archery, Music
Support skills: Medicine, Weavery(if learning archery), Music(if learning Music)
Clan Specialty: Medicine and Martial in One - Same effect as Shaolin(scroll down), except with Medicine books
Shaolin (Good Kindness)
Shaolin is a major good clan of wulin. All 72 Arts of Shaolin are famous around the martial society.
Element: Gold
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering, Long weaponry
Support skills: Buddhism
Clan Specialty: Martial Way through Buddhism -- Can replace the book knowledge of Shaolin art with the Buddhism book of same grade(so if you studied the G8 Buddhism book to Lv.10[max], you don't have to read any Shaolin book to be Lv.10 in them); your alignment decides whether your art effect is positive, negative or neutral
Emei (Good Kindness)
Among the top 3 good clans of wulin(should be Emei, Shaolin and Wudang), Emei is famous for the mixture of both "hard" and "soft" in their martial arts.
Element: Wood
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering, Sword, Exotic(in this case, needles and short stabby type of weapon)
Support skill: Buddhism, Daoism(Trivia: Emei used to be Buddhist in old school wuxia books and TV series. They decided to change it to Daoist so the Emei characters(which in some series are the female lead) can look more beautiful than a bald nun on TV)
Clan Specialty: Master through Authenticity - Emei prefers the correct way of training. Effectiveness of battle training +100%, effectiveness of studying authentic* Emei books
Wudang (Good Neutral)
Wudang, the Big 3 of Wulin. Wudang is an internal-focused clan and the home of Taiji.
Element: Fire
Martial art skills: Boxing, Sword, Soft weapon(in this case, a taoist whisk)
Support skill: Daoism
Clan Specialty: The Law of Dao -- Wudang is a Daoism-centric sect. Same effect like Shaolin except with Daoism books.
Xuannv (Neutral Rightousness)
The Xuannv Peak is also called the Peak of Jade Lady. Rumor has it that a goddess descend down the peak and created a godly martial arts. Ladies who train in them will become out-of-the-world beautiful and can one day eventually ascend into godhood. Xuannv students cannot enter marriage!!! Trivia: Many people have observed that Xuannv students have the lowest charisma of all, and the theory is that these clans are just full of ugly Betties all throughout China who no one wanted to marry anyway, and they are training here only because they need the plastic surgery effect from the martial arts.
Element: Water
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering(I know it sounds dirty), Music(Yes, you can be the musician duo in Kung Fu Hustle)
Support skills: High body skill requirement, no artistry support skill needed
Clan Specialty: The Face of Goddess -- Xuannv is a clan of woman. Women have +100% effectiveness when training the arts here whereas men get 50% penalty
Ranshan (Neutral Neutral)
Ranshan are a master of "Youxue" and "Chushi". Youxue: Roam the world and study, so you walk the Earth and obtain so much knowledge that you can with only with mouth and not weapon. Chushi: Be out of the world. The human world is merely a phase, and your body a vessel to your mind. One shall master the spirit and not the body. In short, this is the clan equivalent of the Xianxia hermit who cares more about ascending into the Heaven than giving a crap about the human world.
Element: Wood
Martial art skills: Fingering, Sword, Exotic(but heavily restricted from the get-go, so we should focus on fingering and sword if we start here)
Support skill: Maths(maths here also include astrology and predicting winds and such from stars and so on, kind of like how Zhuge lian did in the battle of chibi), General Knowledge
Clan Specialty: Words, Words and more words -- the martial art of Ranshan are wordy as all f***s. Learning the arts through studying provides +100% effectiveness whereas learning through battle has -50% effectiveness
Sword Manor (Neutral Neutral)
Sword Manor has the best weaponsmiths of the world. A lot of the godly weapons around the world came from Sword Manor. Well-respected by everyone in the wulin regardless of alignment.
Element: Fire
Martial art skills: Sword, Blade, Long weaponry(in this case, staff), archery
Support skill: Blacksmith
Clan Specialty: The Master of Crafting -- Same effect as Shaolin except the bonus is judged by the practiontioner's equipped weapons' grade
Lion Gate (Neutral Rebellious)
A sect of brute force, Lion Gate is not a fan of hardcore internal training. It relies on hard style internal art and brutal external martial arts to dominate the others. Essentially, you are a tanky king kong.
Element: Gold
Martial art skills: Boxing, Blade, Long weaponry(spear)
Support skill: Higher body skill requirement, no artistry support skill required
Clan Specialty: Simple in Brutality -- Lion Gate are not a fan of the written words, they prefer to punch every mofo out and learn through actions. Studying rate -50%, battle gain +100%
Kongsang (Neutral Selfish)
Kongsang sect is also known as Kongsang, the King of Medicine sect. Despite being a snowy mountain, there exists an area inside the clan that have all kinds of medicine and toxic plants and animals. Kongsang students are master of medicine and poison; their pills can save your life, but they can also kill you through poison easily at the same time. After all, it's not about medicine or poison, it's about how the user uses its knowledge.
Element: Earth
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering, Kicks, Hidden weaponry(coated with poison)
Support skill: Medicine, Toxicology
Clan Specialty: From thickness to thinness -- Kongsang martial arts are hard early on and easy later on. The earlier tiers have decreased learning efficiency whereas the latter tiers have increased learning efficiency
Dragon Altar(Evil Righteousness)
Dragon altar are fromed in the Red Island by the East Sea. There are two families(or thematically named "dragon veins") in the clan. The Situ family is known for their stone-crushing blade and the Long family is known for their boxing and palm strike skills. According to rumors, Dragon Altar students train around the volcanoes of the island.
Element: Fire
Martial art skills: Boxing, Blade, Hidden weaponry
Support skill: High body skill requirement, no artistry skill requirement
Clan specialty: Easy to learn, hard to master -- the early tiers are fast to learn with increased efficiency yet the latter tiers all have decreased efficiency
Wuxian (Evil Rebellious)
Wuxian sect is formed by the Miao people, known for their mastery in various poison and Chinese voodoo curses(They are like the gypsy of China). Their teaching is extreme: to pay a deed with a deed and an eye for an eye. There is no one in the wulin, no matter good or bad, who don't fear the Wuxian and their poisonous, creepy arts.
Element: Wood
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering(forbidden, hard to learn), Sword, Soft weaponry(whip)
Support skill: Toxicology
Clan specialty: The Poisonous Soul -- same as Shaolin, except with Toxiology book
Green Gate (Evil Rebellious)
The green gate is described as a place of man and ghost. They recruit the evildoers of wulin and are stealthy in their action. Known for their (ninja-like) daoist sorcery and hidden weapon skill, they can take anyone out from the shadow.
Element: Water
Martial art skills: Fingering, Sword, Hidden weaponry(a plethora of different types)
Clan Specialty: The Path of Inverse -- Toying with their own life(now you know why they are the ghosts), they love inverse training* of their art -- +100% on inverse art training, -50% otherwise
The Cult of Bloody Roar (Evil Selfish)
A cult who treat Xiangshu as their God, the cult is created upon the rumor that Xiangshu is back once again. This is a chaotic evil clan filled with crazy evildoers that not even the Buddha can save. They are the top enemy of the wulin's good and righteous sects.
Element: Earth
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering, Kicks, Hidden weaponry(forbidden, hard to learn)
Clan Specialty: The Path of Evil -- Same as Yuanshan, except the evil version where you get bonus for being Rebellious or Selfish and penalty for Rightousness and Kindness
Vajra (Evil Selfish)
Your typical evil lama monk from Tibet, Vajra students are master of hard style internal art. Despite their buddhism practice, these evil monks are known for their cold-blooded nature and rapist behaviors. Like the Cult of Bloody Roar, they are the prime enemy of the wulin.
Element: Gold
Martial art skills: Boxing, Blade, Exotic(vajra staff)
Clan Specialty: The Way of Vajra -- A male-oriented clan, they have the inverse effect of Xuannv's clan specialty
Yuanshan is a sect who prides themselves in maintain the rightousness of wulin. There are two mountains in the clan: in Big Yuan Mountain are daoists who focus on blade skills and in Small Yuan Mountain are buddhists who focus on sword skills. In a perfect harmony of daoism and buddhism, the student of Yuanshan shall perish all evils from wulin!
Element: Earth
Martial art skills: Sword, Blade, Kicks
Support skills: Buddhism, Taoism
Clan Specialty: The Path of Righteousness -- if your philosophy is Rightousness or Kindness, your reading comprehension on Yuanshan arts are increased by 100%; otherwise, decreased by 50%
Valley of Hundred Flowers (Good Kindness)
Known for its medicine skill, this is the wulin doctors who travel the Taiwuverse and save people's life. Respected by everyone out there(except maybe the evil sects).
Element: Water
Martial art skills: Fingering, Archery, Music
Support skills: Medicine, Weavery(if learning archery), Music(if learning Music)
Clan Specialty: Medicine and Martial in One - Same effect as Shaolin(scroll down), except with Medicine books
Shaolin (Good Kindness)
Shaolin is a major good clan of wulin. All 72 Arts of Shaolin are famous around the martial society.
Element: Gold
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering, Long weaponry
Support skills: Buddhism
Clan Specialty: Martial Way through Buddhism -- Can replace the book knowledge of Shaolin art with the Buddhism book of same grade(so if you studied the G8 Buddhism book to Lv.10[max], you don't have to read any Shaolin book to be Lv.10 in them); your alignment decides whether your art effect is positive, negative or neutral
Emei (Good Kindness)
Among the top 3 good clans of wulin(should be Emei, Shaolin and Wudang), Emei is famous for the mixture of both "hard" and "soft" in their martial arts.
Element: Wood
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering, Sword, Exotic(in this case, needles and short stabby type of weapon)
Support skill: Buddhism, Daoism(Trivia: Emei used to be Buddhist in old school wuxia books and TV series. They decided to change it to Daoist so the Emei characters(which in some series are the female lead) can look more beautiful than a bald nun on TV)
Clan Specialty: Master through Authenticity - Emei prefers the correct way of training. Effectiveness of battle training +100%, effectiveness of studying authentic* Emei books
Wudang (Good Neutral)
Wudang, the Big 3 of Wulin. Wudang is an internal-focused clan and the home of Taiji.
Element: Fire
Martial art skills: Boxing, Sword, Soft weapon(in this case, a taoist whisk)
Support skill: Daoism
Clan Specialty: The Law of Dao -- Wudang is a Daoism-centric sect. Same effect like Shaolin except with Daoism books.
Xuannv (Neutral Rightousness)
The Xuannv Peak is also called the Peak of Jade Lady. Rumor has it that a goddess descend down the peak and created a godly martial arts. Ladies who train in them will become out-of-the-world beautiful and can one day eventually ascend into godhood. Xuannv students cannot enter marriage!!! Trivia: Many people have observed that Xuannv students have the lowest charisma of all, and the theory is that these clans are just full of ugly Betties all throughout China who no one wanted to marry anyway, and they are training here only because they need the plastic surgery effect from the martial arts.
Element: Water
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering(I know it sounds dirty), Music(Yes, you can be the musician duo in Kung Fu Hustle)
Support skills: High body skill requirement, no artistry support skill needed
Clan Specialty: The Face of Goddess -- Xuannv is a clan of woman. Women have +100% effectiveness when training the arts here whereas men get 50% penalty
Ranshan (Neutral Neutral)
Ranshan are a master of "Youxue" and "Chushi". Youxue: Roam the world and study, so you walk the Earth and obtain so much knowledge that you can with only with mouth and not weapon. Chushi: Be out of the world. The human world is merely a phase, and your body a vessel to your mind. One shall master the spirit and not the body. In short, this is the clan equivalent of the Xianxia hermit who cares more about ascending into the Heaven than giving a crap about the human world.
Element: Wood
Martial art skills: Fingering, Sword, Exotic(but heavily restricted from the get-go, so we should focus on fingering and sword if we start here)
Support skill: Maths(maths here also include astrology and predicting winds and such from stars and so on, kind of like how Zhuge lian did in the battle of chibi), General Knowledge
Clan Specialty: Words, Words and more words -- the martial art of Ranshan are wordy as all f***s. Learning the arts through studying provides +100% effectiveness whereas learning through battle has -50% effectiveness
Sword Manor (Neutral Neutral)
Sword Manor has the best weaponsmiths of the world. A lot of the godly weapons around the world came from Sword Manor. Well-respected by everyone in the wulin regardless of alignment.
Element: Fire
Martial art skills: Sword, Blade, Long weaponry(in this case, staff), archery
Support skill: Blacksmith
Clan Specialty: The Master of Crafting -- Same effect as Shaolin except the bonus is judged by the practiontioner's equipped weapons' grade
Lion Gate (Neutral Rebellious)
A sect of brute force, Lion Gate is not a fan of hardcore internal training. It relies on hard style internal art and brutal external martial arts to dominate the others. Essentially, you are a tanky king kong.
Element: Gold
Martial art skills: Boxing, Blade, Long weaponry(spear)
Support skill: Higher body skill requirement, no artistry support skill required
Clan Specialty: Simple in Brutality -- Lion Gate are not a fan of the written words, they prefer to punch every mofo out and learn through actions. Studying rate -50%, battle gain +100%
Kongsang (Neutral Selfish)
Kongsang sect is also known as Kongsang, the King of Medicine sect. Despite being a snowy mountain, there exists an area inside the clan that have all kinds of medicine and toxic plants and animals. Kongsang students are master of medicine and poison; their pills can save your life, but they can also kill you through poison easily at the same time. After all, it's not about medicine or poison, it's about how the user uses its knowledge.
Element: Earth
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering, Kicks, Hidden weaponry(coated with poison)
Support skill: Medicine, Toxicology
Clan Specialty: From thickness to thinness -- Kongsang martial arts are hard early on and easy later on. The earlier tiers have decreased learning efficiency whereas the latter tiers have increased learning efficiency
Dragon Altar(Evil Righteousness)
Dragon altar are fromed in the Red Island by the East Sea. There are two families(or thematically named "dragon veins") in the clan. The Situ family is known for their stone-crushing blade and the Long family is known for their boxing and palm strike skills. According to rumors, Dragon Altar students train around the volcanoes of the island.
Element: Fire
Martial art skills: Boxing, Blade, Hidden weaponry
Support skill: High body skill requirement, no artistry skill requirement
Clan specialty: Easy to learn, hard to master -- the early tiers are fast to learn with increased efficiency yet the latter tiers all have decreased efficiency
Wuxian (Evil Rebellious)
Wuxian sect is formed by the Miao people, known for their mastery in various poison and Chinese voodoo curses(They are like the gypsy of China). Their teaching is extreme: to pay a deed with a deed and an eye for an eye. There is no one in the wulin, no matter good or bad, who don't fear the Wuxian and their poisonous, creepy arts.
Element: Wood
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering(forbidden, hard to learn), Sword, Soft weaponry(whip)
Support skill: Toxicology
Clan specialty: The Poisonous Soul -- same as Shaolin, except with Toxiology book
Green Gate (Evil Rebellious)
The green gate is described as a place of man and ghost. They recruit the evildoers of wulin and are stealthy in their action. Known for their (ninja-like) daoist sorcery and hidden weapon skill, they can take anyone out from the shadow.
Element: Water
Martial art skills: Fingering, Sword, Hidden weaponry(a plethora of different types)
Clan Specialty: The Path of Inverse -- Toying with their own life(now you know why they are the ghosts), they love inverse training* of their art -- +100% on inverse art training, -50% otherwise
The Cult of Bloody Roar (Evil Selfish)
A cult who treat Xiangshu as their God, the cult is created upon the rumor that Xiangshu is back once again. This is a chaotic evil clan filled with crazy evildoers that not even the Buddha can save. They are the top enemy of the wulin's good and righteous sects.
Element: Earth
Martial art skills: Boxing, Fingering, Kicks, Hidden weaponry(forbidden, hard to learn)
Clan Specialty: The Path of Evil -- Same as Yuanshan, except the evil version where you get bonus for being Rebellious or Selfish and penalty for Rightousness and Kindness
Vajra (Evil Selfish)
Your typical evil lama monk from Tibet, Vajra students are master of hard style internal art. Despite their buddhism practice, these evil monks are known for their cold-blooded nature and rapist behaviors. Like the Cult of Bloody Roar, they are the prime enemy of the wulin.
Element: Gold
Martial art skills: Boxing, Blade, Exotic(vajra staff)
Clan Specialty: The Way of Vajra -- A male-oriented clan, they have the inverse effect of Xuannv's clan specialty
*There are two type of books in this game: authentic and handwritten. Handwritten are known as the "reverse" book as in it is an incomplete version written and passed around by the thief and betrayers and what not. They are the bootlegged copies that tend to not have the full information. Authentic books are what you will find in the Emei library. For external arts, training it "reversely" merely means that you need lower stats requirement to perform well with those arts, but the maximum efficiency you can achieve in those arts are lower than what you can get from "positive" learning. For an example, the authentic book have all 67 kodakan judo throws, but your bootlegged copy might only have 40 of them. So you only learn 40 of them if you read the whole bootlegged copy and you can certainly do well with 40 throws, but not as great as those who learnt and mastered all 67 throws. For the internal art though, "reverse" training is extremely dangerous. Successful training it "reversely" and using them will provide a different (and usually opposite) of the default, positive effects. But as this is the incorrect way of training, you will get internal damage from using an internal art "reversely". For example, if say an internal art required you to flow your chi from your lungs to your heart and then back to your head. You stick to it or you are supposed to die. This bootlegged copy of yours said "lungs to legs then head", so you trained it wrong, and it caused you internal damage, but surprisingly, it worked. It is really a game-oriented design. In wuxia story, if you train an internal art wrong, you die, and the only survivor of this "inverse" training is Ouyang Feng, from the Condor Heroes duology. While he didn't die, he went crazy and became more like a berserker than a composed martial artist from training it wrong. Neutral means that you are half-half in both authentic books and pirated books, which brings another kind of effect I believe.
Do note that despite the alignment of the sects, there will always be people of different alignment and philosophy within each sects. Shaolin will have some selfish a-holes and there are good fellows in the most evil sects. It's just that the majority of the students will be close to the sect alignment, so you will have an easier time befriending the clan people(and you need to to unlock higher tier martial arts). Also, some good sects will refuse teaching stuff to you if you were evil. Like they don't care if they all die and you can't save the world as the Taiwu, they ain't teaching you jacks***.
Support skills are important as you have to be good in your support skills to increase the potency of your martial arts. There are two type of support skills, your physical attributes(like strength, vigor and so on) and artistry skills(medicine, toxic, fortune telling, and so on). It is ideal that you find a sect that is ideal for your body type, like a muscular guy joining a sect that is more about brute force or tankiness, but body type is hard to change and the attributes aren hard to increased. Thus, artistry skills actually affect more as you can work hard on those to easily increase how good you are with some martial arts.
I think we will stop here and vote on the stuffs first. To summarize, we are voting on:
1. Character name
2. Philosophy
3. Look
4. Gender
5. Age
6. Starting bonuses
7. Location(which indicates the first sect we will learn from)
. But thank you for the details. Also evil characters are more fun.
