What about Reverse Raksha Trading with Creation?

[Eldagusto]

So with the Raksha they trade wonderous treasures to the Guild or anyone Judas enough to sell their brethren's flesh and soul to the hungry aliens from beyond. But I got to thinking what if some other beings came from the Wyld, beings hungry for shaped resources of finite Creation. So say these beings are doing what the Raksha once did and want to sell their brethren in exchange for copious amounts of Creation's resources. So they want to purchase enough timber to deforest a nation, or purchase all the fish from a river or all the fresh water from a lifegiving lake?

I'm thinking kind of like the Locust Crusade, but they don't want to obtain Creation's resources via war but through equitable trade. So they need people willing to strip mine and ruin the land to trade for them.

In exchange maybe one of their kin is essentially a being the equivalent of a behemoth. Or maybe they can sell one of their Souls and it has an uplifting effect similar to a Unique Exaltation, or maybe it can mutate one into a demonic or Behemoth like being? Or grant extended life and mastery over sorcery?

Just curious what would be a good balance to inspire a reverse Raksha Trade. Basically I want something that can inspire forces to strip mine their own homeland, or sack a rival nation. Normally you look at Creation and think wow there is just a lot of potential, and the Wyld has even more and in actuality probably works as a natural replenishment system for Creation. So what can we do to overtax Creation to Autochthonian levels?

[Isator Levi]

So they need people willing to strip mine and ruin the land to trade for them.

They'll first need people capable of that, if it's not intended to be something that takes place over the course of several years, if not decades.

In exchange maybe one of their kin is essentially a being the equivalent of a behemoth. Or maybe they can sell one of their Souls and it has an uplifting effect similar to a Unique Exaltation, or maybe it can mutate one into a demonic or Behemoth like being? Or grant extended life and mastery over sorcery?

Just curious what would be a good balance to inspire a reverse Raksha Trade. Basically I want something that can inspire forces to strip mine their own homeland, or sack a rival nation. Normally you look at Creation and think wow there is just a lot of potential, and the Wyld has even more and in actuality probably works as a natural replenishment system for Creation. So what can we do to overtax Creation to Autochthonian levels?

Considering how regular greed with no governing oversight would conceivably do it, probably ultimately less than such a being would assume and present themselves as willing to pay. Some kind of distinct and useful magic would prove a boon the likes of which an opportunistic Guild factor would never have dreamed, and they'll be extremely quiet how they would have sold out for less.

So it just goes back to the question of how they'll actually manage the extraction.

As for the Wyld replenishing Creation, a direct infusion of that Essence shouldn't really provide anything that isn't highly weird and quite possibly incompatible with Creation's existing life and lifestyles. The powers of Solar Exalted can shape the Wyld, and one could conceive of some system of Creation's metaphysics that draw it in and process it as a matter of course, but not with the kind of efficiency that creates post-scarcity or anything.

[Eldagusto]

I don't mean literally strip mine. I mean they are asking for quantities of goods that aren't easily replenishable, or for things that aren't replenishable. Its like the opposite of the Yu-shan Ambrosia quandary, if you export too much of Creations Gold and Jewels rather then import to much.

And what I'm saying with the Wyld Replenishing Creation, I mean things like the Western Ocean doesn't lose all its water to the Wyld, and would likely keep it from being drained.

[TheCountAlucard]

To be fair, the Pole of Water probably has more to do with that than the Wyld.

[Eldagusto]

To be fair, the Pole of Water probably has more to do with that than the Wyld.

I theorize the Poles siphon essence from the Wyld. I recall some paragraph, I think in Ink Monkeys, that mention Creation essentially respires its essence/breath from the Wyld.

But Again these are just tangents the point was trying to introduce a reverse Raksha trade situation.

[The Wizard of Oz]

In terms of Raksha selling, I'd think that selling goblin slaves, unreality-blades, dream-bows, mirrors that suck out the souls of your enemies, captive behemoths, etc, etc, would be enough to get warlords to raze other nations' resources and strip them for sale to the Raksha.

I mean, this happens a bit now, it's just that it's not on a big enough scale to be unsustainable.

I'm thinking, I guess, of how central African powers always engaged in the slave trade with each other and Arabia, but it's only when western Europeans turned up and started buying vast amounts of slaves (in return for vast amounts of gold, guns, etc) that it caused west African economies to essentially implode.

[Aoi Cobalt]

After thinking about this for a while, I realized that this isn't a reverse trade, but just a regular trade with a different item.
Currently, Raksha are asking for a limited resource (people), and paying in wonders. They could offer a wonder neat enough to cause some ruler to go to war to strip other countries of people to sate the Raksha. Just change that to some other resource, and that ruler would jump at the idea of deforesting countries (as an example) to get it, and feel good that he doesn't have the moral quandary of selling people.

[Eldagusto]

After thinking about this for a while, I realized that this isn't a reverse trade, but just a regular trade with a different item.
Currently, Raksha are asking for a limited resource (people), and paying in wonders. They could offer a wonder neat enough to cause some ruler to go to war to strip other countries of people to sate the Raksha. Just change that to some other resource, and that ruler would jump at the idea of deforesting countries (as an example) to get it, and feel good that he doesn't have the moral quandary of selling people.

Everything is just a trade though even normal Raksha trading.

Why I'm calling it reverse Raksha trading is because they are selling their own people for the wonders of Creation.

[Exthalion]

I suppose some of it depends on how much of the "Wonders of the Wyld" the Raksha trade are really their equivalent of glass beads.

In Way of Kings there is a side chapter with a trader who sells basically worthless old ironware to a people that have a taboo about digging or breaking rocks (it hurts the earth) for rare and expensive luxury items like chicken (not native to any other region).

So could Creationites get Raksha to sell their people for things like children's drawings or sappy love notes?

[The Wizard of Oz]

Everything is just a trade though even normal Raksha trading.

Why I'm calling it reverse Raksha trading is because they are selling their own people for the wonders of Creation.

So, essentially selling goblin slaves?

[HamSandLich]

So, essentially selling goblin slaves?

Yeah, this. 3e's abilities writeup has an artifact that conjures hobgoblin armies as part of the Integrity anecdote. Getting slave labor isn't really an issue for the Raksha (hence they keep the Dream-Eaten around for their amusement rather than any utility they offer), they want to eat the Dreams of the slaves, not the slaves themselves, which is why the Guild usually buys the Dream-Eaten husks back as cheap labor-meat. The closest thing the Raksha could offer mortals that is analogous that exchange would be voluntary mutations or sorcerous initiations.

I can see Raksha selling other Raksha as slaves to the Guild as part of some narrative of theirs, but not really out of any economic need to do so.

[Eldagusto]

To clarify I am saying these beings aren’t Raksha, they are just from the Wyld. They need the shaped resources from Creation, probably for some reason like their home is loosing cohesion and they need definition from a shaped world.

So again these aren’t Raksha. Just like the Scorpion Empire is not an Empire of Raksha.

[HamSandLich]

If their home is losing cohesion, its probably not part of the Wyld, its a bubble of stability like Creation is. In which case, they'd probably be interested in Jade Obelisks and Reality Engines, not carting dirt or water back to their homeland. If they need resources like arable land and drinkable water, its more economical to migrate to Creation itself.

[Flare]

I could see an interesting idea of a Fae Noble who is using a kind of imperialist story where they're taking advantage of how Creation has repelled the Fae before to bring stuff from Creation into the Wyld like bronze or copper swords or wooden arrows and being like "I have Superior Creation-based weapons!" To claim territory.

Could be interesting on both sides of the idea; confusion as to why this Fae is buying thousands of arrows, stuff given to the people they were trading with causing massive issues as people who don't know better do things like bake pies with a rolling pin made of shattered dreams, or an arms race starts between two Fae over Creation weapons

[HamSandLich]

I could see an interesting idea of a Fae Noble who is using a kind of imperialist story where they're taking advantage of how Creation has repelled the Fae before to bring stuff from Creation into the Wyld like bronze or copper swords or wooden arrows and being like "I have Superior Creation-based weapons!" To claim territory.

Could be interesting on both sides of the idea; confusion as to why this Fae is buying thousands of arrows, stuff given to the people they were trading with causing massive issues as people who don't know better do things like bake pies with a rolling pin made of shattered dreams, or an arms race starts between two Fae over Creation weapons

A Fae noble with that narrative would probably try to stock up on iron weapons then, so they can hurt their enemies more efficiently