u/TimeControl606

The Emperor of the South Sea was Shu, the Emperor of the North Sea was Hu, and the Emperor of the Center was Hundun (Primordian Chaos). Shu and Hu would often meet in Hundun’s territory, and Hundun treated them with great kindness. Wishing to repay Hundun’s benevolence, Shu and Hu said to each other, "All people have seven orifices-for seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing-yet he alone has none. Let us try to carve some for him." They carved one orifice each day, and after seven days Hundun died.

Such as the Muses or Olympians or Hyades in Greek mythology, or the Ogdoad in Egyptian mythology, or the House of Troubles in the Elder Scrolls videogames

"Is 'BOB' bullshit?"

"Everything is bullshit."

"Even true things?"

"Even true things are bullshit."

"How can that be?"

"I don't know man, I didn't do it."

(Around episode 2 or 3 is where it really starts to pick up)

Chaos Overlords was one of my favorite games when I was younger. If you're not familiar it was a microcosmic 4x where instead of warring over planets or provinces you were a crime syndicate warring with other crime syndicates for territory in a single cyberpunk city. You spend money to hire various wacky factions (such as scary clowns, corrupt superheroes, and the order of neck kickers) as your units to attack territory, defend territory, or squeeze a territory for cash, and the different gangs have different levels of tech savvy, so some of them can't use the higher techs in the research tree even after you've researched them.

Is there anything else out there that does any of that?

I know that Endless Legend is sort of this, but I'd prefer a space colonization 4x, and IIRC the Endless franchise's space installments mostly drop the fantasy angle.

EDIT: and in particular it would be cool to see something that had both a tech tree and a seperate spell research tree

Liezi chapter 7 section 6 edited down for short attention spans

Long ago three brothers were born into an influential family.

One of the brothers became a statesman. For three years, the virtuous submitted to his rule, and the wicked feared his prohibitions.

The second brother became a drunkard. When he was indulging in wine, he was oblivious to the dangers of the world, the regrets of human nature, the possibility of loss within his own household, the closeness or distance of his relatives, and the joys and sorrows of survival and death. Even if fire, water, or weapons were before him, he would remain unaware.

The third brother became a philanderer. When he was indulging in women, he abandoned his relatives and friends. If there was a beautiful young woman in the village, he would bribe her and use matchmakers to seduce her.

The statesman was troubled by the behavior of his brothers and lectured them about it:

"When propriety and righteousness are achieved, fame and positio:n will follow. If one is swayed by emotions and indulges in desires, then life and death will be in danger. Heed my words and repent!"

His brothers replied:

"We have been considering this for a long time. Why must we wait for your words to understand it? To desire to put on airs to impress others, to feign emotions to gain fame - We would rather die than do this. We only worry about an empty stomach preventing me from drinking freely, about exhaustion preventing me from indulging in lust; We have no time to worry about the disgrace of our reputation or the danger to our life. Moreover when one suffers from a stressful job such as yours the body suffers. Does that not also put life and death in danger? We have always wanted to explain this to you yet you try to teach us instead!?"