"The land ends," a hunter said, claiming the attention of the tribe. "Beyond us, in the direction of the setting sun, it rises up and up, greater than any tree. There are no paths trodden in the ground and little food. To the north, the land is chocked with trees with the ground itself twisted like a garment ripped open and patched too many times. To go forward a single step means to take three up and then three down. To the south..."
His fears of that path went unsaid. There were no dangers of the world in that direction like the other two, but it was filled by other men. While that could mean good things, the tribe had learned that more often than not meant bad. Women taken in the middle of the night, men slaughtered, food stolen. They could also bring gifts, pretty shells, food, tools, flint, and other resources. Those outside the People were boon and bane both. The People had fled the from the tribes to the south, barely encountering them for fear of what they brought.
@Redium what exactly are prize animals and would what benefits would hunting them over prey animals provide, other than the obvious impacts of making our tribe value combat and personal achievements. could hunting prize animals lead to the possibility of domesticating them in the same way hunting cattle may lead to their domestication. If so they could lead to a truly unique civilization seeing as horned ones are noted as tool users. if we are going for a "horde of locusts" civilization having multiple allies when hunting (rather than just wolves) would be cool.
I'm surprised no one on this thread has mentioned the Mongols seeing as they were undoubtedly the greatest nomadic civilization in history. sure they splintered after Genghis Khan's death but that was largely due to his children being idiots who destroyed everything their father had built due to infighting and terrible decision making. That would never happen he....oh who am I kidding it would happen over the course of two votes, but at least it would be fun while it lasted
@Redium what exactly are prize animals and would what benefits would hunting them over prey animals provide, other than the obvious impacts of making our tribe value combat and personal achievements. could hunting prize animals lead to the possibility of domesticating them in the same way hunting cattle may lead to their domestication. If so they could lead to a truly unique civilization seeing as horned ones are noted as tool users. if we are going for a "horde of locusts" civilization having multiple allies when hunting (rather than just wolves) would be cool
The benefits for Prize Animals would depend on a few background roles. Ideally? It pushes you towards the Honour of the Elite traitline while also giving you a One of the Pack social symphony trait. If you roll badly, then it strongly boosts Honour of the Elites without giving a corresponding trait to help with the inequality that would cause.
Out of Prize Animals, you're already domesticating wolves (look at the Technologies section on Post #2, it specifies which animals are which). You could tame both brown ones (bears) and orkers, although that would be extremely hard. Orkers are extremely powerful; modern firearms would have a difficult time killing them as long as you miss the six inch 'sweet spot'. If you can domestic them, your enemies would be screwed. I've thought quite a bit about coopting animals into military formations. If that's something you guys want to shoot for, focus on it and you could accomplish it.
As an aside, since now that someone's killed an orker, they've seen it's body up close; Orkers' head, shoulders, spine and hips are covered in massive bone plates beneath the skin; that's what gives them the distinct 'stretched out' look. The exception to that is a six inch wide nuchal gap in the center of their body between their skull and shoulder blades. The gap exposes their spine but is necessary for them to be able to move their head at all. They also have another 'sweet spot' between the jaw and shoulder, but that's significantly smaller.
Also, 'horned ones' are antler bearing herd animals like deer and elk.
I'm surprised no one on this thread has mentioned the Mongols seeing as they were undoubtedly the greatest nomadic civilization in history. sure they splintered after Genghis Khan's death but that was largely due to his children being idiots who destroyed everything their father had built due to infighting and terrible decision making. That would never happen he....oh who am I kidding it would happen over the course of two votes, but at least it would be fun while it lasted
That's on Genghis too, though. His oldest son was supposed to inherit everything, but at the last minute Genghis balked at that. Supposedly Genghis' first wife had been kidnapped and raped by a rival tribe around the time of his first son's conception. Given how his firstborn didn't share his distinctive eyes, Genghis was always doubtful of the firstborn's parentage. That uncertainty and the shunning of his son caused the situation to fall apart amongst his heirs. If Genghis had acted more decisively, it would've put off the Mongol Empire's disintegration.
I was really shocked when I read that Genghis had Red hair and Green eyes. In all of the TV shows and movies he had generic asian features. But it turns out with how large the Steppe was and all of the rape between tribes it was a melting pot of different racial mixes.
There was no other words to describe the vistas the swept out before the People. Slowly, over years and years, as a new generation came to be raised, the People had drifted to the east, towards the rising sun. There had been whispers of discontent, numerous and persistent, but quiet, that the east was an accursed land. It was the realm of the dead, a place so hellish that to step foot in it damned souls to death. Even spirits of rock and sky didn't exist there, just empty shells of things once inhabited.
Some had slowly and quietly walked away from the People, refusing to step foot in such a place. Their numbers were small and it took years before the elders even realized that it was happening at all. Always was there those who left the People. Young men whose wanderlust was too great, causing them to strike out on their own to see all that they could see. Young women who were enticed to the south by promises of the tribes there. Hunters that set out and lost their way back, or were slain on a hunt.
Thinking of those numbers, the brothers and sisters and cousins who had left, filled the heart of every elder with sadness. The fact that people didn't have faith in the tribe's leadership had insulted some, but those who were faithful were richly, ridiculously rewarded. The birds and beasts were thick in the new lands of the east. Any hunter, even children barely trained, could go out and come back with multiple kills. Even those who gathered roots and vegetables, produced more food, more beautiful and of greater quantity than any member of the tribe could ever remember! Even the weather, the snows and the killing cold hung less in the air. Where before snow might build up high enough to trap a man at the shoulder, it was now reduced merely to his knee.
In fact, there was so much food that there were times that the People refused to search for more! They could not eat it and they could not make it keep with smoke and drying, or by storing it in pots, before it would rot.
With the immense excess of food, some of the elders had successfully argued the the People should feed the wolves that stalked them. There were questions and concerns; what if that encouraged the wolves? Whetted their appetite for more blood? Still, the thought of seeing good meat rot was too painful for even the most cautious and conservative of the tribe's elders. Seeing food go to waste when every man, woman, and child had, at points, known the pain of empty bellies was unthinkable.
Even that unorthodox decision paid many dividends. By feeding the wolves, the People reduced the number of attacks against their camp that occurred every year. Fewer children were lost in the dead of night and there were fewer instances where hunters had to watch in frustration as wolves poached the flesh of their kills. Now, the amount of food fed to the wolves was actually dwarfed by the amount it saved them in loss. A hunter might have to section off the hind quarter of every other kill, but compared to losing one of three kills wholesale when the wolves decided to steal it? It was a cheap price to pay.
The wolves and their spirits seemed to know the terms of the exchange implicitly. Aggressive wolves, those that attacked other packs or the People, were cast out or slain. No more were kills fought over by wolves and men. If any tribe not of the People approached, they had to deal with the wolves and the wolves knew not to be friends with them. Their howls provided hours of warning to the People and scared many ambitious wanderers who might be tempted to theft or murder.
On top of that, there had been secondary effects no elder could have easily predicted. The area that they had moved to was fertile, a bounteous region in an otherwise harsh world. Great stone hills rose to the north and the south, forcing the traffic of the People towards the central river and accompanying lake system. It also forced animals, the horned ones in particular, to come close.
By stationing their food drop offs along the stony hills, the People had inadvertently infested the hills with wolves. If any of the antlered ones now wanted to pass through the valley in any degree of safety, they had to pass along the river, and thus, by the People. The mere presence of a place where wolves had been seemed to scare and terrify the normally panicked antlered ones. It had made hunting, once a dangerous affair, into something almost trivial. Instead of stalking beasts for hours and hours, the People need merely spread out loosely and there was no way for the antlered ones to avoid their spears and arrows.
Some had even started to suggest increasing the number of wolves further. The valley itself was fairly narrow from the north and in the south. In the east, the valley slowly narrowed further around a series of lakes until they dumped into a mighty river the cut from the north and flowed down to the east. Settling up a bottleneck there, making it outright impossible for the antlered ones to pass by would be trivial. If they could then find some way to trap them in the west, then they could hold a herd of hundreds of antlered ones easily within reach. Given the sheer bounty of their current location, they could easily support the beasts and only cull the few animals they would need to keep the People and the wolves fed daily.
It was a tempting thought. Sorrily tempting. Some had taken that bounty as evidence in the opposite direction and that to wander was right since the spirits clearly richly rewarded it.
The tribe was deeply divided on the matter, perhaps more so than on any other issue that they could recall. They now had a place of ridiculous bounty, a place where the snows and the wind and cold did not cut through them nearly as harshly. A land that was much, much warmer than anyone of them could remember being true for their harsh homeland.
They were in a place that held a Wonder.
The river that cut through the center of the lowlands led up into a series of four small, nearly interconnected lakes. The first two were uninteresting, no different than any of the hundreds of other lakes that dotted the region. The third... though. The People had taken to calling it the Crystal Lake. The highest of the four, the one where the waters started to flow east instead of back to the west, was unlike anything the People could recall. It was fairly shallow, between knee and hip deep on a grown man, but it was remarkably clear, almost as if there wasn't even water there.
The water did very much exist and it covered an enormous treasure trove. Huge white, opaque sparkling stones covered the bottom of the lake. They ranged in size from pebbles, to chunks around the size of one of the People. The lake bed was deep enough that even when a group of youths spent days of their idle time digging, they couldn't find where the stones ended.
Each stone glittered, light breaking off into countless little dots of light trapped within the white stone; almost like drifting snow that fell on cold nights. These white stones were extremely difficult to break, so much so that they were nearly impossible to knapp without shattering. When they were made into tools, the edge they held was sharp enough that it could scratch the toughest stone the People could find!
None of that even touched on the beauty of the white stones. It was quite unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Some people had even been caught, lazily staring at the stones, entranced by their senses! They were just thinking of ways to use this new, miracle material, they promised the elders when asked. They were not entranced by it.
A few of the People's keen eyed explorers had even found areas where the Crystal Lake's crystals were different. They were of a colour that none of the People could even name! It was only once one of the elders complained of having to chew a serving of blue berries without any teeth that a comparison was discovered. These new, rare crystals were of a very similar shade to the mashed gruel the elder had asked for.
Whitestone and Berrystone, surely they were a gift from the spirits! A new Wonder to capture the beauty of the amazing land.
As if to echo that sentiment, the spirits sent a child. One that looked very little like one of the People. He had darkened skin, curly hair, and water coloured eyes like some of the People, but his hair's colour betrayed his spirit-touched nature. It was close to the colour of snow, not the typical black.
What did all of this mean, the elders wondered?
When the debates settled, how did the People interpret the patterns in the weather and the discovery of Crystal Lake?
[ ] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the People must always be on the move!
[ ] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[ ] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, they wanted to be useful!
[ ] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, they needed beautiful things! [ ] [Value] This place was a trap, cursed and evil! The stones took the soul from man as he gazed upon them (Climate Crit)
What else did the People Focus on? (Pick 1 2 for Climate Crit!)
Expand Wolfpacks - Increase the number of tamed wolves that follow the People. Willfully leave out food for them in order to attract more wolves and begin taking their young into the tribe as Hunters.
Create Annual Festival - Celebrate widely and graciously for the success that the People have faced. Eat, drink, and be merry!
Increase Hunting - Double down on the People's traditional method of gathering sustenance. Work to bring in additional meat, fur, and leather.
Explore (Wanderlust bonus) - Search far and wide in this strange new land for things that may be of benefit to the People. Resources can be found and contact established with other tribes.
Study Travel (Unlocked by Wanderlust) - Invest time in learning how most effectively to travel. The world is harsh and strange, learning how to traverse it will save the People much in effort and food.
Establish Waystation (Penalized by Wanderlust) - Create a relay point for the People, a place that they can stay during their travels or when they make annual trips to different locations.
Venerate Spirits - Offer thanks to the spirits for their gracious bounty!
Investigate Whitestone and Berrystone - The spirits have provided great bounty in the form of Crystal Lake. Attempt to put to use the unusual properties of these unique materials.
[ ] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the People must always be on the move!
Reinforces wanderlust and locks in being nomadic.
[ ] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
New angle, this means a mix between true nomadic and settled. There are Holy Sites and Wonders to find, but you have to go SEARCH.
[ ] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, they wanted to be useful!
This would go with the Benevolent Spirits angle, though this sort of value doesn't tend to last very long with nomad, since they're too often at the whims of chance.
[ ] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, they needed beautiful things!
This would be the early Art/Wealth value.
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Venerate Spirits
[X] [Go] No
So my preference is we set up a Holy Site waystation on the natural wonder to study and mine the...diamonds and amethyst. We move on next turn, to search for more, but when we discover a good site we cap it with a waystation so we can remember it and make use of it.
[X] [Action] Expand Wolfpacks
[X] [Action] Create Annual Festival
I'm not sure what to do with the special vote, probably the Spirits have made Wonders for us to find option. However! I want to make a festival to commemorate this, to help us remember it better. Wolves are chosen because we seem to be on the cusp of something amazing with the bottleneck mentioned.
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Expand Wolfpacks
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Venerate Spirits
[X] [Go] No
I'm totally for this.
I want to go wonder collecting, and we can plant a waystation at each one like a flag.
Gotta catch em all
Okay. Yeah thinking on it for a minute I like this particular variation on Wanderlust. Special Places. Seekers. I really like that.
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Venerate Spirits
[X] [Go] No
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Venerate Spirits
[X] [Go] No
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, they wanted to be useful!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Expand Wolfpacks
[X] [Go] No
Let's go with useful, I think it'll make the tribe more innovative. And this location is too useful to leave just yet.
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Expand Wolfpacks
[X] [Go] No
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Investigate Whitestone and Berrystone
[X] [Go] No
I like this path. It encourages us to remain nomadic but keep control of key locations, which is a pretty good model for success.
My question is, why aren't we examining the stone? It's a new weapon material and trade good. Seems like the kind of thing we want to jump on.
Can someone explain the pros for Venerate Spirits?
Adhoc vote count started by 8bitBob on Feb 8, 2018 at 9:25 PM, finished with 95 posts and 28 votes.
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, they wanted to be useful!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Expand Wolfpacks
[X] [Go] No
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Investigate Whitestone and Berrystone
[X] [Go] No
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Venerate Spirits
[X] [Go] No
Doubtful, this encourages more Nomadic tendencies rather than a mix, since you have to travel more distances to find these wonders (in least our dice continue to be super hot) meaning that any control we have over these wonders will be lost as we go further away to find more.
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Venerate Spirits
[X] [Go] No
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, they wanted to be useful!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Expand Wolfpacks
[X] [Go] No
Adhoc vote count started by Japanime on Feb 8, 2018 at 9:50 PM, finished with 158 posts and 16 votes.
[X] [Value] The spirits have made clear their desire, the spirits leave great Wonders they want the People to find!
[X] [Action] Establish Waystation
[X] [Action] Investigate Whitestone and Berrystone
[X] [Go] No
