- Location
- United States
Say it with me people, dog sled cavalry.
From Stone to the Stars
- Thread starter Redium
- Start date
- Original Alt. History
[X] [Victory] Adopt them into the People.
[X] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
[X] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
You've got a mix of freed slaves and children/elders of the Fingersmen proper.
There'd be a reaction roll, but according to Natka and Tymon, the overwhelmingly likely response is "Say Nothing."
Tymon suggests that the Fingers is an extremely valuable trade node. The Fingersmen supported themselves primarily off the strength that gave them; trading their spirit food for slaves to manufacture it. Five major rivers intersect there, controlling the region is extremely significant in controlling trade through the known world. The area demonstrates high levels of fertility (more so than anywhere else the People can compare to or remember) and has abundant fish stocks.
If you don't try to take and hold the Fingers, someone else will, Tymon promises.
Picking how the People respond to an enormous Martial victory is extremely significant. It's going to give you some type of value.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
OK GUYS Vote change, Can't let such valuable land be host to another
[X] [Victory] Settle some of the People in to support them. (Establish Waystation)
[X] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
LucidProp
Pocky Eating MafiaDoka
[ ] [Victory] Settle some of the People in to support them. (Establish Waystation)
[ ] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
Vote change due to new info on the place being a Trade Node. Do want to trade our stones.
EDIT: I don't know why I'm so conflicted on this vote.
[ ] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
Vote change due to new info on the place being a Trade Node. Do want to trade our stones.
EDIT: I don't know why I'm so conflicted on this vote.
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It's just like Tony Stark used to say: The best weapon is the one you only have to use once.
[X] [Victory] Adopt them into the People.
"We are The People. We will assimilate your civilization into our own."
[X] [Memory] Celebrate! (Create Annual Festival)
Maybe we can start our own version of the Iditarod!
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Can i convince you to go for the Waystation? The land the fingers controlled is extremely valuable as indicated by the QM, we'll still assimilate the survivors to.
I suppose I can work with that route.
[X] [Victory] Settle some of the People in to support them. (Establish Waystation)
"We are The People. We will assimilate your civilization into our own."
[X] [Memory] Celebrate! (Create Annual Festival)
I still want my celebratory memorial dogsled races, though!
- Location
- United States
[X] [Victory] Settle some of the People in to support them. (Establish Waystation)
[X] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
Well, that certainly changes how I want to vote...
Securing a trade node of that significance is important, period. Flooding the waystation with our own people will go a long way towards assimilating the group anyways, so i'm not overly concerned (having our people live there will also probably net us the construction tech just by them constantly looking at the fortifications).
I'm really looking towards the folk wrestling as it'll give our people a way to bond, a way to vent martial tendencies without "accidents" happening at borders, and it'll make our people overall stronger. The martial lean is a bit negative, but necessary and easy to compensate for.
[X] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
Well, that certainly changes how I want to vote...
Securing a trade node of that significance is important, period. Flooding the waystation with our own people will go a long way towards assimilating the group anyways, so i'm not overly concerned (having our people live there will also probably net us the construction tech just by them constantly looking at the fortifications).
I'm really looking towards the folk wrestling as it'll give our people a way to bond, a way to vent martial tendencies without "accidents" happening at borders, and it'll make our people overall stronger. The martial lean is a bit negative, but necessary and easy to compensate for.
Tymon also thinks that settling the Fingers will dangerously stretch the People and tie you completely to the great river. Crystal Lake is located 2 weeks downriver/6 weeks upriver from the Fingers. He feels that settling both could dangerously stretch the People's attention. (If you had made different choices up to this point, or not got your ridiculous 96 on Study Travel this turn, it would be flat out impossible.)
Things aren't impossible considering that you could easily absorb the remains of the Fingersmen and River-Bend Tribe, though. Assuming you abandon the River-Bend waystation next turn, you could manage to settle both Crystal Lake and the Fingers enough that you're unlikely to be immediately dislodged. You would be extremely vulnerable to having the great river blocked and your two settlements cut off, however.
Settling the Fingers would be a major gain, but Tymon is worried about tribal cohesion over time and being displaced by opposing tribes. He sees the strategy as high risk and high reward. In order to avert this potential catastrophe, you would have to come up with a way to maintain cultural unity and start immediately increasing your population.
(If you Settle the Fingers, you would lose your nomadic status and become semi-nomads. You're also taking on a lot of additional risk, spreading your numbers thin and exposing you to more unfriendly tribes. It's not impossible, but as soon as Tymon dies, you would be in deep if you can't figure out a solution quickly.)
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Also climate would be an issue, since if we are spread thin, we have fewer folks to survive through a bad climate spell with.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Hmm, Folk Wrestling IS a cultural competition, (as well as martial) but the question is if its worth as much as a festival, if were assimilating the Finger survivors the festival might engender some division and resentment.
StellarMonarch
Myrmidon
- Location
- Québec
Hmm. It's early enough that I think's it's worth the risk to aim for the trade node.
[X] [Victory] Settle some of the People in to support them. (Establish Waystation)
[X] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
[X] [Victory] Settle some of the People in to support them. (Establish Waystation)
[X] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well we have no real means of cultural advancement beyond hoping that putting down holy sites in Fingers, River, and maybe Creek Battle can provide the innovation for that and I am a bit skeptical. Making a celebration might help there. And then there is the very valid concern of being cut off if the middle of the river is taken. Current population rates mean we aren't going to be getting to the point of having enough population for all of the span of the river we control for a couple centuries. (I rate the required numbers in the area of 500 people or so, or if we are already there then more than a thousand. Granted I am just pulling numbers out of the air here, since I don't have anything to go on but intuition). So that's going to be a vulnerability for a very long time, probably several weeks of IRL time during which stuff can go to crap.
Given the apparent urgency, even with hunting everything around us and farming, which precludes the holy site stuff to a degree as our Heroes die off and we lose their actions I doubt we'd have enough time since it sounds pretty knife edge whether we get through it or not. On top of all of that is the fact that other tribes will be interested in it, so contact is inevitable. And with our martial bent, unless they have a diplo person of some ability, I doubt it'll go well. And then we have a problem which is just going to make us tear our hair out.
Given all of that, it might still be worth it. But I don't judge it so.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
ThatGazzer
Minds Eye Bind
- Location
- PNW
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Perhaps Our Friends from the Riverbend will take the Fingers.
I don't like the risk, anyhow.
[X] [Victory] Adopt them into the People.
[X] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
I don't like the risk, anyhow.
[X] [Victory] Adopt them into the People.
[X] [Memory] Establish competitions (Promote Folk Wrestling)
Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but I read this as basically asking the QM for the "What do we do next?" right answer at this point.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Maybe, but its a question about what the heroes think would be most culturally binding, We know that the wrestling will give us more of a Martial bend, but it is also a cultural artifact or well will be.
Edit: Plus the last civ quest died because of lack of QM-Player interaction, so asking can't hurt.
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- Location
- United States
Currently the option we have available for cultural advancement is the folk wrestling and (to a degree) spirit worship. That's assuming we don't get something new from the age of heroes being concluded...who knows, we might get the option of retelling the stories though that's a bit of a stretch.
Also, there's the previous actions of the Fingers to consider. They were a very aggressive group, so it's not unlikely at all that they attacked other groups that they came into contact with. This would leave them either recuperating and in no shape to make any moves, or on the brink of starvation.
I definitely feel that it could either bite us in the ass or be an excellent launching pad for our civ. Either way, I feel like the risk of failure won't destroy us.
Eh... climate would probably shake out in your favour. Out of all three sites you currently have, Crystal Lake's climate is the harshest by far since it's the furthest north and the geography means it gets a lot of snow and high winds. The Fingers' climate is the best, so your average would swing beneficial, over all.
Creek Battle is no longer a valid Holy Site. The memory of the battle there is no longer in living memory with Alvar's death and is thus lost. The People still recall there was a battle, but they can't remember where exactly it occurred.
You are likely to get some extra actions/decision points in the future. There were some things that I wanted to do in order to better flesh out the People that I haven't had the chance to yet. The dice just flipped the early game narrative off so I had to focus on different things.
Hmm... would this be Tymon or Natka to answer? Probably Tymon.
He feels that both would be equally good culturally. This is going to form some type of long-term cultural memory and celebration, the question is what becomes more dominant over time: the celebration or the competition. The difference would be in what they exalt: wrestling would exalt Excellence while festival would exalt Victory. Found Holy Place, by contrast, would exalt Spiritual Favour.
Tymon finds it extremely doubtful. According to Natka the River-Bend tribe was always smaller than the People and they lost a lot to constant, low-level raids from the Fingers. The disaster they had just after they encountered you almost caused them to Shatter. If you hadn't aided them, they would have. They're too small and too early in their recover to really make a go of settling the Fingers.
Incidentally, Natka explicitly worked to seduce Alvar because she saw him as your tribe's leader and she felt that she needed your protection and support to survive. Turns out, she was extremely right.