Look Upon My Works

Look Upon My Works

You are Air, and you are troubled. The order of the world is no longer as it should. Disorder rules the spirits of the people, families break their agreements, sons and daughters wed those they should not and animals revolt in fear. It is your duty to guide the people, and the other elders advise you that it is no longer sufficient to stay in this home of your ancestors, and your ancestors' ancestors. You do not think it is time to travel although you have heard the arguments against your position. You know well enough, the stories of how your ancestors' ancestors traveled to this place which your people have called their home ever since, and you know even better the dangers that await in the world outside the valley.

Surely, the anger of the river and mountains and land will cease with proper appeasement, as they have done before and will do again. That is simply the way of the world.
You sit in the tent of the elders, upon a slight stool carved of wood and covered with soft wool as fit of a figure of your age. Here, the elders before you discussed the grievances of their families and resolved with discussion and the wisdom of age, what the vigour and vim of youth was unsuited to. Before you has come a young man, he is a hunter and brings with him more of his kind; younger, but hunters all. He wears upon his shoulders, a cloak of wolven pelt, and although he was not permitted to bring it here, he left his fine spear with a tusken tip outside your tent, for it is unbecoming of a hunter to bear weapons in the sight of his elders. The hunter's name is Fire Defeats-Many.

"The bounty of this land is leaving," he begins, before continuing in a voice simultaneously concerned and full of the anger of youth, "we have barely caught half of that which we usually do; the great river is drying and the fish have long since swam upwards, gone from this place. Even the trees and bushes dry to nothingness like the river, and their once-bountiful branches are now like naked skeletons. We starve, and so do our children and wives; the elders must do something, or we shall all come to starve and become pickings for the vultures!"

Around him, the younger hunters give their mumbled assent; their anger and resentment is clear. They are hungry, and the great reserves of youthfulness allow for even greater anger, to the point of foolishness. A hungry hunter would rather curse the mountains at his own hunger, than listen to the guidance of his elders. So it falls upon your shoulders to ensure that cool heads prevail, and that the traditions are not upset by hasty action. To anger the mountains, and river and lands more than you have already done for them to visit this great wrath upon you would only be foolish.

You send the hunters out of the tent, and the eldest of you, who is named Sun begins the deliberation. To break with tradition would be most unseemly of you and the elder council, but it is important that action is taken. Thus, after hours and days of conversation; horse-trading, sometimes literal and sometimes not and deliberation over these most important issues, the council reaches a decision. No one is satisfied completely, but happiness brings complacency, and complacency brings weakness. Your spirits are the better for it, and your sons and daughters will know that you did what you did in the name of the people.

What Does The Elder Council Decide?
This vote will shape the general shape of the quest, and as such, is an important vote that can and will have great impact.

-[ ] Appease - When the ancestors of your ancestors were still among the hunters in their youth, and ran in the steppe with wolven cloaks upon their shoulders, the beasts fled the land for many days, until their own elders performed a great sacrifice and bid the young hunters and women dance in circles around a great bonfire for an entire day. And in the dark of the night, the beasts returned to the valley, as they had before. The river, mountains and land were satisfied. The valley is hard to satisfy, however; sometimes sacrifice and celebration are not enough, you are aware that it may simply result in a more hungry people with even less to do.

-[ ] Trade - When the ancestors of your ancestors were poor of game to hunt, and of low means, they went out beyond the valley, to the highlands beyond it where they would trade their wolven cloaks and return with riches and strange meat with no equivalent on the valley. Thus, the people were preserved in a time of need. Not all people want to trade, however, and if they saw your plight, they might be moved to consider you an easy target of raids, rather than a partner for trade. It is not the first time that the people outside the valley grow cold and indifferent to your plight, after all.

-[ ] Raid - When the ancestors of your ancestors found that the valley had grown sparse and that the hearts of the other peoples beyond, had grown cold and their minds had grown scheming like the wolf, from which the cloak that the hunters wore on their shoulders came, they took their spears and their slings and took from them their game and foreign brides, which they returned to the people and celebrated with. Success is not assured, however, and a failure would slay many hunters that could also have gathered food, as well as make you a target for their own raids.

-[ ] Wander - It is not in your way to travel, but even the ancestors of your ancestors came here from far away. You would have to suffer the many tribulations that they themselves suffered through, but perhaps, beyond the valley and away from the river, mountains and land, another hope for your people lies. If you fail to find any such hope, however, you are no better off than when you started, and must seek and search through hundreds of tribulations until you are all dead or find something.

After days of deliberation, the members of the elder council leaves the tent to tend to their families, and to ensure that the limited food is dispersed amongst those who need it as it should be. Then you gather the people together, and announce the decision reached, well-knowing that your actions you have taken will be told of in the future, to the children of your children, when you have become the ancestors of their ancestors and your names are forgotten or spoken of in reverent tones. Such is the way of the people, so it has always been and so it will always be.

What Sex Are You?
This vote determines how the traditions of who forms the elder council have always been, it is such an important part of shaping your culture, and its legacy will be felt for long.

-[ ] Male - It has always been tradition for the old men of the families to assemble in the tent of the elders, where those who can no longer hunt and fight meet to deliberate upon the future. The hunt is not easy, and many never reach an age like yours, they die from wounds, curse, disease or simply in duel with another hunter like themselves. Those who do survive might end up simply dying of an exhausted body, and sitting in the tent of the elders is thus a just reward for a life well led and lived.

-[ ] Female - It has always been tradition for the old women of the families to assemble in the tent of the elders, where those who have led their families well, now continue to lead the entire people. Childbirth is hard work, and many die in the infancy of their burgeoning families, or exhaust themselves to death over caring for a thankless family. And even if they do survive these many labours, the valley might simply cut a woman's life down with disease. Those who live to sit in the tent of the elders receive their just reward for a life well led and lived.

The Kin to Air

Forum

The Forum of the Nation is a central council of of elderly women with experience in childbirth, and the government of their families. The Forum is not institutionalized in nature, and does not prevent men from joining by formalistic legislation, but simply by tradition. The matrons make decisions only when they are brought to them as issues, and otherwise expect individual families and kinship structures to solve it individually.

Legitimacy

The Legitimacy of the Forum is based on the families´ approval and respect for the matrons that govern them, and the hunters that are part of the families, which can come to serve a warrior role in case of raiding. This limited monopoly on force as well as familial respect for the wisdom of the elderly provides the basis of the Legitimacy of the Nation's Forum.

Values

The people value old age and the experience that comes with it, to the point of mythologizing, and deifying it. When an older woman or man is in disagreement with one inferior in age, it is assumed that the older and more experienced part will be correct in their assumption before exceptional evidence towards the contrary, and occasionally even despite that. They also value hunting ability as a great skill, and great hunting ability as a blessing from the ancestors. They despise wolves as the destroyer of all the works and designs of the people, but also admire them greatly for their hunting ability. The Kin to Air have also come to value warrior experience and glorify those who triumph in combat.

Ritual

It is customary that to fasten an agreement between two people, both parties give the other a tool or other item which they consider important, for the duration of the agreement as a form of collateral. Likewise, it is tradition that should such an object be broken by the other part, has the agreement not been followed, the family of the man or woman whose item was broken now possesses grievance with the breaker, and may prosecute him through social exclusion or seek satisfaction through battle, or bring it to the matrons. When a beast is slain, it is customary for hunters to set aside a tiny part to be burnt for the ancestors of the ancestors.

Practices

• After great hunts, the heart is preserved in a clay jar and eaten by the chief hunter during the next solstice over a special bonfire prepared by the matrons, in which one can talk to the ancestors of the ancestors.
• The granddaughter of an honored grandmother, who are both talented in the arts, carries with her a series of cured scrolls, on the inside is cured tan and on the outside the fur of the beast it came from. On these scrolls are inscribed the pictorial images which detail the Great Journey. This daughter carries them everywhere, guided in her art by her grandmother.

Mythology

The seven ancestors of the ancestors came from the great water towards northwest, from which they wandered to the valley and married it, and each had three children with it, which would become the ancestors of the people today. The final child of the ancestors of the ancestors was left alone and had no one to love him, as well as no one to love, so he went to the wolves and ate his own heart and hunted with them. In revenge for his loneliness, the man named Wolven Dream sends the wolves to eat and savage the animals of the people and steal the game from their hunters. The hunters emulate him and their greatest wear a cloak of wolf-skin like he does in order to better be like him, and hunt like the wolves do.

Myths

• Land of Dry Dust and Worms: The underworld is a drab, dreary place where no one lives but the dry dust beneath one's feet, and the worms that wriggle about it. There is no sky, but a claustrophobic cave floor.
• Fleshless Child of Cunning: There is a child like no other that wanders in dusty places where only worms previously tread, speaking to the newly dead with a rapacious appetite for stories and a curious sort of joy.
• Mother, Maiden: When the Ancestors of Ancestors came to the valley, it was recalcitrant and sad. It would not support life and health. The People Before They Were Kin were at a loss until a mother and her maiden daughter were struck by insight and so went round the valley, finding the precious herbs and good waters, soothing the angry spirits with gifts of fine food and drink and making the valley welcoming for all.
• Tale of Fire: The story of the Fire-Warrior, who made war upon the people by the river, with the aid of the people from the Land of the Spirits, is regularly sung by the fireplace, and contains the central ethos of the warrior mythology of the Kin to Air.

Technology

Mavrian Heritage

The ancestors to the ancestors of the people brought with them seven gifts: the subservient fire, the mastery of clay and pottery, language, the knowledge of weaponry, cloth-making and weaving, storytelling and finally knowledge of the plants and animals.

Early Writing

The people have mastered a primitive form of writing, that can express simple concepts through direct representation of those concepts through pictograms. These symbols can also be combined to express more advanced concepts through implications, such as combining "spear" with "fruit" to form "trade", and then combining that with "man" and "woman" to form "marriage".

The Land of the Gods

Government

The nature of the rulership of the vast, southern Land of the Gods is unknown to the Kin to Air.

Forum

The Forum of the Nation is unknown to the Kin to Air.

Legitimacy

The Kin to Air do not know how the Government of the Land of the Gods derives it's Legitimacy.

Values

The Kin to Air do not know extensively of the Values of the Land of the Gods, other than considerable respect for central authority, and piety.

Ritual

The Kin to Air do not know of the Rituals of the far-off Land of the Gods.

Practices

The Kin to Air do not know of any Practices of the Land of the Gods.

Mythology

All the Kin to Air know of the worship of the Land of the Gods, is whispers of their strange and moody gods, who wipe out cities with drought and flood as demonstrations of their power, and for seemingly no other reason.

Myths

The Kin to Air do not know of the Myths of the Land of the Gods.

Technology

Panoply

The people of the Land of the Gods possess elaborate weaponry and armor of copper, as well as sandals that let them walk unscathed on harsh and sharp stones.

Sophisticated Social Organization

The people of the Land of the Gods possess sophisticated social organization, and teach their men to walk in great formations to the constant beat of the drum, instilling discipline and respect for hierarchy and order within them, and allowing them to beat much larger forces, of less discipline.