Cacophonous Interlude is NOT active
(the QMPC does NOT hear what you write right now)
Next story update : Sometime in July would be nice
Next vote closing : TBD
Progress toward next update : 3,146 words
Code:
Anything I post that's not in text blocks or in spoilers
may be understood to be said by the QMPC, with the
exception of the Collaboration Post
(see Collaboration Post for details on itself)
Code:
Players do not need to use code blocks or spoilers
outside of cacophonous interludes
If you use code blocks, please limit yourself to 32 lines
and your lines to 57 characters, so that people on mobile
can read them without scrolling within the code block
Code:
This is not meant to be Plagiarism Quest.
You're not discouraged from using outside reference
material or quoting other sources. When you do, please
cite your sources in spoilers or a code box.
Code:
I have added some players who contributed a fair amount
the last two times as thread collaborators who can update
the collaboration post. If you'd like to update the
collaboration post too, contact me by PM and we'll talk
about it.
Check the Collaboration Post and read the latest story post in the Threadmarks to get a rough idea of where things are at.
If you're not already involved in the game, portions of either of these may be difficult to follow. But you can skip to the line that says "B R E A K" in the latest threadmarked story post and skim from there to get an idea of what's going on.
If there's no corresponding Closing The Vote post in the Informational threadmarks for the latest story post in (normal?) Threadmarks, then the game is in a cacophonous interlude and the QMPC will hear what you post, unless you do so with spoilers or code boxes. The NOTICES portion at the top of this post should also tell you if the game is in a cacophonous interlude.
So you can engage with other players, make suggestions, ask questions, and propose plans and you can compose a message to the QMPC all whether or not the game is in a cacophonous interlude. And once it is, you can vote and/or send a message to the QMPC by creating a post in the thread.
If you want to vote, simply do so as you would in other quests on this board. You may look at other players' votes to see how yours should be formatted. And you may check the tally to see that yours are counted as you intend them.
If you want to send a message to the QMPC, though, keep in mind that they are a creature of their time. They may not understand what you mean if you don't take the time to make it clear. This game rewards and demands work from its players. When a player wants to introduce a concept or tool or technology to the QMPC, that player will probably need to expend effort to explain it carefully, and take into consideration the limits of the QMPC's understanding of the world.
I think this is similar enough to Graeber's 'interpretive labor' that we can use the term colloquially to describe what is being asked of players. Put yourself in the mind of the QMPC and ask yourself how such a person can be made to understand what you want to tell them.
The QMPC has different values than we do. They have different assumptions about the world and objects and forces within it. Their goals may not align directly with number-go-up or color-get-big gaming agendas. But they want something, and will listen most attentively to players that tell them how to get more of or closer to what they want.
The Quest Master posts story updates that have 3 parts.
Quest Master Player Character responses to player posts made during the last cacophonous interlude
An update by the QMPC following a break of varying length but usually some number of years, covering what the character believes is worth mentioning
Requests by the QMPC for direction on a number of issues, which the players will provide in the form of votes
Following each story update, players posts are audible to the QMPC until voting is closed.
This is the cacophonous interlude.
Players may convey any information they can represent in text.
No images, sounds, or hyperlinks will get through (this is my limitation, not a limitation of the game, so please do not try to transcend it with clever protocol tricks).
Players may use spoilers or code blocks to communicate with each other without doing so in ways the QMPC can hear.
When votes are tallied, the QM collects player posts so that it may be known what the QMPC heard.
Votes are tallied in the conventional fashion. So only votes in the most recent post by each player are counted. [X] marks what the player is voting. And only identical write-ins accumulate.
Some votes are querying the players for their preference, in which case the only suboptimal answer is that which does not accurately reflect the preference of the players who nonetheless chose it (I don't think these kinds of misunderstandings can be helped).
Other votes are intended as puzzles where there is a choice the QM believes would best meet what they believe to be the goals of the players.
However, in these sorts of votes the QM has in mind a choice that would provide the players with what the QM thinks they most want, but which is not listed in the available votes.
In this way, clever write-ins are encouraged.
QM reads player posts, researches their suggestions, checks notes for precedent, determines what the QMPC thinks they already know on the topic, what they're right or wrong about, how likely they are to engage with the topic, how likely the QMPC's followers are to follow-through in the matter, and finally what the result is going to be later on.
QM composes QMPC's responses to player posts made during the cacophonous interlude and updates their notes.
When narrative benefits from uncertainty and chance, QM devises tests for QMPC or other characters and makes those tests using die rolls on a post made just for that purpose.
Skill or attribute tests will be made with a largely undocumented homebrew modification of the Burning Wheel system, mangled to suit the format of this game. (The Burning Wheelis a good system and I encourage you to check it out.)
Tests may be a contest between two characters or against a static target with tiered results.
The rules being used and followed will be described in each post in which tests are made by die rolls.
Normal mortals count 7s and better as successes.
Heroic characters and characters who are otherwise innately magical count 6s and better as successes.
Demigod characters and characters who otherwise possess some spark of divinity count 5s and better as successes.
New gods and characters who have otherwise stolen the power of Old Gods count 4s and better as successes.
Old Gods count 3s and better as successes.
Sorcery and other magic skills lower the threshold of success by 1 to a minimum of 3 only when they are the skill being tested, not when they provide a bonus to other skills. Players may note that Old Gods' threshold of success does not improve when they use magic.
Bonus dice provided by Kahl's Warhorses and any incendiary devices more complicated than a burning arrow reroll 9s & 10s and keeps successes. These same bonus dice cancels successes on 1s & 2s, rerolls those, and additional 1s & 2s cancel additional successes. More 1s, 2, 9, or 10s mean more rerolling and more successes or cancelations, but only in the manner of the original die. That is, a 1 or 2 that comes up when a 9 on a bonus die is rerolled don't cancel successes or lead to further rerolling.
Research project results are determined by percentile dice with results falling into 5 tiers.
Uh oh: something has gone horribly wrong
Nuh uh: failure, but the boring kind
Huh: partial success
Uh huh: full success
Whoa: superior special case success
When players expect a test to be coming up -- for example if they vote for an invasion or to send a diplomat to manipulate a foreign leader -- they can improve the odds of the test turning out the way they want by providing the QMPC with advice specific to that matter. If the advice is not mistaken or outright bad, there will be at least a chance it will help. That is, decent advice adds dice.
QM composes the QMPC's post-break update, player vote questions, and player vote options.
GOTO 1
The QMPC is intended to be the only character the players will interact with in this game. (It's kind of possible that the players could maneuver the QMPC to surrender control of the Astute Cacophony to another character, but unlikely.)
The QMPC is a small, evil woman who knows magic and has not died, despite looking like she probably should have at some point. She goes by the name Bianca the Undying. Her early life took place in the Paleolithic, in which she has said that she traveled around quite a bit and came to understand the malleable nature of populations of people and animals and even the land itself. At some point she was trapped underground, to her displeasure. She remained trapped for a very long time.
When Bianca got out, she found her way to a community of eight tribes living pastoral and agrarian lifestyles in the local Copper Age. She made these people hers and they relied on her for magically enriching their fields so that they did not need to slash, burn, and move around a bit, unlike their neighbors. Bianca and her followers formalized their relationships into the Eight Ways Pact. Later, another tribe joined Bianca's followers bringing small horses and the Bronze Age and their pact was updated with a ninth directive.
Bianca has an agenda that requires her to have more power than she does right now. She believes that achieving divinity will get her that power.
I want to determine what's troubling the Lan tribe semi-randomly, so here's a table.
1: A spirit-fused bear
2, 3: A possessed giant
4, 5: A small tribe of lesser giants
8, 9: An outsider and criminal hero
10: Endless Wind, god and last of the First People
Code:
Lan is beset by invading people who,
unlike them, are not Fisher People but
lesser giants. Lesser giants have some
share of the gift of Rorqual -- greatness
-- that giants and no other people have;
however, they lack the gifts of Bear --
composure and craft -- that all other
people have.
You can think of them tending to be much
larger than humans and more capable in all
the ways that greater size and strength
make one more capable. And you can think
of them as being less emotionally aware of
themselves, more given over to their
passions, and unlikely to work any
handicraft to mastery, forever producing
the work of amateurs.
I want to determine how Bianca and her warriors fare against the small tribe of lesser giants, which is going to be determined by a series of divided and opposed rolls. Each side will split the skill they're using into two pools of dice -- one offense the other defense -- and add advantages to each. If an advantages could be added to either pool it can only be added to one of the two.
Bianca will be testing her skill at hunting to find 'the beast' before 'the beast' kills members of her party or captures her. Bianca comes from a culture of hunters and is good at it. She's working with other hunters, and that helps. And it helps again that there are some among her hunters that know the land she's hunting in. Bianca will be using magic and calling on spirits, which helps a lot. So far all the dice these advantages describe can be used in either pool. Bianca is unflappable, and that helps with defense because her warriors can look to her and will be less likely to break, which helps with defense. Bianca and her warriors have the finest bronze armor available, which also helps with defense. Bianca and her warriors have the finest bronze weapons available, which helps with offense.
So Bianca's general pool is 5 + 1 + 1 + 2 for 9d10. She's favoring defense until she knows more, so she'll be rolling 6 + 1 + 1 for 8d10 defense and 3 + 1 for 4d10 offense. Bianca herself is magic, so for most tests she gets to count 6s and better as successes. This is one of those tests.
The lesser giants are currently and actively a culture of hunters and they're better at it than Bianca is. There are a lot of them, and that helps a lot. They are also calling on spirits, which helps. They have been specifically hunting hunters in this very place, so despite the fact that they've been there less than a year they still get help from practice. They're big and capably violent which helps with offense. And they're big and tough which helps with defense.
So the lesser giants' general pool is 6 + 2 + 1 + 1 for 10d10. They're favoring offense because they think they've been at this a while, so they'll be rolling 7 + 1 for 8d10 offense and 3 + 1 for 4d10 defense. Lesser giants are fully mortal and in this case are not heroic, so they'll only count 7s and better.
Code:
Neither side scores hits, so the side with
more defensive successes decides what to
do next:
More Combat (test different skills)
Outlast (test endurance)
Overpower (test strength)
Flee (test speed)
Offer Draw
Bianca will attack again, of course.
Same rules, different skills.
Bianca will be testing her sorcery as she takes the people with her to immediately attacks the invaders. She is, as was said before, a solid and experienced sorceress. This isn't the fight she thought she was going to have, so she has not prepared any spirits to assist. Her band is with her, but in fewer numbers because she's not waiting for the hunters who are spread out to join her, their numbers almost don't help, but with knowledge of the lay of the land they do a bit. Her people still have the best armor and weapons, which help with offense and defense as they did last time. Bianca remains stalwart, which still helps with defense.
So Bianca's general pool is 6 + 1 for 7d10. Now that she knows what she's up against, she's going to favor offense as much as possible in the split, so she'll be rolling 6 + 1 + 1 for 8d10 offense and 1 + 1 + 1 for 3d10 defense. Bianca is using magic, now, so she will count 5s and better as successes.
The lesser giants will be testing their skill with the axes and such as they attack right back. They're better hunters than they are fighters, but unlike hunting, their excessive strength figures directly into their skill with axes so it comes out about the same. The spirits that the lesser giants have been calling on are just as useful in fights, since fights are exactly what they've been about so they still help. There are still just as many lesser giants and Bianca is trying to take on all of them, so their numbers still help a lot. Unfortunately for the lesser giants, they're using stone weapons and hide armor against bronze armor and weapons, so they have a disadvantage after the first exchange to reflect breakage. Their strength is already figured in to their weapon skill so it doesn't count extra this time. But the fact that they're big and tough still helps with defense.
So the lesser giants' general pool is 6 + 1 + 2 - 1 for 8d10. Their lack of composure means that without heroic leadership they can't put more than 2 general pool dice into defense, which they do because Bianca is frightening. So they'll be rolling 6d10 for offense and 2 + 1 for 3d10 for defense. They're still fully mortal so they still only get to count 7s and better as successes.
I forgot to include consequences last time, but it's like this.
Only 1 side scores hits: that side wins and the other is run off, captured, or killed as appropriate
Both sides score hits: dice pool penalties for both sides, side with more offensive successes gets to choose what to do next: fight more, outlast, overpower, or flee.
Neither side scores hits: side with more offensive successes gets to choose what to do next: fight more, outlast, overpower, flee, or offer draw.
Code:
Bianca surpassed the lesser giants'
defensive roll by three successes. That's
a lot.
The lesser giants fell short of Bianca's
defensive roll by one success. That's a
little more than enough.
These lesser giants will no longer trouble
the people of Lan tribe.
I want to determine how well First Singer Huo asserts her authority.
This is a test of Huo's will Huo is bold among the bold, so she start with a lot of willpower. Bianca has her back and has even taken advice to do some looming, which helps a lot. Huo is a very skilled at both encouraging and degrading, which helps a lot. Huo is whip smart and consequently talked with Bianca about how to best resolve the disputes presented, which helps. Some requests are for things Huo just cannot do, though, which penalizes her.
Huo's target is static and starts with the best force will of the supplicants who would rather make their pleas to Bianca, which is 4. There are enough of them to wear someone down, so it's increased by 1.
So Huo is rolling 6 + 2 + 2 + 1 - 1 for 10d10. Huo is only mortal, so she counts 7s and better as successes.
If Huo is successful, she is recognized as authoritative. People will only follow up with Bianca if she says they should.
Each success by which Huo exceeds her target extends similar authority to the next person who holds the office of First Singer.
If Huo is unsuccessful people will feel like they can ask Bianca any question if they don't like Huo's answer.
Code:
The people do not accept Huo's word as
final and will continue to bother Bianca
when they think doing so will work out.
"Yes, this is fine. I will go solve that which Lan cannot. And First Singer Huo can deal with everything, including the priestess of Erweh. The free people will be made to listen to me when I tell them to listen to another."
[X] [Backlog] No. Anything pending should be addressed by First Singer Huo as Bianca ordained before leaving.
[X] [Prophetess] Extend minimum hospitality and politely but firmly refuse her
[X] [Horror] Bianca should go out herself to deal with the beast
This is Black Cat again, it's a pleasure to hear from you again after all this time, Great Undying One. How many years, that means summers, passed from the time when we were first summoned by you?
What do people think about the fact that you shared so much wisdom with them recently? Besides elders saying stupidities about writing, as can be expected from elders. Are most people grateful? Maybe they believe that you share so much wisdom, because you are happy with them? No reason to admit that this is the wisdom of Voices, better claim these as your own ideas.
Shadowy forest... I don't know much about magic, but I know that this place of evil and danger may slowly expand. Slowly, but greatly. For a long time. This is slow-moving catastrophe. People need to slow that, maybe by burning more land around, replacing land with stones, building walls, whatever... Do you have anywhere black oily substance from underground that burns easily?
I now remember something important. Clover not only can be used to feed animals, but growing clover also fixes nitrogen from the air into the soil. This makes soil even more fertile.
The most common air is composed mostly - not completely - from nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide (basically mixed into chemical compound atoms of oxygen and carbon, I mentioned this before). Fire, people, and animals use oxygen and produce carbon dioxide. Plants use carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. As you can see, some plants need nitrogen, but other plants place nitrogen back into the soil.
"The most common" because air underground, for example, or smoke, is often composed of much more carbon dioxide than healthy and some poisons. We need to greatly simplify, otherwise, we would need to constantly talk about details. Ventilation, so basically chimney without a fireplace, can often improve health qualities of air in such places.
You said: "The black soil and crop rotation must be helping, though, because the harvests are something like adequate". Adequate! Only adequate! My methods should be even better than adequate. Encourage proper crop rotation more, maybe finally add clover and then feed animals with said clover instead of using the fallow year, and use more charcoal and compost.
Also, selective breeding mentioned by other Voices. Allow reproduction first to the plants and animals with desirable characteristics, eat these less desirable. The same principle can be applied to the domestication of cats, allow to reproduce only the most docile of captured cats for a few generations!
Hemp? You can use hemp fibers for clothing, most of the plant as animal feed, and press seeds for oil to produce soap. Dried flowers can be used as medicine to reduce pain and to calm emotions of ill people, though as your wild hemp was never breed for medicinal properties, large amount of flowers would need to be eaten for that effect. Flowers and leaves of hemp can be ground into a paste which can be added to foods, it's called bhang. Sadly everyday overuse, instead of medicinal or occasional use, could cause laziness and stupidity, so there are downsides.
Hemp likes nitrogen, so, after clover, I imagine... Though certainly not everywhere and always, obviously, this is not a food crop even if you can eat bhang...
And smoke from burned hemp flowers can be inhaled for some relief from pain, but this should be discouraged unless person vomits and cannot eat. Smoke is always unhealthy for lungs, throat and rest of the body.
You are right about the use of soap. Out of curiosity, dead are buried or maybe burned in a fire? Burning is better for killing germs, obviously. Burying bodies in soil too close to sources of water can be unhealthy, like burying other waste too close to sources of water. Though I imagine that most people wouldn't appreciate my comparison with "waste", sadly.
The strongest alcohol, the one that "causes pain and itself burns with a blue flame", should kill germs even better than the best soap. Sadly it could also damage wounds, so be careful.
Do you know that it's possible to set broken bones properly, so that after a few weeks bone could heal fully instead of crippling wounded person forever? Practical testing on useless people would be the best, as always. Broken bone need to be also immobilized, held in one position for example with cloth and wood, for these few weeks.
Armed Forces are also needed so that people would obey you more. It's a pity that you cannot see how people obey kings of cities, when motivated with not only honor and oaths, but also with greed and more fear. More fear about breaking your laws, because soldiers, while weaker than you, can be in many places, and you only in one.
We also need Army to conquer and control lands beyond the Nine Nations, to constantly extract more resources from bigger tributes instead of only raiding. Nine is much stronger than One, but Twenty would be much stronger than Nine - the problem is, that before newly conquered tribes may start to believe that things are as things should be, long time may pass and they need to be controlled.
"Perhaps you would better explain what good things can come of greed and hoardings by mortals", you asked. As was said, much more and faster improvements to trade and production, much bigger motivation to produce more, or to bring back more with a trade.
Chimneys... I'm glad about this partial success. The weight of things needs to be supported properly.
No need to worry about gold, gold is indeed made up of gold atoms.
"And tell me how music may be made with water, as well", no, no, no music. Water pipes are used to transport water from one place to another. As long as one place is slightly lower than another, water should flow through a concrete channel or another sort of channel.
"Separating written from spoken language", as was sadly suggested by one of us, is a pretty bad idea. Do not try to do that, this would only make everything harder. Writing is for now hard enough that almost nobody can afford time for that. And if we will manage to increase production of food enough that there may be time, then there would be also many more complicated reasons to write numbers and things, as trade and other production would need to be improved. So writing needs to be as simple as it is.
Roads: well-pressed soil should support the road and traffic upon it, as long as it's covered by a road crust that would protect the soil underneath from water and wear. When you use stones, try to use small stones. A roadbuilding worker can check the stone size himself by seeing whether said stone can fit into his mouth. "Proper method" of breaking stones to smaller stones can be accomplished by people sitting down and using small hammers.
Roads inside of villages - there is nothing bad in that, and in fact, this may be a good idea, as long as people are prohibited from building houses on top of the road, obviously... Houses around road or roads, while road remains whole and well-passable? Nothing bad in that.
Collapsing underground rooms... Anybody tried to use wider walls and pillars to support the weight of things above? Pillar is a tall vertical structure of stone or wood used as a support for a building. Pillars transmit the weight of the structure above to the structure below. Dig a pit big enough for a room inside, so very big I think, create floor from concrete on well-pressed soil, create wide and strong walls to protect against dirt around, place two (or more) pillars in the middle to better support weight of the roof, use logs as the roof, then pour some dirt on these logs. Of course, leave some sort of entrance. And maybe now the underground room wouldn't collapse?
If and when there is enough concrete, you can even use concrete for walls. How, you could ask, as concrete is at first somewhat liquid? Use wood around to keep concrete in its place. Then remove said wood when concrete hardens properly. The same concerns even roofs or bridges, but a great weight would need to be then supported not only by walls around the room but also by a few pillars inside. Remember, that concrete can be more durable when saltwater and some ash are also used.
Would it be possible to kidnap or buy as slaves a few people that are skilled in creating great buildings, walls and bridges in cities? They may not know anything about concrete yet, but should at least know pillars and some basic rules and ideas. Less than us, but much more than your people. And it's not always easy to explain detailed ideas with only words.
I think that there are other Voices that will want to teach you about arches. This should also help.
"Some make near-slaves of their husbands or wives or children or even, less commonly, their parents"... Songs and stories should heavily discourage cruel treatment of children. When children that are used like near slaves, beaten often or taught that their lives are not worth much... When such children grow into adults, they are less useful, and act like weird and disturbed adults much more often.
Anyway, let's propose new things.
Proposition: village bureaucrat. The idea is as follows: have a bureaucrat in all villages or at least bigger villages, to record harvests, other more important production numbers, and the number of people for our use. We would then know better when our improvements change things for the better, and when there are problems and more testing is needed. Tribute could be also more easily and reliably extracted. Full-time bureaucrat could record the most things and more reliably, but bureaucrat that do also other work is better than no bureaucrat at all.
And in the case of any other things, like compost, charcoal, repair of nearby roads... village bureaucrat could also look closely at these, record whether there are proper repairs, what is improved and what not.
You can also have a First Bureaucrat to control records from a few villages and whether common bureaucrats work properly when you are not nearby.
Though you can use singers as bureaucrats, not all bureaucrats need to be singers, they mainly need to know how to write and read numbers. Preferably also words, at least somewhat. Maybe you could also use singers too old to sing properly? Some diseases can also damage human voice, even if said unfortunate person manage to recover. But you can use also other people who simply can learn numbers unusually fast or people who for some reasons like numbers.
Proposition: City of Science. Science is a shorter word for the art of repeatedly-testing-and-seeing-what-works. Given that we offer you so much advice, maybe you could create your first and very small city around testing new things. A few dozens of craftsmen with their families could live in the City of Science, and be tasked with testing and improving on new ideas, preferably paid in copper, silver and gold from your hoard (and they could then exchange said metals for food and materials from nearby villages). There are many thousands of people in true cities, but this very small idea could be decent as the slow and careful start. Great distance from the cursed shadowy forest is well-advised, as well as a good road to villages, nearby river or streams, and nice ground for easy construction of new buildings and things. And this is also where warriors with oaths to you could be very useful, if you can be persuaded - such "soldiers" could protect this place of science. Or maybe... I believe that you have a great home, a place where you store your hoard? Maybe you could create this City of Science around, to easier supervise your "scientists" and easily pay them? Also, with soldiers around nothing like recent stupid situation with Raezl of Burgeck and his weird ambition could happen around your house.
Scientific progress is the idea that the scientific community learns more over time, which causes knowledge to increase and change for the better food production, human quality of life, possibilities to cure diseases, etc.
Proposition: First Roadbuilding Bureaucrat. I remember that there was a clever potter who managed to understand building of roads very well... Maybe you could appoint him as the First Roadbuilding Bureaucrat and task him with continuing of your previous roadbuilding work, along with some people that could work for him?
Coins. Coins are excellent for rewarding people with the use of some greed. Coins are basically pieces of gold, silver or copper of equal size, with your symbol in the middle. People would be then sure that all of these coins were produced with equal quality and weight, with your knowledge and according to your instructions. Melt some uglier and less interesting decorations into coins. You could then easily reward people with a desired amount of metals, and people could more easily trade between themselves. After a while, everybody would know almost instantly how much wealth 10 silver coins or 14 silver coins is. It's harder to understand without any deeper thought how much wealth 3 silver statues of various weight and quality are worth.
Price mechanism. Prices, that is how much coins or other things people are ready to pay in exchange for some sort of other good, depends on two things: supply and demand. Supply, how much of said good is produced and around. Demand, how much people want said good. Gold is usually valuable, because supply is low, and demand high because gold is pretty. If somebody could create gold magically from nothing and offer all people golden toys, the value would collapse, because while people would still appreciate beauty, supply would be now extremely high. Water is usually cheap, because while demand is even more pressing than demand for gold, the supply of water is everywhere.
This also can self-regulate production. If there is too much of something, price collapse, and people, villages or cities are less inclined to produce that for trade. Less is produced, and thus supply falls until some sort of temporary stability between supply and demand is created. Instead more needed things are produced.
The paradox of gold and water explained. The paradox of value is the apparent contradiction that, although water is, on the whole, more useful, in terms of survival, than gold, gold command a higher price. But the solution is obvious. Price at which an object trades does NOT depend on how useful it is on the whole. Rather, its price is determined by interactions between supply and demand.
It is true that the total utility of water to people is tremendous, because they need it to survive. However, since water is in such large supply in the world, the marginal utility of water is low. In other words, each additional unit of water that becomes available can be applied to less urgent uses as more urgent uses for water are satisfied.
Therefore, any particular bucket of water becomes worth less to people as the supply of water increases. On the other hand, gold is in much lower supply. Gold is in such low supply that the usefulness of one additional golden thing is greater than the usefulness of one additional bucket of water, which is in abundant supply. Thus, gold is worth more to people.
Conversely, a man dying of thirst in a desert would have greater use for water than for gold so - if he couldn't use force to obtain water - would pay (exchange) more for water than for gold, perhaps up to the point at which he was no longer dying. Price and value of water in the middle of the desert can be thus higher than price and value of gold in the middle of the desert.
If any big sources of gold are ever discovered, and thus the supply of gold radically increases, the value of gold may be much lower than now.
As you can see, human greed can be useful during free trade exchanges of goods, to properly determine the value of goods and what should be produced more or less.
A market economy is a custom of production and exchange in which the prices of the products and services are chosen in a free price system that is decided by supply and demand, and producers of things more often trade their production instead of sharing.
Market economics has been widely used in many complicated city-based societies because of its efficiency (ability to work well and produce much more). However, it has also been criticized for its greed and the difference between the wealthy and poor.
General advice...
A wheelbarrow is a small hand-propelled vehicle, usually with just one wheel, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles at the rear. Useful especially in the fields and to workers during the construction of buildings or roads. The wheelbarrow is designed to distribute the weight of its load between the wheel and the worker, so enabling the convenient carriage of heavier and bulkier loads than would be possible were the weight carried entirely by the worker. A two-wheel type is more stable on level ground, while one-wheel type has better maneuverability in small spaces, on planks or wooden logs, or when tilted ground would throw the load off balance. The use of one wheel also permits greater control of the deposition of the load upon emptying. Usual carts are much better for travel, but small wheelbarrow is much better suited for work.
A candle is a stick made of beeswax with a string (a thin piece of rope) straight in the middle. If someone puts the string on fire, the flame burns slowly but for a long time.
Fire can burn string very fast. But in a candle, the string does not burn fast, because the fire melts the wax instead.
If the flame is kept on the candle long enough, the candle will very slowly get shorter and shorter until it is gone. The fire on a candle can be put out by blowing air on it.
By the way, honey bees use the beeswax to build honeycomb cells in which their young are raised.
Definition of a word: A machine is a thing that is created by people to make work easier. Some machines have many parts that move.
Gears are mechanical parts, wheels with cut teeth designed to fit with teeth on another gear or part so as to transport movement. Gears are also sometimes called toothed wheels or cogged wheels or cogs.
A water wheel is a machine for extracting power from the flow of water. The possible use of the water wheel power is to mill flour, or power bellows. A water wheel consists of a large wooden wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside. Water poured on top of the wheel moves said wheel, and then the movement can be transported with the use of axles and gears. Typically, water for that is diverted from a river or stream, with a channel or pipe. The force of the water's movement drives the blades or buckets of a wheel. The passage of water from the river or stream is controlled by gates that allow maintenance and some basic measure of flood control.
It's possible to have simpler solutions, but water poured on top of the wheel, called overshoot wheel, is the most efficient. The weight of water passing over and flowing from above of the wheel provides the most force.
Gears and axles can transport great force of water, stronger than any man or even cattle, to many machines, mills, saws, bellows.
Definition of a word: axle is a rod passing through the centre of a wheel or group of wheels.
Machines, when properly perfected, are much better for many kinds of simple work than slaves.
Pit latrine, or dry toilet, can be used to collect human feces in a deep hole in the ground. Human waste enters the pit through a drop hole in the floor, which might be connected to a toilet seat or squatting pan for user comfort. When properly built and maintained, pit latrines can decrease the spread of disease by reducing the number of human feces in the environment. This decreases the transfer of germs between feces and food by flies. Light should be prevented from entering the pit to reduce access by flies. This may require the use of a lid to cover the hole in the floor when not in use. The distance from water should be decent, at least like 32 average human feet. After many years full pit latrine can be either buried, or emptied for use in the compost pile, though this would be unhealthy and dangerous work. Ash can be thrown inside from time to time to decrease bad smell.
A sanitary sewer or foul sewer is an underground pipe or tunnel system for transporting dirty water full of germs and/or water contaminated with human waste, poisons or other pollution away from the settlement. Remember, if you even create such a system, to end said tunnels in some sort of useless wetland or very large useless field, instead of contaminating river. Seas are also big enough to properly dilute everything, rivers usually are not. Sewer pipes should be in decent distance from sources of pure water, as always in such cases.
Sand water filter. When I think about this, there is a way to clean water, if said water is not very dirty, without boiling. Boiling is still more useful, because this way is less good, simply better than nothing. Sand water filter. Amount of sand as tall as a tall man, water above, maybe supplied with pipes, tunnels or channels from a river or stream. Water slowly moves through sand, and water below should be much cleaner, even if not completely clean.
Slow sand filters work through the formation of a gelatinous layer of good (for humans) germs that eat bad (for humans) germs, in the top of the fine sand layer.
Slow sand filters slowly lose their performance as the top layer thickens and thereby reduces the rate of flow through the sand. You need then to remove said top layer to expose a new layer of clean sand.
"A City of Science" would be impractical, one of my fellow Voices claim. And exactly why? This is not much different than a temple complex, but instead of housing only priests or other parasites sensible work would be done!
In practice, until we could have more people, it's more like a temple but dedicated to usefully increasing knowledge instead of uselessly praying to Bianca.
"I first summoned you voices in the spring, seven springs ago. There have been seven summers since then, Black Cat.
"My singers tell me of reticence, but I am unconcerned. Those who follow the ways that are best will prosper. Everyone but me will die. The practices of the prosperous will persist. I do not tell the people of you voices just as I do not tell them of the wonders of the rest of my hoard. Doing so only invites thieves which, as I have said, leads to a wasting of otherwise useful people.
"The shadowy forest is far from places where the people sow or pasture for now. If it continues to grow, as it seems to be doing, then one day something will need to be done. For now I will make suggestions of walls and stoney ground and new burnings and black, burning stuff from the ground to Eppam and Sleomjash. And for now it is only their concern.
"The year of nitrogen fixing replaces the year of fallow, yes? Or was that the lentils and beans? The people will, I think, choose lentils and beans over clover, if that's the case. Are we back to the three-year cycle, then? Wheat and barley, clover or beans and lentils, and fallow? Again, please tell me what planting accomplishes what end, and what sorts of plants accomplish those ends.
"Various airs are encountered underground. Since people breathe what fire needs to burn, I suppose that a chokedamp may be the carbon-dioxide you refer to coming from the ground or would that be nitrogen? And what, then, is a firedamp?
"Do recall, Black Cat, that my magic is strong. If I had not been blessing the fields the people would only get three or so years of sufficient harvest from each before they would need to burn a new field. Your methods, such as they are practiced, come close to sufficiency. The people did not starve in any great numbers. But they did not have plentitude and they are very eager for my blessings in the spring. If your methods are as good as you claim, then when they are combined with my blessings next year we should see something exceptional.
"There have been no 'docile' among the captured kits. Their temperament as adults ranges from fiesty to furious to berzerk. They are difficult to feed, hazardous to handle, and so far impossible to breed. They don't seem to care for their own company any more than they do for the company of others.
"I will tell all the tribes to gather some hemp from their lands while it bears seed. When they have brought it all to me, I will order that its seed be planted in small plots around my great house. From these plots, the people will draw more seeds. And from those more, until we have enough see for a sizable field. This will, I think, take some years. We shall see.
"The people's corpses are treated according to need.
"When the person's spirit is most likely to be senseless or vengeful -- such as the spirits of infants and small children, the maddened, the betrayed, and those who outlived their own wits -- then their corpse is taken far from the living places of the people. There it is buried along with any object on which the spirit might fix their gaze. And this is another reason why the keeping of hoards by mortals is troublesome.
"If a person dies with their wits intact and nothing is needed of them, their body is buried deep in the ground. Then if their spirit returns it will come to its home rather than its corpse and possessions.
This paragraph originally read differently and was changed to be consistent with later updates.
"And if there exists some duty which is needed of the spirit of the dead, then their corpse is treated as will best guide their spirit toward that end. At times this means the corpse is taken to the wilds to be torn apart by wild animals. At other times it is smoked dry, bound in cloth, and laid on a pile of dirt before being covered in stones.
"A dishonorable but wise person who works magic well will know how to seal an infant who died of fever in clay and fire that clay such that it does not break in the kiln. With proper measures taken before and after, they bury the accursed pottery deep and near the home of their enemy. Then the spirit comes and makes a great deal of trouble. There are many other works that may be done with a corpse depending on the character of the person that corpse once was and their relationship with the one doing the work.
"And I should say, the fixation of senseless spirits on objects of their living possession is prevented by the destruction of those objects. So very little bronze is buried, little metal at all. The gold figure which Va of Lan clutched as he died, years back, was melted down and remade into a fine scepter cap. Along with the rest of the fine scepter, it then joined my tribute hoard.
"There are bonesetters among the people. And the people know that they must see a strong bonesetter within days of their injury or they will surely be lamed. Tell me how to improve their arts, if you know.
"I am unconvinced that this army pushing the people around would make the people obey me, and not first the army. And still, why would not the people rise up against this army? You have not explained how people are made to be so meek.
"There was trouble enough in bringing the Sleomjash into the people. I do look to add another tribe, some day. But adding eleven at once will require more than an army. And anyway, why would the people want to do so?
"I understand your justification of greed only in that it applies to journeys to trade. In matters of improvement the people can already cooperate to their entire benefit. And it is already the case that those who are greedy produce and acquire more. And it is already the case that the trouble this causes is clearly seen. Envy, disparagement, and discord follow always.
"Concrete and, in fact, the excess labors of those who build are currently devoted to the laying of roads and the building of small houses of stone and high places throughout the lands of the Nine Nations. Perhaps in the future I will direct that another attempt be made at deep, cold, still places. This would be facilitated if you voices could tell me how it may be known before a pit is dug whether that pit will fill with water. This would be fine both for the digging of deep dry places and also for the more intentional digging of wells.
"I will ask the raiders who roam furthest about what manner of people know the building of great things and whether they might be taken. Trade journeys of the people rarely bring back slaves. They often travel poorly, the counting of the term of their enslavement is much disputed, and knowledgeable ones such as you describe would likely be expensive as well. I will make it known I want such things, nonetheless, and we shall see what comes of it.
"The children of the people already grow to be useful adults, for the most part. I am not notably concerned.
"There are reasons why my singers are drawing out from the tribes and not of them. It is not good for there to be one who lives among their own people whose doings day to day are not seen to benefit the people around them. Your tablet-ruler's parents and husbands and wives and even their children and neighbors will all say, 'You spend too much time writing and muttering numbers. You must take up a craft that makes your family stronger. You cannot sit with damp sand and clay tablets at all times. You are doing evil.' And if they are not evil your table-ruler will listen to them, and stop counting and making writings.
"Again, you voices think of people like people think of slaves: that they should do just what they are told and make no mind of their own. With the exception of the people Burgeck tribe -- who are sure to take to any strange instructions as though they are priestly ritual -- the people will not long maintain duties without understanding their benefit.
"Actually, that might be the key. Those who intercede with spirits may best see the gains from the memories of baked clay tablets. I will send my singers to find some such wise folk who might be taught writing and might take up the keeping of words and numbers.
"In any case, in the laying of roads it is important to know just where you're going and what lies in between. And so I know that there are around three hundred fifty villages throughout all of the Nine Nations. The laying of roads takes a great deal of time, and so I decided that the largest villages should have roads to my great house before the smallest, unless of course the smallest were along the way to the largest as was not uncommon. And so I know that the largest villages have close to a thousand people, not counting babes-in-arms but counting those away in pastures.
"The potter you mentioned returned to his family, as all who work far from their home should be expected to want to do. The people know what it is to be far and to then return, as that is the nature of the keeping of cattle and sheep and horses and even goats. If I take him away from his family or take his family away from his tribe to live in a walled village around my great house, kept here by warriors forced into oaths, there will be discord. And in discord, there is little benefit. Nothing great is built while people fight among themselves. Again, Black Cat, I do not think you understand free people.
"You suggest benefits to 'coins' that confuse me. 'People could more easily trade between themselves,' you say. But I know of no difficulties the people have in trading that would not be made worse by hoardings of gold and silver. One will say, 'You have more than anyone in my family does, and this is bad.' And the other will agree, and hold a feast at which they give away their hoard for glory. And you say, 'everybody would know almost instantly how much wealth 10 silver coins or 14 silver coins is.' What does this even mean? People know the worth of something when they know its use or when they regard the craft of its making.
"Anyone who does not offer water to one dying of thirst have already decided that person should die. If they did not wish them dead, they would share water. And once that person is dead, any gold they are carrying can be taken.
I a bit concerned that you might be getting frustrated, here, and that's no fun. So I'm going to let you see some things behind the curtain.
The Adam Smith just-so story of the birth of markets isn't regarded as realistic anymore. In particular, currency doesn't solve the inefficiencies of the barter system because barter systems never develop without or before currency. Barter systems only show up when people have come to rely on currency but then suffer a crisis of liquidity or famine or some other market disaster.
I recommend Debt: the First 5,000 Years to anyone who wants to know more about how market economics actually got started and what really underlies them still today.
If players are big fans of the Austrian School or some other model of economics that I don't believe in, they may to need to accept that the economic model used in this game differs from what they think is true in the real world. And, like perhaps the magic system, it might need to be something they explore and discover before they can meaningfully advise on it.
Now I'm not saying that the 'Private Property Is for Me and Not Other People' system that Bianca has been describing either arose naturally or is the only system in practice in the Nine Nations. Elements of it developed among the people, but its persistence and current form absolutely rely on Bianca.
I do appreciate the effort being put in and I don't dislike the back-and-forth. But I also want this to be fun for both sides. And just shouting "WRONG!" and making the buzzer sound from Family Feud isn't something I expect will make the game fun for most players. (And y'all masochists who think getting yelled at sounds like fun can work out what you need to.)
Thanks.
"I do not see the making of a handcart with a single wheel. But I will put it to the cartwrights to build one and see what they come up with.
"What, Black Cat, was it that you thought rope is made from if not string? So a handful of wax should be squeezed around a string, then sent down, upright I gather, and the string set aflame? This is how oil lamps work, with the wick in the oil at one end and aflame at the other. I think this 'candle' would not be so easily made or else it would already be known. But I will see it tried and what will be will be.
"I have in my hoard a cup of silver and gold. Or, I suppose, a cup of two cups, the upper silver and the lower gold. There is a small hole in the silver cup and below that a silver thing like a chariot wheel without a rim, only spokes, and those spokes are flat. Once, when drink was poured in the upper cup it wound drain through the hole and cause the wheel to spin, which made a curious sound, before falling into the golden cup. It has been stuck from many, many years now and anyway the sound was not especially pleasing and I have little use for trifles except to keep them.
"Rivers and streams are already diverted by channel to fields and gates are needed so that this or that field gets water at this or that time. But this would require some further diversion, I think, so that the water would fall some way. Or, more likely, this wheel should be built by rapids, where the water already falls far and fast. And if I understand you, then the axle of the wheel on which the water falls should also turn a wheel with teeth, which by teeth should turn another wheel, which will grind grain. I can, I think, foresee how that might work. I do not see how to make it to work bellows, but perhaps someone else will.
"Waste is carried away from the places people live. And I do not see how keeping it close in a pit or making channels to carry it is immediately helpful. Perhaps if the people lived in great numbers within walls this would be of greater importance.
"If there is a pile of sand as tall as a man, how is the water collected from below? Is the pile to be dug away at some point? I think I miss some necessary part of your strainer.
"Yes, a temple and houses for priests is more what your knowing city sounds like. Perhaps another task for the Burgeck tribe. Might keep then busy."
My my, has it been several years already of Undying Bianca? How the time flies. It is once more I, the Demon.
I do admit to some disappointment that so much effort has been spent on these roads, but valuable lessons have been learnt I suppose.
I would appreciate, oh Undying Bianca, if you would investigate these gatherers of honey and see if beekeeping has indeed become known. My curiosity gnaws at me.
How strange, how strange. Studies of a distant past much like your own indicate that cats more or less domesticated themselves, moving into the homes of humans of their own volition to hunt the abundant mice and rats.
These were cats of a small size, with a social nature, an obvious body language, a love of play and relatively high intelligence as such goes among animals. These are traits you could possibly use as an criteria to select types of cats to tame from, or breed cats for and to. Though I know of a time where tamed cats are near indistinguishable from wild cats, and enjoy a similar popularity with dogs.
To actually invite the cats, instead of merely kidnapping and raising them, you could grow the herb Catnip, which cats like, in your villages. In particular, leaves can be bruised to release their scent, and scattered in granaries.
Some slight caution should be taken, as it occurs rarely that larger types of cats also enjoy catnip. It is however, said that catnip also helps to keep away harmful insects like mosquitoes and flies to some degree.
Catnip is a short-lived multiyear, herbaceous plant that grows to be 2 to 5 handspans tall and wide, and blooms from late spring to the autumn. Catnip resembles a typical member of the mint family of plants, with brown-green, though predominantly green, foliage with the characteristic square stem of the míntha family of plants. The coarse-toothed leaves are triangular to elliptical in shape.
The flowers of catnip are small, and proportionately long and thin, with a two-lipped flare at the outer end. The flowers are showy and fragrant, and are either pink in color or white with fine spots of pale purple and grow in clumps at the ends of its branches and stems. It is more likely to be found in sunny and somewhat drier locations, and low to the ground in a loosely branching fashion.
The mint family of plants is such plants as basil, mint, rosemary, sage, savory, marjoram, oregano, hyssop, thyme, lavender, and perilla, many of which are useful in their own right, in cooking or for their scents.
In addition to the above, I shall now guide you in the raising of kittens into proper human loving sell-outs.
Primus, the more human contact the better. Interact with kittens as soon and as much as possible, and even sleep with them if possible. A litter of kittens born in a location inaccessible to humans will, as early as two to three weeks of age, hiss at humans. A litter of kittens from the same mother, if handled daily, will not react fearfully. To this end, do not steal kittens, but instead steal pregnant expecting mother cats, so you have access to the kittens at as young an age as possible.
Do not leave the kittens alone for more than a few hours.
This will also become much easier once you have semi-tame mother cats, because if the mother trusts you, this will also make the kittens trust you more.
If possible, before you have tame adult cats to serve as mothers, these newborn kittens should be separated from their mothers, and raised by hand on milk and pre-chewed raw meat and kept warm, though many are likely to not survive. Particularly gentle mother dogs may actually be willing to accept a kitten into their litter, which might make things easier in terms of feeding and care.
Secundus, play with the kittens. When kittens are four to eight weeks of age, play becomes very important to them, but socialisation to humans is also extremely important. Frequent handling and petting of the young kitten can make it more responsive to its owner when adult.
Do not allow the kittens to bite or scratch during play. If they do, redirect their attention to a toy like a piece of rawhide.
Introducing a young kitten to many people is important in socialising kittens to humans. This seems to lessen their fear of strangers as adult cats. Kittens should also be introduced to children and children should be shown how to pet them gently. A kitten not socialised with children may be afraid of them after it has matured.
Tertius, kittens are sensitive to the tone of voice. Try not to shout at your kitten. Praise them or give them pieces of meat as treats when they do play in the way that you wish them to.
Quartus, cats have a natural urge to scratch. The action helps them remove old material from their claws. You can create a designated scratching post for them, to prevent them from scratching things you don't want them to. Usually this will be a wooden post covered with some rough material like rope.
While the enlargement of animals through breeding is not a process that is really amenable to rushing, animals who eat well, especially in their youth, will grow larger than they would otherwise, and to a certain extent this is carried over to their descendants. Eating well here does not simply indicate quantity, but also quality and gaining everything they need within their diet. It is a tricky subject.
The water wears away at rock and carries the minerals with it. There will usually be deposits of a mineral upstream from where you found it in a river, but harder to mine than than the loose minerals in the river bank.
Granite is a very hard and tough type of rock, which can be can be predominantly white, pink, or gray in color, and it is coarsely grained with black flecks and pieces of reflective quartz and mica crystal in it. Mining into granite is probably not feasible for you right now.
Depending on what ore you use for your copper, it is also possible that the slag from the smelting of the copper itself will also contain arsenic, since as you mentioned, the extraction of the copper itself already sickens your people. If you could describe the ore to me, I could tell you more certainly perhaps.
Aaah, the road not taken, and what could have been. Alas, alas, such inestimable regret!
Oh Undying Bianca, I would bid you gather a great warhost and go forth to conquer a city that lies more distant from the encroaching ghostwoods, which desires to consume your lands.
[x] [Cacophony] Demonic Spoon
[X] [Backlog] No. Anything pending should be addressed by First Singer Huo as Bianca ordained before leaving.
The People do not accept your authority, and hope to find a resolution more advantageous to themselves by climbing the steps. Disabuse them of these notions.
[X] [Prophetess] Extend minimum hospitality and politely but firmly refuse her
One should not assume people other than ourselves are idiots. They will understand the answer of silence for what it is. Let us instead be forthright, and so earn some respect.
[X] [Horror] Bianca should go out herself to deal with the beast
I believe this is a solution that will not overly sully the honour of the Lan, while increasing the prestige of Bianca.
"Thank you, Debt. My singers already gather in what the people think they know, and what I judge good to know they repeat back to the people in song. I would like to hear more about separating written from spoken language. Why would I want that? Should not the one be like the other in every way it can?"
Was it not yourself, oh Undying Bianca, who was concerned about writing spreading to the common people and giving a dissenting voice of history against you? I believe that Debt may have been responding to your earlier concerns with a possible solution, by making the written language privileged and difficult.
Domesticated cats, as I know of them, have only changed slightly compared to their wild cousins, and no great effort in this regard is truly needed. It is far less of a dramatic transformation than that which was made over dogs and cattle.
While domestication, like many other things, does take time yes, many projects we are suggesting to Bianca will take far, far, longer.
I, the Demon, shall now respond to the Black Cat.
A City of Science would be impractical.
Care must be take to not breed cats so docile they will no longer actually hunt for themselves, as the entire point of the exercise is for them to hunt mice.
I would recommend just conquering a city outright and claiming their knowledge as your own through your might, instead of attempting to steal it.
Black Cat certainly does not lack for ambition does he? A simpler mechanism for harnessing the power of water is the Monjolo, a water powered hammer for pounding grain or the like.
Take a large log, carve a pivot hole in the middle through which to insert a pole, an axle, and carve a large trough for water on one side. Then inset a long stone or piece of wood or metal as a hammerhead on the opposite side from the trough. Build a support structure, probably of two study posts, starting with one post and an axle, fitting the log onto the axle and then axle onto another post. Place a stone bowl or other container beneath the hammer head of the Monjolo and route water through a spout or pipe, from a river or creek, to fill the trough of the Monjolo. The trough will fill, causing that half of the monjolo to lower, thus causing the water to drain out, and the unbalanced monjolo's hammer-end to crash down into the bowl, pounding grain or other items fine.
Some practice may be necessary to get the weights and balances correct, but this should be far easier and simpler than some other ideas.
"I will, indeed, send my singers to ask after what beekeeping has been learned.
"Cats moving in to hunt vermin? I might as well expect marten or foxes to move in. No, all of these may at times take fowl or their young. And surely if they do so, they must take vermin as well at times. But very few animals of the wilds venture near the living or working places of the people.
"Wild cats are small, smaller than the lynx for certain. I do not know what you mean by a social nature. How can beasts be social? Do you mean in the manner of wolves, which live and hunt together? Cats do not do that. I think they must come together to fuck, surely. And for the time of rearing a mother tolerates her young. But otherwise cats are not seen in each others company.
"The very idea of language of the body is of interest. I suppose I knew, of course, that faces speak as well as voices do. And shoulders and the direction of feet speak also. So too an animal says this or that with their head high or low. But calling it language is… I think we may have spoken so in the time before my confinement. And perhaps there are some hunters now who talk of the languages of beasts. But I do not think it was ever said to be the language of the body specifically. And further if the language of the body of cats is obvious it is not obvious to me. When they would fend off they yowl and spit. When they fear they run. I think you mean something more than that.
"I think I know the plant you speak of, or one much like it. Animals of various sorts are known to get into the small plots of medicinal plants grown in or close to villages. I will have various of these plants forced on captured cats and see what comes of it.
"If I do not know these scently plants how may I acquire them? The people do use some wild herbs for medicine and to flavor their cooking. And some plants grown in those small plots first came to the people by trade, though they may not remember it so.
"I think you mean something by 'a few hours' other than what I might mean by that. Perhaps you voices should give better measures. But, yes, I can see how the late taking of kits may be partial cause for the failure, so far, to make agreeable cats. Adjustments will be made as suggested and what follows, follows.
"The cattle which grow in years of wanting are smaller than those which grow in years of plenty. And this happens also with the growing of people. I would like the people to know more of what should be eaten to grow strong, as that makes them better warriors and workers both.
"Oh, of course. Of course as a river cuts at the ground it carries that ground away, even stone. And of course as a stream builds a bank it is built of something. It cannot be built of what is cut from the other side, so it must be built from what is cut away upstream. Yes, I believe I see it. This is powerful knowledge indeed, Demon.
"The people find stone that is yellow when broken. But when it is drawn against pottery the mark is murky green, as the stone itself becomes some time after breaking. Such stone and the stone around and within it often contain copper. There are others, dark stone in particular, but I know less of them.
"I am tempted to go find what a city is. You voices have led me to think it is a thing I should know more about. But just now there are other matters.
"Ah. Yes. Of course. If only a few can read then only a few will be able to find discrepancies between what is written and what I say. And then only a few will need to be… What? Should I slay all who can read when it comes up that some great disagreement exists between what has been written and what I desire? Would I then wait until the people have forgotten that to read is to die, and then teach some among them to read again? Possibly, possibly. I will keep it in mind. For now the excitement of the singers in setting treating their songs for the future is great and I would not limit it unduly.
"And, again, the temptation to break a city down and see what it is made from is real. But in time.
"Your monjolo will still require water to be directed away and with some height. But, yes, it seems simpler by far than the wheel and gears. I am confident this can be gotten right as soon as the channels and such are right."
I disagreed with your recent course of action, and my reasons for doing so are still valid, but I must admit some approval for how things turned out. You solved many problems, and will thus be better able to solve problems in the future. If you are to defeat a god then it shall not be by brute strength. A sharp mind can defeat the sharpest blade.
[X] [Backlog] No. Anything pending should be addressed by First Singer Huo as Bianca ordained before leaving.
In matters of leadership it is important to present a unified front. But in this, as all things, balance. Your subordinates must feel safe voicing their disagreement lest all you desire is a clean asshole. I suggest you loom behind Huo, glaring at supplicants. Until such a time as the backlog is clear, voice the exact same reply should any attempt to speak with you.
[X] [Prophetess] Extend all hospitality and send her away with gifts and an invitation to further talks but promise nothing
Ingratiating yourself with this potentially weak gods priesthood could prove advantageous in the future.
[X] [Horror] Let Lan handle it or not as they see fit
Once Lan has been bleed a bit, they will come begging. Do not miss an opportunity to remind the peoples why they need you...
...Which brings me to my next point. You are deluding yourself if you believe that "tribute" is anything but a form of trade. For all that it is couched in ritual, the people give you tribute because the value what they receive more than what they give. Be it their continued lives, your favor, or to demonstrate and solidify social status.
"Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary, but competition for limited resources remains a constant. Need as well as greed have followed us to the stars, and the rewards of wealth still await those wise enough to recognize this deep thrumming of our common pulse." (Mwabudike Morgan)
[x] [Cacophony] Ciber
Thread Theory of Forces
So you want to make some nice stone overhangs? A window, door, bridge, or roof? Try this out, you'll have your proof!
The simplest way is to make up some temporary wooden form-work in the shape of half a circle. A semi-circle if you will. Then you can place carefully cut stones or bricks upon the form., coming together at the center upon a larger wedge shaped keystone. You may want to use something like cement to help bind the pieces together.
Of course a simple circle is not the best shape to use, but it is close. Consider the top most stone, the keystone. Its own weight pulls it down, in addition to the weight of all that it supports. Now consider the stones which support the keystone. Clearly the weight of the keystone, and all the stones that support it, must eventually be carried through into the ground.
It turns out that for a given structure, the weight prefers to follow a certain path, a certain thread of force. So long as your structure contains this thread, then it will not fail. An allowance must of course be made for imperfect knowledge of the structure, and the moving weights of people, goods, and nature that it may experience.
The thread of force for an arch of constant wall thickness with no loading besides its own weight is described by the inversion of a similarly proportioned hanging thread. More complicated structures may be described by attaching may small proportional weights at the appropriate positions.
To be clear, the thread and weights upon it need not be that same size as the structure to be built, merely proportional.
Consider a small bridge. The top is flat but the bottom must be an arch for water to flow under. To design such a bridge using the method of the threads of force, we might begin by dividing our bridge into ten equal lengths, and attaching a small weight at ten equally spaced points on our thread. Then we would assign additional weights in proportion to the depth of the bridge at that point.
Just to be clear, we are dealing with wildcats...
You are going to need a dedicated generational effort to domesticate a new species.
Also, it is worth noting that gold is one of the few elements that can be found in their native form. That is to say, the atoms of gold are not strongly bound to atoms of any other type.
"What is most important, voice who does not give their name, is that tribute is given to me and not to another tribe or god. This prevents discord among the Nine Nations and binds them all together against any outsider who dares to do more than raid. Yes, if you stand in a certain place you may see things a certain way. The free people of the Nine Nations pay tribute to me for my blessings and to stay my hand from them. It is the same with any god and, from what I hear from you voices, with any king.
"When stones are set on stones, always they are made flat on their bottom and top. Otherwise, they will slide or, if there is an obstruction, press that obstruction to move to the side as well. So, I think, it is with your arched bridge. Only the pressing of one way and the pressing of the other meet at the keystone, and there neither wins. Only, how are the stones held up while they are still being added to build a bridge over a river? There is no half-circle of wood that would not block the river. Well. If an entire river must be diverted to build a bridge across is, perhaps the bridge can be built first, and then the river diverted to pass under it. A great work, to be sure. One, perhaps, of more than one lifetime of any of the people. Smaller streams should come more easily. And to build a place for the people a semi-circle of dirt can be made, first, on which the stones are laid against each other. Yes. And then the dirt is removed and there is a wide space under a single roof. I think I see. Oh. And yes, fireplaces should be more easily made. Yes.
"Just at present there has been simply no success at producing any second generation from the captured wildcats. Few live long, and of those none take to company of any sort."
Greetings, oh Undying One. This voice may be called Stardust.
[x] [Cacophony] starvector
[x] [Backlog] No. Anything pending should be addressed by First Singer Huo as Bianca ordained before leaving.
As your people grow in numbers, the amount of judgements needed and decisions to be taken will grow.
While you could let the tribe leaders and elders handle them, it would weaken your role, and make the individual tribes more independent. Instead you should try to concentrate more decision power in your own hands, so that you may better implement the advice we give you, and steer your people to greatness.
It is not practical for you to decide every matter yourself, especially in the future, so you need to let the people learn that they should listen to your singers. And to your singers you should tell of your will in broad terms, and allow them to make rulings for minor matters that are bought to their attention, following the intent laid out by you.
At some point it may become necessary to dedicate some singers to the task of making sure that other singers are not accidentally or intentionally misinterpreting your guidelines, perhaps when the number of singers involved in making rulings passes ten or twenty or so.
I considered recommending writing down (major) decisions made by bureaucrats to increase accountability, but that would be overkill at this point. It will only be an issue when we have a much larger bureaucracy, and we need some more efficient production of paper, parchment or papyrus before that. (Although I guess clay tablets could work as well.)
[x] [Prophetess] Extend minimum hospitality and politely but firmly refuse her
This voice is not familiar with gods, but maybe there could be a risk of this new god gaining followers among your people, and diminishing your standing among them? Best not to let this prophetess speak to your people to avoid that possibility, and best not to anger a god by harming the prophetess.
[x] [Horror] Bianca should go out herself to deal with the beast
Ideally the tribe should have swallowed their pride and sent a request for help. The people are still thinking of their tribes pride first and the best of the people as a whole second. It would be good if the people could feel more strongly that they belong to the whole of the nine tribes, and place the good of everyone higher than the honor of their local tribe.
But that will have to come later. For now, we have a crisis in a part of the land, and from the description it sounds like you are best suited to deal with it. Who knows how much of the tribe the beast will kill if left unchecked, you should not let the lives of your people be wasted.
However, I would recommend some caution when dealing with unknown Horrors. Perhaps take some warriors with you, a few foolhardy scouts to send in front, and some stout veterans to watch your back.
On the uses of Arcs
Other voices have already explained the construction of arcs from stone and cement. I would just like to add that they are a solution to many of the problems you have encountered recently. The stone oven can be built as a long arc, with the chimney built on top. The roofs of ice cellars can be built from stone blocks built up into a long arc (the walls would have to be stone as well so that the edges of the roof can rest on something sturdy). Bridges of stone over rivers can be made as one large stone arc with the road going up and over it and the water flowing through it, or as two or even more arcs, where the middle wall or walls rest on large stones piled in the riverbed. And arcs can be used for doorways in stone houses, and the ceilings of stone houses can be built as long arcs.
The utility of Bricks
If it is hard to find stones of suitable shape you can also have potters fire bricks, that is, regular-sized lumps of clay with flat sides and a flat top and bottom, perhaps a foot long, half wide, and maybe a quarter foot high. If they poke some holes (say 12 holes that are finger sized) from the top to the bottom in the bricks while wet they should not shatter as easily when fired, and when attached together with concrete the concrete will enter the holes and get a better grip of the bricks.
Bricks can be a more practical building material than stones for some places that require precision, like chimneys. Not all kinds of bricks will be able to stand the heat of a hot fireplace however.
"So, Stardust, first I should bring more power upon myself and then I should give it to my singers? Not to say that such to-and-fro is nonsense, but you must tell me why I should cast myself one way only to return another.
"Already the tribes handle most of their own business. They come to me when the matter is beyond their means, such as a famine. And they come to me when there is conflict between them and some would have one thing and others another.
"I suppose there are also the times when one comes to me because the answer from the elders in their family or tribe are not to their liking. Parents of unruly children will say, at times, that their child is possessed of an ill spirit or that they are, in fact, a spirit and not a child. And if the wise folk and those that listen to the wise say that is not so, the parent may bring the child to me, hoping for a different answer. But while I am far wiser in the ways of the spirits than any of the people, most possessions are easily recognized.
"But in any matter, I do not have time to settle all disputes. It must be that elders settle disputes within families, that councils and chieftains settle disputes within families, and that, whenever possible, the tribes settle disputes between themselves.
"Already I am concerned about the role of the First Singer. To be a settler of disputes is to be disliked by some. To elders and chieftains this is no matter. And to me, it is less. But I have enjoyed the people's liking of my singers. They are widely welcomed and I am concerned about the changes coming.
"So long as they give tribute only to me, I do not dissuade the people from speaking of other gods or from hosting their priesthood. But the gods and their priests inevitably make some demand, and then the people turn them away or they break the Nine Ways Pact. While not all who break the pact are cast out, there will be shaming and their neighbors will demand of them that they cease in their oath-breaking, lest they be cast out for certain.
"Similarly to the question of power, Stardust, it is odd that you would first say that I should not waste the lives of my people and then suggest I send scouts in to die. Nonetheless, I will call for hunters to join me when I seek out the beast. I anticipate they will come from all the tribes, some seeking to break away and confront the beast themselves. Perhaps these will be your 'foolhardy scouts.'
"And thank you. I had not understood that one arch could be set against another. So then instead of wooden beams and a roof over that, it should be arch after arch of stone, supported by intervening walls as needed.
"There are, in fact, problems with firing bricks of great size, just as you say. I will have the brickmakers try forming them with holes cut out of the middle, as you say."
Greetings again, Great Undying One. Making structures out of stone that stand is indeed an issue. But there are ways around it. You can carve and arrange the stones in such a way that they resemble a half-sphere, or that of a tree trunk that has been hollowed out and then cut in half along its longest side. Taking a slice of the half hollow log gives you an arch, an arrangement of stone that is stable and will prevent overhanging stones from falling. To construct arches, stone should be carved into curved wedges, and stacked onto two adjacent pillars of stone until they meet in the middle. Before the arch is completed, frames of wood should be temporarily put in place to ensure that the stones do not fall down, and removed once the construction is done.
There are many issues that can arise with the construction of buildings from stone, and I cannot describe all of them here, so I would advise your builders to perform some tests by making tiny models of the buildings first before they start the actual work, as it will help with spotting any mistakes or errors ahead of time.
Concrete should be treated as poured stone; the same forms that stone finds stable will best suit concrete. Wood frames can keep the concrete in place while it dries.
Also, as it is hard to convey many things with words alone, I would advise you to study formations of natural rock, caves and what not, as well as the hard outer shells of any animals that have them. These should give insight into what arrangements of stone and concrete are possible and practical.
Oh, and since I have not given a name before, I suppose Cloud would suffice.
EDIT: Before I forget, the best way to record and convey the knowledge of the best forms for construction is to have someone skilled with their hands and of keen eyesight copy the forms and arrangements of stone onto a clay tablet or another suitable medium, rather than trying to communicate such things purely through writing or song.
Also, how do the Nine Nations measure things? The passing of time, the height of a horse, the weight of a stone? Do they have tools for the measuring of weights or heights and lengths?
I know of the people that Sheep speaks of, and their story did not end well. People came from across a great ocean, one that had never been crossed before. Only a few hundred, mind, but these men came from a land that had more people, and who had known the secrets of fire and iron and bronze and farming for a longer time. And the people who came from across the sea had horses big enough to carry a full grown man wearing armour fashioned from iron, as well as sticks that could hurl metal balls faster than the eye could see, and with a terrible thundering noise to boot. I will not elaborate on this for now, but to explain briefly the principle is similar to a sling or a bow.
The slave takers knew not of iron, only bronze, and had no horses. Worse, the men from across the sea had unknowingly carried plagues with them, and these plagues were unfamiliar to the natives and so their bodies did not know how to fight them off. There was an unimaginable loss of life.
The horses were strange and terrifying, the iron armour turned aside weapons, and the thunder-sticks could kill men from a distance with no visible cause, so the natives thought the newcomers gods, even though they were nothing of the sort.
Alone the few hundred newcomers could never have conquered an empire, but their leader saw that the slaves resented their masters greatly and persuaded them to join their armies with his, and they marched upon the great city on a lake and brought down the slave-taking sacrificers and ended their empire.
Even if the newcomers had not come, it is likely the slave-takers would have been cast down by their subjects before long. But that is not how things happened, so that is only speculation.
"And thank you, Cloud. I had not understood that the arch could be made like an egg-half. Nor had I understood that concrete could be poured over wooden forms like an egg-half to make a roof with no cut stone and no bricks. Surely there must be limits. For one, concrete does not always join with itself as well as it sits from a single pour. But with time -- and with Burgeck testing while having the idea that doing so is a step toward priesthood -- there will be understanding.
"My singers already made use of painted figures on cloth in their songs. They took to the same with the clay tablets. And when arches are understood, I will ensure that understanding is set with words and forms into clay.
"Time is reckoned in days, moons, seasons, and years. The heights of horses are not measured, that I know of. There is a weight of grain that should feed a grown person for a moon, called just that. The weight is known by its heft. There is not often call for taking the measure of these things, but lengths are measured by pace, or by rope wound hand-to-elbow.
"That is a good story, I think. And the finest lesson from it is to not have too many slaves, and that slaves should know their slavery can end without rising up. And second to those… what is this about knowing plagues? How can all the plagues be known so that all can be fought?"
"Indeed, what! If fruitfulness leads to cities than there will be cities, for the people of the Nine Nations have grown ever more fruitful since I came upon them."
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B R E A K
"I return, voices, victorious and with lesser giants as captives. We last spoke in late autumn. At your advice I did not hunt for 'the beast' alone during the winter, though I am able. Then in the spring I blessed the fields which the First Chief had told my singers were most in need -- none of which were in his own tribe's lands, to his credit. Then in summer I came to Lan and began the hunt. I found my my quarry without too much difficulty, fell on them fully, and now it is late summer and I am returned to my great house.
"I don't know why Lan didn't just say they'd been invaded to begin with. Their chieftain treated the entire matter as though I had come to sport in their lands, which you may be sure he made clear I am, of course, welcome to do. 'Strange Game' they're calling these lesser giants of the Galugr tribe.
"The people of the Nine Nations know well that the lesser giants are people, just as are the Forest People and so forth. So among the hunters who came with me are some who took bonds of service from lesser giants in exchange for sparing their lives. Hah! They'll get a lesson in the moods of the lesser giants soon enough!
"I suppose the lesser giants will learn some things, too. They have the double-gift of Leopard as do all people. It can be easy to forget that when they rage or wail or when regarding the works of their hands.
"Speaking of which, oh the looks on the faces of the mighty hunters who, with me, finally reached the camps of the lesser giants. Hah! They expected loot, as any raider would. Instead we found a smattering of things taken from Lan tribe or wherever the lesser giants had been before and a whole lot of garbage in service as tools and such.
"But Lan is no longer troubled by a 'beast' in the wilds, very few of the hunters with me were lost, some glory was won, and some honor will be gained from tales told, if not from loot distributed.
"Oh, also, I have the bond of service of one who may have been their wisest. He'll serve me for five years, which he gave in exchange for freeing his chieftess to join those who escaped. The greater part, really, that is. Even lesser giants don't fight to their deaths any more than do other people.
"So I have a wise and elder lesser giant with whom I and my singers will speak about the spirits. And he has a handful of young lesser giants as apprentices. And I have had space made for them here in the lands of my great house, so that they might endure their passions as those happen on them. Nonetheless, It is likely as not that I will have to kill at least one of them before their bonds end. There'll be fights, of course, and poor conduct. And someone will get dead and for that there will need to be justice. I know that. They know that. The free people around them should know that. But still, it is nearly inevitable.
"Unfortunately, as well as my hunt went, my First Singer Huo was not fully successful at resolving or deflecting all the calls for me that have come during my absences. Oh, they give lip service to accepting her word so long as I'm nearby. But then they come to me with what they claim is a new question but is, at best, a clever retelling of a very similar problem on which they would like my judgement or with which they would like my assistance.
"No matter. I did without a steward for a very long time and I can continue on the same.
"In better news, Mnelosy the priestess of Erweh and her companions accepted what hospitality was offered them, caused no commotion during their stay, and left with my refusal as delivered by my First Singer, who I believe they thought was a priestess to me. So that's settled at least. Or at least for now.
"Ah, I did check on the so-called beekeepers, Demon. For the most part they remain honey-takers. But with smoke they have gotten so very much more proficient at it. Now it is a matter of finding bees, searching the area for their hive, smoking them stupid, and collecting their comb.
"There are three, who do not know each other, who have learned to make hives acceptable to bees and to move bees to those hives. One actually thought to keep this a secret from me, and claimed to my singers that she was only a honey-taker. But she was not as good a liar as my singers are lie-finders. That one and one other are using overturned baskets as you described. The other hacks out logs. All three say they deal with animals by staying ahead of them with more hives, none have yet encountered bears.
"I have a singer with each of them, learning their craft so it can be made into song like any other craft. The liar has greed in her, I can tell, and would rather there be no other beekeepers but her so that she alone has the glory of bringing honey. But she knows she is beaten in this.
"Likewise, there is now a song of turning a stone wall back on itself. And my singers are teaching it to Burgeck tribe. I have set them tasks of building arches and monjolo and water wheels and my singers move among them to watch and learn. Already their brickmakers fire angled bricks from which they can make short arches for fireplaces, ovens, doorways, and lookingways.
"In this there is enthusiasm that I expect will spread to the other tribes. Already, my singers tell me, the newest stone house along roads which was built by the labor of Burgeck tribe is remarked upon by the people of other tribes. Some year soon, I think, they will come to Burgeck and say, 'You have these riches of arches and we do not. This is wrong and only you can repair it.' And then all the people will be making arches for their worth and glory.
"Their swift success will see them rewarded with another two tasks, growing hemp and keeping cats. Hah!
"One has been brought to me who says he is from a city, where he ruled in the name of that city's king while the king made merry. The city fell some few years ago, so I don't know how well he could be said to have ruled. And anyway they cut his balls off! Like an animal! This is, he has claimed, not uncommon. Kuwuzt of Zou sent raiders by boat to fulfill my desire for one who knew of the building of cities, and this 'eunuch' was taken from those who took him from the city, or from others who first took him, it matters not. They brought him to me.
"I find he thinks very much of himself. Even in rough clothing, he sits like a renowned warleader at council. He holds his head high and does not flinch at shoutings. At the same time, he is more a slave than any other.
"The eunuch told me that he lives to serve. I thought it nonsense at first, words only said for the sound of them. But, no. He expects to serve another for the rest of his life. He says it is his place in life, his 'station' even. And he means to serve me.
"Likewise he councils that certain others around him are meant for service, and should live to serve. Others, such as First Singer Huo and a certain youth who has come to try to become a singer, the eunuch claims are born to rule, even if they rule under one such as myself who is greater.
"He is good with numbers, this life-servant. And though my singers tell me he was at first confused and even frightened by the marks we use for counting and sounds, he now says that he has come to love them. The eunuch has told me how my number marks are superior to those he used when ruling in the name of a king. He says they are a marvel for the ways they work.
"Is this what you meant, you voices, when you spoke of tablet-rulers?
"The eunuch cannot sing well. Or, truly, he is not terrible. But my singers are very fine. He is perhaps as good as most who enjoy singing but could never have joined my singers. He does not love stories, either. And he knows only a few stories from his own people.
"The eunuch says I should find others like him, born to serve, and cut off their balls. He will raise them, he says, and teach them to properly serve me. What is your advice?"
[ ] [Factotum] Learn what 'meant for service' looks like, go out among the people and mark all those who should serve, giving them to the families and tribes however seems wisest
[ ] [Factotum] Select some few of those who the eunuch claims are meant to serve, mark them, and have the eunuch teach them to live in that way
[ ] [Factotum] Put the eunuch in charge of things, as he had been in the city, see what happens
[ ] [Factotum] Allow the eunuch to teach the teach the 'born-to-rule' youth, singer or no
[ ] [Factotum] Write in
"The wise one from the lesser giants as well has requests of me. He wants a place for his people to settle, to take up farming and keeping of herds. He knows he cannot make this happen in his own life, but he knows I am undying. This old one tells me he has secrets I could not take from him any other way, but that he will give me in return for my oath that I will see his people living in villages, tilling fields and pasturing beasts.
"Now, the lesser giants are not by some condition incapable of these things. There are lesser giants some way to the north who farm and shepherd and go out into the sea in very bad boats. The lesser giant elder I have thinks his tribe has some blood feud with them. Something involving stolen knives of black metal for which the others will never forgive his tribe. So they cannot join them.
"And this wise one knows the words. He has said, quietly so that none but I could hear and with shivering trepidation, 'You have so much and my family does not. This is wrong and only you can right it.' If they had come to the Lan tribe and had said that, things would have been very different, I think.
"But here we are. What say you?"
[ ] [Mendicant] Beat the secrets out of the lesser giant elder for his insolence
[ ] [Mendicant] Take the deal, get the secrets, quietly kill the lesser giant elder, ensure no one knows of the broken oath
[ ] [Mendicant] Turn down the deal
[ ] [Mendicant] Call for tribute of lesser giant bond slaves, grain, and all manner of beasts; teach agriculture and pastoralism to the lesser giants for as long as their bonds last, send them back to their tribe with the seeds and small herds; guide from a great distance
[ ] [Mendicant] Send for the Galugr tribe and settle them within the lands of the Nine Nations
[ ] [Mendicant] Write in
"A traveller has come from far away. He has one with him who speaks his language and one other, and another who speaks that language and one known to some traders from Lan tribe. He claims to know many wondrous things and has shown that he knows some magic. It is difficult to be sure anything is properly understood, with so many tongues between lips and ears.
"With him are warriors in fine brass armor, full shields, axes, and short spears. These cannot, I think, speak with each other very well. But they all understand that they should protect the man who leads the pack train, the magician, and his wares.
"The magician is not interested in trading with the people. He does not care for their wares, for the most part. There have been some tidbits traded for strange spices and fine cloth, but not many. He cares nothing for copper nor for the fine stones from the north, worked or not. He says he wants gold and silver. And he says he has heard of the greatness of my hoard and wishes to see it.
"I think this man is a thief. By taking or by trading, he means to deprive more than he provides. I am certain of it. Magician or no, I could slay him and his warriors and share his little traveling hoard with all the people until, of course, the lasting parts of it make their way back to me in tribute. But what would you suggest, voices?"
[ ] [Huckster] Take it all, deal with objections as they occur
[ ] [Huckster] Bring out gold and silver to trade, get the best bargains possible, offer no tour
[ ] [Huckster] Sell the tour for new magic tricks, make no other trades
[ ] [Huckster] Tour for spells, gold for goods, anything held for anything wanted, really
[ ] [Huckster] Host as huge a celebration as possible, try to arrange for the seduction of every person on the pack train, bring these strangers into the people
[ ] [Huckster] Write in
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Voting will close 1800 GMT 2019-03-31
Thank you all for your patience.
It's my intention to make two updates a week. As you can tell, that isn't happening this week. But there's one, so there's that. And we'll see how next week goes next week. But I would like you to expect at least one update each calendar week.
I appreciate y'all's enthusiasm and especially the way you use bold headings to improve readability in your longer posts. This makes it a lot easier for me to sort through them while replying.
There are a great many choices of much impact.
We have three outsider who could be useful, but if we favor them overmuch then there will be trouble with the tribes.
We must answer for each;
How much should Bianca value what they can give her.
How much should Bianca value what they desire in return.
What is the Opportunity Cost?
When you take an action, the opportunity cost is the value of all your other possible choices. As a recent example, consider your attack upon the giants. Your direct cost was all the time and effort of gathering the hunter, the spirits, armor, and weapons. But your opportunity cost was all the things you could have done instead. You could have spent all your time ensuring the harvest. You could have gained, over the course of a lifetime, tribute from all those hunters who died. You could have disappeared into the wilds and spent a season carving rocks into phallic shapes. How much you value all the things you could have done instead, that is the opportunity cost.
[Factotum]
I am unsure. He could be a good way to start up an order of scribes. I don't like most of the available options. Will have to revisit.
[Mendicant]
This could backfire horribly. I almost want to just refuse and leave them be. We have no idea if his "secrets" will be of any use. He could well die before we get them. The tribes could give some massive backlash from this. And the high "Passions" might not lend well to future city life.
[Huckster]
I think it would be "Interesting" (not necessarily best) to send him away with tales of our riches to attract more traders, but that hinges on him having useful trades. The seduction idea sounds hilarious. But how can we modify it to account for the obvious failure modes?
Code of Life
Children are similar to their parents. Not just among the Peoples, but among all life great and small, plant or animal. Some rare plants and the very smallest animals have only one parent, but the majority have two. I tell you now that these similarities are not merely skin deep. In fact, all living things possess a set of instructions that dictate their growth. To clarify, these instructions do not, and cannot, dictate the precise position of every hair upon the body, or every minor vessel of blood within. Instead, they contain the patterns from which such features are derived. For instance in almost all animals the color of hair / fur is determined by balance of only two substances.
Smallest Life
Return again to analogy of the human and the spider. There exist living things that are to the spider as the spider is to the human. As the human is to the God. It does not go on forever though, The smallest thing that can be considered life is at most one more iteration of as the human unto the god. Now consider that all large life is made up of a community of this smallest life. I understand that this is a challenging concept, not least because the smallest life cannot be directly seen, not even by the Eagle god. This arises due the subtle natures of light which we have not yet covered. Suffice to say that it is impossible for light to form a clear image of objects below a certain size.
Reproduction
Earlier I stated that smallest life has only a single parent. To elaborate, once a smallest life grows large enough it is capable of splitting in half, or sometimes quarters. It is in this way that a new plant or animal grows with each smallest life containing a full copy of the instructions of life. Now you may be wondering how reproduction with two parents takes place. Well, the male and female each have highly specialized forms of smallest life for the job. The male provides a copy of its life instructions, which the female combines at random with its own before beginning the process of growing and splitting. Thus each animal and plant begins as a singular smallest life and grows from there.
Passing of Traits
Knowing all this, you may wonder why offspring are not always a clear combination of their parents. Sometimes this is because of their life circumstance; one who is naturally tall may still end up short if they eat poorly as a child. But often, this is because traits do not mix as easily as honey and water. A dominant trait may suppress a weaker one, but the weak trait is still there, waiting for the right random combination to reveal itself in future generations. For instance, we know of a weak trait which makes one likely to get weakening sickness of the blood, but almost immune to a deadly sickness of the lungs. Thus when the sickness of the lungs is running wild, many of those with the stronger trait will die. Those few who would normally be unlucky enough to have the weak trait will survive, and their children will be more likely to have the weak trait .
I believe the other voices have spoken before of germs, or as they are also known, microbes, and explained that is what causes disease.
What they may not have mentioned before is this; that the human body has an army of defenders, and when microbes invade the body through wounds or one of the body's openings, such as the mouth, nose, etc, these defenders will rally to fight off the foreign invasion and eliminate these microbes before they can cause undue harm, much like the Nine Nations would raise its warriors to fight off the attacks of a foreign tribe.
Now consider; suppose if you took some chariots to raid some far off tribe. Suppose this tribe had never seen chariots or horses before. Their warriors would be confused and perhaps frightened by an unfamiliar sight, and they would not know how best to fight. But suppose you stopped raiding when the harvest season came, and only resumed the raids come the next season. By this time, the tribe would be aware of the danger of chariots, and know of some ways to counter and fight them. Assuming you had not wounded them greviously, they would be prepared, when your warriors came again, and would mount a much more effective defence this time around.
It is the same with the defenders of the body and microbes. When strange new microbes invade the body to wreak harm, the defenders must first learn how to fight this new enemy. Once it has done so, this knowledge is stored for future attacks, and the body now knows how to produce the weapons and warriors it needs to fight these microbes should they invade again.
As an aside, this is why children sicken more easily than adults; their body's defences are inexperienced, and many diseases are unfamiliar to them, so they cannot fight off attacks as effectively.
Now consider that a completely unfamiliar disease, caused by microbes the body has never dealt with before, suddenly appears. If the attack is small and weak enough, even though the attackers are unfamiliar the defenders will be able to fend them off, and from thei attack it will learn how to fight them best in future.
But faced with a new and extremely lethal type of microbe, like the ones that caused the devastating plagues I mentioned? There was no chance to learn how to fight off these new enemied; the strange microbes perplexed and overwhelmed defences that did not know how to combat them. And there were many different types of microbes that the natives' bodies were unfamiliar with, so even fairly harmless sicknesses turned highly lethal when faced with unprepared defences.
There is a way to prepare the body against unfamiliar invasions of microbes; you must introduce a weakened version of the microbe you wish to protect against into the blood vessels, for that is where the vast majority of the body's defenders reside. The defenders should be able to deal with these microbes since they have been largely neutered already, but they will still learn and remember. So if there are any future incursions of that type of microbe, it will be fought off and destroyed without much difficulty. We call this technique vaccination.
That said, I must stress that the implementation of vaccination is quite complex, and likely far beyond your people at this time. For now, I will provide practical advice. If a plague appears and is killing a large number of its victims, the sufferers should be quarantined, and if they succumb you will likely want to burn their corpses, as extreme heat destroys microbes reliably.
Furthermore, as microbes can only enter the body through orifices or wounds that break the skin, covering up these will help to reduce the spread of infection. Minimize contact with the bodily fluids of the infected. Pus, blood, saliva and sexual fluids can often contain the harmful microbes and any who have contact with the sick should avoid getting these fluids in their mouth, eyes, nose or wounds, lest they invite the disease into their body as well. Sexual contact should be avoided. Sharing of food should be avoided if it would lead to the sharing of saliva. Healers should wear protective clothing such as face masks, gloves and robes while they tend to the sick, and either wash this clothing thoroughly with soap or dispose of it by burning afterwards. Tools used in surgery should be treated with heat to thoroughly sterilize them after use.
That said, these measures should normally not be needed for dealing with common illnesses, since the body already knows how to fight off most of these.
This is Black Cat, Great Undying One.
It's a pleasure to talk with you, as always.
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men.
There is also excellent lesser advice, whispered by one of the other voices, and I shall cite these words because I'm not sure whether he is strong enough be heard: "take only willing people (from willing families) to not get discord among your tribes over children taken against their will. Make it a honor to be selected and see that they learn things like numbers and writing. I am not sure what the eunuch plans to teach them, but maybe have a singer follow the classes so that you know what is taught. Remember to choose both women and men even if the eunuch would protest."
[X] [Huckster] Tour for spells, gold for goods, anything held for anything wanted, really.
Trade is valuable, and we need more traders to freely come here with their goods. Do you remember what I said about value? He may own things that are more interesting to you than to him, and you may own things that are more interesting to him than to you. Trade can benefit both people, even when both of these people are greedy. But show him somehow that you are powerful and he needs to always trade peacefully, as it's not possible to steal from you and live. Also, try to make him interested not only in silver and gold but also in soap and strong alcohol.
Also, his warriors. Why they protect him, I feel curious? Are these warriors mercenaries? That is, warriors given some wealth, somewhat like soldiers, but used by a trader or far-away ruler and not by the King or God of their own people?
[X] [Mendicant] Call for tribute of lesser giant bond slaves, grain, and all manner of beasts; teach agriculture and pastoralism to the lesser giants for as long as their bonds last, send them back to their tribe with the seeds and small herds; guide from a great distance.
Lesser giants and wisdom of their elders sounds useful, but to allow their settlement in the core territories of your realm - this could sow great discord. They also sound like even less well-suited for a future city life than your people.
[X] [Cacophony] liberty90
These were the most pressing matters, so let's return to lesser things...
Monjolo is a great idea, congratulations to my fellow Voices, but if you want to have other machines powered by water, for example, a powerful saw used to easily cut wood, then you need more complicated water wheel.
In regards to the crop rotation: try to replace fallow with clover.
Nitrogen in the air is not bad for humans, nor animals. Too much carbon dioxide and, for example, various poisons produced in fires - these are problematic.
I imagine that having a pit for human waste around the home could be highly convenient, especially with a small structure around to protect users from rain and snow. No need for unhealthy, full of germs and smelly bucket with waste inside, and no need to go too far outside and to defecate while wet from rain. Far enough from any water wells, but not too far from the home. And as I said before, flies wouldn't be able to move germs from one place to another, not with a solid piece of wood placed on the pit opening when not in use. I strongly advise for the creation of these pits for human waste, protected from rain and with more comfort provided by a small and simple wooden structure around. These places can be called "outhouses", places where you go out of your house to do, well, you know what. But it's true that even more complicated things, like sewers, are more essential for places with more people around.
Armed Forces are also somewhat like raising one tribe over others, but better, slower, and with some luck and skill tribes wouldn't truly understand what is slowly happening. Also: Armed Forces would obey you more than one raised tribe, because soldiers would depend on your authority more, with oaths to you, and with wealth from you. A number of soldiers could be increased very slowly, with observation what works, instead of raising one tribe over all others suddenly and violently. They could be used for conquests when you decide, not any King. You could use any suitable warriors, without restriction to one tribe or another. Obviously, such solution can cause discord, but these benefits are much greater.
Given that you considered raising one tribe over another I see no reason to not strongly consider the Armed Forces instead, as the slower and more careful way, with various additional benefits.
You can start slowly, carefully, without having too many soldiers or giving them too much wealth at first, you can try to limit discord. Make people slowly consider this as normal, see what works to motivate soldiers, and only then expand your Armed Forces.
Maybe I was slightly wrong about motivating with greed and stories about greatness and honour of soldiers could be better. On the other hand, soldiers need the finest weapons, armor and perhaps the most diverse food to be the most useful. They exist to be better than usual warriors after all.
If you understand how raising one tribe over other tribes could offer more power, then you should understand how slowly raising Armed Forces over usual warriors of the tribes could offer more power. And I believe that this can be a much better way. Let tribes remain equal but less and less important and preferably more and more similar.
Another idea: you can slowly start to call your land "Empire of United Nations", or really anything that could be still used when you conquer more. I'm not good at names. But in the "Nine Nations" there is a number that should be constantly changed after any additions to the number of tribes, and this is inconvenient. You need to conquer for more power, and we now know how to make roads and minor bridges to transport tribute more easily and to allow your warriors or soldiers to move where they need to move.
Some of the new tribute could flow not only to you, but also to the victorious Army, or to these tribes that were useful during your conquest. Thanks to this many of your soldiers or people could like conquests. Roads should be extended to these new territories, and then conquest should happen again, and your land should steadily grow until you encounter something too dangerous or useless.
You would need to control and extract tribute from the newly conquered tribes with the Army at first, but then you could slowly explain to conquered people why you are better than all other Gods or Kings and why they shouldn't fight against you anymore: people need to pay tribute, but you are so wise! There is nobody with more wisdom than you, as you can teach them black soil, soap, arches and many other marvels that would make them better off conquered than free! After a generation or two, they should understand.
Always explain to people that truly good life, changes for the better (with so many of our new ideas it's better to promote changes for the better than permanence) and wisdom are truly possible only under your rule. When people argue, remind them about black soil, arches, and many other things. Make songs about that.
This is called propaganda. Use of cunning words and talking about these things that show how great and wise you are. Propaganda is the best when there are no outright lies, or not too many lies, but only good things about the ruler are said. "Without the wisdom of the Great Undying One there is less food, people are dirty, houses collapse, and children painfully die from hunger" - this is a great example of propaganda. Thanks to use of our recent ideas it's even the best propaganda: mostly true propaganda.
Never kill all people who can write and read, reading and written records are too important. As you can see, we were right and there truly are meek people with minds of slaves. Such people are bad warriors, but extremely useful in many other ways. When somebody tries to use writing against you, kill that person and their supporters, not everyone who can write. Many meek table-rulers, traders, and people will support you regardless.
There are ways to make people believe that village tablet-rulers are useful for their families, despite mainly writing for you. I advise you as I usually advise: give them a small number of pretty things, and their family should also benefit. If you fear discord (as I can now understand better), then make the whole village believe that they benefit from your table-ruler in such a fashion, more than they would benefit from one more person doing usual work.
Cutting off balls sounds better as severe punishment than as something needed for table-rulers. Maybe you could persuade people to cut off balls of criminals sometimes, instead of making them completely useless with a severe beating and thus wasting potential labor? Throw people to the winter or outright kill them only if they persist in their bad ways even without balls. Also, of course, criminals can be used to experiment with the human body, and some of these experiments can cause death... So maybe useless beatings and useless deaths could be completely abolished? There is a need for punishments, but no need to simply waste lives of these that steal or murder, you can use even them.
About coins - I now understand that these may be badly suited to usual life in your society, at least for now, but if you ever encounter foreign traders more interested in the weight of the metal than fancy decorations - then reconsider. If somebody wants to make bronze from your copper anyway, then "coins" of equal weight could be practical for such a person, more than unrefined ore or fancy things made out of copper.
You said: "The gold figure which Va of Lan clutched as he died, years back, was melted down and remade into a fine scepter cap. Along with the rest of the fine scepter, it then joined my tribute hoard." The question is, do you need a fine scepter cap? Much more work was wasted to produce that than a few simple coins with stamped weight, I'm pretty sure. It's much easier to make simple coins of equal weight, and then you know how much metal you exactly have when you want to melt metal for something truly needed.
If you are not sure whether fine golden scepter would be ever useful and it may be well melted into something else after ten years, then better store simple coins instead of wasting more skilled labor to create a fine scepter.
Also, maybe coins could be useful to pay foreign mercenaries someday?
One wheel of the wheelbarrow should be at the front. The rear end is raised by the user with two - firmly attached to the wheelbarrow - sticks called handles. Then push wheelbarrow where you want. As I said, wheelbarrows are small and good for work, not travel.
A piece of small advice about writing: it's good to use a separate symbol for the end of a sentence, and use small empty spaces between words. Things should be then slightly easier to read.
In regards to trade language, mentioned a long time ago, I wanted to slowly reduce confusion, not increase. Make one logical and simple language more and more important, for writing and trade at first, so that other ones are very slowly less and less used. Slowly reduce confusion, increase unity. Instead of imposing one tribe over another suddenly. You can also use existing tongue that is the best suited for that.
Usually, not always but usually, men are stronger and thus better as warriors than women, better with clubs or axes. But both men and women share equal mind and abilities to learn, so maybe people could use women as horse-riders until horses are bigger? Not that boys could be prohibited from doing that, they surely love horse-riding, but maybe women could do this longer, even when fully grown.
In regards to the sand water filter, obviously place this sand in some sort of a big stone or concrete container, with water outlet at the bottom.
Scissors are tools for cutting hair, rope, cloth and shearing sheep. Scissors are hand-operated shearing tools. A pair of scissors consists of a pair of metalblades pivoted so that the sharpened edges slide against each other when the handles opposite to the pivot are closed.
A buttress is a structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall.
The flying buttress is a specific form of buttress composed of an arch that extends from the upper portion of a wall to a pier of great mass, in order to convey to the ground the lateral forces that push a wall outwards, which are forces that arise from vaulted ceilings of stone and from wind-loading on roofs.
Machines...
Definition: A pump is a machine which moves a liquid from one place to another, often upwards.
A screw pump is a machine used for transferring water from a low-lying body of water into irrigation ditches. Water is pumped by turning a screw-shaped surface inside a pipe.
The screw pump consists of a screw (screw is a spirally grooved surface surrounding a central rod/stick) inside a hollow pipe.
Do you understand what "spiral" means? Like... I don't know how to explain... Like snake wrapped around the stick, such snake can be also said to be "spirally wrapped", though this is a pretty bad comparison.
The screw can be turned by manual labor, or cattle, or wind power but we shall explain wind power in the future. As the screw turns the bottom end scoops up a volume of water. This water is then pushed up the pipe by the rotating screw until it pours out from the top of the pipe.
A screw can be built out of wood strips (or occasionally bronze sheeting) around a heavy wooden pole. A pipe can be built around the screw using long, narrow wooden boards fastened to their periphery and waterproofed with pitch.
The contact surface between the screw and the pipe does not need to be perfectly watertight, as long as the amount of water being scooped with each turn is large compared to the amount of water leaking out of each section of the screw per turn. If water from one section leaks into the next lower one, it will be transferred upwards by the next segment of the screw.
Archimedes screw, Wikipedia, heavily modified and simplified, with some new words and sentences added, as is usually the case
Roads and trade...
Maps. A map is a symbolic representation of land on a flat surface, clay tablet, stone, leather, whatever. For example, decide that there is a symbol for a village, lines symbolize roads, and size of average human finger symbolize distance that average healthy human can cross during one day on a decent and level road. These are obviously only examples that need to be changed and modified to better serve your needs. Now, you can make your map of some territory on a clay tablet, a picture that shows where villages are, where roads are, and how much distance may be between these. You can also include rivers, hills or whatever you like; also some written words, names of places and numbers if pictures are not enough. Maps are especially useful to traders and travelers.
There are much better ways to make maps, but I think that at first simple one is needed.
Road signs are signs erected at the side of roads to give instructions or provide information to road users. For example, writing that says "River left, hills right" and is carved on a big piece of wood where two roads meet, is an example of a road sign that helps people to understand where they are. Road signs may use pictures instead of words or both.
Road signs can be used to reassure travelers that the proper path is being followed, and to indicate for example remaining distance to the nearest destination. It's the best to use the same pictures or words everywhere to indicate the same things, then there should be less confusion.
For the same reason, roads may have assigned numbers, represented properly on maps and road signs.
How many rivers do you have? Do you use sails, big pieces of cloth that can catch wind when there is good wind, to help with moving boats? I know that cloth is expensive, but this is very useful. Deep and wide rivers stop roads and probably are impassable by bridges that you could create, but at the same time can be like a free giant road for big boats.
The calendar is a written tool for organizing days and years. People use calendars to say when something happened, and for planning things that have not happened yet. The calendar gives the days and years numbers, called calendar dates. By knowing what day something happened or will happen (if it's something planned, or something that happens every year), people have an easier life. Knowing how many days from now season would start for crops is very useful for farmers and people who eat. Knowing year number is very useful for written records. Obviously you should decide about some sort of starting number, maybe introduction of the calendar can be the year ONE.
If your world is like the world that I had seen in my dreams and know about, then one year should be composed out of between 365 and 366 days. This is inconvenient, but to be sure that seasons can be predicted properly with use of your calendar, you can have common years at 365 days, and then special 366 days year from time to time, probably once per every four years... if your world is similar enough to my wisdom and dreams about different worlds, of course.
More details about the human body... The nervous system is the part of human or an animal that coordinates its actions by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system derives its name from nerves, which are bundles of fibers, that emanate from the brain and spinal cord, and branch repeatedly to innervate every part of the body. Thanks to nerves humans and animals can move their body, hands or legs without magic. I think that magic and spirits have no need for nerves, but I have no proper wisdom about magic and spirits. Nervous system damaged below brain can cause parts of the body, for example legs, to be still alive but useless - unless there are magical ways to bypass that, but magic is unknown to me. There is no mundane cure that would be known to me.
IRON. Yes, iron. Finally more about iron.
Iron oxides are chemical compounds composed of iron and oxygen.
Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red.
A bloomery is a type of furnace once used widely for smelting iron from its oxides.
A bloomery's product is a porous mass of iron and slag called a bloom, which is usually consolidated and further forged into useful wrought iron.
Definition, forging - heating something in a fire or furnace and hammering it.
A bloomery consists of a pit or chimney with heat-resistant walls made of earth, clay, or stone. Near the bottom, one or more pipes (made of clay) enter through the side walls. These pipes, called tuyeres, allow air to enter the furnace, either by natural draught, or forced with bellows. An opening at the bottom of the bloomery may be used to remove the bloom, or the bloomery can be tipped over and the bloom removed from the top.
The first step taken before the bloomery can be used is the preparation of the charcoal and the iron ore. The charcoal - as you know - is produced by heating wood to produce the nearly pure carbon fuel needed for the smelting process. The ore is broken into small pieces and usually roasted in a fire to remove any moisture in the ore. Any large impurities in the ore can be crushed and removed. Since slag from previous blooms may have a high iron content, it can also be broken up and recycled into the bloomery with the new ore.
In operation, the bloomery is preheated by burning charcoal, and once hot, iron ore and additional charcoal are introduced through the top, in a roughly one-to-one ratio. Inside the furnace, carbon monoxide from the incomplete combustion of the charcoal reduces the iron oxides in the ore to metallic iron, without melting the ore; this allows the bloomery to operate at lower temperatures than the melting temperature of the ore. As the desired product of a bloomery is iron which is easily forgeable, it requires a low carbon content. The temperature and ratio of charcoal to iron ore must be carefully controlled to keep the iron from absorbing too much carbon and thus becoming unforgeable.
Rust. Rust is an iron oxide, a usually red oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the presence of water or air moisture. Given sufficient time, oxygen, and water, any iron mass will eventually convert entirely to rust and disintegrate. In this one way iron is worse than bronze, but may be still very useful.
Glass: you can melt sand with great heat to create glass, that can be then formed into interesting shapes when hot. Glass is not very useful at first, but can be pretty and valued by people and traders. Things made out of glass are weak and can be easily destroyed, but can be pretty and are strong enough to be used as decorations or cups.
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble with the aid of a blowpipe.
Finally, I would like to share with you idea for a simple, useful tool for your tablet-rulers and singers. The multiplication table. Imagine that you own 6 slaves. You want to travel and need 8 pieces of bread for each of your slaves. How many pieces of bread do you need? The answer is obviously 48. But how any person that barely knows numbers could answer such a question easily? The multiplication table.
Carve on the wood the following numbers, so that one row of numbers is directly under another:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And underneath:
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20. And underneath:
3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30. And underneath:
4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40. And underneath:
5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50. And underneath:
6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60. And underneath:
7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 70. And underneath:
8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 72, 80. And underneath:
9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90. And underneath:
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100.
You can now easily see all common multiplication patterns on your piece of wood, and thus there is no need to memorize these patterns. In fact, you could make your table even bigger. It's possible to also have a table for addition, you should be able to figure out one easily enough.
Wikipedia, Simple Wikipedia
Adhoc vote count started by liberty90 on Mar 29, 2019 at 11:26 AM, finished with 20 posts and 5 votes.
[X] [Factotum] Select some few of those who the eunuch claims are meant to serve, mark them, and have the eunuch teach them to live in that way
[X] [Mendicant] Call for tribute of lesser giant bond slaves, grain, and all manner of beasts; teach agriculture and pastoralism to the lesser giants for as long as their bonds last, send them back to their tribe with the seeds and small herds; guide from a great distance
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men.
[x] [Mendicant] Send for the Galugr tribe and settle them within the lands of the Nine Nations [x] [Huckster] Write in: Show enough to get interest and trade some, but don't show all and trade with patience
Adhoc vote count started by liberty90 on Mar 29, 2019 at 1:28 PM, finished with 31 posts and 6 votes.
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men.
[X] [Mendicant] Call for tribute of lesser giant bond slaves, grain, and all manner of beasts; teach agriculture and pastoralism to the lesser giants for as long as their bonds last, send them back to their tribe with the seeds and small herds; guide from a great distance
[x] [Mendicant] Send for the Galugr tribe and settle them within the lands of the Nine Nations [x] [Huckster] Write in: Show enough to get interest and trade some, but don't show all and trade with patience
Adhoc vote count started by liberty90 on Mar 29, 2019 at 4:16 PM, finished with 31 posts and 6 votes.
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men.
[X] [Mendicant] Call for tribute of lesser giant bond slaves, grain, and all manner of beasts; teach agriculture and pastoralism to the lesser giants for as long as their bonds last, send them back to their tribe with the seeds and small herds; guide from a great distance
[x] [Mendicant] Send for the Galugr tribe and settle them within the lands of the Nine Nations [x] [Huckster] Write in: Show enough to get interest and trade some, but don't show all and trade with patience
Hi! I will be adding detailed instructions on how to make tread from plant fiber (on flex not hemp as that is what i know of but the process is bacically the same.
I will also add some toughts about improoving the ice house (that does not have to be dogged into the ground) and if i have time something about making candles
Consider my Factotum write-in. There is no reason to copy castration of table-rulers, or to destroy some basic gender equality, that exists in our tribal society.
That said, these measures should normally not be needed for dealing with common illnesses, since the body already knows how to fight off most of these.
I shall now talk loudly with whispers of my fellow Voices.
One of Voices said or wants to say, after a pretty good explanation of killing germs: "That said, these measures should normally not be needed for dealing with common illnesses, since the body already knows how to fight off most of these". Not true. Many children and older people die from common illnesses. Adults weakened by wounds or scurvy can easily die from common illnesses.
And sterilization of tools used during surgery is, in fact, needed always.
[] [Mendicant] Send for the Galugr tribe and settle them within the lands of the Nine Nations
[] [Huckster] Don't show him your hoard but accept to trade with him in gold and silver, see what he has to offer you and do you or your people truly need his products. No use in trade if he doesn't have anything to offer you as that is only throwing money away.
[X] [Huckster] Don't show him your hoard but accept to trade with him in gold and silver, see what he has to offer you and do you or your people truly need his products. No use in trade if he doesn't have anything to offer you as that is only throwing money away.
Showing him her hoard is a way to show the civilised world and many other traders that there is more than barbarians here.
Adhoc vote count started by liberty90 on Mar 30, 2019 at 8:31 PM, finished with 45 posts and 14 votes.
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men.
[X] [Mendicant] Call for tribute of lesser giant bond slaves, grain, and all manner of beasts; teach agriculture and pastoralism to the lesser giants for as long as their bonds last, send them back to their tribe with the seeds and small herds; guide from a great distance
[X] [Huckster] Host as huge a celebration as possible, try to arrange for the seduction of every person on the pack train, bring these strangers into the people
[x] [Mendicant] Send for the Galugr tribe and settle them within the lands of the Nine Nations [x] [Huckster] Write in: Show enough to get interest and trade some, but don't show all and trade with patience
"Wild cats are small, smaller than the lynx for certain. I do not know what you mean by a social nature. How can beasts be social? Do you mean in the manner of wolves, which live and hunt together? Cats do not do that. I think they must come together to fuck, surely. And for the time of rearing a mother tolerates her young. But otherwise cats are not seen in each others company.
But, yes, I can see how the late taking of kits may be partial cause for the failure, so far, to make agreeable cats. Adjustments will be made as suggested and what follows, follows.
Yes, in the manner of wolves, and of lions, and of the dolphins, and humans themselves and other creatures. They have the capability to live together in groups, and display social behaviours like grooming each other or caring for the young of others. The largest benefit of social living is possibly that of social learning, which allows members of a group to teach others how to better get food or warn of dangers, without needing to resort to laborious and often lethal trial and error.
Social Cats:
At first glance, cats other than lions may appear to be solitary creatures, but under certain circumstances, such as good food availability, the need for shelter, or the need for mutual protection, cats will naturally congregate into groups, and as a result, have the capacity to be socialized to live in human groups.
"The very idea of language of the body is of interest. I suppose I knew, of course, that faces speak as well as voices do. And shoulders and the direction of feet speak also. So too an animal says this or that with their head high or low. But calling it language is… I think we may have spoken so in the time before my confinement. And perhaps there are some hunters now who talk of the languages of beasts. But I do not think it was ever said to be the language of the body specifically. And further if the language of the body of cats is obvious it is not obvious to me. When they would fend off they yowl and spit. When they fear they run. I think you mean something more than that.
There seems to be two separate topics that you have touched on in your discussion of body language. I will talk about both of them.
Body Language and non-Verbal sounds as Social Cues
To humans, body language provides important subtext to conversation, a hidden layer that their conscious minds often don't even register, although it is has a large effect on the conversation. Tricks developed because being able to communicate well with each other is an advantage. Eye-contact, smiling, frowning, crying, the set of the shoulders, laughing, the set of the legs and arms, even more probably, are all non-verbal cues to help communicate the mood of the first person, and arouse reactions in the other members of his group. If a child is crying, this easily and immediately communicates to their caretakers that something is wrong, even before the child learns how to speak, for example.
This can also be seen in dogs, that you might be more familiar with than cats. The wagging of the tail, the puffing up of the back hair, the ears going flat against the head, growling. A dog looks different when it wants to play compared to when it is ready to defend itself.
Cat Body Language:
There are several factors to take note of with the body language of cat. The tail, the ears, the eyes, the cat's stance and pose, and their orientation towards you. Avoid too much direct eye contact with a cat, as this is seen as a threatening gesture, and, unlike dogs, they usually do not want to have their bellies rubbed when they roll onto their back and display them.
General Mood:
Neutral (Relaxed)
This is how a cat should spend most of their waking hours, and is a vital part of cat language – relaxed, content and comfortable in familiar surroundings. They should look like they're content to watch the world go by.
Signs of neutral cat behaviour
If lying down, they could be stretched out, curled up into a ball, or lying on their front with paws neatly tucked underneath them.
Their eyes might be blinking softly, or half closed.
Their ears will be relaxed, held casually upright and forward – although they could swivel around independently if listening to things around them.
Their whiskers will be relaxed, away from the sides of their face, and they may almost appear to smile.
Their body has no tension to suggest they might be about to spring into action.
Focused
If a cat is concentrating on a small, moving object, or on something new in their immediate area, you'll notice that their body language will change as they try to work out how to best respond to it.
Signs of focused cat behaviour
Their eyes will be open with pupils narrowed.
Their ears and whiskers will be pricked forward, with their body angled towards the focus of their attention.
Their body might be low to the ground as they stalk, with hind legs coiled under their body.
Cat's tail language will show focus by being held out low behind them. The end of their tail, along with their hindquarters, might be twitching as they get ready to pounce. This is one of the more obvious cat tail signs to look out for – once you see it, you'll know they're hunting.
If the object of their focus is you, for example if they're trying to get food or strokes, they might rub against you with tail held in the air.
Happy
A happy cat is easy to recognise – you should be able to pick up their cat body language easily. This is the state you'll want a cat to be in as much as possible.
Signs of happy cat behaviour
When sitting, a cat will be relaxed and upright, with ears pointed up and forward, but relaxed, sometimes swivelling gently towards familiar sounds like voices.
When lying down, they may have their paws tucked neatly underneath them, or be lying stretched out on their side or even on their back, with legs spread outwards, which shows they are very happy!
They may snooze with their eyes closed or half open, or look heavy-lidded – almost like they are daydreaming at times! If they blink very slowly, try blinking slowly back to show you're relaxed too – this mimicking behaviour is a great way to bond with a cat.
Whiskers will be relaxed and their tail still – or held high with a slight curl if they're standing to say hello to you.
If you stroke a cat, their eyes may close in contentment and they will gently purr.
Anxious
Cats can be very sensitive, especially to change. It can take some time for cats to settle after unexpected changes, so learning to read the symptoms of anxious cat behaviour can help you help a cat back to a relaxed state. The sooner you recognise this in a cat's body language, the sooner you can offer a reassuring stroke when they approach you for reassurance. Give a cat 2-3 days after any big change to become accustomed to it, and to return to normal.
Signs of anxious cat behaviour
Cat eyes will be open and not blinking, with pupils dilated into an oval or circle.
Their ears might move from their relaxed forward position to scan for more information, swivelling around independently from each other. If they are very anxious, they may even flatten back to their head.
Their head will begin to lower, with whiskers pulled back to the side to appear small and non-threatening – or even be swept forward on alert.
As anxiety increases, cats might start to cower, or their back might arch to prepare to run.
Cat tail language is very important here – their tail might be still or moving slowly side to side at the tip, which is a sign of anxiety. If you see this distinctive cat tail sign, make sure to offer some reassurance.
Fearful
Anxious cat behaviour might be subtle, but when a cat is afraid, it should be easier to spot – if they're scared by something such as loud noises, the cat won't be reassured by a stroke. Their body language is telling you that they're frightened, and it will only return to normal when they feel safe. Try not to move quickly to try and comfort them, as you could be seen as another threat. Instead, remove anything that could be causing their fear if you can, and wait for them to calm down.
Symptoms of fearful cat behaviour
Cat ears will be flattened back against their head, which might be lowered with gaze angled upwards.
They may run away, or stand or crouch very still if this isn't possible.
Their eyes will be open very wide, with pupils fully dilated and whiskers flattened or bristling.
They may hiss or spit at close threats, growl or strike with claws out.
Some cats will straighten their front legs to make themselves look taller, or arch their backs and fluff themselves up to look bigger.
They will stands sideways to the threat, also to make themselves look bigger.
Their tail may be held under their body, or be slashing vigorously from side to side.
Frustrated
Cats might be actively frustrated at a short-term specific event, like not being able to reach their favourite toy, or be affected by longer-term, more depressive frustration at a lack of stimulation.
Symptoms of frustrated cat behaviour
An actively frustrated cat usually focuses intently on their object of frustration, and will try everything they can do to get what they want.
All their senses are tuned onto their goal – eyes will be wide open with pupils dilated, ears forward, and whiskers forward-pointing and spread.
They may pace impatiently if they can't get to what they want.
Cats can't maintain this frustration forever, so if they can't get what they want, they will either give up, or in some cases enter into a longer-term frustration or even depression, depending on the source of their frustration.
Cats with longer-term depression may often be lethargic, off their food and won't want to play or interact with others.
Angry
If a cat displays angry behaviour, one must tread carefully. Always avoid provoking an angry cat - don't stare or shout at them, or make sudden movements, and avoid trying to touch or comfort them as they may interpret this as an added threat and lash out. Instead, retreat slowly, remove any threats if it's safe to do so and give a cat time and space to calm down.
Symptoms of angry cat behaviour
An angry cat will be rigid, with tail held out stiff and straight or curled around and under their body.
They will act very differently from usual – they could be silent, hissing, spitting or growling.
They will try to look large and threatening, with fur erect, stiff front legs, or crouching in a threatening manner.
Their ears will be tense, and flat back against their head, and whiskers will be stiff away from their face.
Their eyes will be hard and focussed. Their pupils may be narrowed, although some cats might have round, unblinking eyes.
Relieved
When an angry, scared or frustrated cat feels reassured that the perceived threat has gone, they will likely start to act relieved. Just as it's important to recognise when they are feeling angry or frightened, learning to tell when a cat is relieved is key to helping them feel like their normal, relaxed selves again.
Symptoms of relieved cat behaviour
A cat's whole body can show relief – some cats even make a full-body stretch to release tension.
Their eyes, ears, head, body and tail will all visibly relax.
Whiskers will return to a calm, position away from the face, and their head will lower.
Some may yawn, turn away and half-close their eyes, or even have a good wash.
Sign Language:
It is possible to create a language to communicate between people through their bodies, without using voices or sound. This is known as sign language. Primarily using the hands and arms, a variety of unique gestures or signs can be created and combined together into a proper language, useful when silent communication is needed, like in battle or on a hunt, or to communicate with people who are deaf, those who cannot hear, either because they were born that way, lost their hearing with advanced age, or through some sort of injury or illness.
Hours and Shadow-Clock
Take a day as the period from one midnight, to the next midnight, the middle of the night. Now divide this day period into twenty-four equal portions. Each of these twenty-four time periods is an hour. That is what I mean when I speak of an hour. A week is seven days. A fortnight is two weeks, originating from a way to say fourteen nights. A month is a period of roughly thirty days or four weeks. A year is twelve months, or roughly three hundred and sixty days.
The passing of time can be measured during the day by making a circular shape on a flat surface or against a wall, with markings for more or less ten hours of the day and the two hours of twilight, with a long stick in the middle or at the top, with the movement of the shadow of the central stick indicating the passing of time. Various configurations are possible and experimentation is encouraged.
As the light of the sun will vary over the seasons, this can to an extent also be used to track the year with more elaborate and larger designs
"The cattle which grow in years of wanting are smaller than those which grow in years of plenty. And this happens also with the growing of people. I would like the people to know more of what should be eaten to grow strong, as that makes them better warriors and workers both.
Diet
Meat, fish, eggs, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, fishbones or milk and a small amount of salt should cover most of the dietary needs of humans. Grains are good for preventing starvation and do have several useful nutrients, but will not alone make humans grow big and strong. By far the easiest way to make sure humans are getting everything they need, is to increase the variety of their diet. This also helps to prevent famine, as if they have multiple sources of food, there is less chance that all the sources will have poor harvests in a particular year.
Multiple crops, fruit trees, berry bushes, and fishing would all be important components in ensuring that your people eat what they need.
You may now better understand why many of the voices have been in favour of increasing the dietary variety of your people.
"The people find stone that is yellow when broken. But when it is drawn against pottery the mark is murky green, as the stone itself becomes some time after breaking. Such stone and the stone around and within it often contain copper. There are others, dark stone in particular, but I know less of them.
Copper Ores
I believe you are using the ore Chalcopyrite. It does not contain arsenic. It contains sulphur which is probably being partially released as a poisonous gas during smelting, and it contains iron, but not in a form that is easy to extract. There are probably better iron ores available to you. There are several dark ores that contain copper, so I couldn't say with surety which ones the Nine People are using. More information would be required.
It may be possible to decrease the harm among your smelters by having them wear cloth-masks soaked in water over their nose and mouth while working, these cloths should be discarded after one use, as they have probably become acidic from the sulphur gas reacting with the water.
"If I do not know these scently plants how may I acquire them? The people do use some wild herbs for medicine and to flavor their cooking. And some plants grown in those small plots first came to the people by trade, though they may not remember it so.
Trade for herbs, steal them, search for herbs, and test new plants? I can describe to you the characteristics of some common useful plants, and where you are more likely to find them, if you wish, but that might end up quite longwinded. Often, tribal people living deep in the wilderness, who hunt and gather plants to survive, will also have an extensive plantlore, knowing hundreds of different types of plants and their uses, so you could try to take advantage of these herbalists to acquire new types.
[X] [Cacophony] Demonic Spoon
[X] [Factotum] Select some few of those who the eunuch claims are meant to serve, mark them, and have the eunuch teach them to live in that way
While there is much nonsense among what the Eunuch says, he sounds like a potentially competent administrator. I would advise you, oh Undying Bianca, to form two groups who serve under you, one the religious and cultural, your Singers, another the administrative and ruling, your Table-Rulers. This would hopefully prevent mistakes by your stewards from harming your divine authority, and also prevent veneration for divine authority from making a mess of administration.
[X] [Mendicant] Call for tribute of lesser giant bond slaves, grain, and all manner of beasts; teach agriculture and pastoralism to the lesser giants for as long as their bonds last, send them back to their tribe with the seeds and small herds; guide from a great distance
Lesser Giants could serve well as warriors, to send to the front lines and where the fighting is thickest. Steps should perhaps be taken to make them feel part of the Nine Nations as well, but for now they are too dangerous to keep close, but too useful to throw away.
[X] [Huckster] Take it all, deal with objections as they occur
I like not this man. Kill him.
Which is a bad thing, generally. Trade does not benefit those in the lower position, which we probably would be right now, seeing how this foreigner treats us.
Human races are equal, and in fact talking about human races is pseudoscience.
Not so in this case, not in the case of humans and giants... there differences are true and great. And not for the better. There would be conflict. Internal raids.
Which is a bad thing, generally. Trade does not benefit those in the lower position, which we probably would be right now, seeing how this foreigner treats us.
If we explain iron, sure, in fact then we could use these trade links to export our wares. But for now they enjoy comparative advantage and we need to buy their goods to increase our productive forces faster.
There is not enough bronze for tools and swords, for now.
Adhoc vote count started by liberty90 on Mar 29, 2019 at 9:07 AM, finished with 371 posts and 4 votes.
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men. [X] [Huckster] Tour for spells, gold for goods, anything held for anything wanted, really.
[X] Cacophony Arcus [X] [Factotum] Select some few of those who the eunuch claims are meant to serve, mark them, and have the eunuch teach them to live in that way [X] [Mendicant] Call for tribute of lesser giant bond slaves, grain, and all manner of beasts; teach agriculture and pastoralism to the lesser giants for as long as their bonds last, send them back to their tribe with the seeds and small herds; guide from a great distance [X] [Huckster] Take it all, deal with objections as they occur
Adhoc vote count started by liberty90 on Mar 29, 2019 at 9:48 AM, finished with 371 posts and 4 votes.
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men.
[X] [Mendicant] Call for tribute of lesser giant bond slaves, grain, and all manner of beasts; teach agriculture and pastoralism to the lesser giants for as long as their bonds last, send them back to their tribe with the seeds and small herds; guide from a great distance
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men.
[X] [Huckster] Tour for spells, gold for goods, anything held for anything wanted, really.
Gears
I have seen mention of gears (or wheel teeth) but not it would appear a discussion as to the size of those wheels. For it is possible to build a smaller wheel with the same size notches (or teeth) as a larger wheel allowing the two to interact. This will result in fewer teeth for the smaller wheel and the smaller wheel will turn faster than the larger wheel. A gear that is half the size takes two full revolutions to turn the larger wheel and as the total amount of effort is the same, to rotate the smaller wheel is half as difficult. If care is taken to allow the gear to turn only one way, this principle can be used to lift heavy weights.
Eunuchs
On the subject of eunuchs acting on the behalf of rulers more interested in making merry. They do not have a great reputation in song and story, oft described as the evil vizier and true power behind the throne. This has both utility and danger, for while it is true that the blame for undesirable decisions can be passed off to such people it is also true that such advisers have a tendency to try to control the flow of information to those 'born to rule'. In taking control of who is heard they can helpfully filter out unnecessary things that would only serve to waste time, but also choose to filter out those things they merely think would waste the ruler's time. If they have no faith in the ruler to take - in their view - the correct decision, then they do not have a great desire to enable the ruler to take that decision. It is far easier for them to take over if the ruler is focused on some pursuit unrelated to wielding power and thus they have every incentive to encourage the rulers to focus on making merry.
In this, you are perhaps better protected than most, in that you can ensure their oaths are to serve you directly rather than some abstract entity such as a line of mortals who they may in time come to oppose individually in the name of future generations.
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men.
The castration of servants at high positions is a deliberate, calculated choice, to prevent them from forming their own dynasties within positions of power that may weaken the authority or rulership of the reigning monarch, and to ensure the servant's first and only loyalty is to their ruler, not to their family or children. It is not strictly necessary, and also is not completely reliable, but should not be discounted or dismissed out of hand.
Personally, I, the Demon, would recommend the usage of Eunuchs, as they help prevent infighting within your table-rulers, or attempts to overthrow you, especially if you draw from young orphans or foreign slaves.
It should also be noted, that if castration is done young enough, this will prevent the voice of a boy from changing to that of a man, which may be of interest to your Singers, oh Undying Bianca.
Greetings oh great undying one. You can call me Dragon, tough I am more proficient in crafting than burning with fire.
I will first try to answer some of your earlier questions that i have not seen my fellow voices yet answering:
Making thread from plants:
As my fellow voices already mentioned there is many plants that can be used for the making of thread and fabric. I think hemp was mentioned before but if you don't have that then there are some other plants that I am more familiar with. Flax is a plant growing in the colder north of my world where I come from. The flowers of this plant are pure pale blue, about an finger length in diameter, with five petals. The fruit is a round, dry capsule with a diameter of about half the flower, containing several glossy brown seeds. There might be Fax with different color of flower as well. The seeds can be eaten but it is not now the focus of our interest.
Flax for making thread should be harvested around 100 days after the seed has been sown or 30 days after the plants flower have started blooming or 14 days after the blooming has ended and the capsule has formed (all these times should result in around the same time, but it might wary depending on your weather, some testing may be needed). When harvesting, pull the plant up with its root to get longer threads. After harvesting you should dry the pants, remove the seed and then you should do something called retting.
In retting you will basically have germs help you take away the unwanted parts of the plant and leave you mostly the fibers (long strands of plant material) to make thread from. I will try to explain two ways of retting that you might try and decide which one is best for your use:
Water retting is the way you can use if you have slowly moving or still water like a bog, lake or a slow river. You should bind up bundles of the plants, and put them under the water for a time between 8-14 days. This time depends on the water temperature as well as other things so some testing is needed. If you use a too short time the next step is difficult and if you use too much time the thread you will gain will be weak. This step could also be made in two steps by submerging it for about half the time, taking it up and drying it for several months then submerging it for the rest of the time. This would give you a softer fabric but takes more work. One should not drink from the same place as the water retting is done nor to close downstream.
If you don't have suitable waters to use you can use the other method called dew retting. This is better in areas where the nights are warm and moist and the day is hot. To do this you should spread out your dried plants on a grass surface or similar and let them be there for 14-21 days having your workers turn them several times during the process. This will however give you a darker thread that is not as fine as the Water retted one.
After retting you should dry the stalks for something between 14 to 60 days, rather longer than shorter.
Now you are ready for the final step of processing before you can start spinning Flax thread, called dressing. First you need to hack the stalks. This means you want to break the stalks so that the wood like bits break but not cutting the fibers. One way to do this is putting it trough "rollers". After this you need to remove the woody bits in a process called scutching. This is the most laborious part of the process. A small bunch of fibers at a time the stalks should be hanged over a vertical plank (from a notch) and then pulling down on it with a wooden knife to remove the wooden bits. After that you should use coarse combs (not as dense as for hair) to remove remaining bits of non-fiber. Now you have fiber you can start spinning thread from, in a similar way as you would spin thread from wool.
Flex fabric is much harder to dye than wool but it is easier to clean than wool and could for example be used for more comfortable undergarments. It is better for dressing wounds than wool as well as for storing food in. You can also make a type of armor called gambeson from it by making clothes with many layers of flex fabric. This I can explain another time if you want.
Many other plants can also be used, for example the earlier mentioned Hemp. Here the process is basically the same but the times I told might vary and those I don't know myself. I have also been told that cloth made from hemp is not as soft as that from Flax
Ice house:
Earlier you were told by other voices about digging a hole to make a cold room for storing food. I have some suggestions of improvement:
The room would not necessarily have to be buried into the ground, instead you could instead make a small house with thick stone or brick walls and preferably stone ceiling (using the arcs you were told about) . The room can be made less wet by making the floor a bit slanted or with a small groove for the melt water to run to a pipe buried at the floor level that the water can flow away along. A pipe is a hollow cylinder that water can flow through, it can be made for example from a series of ceramic vases without bottoms, that fit into each other to form a hole for the water. Remember that the outside end of the pipe have to be lower than the inside end and not blocked (this is easier if the room is not buried).
You could also make the room half buried if you have a hill more easy than digging a hole straight down. Dig away part of the hillside, build a house there, then put the hill back around the house. The floor of the house should be at the same level of the ground, and the same pipe system i explained should be used to get the water out. Do not bury the ceiling of the house. I have newer don this so it should be tried.
All the ice does not have to be stored in this ice house, you can store ice blocks cut from for example a lake in a pile and bury it with wood shavings left over from your carpenters work (also dried bog earth (peat) or sand could be used if you don't have enough wood shavings). Ice can be taken from the pile and put to melt in the ice house a little at a time. The ones buried in the pile should melt slower. The ice taken from a frozen lake at least 1 finger lent thick (or more) would be best. Try to keep it in as big pieces as possible to have it melt slower.
There are other ways of preserving food as well. What methods do your people already use?
Writing:
In addition to clay tables, you could, for training of writing and for calculating make wax tablets. This is basically just a shallow box with melt beeswax poured in and then cooled down so that it hardens. In it you can write with a sharp stick or similar, and the wax can make flat easily again.
Candles:
My fellow voices have earlier told you about candles for light and you ask:
"What, Black Cat, was it that you thought rope is made from if not string? So a handful of wax should be squeezed around a string, then sent down, upright I gather, and the string set aflame? This is how oil lamps work, with the wick in the oil at one end and aflame at the other. I think this 'candle' would not be so easily made or else it would already be known. But I will see it tried and what will be will be.
I will try to answer this now. I do not know what oil you have in your oil nor the exact design of them but hear me out O undying one. In an oil lamp the oil is liquid, and if you tilt the lamp all your oil will escape which make it hard to carry around, an oil lamp made from pottery is also breaking easily, and then the oil is lost. In a candle the fuel is a piece of wax or tallow, and it is easy to carry around in a bag when not in use.
I will now try to explain the process of making candles:
Material; Tallow:
if you know of the making on tallow or lard this is no new thing for you.
In my word the fat of the pig is called lard and the fat of cattle is called tallow. I think tallow is better for candles as it is harder when cold.
You take the fat of the animal, the best you find for example around the kidneys (i think these were explained earlier by my fellow voices), but other parts are good as well try to take as much fat and as little meat as possible (the white soft parts). These you cut into pieces and put into a cooking pot and warm slowly (do not burn them). When the pieces warm the fat becomes liquid and runs out of them. After this you want to get away all the remaining pieces so only the liquid remains (you can use a cloth to let the liquid run trough to get pieces out for example. Now just let the liquid cool and it will become stiff again. This tallow/lard will be tasty in cooking and will hold for over a year, but you can also make candles of them:
The making of candles:
I will now try to explain how to make a candle. There are other ways as well but i start with this:
You take beeswax or tallow and warm it carefully over a fire till it melts (you should save a pot for this and use it for this as it will be hard to clean). Beeswax will make nicer smelling, less smoky candles, but you don't have plenty of it yet. Now when you have the liquid tallow/beeswax take a straight stick and fasten to it string with a fingers length between them. You can add as many as you wish as long as they all will fit into your pot at the same time. Now dip your string once in the pot and take it up. Wait for a while so that this layer will harden a bit, then repeat. You will notice that there will be a thicker and thicker layer of material on your thread. do this as long as you wish for example till the waxed string is as thick as your finger. Now you have a candle. Candles can also be scented by putting scented flowers in the oil, but this I have no experience on and would suggest you try only after getting the candle done.
Now to the matters you wanted answers on:
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men.
As Black cat said do not cut of their balls i see not the reasons of this barbaric thing as good enough. I would also suggest that you take only willing people (from willing families) to not get discord among your tribes over children taken against their will. Make it a honor to be selected and see that they learn things like numbers and writing. I am not sure what the eunuch plans to teach them, but maybe have a singer follow the classes so that you know what is taught. Remember to choose both women and men even if the eunuch would protest.
[x] [Mendicant] Send for the Galugr tribe and settle them within the lands of the Nine Nations
I see no reason to turn away or betray one that have asked for help with the words of your people. I am sure there is land inside the Nine Nations not actively in use. Even tough the lesser giants are temperamental they could be an asset later on. They are strong, which are a good thing in crafts like stone building and blacksmithing and it sounds like they can be fearsome soldier especially with some training.
[x] [Huckster] Write in: Show enough to get interest and trade some, but don't show all and trade with patience
This i think was the trickiest of your problems o Undying One as the decision might have effect also outside your country trough trade. I would firstly not kill the man just for asking, as if traders coming to you is killed more fill stop coming sooner or later. I would not show them all of your hoard as that would only invite thieves, but you might consider moving part of your horde to a different room, not too small to make you seem low, but not big enough to make the "trader" too full of greed. Have some warriors protect this hoard and maybe some traps if these quests would try anything stupid.
I would suggest trading some with this trader, you could have your eunuch that knows worth of things to people outside your nations give you advise on if you are being robbed or not or perhaps some of your Lan traders. Think on what you need, not on what glitters the most, and keep all your magical trinkets in the hoard you do not show especially the dangerous ones.
If you are able to get some of the soldiers seduced and to stay on your lands this would be a good opportunity for learning new ways, but don't make this your main task, nor do it too obviously.
I could write about more stuff as well having to do with food preserving and crafting, but maybe this is enough for one time
Here is links i used wile writing the candle making and the thread making instructions. I knew many things from before, but used still sources for checking facts.
[X] [Mendicant] Call for tribute of lesser giant bond slaves, grain, and all manner of beasts; teach agriculture and pastoralism to the lesser giants for as long as their bonds last, send them back to their tribe with the seeds and small herds; guide from a great distance
[X] [Factotum] Write in: Use him as your first table-ruler and select people who love numbers and are suitable for service as lesser table-rulers, but no cutting off their balls is needed, as not all customs of cities are wise, some details are idiotic. Also, there is no reason why women couldn't be table-rulers, as no cutting off balls is truly needed, and minds of women are not worse than these of men.
[x] [Mendicant] Send for the Galugr tribe and settle them within the lands of the Nine Nations [x] [Huckster] Write in: Show enough to get interest and trade some, but don't show all and trade with patience
[x] [Factotum] Select some few of those who the eunuch claims are meant to serve, mark them, and have the eunuch teach them to live in that way
[x] [Mendicant] Send for the Galugr tribe and settle them within the lands of the Nine Nations
[x] [Huckster] Write in: Show enough to get interest and trade some, but don't show all and trade with patience
I didn't see it as obvious castration, maybe an error of language on my part, tried to change my answer accordingly but the site throws me an error. I guess i will try it again later
One wheel of the wheelbarrow should be at the front. Rear end is raised by user with two - firmy attached to the wheelbarrow - sticks called handles. Then push wheelbarrow where you want. As I said, wheelbarrows are small and good for work, not travel.
Black Cat's wheelbarrow design is inefficient. The single wheel should be large and in the center, coming out through the the surface of the wheelbarrow, with a frame to prevent the cargo from touching it. This way, more of the weight of the cargo is carried by the wheel instead of the human pusher.
