Birds of a feather - Civ Quest

The world is a truly vast place. The Valki know this well, for they can wrest themselves high into the sky and see the unending expanse of it. They knew a little bit of three places, from the first few years of wandering, and much of a fourth.

The steep forested mountains where they were first created lied to the north. A few already considered the mountain range there a holy place, giving it the name of Broken Wings in remembrance of the first Valk to soar, and the first to die. The soaring mountains and steep slopes sing to the soul, making one want to fly up to the peak and survey the whole world from above. But it is a long way away, and life is centered on Feathergrass Hill.

South beyond the hills where Wisla Highnote chose to make the peoples' home, there is a thick forest. There are extremely plentiful small animals and fruit to gather, but the Valki had ultimately stayed away from there, for the dense, high trees made them uncomfortable and anxious. It was very difficult to fly in the thick tangle of undergrowth and branches, and even if you managed to emerge out the top of the trees, you would have to be very careful when landing or face the same dangers. The forest seemed to grow thicker and thicker the deeper one went in it, with some of the trees reaching great heights... Building houses at the very peak of the trees was an exciting idea, but impractical. They kept falling down! So while there were some wood-cutting camps on the edge of the forest, the Tanglewood was not a place where any Valki lived permanently.

Far to the west, beyond a flat plain of grassy land, there is another string of mountains. More barren of vegetation, steeper and more broken. The air formed many strange patterns, helpful winds blowing up so strongly one could simply glide for miles at a time. The soaring spars of rock and steep valleys between sharp peaks and angular hills made for exciting flying indeed. The Valki were by far the largest creatures of the air, and could hunt almost trivially in places like this, diving on small creatures and ravaging them with sharp talons. However, food and water were both hard to come by in the Soaring Mountains. Animals were rare, and the air was thin, and it was often cold. It was a good idea to avoid settling there, many thought. Feathergrass Hill was much nicer.

Wisla's great project was to send the Valki out to see more of the world. Dozens of the best flyers would be given large amounts of food in woven baskets, and would fly to distant lands and see what lies beyond the horizon. They would carve into wood what they saw, landmarks visible from the air to guide one's progress, and bring their stories and maps home.

The explorers went north, south, east, and west. In every direction. They mapped points of interest and landmarks, finding the most beautiful or the fastest or the easiest way to get to other places. They learned more about what kind of animals and plants live there, and occasionally found something interesting or useful. In the Soaring Mountains, there were pretty stones. In the Tanglewood, there were plants whose fibers made softer material than baskets.

And to the east and north-west, there were wholly new lands. In the east there was a seemingly endless expanse of flat land, he only real landmark being the Slithering River, which had turned from its winding course into a powerful current, vast amounts of water flowing along all at once, occasionally added to by smaller rivers and streams. The explorers followed it as long as they could, wanting to see where it led. When they decided they needed to turn back or risk starving in the winter before getting home, they flew as high as they possibly could, looking at the river's path into the distance, and it only continued on yet further! There were different plants and animals out here, with more low patches of shrubs, bushes, clover, and thin or short grass rather than the tall and broad grasses that dominated the grassy plains to the west.

To the north-west, once you explored far enough, the ground became eternally muddy and wet. There was a relatively small band of flatness between the ends of the Broken Wings Mountains and the Soaring Mountains, and for some reason it rained almost constantly there. The explorers went to the highest points on the mountains to the east and west they could. The very peaks were dangerously cold and even the air was thinner, but they could get pretty high. From that vantage point, they saw a near-endless expanse of strange trees, somehow even more forbidding than the Tanglewood to the south.

They made a few forays into the Mud Jungle, trying to pick their way around the monstrously unpleasant flooded wetland by flying from point to point on the mountains that rose up to the east of the endless expanse of green. The trees climbed the hills almost hungrily, and there were strange predators deep in those lands... The explorers could rarely make much progress deep into the jungle and any flight over it must be short since there was no safe place to land. Eventually, they all decided they had found out as much as they could for now.

Some of the People wondered... Where are the other peoples, created by other gods? Perhaps they would simply have to explore more, further, to find them...

In Feathergrass Village, Wisla Highnote perished in her sixty-third year. Her feathers were as shiny and resplendent as ever, a matter of great pride for Valki. The people were so inspired by her passing, she who had led them since the very creation, that the new Crest of the Valki, leaders chosen from folk of different walks of life, decided to pluck the most perfect feather from her empty shell and preserve it in a place where people could come see it and remember her. As things settled in the years after that, the new leaders growing used to their roles, it quickly became a tradition to save feathers from those you loved...

But there was a problem. No matter how carefully one treated them, time would eventually ruin all feathers. Eventually, a fire or flood or wild animal or careless child would destroy it, and even if nothing terrible happened, the feathers would simply rot away sooner or later, even if stored in a cool and dry place. Trying to find a way to preserve feathers became a common theme in the flights of mind the people threw themselves into, experimenting on pressing their own feathers between wood, soaking them in juice or water or other things, and doing anything else they could think of to try and preserve them.

Eventually, the search paid off. A certain species of tree in the Tanglewood produced a sticky, yellowish ooze. When it dried, Through trial and error, the Valki found a way to carefully prepare the ooze, lay feathers into it, and carefully heat the resulting mass in a way that turned the orange-yellow mass into a clear, soft stone-like thing that the Valki called 'amber'. Feathers were most popular, but you could embed anything into amber - bugs, other pretty stones, carved trinkets, and other things.

The very few crafters who mastered the technique found themselves always busy, with everyone clamoring to have the most beautiful stones to adorn themselves with, using the subtle variations in color to emphasize their appearance. Strung on cords, placed on a pedestal, hung on necklaces or bracelets, set into tools or weapons, the beautifully translucent amber art would adorn everything the Valki used - though most often themselves. Already people were talking of building a small village with special buildings and tools for the production of amber, since after the first year it was clear that the demand for more of the pretty stones would probably always be greater than the number that were available.

Megaproject Unlocked: Amber Works
Cover yourself in the beauty that intelligent hands make from the world around them...

The Crest worked hard at first to learn to lead and earn the people's trust, working together to make decisions that Wisla Highnote would have made by herself before. The fact that everything had to be debated between five people who had very different life experiences slowed things down a lot, but having five people who could pay attention to important matters instead of just one was good. For most day to day matters, Valki would do their own thing, storing food for themselves, making their own tools and trading with other people, and so on. The Crest's job was to organize larger efforts, to keep everyone peaceful with each other, and to be ready to solve disputes and problems that would always come up.

Government Type Changed.
Early Tribal Council
-Low centralization
-Very Low chance of bad leaders
-Low chance of excellent leaders
-No extra actions
-Normal chance to generate heroes

Choose your actions for the next turn. You get one Main Action or two Secondary Actions. No plan votes.

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You unlocked a megaproject through a random event on turn one. And yes, I'm aware amber doesn't work like that. You can't make artificial amber that easy in real life. But you can here. OK?