Tales of History - A Civ-Builder Quest

With the lowlanders bearing down on Greenvalley and only a day away at most, there was not much time left for the Valley People to decide on a response. Tall Reed and fingers convened in the Councils chambers, this time without their vices, the mediums and all the other attendants who added mostly chatter and cajoling in the past seasons. After many seasons of strife, the talk was far from able to overcome the enmity that had festered between them, but without other voices to egg them on, they at least managed to agree on a few things. The first was that this whole mess was the fault of Willow and his defiance, and they could easily agree to say as much to anyone who would listen.

The second thing was that they needed to negotiate, for they had no illusion that the few hunters left in the village would be able to throw back the attackers. The Valley People could have hid behind the walls of Greenvalley, but there were far too many homes, outside of them and the orchard beside, so they would just trade the quick death of war against the slow death of famine. What they could not agree on was where to go from there and the talk nearly fell back into old patterns when they skirted the topic of the future. Though that was a fight not worth having at this moment, so they decided to postpone it until the threat of the lowlanders was gone. Meanwhile, their followers had been tasked to keep peace and order in the village, and to stop anyone from doing something rash, but where their leaders succeeded, they failed utterly. The hunters had taken charge of the situation, using their authority as the defenders of the Valley People to rally them into hastily armed mobs to repel the invaders.


Luckily, they didn't get far with their plans. Most of the more experienced and esteemed hunters had left with Willow, leaving mostly the young, the very old and those who could not travel far from home due to other obligations. As a result, nobody could agree on who was in charge and the mobs were soon walking back and forth between the White Halls, Greenvalley and making abortive attempts to meet the invaders at the river. The Council was horrified when it learned of this mess, but they took solace that the hunters attempts had not gone anywhere dangerous and that they at least commanded too much attention for others to do anything dumb in the absence of proper orders.

It was not the Council who calmed them down though, but the Bone Tenders. Since time immemorial they tried to be impartial and shied away from taking sides in conflicts, but when the confusion threatened to give way to violence among the hunters and the hastily drafted people, they intervened. All over the valley, Bone Tenders stepped before the crowds and began retelling the tales of old strife, of the Days of Blood, of the death of the Mountain Father and how it angered the ancestors to see their descendants contemplate murder among themselves. It was not perfect and there broke out a few scuffles between those hunters who listened and those who refused to, but in the end, things calmed down over the course of the night. A few troublemakers did not witness the next sunrise, but the Valley People at large were staying where they were and waiting for the Councils orders as they were meant to.


During the night. the runners of the Valley People had met the invading host and while the attackers refused to stop their advance entirely, they agreed to march no further then the minor village of Rivercrossing. There they would wait for the Council to speak their piece. It was not perfect, but the village had already been evacuated by the hunters when the news about the invading host came, so the Council felt giving up empty houses was worth it to negotiate. For Fingers, who was old enough to have great-grandchildren running through the village, the way was hard and she had to be carried most of the way, but by noon, the meeting had begun.

As the scouts had reported, the force was not coming from one particular village, but the lowlanders had apparently banded together to a great degree. Nearly every village from what they called the riverlands was sending some of their hunters to punish those who had preyed on the traders and the Goat People. It was not Brushcrest who as leading the talks though, and neither the People of Makar, for the former had no one who could speak properly the tongue of the mountains and the latter seemed to no longer exist. Instead, the speaker of the lowlanders was a young man who spoke the mountain tongue with a curious accent and who hailed from a village he called Sparrow's Rest. His shield also carried a red bird, framed by two blue rivers, causing whispers among the Councils attendants about what this might mean, but this was not the time to indulge in such curiosity.

The negotiations themselves went surprisingly well for the Council, given that they were talking to people who had marched for days or weeks to raze the valley to the ground. There was much doubt about the tale of Willow's actions and his defiance of the Councils will, but when Tall Reed and Fingers swore blood oaths to the truth of their story and the exiling of Willow without prompting, much of the doubt was alleviated. The offer of further oaths to foster peace and the release of the prisoners taken was likewise well received, though some of the lowlanders were dubious of the worth of oaths sworn on the lifetime of someone as venerable as Fingers.

It was the gift of obsidian, raw, as trinkets, as tools and most importantly as weapons that the Council had brought with them which won the last lowlanders over. They would not have to return empty handed to their homes after all and became much easier to believe the Council that it wanted no war when they were willing to offer blades as gifts. Other, minor things were offered too, such as the lowlanders getting the right to make camp nearby for two days before starting the long march home and the right to hunt for provisions south of the river in this time, but the fact they were asking for these things instead of demanding them was a sure sign that an agreement had been found. When dusk drew close, the invading host turned to the west and the Council marched back north, the battle averted.


In Greenvalley though, the strife was only beginning. When told what the Council had negotiated, many felt their actions were tantamount to betrayal of the people. How did they dare to kneel and scrape before lowlanders? How did they dare to pay tribute to them? Unsurprisingly, it was the hunters who were the loudest about their misgivings, but after the events of the last year, nobody was inclined to listen overly much to them, especially not when they began advocating to attack the army while it was still making camp. Yet part of the misgivings were echoed by others. Tall Reed was beleaguered by his supporters for trading away so much instead of just swearing that the people would no longer travel out of Greenvalley. Meanwhile the artisans griped about their hard work going to waste because of the hunters hubris and voices grew that Fingers was just too senile and decrepit to have negotiated a better deal for them.

The divisions among the people grew with every day and while it was widely accepted that Willow was a traitor and had failed the ancestors, it became ever more accepted that it was the whole Council who was unworthy of their authority. As if to confirm the ancestors ire that many expected, Fingers fell ill in these days and passed just half a seasons later in the midst of summer. There were attempts to name a successor to her, but the Artisans were unwilling to accept any election performed by the gutted High Council, especially as there was still no plan how to fill the seat of Willow. Every of his eligible successors were gone together with him and since no further runners had arrived since fall, many thought them all dead. Those who didn't felt that Willows exile was tantamount to a coup by Tall Reed and Fingers and they rejected any and all proposals to replace him out of hand.

In the fall of that year, the fishes had a large gathering at Laketop and voted to force Tall Reed to step down, despite neither having the power to do so, nor having talked with any of the other groups in the valley about this. In the winter, the chamber of the High Council laid cold and empty. No fire was lit, for no one was there who would need it. The Council was no more.


Succession Crisis started!
During a succession crisis, the highest authority in the state is vacant and there is a conflict about how this vacuum should be filled. Factions can openly sabotage or even outright attack each other. The state formally stays unified, but all factions have to compete for resources. Deficit spending for Culture is allowed, which greatly accelerates Cultural Idea decay and formation. The Succession Crisis ends once one faction can, through diplomacy, intrigue or military might, instate a new highest authority.

Note: The Mandate of the Ancestors is inactive until the Succession Crisis is resolved.


What faction do you want to play as for the duration of the Succession Crisis?
[] [Faction] Artisans
[] [Faction] Fishes
[] [Faction] Bone Tenders
[] [Faction] Great Deer and the Hunters (focus moves away from Greenvalley)

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AN: That happened. Tsundere dice are out in force again. Next chapter will focus on the status and desires of the faction you pick with some info on the other groups vying for the Mandate. I've also formally made the Bone Tenders a faction, since they have been growing in influence and importance lately, so that was going to happen soon-ish anyway, but I feel they should get proper representation for this crisis.