The Spirit of Civilization

The arguments had gone long into the night. Three times the fires had burned low and the young of the People sent to fetch more wood for it. In the end, it was agreed that this had been a message from the spirits, and that it would be wise to heed their woods. Tents were broken down and placed further away, such that none would accidentally inhale the breath of the spirits. A line was drawn in the earth, and sticks planted in the ground, to serve as the barrier between the place of the spirit-talkers and the place of the ordinary People. And life went on as it always did, even if there was a new tension. The spirits had spoken once, but who knew what they would say next…but they stayed silent. And though there was now a new tension for the People, some found comfort, offering grain and meat and fine furs to the spirit-talkers and the spirits themselves for their aid in hunting and farming, asking them to grant rain and sun in turn as the seasons passed.

And when Ancient Fir fell sick and died one cool winter's night, his body was wrapped in a shroud of hides and his name sewn into it and he was carried to the pit to join with the spirits. Sena spoke then, and both spirit-talkers, and Ancient Fir's sons and daughters and grandchildren, and they held a feast in celebration of his life. Tears were shed, but there was great laughter as well, and life went on for the People. Another joined the council of elders, and while there was a moment of potential danger when some said it should be Sena who replaced him, they were shouted down by Sena herself and so the next-eldest joined as had become the custom.

There had been many children born to the People over the past years, more than any among them could remember. There was ample food to feed them, even in the depths of winter, for the food stored in pots of hardened dirtstone stayed good better and longer, letting the People have plenty in winter. Every adult of the People had a few young assistants who helped in all manner of tasks, gathering stones and sticks, scraping hides, and generally letting the skilled adults do more. The People were growing stronger.

Three significant changes had come to the People as well, and only one came from Calling. First, sheer chance led to a new discovery. Some water had been left in a pot, and then a foolish child dumped grains in it and closed the lid. Ordinarily, this would ruin the grain, but for some reason, something different happened and the water gained a strange taste. Drinking it felt…good.
Making it was not entirely reliable though. A girl with nothing better to do had tried to fix it by crushing and grinding the grain between two large stones and then putting the powder in water. It hadn't worked, but adding crushed berries to the mix resulted in something nice and tasty, and this porridge became popular.

Calling, meanwhile, had turned his attention from carving greenstone to finding more uses for dirtstone. He thought that mixing it with mud might make it stretch further, but that hadn't worked out the way he wanted. He tried adding other things to the mix, and eventually managed to make something useful by adding in the discarded stalks of grain and then letting the result dry in the sun. It became a solid block. Putting more mud on top and then stacking another dried block made them stick together. Long hours of work turned this into a solid home for Calling and Sena and their kin, with walls of mudbricks and a door framed in logs and a roof of hides.
Gradually these replaced the tents since they lasted longer and kept out the heat better and they were simpler to make bigger. Drying bricks became a common sight in Pitside, as common as bowls of porridge and the curses when another attempt at making beer didn't turn out right. The People labored from dawn to dusk, their fields steadily expanding and growing more organized as the years wore on.

Some years were better than others, some saw storms that ruined crops while others saw grand bounties of crops. Some saw strife and tension, others saw peace, but every year the numbers of the People grew. Pitside expanded so large that one could no longer throw a stone from one end to the others, and there were some among the People who raised their homes outside it so that they had shorter walks to their fields. Even the hunting camp expanded, gaining a stout mudbrick house of its own where those not actively hunting the forests could rest.

Stories slowly grew among them, of how the spirits flowed from the Lands Below, where the dead rested and dreamed, through the Great Pit and out into the world, and how traces of their passing could be seen in the fumes that rose from the Pit and in the lightning that split the sky and the great white bars that crossed it at night. It was said that the spirit-talkers could speak to these spirits as they left, and that the spirit-talkers could see the future by seeing what spirits left when, and that the spirits always returned to the Lands Below with the setting or rising of the sun. Some did not like these stories, but they were told nonetheless.
And through it all Calling and Sena and the elders guided the People, settling disputes, teaching the young, leading their fellows on expeditions to gather whitestone, and generally seeing to it that the People prospered. Some whispered that Calling and Sena should be granted a place on the council despite their youth, and some went so far to say that the council should be subservient to them. But nothing ever came of these whispers, and another fifteen years passed away in peace. Sena and Calling grew older, into the fullness of adulthood, while more among the elders died and were replaced.


So things did not work out to get you guys a vote, everything was going peachy for the next fifteen years, so this is basically just a status update so you can see what happened. Incautious Curiosity triggered, which was how you got beer. Any questions or things I missed?

Lela was too young to remember the days before mudbrick buildings, but he could see why they had changed away from tents. It might be easier to make a tent, but sleeping in one made him sweat and it had torn three times in the short while he had used it. Frankly, he would have preferred to sleep outside, except for the snakes. And that terrifying black bird that seemed to fly right through trees. He idly wondered who had angered the Fleshaper so to make it send such a creature. With a sigh he rolled over, accidentally bumping into his traveling companions and stifling a yelp when one elbowed him hard for it. Instead he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, as difficult as it was. Tomorrow would be his first hunt without any of the elders. He couldn't wait! He could practically smell the deer he would bring home, and he could already picture the way Cen would look at him when he laid the antlers at his feet…life was good, he decided.

That was a sentiment widespread across nearly every single one of the People. There was more food than ever before, and more children as well. Beer was delicious, even if drinking it could be risky, as the People had still not quite found a reliable way to make it, but they were constantly trying too. The mudbrick huts were cooler in the heat of summer and lasted longer and could be built larger, even if the design had needed some refinement to allow for sloped roofs. The wood of the plains was found to be too stiff for this, and branches needed to be hauled all the way from the hunting camp to make the frame of sticks for the hide. It was inconvenient, hard work, but the elders were able to persuade some to do the work in exchange for gifts of whitestone and greenstone. Other than that annoying task, the People spent their days laboring at their farms or knapping tools or hunting, and one or two filled their bellies telling stories that entertained people enough for them to offer the tale-tellers porridge and berries. The spirit-talkers offered their advice and read the future as best they could, although it was always a chancy and difficult thing.

Calling and Sena had grown into the prime of life, both vigorous and cunning, and they often advised the council, always careful to not appear to be commanding them, even if they occasionally wished to do so. Calling wandered back and forth between the hunting camp and Pitside and the whitestone deposits, looking for more whitestone or greenstone or anything else of interest. He found a young boy trying to make something out of grass, and inspired, Calling wove some reeds into a shape like a pot – nowhere near as good for holding water or storing food, but lighter and easier to carry – and Sena took the idea and used the colorful reeds that grew along the river to make patterned arrangements that she hung from the walls of her home, something which others began to imitate, especially the elders.

There were hints of other changes as well. The hunting camp had grown, with farms beginning to spring up outside it. The elders had begun to complain of always having to meet in one person or another's home and broached the subject of building a hall purely for hosting meetings of the councils. A spirit-talker had suggested making a dedicated altar for the spirits, describing how grand and beautiful it would be – half the height of a man, built of mudbrick, with the finest weavings hanging from the side and a broad flat piece of stone on top. Some had proposed building a dedicated house for storing part of every harvest in case of fire or flood or drought. And some had begun complaining of a new game which had sprung up among the youth. They had begun to wrestle fiercely and competitively, often leaving both loser and winner bleeding. Worse, they had begun to bet food or greenstone or tools on who would win and who would lose. The council decided to…

[] [Wrest] ignore it as the foolishness of youth
[] [Wrest] forbid it as offensive to the spirits (-1 Stability, gain Value)
[] [Wrest] encourage it (-1 Stability, +1 Martial cap, +1 Martial)

…and perhaps most urgently of all, a new People had been found, living by the Great River. They had villages which resembled those of the people, except smaller and more numerous and crudely made of reeds slathered with mud, but they had greenstone in much greater abundance than the People. Which meant that the People wanted to get it from them, and decided to…
[
] [New] send hunters to steal it (the government will take Raid as their action)
[] [New] offer fine pelts for it (the government will take Trade Expedition as their action)

You have one Major Action and one Moderate Action. Also, I have changed the available actions a bit. Finally, I have added a new type of action: Settlement. Settlement actions have names like Build Granary (Settlement). Settlement actions can only be taken once per settlement unless there is some sort of major change (you can only have one shrine per settlement, unless it burns down or you get a massive influx of immigration. This is once, regardless if you use a minor, moderate, or major action, you cannot upgrade it later without something big happening.



1 hour moratorium.