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Paths of Civilization

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Sivantic said:
Problem is too many spoilers. On a small screen it becomes very cluttered. Especially since they contained only a few sentences of text

Simplify.

It's in your blood! Search your feelings, you know it to be true!
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The spoilers were mostly an organizational tool to try to coral the beast as it was being written.

I'll remove some of them now.

Thanks for input.
 
Academia Nut said:
Major Spirits of the People
Crow - A tripartite spirit, Crow is considered a composite being encompassing the Teacher, Trickster, and Devourer, with a unified form sometimes called Spider-Eyed Crow. A being of creation, knowledge, and taboo, Crow is considered among the most important of spirits but in no way rules over other spirits or the earth
Gwy and Goya - Hermaphroditic primordial spirits who mate with each other to give birth to all complex creatures and spirits. Gwy is typically seen of as the more masculine of the two, with Goya the more feminine, but both are attributed to impregnating the other and bearing their own children
Bytah - A daughter of Gwy and Goya, sometimes also conflated with Goya, and considered the progenitor of animals such as horses and deer
Gygowyn - The first human being and progenitor of the people. Often invoked as a bearer of fertility and a protector of women. Considered to have powers over all descendants, which is essentially everyone
Arxyn - An important ancestor/spirit, considered the first man and first king, who brought forth demons with foolishness and greed. Important for a form of negative invocation
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Major themes of the Ymaryn:
-Aspects/Contradiction. Crow, Gwy and Goya are key here in simultaneously holding contradicting elements.
-Troublemaking spirits. The spirits don't just bring blessings, they cause trouble even when they are doing good. Look closely at their gifts for Crow could be teaching you or making an example out of you.
-Creation begins with Woman.
-Original Sin begins with Man.
-Everyone is family, no matter where or what nature. From beasts to foreigners.
Major Spirits of the Highlanders
Black Eagle - King of the gods, this anthropomorphic eagle is associated with both wise rulership and ill-omens, particularly solar eclipses, which are directly attributed to Black Eagle spreading his wings
Macra - A primordial giantess and demon, Macra was seized by Black Eagle as his wife, giving birth to the world. She is considered to sleep beneath the earth, her body giving shape to the hills
Holchim - A bull headed god of fields and pastures, considered the prince of gods who waters his fields with the blood of his father's enemies
Tosytox - Goddess of corruption and the summer sun, she is the matron of prostitutes and disease, and enjoys perverting and befouling things both physically and spiritually
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Black Eagle is a classic solar spirit, contaiminated by trade influence from the Ymaryn. You may recall that the original Eagle Spirit wasn't black, but that the Western Confederacy started making black ceramic masks to sell to the People. The difference between a black eagle mask and a crow mask is basically none.

Their myth embodies patriarchy and wife raiding, though it's unclear if the practice remains modern, since I believe Macra came from OUR myths, as you can see the Dead Priests lack an equivalent, she likely split off the Earth aspect of Holchim.

Holchim and Tosytox you can see the common origins with the Xohyssiri Choxosyn and Tulltox.
]
Major Spirits of the Xohyssiri/Dead Priests
Thunderbird - A rainbow winged eagle who brings rain and destruction, Thunderbird shaped the world with the beating of his wings, bringing forth all things good and evil. He requires blood both so that he will not hunt on his own and thus bring ruinous weather with his flight, and to strengthen him when he battles more destructive demons and gods
Choxosyn - Head of a lion, body of a man, and legs of a bull, Choxosyn is the demon god of conquest who requires a steady supply of virgin maidens sent to him to keep him preoccupied with fulfilling his immediate lusts, so that he will not head out into the world to shake the ground with his passage or draw Thunderbird's ire. Enemy warriors can instead be sacrificed to him in order to gain his favour when on conquest
Tuultox - Serpentine goddess of disease and healing, her venoms can bring both death and life, depending upon her whims. Invoked by both prostitutes and pregnant mothers for protection, with the deaths of either considered to be her feast of blood
Teossoxyn - A demon who dwells within the north star, he is entirely random and destructive, and can only be satiated with the blood of loyal warriors, although not necessarily their deaths
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Ominous pantheon here, they have a savage/dualistic element. Their spirits are basically the same as the Highland Kingdom, with elements shifted to fit their more bloody culture.

All their gods demand blood. Though I notice they have a god for Earthquakes, so the black stone might well be Basalt from a volcano further south.

And they added the comet as a random troll. Probably partially inspired by us randomly releasing a Nomad horde into the lowlands, blended with the legends of the long ago drought, the Star pox, and pretty much all the shitty things.
Major Spirits of the Thunder Horse/Speakers
Thunder Horse - A cosmic horse that created the world when he ran across a featureless plain, the fall of his hooves explosively reshaping the land. Now mostly concerned with reshaping the sky, but invoked through certain rituals to share his virility and thus bring forth children and good harvests
Patir Torm - The current king of the gods, who gained the position by lashing the cosmic equine children of the Thunder Horse to pull the Sun Chariot and who reworked the sparks from Thunder Horse's hooves to create lightning bolts that he hurls to smite his enemies
Gasania - Mother goddess of the earth and deep places, noted for her jealousy for the attention of Patir Torm and rages when his attentions wander to other women. Considered the matron of good harvests, women in childbirth, and the deeps of the earth
Firlco - Peregrine messenger and deadly archer in his father's service, the only thing faster than Firlco are his arrows of sunlight and disease
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Interestingly they see the world, embodied by the primal horse spirit and his children, as something to be tamed and ridden.
Patir Torm is their historical founder who first tamed horses, conflated with their founding Hero who got the improved Sun Chariot and the Thunder Axe.

Gasania is clearly a Spirit Talker carryover. Must be from the survivors and the leftover religious art.

Firlco sounds like it got adapted from past Ymaryn encounters, where our bows and chariots in the early days would look JUST like that.

notgreat said:
Claiming that it's "common sense" doesn't really work, that's equivalent to giving up. If they aren't responding to your points, repeat them.
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Incidentally this has worked about never. If your point is not accepted, repeating them only annoys people and entrenches them. Find a new point.


Academia Nut said:
They maintain marriage ties with some of the tribes that also have marriage ties with the Stallion Tribes.
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Huh, interesting, so the Nomad marriage connections remain even now. Traders?
That demon has been folded into the churn of several other beings at this point.
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Well, nomads. No lack of enemy people demons.
Spectrum said:
I rethought things on the Dead Priests, I agree that our relationship would ironically probably be better if we kept them at a distance so all the horrible things they still do and their skull wall are just stories. I do want an in on that new plant still, which mandates Highland Kingdom.
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Well yeah. Once people see the skull wall, and the still ongoing sacrifices...well we'll see.

That diplomatic mission is going to be a sight to see.
Academia Nut said:
There's currently two locations in Valleyhome: above Upper Valleyhome and below Lower Valleyhome. The first will have the lagoon be in the perfect place to serve as a reservoir for the entire region, but if it lets go then your most densely populated and heavily cultivated region gets swept away. Below Lower Valleyhome will flood some of the places where people are living and farming and you can't as easily turn spillways into aqueducts, but the reservoir can be more easily utilized for fishing or other aquaculture systems, and if the dam breaks it empties into the badlands. There was also the possibility of building the dam at the end of the badlands, but you failed to settle the area so that opportunity was lost.

Was originally going to have the exact site be a midterm question, but now I will probably make the decision part of the initial voting just in case you super accelerate everything.
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Considering nearly every historical dam had failed at some point I think we can take the less convenient location. Aquaculture is one huge way of making up for the low fertility of the badlands, as we could cultivate freshwater crops and fish. It'd also provide a good trading post for Eastern Hills.

Would the lower site close off the badlands as a settlement location? Replacing it with the defensibility of "there is a dam upstream and you're in slot canyons"
Academia Nut said:
The badlands are already part of your territory, but yes, if you invaded the Highlands Kingdom for the territory just beyond the badlands you could build a dam in that location. You can make multiple dams, although you should probably only have one per river for the sake of safety.
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Oh yes dam cascade failures are SPECTACULAR. A breaking upper dam usually causes all lower dams to fail from the water surge, unless you keep the lower dams permanently half filled to absorb such a surge without breaking(which is an extravagant expense of course)
Potato and Chip said:
Considering how irregular the river already is the time it takes to fill the reservoir won't even be noticed. At most some people will think, "Oh the river is late... again.... like it was that time two years ago or seven years before that."

If anything what will be noticed is how regular the flood waters become, but nobody is going to complain about a good thing.
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They'd probably notice the reduced soil fertility over time, but on the other hand weaker floods also means it's easier to permanently improve the land.
Academia Nut said:
With megaproject support already up, yes, you could pass the megaproject over to the provinces, although you wouldn't get the concentrated effort possibilities.
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Oh huh. Cool. This Law thing is pretty kickass apparently.
tryrar said:
I'm assuming it actually took 5 actions for the megaproject, which we got as a bonus from symphony
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Hmm, good catch. That also makes it a very VERY powerful bonus. One extra Main action per turn on a project means we can wipe out projects in rapid succession.
Karugus said:
I love how the People actually have one of the creepiest and stranger pantheons from an outside perspective. They have a three-aspected trickster god that is incredibly focused upon in their religion, creepy primordial hermaphroditic twins, and the original sin- everyone else has various expies (or at least parallels)while we're stuck with a creepy multi-faceted god (one facet of which is literally referred to as 'the Devourer') that vaguely reminds me of Shiva we literally call 'The Spider-Eyed Crow'.

Like what the fuck. That's up there with 'the Drowned God' in terms of ominousness.
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Eh, the Thunder Horse and the Highland Kingdom have the most 'normal' spirits. Skyfather and Earthmother.
The Ymaryn have weird shit because we've cut off trade with most people for a hundred years to brood at home, while the Dead Priests have gone Blood For The Blood Gods.

And half the Dead Priest gods are demonized versions of their neighbors gods, appeased with propiatory sacrifice, then converted again to their own.
Kiba said:
It's a technology that was used since ancient Mesopotamia, but I don't think it necessarily replace a dedicated courier network. For one, I think you need to carry the pigeon with you, and only then that it returns to its nest. How are you going to be able to send message from central headquarter to field command? You'll need someone to run, doubly so if said messages are more mass than your piegon can carry.
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Pretty much. The big problem here is you need a writing surface that's not made of rock. So we need paper first.
 
Anyways, one of the things I really want to do after this turn is go on an expansion binge. With Enforce Law and our provincial policies being able to make provinces we can expand like crazy and still be on top of things for the most part. Defense is handled by our fairly robust military with the Stallions keeping an eye on the north, centralization is already pretty high, and getting more provincial actions+baby boom procs can only help us.

Now's the time when we have a) little external threat, b) a secure homefront, c) stab for days and d) so many actions, to start expanding and consolidating. I want to make our provinces much more urban like Valleyhome is.

I'm envisioning something like this;
This turn;
Main: Garden
- Kick
Settle Southshore
Next Turn;
Switch to expansion with Garden Done
Settle black river
Enforce Law
- provinces settle Eastern Hills and/or the badland logistics point.
third turn; ???- profit!
After that we can go all in econ, teching up, and general screwing around- now with more actions, a more robust economy, and far more time on the clock for baby boom potentially.
 
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Karugus said:
Anyways, one of the things I really want to do after this turn is go on an expansion binge. With Enforce Law and our provincial policies being able to make provinces we can expand like crazy and still be on top of things for the most part. Defense is handled by our fairly robust military with the Stallions keeping an eye on the north, centralization is already pretty high, and getting more provincial actions+baby boom procs can only help us.

Now's the time when we have a) little external threat, b) a secure homefront, c) stab for days and d) so many actions, to start expanding and consolidating. I want to make our provinces much more urban like Valleyhome is.

I'm envisioning something like this;
This turn;
Main: Garden
- Kick
Settle Southshore
Next Turn;
Switch to expansion with Garden Done
Settle black river
Enforce Law
- provinces settle Eastern Hills and/or the badland logistics point.
third turn; ???- profit!
After that we can go all in econ, teching up, and general screwing around- now with more actions, a more robust economy, and far more time on the clock for baby boom potentially.
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INB4 someone has a hissy fit. Might want to throw in some festivals to consolidate our culture.
 
Karugus said:
Anyways, one of the things I really want to do after this turn is go on an expansion binge. With Enforce Law and our provincial policies being able to make provinces we can expand like crazy and still be on top of things for the most part. Defense is handled by our fairly robust military with the Stallions keeping an eye on the north, centralization is already pretty high, and getting more provincial actions+baby boom procs can only help us.

Now's the time when we have a) little external threat, b) a secure homefront, c) stab for days and d) so many actions, to start expanding and consolidating. I want to make our provinces much more urban like Valleyhome is.

I'm envisioning something like this;
This turn;
Main: Garden
- Kick
Settle Southshore
Next Turn;
Switch to expansion with Garden Done
Settle black river
Enforce Law
- provinces settle Eastern Hills and/or the badland logistics point.
third turn; ???- profit!
After that we can go all in econ, teching up, and general screwing around- now with more actions, a more robust economy, and far more time on the clock for baby boom potentially.
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I don't really want Enforce Law, which does nothing for communication technology. I prefer New Trails instead.
 
[X] Expand Carrion Eaters (-1 Econ, -1 Mysticism, +1 Martial, many more Carrion Eaters, additional effects)
[X] Xohyssiri
 
Sivantic said:
Err...no. The only standing army we have is the March and they are completely occupied with the Northern Nomads. Other than that, we barely have enough to garrison our towns.
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Where do you get this? Our martial was adequate for waging a broad front war against the Nomads on unfavorable terrain back before the Stallions arose.

It's not like we'll get attacked on our other fronts without some kind of notice either.

Like this is serious citations needed- especially since our martial should theoretically scale with our population/economy which has gotten even bigger since then.

AN even said back then, we could take on any of our neighbors in a defensive war, and Stallion will give at the very least martial in such a situation.
 
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Karugus said:
Where do you get this? Our martial was adequate for waging a broad front war against the Nomads on unfavorable terrain back before the Stallions arose.

It's not like we'll get attacked on our other fronts without some kind of notice either.

Like this is serious citations needed- especially since our martial should theoretically scale with our population/economy which has gotten even bigger since then.
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Our warriors either are:

1) Escorting caravans or crew sailboats.

2) Training in core province and/or guarding.

3) Auxiliary duties if you're a Carrion Eater or Blackbird.

They also lead militia levy in time of war.

So, yes, we do have a standing army. I am not sure why people think otherwise.
 
veekie said:
Major themes of the Ymaryn:
-Aspects/Contradiction. Crow, Gwy and Goya are key here in simultaneously holding contradicting elements.
-Troublemaking spirits. The spirits don't just bring blessings, they cause trouble even when they are doing good. Look closely at their gifts for Crow could be teaching you or making an example out of you.
-Creation begins with Woman.
-Original Sin begins with Man.
-Everyone is family, no matter where or what nature. From beasts to foreigners.
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I'm sort of going with the idea that the Ymaryn spirits retain more pre-agricultural influences and were integrated in with the stories of the people who simultaneously stood out but were beneficial to the People over all. Thus, while sometimes they spin off new spirits, sometimes they just go "You know, they can be complex, have different facets". Crow especially has become something of a Jungian shadow where they store a lot of angst about certain negative but useful behaviours.

veekie said:
And they added the comet as a random troll. Probably partially inspired by us randomly releasing a Nomad horde into the lowlands, blended with the legends of the long ago drought, the Star pox, and pretty much all the shitty things.
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*cough* Look at what's to the north of their territory *cough*

veekie said:
Huh, interesting, so the Nomad marriage connections remain even now. Traders?
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Yeah. Doesn't stop them from fighting, but having these ties makes it a lot easier to do more productive things.

drake_azathoth said:
Interesting, but I found a more realistic representation that seems to fit pretty well.

I could totally see a mask that looks like this for Crow.
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Spider-Eyed Crow comes from someone trying to see if they could stack the three different Crow masks together and coming up with a six eyed monstrosity that the People thought would be pretty cool, and when they started to think and talk about how Crow might relate to creation, they wondered if perhaps that was something like what Crow might have been before.

Spider-Eyed Crow should probably look like a late game Bloodborne boss.
 
Academia Nut said:
Spider-Eyed Crow comes from someone trying to see if they could stack the three different Crow masks together and coming up with a six eyed monstrosity that the People thought would be pretty cool, and when they started to think and talk about how Crow might relate to creation, they wondered if perhaps that was something like what Crow might have been before.

Spider-Eyed Crow should probably look like a late game Bloodborne boss.
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And thus be totally fucking awesome and very mind-rapey in the difficulty.

My hands hurt after that game.

My head cannon now is that Spider Eye Crow is now that Crow Hunter mixed to Vicar Amelia's size and hunched method of movement and posture.

And what he does in his realm is just sit, by the fire in a dark void. Occasionally inviting people to come and sit with him and listen to the tales he has to tell.
Huh, Crow feels really old when I think of him like this. A being that has always been old and will continue to be old and tricky.

Chills.
 
[X] Expand Carrion Eaters (-1 Econ, -1 Mysticism, +1 Martial, many more Carrion Eaters, additional effects)
[X] Xohyssiri

Academia Nut said:
Bytah - A daughter of Gwy and Goya, sometimes also conflated with Goya, and considered the progenitor of animals such as horses and deer
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Yay, they remember her! Now all I can complain about is that they seem to have forgotten my ship, but I am used to that by now...

Also, Bytah is the source of all horses and came from the North, so clearly the mythological Thunder Horse is actually Bytah's son Dywhwl who went North and told the clans to come join the People.
 
WeaponX1023 said:
Study Stars was winning.
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Nope, Stars+Survey was way behind Carrion Eaters, though ahead of Garden.
NotAlwaysFanfic said:
Come on guys, go for the Carrion Eaters. We get a synergy bonus from the study health and engrain them in our culture, which is just wicked cool. With our backlog of stuff we're never going to vote for that on our own, but getting field surgeons fully engrained into our culture would make our losses from fighting the Nomads even less!
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We'll be able to grab them at the start of the next war if we want. Switch to Offensive policy and we might even get it automatically after Chariots are complete.
veekie said:
Incidentally this has worked about never. If your point is not accepted, repeating them only annoys people and entrenches them. Find a new point.
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Nope, I've seen it work several times when rewording the same point if others ignored it has worked. Note that it must be ignored, not dismissed. If someone wrote counter arguments or even said"yeah but X is more important" then repeating is annoying. But I've seen good points go almost entirely ignored then repeated and clarified and be significant in shaping the discussion.
 
Academia Nut said:
Spider-Eyed Crow comes from someone trying to see if they could stack the three different Crow masks together and coming up with a six eyed monstrosity that the People thought would be pretty cool, and when they started to think and talk about how Crow might relate to creation, they wondered if perhaps that was something like what Crow might have been before.

Spider-Eyed Crow should probably look like a late game Bloodborne boss.
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Hmm. Probably kinda like one head with three beaks going out from it, one straight down and one off to either side if seen from overhead. The eyes obviously resemble a spider's, all packed in a big cluster. I'd imagine the beak itself when viewed from other angles would probably be something like the seventh mouth down on the far right in this picture, with six different beak outsides all coming together to form a flower-like beak that opens up when Crow talks or wants to eat something. His wings would probably be multifaceted too, to account for his triplicate nature, either just having three sets of wings or a partially fractal wingspan. He'd probably also be pretty giant, and maybe his feet have like 8 toes each so they resemble spiders or something.

Yeah, sounds pretty badass.
 
[X] Expand Carrion Eaters (-1 Econ, -1 Mysticism, +1 Martial, many more Carrion Eaters, additional effects)
[X] Xohyssiri
 
BungieONI said:
And thus be totally fucking awesome and very mind-rapey in the difficulty.

My hands hurt after that game.

My head cannon now is that Spider Eye Crow is now that Crow Hunter mixed to Vicar Amelia's size and hunched method of movement and posture.

And what he does in his realm is just sit, by the fire in a dark void. Occasionally inviting people to come and sit with him and listen to the tales he has to tell.
Huh, Crow feels really old when I think of him like this. A being that has always been old and will continue to be old and tricky.

Chills.
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For a hypothetical Bloodborne crow, yeah, being a bonus boss is about right, just have him chilling out by a fire or possibly a void dark pit. Ah, yes, for the gothic feel, have him be a plague doctor who is just sitting around and who will talk about things. Maybe have it so that you can first engage each of his three aspects as somewhat more human scale fights, but then if you beat all of those forms he turns into a house sized crow with clawed wings that can be used for both flight and to propel him with surprising speed on all fours. Combines all of the attributes of the prior versions (teacher takes time for lessons to sink in, so has lots of health; trickster is fast and moves somewhat unpredictably; devourer hits like a truck) to push the player to the absolute limit of skill.

Winning gets you a black orb or something like that might be one of Crow's eyes, and maybe a crow feather jacket or something like that, and after killing him crow will still be chilling out, being all enigmatic over whether you fought him at all.
 
notgreat said:
Nope, Stars+Survey was way behind Carrion Eaters, though ahead of Garden.

We'll be able to grab them at the start of the next war if we want. Switch to Offensive policy and we might even get it automatically after Chariots are complete.
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Our military stat is already dangerously high. More so if we tried to integrate the Stallion Tribes.
 
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