Economy 4->2 (+2+1)
Spent 1 on Chariots, 1 on Carrion Eaters, 3 new settlements.
Martial 6->10
Gained 2 from Chariots, 2 from Carrion Eaters
Cultural
Art 2->3
Just the overflow
Mysticism 2->0 (+2)
Spent 1 on Carrion Eaters.
Something ate a point, the event?
Then the new settlements add holy sites.
March Econ 3 -> 3
March Martial 1->5
March spends 2 Econ building Chariots and immediately restores that.
[X] [Main] More Carrion Eaters
[X] [Secondary] Change Policy - Expansion
[X] [Secondary] Build Chariots
Provinces: [Main] New Settlement - Bleeding Cliffs, Eastern Redhills, [Sec] New Settlement - Western Blackriver
Stallion Tribes: [Main] Build Chariots, [Sec] Expand Econ x2
That, is a lot of settlements. Two of which are in exposed regions. Going to need Defense policy again.
With what other resources they had, they would rebuild their elites, and in particular induct more Carrion Eaters than usual to give those who fought a better chance of survival. It took a lot to train up a proper chariot archer, and increasing the number of them that came back was of incredible benefit to both this generation and the next.
Excellent.
And so the People built and waited and listened. The south was... quiet. Whatever plans the Thunder Speakers might have had were truncated by the Thunder Horse recovering and stabilizing faster than expected and looking to keep their vassals under control. The Xohyssiri attempted to retake former tributary territory, but soon enough discovered that the villages around them were now appealing to the Thunder Horse for protection.
Lowland continues to clusterfuck. Not surprised at all.
Thunder Horse aborted their civil war, but it looks like they might be picking up too many tributaries.
Somehow, the Xohyssiri took this loss in stride, shrugged their shoulders, and decided that they still made a tremendous amount of things that people wanted and thus maybe they should just focus on making stuff and continue to let people come to them.
Xohyssiri enter Golden Age!
Xohyr becomes True City!
THIS now is surprising. Xohyssiri learns that you know, maybe making shiny shit is better than war.
Being one of the People collectively holding his breath, the king was thus somewhat alarmed when some of the shamans came to him with a matter requiring his input and of some urgency. However, fears of some great catastrophe as told in the ancient tales were soon partially mitigated as the story came out. In training a chariot driver had suffered an accident and tumbled from his vehicle, striking his head upon the ground. A junior Carrion Eater had operated upon him, exorcising the demon within his skull, but he had made some sort of mistake in the after care process and had improperly sealed the pathway that might let some other spirit into the skull. While most of the time this simply resulted in death, this time the spirit that seized him was different.
Words tumbled from the man's lips, strange and mostly incoherent rambling garbage for the most part, but there were snatches of something more within the jumbled nonsense sounds. Sometimes it sounded like the poor man was speaking in an unknown language, while at other times he let off long rattling proclamations or warnings. In particular he kept coming back to variations on a particularly strange phrase.
"Black mirror sun spear ash bleeding vein return sky streak."
No one could quite figure out what it might mean, but the shear amount of repetition with at most slight variation had the shamans concerned. There were a couple of possibilities.
Speaking in tongues from a concussion huh?
Well it's nothing, but it's an opportunity for stuff.
'Black mirror' might refer to the holy site in Blackriver, the Star Mirror, a particularly calm pool of clear water in an isolated area that was shielded from the elements enough that on a clear night it acted as a giant, smooth mirror
[] Examine Star Mirror (possibility of disrupting holy site, ???)
Study Stars event. May improve Place to the Stars.
May produce Superstition.
where 'bleeding vein' might be a reference to Bleeding Cliff, the new settlement being set up with the intent of exploiting the red stone for the star metal there
[] Examine Bleeding Cliff (possibility of disrupting settlement activity, ???)
Study Metal event.
Noting that this phrase: "ash bleeding vein"
Says to "Use ash on Bleeding Vein ore"
Ash, aka Char aka Carbon.
To Iron.
May worsen Superstition.
Either location could make the reference to 'sun spear' be some sort of reference to the weapons of the gods. And then there was 'return sky streak' which could ominously refer to the Great Comet, that harbinger of doom and disease that all of the legends of everyone with records spoke of.
[] Stockpile resources for the return of the Doom Comet (+1 Stability if over 5 Econ by mid-turn next turn, ???)
It's a nice quest, but we have better ways to do it.
May produce Superstition, may undermine superstition, depends on if the Comet shows up again.
[] This man is sick, care for him but ignore his ramblings (???)
Observance evolution chance I think.
Plus it undermines the idea that gibbering people are a source of prophetic insight.
And then there were the nomads, who had just... disappeared. There were a few tribes that were occasionally spotted wandering by in the distance, but they never seemed to make contact or even try to do any scouting behind being able to skirt away from settlements. What had happened to the unifying king, and where had he taken his people?
Too spoopy for me.
Try to find out what is going on?
[] Military scouting mission
Safest, but I doubt we'd make peaceful contact. If they are massing for a counterstrike this is the best thing. If it's something else, then this will be counterproductive.
[] Trade mission to nomad tribes (-1 Diplomacy)
Try to broach a negotiation. High risk, high reward if successful.
[] Trade mission to Thunder Horse (-1 Diplomacy)
Establishes trade link to the new rising empire. They'd probably proceed to fight the Highland Kingdom soon though, which would put us in a "who are you really with" pinch.
[] Trade mission to the Metal Workers (-1 Diplomacy)
Hmm, nothing much to gain here. We already have trade links.
[X] This man is sick, care for him but ignore his ramblings (???)
[X] Military scouting mission
I'll shoot for the Observance evolution
) is that, whether or not the comet comes, if we tell the People to prepare for it, then that will probably be enough to knock the stability cost of the mine up by at least 1...of course, if we ignore the prophet and build the mine and the comet hits, then our People will be almost unbelievably angry at the king and the chiefs, who ignored a direct warning from the gods and brought doom upon the people...frankly from their point of view it would be egregious enough to warrant full on rebellion...
