You'll be gathering enough food to survive in either case. The vote allows you to put extra workers on that task so you can gather more food than you can immediately consume.
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A World Of Endless Horrors (Reboot)
- Thread starter SeptimusMagisto
- Start date
- Original
You'll be gathering enough food to survive in either case. The vote allows you to put extra workers on that task so you can gather more food than you can immediately consume.
Pathetic King
"I Speak To The Audient Void."
- Location
- Colorado
[X] Seek survivors
[X] Fortify
[X] Ritual of the Ashen Field
[X] Fortify
[X] Ritual of the Ashen Field
LoganBert34
Apprentice Clerk
- Location
- Australia
[x] Seek survivors
[x] Fortify
[x] Ritual of the First Chief and the Guardian
-[x] Honor the final sacrifice and seek to assuage her wrath
[x] Fortify
[x] Ritual of the First Chief and the Guardian
-[x] Honor the final sacrifice and seek to assuage her wrath
The First Day
Your people begin carving sharpened stakes to fortify the perimeter of your camp. The work does not go quickly, especially as the work with the wood can't begin until you have enough flint knives, and their manufacture takes longer than expected. Your village was civilized. You had access to metal. Sometimes steel and sometimes bronze, and always to be carefully hoarded, it was nevertheless present. The art of creating stone tools is known but not practiced. When knocking pointy pieces of flint to produce an edge it's all too easy to shatter them entirely.
Meanwhile, the strongest of you arm themselves with spears and walk along the shore, staring into the swirling muck. One makes out a dark shape in the water and makes a hand signal. As one they plunge their spears. The creature writhes in the water, coloring it with a too-dark red.
The corpse they pull from the water looks like it's been a corpse for quite some time. The skin is green and peeling, grown over with a thin layer of algae, and the eyes are long-gone, eaten by the fish. It looks like a human. It may have been one once. Nobody is quite sure. But it is known that this particular breed of horror doesn't retain a human's intelligence. Its mind contains nothing more than malice and a desire to drag others down into the water.
Walking further along the shore the war party kills another of those creatures. And then one of a different breed - still vaguely humanoid but with fish-like features. When its mouth flies open it's obvious that its teeth are just the rib bones of other fish, and the hardness and crunch of its body make it full that it's stuffed utterly full of fish skeletons.
Then, disaster strikes. Trying to get the next monster, one of your men climbs on top of a large tree stump growing right on the shore to get into the best position. And without warning the stump pitches forward, dragging him down and trying to rap its thick roots around his body. It practically splits in half, revealing a maw full of dagger-like teeth. The others charge in for the rescue, but the stump's wooden body resists the spear attacks. And to make matters worse the hunter's original target bolts out of the muck, grasping his from behind and biting into his face and neck.
Enough of the hunters manage to grasp the stump to pull it back to shore, along with its victim and the other monster. Someone manages to poke a spear into the sump monster's maw, which seems to work better, making it thrash around in pain. In the end, the victim survives the ordeal, though he's left with terrible bruises and bite marks. To treat the latter the woman who's the closest thing you have to a doctor must cut away huge chunks of flesh and burn what remains with fire. Anything less would probably just mean rotting from the inside.
The expedition continues, bringing down five more monsters before it returns to camp. There may be others, either hiding deeper in the lake or so good at blending in with their environment they managed to go unnoticed.
In the meantime your ritual preparations take place. In lieu of the traditional grain you search the nearby woods carefully, finally finding a small berry bush. The lead actor carefully extracts their tiny seeds, spending the better part of an hour staining his hands and forearms with juice until they're a blotchy black.
You begin the ritual and something just...resonates. It is known that the rituals are meant to form a chain of connection through time and legend, but even with an entire village lending its energy to the proceedings and a true mage there to catalyze that energy, most rituals end up as little more than elaborate plays. You had a feeling that this ritual performed in these circumstances might end up more potent than usual, but it's beyond your expectations. When you light a fire on the 'field' of grass and twigs you threw down, it blazes out of control and threatens to burn the actors who fail to jump back quickly enough. When you re-enact the scene of the farmer protecting his second crop from a storm, the wind picks up and drives heavy droplets from the lake straight at the performers. And when you finally reach the triumphant end of the play...the ashen 'field' is suddenly pierced by green shoots. In mere moments they stretch upward and turn to golden wheat before your eyes. Beautiful, healthy stalks are almost bent by the weight of their own grains.
This is the rarest of rare events. Even at the best of times rituals almost never result in tangible changes to the world. They're far more likely to subtly influence the currents of luck and fate, making outcomes that much more likely to align with the ritual's events. Your success here has been extraordinary.
Late that evening, your people prepare to light the fires, their work guided by the setting sun. Some of your women have been grinding the seed of several of the wheat stalks into rough flour. The corpses of the lake's monsters have been dragged on top of the largest pile of sticks and leaves you could gather. Fire is the only way to be sure that these cold, dead things won't pull themselves together and rise again. Though a few of the horrors have taken the aspect of fire into themselves, using it to kill and ruin, the rest generally don't take to well to flames, and the mud-dwelling murderers from your new home are not known to be an exception.
Suddenly there is a terrible wailing and a new monsters crashes through the tree line. It looks like a dozen women's heads, each one the size of a boulder, have tangled themselves in each other's hair until they form a kind of centipede held together by black magic and poor hygiene. Almost immediately the monster manages to impale itself on one of your defensive stakes. One of the heads is pieced and caught, and the rest thrash around wildly, the whole thing seemingly losing any sense of coherent direction. Your people move in to take advantage of the confusion, then swiftly back off when one lashes out, straining at the limits of its follicles, showing off rotting green teeth and a thick, purple tongue. It spits something green that sizzles unpleasantly when it hits the ground. You content yourselves with throwing rocks and spears at it while it thrashes.
Then something smells and the creature is able to move forward, blooded but alive. Or at least it would be if the heads could agree on what constituted 'forward.' Instead it thrashes around for several more seconds - which is enough for a young man and woman to run in bearing one of the larger fishing nets. Staying far away from the thrashing creature, they're nevertheless able to wrap the net around it, then pull. On their own they could hardly move it, but the others get the idea and grab it too. The net strains and begins to break, but the creature still moves - right on top of the pyre. Someone throws a lit torch, the old leaves catch flame, and the fire spreads in mere seconds. The creature, covered in dry skin and old, old grease, is all too quick to catch alight. Flesh melts, hair burns, and the heads separate, mad with pain and half-dead. Your people impale them or drive them back into the fire until finally the last of them stops thrashing and the crisis is over.
You fully expect the next crisis to be just around the corner.
Pick 1 action from each category
Adventure:
[ ] Seek survivors
You think that more of your people may be out there. The abomination failed to kill methodically and those who ran might have survived as you did. The woods are teeming with shapeshifters and puppeteers, but your people know the signs and how to tell a false man apart from a true one...most of the time.
[ ] Patrol the shore
You've handled most of the immediate threats, but short of dredging up the lake and combing the bottom you'll never feel safe.
[ ] Scout the area
Venture beyond the shoreline and walk through the nearby area, noting any threats or anything else of interest.
Industry:
[ ] Increase fortifications
Your first efforts yielded fruit. Just keep going.
[ ]Make rafts
Use sticks and reeds to make a small flotilla of rafts to make it easier to navigate the lake (or use it as an emergency retreat).
[ ] Make spare weapons
Particularly concentrate on weapons that can be thrown or otherwise discarded.
[ ] Aim for tradable goods
This place has what you need to survive, but just barely. To strive you'll need better tools and more people. Supplement your pearls with dried fish and carved turtle shells.
Mysticism:
It's not good to do rituals too close to one another. You don't know why, you only know it to be true. For the time being you'll be left with things that are vaguely ritual-like. You still don't know what you're doing, so you'll just do something that feels right.
[ ] Plant some of the wheat, even though the season and soil are wrong
[ ] Display the charred bones of the monsters on the outskirts of your camp
[ ] Have people prick their fingers and draw small circles of human blood throughout the camp.
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LucidProp
Pocky Eating MafiaDoka
[X] Patrol the shore
[X] Increase fortifications
[X] Have people prick their fingers and draw small circles of human blood throughout the camp.
I just don't feel safe.
As for the rituals, the Ashen Farmer had a burned field to work with and even people back then knew how healthy that could be for the soil. However, the wheat we have is unfit for the land we're in so let's wait and maybe fertilize it with our blood via mystical voodoo magic or something?
[X] Increase fortifications
[X] Have people prick their fingers and draw small circles of human blood throughout the camp.
I just don't feel safe.
As for the rituals, the Ashen Farmer had a burned field to work with and even people back then knew how healthy that could be for the soil. However, the wheat we have is unfit for the land we're in so let's wait and maybe fertilize it with our blood via mystical voodoo magic or something?
- Location
- Vicksburg, MS
[x] Patrol the shore
[x] Make rafts
[x] Plant some of the wheat, even though the season and soil are wrong
One of the whole points of selecting the lake option was in that we could float out to the interior of it to seek refuge if we were pursued by a land-based abomination. Let's try to take advantage of that by making rafts; it's good practice anyway, because that could be used to set up glorious systems like the chinampas for agriculture. Creating rafts dovetails in with further patrols because we can venture in at problem areas for alternate angles which may be beneficial, plus we make the lake safer for our rafts.
Anyway as far as I'm concerned this is some sort of magic wheat already, might as well see if it has neat properties like growing in bad conditions while we still haven't lost any to spoilage.
[x] Make rafts
[x] Plant some of the wheat, even though the season and soil are wrong
One of the whole points of selecting the lake option was in that we could float out to the interior of it to seek refuge if we were pursued by a land-based abomination. Let's try to take advantage of that by making rafts; it's good practice anyway, because that could be used to set up glorious systems like the chinampas for agriculture. Creating rafts dovetails in with further patrols because we can venture in at problem areas for alternate angles which may be beneficial, plus we make the lake safer for our rafts.
Anyway as far as I'm concerned this is some sort of magic wheat already, might as well see if it has neat properties like growing in bad conditions while we still haven't lost any to spoilage.
[X] Scout the area
[X] Make spare weapons
[X] Display the charred bones of the monsters on the outskirts of your camp
Planting the magic wheat so quickly after the ritual is courting disaster - we should wait until the season is right, and preferably also the soil.
But the charred bones - from monsters killed by our own effort - could make an effective barrier, or at least scare them off.
We also need to scout the area, maybe we find something interesting (like fitting soil)
[X] Make spare weapons
[X] Display the charred bones of the monsters on the outskirts of your camp
Planting the magic wheat so quickly after the ritual is courting disaster - we should wait until the season is right, and preferably also the soil.
But the charred bones - from monsters killed by our own effort - could make an effective barrier, or at least scare them off.
We also need to scout the area, maybe we find something interesting (like fitting soil)
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Pathetic King
"I Speak To The Audient Void."
- Location
- Colorado
[X] Patrol the shore
[X] Increase fortifications
[X] Have people prick their fingers and draw small circles of human blood throughout the camp.
[X] Increase fortifications
[X] Have people prick their fingers and draw small circles of human blood throughout the camp.
Dromeosaur
Feathery Raptor of snowy planes and frozen sea
- Location
- The land of Trees and Squirrels
[X] Patrol the shore
[X] Increase fortifications
[X] Have people prick their fingers and draw small circles of human blood throughout the camp.
[X] Increase fortifications
[X] Have people prick their fingers and draw small circles of human blood throughout the camp.
Vote ends in 24 hours.
LoganBert34
Apprentice Clerk
- Location
- Australia
[x] Seek survivors
[X] Increase fortifications
[X] Display the charred bones of the monsters on the outskirts of your camp
[X] Increase fortifications
[X] Display the charred bones of the monsters on the outskirts of your camp
Are we stuck with having to rely on fishing or will we eventually be able to expand into proper agriculture? Depending on the size, it will cap how big we can sustain a population.
The soil around the lake itself isn't really suitable to growing much, especially not staple crops. You wouldn't have to go too far into the surrounding woods, but it would be far enough that having your food supply out there would negate most of the advantages of living on a lake in the first place.
I see. It would be a long-term enough goal it would be beyond the scope of the quest, correct? It sounds like we're a small band of survivors and unless this game takes place over the course of many generations, I don't see us expanding past the lake.
Honestly not sure. So far every turn has represented about a day but if you can get things to a stable place, I'll definitely make it so each turn accounts for several weeks. After that it could either stay like that or I could eventually extend turn length to years or even generations. Things are up in the air right now.
Yeah, that makes sense. We're still trying to set up something stable so day-by-day makes sense for now. Later on, I wouldn't be afraid to be flexible with the pacing. If you write yourself in a corner, skipping a few decades or more will give you a semi-clean slate. If you do eventually go for longer turns, you can slow the turns down for when crisises or war happens. @Alectai ran a CK2-style quest where he timeskipped whenever he felt we hit a milestone, and you could do something similar.
Is this game set in the far future of Earth, or is this a pure fantasy setting?
Gnomes
Though the horrors came at you from all sides, you held fast. And to prove this you place the charred bones of your enemies just outside your growing defenses, to warn any other would-be intruders of the fate awaiting them. Meanwhile your hunters walk along the shore once more, looking for anything they may have missed. They find another of the half-fish creatures and ambush a giant frog. Normally a terrifying opponent, it's caught sleeping and has three spears sticking out of its brain by the time it begins to move. Even its death throes manage to knock over and nearly smother one of your men.
As dusk descends, you hear the bushes rustle. Prepared for anything, you rouse the camp and ready your weapons. But the moment passes and nothing happens. You wait and you wait and still nothing. Eventually those of you not on guard duty head back to the shelters.
Then the bushes rustle again.
Everyone is roused once more. It's patently obvious that the unknown presence is trying to toy with you, and this time you don't intend to stand down until the matter is resolved one way or the other. Your people gather together, to hoot, holler, and throw stones as near the bushes as they can manage. Eventually one of the stones hits something. There is a sound like a protracted squeak and moments later a tiny, naked, bearded man walks out of the bush, moving his legs with unnatural stiffness. A dozen more of them appear from behind the trees and walk closer.
Gnomes.
Stopping some way away from you, the gnomes form a line. As one they curl up their lips to expose as much of their teeth as they're able and begin loudly and arrhythmically clacking their teeth together. It's hard to say if they're merely mocking or actually threatening you. Those teeth of theirs are sharp and though they're not the most formidable of horrors, a swarm of them descending with their teeth bared, clubs in their hands, is more than enough of a nightmare.
After several minutes the gnomes change their tactics. Just as your people did earlier, they begin picking up sticks and stones and hurling them at you. You hurl things back, especially now that they're in range. Then one of the gnomes tumbles forward, practically contorting himself into a ball, rolls right up to your fires, and snatches a couple of burning logs. Hurling one of them into your crowd, he triumphantly carries the other one back to his kin. Squeaking in excitement, they retreat to the forest canopy and return minutes later with bundles of dry sticks. Holding them to the fire, they resume throwing anew.
You know that all this tossing isn't going to resolve anything. So far only the slightest of damage has been done to either side, and even if you manage to start doing some, they'll just retreat. But they'll be back. Some horrors are capricious, but others are tenacious, and gnomes are of the latter kind. They're going to lurk around the borders of your camp, straddling the border between nuisance and threat, until they're dealt with - one way or another.
[ ] Negotiate with them
Gnomes are thoroughly malicious and enjoy causing misery, pain, and confusion. On the other hand you've heard stories of them being bribed with food and shiny things. And right now you need allies, however tenuous and ill-intentioned.
[ ] Charge out and slay them
Gnomes are faster and stronger than they look, and the ones you see may not be the entirety of the pack. But you'll be damned if you back down to something that's knee high to you. This is your place, and you're prepared to defend it.
