You misread this. Jeree is drawing a contrast between wealth and being spirit-touched.
As of this moment, Jeree is rich, probably one of the top five richest people in his entire civilization. No one would dare call him spirit-touched due to the wealth and power he commands, even though he can hear the spirits whispering in his ear at times. He contrasts this against when he was a lowly, under-aged apprentice where people's suspicious whispers dogged his every step.
He's basically musing on the Neolithic version of: "Rich people are eccentric, poor people are crazy."
I thought being a shaman was considered a valid career choice for mentally ill people and that they could make a successful career out of it. And that plenty of mentally ill people with worse family collections were simply seen as crazy instead of ever getting a chance to becoming shaman. Did I misunderstand the level of regard given to our unaffiliated shaman these days?
By which shaman are they taken in? Is most spirit-touched being independent still a thing or is what we saw in the update the norm now, with the Orders taking over education for most would be shaman, even the spirit-touched? How well would a spirit-touched do in an Order that isn't from the Cave of Stars?
What's the Fangs side of the story? What would the Fangs say about everything that recently happened to them if asked and what are the actual opinions of the elder Fang leadership?
You're over your RA cap. Every Holy Order is being pressured in its own way; the Horned Riders need to find a place to stay, the Fangs were stealing food, the Frost-Scarred were doing _____, and the Ember-Eyes were starting to preach. Each order is reacting in different ways, some more constructive than others.
Hmm, so from what I gather:
-Ember Eyes - Their association with artisans and traders means some of them are getting increasingly aware of how important they are to the tribe's prosperity, and as the ones with the most visually distinctive magics that can be produced on demand, they made good use of showmanship. So they started hitching rides along the traders, and while they were at it, they did what they did at home, spoke of how best to please the spirits. Since they have the stone age equivalent of thick gangsta bling they were pretty convincing.
-Fangs - Reacting to the increased status and scrutiny by recruiting more Fangs, expanding the packs. Which led to underreporting the food usage so that theres enough Fangs to see to the expanded informal responsibilities.
-Frost Scarred - I can't imagine the Frost Scarred being all that happy with being sought out for advice and spiritual intervention. Probably kept quiet like usual.
-Star Shaman - When in doubt, more mysticism. Throw themselves deep into reading the omens to be better able to give advice they aren't qualified to give, but which people ask them anyway.
-Horned Riders - Well, they needed a home, so no issues. Yet.
They have much more status than they are used to having, to the point that some Big Man questions gets asked of Shamans, and they're kind of not really sure what to do with all the attention and power.
The Star Shaman get hit worse than the other Holy Orders since they are so secretive, but there's always a level of mistrust. Remember: there's a difference between being spirit-touched and being a shaman. All of the spirit-touched people are shaman, but not all shaman are spirit-touched.
Someone who's spirit-touched has a birth defect, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, ASD, etc. They're individuals who are obviously tormented by the 'spirits' and suffer daily because of their condition. As a result, they're taken in by the shaman (they would be outcast to starve otherwise) and trained in their arts, in the hope that will perhaps help them master their spiritual demons.
Holy Orders select their members on the basis of skill and merit. They're typically intelligent, wise, strong, and charismatic individuals. They learn the shaman's arts because they're the best of the People and thus would likely be best to learn the spirits' ways and secrets.
I thought being a shaman was considered a valid career choice for mentally ill people and that they could make a successful career out of it. And that plenty of mentally ill people with worse family collections were simply seen as crazy instead of ever getting a chance to becoming shaman. Did I misunderstand the level of regard given to our unaffiliated shaman these days?
We're turning Shamans into an elite trade. There are some types of mentally ill/deviant who perform perfectly fine in such circumstances, like a pretty wide spectrum of autistics, but GENERALLY speaking the spirit touched are not going to pass all the Holy Order initiations easily.
Jeree for instance is a paranoid schizophrenic(with, if I'm not mistaken, a dose of attention deficit hyperactivity on top), so he critically failed the Star Shaman initiation because as it turns out, being locked in a dark cave under oxygen deprivation situations tends to drive you to the breaking point under those circumstances. And also explains why he didn't want to be an Ember Eyes, precise memorization of the rituals is counter to him.
What this basically means is that crazy people no longer are good enough to make passable shamans, where the main thing is to provide SOME kind of spiritual advice at all, and now people will look at the Holy Orders and see well...people.
Well fed, fit, knowledgeable people. Rather than deformed(well aside from the Frost Scarred, but those with birth defects are more likely to die in their ordeals) or delusional(aside from the Star Shaman, but the very same would flunk their initiation HARD)
Bog iron is pretty common. Most of the Canadian Shield (the geography that the People primarily inhabit) is covered with hills, lakes, and swamps. I've said before, but I don't actually track every lake on the map; there's so many lakes that if I tried to do that, every tile would be lakes. Canada has approximately 75% of all the world's lakes. Most of those are concentrated in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba. There'a a lot of places that are would-be lakes, but the local water level isn't quite high enough, leaving the area a swamp.
It's not ideal bog country since it's a bit too cold, but even poor bogs still serve as good generators of iron.
Bog Iron is improved by hammering the crap out of it... literally. It needs to be raised to a high temperature and then beaten until all the contaminants come out of it.
Something to remember: Vikings actually sourced most of their iron from bogs. Their swords were renowned for being folded hundreds of times, much more often than Japanese blades, but still being complete shit. Some of the Viking sagas tell stories of swords being so soft that it was possible to straighten bent blades out with your foot.
In order to get bog iron to compete with normal, mined iron ore, you're going to need to develop Refactory Kilns and Water-Powered Hammers.
And even then bog iron isn't really going to compete, since its just iron leached out of soil iron content(i.e. third grade iron ore which is normally not even smelted), the quantity is really really low and manpower inefficient to harvest given that it takes people combing through bogs to extract tiny amounts. The only reason you'd use bog iron is if you didn't have smelted iron at all.
That said IIRC the problem was threefold.
1) Bog Iron in its raw form is usually brittle due to the contaminants. Brittle to the point that if you heat it and hammer it, it'd STILL crack rather than bend. Can't really avoid sulfur, phosphorus and the like in the bog environment.
2) The folding purification process involves enough heating and working while its very hot that most of the carbon content leaves long before the other impurities do, this means you have the pretty soft pure iron.
3) Repeatedly worked and folded metal without actual melting meant that theres a LOT of built up metal stress. Which meant a lot of unpredictable flaws.
They typically give you additional options where you wouldn't have had any before. For example, without Jeree, you would've defaulted to kicking the Fangs to the curb and replacing them with the Horned Riders this turn. Heroes usually get you better options than the default choice.
Pretty much my reasoning for precipitating this crisis early so we could have two heroes clean shit up.
AltHist games are very often a tale of doing the dumb thing while you can handle it so you aren't forced to do the dumb thing when you can't afford to.
[X] [Trade] Try and offer an apology to the Island Makers. (Gift Mission, - - Legitimacy, - Stability, - 0.5 RA)
[X] [Kick] Find another temple for the Fangs while the Horned Riders take Hill Guard. (- Stability, +0.25 RA)
[X] [Tree] Work on building good trails into the area for easier access. (New Trails)
You're over your RA cap. Every Holy Order is being pressured in its own way; the Horned Riders need to find a place to stay, the Fangs were stealing food, the Frost-Scarred were doing _____, and the Ember-Eyes were starting to preach. Each order is reacting in different ways, some more constructive than others.
Hmmm, now I'm worried about what we will have to deal with regarding the Frost Scarred. Considering their philosophy, specifically their ascetic nature and the value they put into pain, I'm somewhat leery of them further promoting this belief of theirs, especially as you used an example of them being rather vicious regarding using dogs to pull sleds earlier, which might be indicative of their behavior.
-Frost Scarred - I can't imagine the Frost Scarred being all that happy with being sought out for advice and spiritual intervention. Probably kept quiet like usual.
According to the QM, when he was describing the Frost Scarred on that axis of his, they were noted as being extroverted so I don't think that will be the issue we will have to deal with regarding them.
Well, considering the fact that we don't have a surplus of luxuries at the moment, we have a deficit, unless that exotic hardwood counts, I don't think the gift option is a good idea, as even if we pursue it, it's not likely to work. Besides, even if the hardwood does count, I don't want to tell the Island Makers about it, as they might suddenly start contesting us for this due to their likely greater need for it in terms of building boats.
You misread this. Jeree is drawing a contrast between wealth and being spirit-touched.
As of this moment, Jeree is rich, probably one of the top five richest people in his entire civilization. No one would dare call him spirit-touched due to the wealth and power he commands, even though he can hear the spirits whispering in his ear at times. He contrasts this against when he was a lowly, under-aged apprentice where people's suspicious whispers dogged his every step.
He's basically musing on the Neolithic version of: "Rich people are eccentric, poor people are crazy."
The Star Shaman get hit worse than the other Holy Orders since they are so secretive, but there's always a level of mistrust. Remember: there's a difference between being spirit-touched and being a shaman. All of the spirit-touched people are shaman, but not all shaman are spirit-touched.
Someone who's spirit-touched has a birth defect, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, ASD, etc. They're individuals who are obviously tormented by the 'spirits' and suffer daily because of their condition. As a result, they're taken in by the shaman (they would be outcast to starve otherwise) and trained in their arts, in the hope that will perhaps help them master their spiritual demons.
Holy Orders select their members on the basis of skill and merit. They're typically intelligent, wise, strong, and charismatic individuals. They learn the shaman's arts because they're the best of the People and thus would likely be best to learn the spirits' ways and secrets.
Is this simply our system of dealing with the spirit-touched, or one that others use as well?
As it seems pretty functional in terms of making sure that even our outcasts aren't wholly just left there to die, though I can see why there might be a clash when we take into account our religious authority crisis.
Plus, he's done this before; recall where he met Luule in their second mutual update. He abandoned his party, rushed ahead, and then sneaked into the Fingers, scaring Luule. In 21.1, he broke into Luule's lodge, literally by going through the roof so he could sit on top of a wall and look down on Luule's meeting with a foreign dignitary. When Jeree and Luule first met, Jeree was sneaking around and basically ambushed Luule.
He doesn't want to bother waiting for his companions so he ditches them.
Kaspar had one, but this tradition was imported from Arrow Lake. Recall: in the update discussing Kaspar's death, they crafted an ivory and lapis lazuli mask for his funeral as a gift.
So, taking into account the fact that we now have a good number of Arrow Lake tribesmen within our civilization, how widespread is the practice of having a death mask within the People?
How exactly would this decision to have the Horned Riders take the Temple at Hill Guard, and then the Fangs take the one at Arrow Lake be carried out narratively? As I think that, depending on how this is handled, some of the vendetta could be mitigated. For instance if this option were chosen and Jeree was the one who convinced Luule and the rest of the People to allow the Fangs to get the Temple at Arrow Lake, while the Horned Riders would take the one at Hill Guard, there might be less animosity towards the Horned Riders as they would be seen as trying to assist the Fangs.
Also, would this slight be seen as one dealt to them by the rest of the People, or that of the Horned Riders in specific? As I think that makes a big difference. If it is the former, they will likely have to bite their tongue in regards to this, since they will be getting a Temple back, especially after having erred so much previously. While if it is the latter, I think they and the Horned Riders might develop a kind of hostile rivalry, potentially even a violent one over this.
Personally, I think it is more likely to be the latter as it wasn't the Horned Riders who got them ousted in the first place, or made the decision, they simply took advantage of the situation to better themselves.
Hopefully if the Fangs get that Temple and we gain the Moste Holy 5 trait, this issue can be mitigated.
It's a form of respectful address. I really didn't intend for it to be as on the nose as 'sur', but the language I've been basing the People's tongue on uses a word very close to that for the salutation I was trying to convey.
Okay, gotcha. I'm assuming then, that since it's a special material/resource, rather than just having a general encourage arborists action, we would receive an voting option distinctly for the exotic hardwoods in order to plant more these right?
So out of curiosity, how do you carry out and determine Holy Order generation? So far it seems to be mostly be narrative. The Ember Eyes were formed from a courageous individual of ours utilizing fire in our war against the Hundred Bands, with their role changing once they learned how to utilize it more with the lime and seashells thing. The Fangs came from our warriors utilizing dogs against the Hundred Bands. The Frost-Scarred came from our winter warfare, and so on and so forth.
So, my question is, what prompts you to decide whether or not we deserve a holy order to be generated or not? What threshold needs to be reached mechanically?
Bog iron is pretty common. Most of the Canadian Shield (the geography that the People primarily inhabit) is covered with hills, lakes, and swamps. I've said before, but I don't actually track every lake on the map; there's so many lakes that if I tried to do that, every tile would be lakes. Canada has approximately 75% of all the world's lakes. Most of those are concentrated in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba. There'a a lot of places that are would-be lakes, but the local water level isn't quite high enough, leaving the area a swamp.
It's not ideal bog country since it's a bit too cold, but even poor bogs still serve as good generators of iron.
Bog Iron is improved by hammering the crap out of it... literally. It needs to be raised to a high temperature and then beaten until all the contaminants come out of it.
Something to remember: Vikings actually sourced most of their iron from bogs. Their swords were renowned for being folded hundreds of times, much more often than Japanese blades, but still being complete shit. Some of the Viking sagas tell stories of swords being so soft that it was possible to straighten bent blades out with your foot.
In order to get bog iron to compete with normal, mined iron ore, you're going to need to develop Refactory Kilns and Water-Powered Hammers.
Yeah...bog iron doesn't really sound that useful for us then, as I'm pretty sure that it would take some time to develop those techniques. Would those techniques be useful if we received normal, mined iron ore?
Either way, I think this is something that we will probably be a long ways away from having to deal with considering we don't even have copper.
Plus, taking into account the fact that the Hill Guard area is around the area where the real life Temagami Mines area, which has mining sites for copper, gold, and iron, I don't think we will be too reliant on bog iron, if at all.
They typically give you additional options where you wouldn't have had any before. For example, without Jeree, you would've defaulted to kicking the Fangs to the curb and replacing them with the Horned Riders this turn. Heroes usually get you better options than the default choice.
Thank god for Jeree then, he came at exactly the right time for us.
Any comments on Jeree and Luule's children? Or are the hero generation rolls for next turn? Does the fact that they are both heroes weigh on those rolls btw?
The Southern Bandits are just what you've heard from your explorers; small groups of people who come north and occasionally attack. There hasn't been much conversation, but aside from posturing, thrown stones, and arrows being traded, there hasn't been too much contact yet.
I don't think we've noticed anything unique about them, have we?
Either way, considering the fact that they seem more to be a nuisance than a real threat, I think we can afford to ignore them for now.
If they persist we can always raid them later.
Also changing vote:
[X] [Kick] Find another temple for the Fangs while the Horned Riders take Hill Guard. (- Stability, +0.25 RA)
[X] [Tree] Work on building good trails into the area for easier access. (New Trails)
[X] [Trade] Lean on the Soft Eyes, try to get them to cease being a middleman. (+ Stability)
Adhoc vote count started by Japanime on Oct 16, 2018 at 2:00 PM, finished with 3983 posts and 24 votes.
[X] [Kick] Find another temple for the Fangs while the Horned Riders take Hill Guard. (- Stability, +0.25 RA)
[X] [Kick] Find another temple for the Fangs while the Horned Riders take Hill Guard. (- Stability, +0.25 RA)
[X] [Tree] Work on building good trails into the area for easier access. (New Trails)
[X] [Trade] Lean on the Soft Eyes, try to get them to cease being a middleman. (+ Stability)
Hmmm, now I'm worried about what we will have to deal with regarding the Frost Scarred. Considering their philosophy, specifically their ascetic nature and the value they put into pain, I'm somewhat leery of them further promoting this belief of theirs, especially as you used an example of them being rather vicious regarding using dogs to pull sleds earlier, which might be indicative of their behavior.
Noting their beliefs on adversity, and the rejection of materialistic status symbols in favor of scarification, they would probably be finding ways to deal with the excess of RA, especially since they hadn't had much to do recently due to the peace time and taking status unearned being difficult for them.
So based on what we know of them, they're probably going to be promoting some kind of deliberate ordeal to justify their rising status
How exactly would this decision to have the Horned Riders take the Temple at Hill Guard, and then the Fangs take the one at Arrow Lake be carried out narratively? As I think that, depending on how this is handled, some of the vendetta could be mitigated. For instance if this option were chosen and Jeree was the one who convinced Luule and the rest of the People to allow the Fangs to get the Temple at Arrow Lake, while the Horned Riders would take the one at Hill Guard, there might be less animosity towards the Horned Riders as they would be seen as trying to assist the Fangs.
Also, would this slight be seen as one dealt to them by the rest of the People, or that of the Horned Riders in specific? As I think that makes a big difference. If it is the former, they will likely have to bite their tongue in regards to this, since they will be getting a Temple back, especially after having erred so much previously. While if it is the latter, I think they and the Horned Riders might develop a kind of hostile rivalry, potentially even a violent one over this.
Personally, I think it is more likely to be the latter as it wasn't the Horned Riders who got them ousted in the first place, or made the decision, they simply took advantage of the situation to better themselves.
Hopefully if the Fangs get that Temple and we gain the Moste Holy 5 trait, this issue can be mitigated.
Sounds like its up for the rolls. Jeree, assuming I understand how Hero Crisis interact correctly, could potentially spin it as gifting them the richer temple at Arrow Lake(Hill Guard doesn't HAVE much comparatively, Arrow Lake is wealthy)
Okay, gotcha. I'm assuming then, that since it's a special material/resource, rather than just having a general encourage arborists action, we would receive an voting option distinctly for the exotic hardwoods in order to plant more these right?
Yeah...bog iron doesn't really sound that useful for us then, as I'm pretty sure that it would take some time to develop those techniques. Would those techniques be useful if we received normal, mined iron ore?
Either way, I think this is something that we will probably be a long ways away from having to deal with considering we don't even have copper.
Plus, taking into account the fact that the Hill Guard area is around the area where the real life Temagami Mines area, which has mining sites for copper, gold, and iron, I don't think we will be too reliant on bog iron, if at all.
The techniques cross apply because until you discover Blast Furnace(which is pretty late barring doing China's stunt of skipping bloomeries straight to the blast furnace), Bloomeries use the same techniques to produce, work and purify iron. And you are mistaken on one thing: you don't have a choice. Bog iron and meteoric iron is all the iron you HAVE period until the early iron age.
Getting iron ore to the smelting temperature was monstrously hard. Made even harder by the increased temperature requirements owing to not knowing how to pre-process the ore(which is basically crushing, sifting by weight to remove low iron content rock so you aren't wasting a quarter of the energy trying to melt rock)
Im probably a bit too late in this discussion, but I might as well throw a hat into the ring before voting;
Instead of giving land to a new holy order at the disrespect and degradation of another, we MERGE them. Because seriously, they are super similar, both tame creatures of the wild and protect it. Both have significant military implications. And if we merge them using hill gaurd as a consolation prize we could minimize the infighting.
[X] [Kick] Find another temple for the Fangs while the Horned Riders take Hill Guard. (- Stability, +0.25 RA)
[X] [Tree] Try and work the new tree into the People's arboriculture. (-1 Turn to fully change Arboriculture paradigm)
[X] [Trade] Lean on the Soft Eyes, try to get them to cease being a middleman. (+ Stability)
Im probably a bit too late in this discussion, but I might as well throw a hat into the ring before voting;
Instead of giving land to a new holy order at the disrespect and degradation of another, we MERGE them. Because seriously, they are super similar, both tame creatures of the wild and protect it. Both have significant military implications. And if we merge them using hill gaurd as a consolation prize we could minimize the infighting.
[X] [Kick] Move the Horned Riders into Hill Guard and invite back the Fangs. (- - Stability, - Legitimacy)
[X] [Tree] Try and work the new tree into the People's arboriculture. (-1 Turn to fully change Arboriculture paradigm)
[X] [Trade] Lean on the Soft Eyes, try to get them to cease being a middleman. (+ Stability)
Buuuut thats real gamey and unnecessary. It would just be better to combine them in a whole thing, they would have alot more capabilities and be a greater force for TECH And WOLolO
Also, druidism.
Buuuut thats real gamey and unnecessary. It would just be better to combine them in a whole thing, they would have alot more capabilities and be a greater force for TECH And WOLolO
Also, druidism.
Not quite.
Combined orders would have more choices, but their attention would be split, which is a problem when you're working on domesticating animals with very different lifestyles, since its very likely that one animal type will take dominance and the other will be marginalized.
One temple only has a limited amount of resources, and housing two Orders in one temple halves that, because the temple is supplied by the settlement, and the settlement's supply limit is determined by the environment and accessibility via rivers and roads...neither which a fused order improves.
So combining the orders should save on resource consumption overall, but slows down advances and weakens both orders.
Well...keep in mind that every skill and technique is maintained and developed by a couple dozen people who learn the skill by doing, on the job. These people must also provide food for their taxes, family and personal upkeep. This means herding for the Horned Riders and hunting + herding for the Fangs in addition to whatever they're doing with their preferred animals.
This is then limited by what they can reasonably access from the temple. If a Fang wants to expand his pack of herding dogs, then the Horned Riders are going to need to breed more caribou for meat instead of riding to feed the dogs. Conversely, out of their annual recruiting limits they have the choice of picking people good with managing aggressive dogs(which at this stage of domestication includes people with the powerful broad build to wrestle wolves into submission for training), or people good with gaining the trust of caribou repeatedly AND being light enough that they can ride even after puberty(i.e calm and even tempered tiny people).
So half the temple is trying to recruit for big macho men who can play dominance games with wolves and the other is basically recruiting for a stone age disney princess.
It CAN still work(much more awkward setups had), but the inconsistencies in values, manpower and techniques would hurt both their abilities to do the job, unless they were to consume more resources, which means more trails, better transportation and really, you want the efficiencies of metal tools so they aren't wasting most of the day making sure they get enough food for their family instead of beast wrangling.
@Redium Speaking of, do the Frost-scarred have any extra income other than their warrior stipend? The other military holy orders all seem to be some of the best moneymakers in our civ.
@Redium Speaking of, do the Frost-scarred have any extra income other than their warrior stipend? The other military holy orders all seem to be some of the best moneymakers in our civ.
[X] [Kick] Find another temple for the Fangs while the Horned Riders take Hill Guard. (- Stability, +0.25 RA)
[X] [Tree] Have the shaman spend time with the trees, studying them. (Study: Life)
[X] [Trade] Lean on the Soft Eyes, try to get them to cease being a middleman. (+ Stability)
They are? Do you remember the source for that? I remember them first appearing alongside professional warriors and their recruitment favoring the biggest adolescent boys around. Also their only advantage over normals would be that they can look for longer and further afield for prey during the winter months.
They are? Do you remember the source for that? I remember them first appearing alongside professional warriors and their recruitment favoring the biggest adolescent boys around. Also their only advantage over normals would be that they can look for longer and further afield for prey during the winter months.
Thats because our entire warrior class are also hunters. They don't need a competitive advantage, they just need to hunt enough food to sustain themselves at least partially.
Thats because our entire warrior class are also hunters. They don't need a competitive advantage, they just need to hunt enough food to sustain themselves at least partially.
We're in the stone age and pre intensive grain agriculture dude. Hunting is part and parcel of training and earning your keep as a warrior.You can't pay for full time warrior elite on any kind of scale until the bronze age, they need to at least offset their upkeep, there simply isn't enough agricultural efficiency to feed a body of men who eat some 4-5 times as much as anyone else, to train all day to kill humans.
Even as recent as Priit, he was expected to hunt.
Our innovation is that we actually had warriors learn to fight men as their primary trade. Not as an exclusive trade
Nickel was IIRC, not isolated, but it was used, mostly in the form of accidental alloys. Meteoric iron being nickel-iron is one reason why they're so tough, it shows up on some bronzes(which I suspect was the same as arsenic bronzes, largely accidental because the ore contained it)
I believe the general idea was just to continue our infrastructure building spree. Spread some more kilns around if possible start working on a Hill for the Fingers. We might also want to consider some form of diplo to cheer up the Soft Eyes since we're forcing them to stop trading with the Island Makers.
