Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
[X] [Death] Ascended to the spirits!
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
From Stone to the Stars
- Thread starter Redium
- Start date
- Original Alt. History
- Location
- United States
[X] [Death] Ascended to the spirits!
[x] [Spirit] Begin Megaproject: The Hunt!
Long live the God-Emperor.
[x] [Spirit] Begin Megaproject: The Hunt!
Long live the God-Emperor.
- Location
- USA
Here is the reasoning I chose for why I picked ascended over union. I believe with the information above that Kaspar's death leading into an ascension or apotheosis will mean likely more for the People in regards to their values than say the union. Ascension seems to imply to me that Kaspar directly transitioned from man to spirit, remaining as unique as he was in mortality as he will be in immortality. Joining in union seems to mean to me that Kaspar's spirit, or soul, left the mortal plane and simply became part of a greater whole of the spirits of the world, maybe similar to the idea of reincarnation in a sense. To me, by choosing ascension we will likely espouse an idea that those who perform well in life, exceptionally well like Kaspar did, will have a chance at immortality by becoming a spirit. As seen during the last turn update it was said that nothing lasted forever, save for the spirits. If people are able to ascend, or believe that they can ascend due to the works of their own deeds during life, maybe that might promote a belief in an afterlife governed by a set of values.
That's my two cents on the issue. Right now deification would not be too uncommon for this period in history, and if anyone deserves to be deified, then Kaspar fits the bill.
Edit: @Redium btw, you mentioned that there would be a form of deific curse as part of this current update? Are any of the options up here the deific curse you spoke of?
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] [Death] Ascended to the spirits!
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
The God-Emperor protects!
On a more serious note, I am all for adding him to the pantheon. He did good.
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
The God-Emperor protects!
On a more serious note, I am all for adding him to the pantheon. He did good.
The Hunt was unlocked by becoming Settled. Its not going away. The temple would have a very different meaning though, without this event.
Not that close. Its the general warning message for converting to Settled and thus losing some food efficiency until agriculture finishes.
We want the Hunt soon. But its not a unique opportunity like raising a temple at the most significant funeral in living memory
Sort of both? You're going to need to wait about 10 turns before you get your next opportunity to make a change to the orker's natural traits. That decision is prompted by taking a Hunt action at that point in time.
The DC for hunt orkers dropped about 15% (for hunting them, herding is easier), but it's still really risky. ~65% chance of bad things?
The Northlands typically have a 'winter' and a 'summer' range. You currently only see their summer range, the winter one is off the map. Effectively they have a base camp that they switch between depending on food and the seasons.
Yes.
Specialist units are unique in their effects. The Frost-Scarred open up an addition sub-phase within each turn that you get to attack or defend with. Normally, for example, a turn might have four invisible sub-phases where you and the enemy throw raids and thus roll dice at each other. Having the Frost-Scarred means you get to roll four dice as normal and then one more that's unopposed.
The Fangs and Ember-Eyes are simpler. They basically add a flat +20 on applicable rolls: i.e. sacking settlements for the Ember-Eyes and skirmishing for the Fangs. Since you only get skirmish and sack rolls, the Fangs are really, really powerful right now. That's going to drop quite a bit as warfare gets more organized and armies get larger.
Basically the war warfare works currently is two enemies start in the skirmish phase. Once one side wins a number of skirmish phases equal to the sum of the Garrison + Defense of a settlement, they get to attempt to sack a settlement. A sack is a Melee roll, the only one in this era. If the attacker is successful, they destroy the enemy's nearest settlement and make off with sweet, sweet loot. You then return to the Skirmish phase and begin going through the motions again. Each roll is a d100 with modifiers; heroes, logistics, technology, elite status, etc.
For other Holy Orders that you know of: the Peace Builders have their Skalds and a new group called the Medicine Men. The Island Makers have the Stone Crushers. The Tribe of the West has Berserkers. South Lake used to have the Woodland Stalkers, but that tradition has gone extinct. Arrow Lake, the Pear Divers, Bond Breakers, Northlands and Mountain Clans do not have any unique traditions.
Warfare is going to become more organized and the paradigm will change during the mid Bronze Age.
The great lake to the south doesn't completely freeze over during winter. It is a huge lake. Only the periphery tends to freeze.
Ice fishing exists if you're patient enough to cut through the ice. It's often not worth the calories, though, unless you're going it early or late in winter. Cutting through ice with stone tools is very difficult.
You don't really have a deity concept yet. The closest you have is the notion that some spirits are Great, while others are Lesser. They're still the same being, just... different in scope.
The way the Holy Orders work is more akin to mystery cults at this point in time.
Armour isn't that great. It will save you from a glancing blow if you're lucky. That's about it. War clubs tend to crush almost any type of armour, spears can generally pierce through the gaps with little effort, and Blackswords will hack through it like it's not even there.
You haven't the foggiest idea. As far as the People know, the area south of you is an endless Green Sea of trees. Same for the west, east and north.
Naval warfare doesn't really occur. There are times where canoes of warriors might accidentally come across one another, but that tends to end very quickly with a shoot out. Most people are using birch bark skin canoes and that's fairly easy to tear holes in. Almost anyone can shoot it full of holes and sink the vessel. It's not worth the trouble to risk your only ride home during an attack.
The obsidian used in the Blacksword is so expensive that, in the modern day, for example,. you might as well make a sword out of solid gold. The price would be the same.
War clubs and spears are the next best weapons.
There's a debate as to whether war clubs or spears are better. It tends to vary mostly based on personal preference. War clubs tend to be a lot easier to maintain, but spears give a lot of use and are much more familiar to most since they're used in hunting.
That was me forgetting about them. They have more warriors than the Pearl Divers and their quality would be about the same as the Pearl Divers.
They have a strange drink that makes you feel funny once you try it.
Other than that, they're pre-eminent agriculturalists and heavily decentralized. You're not really sure what their Values are, but they're likely things that promote growth.
The Island Makers mostly trade pottery and dyes to you. Actually... *double checks* they've also recently discovered black mica. They trade that to you as well.
The totem poles represent Holy Sites. You don't have any since your theology has leveled up to shrines.
The leaf-like symbols are supposed to be grape bunches. They signal alcohol production.
The gold symbol is simply a luxury material of some sort; gems, gold, silver, pearls, jade, etc.
Ding. Ding. Ding!
A lot of idiots will indeed do stupid things in that cave and get themselves killed..
The weather hasn't iterated yet. It changes next turn.
No one has noticed any coughing blood in those afflicted.
The symptoms that people have noticed included: pain in the head, neck, and chest; persistent feeling of coldness; hair loss; and a slowed heart.
Sickness and curses are basically synonymous. The only 'curse' that's recognized as being different is wound-rot.
It's actually ancestral. Humans have been buried with grave goods for tens of thousands of years. What those goods were varied, but usually included jewelry, food, tools and weapons.
Anthropologists would close their eyes and mutter under their breath while archaeologists jam the proof directly in their face.
Anthropology has largely ignored Stone Age burial sites that contained 'rich' people with extensive grave goods. It contradicts the prevailing paradigm which suggests that Stone Age humans lived in equality in small hunter-gatherer bands. Other than that, I'm not sure. Anthropologists have sort of stuck their heads in the sand and ignored such finds. If anything, they're more likely to attribute Kaspar's remains to being much, much younger than they actually are.
Not really. He's basically a hundred. If each of his children had three descendants on average, there would be nearly 250 people descended from him after 5 generations. Exponential growth is nuts.
Now, many of Kaspar's descendants had more than three children so he's actually got many more descendants.
Mountains, mystery, otherworldly knowledge, sleep, dreams, being elderly, whispers.
Kaspar had blue eyes but dark hair. About 1/3 of the People have blue eyes and 4/5 have dark hair so not really.
In order for blonde hair to show up, a person need to have two copies of a recessive allele. It's likely that everyone out to his cousins had a copy of the blonde allele. Alvar was just the first to have two copies and express the trait.
The People just happened to be really lucky when I rolled for unique physical traits; they got two. They developed blonde hair on their own; similar to how residents of the Solomon Islands tend to have blonde hair and the genes for which originated in the pacific. They did not cross over from European sources. Same thing for blue eyes; the Ainu, Japan's native population, were reputed to have blue eyes, red hair, and beards, that developed independently of Europeans. Modern Japanese people (who are from a different, later settling ethnic group) have none of that.
I basically had a table that contained a couple different traits that would define the People: light, medium, dark skin; blue, green, hazel, brown eyes; blonde, red, brown, black hair; short, curly hair; short, medium, tall; or body hair, beards, none; and rolled on it.
The People ended up rolling: medium skin, blue eyes, straight hair, blonde, tall, and none. The baseline was: medium skin, black eyes, straight hair, black hair, tall, and none.
Blonde hair is perhaps between 15-20% of the People? Probably on the lower end of the range. Blondes also skew more heavily to Crystal Lake and Hill Guard than the Fingers.
Outside of the People, the most blondes can be found in the Mountain Clans, but that's like 1-2% at best. Arrow Lake also has 3-4% blue eyes, but almost no blonde hair.
A unique marker of the People would definitely be blue eyes and blonde hair. The People are still quite dark skinned, more than modern day First Nations (since many First Nations people have some degree of European ancestry), but the combination of blonde and blue eyes is definitely unique.
I'm not sure I ever gave the People an eye colour. I'm pretty sure the default was black, with a number who also had blue eyes instead.
Amber eyes will likely be attributed to your gods after they develop.
'Blessed in their own way'. It's both curse and blessing. It pushes the spirits away from human ken and into the realm of something different. Clearly, for Kaspar, being dead isn't good, but it was a blessing for a man who lived so old he could barely move, was mostly deaf and blind, and couldn't control going to the bathroom.
Finishing the spirit's lessons will push Kaspar more into the role of a student. Someone who's wise and learned. He wasn't special and he didn't learn anything special, he simply studied the appropriate magics.
Been blessed in their own way is explained above.
You can do both later on. The one that you pick to do now is going to get a significant boost from coming on the heels of Kaspar's death. It's a momentous cultural and spiritual moment.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Thats Unfortunate i would have (well obviously not in real life) Liked such a trait to develop, it'd be interesting to read about, most unfortunate indeed.
Like how dark anyways? I've never really seen that combination in real life, though i have not really checked, but i always attributed blonde to light skin tones, though thinking on it now (since i've never actually truly thought about it before) that isn't a strict rule more than just happenstance.
What does Aeva look like? Does she have blonde hair and blue eyes? Since i know not of her mother, or does she take more after Kasper?
RomanceNinja
The Pun-isher (Official Meme Wizard)
- Location
- United Kingdom
[X] [Death] Joined the spirits in union.
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
- Location
- USA
I'm assuming though that at this point we already have a herd of tame orkers with which we could selectively breed to get these traits correct? We don't need to continue more specified and directed hunt actions do we?
If we do have herd of tamed orkers, what exactly will benefit us if we chose to continue hunting them? Furthermore, what does the herding action do? It's been so long since we've actually had to pick out the turn order ourselves that I am not entirely sure that we've even had a herding option yet?
How has their nomadic nature affected their ability to survive the weather changes that have occurred quite recently? Has it helped them or hurt them?
It seems like we have a very potent warrior force then considering how the two phases we have right now are served well by our current holy orders. While I will not say that it makes war desirable, it does serve as a good way to secure our expansion if need be.
I am curious though, you said that before the South Lake warriors were equivalent or close to the prowess of even our holy orders like the Fangs, is there a base martial statistic that is used to determine such between tribes?
When it comes to the Peace Builders it doesn't seem like their holy orders are really oriented towards warfare like ours are as Skalds likely spread influence among their neighbors while the Medicine Men likely serve as their version of the Ember Eyes, except less martial. For the Island Makers I would hazard to guess that the Stone Crushers are their elite heavy infantry armed with war clubs, while the Berserkers of the Tribe of the West are likely elite warriors.
If we had to pick a fight right now, we could probably do pretty well against the Pearl Divers due to their rather low martial stats and no holy orders either.
So not for a long while then, considering we still appear to be in the neolithic period?
Considering that the great lake to our south is an actual Great Lake, and is what we refer to as Lake Ontario, this comes as no surprise.
So is ice fishing now what the Island Makers use to survive during freezing winters and cold periods then?
How do people determine if a spirit is Great or Lesser?
Ahhh gotcha, that makes sense then.
So considering how war works during this time period, I think we can forgo armor development for awhile.
Guess we should probably explore more in order to see if there are any interesting features.
So I'm guessing then that river born raids likely won't be too effective considering that the defending settlement would likely have it easier lobbing arrows at those in the boats, thus ending the raid rather decisively?
So how many warriors would you estimate possess blackswords? Also how do we maintain them, considering the obsidian is likely to either dull or fall out with use?
It seems our tribe doesn't favor war clubs for some reason. Then again we do have the walls and the people to make spears work.
So middling then? I wonder what will happen to them if the integration goes well.
Sounds like beer or wine to me.
If we were bent on raiding anyone, they seem like the perfect target for us considering our how decentralized they are, alongside the bonuses of our holy orders. By growth do you mean population growth?
The Island Makers don't seem to have any truly critical trade goods we need, so I wonder if we can extract more from them in future trades. Black Mica doesn't seem too useful at the moment.
So others are still likely on the previous level, while we're likely to build bigger and better shrines? Makes sense. I wonder what that says about their cultural beliefs? Does that mean that we aren't doing too badly in that category then?
This sounds like either an invasion is in order or more trade with the South in order to see if we can take some samples as trade goods and grow them ourselves on our soil. Getting beer and wine right now would probably help with stability later, as it would serve as a potent luxury good.
So in this case, they are likely pearls then?
Thank you, thank you, do I get a prize? ;D
In any case how long did you think it would take before any of us noticed where we definitively were? Either way it's good to know where we appear to be on the map. Taking into account the positions on the map I think we should eventually move southwards with our expansion, with our only northward expansion being through the area the Pearl Divers operate from as that is the St. Lawrence River.
It's good to know that we are clearly on the Great Lakes now and that our settlements are basically in what would be the Quebec area. Though that kind of explains your hints about creating canals and dams now.
Okay then choosing the Hunt Megaproject will likely be a waste as by the time that is completed the weather will have likely changed and given us a reprieve with it when it comes to our food situation.
The only guesses I have for this are hypothyroidism, or the flu, and I am leaning on the latter at this stage.
Well, there's nothing we can do about this then, not for awhile.
Huh didn't know that.
It sounds like we are very anachronistic for this time period, which I don't mind much, I just want a fair shake like everyone else.
Damn, so it seems like over time, Kaspar's descendants, or those who hold his blood, will likely take up a good portion of the company.
I get the rest, but how did Kaspar get associated with the Mountains?
So can we change or direct changes concerning the appearance of our tribe and characters later on? Considering how many tribes we've integrated into our initial one, will that change the appearance of our tribe as a whole with each new tribe taken in and assimilated?
I think a Grand Shrine here will likely cement Kaspar's legacy here as I've said before, because it will synergize.
Walker Of Chaos
Best/Worst Dynasty
- Location
- Sweden
[X] [Death] Ascended to the spirits!
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
As for why I'm doing temple over hunt, it's mostly because, as Veekie noted, trained shamans can probably figure out roughly how to get visions in relative safety... but only if there are shamans actually there. Thus, this seems like a way to limit the number of deaths from idiots.
Himmelhand
Giant Sinkhole 2020
- Location
- Midwestern US
This is a really cool quest!
[X] [Death] Ascended to the spirits!
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
[X] [Death] Ascended to the spirits!
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
- Location
- Asia
[X] [Death] Joined the spirits in union.
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.
[X] [Spirit] Found a grand shrine at the Cave of Stars.