Remove ads

It Belongs to a Museum

Voting is open
Reader mode
Voting closed, writing has begun.

Adhoc vote count started by Boney on Feb 19, 2025 at 11:27 AM, finished with 177 posts and 46 votes.
  • [X] Plan: Landing and Learning
    - [X] Develop Museum - Create Exhibit
    -- [X] An Exhibit depicting Luthor's early days in the region, how he and his men laid claim to these lands, battled against the natives and conquered it! Mainly focused around Harkon, with Lizardmen and Lustria artifacts acting as a means to show the challenges he faced, along with the wealth he acquired.
    --- [X] Centerpiece: The Niflhundr
    --- [X] Companion Artifacts (Piracy): Fire Serpent Fortress and Death Mask of Haakon the Bloody. These will be used to build a more complete picture of Harkon's early days and represent him in the exhibit's narrative.
    --- [X] Companion Artifacts (Lustria/Lizardmen): The assorted Dinosaur skeletons and Lizardmen artifacts. These will mainly be used to represent the challenges and dangers that Harkon faced during his early days. Put emphasis on their strength and power, until further research can be conducted.
    -[X] Acquire Relic (Lizardmen skeletons)
    -[X] Learn (Lizardmen)
    [X] Plan: Journey To Create The Codes
    -[X] Create Exhibit (an exhibit focused on the events surrounding the landing of Haakon the Bloody in Lustria)
    -[X] Acquire Relic (Lizardmen skeletons)
    -[X] Acquire Relic (copies of all the pirate codes of Awakening)
    [X] Plan: Haakon's Landing
    -[X] Create Exhibit (an exhibit focused on the events surrounding the landing of Haakon the Bloody in Lustria)
    -[X] Investigate (Haakon the Bloody)
    -[X] Acquire Relics - via Princess Aelsabrim Fallenstar
    --[X] Skeletons (Rare)
    [X] Plan Sufficiently Maximised Martial Mien - Lizardmen Learning Variant
    - [X] Broaden Horizons - Learn (Lizardmen)
    - [X] Broaden Horizons - Cultivate Audience (Skeggi Sailors - for Lizardman plunder, skaldic tales and the Norscan history represented by the Niflhundr and Fire Serpent Fortress)
    - [X] Develop Museum - Create Exhibit
    -- [X] An Exhibit depicting Luthor's early days in the region, how he and his men laid claim to these lands, battled against the natives and conquered it! Mainly focused around Harkon, with Lizardmen and Lustria artifacts acting as a means to show the challenges he faced, along with the wealth he acquired.
    --- [X] Centerpiece: The Niflhundr
    --- [X] Companion Artifacts (Piracy): Fire Serpent Fortress and Death Mask of Haakon the Bloody. These will be used to build a more complete picture of Harkon's early days and represent him in the exhibit's narrative.
    --- [X] Companion Artifacts (Lustria/Lizardmen): The assorted Dinosaur skeletons and Lizardmen artifacts. These will mainly be used to represent the challenges and dangers that Harkon faced during his early days. Put emphasis on their strength and power, until further research can be conducted.
    [X] Plan Sufficiently Maximised Martial Mien
    - [X] Develop Museum - Research Relic (Palanquin)
    - [X] Broaden Horizons - Cultivate Audience (Skeggi Sailors - for Lizardman plunder, skaldic tales and the Norscan history represented by the Niflhundr and Fire Serpent Fortress)
    - [X] Develop Museum - Create Exhibit
    -- [X] An Exhibit depicting Luthor's early days in the region, how he and his men laid claim to these lands, battled against the natives and conquered it! Mainly focused around Harkon, with Lizardmen and Lustria artifacts acting as a means to show the challenges he faced, along with the wealth he acquired.
    --- [X] Centerpiece: The Niflhundr
    --- [X] Companion Artifacts (Piracy): Fire Serpent Fortress and Death Mask of Haakon the Bloody. These will be used to build a more complete picture of Harkon's early days and represent him in the exhibit's narrative.
    --- [X] Companion Artifacts (Lustria/Lizardmen): The assorted Dinosaur skeletons and Lizardmen artifacts. These will mainly be used to represent the challenges and dangers that Harkon faced during his early days. Put emphasis on their strength and power, until further research can be conducted.
    [X] Plan Even More Maximised Martial Mien
    - [X] Develop Museum - Acquire Relic (Lizardmen Bodies/Skeletons - Awakening)
    - [X] Develop Museum - Acquire Relic (Lizardmen Weapons and Armour - Awakening)
    - [X] Acquire Relics - via Princess Aelsabrim Fallenstar - Plants
    [X] Plan: Journey To Create The Flags
    -[X] Create Exhibit (an exhibit focused on the events surrounding the landing of Haakon the Bloody in Lustria)
    -[X] Acquire Relic (Lizardmen skeletons)
    -[X] Acquire Relic (copies of all the pirate flags of Awakening)
    [X] Plan Even More Maximised Martial Mien (Now with Flags!)
    - [X] Develop Museum - Acquire Relic (Lizardmen Bodies/Skeletons - Awakening)
    - [X] Develop Museum - Acquire Relic (Pirate Flags of the Vampire Coast - Awakening)
    - [X] Acquire Relics - via Princess Aelsabrim Fallenstar - Plants
    [x] Plan: Attract likely New audiences with Value and Magic
    - [x] Investigate Relic - Palequin
    - [x] Acquire Relics - Gems
    - [x] Acquire Relics - Plants
    [X] Plan flags and learning
    -[X] Create Exhibit (Conquest of Haakon the Bloody, using Ship, Fortress, and Death Mask only)
    -[X] Acquire relic (pirate flags of the vampire coast).
    -[X] Learn (Lizardmen)
    [X] Plan: Final Prep
    -[X] Acquire Relic (Lizardmen skeletons)
    -[X] Learn (Lizardmen)
    - [X] Acquire Relics - via Princess Aelsabrim Fallenstar - Plants
Click to expand...
 
Remove ads
Year 3 New
  • Threadmarks
    • [*] Plan: Landing and Learning
    - [*] Develop Museum - Create Exhibit
    -- [*] An Exhibit depicting Luthor's early days in the region, how he and his men laid claim to these lands, battled against the natives and conquered it! Mainly focused around Harkon, with Lizardmen and Lustria artifacts acting as a means to show the challenges he faced, along with the wealth he acquired.
    --- [*] Centerpiece: The Niflhundr
    --- [*] Companion Artifacts (Piracy): Fire Serpent Fortress and Death Mask of Haakon the Bloody. These will be used to build a more complete picture of Harkon's early days and represent him in the exhibit's narrative.
    --- [*] Companion Artifacts (Lustria/Lizardmen): The assorted Dinosaur skeletons and Lizardmen artifacts. These will mainly be used to represent the challenges and dangers that Harkon faced during his early days. Put emphasis on their strength and power, until further research can be conducted.
    -[*] Acquire Relic (Lizardmen skeletons)
    -[*] Learn (Lizardmen)

    Vote tally

    Considering how prominent they're going to be in your planned exhibit, your ignorance of the Lizardmen is becoming more and more of a hindrance. Now, candor does compel you to admit, at least to yourself, that the Lizardmen were far from unknown to Nehekhara, and this is much less an exploration of a strange new people in a strange new land than it is you catching up on something you'd always mentally labelled as other peoples' problems. Dealing with the strange lizardfolk of the Southlands was the problem of Rasetra and Lybaras on the eastern side of the mountains, and Ka-Sabar and Bhagar on the western side. Lahmia was comfortably situated hundreds of miles away from any of that, so you never really got around to looking into it.

    Awakening is a good point to start your investigations, but only to start them, as most local expertise begins and ends with how to kill them - not unimportant, but not fully covering what you were hoping to learn, either. Your next stop is the Citadel of Dusk to extract what local knowledge you can, but that has to be at a remove as it wouldn't do to be showing too much interest in the Lizardmen immediately after so many artefacts of theirs went missing, even if you do plan for nobody to ever find out about that. So you perform something of a reversion to form and once more take on the role of the wandering old sage as you book passage on a boat heading towards the Isthmus of Lustria.

    This is the part of the world most northerners mean when they say 'New World', the place where they have built their colonies and clash with the northern frontier of the Lizardman society. Skeggi, the Norscan settlement, is by far the oldest and largest of them, and the one you have the hardest time fitting into - your grasp of Norscan is still quite limited, so you have to resort to slapping a year or two out of the more unwelcoming before they stop seeing you as prey. They have a long and storied rivalry with the nearby Temple-City they identify as Hexoatl, one their skalds are quite easy to prod into retelling. Apparently there's something of a cycle to Skeggi where a ruler tries to keep the inhabitants from provoking the Lizardmen, but eventually they grow bold and fractured enough to do so anyway, and the inevitable reprisal from the Lizardmen unites the Norscans once more under a single banner, preventing what would otherwise be an inevitable fracturing into either civil war or a dissolution into individual tribes.

    Interesting though what they have to say is, their information does not differ much from that of Awakening, so you go seeking a more scholarly perspective. The less northern northerners currently have five settlements on the isthmus, and though none of them are what you'd call centres of learning and culture, they do have enough specialists in the topic of their greatest threats for you to garner a more rounded perspective on the lizardfolk. Your conclusions are thus:

    The Lizardmen are divided quite sensibly into four castes: the large, strong labourer class called 'Kroxigor', the small, clever, and agile artisan and scholar class called 'Skinks', the vicious, man-sized warrior class called 'Saurus', and the ruling Priest-Kings called 'Slann'. It is the Skinks that generally handle any peaceful dealings with outsiders, and though remarkably loyal and apparently incorruptible, they show all the usual quirks and foibles of living, thinking beings. The Saurus, in contrast, are dedicated entirely to war and show considerable discipline on the battlefield, to the extent that some theorize them to be constructs or undead of some sort. Kroxigor tend to only be seen with Skink handlers that they follow the instructions of, suggesting either a hierarchy or a deficiency in intellect, and the Slann are rarely seen and when they are, they tend to be performing horrific feats of magical power. There are, of course, specializations within these castes, but depending on who you talk to, some claim entire subspecies amongst them, from well-attested accounts of warrior and scout Skinks to rarer tales of Lizardmen with uniform sets of mutations such as boney crests or spurs or enlarged musculature, always accompanied with a matching change in colouration.

    Most conflicts between the Lizardmen and other races center around gold. The Lizardmen, as you've observed, rarely practice any metalwork, preferring stone and ivory for their tools and weapons, with the notable exception of using gold to make ornaments, decoration, jewellery, and stelae. Most of those are only annoyances to lose, leading to some adventurers making away with fortunes worth of gold and having to escape only a desultory pursuit and a few thrown javelins, but when an adventurer steals away with the Lizardman equivalent of a holy book, the response becomes... well, not unlike the response one would get if they stole a golden holy book from a tomb in Nehekhara. This has garnered the Lizardmen a reputation among many in the isthmus colonies of being completely unpredictable and impossible to coexist with. Rather undeservedly so, in your opinion.

    The Lizardmen are a devout society, with each of their Temple-Cities dedicated to a single one of their Gods that influences some of the character of that city - not unlike your own homeland. From what little the Elves are able to tell you about their pantheon you can see points where you could attempt the beginning of an interpretatio Nehekhara, but the Elves, who are normally quite keen on their own interpretatio Ulthuan, don't even attempt this. They call the Lizardman pantheon the 'Gods from Before', distinct from the 'Gods from Above' and 'Gods from Below' that they worship. These are usually translated by northerner scholars as 'Old Ones' - they tend to be a bit touchy about granting foreign deities the status of 'proper' Gods.

    Their funerary customs are a bit limited, as for the most part they seem to be content to leave the dead where they fall. The only exception is for the remains of Lizardmen of particular skill, age, or note, who in eras past seemed to 'earn' internment in the necropolis on Fuming Serpent Island. That necropolis was buried in a volcanic eruption, and the Lizardmen have shown little care for recovering it. It's unknown whether the honoured dead go elsewhere now, or if they simply stopped bothering.

    Overall, they're rather similar to the modern incarnation of your own homeland: a strong tendency towards insularity until encroached upon, and then utterly ferocious in their pursuit of a restoration of the status quo. As demonstrated by the Elves of the Citadel of Dusk, they can be coexisted with, and as demonstrated by Awakening, they can be bloodied to the point that they pull back and reconsider further conflict.

    ---

    With your academic study concluded, you turn to something more hands-on. With Awakening having been the site of a former Temple-City and many attempts at retaking it, there are no shortage of Lizardmen remains in the surrounding swamps, and they prove as straightforward to harvest as the human corpses already in your collection were. You need only one or two to form the basis for an exhibit on them, but you harvest some more on top of that to in case you opt towards including them in dioramas in the future; if you're already going to the trouble of getting the tools and unguents to clean one skeleton ready, it's not that much more trouble to clean off a few more, after all. And though there are no secrets left in Human skeletons for you to discover, the same is not yet true of those of Lizardmen.

    At first examination the basic shape of the Saurus body looks like a Cold One was shrunk to the size of a man and had their posture tweaked to stand upright and their foretalons adjusted into four-fingered, short-clawed hands to be able wield weapons. But on a closer look there are a couple of key differences to that basic layout that intrigue you: a horned crest not unlike that of the Stegadon, and a row of bone spikes along its spine quite similar to that on each side of the Bastilodon. It is no wonder that they tame these beasts and fight alongside them; no doubt they credit these similarities to divine providence. Even accounting for their lack of proper steel, they must be terrible to fight against.

    The Skinks, in contrast, are much closer to a human in shape, including having the approximate height and stature of a slender man if they stood upright. Their four-fingered hands appear quite dexterous, and their slender, powerful legs with their long tail acting as a counterbalance must have made them quite swift on their surprisingly dangerous-looking talons. Their teeth are small but sharp and very numerous, and perhaps you're simply primed to look for it after what you observed of the Saurus, but it does seem to you that the frill on the back of their heads is structurally quite similar to the one found on the back of the Salamanders.


    Saurus Skeleton - Trophy, Lustria, Lizardmen
    Partial cultural and biological understanding.

    Saurus are the warrior caste of the Lizardmen, highly disciplined and incredibly ferocious in battle. They usually wield jagged clubs or spears, and are often seen riding atop Cold Ones and even larger predators.


    Skink Skeleton - Lustria, Lizardmen
    Partial cultural and biological understanding.

    Skinks are the artisan and scholar caste of the Lizardmen, fast, agile, and clever. When mustered for war, they typically wield spears, javelins, or blowpipes, or ride atop the large herbivores native to Lustria, sometimes with large siege weapons mounted on their back.

    ---

    You had been picturing a diorama of a just-beached Niflhundr with a crew leaping out and charging at a small force of Lizardmen and their beasts, but in the end you decided that since it doesn't depict any actual event, it raises questions more than it impresses. Instead, you set up the Niflhundr in the courtyard of the fortress as a centerpiece with skeletal crew at the oars and one at the tiller wearing Lutr's death mask, with the rest of the artefacts you've accumulated so far arrayed in a circle around it. You fretted about whether the ship would fit through the gates, and it was only after it very narrowly squeaked through and you relaxed that it occurred to you that the gates were probably built with the specific intention of the Niflhundr being able to fit inside. After all, Lutr wouldn't be that keen to leave his flagship - then his only ship - tied up at the docks if his island was invaded and his fortress besieged.

    After arranging one of your surplus Saurus skeletons atop the Cold One with some difficulty and perhaps one or two loud, clattering, time-consuming mishaps, you go through a test run of what the experience of your museum is supposed to be with a crew gathered from Awakening and plied with a round of drinks before they left and the promise of several more after they get back. Standing atop the bow of the Niflhundr, Fjolnir is able to deliver his tale of Haakon's captaincy of the ship and his building of the fortress, and then he hops down to do a circuit of the displays in the courtyard, using them to lend context and drama to stories of Luthor's clashes with the Lizardmen. The larger skeletons are as much of an attention-getter as you predicted, but you also see the weapons drawing attention from those who had clashed with the Lizardmen in the past, and you make a mental note to add an additional sign warning visitors that the jagged edge of the displayed club is extremely sharp, as well as putting the blowpipe darts behind glass after it becomes clear that the dried and faded remains of some unfathomably old venom still retains at least enough potency to cause an adult human to bleed slightly from the nose and ears.

    Happy with the layout and context, you get to work on chiseling out signs telling what you know of the artefacts in question in Reikvolker, Tilean, Norscan, Nehekharan, and Eltharin. You've learned a fair bit more about the Lizardmen which adds some more context to what you have to say about them, not least of which being able to put names to the different castes. Of particular interest is the Slann palanquin, which you now know would not have been carried, but instead levitated by the magical power of the Priest-King atop it. You wonder how practical it might be to commission some sort of glass or crystal rod to support its weight so it might look like it's flying in midair.

    The official opening of the museum does not get a visit from Lutr himself - today's him is uninterested or otherwise occupied, it seems - but it does see a visit from Lutr's Chancellor. His expression is hard to read and he did sniff at the bones, but you took that as him checking for any leftover marrow. He leaves without comment, and soon the initial trickle of the curious becomes a flood of the bribed with alcohol to come here, which you take as a sign of approval.

    After a few hectic days, the visitors are a trickle once more, but they're a steady and loyal one, made up mainly of those ensorcelled by the skald's stories and those that have left behind earthly pleasures and require more cerebral ones to occupy their days and nights. While not a bustling center of learning just yet, having a steady throughput means that when you next add something, word will spread and people will already be primed to think it'll be worth a look.



    Central Theme is determined by the narrative of the exhibit. Major and Minor Themes are determined by any item categories that are highly represented in the exhibit. These get a point value based on the number of items of that category. Centerpieces count as three items.

    Any Themes present that an Audience has an Affinity for earn their point value per Audience interested in them.
    Any Themes present that match a Patron's Affinity earn triple their point value per Patron interested in them.
    Any Central or Major Themes that have no Audience or Patrons interested in them earn one third of their point value, rounded down.

    You gain 1 Goodwill per 20 Interest.


    Hints, Tips, Clarifications:
    You can use the Central Theme to highlight an important Theme that might only be present on a few items.
    Patrons are more likely to be interested in rarer Themes than more common ones.
    Gaining a new audience that's interested in things you already have on display could be very powerful.
    Cultivating an Audience to become interested in something new will cost you Goodwill, but might pay for itself.
    Goodwill is meant to be spent.
    My intention is that you will be able to fully participate in this quest whether you engage with the numbers or not. The basic idea that more items that more people are interested in is more good, is a straightforward one.
    Don't get too caught up in optimizing. One of the audiences that these exhibits should be pleasing is the readers of this quest.
    You can take apart existing displays to rebuild into different ones. You will lose the Interest of the taken apart display and gain the Interest of the new display or displays. If you lose Interest from doing this, you will not gain more Goodwill until you get back up to that level of Interest once more.
    Apart from the satisfaction of having a more detailed and accurate sign, Knowledge can unlock new categories on relics.

    This exhibit tells the story of Haakon the Bloody, former crew and now Captain of the Niflhundr, as he manages to beach the battered ship on Fire Serpent Isle, rallies a now mostly-dead crew, establishes Fire Serpent Fortress, grants the Blood Kiss to the first of the Depth Guard, and begins the reaving that will earn the Vampire Coast its name. Particular attention is paid to his clashes with the Lizardmen, both as vengeance for the fate of the former captain and foreshadowing of the eventual conquest of Huatl and founding of Awakening. This covers an eighty-one year period from 930 IC to 1011 IC.



    Central Themes: Vampire (5), Piracy (5), Lizardmen (13)
    Major Themes: Lustria (13)
    Minor Themes: Trophy (6)

    Awakening Interest: Trophy (6)
    Luthor Harkon Interest: Vampiric Diaspora (5)
    Remaining Themes: Lizardmen (13), Lustria (13), Piracy (5)

    6+15+10=31 Interest



    The Niflhundr - Centerpiece - Age, History, Piracy, Vampire, Norsca
    Full historical context, detailed mechanical understanding.

    A Niflhundr is a Daemon-hound of the Chaos God of War, and also the name of the Norscan ship that fatefully intercepted an Empire merchant vessel in the year 876 IC that was carrying the infamous Arch-Warlock of Ostermark, Luther the Veilwalker, driven out by the Drive to the Frontiers and the reign of the Witch Hunter Emperor. Recognizing his power, the Norscans invited him to join their crew, and his acceptance marked the dusk of the Veilwalker and the dawn of Haakon the Reaver. For many years he lived among the Norscans, learning their ways and the ways of the waves.

    That era ended after a disastrous voyage that culminated in the ship running aground here, on Fire Serpent Island. Haakon took command of the ship, took oaths of eternal fealty from the survivors, filled the empty benches with animated dead summoned from the waves, and renamed the ship the Dread Abyssal after the hounds of Usirian, the Nehekharan God of the Underworld. Voyaging from this barren rock with sails shellacked with blood for lack of patches, the name of Haakon the Bloody became known, as did the very first whispers of the Vampire Coast.


    Fire Serpent Fortress - Age, History, Architecture, Siege Warfare, Piracy, Vampire, Norsca
    Full historical context, detailed cultural context.

    A five-meter cliff ringed by stone pillars and backing up against the side of the volcano, used as a base of operations for the Pirate King Luthor Harkon before his conquest of Huatl and the construction of Awakening. this fortress might not have ever seen combat, but it can also be considered significant for being a stone reproduction of a style of Norscan fortification that is usually made of timber and soil, arguably making it one of the first truly Norscan stone castles.


    Death Mask of Haakon the Bloody - Piracy, Vampire
    Full historical context, partial understanding of personal significance

    A Nehekharan death mask crafted in the likeness of Luthor Harkon and inscribed with runes and glyphs of significance to the facet of Luthor Harkon known as Haakon the Bloody, the captain of a Norscan longship and ruler of Fire Serpent Isle.


    Stegadon Skeleton - Trophy, Lustria, Lizardmen
    Detailed combatant information, partial biological understanding.

    A Stegadon is a large, heavy, hardy herbivore with large horns and a bony frill. It is absolutely devastating when charging and trampling a foe. Skinks are able to tame these creatures, using them as a living battering ram and as a firing platform for their siege weapons.


    Bastiladon Skeleton - Trophy, Lustria, Lizardmen
    Detailed combatant information, partial biological understanding.

    The Bastiladon is a large and very heavy herbivore almost completely covered in thick bony plates, making them almost impervious to attack as they swing their horned tails around as enormous maces. Skinks are able to tame these creatures, using them as a living battering ram and as a firing platform for their magical artillery.


    Salamander Skeleton - Trophy, Lustria, Lizardmen
    Detailed combatant information, partial biological understanding.

    The Salamander is a predatory lizard the size of a man with a large frill on its back. It is capable of spewing a stream of thick acidic liquid that ignites on contact with the air and clings to whatever it contacts, both burning and partially digesting them. Skinks are able to tame these creatures, using them as living artillery.


    Terradon Skeleton - Trophy, Lustria, Lizardmen
    Detailed combatant information, partial biological understanding.

    The Terradon is a flying predatory lizard the size of a man with a long, sharp beak and sharp, agile talons. Skinks are able to tame these creatures, riding them to scout from the skies or drop rocks or explosives on foes.


    Cold One Skeleton - Trophy, Lustria, Lizardmen, Druchii
    Detailed combatant information, partial biological understanding.

    Cold Ones are bipedal predatory lizard the size of a horse, so named because they are sent into a killing frenzy by the presence of any warm-blooded creatures. They hunt in packs and have been known to display sophisticated coordinated tactics to take down prey much larger than them. The Saurus are able to tame these creatures, riding them as cavalry. The Druchii have somehow managed to replicate this.


    Saurus Skeleton - Trophy, Lustria, Lizardmen
    Partial cultural and biological understanding.

    Saurus are the warrior caste of the Lizardmen, highly disciplined and incredibly ferocious in battle. They usually wield jagged clubs or spears, and are often seen riding atop Cold Ones and even larger predators.


    Skink Skeleton - Lustria, Lizardmen
    Partial cultural and biological understanding.

    Skinks are the artisan and scholar caste of the Lizardmen, fast, agile, and clever. When mustered for war, they typically wield spears, javelins, or blowpipes, or ride atop the large herbivores native to Lustria, sometimes with large siege weapons mounted on their back.


    Palanquin - Lustria, Lizardmen, Magic
    Partial combat understanding, no magical understanding.

    Lined with gold over the same stone that the Lizardmen Temple-Cities are made out of, the purpose of this platform is made clear by the very distinct imprint left by its passenger over what must have been years, if not decades, of sitting in the same pose. The rarely-seen Slann, Priest-Kings of the Lizardmen, sit atop these, using their magical powers to keep it floating above the ground.


    Jagged Clubs - Lustria, Lizardmen, Weaponry
    Partial combat understanding.

    Melee weapons favoured by the Saurus, these clubs are made of bone or wood and lined with obsidian shards or teeth from large predators. Although primitive in appearance, they can do terrible damage.


    Spears - Lustria, Lizardmen, Weaponry
    Partial combat understanding.

    These spears come in larger sizes for the Saurus, and smaller sizes of both spears and javelins for the Skinks, all made of the same combinations of wood or bone and ivory or stone. The Lizardmen seem to have little knowledge of metalworking apart from gold.


    Blowpipes - Lustria, Lizardmen, Weaponry, Alchemy
    Partial combat understanding, negligible alchemical understanding.

    The silence and accuracy of these weapons becomes a major threat when combined with the innumerable poisons and venoms of the Lustrian jungles, which the Skinks seem to have a full understanding of. Traces of colour on the darts hint at a poison coating that evaporated long ago.


    Jewellery - Lustria, Lizardmen, Value
    Partial cultural understanding.

    Golden armbands of various sizes. Necklaces and bracelets bearing lines of polished stones. Tablets worn as piercings bearing unknown glyphs, though it has been noted that usually most Saurus in a unit will bear the same glyphs upon their piercings, suggesting some sort of unit identifier or military decoration.


    Artisan Tools - Lustria, Lizardmen, Culture
    Partial cultural understanding.

    These are the tools used by Skinks, the artisan and scholar caste of the Lizardmen, to ply the many crafts of civilization.

    +31 Interest
    +1 Goodwill



    Spend Goodwill (Current Goodwill: 1)

    [ ] New Acquisitionist
    An Acquisitionist is someone you send out with instructions to acquire a specific type of relic. You will be given a selection of Acquisitionist to choose from based on your existing Patrons and Contacts.

    [ ] New Contact (specify a Patron or Contact)
    A Contact is someone you can acquire specific types of goods from. You will be given a selection of Contacts to choose from based on who it is that you're asking to introduce you to one of their Contacts.

    [ ] New Museum Staff
    Museum staff have knowledge that can add valuable context to your relics, and sometimes unlock entirely new capabilities for your museum. You will be given a selection of Staff to choose from based on your existing Patrons and Contacts.

    [ ] Develop Affiliate (specify who)
    Develop one of your Acquisitionists, Contacts, or Staff. Acquisitionists may get new capabilities or specialities, Contacts may increase the range or amount of product they are willing to supply to you, Staff may gain new knowledge or capabilities. Developments might also be in more esoteric ways. You will be given a selection of ways for the Affiliate to Develop, and at least one of them will be benign.

    [ ] New Relics (specify a Patron)
    You will be given a selection of rare, valuable, difficult to acquire, or otherwise significant Relics to choose from.

    [ ] Cultivate Audience (specify who and what)
    Sometimes you must make the iron hot by striking it. Convince a specific audience to take an interest in something that's plausibly aligned with their interests and place in the world, but currently isn't driving them to visit museums. This will be more flexible if you have something suitably impressive to spark interest.



    Develop Museum

    [ ] Create Exhibit (specify what)
    An exhibit consists of at least one centrepiece and any number of relics, combined by some sort of theme. For example, combining Luthor Harkon's original flagship with a number of Lustrian skeletons could create an exhibit centered around the Conquests of the Pirate King, describing Luthor Harkon's early history in Lustria and his conquest of Huatl. Exhibits can be altered, added to, or dismantled later.

    [ ] Research Relic (specify which)
    There is a great deal of difference between a display that is just a sword and one that tells you what type of sword it is, which people made it and used it, what was special about it, and what it developed from and into. Items that you or your staff already have requisite knowledge of will have that understanding automatically applied, but you can also personally research a specific item to seek out that specific set of answers yourself.

    [ ] Acquire Relic (specify what or where)
    Pahtsekhen can seek to acquire something specific personally, or can venture somewhere and see what he finds. While this will usually get worse results than using a Contact, it can be useful if there's something very specific you want, or if you've got surplus actions you don't know what else to do with. Keep in mind that though he is hardier than the average gentleman of his apparent age and a skilled Death Mage, he is not immune to consequences. Think less 'daring heists' and more 'let's go antiquing'.

    [ ] Investigate (specify what)
    Research a specific person, place, event, or people to discover Leads: clues that might be followed to discover and possibly acquire particularly impressive or meaningful relics of the past.



    Broaden Horizons

    [ ] Learn (specify what)
    Surface can be learned as long as you have somewhere it can be reasonably learned from. Detailed requires either a very cooperative expert or a contact with influence over a centre of formal learning. Minutiae and higher are not currently available to be learned.

    [ ] New Audience - Sea Elves
    Affinity: Value, Naval Warfare, Sea Beasts
    Elven nobility are infamously starved for novelty, and not averse to at least the appearance of danger. Through Princess Aelsabrim, the more seagoing of them could be tempted into venturing onto your island.

    [ ] New Audience - Arabyan Academics
    Affinity: Age, Magic, Nehekhara
    Pahtsekhen has had a number of students over the years, and not all of them have ended infamously. If you think you have displays that may be of interest to them, you could spread word of your museum among the learned classes of Araby.



    Acquire Relics - via Princess Aelsabrim Fallenstar

    [ ] Critters
    Lustria is home to various kinds of fascinating and unique forms of wildlife, the smaller and more manageable examples of which are in demand as pets and exhibits in Ulthuan and the Old World. You might decide that they're also in demand on Fire Serpent Island. Depending on what exactly you get you might not have the skills to keep them alive here, in which case you will kill and preserve them as lifelike display.

    [ ] Beasts
    Lustria's more impressive beasts are rarer, more dangerous, and even more sought after, both by Elven hunters and by the native Lizardmen that use them as mounts and as living siege engines, but one can be diverted from the trickle flowing through the Citadel to go towards your island. You do not have the skills to keep them alive here, so you will kill and preserve them as lifelike display.

    [ ] Plants
    Princess Aelsabrim roped in a local ally of hers, the Mage Telsomar Greendale, to make sure you didn't mishandle her husband's spirit. Her claimed area of expertise is carnivorous plants, and she seems to be quite competent. You could arrange for seeds and samples from this collection if you foresee a botanical wing to your museum.

    [ ] Skeletons (choose one: small, rare, large)
    Most places would consider the skeletons you have to be very large indeed, but in Lustria, they're strictly medium-sized. They're also only the more common specimens. You could have the expeditions also start crating up the smaller skeletons, less individually impressive but greater in quantity, or have them seek out the remains of rarer and more impressive beasts, or gathering portions of larger, older, and less complete skeletons they encounter in the hopes of being able to eventually piece them together into a future centerpiece.

    [ ] Gems
    Honestly, there's not much historical value in freshly-mined jewels, but they are extremely pretty. Uh, they were mined on Fuming Serpent Island, so they are tangentially related to the Vampire Coast. And Elven faceting techniques are some of the most advanced in the world. You could come up with some excuse to indulge in corvid instincts.

    [-] Relics
    You will need to develop this contact further before they are willing to directly funnel stolen Lizardmen relics from Fuming Serpent Island to you.



    - There will be an eight hour moratorium. Voting will be in plan format.
    - The Interest and Goodwill system is a work in progress. We'll see how well it works, and it might be tweaked, adjusted, or overhauled entirely as needed.
    - Don't get too stressed out about the numbers unless that's something you like doing. As long as you put things on display that people want to see, you'll progress at a decent rate. Even if you go completely off the rails and accumulate stuff that nobody you're in contact with has any interest in at all, you'll still progress, just slower.
     
    Last edited:
  • New
  • Threadmarks
    • I'm thinking that we try to get the services of the Black Lion so we can diversify out into a zoo exhibit displaying the animals of Lustria and other assorted cool beasties. It'll be fairly easy with our existing contact and can be used for more exhibit material if/when we decide to break up our current exhibit into a Harkon part and a Lustria part.
     
    Boney said:
    Their funerary customs are a bit limited, as for the most part they seem to be content to leave the dead where they fall. The only exception is for the remains of Lizardmen of particular skill, age, or note, who in eras past seemed to 'earn' internment in the necropolis on Fuming Serpent Island. That necropolis was buried in a volcanic eruption, and the Lizardmen have shown little care for recovering it. It's unknown whether the honoured dead go elsewhere now, or if they simply stopped bothering.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I smell a business opportunity.
     
    okay so thinking about the interests of our current audience and patron.

    Luthor likes Vampire and Necromantic Diaspora.
    Awakening likes Trophies, Magic and History.

    so thinking in that direction currently our acquasitions leading for those are limeted, i recommend getting a pirate crew or such in acquasitions for us to be able to get trophies more easily, be it ships of various nations or sea beasts it's our best bet.

    honestly with the possible sea elf audience i think a undead Captain Ahab would be the dream, we want someone who can go out to sea and hunt it's dangerous beasts as they would likely count as Trophy and Sea Beasts both.

    aside from that the other overlap in our audiences is magic which interests the Arabyans.

    anyway i do like the idea people had for all the active pirate codes and various Jolly Rogers from around awakening, that could lead to a good Navel warfare/history/piracy exhibit/
     
    Well, we have the starting display.
    Maybe get those codes and flags now for a new exhibit next turn, and get more acquinted with the princess and see where that goes.
     
    Boney said:
    Of particular interest is the Slann palanquin, which you now know would not have been carried, but instead levitated by the magical power of the Priest-King atop it. You wonder how practical it might be to commission some sort of glass or crystal rod to support its weight so it might look like it's flying in midair.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'm having this fun mental image of Boney arranging a Liche-Priest miniature so that it looks like he's working on fixing a Slaan palanquin mini's glass/crystal stand.
     
    Huh, I wonder what themes the princess would have prioritized if we'd done the option that made turning her into a Patron an option back in the grief vote?

    On another note, is anyone else interesting in doing a Learn Norsca action at some point? It seems like awakening has a pretty decent population of norscan descendant undead, and Harkon seems to be an honorary norscan, and Skeggi is just, right there. It'd be interesting to dig into them a bit.
     
    Last edited:
    If we want to expand on Lustrian themes, which I think is smart given our current Contact and what she can get for us, I'd like to start getting some bones so we can prepare to split our mega-exhibit into two: one that's more about Lutr's history here and one that's more about Lizardmen. I'd also like to get an Acquisitionist just to see how they work.

    Maybe something like this:
    [] Plan Pickle's Alliterative Failure Skeleton Crew
    -[] New Acquisitionist
    -[] Skeletons (rare)
    -[] Investigate (Haakon the Bloody)

    This gets us a new source of Stuff, some new cool Stuff that will eventually form the centerpiece of another exhibit (remember, every exhibit needs a centerpiece and only some things qualify as centerpieces, making them valuable pickups), and some more information on Lutr that might create some Leads.

    EDIT: "Skeleton Crew" is so obviously the correct name for this plan jesus christ what was i thinking
     
    Last edited:
    Boney said:
    Skeggi, the Norscan settlement, is by far the oldest and largest of them, and the one you have the hardest time fitting into - your grasp of Norscan is still quite limited, so you have to resort to slapping a year or two out of the more unwelcoming before they stop seeing you as prey.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I like to imagine that there's now a Norscan folk tale of this old man who will slap a few years of age onto you if you misbehave.

    "Ah yes, I made the mistake of taking him for an easy mark. One touch, and my joints ached. A second and my beard went grey. I did not dare chance a third."
     
    Hurray for a successful opening!

    With Wiggy on looking into Norsca (and potentially trying to pull in visitors from Skeggi, of course).

    I'd also be interested in investigating the flows of magic around Fire Serpent Island, which (according to the wiki's citation of 4e - so, as said, pinch of salt) was apparently steeped in Shyish and Dhar when Harkon arrived. Would be curious to know why (Did the Lizardmen build more than one island mortuary complex?) and could form the basis for some sort of magical exhibition, which would help to prop up Luthor ('This is the best place in the world to practise necromancy; guess who owns it?') and allow Paht to pursue his own interests!
     
    Last edited:
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Voting is open
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top