DocMatoi
Theoretical Lover of Girls
- Location
- within 2 hours of the White House
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Latrine? (jk)
Paths of Civilization
- Thread starter Academia Nut
- Start date
- Original
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That would be a Necropoli or a Catacomb.
E:
Uh maybe. I'm mostly thinking of that massive tomb complex under Paris.
I'm thinking a repository of knowledge that we bury every couple generations or something.
On wings of wax
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] [Honour] Quality training
[x] [Mystic] Wait
[x] [Goal] Humiliate (Hard, +1 Prestige)
[x] [Stallions] Focus efforts on the Thunder Speakers
Yehlmyn sat upon his throne, an old man in his twilight years, simultaneously bored with and frustrated by the stupidity of the People's neighbours. They and the Highlanders had fought hard against the Thunder Speakers, taking considerable losses and letting the nomads inflict far too much damage on the Stallion Tribes while the majority of their warriors were elsewhere, but they had managed to push far enough into their territory that when they sent out messengers demanding that the Thunder Speaker submit to their demands to stop raiding and acknowledge that they had been wrong to fight in the first place, the man had actually - begrudgingly - complied. Yehlmyn had actually been enormously glad of that as he wasn't exactly sure if the People could have sustained continued fighting with the Thunder Speakers and the nomads in the north-west.
For the past decade the fighting there had grown increasingly terrible. The People in the north were safe within walls, but the nomads had grown increasingly adept at taking out watchtowers before they could raise the alarm so that they could strike the fields and pastures. The current chief of the Stallion Tribes, Harkwyn, had reported with some fear that without the support of the rest of the People he was afraid that everything outside their walled cities would have already been overrun and his people swept away. About the only good news was that the experience of fighting had revealed the enormous usefulness of chariot archers; not just archers who used chariots to get around, but the maniacs who could fire their bows while their chariots were still moving and thus kill while being nearly untouchable. There were a few imitators among the Thunder Horse and nomads, but neither had the same numbers or the ability to devote extra resources to train children from nearly birth to have that kind of skill.
New Honour Value
Honour of Elites
The perfection of a skill in service to others, particularly martial skill, is among the highest achievements a person can have. Of course, who can afford to achieve perfection is not always even...
Pros: Increase Martial gain from raising elite units
Cons: Increased potential Martial loss in fighting, increased social stratification
Government Transition
Early Ancient Provincial Kingdom (Elective) -> Oligarchic Ancient Kingdom
A king holds chief executive power, but is primarily drawn from and voted in by a limited set of families backed by economic might and military elites.
Pros: Good mix of central authority and provincial autonomy
Cons: Beware competing ambitions...
As it was, with the threat of the nomads and their pure speed, the only thing that could be done was to fight back and build more chariots to catch them and wall up more settlements. There had been something of an initial push to expand the watchtower network further, but news out of the lowlands had caused the decision to go for increasing the defences of the settlement - more like expanded outpost - in the badlands. The Highlanders had decided to begin drawing settlements that had once been under the influence of the Xohyssiri into their circle and had met with remarkable success but had also apparently triggered some form of infighting among their provincial chiefs over who got what. Meanwhile the Xohyssiri seemed to have finished restructuring their society around being a small and dense city and the Thunder Speakers were very obviously licking their wounds and making gestures that they would be back for the People and the Highlanders in good time.
Oh, and it sounded like the strategy of the Thunder Speakers and the Xohyssiri surrendering and swearing vassalage to the Eastern Thunder Horse had someone resulted in the lineage of kings for that city not getting ganged up on by their neighbours but rather somehow pulling off a series of marriage alliances and unifying. There were reports of some degree of fighting, but it seemed that a major reason that the Thunder Horse had not supported their vassal in years past was in fact an elaborate bluff - if they went out to aid that would suggest weakness, while if they kept the fact that there was fighting under wraps they could convince rivals that they were simply too strong to subdue and get concessions that would make them stronger. As such, further fortification of the south had been deemed a critical long term investment. No one wanted to get dragged into a conflict with the south unguarded.
Oh, and then of course there had to be another new plague going around, a nasty fever that liked to strike down children, while there had been a few crop failures in the past few years. Everything was mostly under control, but it was still just a little bit more atop the general black soil soup that had been Yehlmyn's dish as king the past few years.
What more could-?
Whatever thoughts he was having were interrupted by a tremendous ruckuss outside the council chamber halls, with what sounded like someone demanding to see the king while others shouted obscenities. Simultaneously intriguing and irritating, he motioned for one of the warriors sitting in attendance to go see what the issue was. The farmer holding audience for a ruling on a penalty assessed for one of his cows causing damage to an orchard decided that perhaps he should wrap things up quickly as the shouting got worse. After several moments a pair of burly warriors hauled in a skinny, somewhat manic looking man of middle age, his face marked by a large black eye and a pot held in his hands, while another pair of warriors dragged in the Spirit Chief of all people, scratch marks on his face and a hand clamped over his mouth to muffle his incensed ranting.
"There is a story here that I do not want to hear but I assess that I have to hear. Gwolthyn, please cease your struggles while I get this story," Yehlmyn said in exasperation, the other old man growing quiet but obviously still quivering with barely suppressed rage.
Turning to the man who had somehow caused all of this, Yehlmyn asked, "Who are you, and what trouble have you brought to these halls?"
"I am Dormthun and I bring not trouble but wonder!" The man proclaimed, hoisting the pottery in hands high. Yehlmyn ignored this in favour of giving his Spirit Chief his best 'Shut up and let me handle this' glare. For his part, Gwolthyn complied although was clearly only further incensed by this proclamation.
"Perhaps a further elaboration would be in order," Yehlmyn asked.
"Yes, of course!" Dormthun stated, opening up the lid and pouring out some leather wrapped bundles. Picking out two, he unrolled them to reveal two pieces of metal, causing Yehlmyn to raise an eyebrow in intrigued irritation. Picking up one piece, Dormthun said, "See here, this piece of star!"
Holding up a hand to pause the man, Yehlmyn asked, "This wouldn't happen to be one of the pieces of the star that disappeared from Rainbow Bridge a few years ago?"
"One of the surviving ones, yes," the maniac said with an enthusiastic nods.
Holding up a hand again to pause, Yehlmyn said, "Wait, hold up, I just want to make sure that I am entirely clear here. You are admitting to stealing sacred artefacts from a holy site and destroying some of them?"
"Yes," Dormthun said.
"And you have come to me, the king, to tell me this, because?" Yehlmyn asked incredulously.
Blinking, Dormthun said almost as if explaining to a child, "Because I am surrounded by fools and the king is bound to hear out my case?"
Pursing his lips and working his jaw very delicately, Yehlmyn nodded and said, "Right then, carry on."
"Right then. So, as I was saying, this is one of the pieces of the star, and this is a lump of metal that I extracted from a red stone by carefully treating it," Dormthun said, holding up a darker chunk of metal that Yehlmyn thought looked less brilliant than the piece of star but definitely had a resemblance.
"You worked out the extraction process for star metal?" Yehlmyn asked, disbelieving but now excited more than exasperated.
"It was not easy, I had break many of the Metal Worker's sacred pots to work out the process-" Dormthun said, only to be cut off once more.
"Metal Worker's 'sacred pots'?" Yehlmyn asked.
"Yes. They have this mineral they add to clay that makes the pottery nearly immune to heat and use that for various sacrificial rites. I put them to a much more practical use," Dormthun explained.
Yehlmyn had to share a helpless 'Who is this madman' look with pretty much everyone else in the council chamber before he said, "So you admit to stealing sacred objects from both us and the our trade partners and then played around with the weapons of the gods and now you come to speak to the king because...?"
"Well obviously I want you to tell the fools hounding me that my discovery is valuable and that we should get on making more. Star metal is far superior to copper in every way except availability, but there are plenty of red rocks so that should not be a problem now!" Dormthun explained.
"You do know that there is a new plague and there have been crop failures in about the time since you first stole the star pieces, right?" Yehlmyn pointed out. He didn't exactly believe that unearthing metal brought calamity, but many of the People did and he knew what the response would be.
Dormthun blinked owlishly before he said contemptuously, "I fail to see how that has anything to do with me."
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Yehlmyn held up a hand to his Spirit Chief and said, "You can begin yelling again in a moment, I just need to formulate a response to this nonsense."
Yehlmyn's first thought was to have this fool executed for a long list of crimes and to increase the balance of sanity and safety in the world, but as king he knew enough about star metal to know that it was superior in every way... except politically. By all the spirits lesser and greater there would be riots and all gygo would break loose if he actually accepted this knowledge, but could he truly turn it down?
Dare you fly too close to the sun?
[] Execute this maniac (+1 Prestige)
[] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge (-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the Metal Workers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
AN: Fundamentally mediocre to shitty rolls for you all around except for one[x] [Mystic] Wait
[x] [Goal] Humiliate (Hard, +1 Prestige)
[x] [Stallions] Focus efforts on the Thunder Speakers
Yehlmyn sat upon his throne, an old man in his twilight years, simultaneously bored with and frustrated by the stupidity of the People's neighbours. They and the Highlanders had fought hard against the Thunder Speakers, taking considerable losses and letting the nomads inflict far too much damage on the Stallion Tribes while the majority of their warriors were elsewhere, but they had managed to push far enough into their territory that when they sent out messengers demanding that the Thunder Speaker submit to their demands to stop raiding and acknowledge that they had been wrong to fight in the first place, the man had actually - begrudgingly - complied. Yehlmyn had actually been enormously glad of that as he wasn't exactly sure if the People could have sustained continued fighting with the Thunder Speakers and the nomads in the north-west.
For the past decade the fighting there had grown increasingly terrible. The People in the north were safe within walls, but the nomads had grown increasingly adept at taking out watchtowers before they could raise the alarm so that they could strike the fields and pastures. The current chief of the Stallion Tribes, Harkwyn, had reported with some fear that without the support of the rest of the People he was afraid that everything outside their walled cities would have already been overrun and his people swept away. About the only good news was that the experience of fighting had revealed the enormous usefulness of chariot archers; not just archers who used chariots to get around, but the maniacs who could fire their bows while their chariots were still moving and thus kill while being nearly untouchable. There were a few imitators among the Thunder Horse and nomads, but neither had the same numbers or the ability to devote extra resources to train children from nearly birth to have that kind of skill.
New Honour Value
Honour of Elites
The perfection of a skill in service to others, particularly martial skill, is among the highest achievements a person can have. Of course, who can afford to achieve perfection is not always even...
Pros: Increase Martial gain from raising elite units
Cons: Increased potential Martial loss in fighting, increased social stratification
Government Transition
Early Ancient Provincial Kingdom (Elective) -> Oligarchic Ancient Kingdom
A king holds chief executive power, but is primarily drawn from and voted in by a limited set of families backed by economic might and military elites.
Pros: Good mix of central authority and provincial autonomy
Cons: Beware competing ambitions...
As it was, with the threat of the nomads and their pure speed, the only thing that could be done was to fight back and build more chariots to catch them and wall up more settlements. There had been something of an initial push to expand the watchtower network further, but news out of the lowlands had caused the decision to go for increasing the defences of the settlement - more like expanded outpost - in the badlands. The Highlanders had decided to begin drawing settlements that had once been under the influence of the Xohyssiri into their circle and had met with remarkable success but had also apparently triggered some form of infighting among their provincial chiefs over who got what. Meanwhile the Xohyssiri seemed to have finished restructuring their society around being a small and dense city and the Thunder Speakers were very obviously licking their wounds and making gestures that they would be back for the People and the Highlanders in good time.
Oh, and it sounded like the strategy of the Thunder Speakers and the Xohyssiri surrendering and swearing vassalage to the Eastern Thunder Horse had someone resulted in the lineage of kings for that city not getting ganged up on by their neighbours but rather somehow pulling off a series of marriage alliances and unifying. There were reports of some degree of fighting, but it seemed that a major reason that the Thunder Horse had not supported their vassal in years past was in fact an elaborate bluff - if they went out to aid that would suggest weakness, while if they kept the fact that there was fighting under wraps they could convince rivals that they were simply too strong to subdue and get concessions that would make them stronger. As such, further fortification of the south had been deemed a critical long term investment. No one wanted to get dragged into a conflict with the south unguarded.
Oh, and then of course there had to be another new plague going around, a nasty fever that liked to strike down children, while there had been a few crop failures in the past few years. Everything was mostly under control, but it was still just a little bit more atop the general black soil soup that had been Yehlmyn's dish as king the past few years.
What more could-?
Whatever thoughts he was having were interrupted by a tremendous ruckuss outside the council chamber halls, with what sounded like someone demanding to see the king while others shouted obscenities. Simultaneously intriguing and irritating, he motioned for one of the warriors sitting in attendance to go see what the issue was. The farmer holding audience for a ruling on a penalty assessed for one of his cows causing damage to an orchard decided that perhaps he should wrap things up quickly as the shouting got worse. After several moments a pair of burly warriors hauled in a skinny, somewhat manic looking man of middle age, his face marked by a large black eye and a pot held in his hands, while another pair of warriors dragged in the Spirit Chief of all people, scratch marks on his face and a hand clamped over his mouth to muffle his incensed ranting.
"There is a story here that I do not want to hear but I assess that I have to hear. Gwolthyn, please cease your struggles while I get this story," Yehlmyn said in exasperation, the other old man growing quiet but obviously still quivering with barely suppressed rage.
Turning to the man who had somehow caused all of this, Yehlmyn asked, "Who are you, and what trouble have you brought to these halls?"
"I am Dormthun and I bring not trouble but wonder!" The man proclaimed, hoisting the pottery in hands high. Yehlmyn ignored this in favour of giving his Spirit Chief his best 'Shut up and let me handle this' glare. For his part, Gwolthyn complied although was clearly only further incensed by this proclamation.
"Perhaps a further elaboration would be in order," Yehlmyn asked.
"Yes, of course!" Dormthun stated, opening up the lid and pouring out some leather wrapped bundles. Picking out two, he unrolled them to reveal two pieces of metal, causing Yehlmyn to raise an eyebrow in intrigued irritation. Picking up one piece, Dormthun said, "See here, this piece of star!"
Holding up a hand to pause the man, Yehlmyn asked, "This wouldn't happen to be one of the pieces of the star that disappeared from Rainbow Bridge a few years ago?"
"One of the surviving ones, yes," the maniac said with an enthusiastic nods.
Holding up a hand again to pause, Yehlmyn said, "Wait, hold up, I just want to make sure that I am entirely clear here. You are admitting to stealing sacred artefacts from a holy site and destroying some of them?"
"Yes," Dormthun said.
"And you have come to me, the king, to tell me this, because?" Yehlmyn asked incredulously.
Blinking, Dormthun said almost as if explaining to a child, "Because I am surrounded by fools and the king is bound to hear out my case?"
Pursing his lips and working his jaw very delicately, Yehlmyn nodded and said, "Right then, carry on."
"Right then. So, as I was saying, this is one of the pieces of the star, and this is a lump of metal that I extracted from a red stone by carefully treating it," Dormthun said, holding up a darker chunk of metal that Yehlmyn thought looked less brilliant than the piece of star but definitely had a resemblance.
"You worked out the extraction process for star metal?" Yehlmyn asked, disbelieving but now excited more than exasperated.
"It was not easy, I had break many of the Metal Worker's sacred pots to work out the process-" Dormthun said, only to be cut off once more.
"Metal Worker's 'sacred pots'?" Yehlmyn asked.
"Yes. They have this mineral they add to clay that makes the pottery nearly immune to heat and use that for various sacrificial rites. I put them to a much more practical use," Dormthun explained.
Yehlmyn had to share a helpless 'Who is this madman' look with pretty much everyone else in the council chamber before he said, "So you admit to stealing sacred objects from both us and the our trade partners and then played around with the weapons of the gods and now you come to speak to the king because...?"
"Well obviously I want you to tell the fools hounding me that my discovery is valuable and that we should get on making more. Star metal is far superior to copper in every way except availability, but there are plenty of red rocks so that should not be a problem now!" Dormthun explained.
"You do know that there is a new plague and there have been crop failures in about the time since you first stole the star pieces, right?" Yehlmyn pointed out. He didn't exactly believe that unearthing metal brought calamity, but many of the People did and he knew what the response would be.
Dormthun blinked owlishly before he said contemptuously, "I fail to see how that has anything to do with me."
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Yehlmyn held up a hand to his Spirit Chief and said, "You can begin yelling again in a moment, I just need to formulate a response to this nonsense."
Yehlmyn's first thought was to have this fool executed for a long list of crimes and to increase the balance of sanity and safety in the world, but as king he knew enough about star metal to know that it was superior in every way... except politically. By all the spirits lesser and greater there would be riots and all gygo would break loose if he actually accepted this knowledge, but could he truly turn it down?
Dare you fly too close to the sun?
[] Execute this maniac (+1 Prestige)
[] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge (-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the Metal Workers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
[Main] War Mission - Nomads
[Main] Build Chariots
Provinces - [Main] Build Walls x2 Northshore, [Main] Build Walls Bonevalley
Stallion Tribes [Main] War Mission - Nomads, [Main] Build Chariots
[Main] Build Chariots
Provinces - [Main] Build Walls x2 Northshore, [Main] Build Walls Bonevalley
Stallion Tribes [Main] War Mission - Nomads, [Main] Build Chariots
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
LOL IROOOON
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Skipping bronze entirely is going to hurt.
It not just smelting iron. Its knowing about making furnaces for the smelting, knowing that iron can be forged, and generally other shit thats needed to support being able to produce iron.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
So did we crit on the iron stuff?
[X] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge (-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the Metal Workers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
Yolo, Fuck the golden age, we can get it again later
[X] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge (-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the Metal Workers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
Yolo, Fuck the golden age, we can get it again later
- Location
- Staring into the void
[X] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge(-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the MetalWorkers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
But still re looking at the costs... This Is GOING TO HUUUURT
DocMatoi
Theoretical Lover of Girls
- Location
- within 2 hours of the White House
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Well. Let's not get too stupid.
CLUTCH GREATER GOOD PLEASE!
[X] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge (-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the Metal Workers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
CLUTCH GREATER GOOD PLEASE!
Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The STAB hit will hurt, but everything else we can easily sink. And fucking iron, this early in the game?
[X] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge (-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the Metal Workers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
[X] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge (-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the Metal Workers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is going to be a huge risk. I just hope the Iron Age is worth it...
[x] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge (-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the Metal Workers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
[x] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge (-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the Metal Workers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
[X] Protect him and have him teach his knowledge (-4 Stability, -2 Legitimacy, -10 Mysticism, -10 Art, -2 Prestige, chance of infuriating the Metal Workers, gain Iron Smelting study chain)
It would be hilarious that after this we get another golden age by maxing out Martial and Diplomacy
It would be hilarious that after this we get another golden age by maxing out Martial and Diplomacy
Fucking hell. This was the worst possible timing. Executing him will strengthen the fucking stigma. While protecting him means that we'll get massive problems with the Stallion March and people in general. AND tank basically all our stats.
We are basically between a rock and a hard place. We *need* some sort of an advantage to hold off a renewed Thunder Horse push into the area after they've unified.
We are basically between a rock and a hard place. We *need* some sort of an advantage to hold off a renewed Thunder Horse push into the area after they've unified.
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