The world is out of order. No one knows why, what spirits or ancestors have been angered, but the land is shifting in ways that bring tremendous hardship to the people. Landmarks known for generations are no longer corresponding to what they should be. The elders remember the course of rivers and the boundaries of forests and being different, and speak of their elders worrying over these shifts as well. Every season the hunting grows harder and the plants that feed your people grow increasingly scarce. The future feels dangerous and uncertain, and as the tribe gathers for the summer meet there is a palpable feeling that something must change, that life will go on, but perhaps not as before.
After the initial round of standard calls to the spirits and ancestors to watch over them and initial airing of grievances among the tribe, one of the younger men takes up the speaking stick and says, "Brothers, elders, and young mothers, I come before you to speak of the people of the river valley. Tales tell of how poor the region is and has been, and yet my clan peers down on them from our lands and sees that their numbers grow greater each year even as I see fewer young mothers inducted in place of passing elders each time we meet like this. I have watched them, and how they scatter seeds to the mud left by spring flooding and then collect a tremendous bounty of food come the autumn chills. I and members of my clan have gone seeking food in hard times, and they dare to call us lazy and greedy and only begrudgingly share their plenty when we are hungry, or even refuse to altogether."
At this there is general harrumphing from the council, and the young man says, "These people, they refuse to help, and so they will slowly strangle us. As of yet their numbers are small, but they grow quickly, and worse yet they have started to attack game not because they are hungry or to honour the ancestors, but because the animals are eating the plants they grow. They are a wicked lot, and must be dealt with quickly and decisively, lest they drive away all the game and leave us to starve while gorging themselves."
