Negaverse: Lowlanders
It started with such a small thing.
It first began to rain in the winter. Ever since the Great Drought, the weather had been unsettled. While strange, it was not something to be particularly minded either.
Until the heavens decided that what rain had fallen was not nearly enough, and unleashed an unending torrent of water. Farms were swept away, the soil almost stripped bare by the surging waves of the river. Men bemoaned the loss of valuable crops and began to prepare for a tight season. Still, there had been worse times, the constant raids granting an ability to survive even with the minuscule harvests that had survived. And so people persevered as always, sure that life would go on.
And by the time of late summer, almost into the fall, the rains had stopped. Many gave a silent sigh of relief as they set about rebuilding what the floods had destroyed. And again, people expected life to go on as it always had. The raids continued, the slaves worked and the warriors trained.
But as winter again turned to spring, the rains stubbornly refused to come. Spring turned to summer, and summer to fall, and still they didn't come. The croplands lay fallow, the harvest all but nonexistent. Again, people suffered, and with the damage of the previous year still scarring the land the people felt the drought harder than ever.
But again, the people believed that life would continue.
Another year passed without rain, more and more dying every day. Raids turned desperate, everyone trying to find even the slightest morsel of food, even at the expense of their neighbor.
And then the next year came, and the people rejoiced as the rain returned. They rejoiced... until the floods destroyed their lands again. The people had finally realized... Life would not continue as it had. As the cycle of floods and droughts continued, the people began to flee. To where, it did not matter, so long as they could survive.
But from the chaos arose a threat as great as the drought or floods. A disease stalked the people, sweeping through entire villages, slaying all it touched. It was as if the spirits had grown too hungry to be satisfied even by the offerings given to them, and they now sought to take whatever they wanted at great cost to their servants.
As village after village died, a final disaster struck. The Demon Priests swept in, slaying all who remained and burning village after village with cleansing fire. What few people had remained now fled to the safety of the highlands, to scratch out a meager living in any way they could. Some others fled towards the rumored Hill People, who were said to have food beyond measure stored away.
As time passed, of those who survived the purges, there were two main groups. First were a loose collection of people who now called themselves the Free People. They had come to fear the lowlands, believing them to be cursed by the 'demons' on the north. While they had some of the warrior tradition of old, they would often rather pack up and find new lands, rather than confront the threat.
The other group was focused around one of the major settlements to survive the disaster. Led through the tough times by their spirit talkers, the had managed to pull in other surronding groups. While their growth was much slower than in times past, their ability to survive a future disaster was far superior.
Choose One. It will be the group you shall take control of.
[ ] The Free People (Low Centralization, High Growth, High Econ)
[ ] The Dead Priest (Medium Centralization, Slow Growth, High Mysticism)
hyrule420 said:
What the fuck?! No, seriously, What the actual fuck?! How much did the dice shit on us for the to occur?
PowerofBody said:
Bullshit, we had a ton of econ! why the fuck did we just... crumble? I mean, did everyone else get even more fucked than us? Cause i'm pretty sure we had the highest econ our of everyone, so if we are fucked they must be fucked x10
Sea-san said:
Except those Hill Folk. This is clearly evidence that they really are dwarves. Their mushroom farms would be completely unaffected by droughts or floods, so of course they'd be fine.
Chip and Potato said:
what just... what? I mean, what the hell were our rolls here? Crit fails on weather (possibly twice?), defense and disease? I mean... holy shit, we just got hammered.
Lili said:
WTF, why is our stability -4?! We had a solid 0 stability last turn after we did another RO, so how did we drop 4 fucking stability in one turn?!
Academic Fruit said:
Yeah, funny story about that. You remember how Pioneering Spirit consumes centralization? Well, centralization is the thing that determines how well you react to disasters like this, and since you had... holy shit, how did you guys get your centralization that far into the negatives... a negative centralization score, when it got added to your econ score, it more than canceled it out.
I did try to warn you that spamming PS and RO was potentially problamatic...
Candesence said:
...Shit, you mean that centralization was the stat we use to manage droughts and stuff? So when it hit... Even though we had a ton of people and food production, it didn't matter...
fml
Authority said:
redfur78 said:
Shit. So we went from being about ready to nom everything around us to either hiding in the hills, or having all of one city left? Ouch.
Void Cat said:
[K] Dead Priest
We just got shown how important centrilization is, going back to what we did before is stupid.
Note: Cause why not?
