They say this world is one of balance. For all you gain, you have to give something in return...
Shadows of the Past
- Thread starter Azel
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- Original Fantasy
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- Ongoing
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Statistics (63 threadmarks, 97k words)
User Total Azel 63 -
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Prelude
- Location
- Germany
They say this world is one of balance. For all you gain, you have to give something in return. It may look as if one could bypass this simple rule, but in the end, fate will always get its due. If you believe in this, they say, then the fall is no surprise. With every road built, it would move a bit closer. With every garden grown, it's hardships would be felt all the more. With every piece of knowledge written into tomes, the fires that to come would burn all the brighter.
The great empire of Cualli had done all of these things. Nobody knew when or how it had begun, for it stood for so long that even its own history had passed into myth. For hundreds of generations, it had spread ever farther and risen ever higher. From the Burning Isles to the south, to the vast expanses of the Broken Sands to the north. From the endless ocean to the west, to the White Peaks in the east. The wild lands where tamed and dense jungles turned to farms and gardens to feed the great cities. No man or woman living in it knew need, for the arcane might of its scholars and the wonders they wrought meant that the meanest servant could live like a lord.
It must have seemed as if this realm would stand forever, but it was not meant to be. For all it had gained, it would have to pay a terrible price and pay it did. Nobody knows how it happened. To few survived the darkness that followed and so Cualli passed back into the realm of myths. Some say that its ways and lack of respect had offended the gods and they've send terrible plagues to punish man. Others claim the spirits of the land rose up to become what they where meant to be once more instead of the forms that man had tried to press them into. Sometimes it is said the scholars called terrible demons into their service and that they broke free to hunt and consume all that they laid eyes upon. Nobody knows the truth and after so many generations have passed, perhaps nobody ever will.
A broken world is all that is left. The jungle took back what was once claimed from him and great trees stand in between the shattered ruins of the past. Strange and terrible creatures stalk their shadows, preying on the unwary who venture too far into the wilds. Not just jaguars and coyotes, but far stranger things. Of walking trees they speak, of great beasts of flesh and bone that seem to be born from nightmares and even the dead may not rest forever in the deepest underbrush. In some places, the very air itself is said to still bear the taint of past sins and chokes the life out of any who breath it while in others the waters are so tainted that they make the flesh rot from your bones, should just a single drop fall on your skin.
So do the stories say. Carried from mouth to mouth by those who brave the paths between the trees to carry them among the few that live between what's left of their ancestors glory.
But it is not great empires and calamities that govern your life, for you are born into a simple tribe. Other matters are much closer at hand.
Pick Tribe:
[] [Tribe] Farmers
While the great farms of the past are gone, they still left behind rich soils and some places are still safe enough to make use of them. Your tribe is among those who found such a spot and ever since tends to these lends to eek out a living. Not every harvest is plentiful, but starvation is rarely a concern and the passing traders gladly bring rare goods from other settlements for any surplus you sell them. Yet it is also risky to stay in one place forever, for the predators of the jungles may find you all too easily, be they beast or man. Yet it is mostly a peaceful life and the endless patience of corn and cassava mean that many of your tribe have time for others matters then farming too.
[] [Tribe] Hunters
It may be risky to constantly move through the underbrush, but yet it can also be rewarding. As long as you do not deviate from the safe passages passed down by your fathers, the creatures of the wild rarely bother you, but sloth and peccary make for a filling meal and many others who you meet in your travels will gladly trade for their pelts and meat. It is still a life of many dangers and hardships and every member of the tribe is expected to pull his own weight. There can be no weak hunters, lest they become prey.
Yet one cannot ignore the past, for wisdom may be gleamed from it. The fall has cost these lands much and your tribe has learned its lesson from it to avoid such dire events in the future.
Pick a tribal value:
[] [Value] Oral History
Among your people it is believed that the Cualli forgot to much about themselves in their complacency. Whatever they have lost, it might have prevented the fall. So your people value stories about the past above all else and seek wisdom from the tales of success and failure of their fathers.
[] [Value] Strength Above All
What use is there to moan about a past that will never come again? Your tribe lives in the here and now, not in the stories of before. By strength of arm and wit they survive from day to day. It was sloth and weakness that brought down Cualli and your people strive to never show either.
[] [Value] Knowing The Spirits
Strange things walk among the trees, just beyond mans ability to see. Cualli was blinded by its own power and forgot to see that around itself. It is not the lore of magic or history that your tribe guards, but about the land and its inhabitants.
Among these people you are born. Just another child among many to be brought into this world. And yet, maybe you will stand apart from all the others. So much has been lost, waiting to be reclaimed. So much has changed, waiting to be discovered. So much was destroyed, waiting to be rebuild.
The world has changed so much, why should it not change again?
But this lies in your future, because right now, you are just another babe in the arms of a mother. Whatever grand ambitions you will have some day, it will have to begin with growing up.
You are a:
[] [Gender] Boy
[] [Gender] Girl
Authors Note:
The setting of Cualli is, as you've might have noticed, based on pre-columbian Mesoamerica. I've always wanted to run something a bit different from the usual medieval fantasy, yet recognizable enough for those enjoying the genre.
What held me back the most was how to run the character generation. This quest is going to have a somewhat complex homebrew mechanics part and I always dreaded to ask in the first post to basically write a tax form worth of arcane numbers, which require a lengthy document to understand.
Therefore, I decided to start with the yet unnamed hero of this story in his infancy. Character generation will be done over the course of a few chapters of growing up, with the environment and choices impacting who he or she will be. So no asking for Strength score on a scale from 1 to 10, but rather who this person you want play is as a person.
Obviously, you will get the lengthy document about how everything works in due time.
The great empire of Cualli had done all of these things. Nobody knew when or how it had begun, for it stood for so long that even its own history had passed into myth. For hundreds of generations, it had spread ever farther and risen ever higher. From the Burning Isles to the south, to the vast expanses of the Broken Sands to the north. From the endless ocean to the west, to the White Peaks in the east. The wild lands where tamed and dense jungles turned to farms and gardens to feed the great cities. No man or woman living in it knew need, for the arcane might of its scholars and the wonders they wrought meant that the meanest servant could live like a lord.
It must have seemed as if this realm would stand forever, but it was not meant to be. For all it had gained, it would have to pay a terrible price and pay it did. Nobody knows how it happened. To few survived the darkness that followed and so Cualli passed back into the realm of myths. Some say that its ways and lack of respect had offended the gods and they've send terrible plagues to punish man. Others claim the spirits of the land rose up to become what they where meant to be once more instead of the forms that man had tried to press them into. Sometimes it is said the scholars called terrible demons into their service and that they broke free to hunt and consume all that they laid eyes upon. Nobody knows the truth and after so many generations have passed, perhaps nobody ever will.
A broken world is all that is left. The jungle took back what was once claimed from him and great trees stand in between the shattered ruins of the past. Strange and terrible creatures stalk their shadows, preying on the unwary who venture too far into the wilds. Not just jaguars and coyotes, but far stranger things. Of walking trees they speak, of great beasts of flesh and bone that seem to be born from nightmares and even the dead may not rest forever in the deepest underbrush. In some places, the very air itself is said to still bear the taint of past sins and chokes the life out of any who breath it while in others the waters are so tainted that they make the flesh rot from your bones, should just a single drop fall on your skin.
So do the stories say. Carried from mouth to mouth by those who brave the paths between the trees to carry them among the few that live between what's left of their ancestors glory.
But it is not great empires and calamities that govern your life, for you are born into a simple tribe. Other matters are much closer at hand.
Pick Tribe:
[] [Tribe] Farmers
While the great farms of the past are gone, they still left behind rich soils and some places are still safe enough to make use of them. Your tribe is among those who found such a spot and ever since tends to these lends to eek out a living. Not every harvest is plentiful, but starvation is rarely a concern and the passing traders gladly bring rare goods from other settlements for any surplus you sell them. Yet it is also risky to stay in one place forever, for the predators of the jungles may find you all too easily, be they beast or man. Yet it is mostly a peaceful life and the endless patience of corn and cassava mean that many of your tribe have time for others matters then farming too.
[] [Tribe] Hunters
It may be risky to constantly move through the underbrush, but yet it can also be rewarding. As long as you do not deviate from the safe passages passed down by your fathers, the creatures of the wild rarely bother you, but sloth and peccary make for a filling meal and many others who you meet in your travels will gladly trade for their pelts and meat. It is still a life of many dangers and hardships and every member of the tribe is expected to pull his own weight. There can be no weak hunters, lest they become prey.
Yet one cannot ignore the past, for wisdom may be gleamed from it. The fall has cost these lands much and your tribe has learned its lesson from it to avoid such dire events in the future.
Pick a tribal value:
[] [Value] Oral History
Among your people it is believed that the Cualli forgot to much about themselves in their complacency. Whatever they have lost, it might have prevented the fall. So your people value stories about the past above all else and seek wisdom from the tales of success and failure of their fathers.
[] [Value] Strength Above All
What use is there to moan about a past that will never come again? Your tribe lives in the here and now, not in the stories of before. By strength of arm and wit they survive from day to day. It was sloth and weakness that brought down Cualli and your people strive to never show either.
[] [Value] Knowing The Spirits
Strange things walk among the trees, just beyond mans ability to see. Cualli was blinded by its own power and forgot to see that around itself. It is not the lore of magic or history that your tribe guards, but about the land and its inhabitants.
Among these people you are born. Just another child among many to be brought into this world. And yet, maybe you will stand apart from all the others. So much has been lost, waiting to be reclaimed. So much has changed, waiting to be discovered. So much was destroyed, waiting to be rebuild.
The world has changed so much, why should it not change again?
But this lies in your future, because right now, you are just another babe in the arms of a mother. Whatever grand ambitions you will have some day, it will have to begin with growing up.
You are a:
[] [Gender] Boy
[] [Gender] Girl
Authors Note:
The setting of Cualli is, as you've might have noticed, based on pre-columbian Mesoamerica. I've always wanted to run something a bit different from the usual medieval fantasy, yet recognizable enough for those enjoying the genre.
What held me back the most was how to run the character generation. This quest is going to have a somewhat complex homebrew mechanics part and I always dreaded to ask in the first post to basically write a tax form worth of arcane numbers, which require a lengthy document to understand.
Therefore, I decided to start with the yet unnamed hero of this story in his infancy. Character generation will be done over the course of a few chapters of growing up, with the environment and choices impacting who he or she will be. So no asking for Strength score on a scale from 1 to 10, but rather who this person you want play is as a person.
Obviously, you will get the lengthy document about how everything works in due time.
Mechanics
- Location
- Germany
Mechanics
Every character or creature has Attributes, Skills and Traits.
Attributes are general characteristics of a character and divided in Physical and Mental. The baseline for an adult human is 5.
Skills are specific things you learned to do well. They are associated with two attributes or the same one twice. Whenever you perform an action requiring a skill check, you roll 1d100 and add +20 for every rank in the skill and +10 for every point in an associated attribute.
Traits are narrowly defined abilities or properties of your character. They might enable you to perform specific actions or can modify skill checks under specific circumstances. This can be anything from dedicated training in a specific weapon, literacy or the loss of a limb.
If you attempt to do something that is opposed by another character, such as fighting, you both roll the relevant skills to the action and compare results. The character with the higher result gains one degree of success and another degree for every 10 points his result was higher then that of his opponent. What these degrees mean depends on the specific circumstances of the check.
If there is no direct opponent, you roll against a fixed difficulty rating, but this works otherwise the same.
Note: This system is intentionally designed to bloat numbers quite fast as you gain Skills and Traits. The chance of a untrained farmer defeating a trained swordsman are slim to none, even with all the luck in the world.
Attributes
Physical
Strength - Governs how much physical force you can exert and is vital for damage in combat.
Dexterity - How nimble and coordinated you are. Used for many physical activities.
Constitution - How well you can stomach physical exertion and wounds.
Wounds - This is always 5 times your constitution and shows how many hits in combat you can take before loosing consciousness or dying. For every number of wounds equal to your constitution you have taken in combat, your attributes and skills are lowered by 1 point until you are healed again.
Mental
Intelligence - This denotes how well you can analyse problems and retain learned information. Hugely important for knowledge skills and higher learning.
Charisma - How well you can get others to listen to what you say.
Concentration - Denotes how well you can focus on a task and take note of minor details when distracted.
Skills
These are the skills you have discovered so far.
Combat
Combat is done in turns during which every participant can act once. Everything done in a turn happens simultaneously, so you resolve all actions at the same time and apply the results at the end of the turn.
The attacker rolls his weapon skill against the defenders Evasion. If the defender has a shield, he can instead use his blocking skill. Some traits, circumstances or special weapons might allow the defender to use other skills to deflect an attack too.
If the attacker has any successes in this check, he deals his weapons base damage and one additional point for every net success. Special weapon qualities might change this. The defender detracts the damage reduction from his armor and then suffers the remaining damage in wounds.
A weapons damage and effectiveness against armor is given by its quality and material.
Quality increases the base damage. The possible qualities are Simple -> Regular -> Exceptional -> Masterwork -> Artifact.
The material comes into play when trying to break weapons and shields of another combatant and a weapon gets a strong damage penalty when used against armor made from superior materials. They are are divided in the categories Natural (Bone, Stone, Leather, Wood) -> Bronze / Iron -> Steel -> Magical -> Artifact.
The difference between the material of weapon and armor determine the effectiveness of armor.
Lastly, weapons can have special qualitites:
Reach - The weapon has exceptional reach and can be used to keep an opponent away from you. You can use your skill with the weapon to evade an attack by keeping the enemy away from you.
Bleeding - If you deal more damage to an enemy then his Constitution score in a single hit, you tear open a bleeding wound. Every round, your opponent rolls a d10 for every bleeding wound he took. If the result is higher or equal then his Constitution, he takes a wound from blood loss.
Impact - The weapon is more efficient against armor. Consider the material of armor one step lower then it actually is.
Armor offers a fixed amount of of Damage Reduction, which is deducted from all damage after the material modifier was applied. Depending on how heavy it is, armor deducts an Armor Penalty from all physical attributes and skills which have at least one physical attribute linked to them. The Armor Penalty and DR from armor and shields stack.
A custom fitted armor has the Armor Pentalty lowered by one step. Shields can't be custom fitted.
Healing
Once a day, you make a Healing check to regain lost wounds and a Infection check to see if your wounds became infected.
Healing Check:
1d10 + Constitution - Wound Penalty - 2 for every level of Infection
If the result is equal or higher then 10, you regain a wound.
If the result is lower is equal or lower then 0, you lose an additional wound.
If your wounds where dressed, you automatically regain one wound, regardless of the check outcome.
Infection Check:
1d10 + Constitution - Wound Penalty (doubled if wounds are not dressed) - 2 for every level of Infection (halved if wounds are dressed) - 0.5 for every undressed wound
If the result is equal or higher then 10, you lose one level of Infection
If the result is lower is equal or lower then 0, you gain one level of Infection
Dressing Wounds:
To dress wounds, you roll Medicine against a DC equal to the number of wounds multiplied by 10. Multiply this DC by the Infection level - 1, if the wounds are already infected. Add 50 to the DC if you are trying to treat yourself without aid. Add 50 to the DC if you don't have Wound Dressings and need to improvise the materials.
When using an improvised dressing, the wounds are considered dressed, but you still gain half the usual penalty to infection checks and do not automatically heal a wound per day.
Closing Bleeding Wounds:
To close a bleeding wound, you roll Medicine check against the number of multiples of the patients Constitution plus one, times 50.
Example: A Constitution 5 patient took 10 wounds from a sword strike. The DC to close the bleeding wound is (2 + 1) * 50 = 150
Other Rules
Intimidation and Resistance
Intimidation checks work by the attacker picking a physical and a mental attribute to browbeat you into submission. You do the same to defend against it. Usually, these will be your highest, but circumstances might restrict you to certain attributes.
Example: A large group of guards trying to make you give up would make Strength unavailable, since you know that you can't beat them all by brute force, but outrunning them (Constitution) or loosing them somehow (Dexterity) are valid.
Potions and Poisons
Each of these substances has a Quality Level, determined at creation. The specific impact of this value on its function is denoted in its description.
Every time before a poison takes effect, the person can roll a d10. If the result of that roll is lower then his constitution score minus the poisons quality, the poison is loosing one quality level and is fully negated if its quality reaches 0.
Every character or creature has Attributes, Skills and Traits.
Attributes are general characteristics of a character and divided in Physical and Mental. The baseline for an adult human is 5.
Skills are specific things you learned to do well. They are associated with two attributes or the same one twice. Whenever you perform an action requiring a skill check, you roll 1d100 and add +20 for every rank in the skill and +10 for every point in an associated attribute.
Traits are narrowly defined abilities or properties of your character. They might enable you to perform specific actions or can modify skill checks under specific circumstances. This can be anything from dedicated training in a specific weapon, literacy or the loss of a limb.
If you attempt to do something that is opposed by another character, such as fighting, you both roll the relevant skills to the action and compare results. The character with the higher result gains one degree of success and another degree for every 10 points his result was higher then that of his opponent. What these degrees mean depends on the specific circumstances of the check.
If there is no direct opponent, you roll against a fixed difficulty rating, but this works otherwise the same.
Note: This system is intentionally designed to bloat numbers quite fast as you gain Skills and Traits. The chance of a untrained farmer defeating a trained swordsman are slim to none, even with all the luck in the world.
Attributes
Physical
Strength - Governs how much physical force you can exert and is vital for damage in combat.
Dexterity - How nimble and coordinated you are. Used for many physical activities.
Constitution - How well you can stomach physical exertion and wounds.
Wounds - This is always 5 times your constitution and shows how many hits in combat you can take before loosing consciousness or dying. For every number of wounds equal to your constitution you have taken in combat, your attributes and skills are lowered by 1 point until you are healed again.
Mental
Intelligence - This denotes how well you can analyse problems and retain learned information. Hugely important for knowledge skills and higher learning.
Charisma - How well you can get others to listen to what you say.
Concentration - Denotes how well you can focus on a task and take note of minor details when distracted.
Skills
These are the skills you have discovered so far.
Wrestling - Strength & Dexterity
Bladed Weapons - Strength & Dexterity
Bashing Weapons - Strength & Dexterity
Spear Fighting - Strength & Dexterity
Archery - Strength & Dexterity
Throwing Weapons - Strength & Dexterity
Evasion - Dexterity & Dexterity
Blocking - Constitution & Dexterity
Bladed Weapons - Strength & Dexterity
Bashing Weapons - Strength & Dexterity
Spear Fighting - Strength & Dexterity
Archery - Strength & Dexterity
Throwing Weapons - Strength & Dexterity
Evasion - Dexterity & Dexterity
Blocking - Constitution & Dexterity
Survival - Intelligence & Constitution
Tracking - Intelligence & Concentration
Endurance - Strength & Constitution
Sneaking - Dexterity & Concentration
Perception - Intelligence & Concentration
Tracking - Intelligence & Concentration
Endurance - Strength & Constitution
Sneaking - Dexterity & Concentration
Perception - Intelligence & Concentration
Herbalism - Intelligence & Dexterity
Animal Lore - Intelligence & Concentration
Spirit Lore - Intelligence & Intelligence
History - Intelligence & Intelligence
Spirit Talking - Intelligence & Charisma
Astronomy - Intelligence & Intelligence
Medicine - Intelligence & Intelligence
Surgery - Intelligence & Dexterity
Animal Lore - Intelligence & Concentration
Spirit Lore - Intelligence & Intelligence
History - Intelligence & Intelligence
Spirit Talking - Intelligence & Charisma
Astronomy - Intelligence & Intelligence
Medicine - Intelligence & Intelligence
Surgery - Intelligence & Dexterity
Diplomacy - Charisma & Concentration
Intrigue - Charisma & Intelligence
Charm - Charisma & Charisma
Intrigue - Charisma & Intelligence
Charm - Charisma & Charisma
Alchemy - Intelligence & ???
??? - ??? & ???
??? - ??? & ???
Combat
Combat is done in turns during which every participant can act once. Everything done in a turn happens simultaneously, so you resolve all actions at the same time and apply the results at the end of the turn.
The attacker rolls his weapon skill against the defenders Evasion. If the defender has a shield, he can instead use his blocking skill. Some traits, circumstances or special weapons might allow the defender to use other skills to deflect an attack too.
If the attacker has any successes in this check, he deals his weapons base damage and one additional point for every net success. Special weapon qualities might change this. The defender detracts the damage reduction from his armor and then suffers the remaining damage in wounds.
A weapons damage and effectiveness against armor is given by its quality and material.
Quality increases the base damage. The possible qualities are Simple -> Regular -> Exceptional -> Masterwork -> Artifact.
The material comes into play when trying to break weapons and shields of another combatant and a weapon gets a strong damage penalty when used against armor made from superior materials. They are are divided in the categories Natural (Bone, Stone, Leather, Wood) -> Bronze / Iron -> Steel -> Magical -> Artifact.
The difference between the material of weapon and armor determine the effectiveness of armor.
| Weapon 3 or more steps worse. | No damage dealt. |
| Weapon 2 steps worse. | Multiply Damage Reduction by 4. Dealt damage is halved (rounded up). |
| Weapon 1 step worse. | Multiply Damage Reduction by 2. |
| Same level. | No effect. |
| Armor 1 step worse. | Divide damage reduction by 2 (rounded up). |
| Armor 2 steps worse. | Divide damage reduction by 4 (rounded up). |
| Armor 3 or more steps worse. | Damage reduction is not applied. |
Lastly, weapons can have special qualitites:
Reach - The weapon has exceptional reach and can be used to keep an opponent away from you. You can use your skill with the weapon to evade an attack by keeping the enemy away from you.
Bleeding - If you deal more damage to an enemy then his Constitution score in a single hit, you tear open a bleeding wound. Every round, your opponent rolls a d10 for every bleeding wound he took. If the result is higher or equal then his Constitution, he takes a wound from blood loss.
Impact - The weapon is more efficient against armor. Consider the material of armor one step lower then it actually is.
| Name | Skill | Encumbrance | Qualitites | Base Damage | Regular | Exceptional | Masterwork | Artifact |
| Knife / Dagger | Bladed | Light | Bleeding | 1d4 | 1d6 | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 |
| Short Sword | Bladed | Light | Bleeding | 1d6 | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 |
| Sword | Bladed | Medium | Bleeding | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 |
| Bastard Sword | Bladed | Heavy | Bleeding | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 | 4d6 |
| Two-Handed Sword | Bladed | Heavy | Bleeding, Impact | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 | 4d6 |
| Handaxe | Bladed | Light | Bleeding | 1d6 | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 |
| Axe | Bladed | Medium | Bleeding, Impact (only when wielded with two hands) | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 |
| Heavy Axe | Bladed | Heavy | Bleeding, Impact | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 | 4d6 |
| Staff | Bashing | Light | Impact | 1d6 | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 |
| Mace / Hammer | Bashing | Medium | Impact | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 |
| Two-Handed Hammer | Bashing | Heavy | Impact | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 | 4d6 |
| Short Spear | Spear | Light | Bleeding | 1d6 | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 |
| Spear | Spear | Medium | Bleeding, Reach | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 |
| Long Spear / Lance | Spear | Heavy | Bleeding, Reach | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 | 4d6 |
| Sling | Throwing | Light | Impact | 1d6 | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 |
| Spear (Thrown) | Throwing | Medium | Bleeding, Impact | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 |
| Atlatl | Throwing | Heavy | Bleeding, Impact | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 | 4d6 | 4d8 |
| Bow | Archery | Light | Bleeding | 1d6 | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 |
| Longbow | Archery | Medium | Bleeding | 1d8 | 1d10 | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 |
| Warbow | Archery | Heavy | Bleeding, Impact | 2d6 | 2d8 | 2d10 | 4d6 | 4d8 |
Armor offers a fixed amount of of Damage Reduction, which is deducted from all damage after the material modifier was applied. Depending on how heavy it is, armor deducts an Armor Penalty from all physical attributes and skills which have at least one physical attribute linked to them. The Armor Penalty and DR from armor and shields stack.
A custom fitted armor has the Armor Pentalty lowered by one step. Shields can't be custom fitted.
| Type | Armor Penalty | Simple | Regular | Exceptional | Masterwork | Artifact |
| Armor - Light | -1 | DR 1 | DR 2 | DR 4 | DR 8 | DR 12 |
| Armor - Medium | -2 | DR 2 | DR 4 | DR 8 | DR 12 | DR 16 |
| Armor - Heavy | -3 | DR 4 | DR 8 | DR 12 | DR 16 | DR 20 |
| Shield - Light | -1 | DR 0 | DR 1 | DR 2 | DR 3 | DR 4 |
| Shield - Medium | -2 | DR 1 | DR 2 | DR 3 | DR 4 | DR 5 |
| Shield - Heavy | -3 | DR 2 | DR 3 | DR 4 | DR 5 | DR 6 |
Healing
Once a day, you make a Healing check to regain lost wounds and a Infection check to see if your wounds became infected.
Healing Check:
1d10 + Constitution - Wound Penalty - 2 for every level of Infection
If the result is equal or higher then 10, you regain a wound.
If the result is lower is equal or lower then 0, you lose an additional wound.
If your wounds where dressed, you automatically regain one wound, regardless of the check outcome.
Infection Check:
1d10 + Constitution - Wound Penalty (doubled if wounds are not dressed) - 2 for every level of Infection (halved if wounds are dressed) - 0.5 for every undressed wound
If the result is equal or higher then 10, you lose one level of Infection
If the result is lower is equal or lower then 0, you gain one level of Infection
Dressing Wounds:
To dress wounds, you roll Medicine against a DC equal to the number of wounds multiplied by 10. Multiply this DC by the Infection level - 1, if the wounds are already infected. Add 50 to the DC if you are trying to treat yourself without aid. Add 50 to the DC if you don't have Wound Dressings and need to improvise the materials.
When using an improvised dressing, the wounds are considered dressed, but you still gain half the usual penalty to infection checks and do not automatically heal a wound per day.
Closing Bleeding Wounds:
To close a bleeding wound, you roll Medicine check against the number of multiples of the patients Constitution plus one, times 50.
Example: A Constitution 5 patient took 10 wounds from a sword strike. The DC to close the bleeding wound is (2 + 1) * 50 = 150
Other Rules
Intimidation and Resistance
Intimidation checks work by the attacker picking a physical and a mental attribute to browbeat you into submission. You do the same to defend against it. Usually, these will be your highest, but circumstances might restrict you to certain attributes.
Example: A large group of guards trying to make you give up would make Strength unavailable, since you know that you can't beat them all by brute force, but outrunning them (Constitution) or loosing them somehow (Dexterity) are valid.
Potions and Poisons
Each of these substances has a Quality Level, determined at creation. The specific impact of this value on its function is denoted in its description.
Every time before a poison takes effect, the person can roll a d10. If the result of that roll is lower then his constitution score minus the poisons quality, the poison is loosing one quality level and is fully negated if its quality reaches 0.
Last edited:
Charactersheet
- Location
- Germany
Charactersheet
Name: Yaxkin
Age: 16
Birthday: Long Count: 1.6.16.14.6.0 - Tzolkin: 7 Kib - Lunar: 8.25 Decline
Occupation: Traveller
Attributes
Strength - 6 ( 809 / 10500 )
Dexterity - 8 ( 1532 / 18000 )
Constitution - 6 ( 622 / 10500 )
Intelligence - 5 ( 3748 / 7500 )
Charisma - 5 ( 804 / 7500 )
Concentration - 6 ( 1002 / 10500 )
??? - ??? ( 0 / ??? )
??? - ??? ( 279 / ??? )
??? - ??? ( 163 / ??? )
30/30 Wounds
Wound Penalty every 6 lost wounds
Skills
Bladed Weapons - 4 ( 220 / 1500 )
Archery - 3 ( 300 / 1000 )
Evasion - 3 ( 671 / 1000 )
Sneaking - 3 ( 562 / 1000 )
Survival - 4 ( 216 / 1500 )
Tracking - 2 ( 224 / 600 )
Endurance - 4 ( 219 / 1500 )
Perception - 4 ( 454 / 1500 )
Herbalism - 3 ( 510 / 1000 )
Medicine - 4 ( 69 / 1500 )
Surgery - 2 ( 138 / 600 )
Animal Lore - 2 ( 224 / 600 )
Spirit Lore - 4 ( 360 / 1500 )
Spirit Talking - 3 ( 541 / 1000 )
Astronomy - 3 ( 534 / 1000 )
Diplomacy - 3 ( 598 / 1000 )
Intrigue - 3 ( 683 / 1000 )
Charm - 3 ( 230 / 1000 )
Alchemy - 2 ( 168 / 600 )
??? - 1 ( 63 / 300 )
Traits
Equipment
You've found this little disc on your first trip into a ruin of old, the Warriors Compound in the faded city near the migration path of your tribe. Made from purest gold and carved with great skill, it shows a Cualli calendar on the front and a drawing of a few constellations to aid finding the right day on the back.
Total Encumbrance: 5 / 11 (Strength + Constitution)
Funds:
2 Tlaltepoztli
26 Quachtli
296 Cacao Beans
Conversion:
1 Quachtli (sheets of cotton) = 300 Cacao Beans
1 Tlaltepoztli ("Hoe Money", copper tokens) = 8,000 Cacao Beans (roughly 27 Quachtli)
Alchemical Recipes
Other Recipes
Companions
Name: Yaxkin
Age: 16
Birthday: Long Count: 1.6.16.14.6.0 - Tzolkin: 7 Kib - Lunar: 8.25 Decline
Occupation: Traveller
Attributes
Strength - 6 ( 809 / 10500 )
Dexterity - 8 ( 1532 / 18000 )
Constitution - 6 ( 622 / 10500 )
Intelligence - 5 ( 3748 / 7500 )
Charisma - 5 ( 804 / 7500 )
Concentration - 6 ( 1002 / 10500 )
??? - ??? ( 0 / ??? )
??? - ??? ( 279 / ??? )
??? - ??? ( 163 / ??? )
30/30 Wounds
Wound Penalty every 6 lost wounds
Skills
Bladed Weapons - 4 ( 220 / 1500 )
Archery - 3 ( 300 / 1000 )
Evasion - 3 ( 671 / 1000 )
Sneaking - 3 ( 562 / 1000 )
Survival - 4 ( 216 / 1500 )
Tracking - 2 ( 224 / 600 )
Endurance - 4 ( 219 / 1500 )
Perception - 4 ( 454 / 1500 )
Herbalism - 3 ( 510 / 1000 )
Medicine - 4 ( 69 / 1500 )
Surgery - 2 ( 138 / 600 )
Animal Lore - 2 ( 224 / 600 )
Spirit Lore - 4 ( 360 / 1500 )
Spirit Talking - 3 ( 541 / 1000 )
Astronomy - 3 ( 534 / 1000 )
Diplomacy - 3 ( 598 / 1000 )
Intrigue - 3 ( 683 / 1000 )
Charm - 3 ( 230 / 1000 )
Alchemy - 2 ( 168 / 600 )
??? - 1 ( 63 / 300 )
Traits
You are trained in the use of knives for combat. Add +20 to your Bladed Weapons skill when using a knife, dagger or similar weapon. Add +10 if you are using a short sword.
When using your Herbalism skill, add +5 per rank in Survival and when using Survival, add +5 per rank in Herbalism.
You have learned to watch your surroundings closely and even subconsciously, giving you an edge in combat. When you defend yourself in combat, add +5 per point of your Concentration attribute to your result.
You have learned that just evading attacks isn't enough to win a fight. At the beginning of a combat turn, you can announce an enemy to position yourself against and determine a number that is detracted from every Evasion check made in this turn. You can only use Evasion to defend against attacks in this turn. In the next round of combat, you gain the same value as a bonus on all attack rolls against the picked enemy.
You have learned how to always keep a knife in reach. As long as you have a knife on you and a free hand to draw it, you can retrieve it without spending any time or effort. This trait does not apply when you are ambushed.
Extensive knowledge about the vital areas of humans and animals allow you to make devastating attacks with weapons that offer the necessary precision. When using a Light close combat weapon, increase the base damage by one step. If the target is unaware of the attack, increase it by two steps.
You have trained to fire a bow while on the move. Receive no penalty for using the Archery skill while sneaking or running.
You have learned to ambush your foes. When you attack someone out of hiding, you gain +5 on your attack for every degree of success of your Sneaking check against the targets Perception check.
You have learned to artfully steer a conversation to or away from topics without others even noticing. With a successful Intrigue check, you can make others reveal information you desire and make them think they told you it voluntarily. Likewise, you can avoid answering a question in the same fashion.
Not considered an essential skill by most people, the written language of old Cualli is a necessary thing to master, if you want to pursue the knowledge of the time before the Fall.
By drawing upon the essence of a Fleshweaver, you took it's unnatural hunger for yourself. Once every lunar cycle, you must devour a living animal or human, lest the hunger takes part of your self. When this happens, the craving for living flesh will become greater until you will eat anything, just to be sated.
You can heal Fade damage by devouring the essence of a living being. If you do not do so once in a lunar cycle, you take one point of Fade damage per day until you sate your hunger. Furthermore, you can eat raw meat, blood, offal and similar substances without ill effects and derive nourishment from them.
You can heal Fade damage by devouring the essence of a living being. If you do not do so once in a lunar cycle, you take one point of Fade damage per day until you sate your hunger. Furthermore, you can eat raw meat, blood, offal and similar substances without ill effects and derive nourishment from them.
By eschewing the chance to strike at your enemy, you prepare yourself to defend against his strikes. You can't attack in the combat turn where you use Full defense, but add your weapon skill to any defensive check against close combat attacks.
Equipment
Material: Bronze
Quality: Exceptional
Encumbrance: Light
As a reward for finding his apprentice and a codex from old Cualli, the smith Noche coated your obsidian dagger with bronze. Not even a minor dent or edge is there where the metal meets the stone and the black obsidian and golden bronze seem almost to flow into each other. No single little nick or uneven patch is disturbing the edge, which is just as sharp as before. The handle is still the same bone you gave it away with, but the carvings are now coated with a thin layer of bronze too, making them stand out all the more from the white background while the pommel has gained a grinning picture of the sun in bronze.
Quality: Exceptional
Encumbrance: Light
As a reward for finding his apprentice and a codex from old Cualli, the smith Noche coated your obsidian dagger with bronze. Not even a minor dent or edge is there where the metal meets the stone and the black obsidian and golden bronze seem almost to flow into each other. No single little nick or uneven patch is disturbing the edge, which is just as sharp as before. The handle is still the same bone you gave it away with, but the carvings are now coated with a thin layer of bronze too, making them stand out all the more from the white background while the pommel has gained a grinning picture of the sun in bronze.
Quality: Regular
Encumbrance: Light
Quiver: 30 arrows (Natural, Regular, Light Encumbrance)
Made from the pleasant smelling, deep red wood of a rare tree in your area, this bow is one of the finest your tribe can make.
Encumbrance: Light
Quiver: 30 arrows (Natural, Regular, Light Encumbrance)
Made from the pleasant smelling, deep red wood of a rare tree in your area, this bow is one of the finest your tribe can make.
Encumbrance: Light
A rough belt made from tanned hide that is holding a few small clay vessels for easy access.
Can hold up to 5 doses of herbal or alchemical substances.
Contents:
- 1x Numbing Brew (Quality 5)
- 1x Grave's Kiss (Quality 1)
- 1x Jungles Scent (Quality 7)
- 1x Clotting Salve (Quality 4)
A rough belt made from tanned hide that is holding a few small clay vessels for easy access.
Can hold up to 5 doses of herbal or alchemical substances.
Contents:
- 1x Numbing Brew (Quality 5)
- 1x Grave's Kiss (Quality 1)
- 1x Jungles Scent (Quality 7)
- 1x Clotting Salve (Quality 4)
You've found this little disc on your first trip into a ruin of old, the Warriors Compound in the faded city near the migration path of your tribe. Made from purest gold and carved with great skill, it shows a Cualli calendar on the front and a drawing of a few constellations to aid finding the right day on the back.
Encumbrance: Light
A small pouch with various tools, like needles, knifes and scrapers. In a pinch, it carries everything you need for a surgery even.
A small pouch with various tools, like needles, knifes and scrapers. In a pinch, it carries everything you need for a surgery even.
Made of three wooden pearls, held together with a small rope out of red and green string, this good luck charm was gifted to you by Matlal, who bears its counterpart. In truth, it is the anchor for a minor bit of magic, which allows a short message to be whispered to the who ever holds the other piece of the pair. After sending a message, you can not send another for 13 days.
- 2x Clotting Salve (Quality 3)
- 5x Curare (Quality 4)
- 21x Wound Dressing
- 24 days of rations
- 1x Unknown Codex (Small) - Found among dead Stone Men in the Fleshweaver Ruins
- 5x Curare (Quality 4)
- 21x Wound Dressing
- 24 days of rations
- 1x Unknown Codex (Small) - Found among dead Stone Men in the Fleshweaver Ruins
Funds:
2 Tlaltepoztli
26 Quachtli
296 Cacao Beans
Conversion:
1 Quachtli (sheets of cotton) = 300 Cacao Beans
1 Tlaltepoztli ("Hoe Money", copper tokens) = 8,000 Cacao Beans (roughly 27 Quachtli)
Alchemical Recipes
Numbing Brew
Base DC: 150
When drunken, this brew purges the pain and troubles of injuries from you. You can ignore the penalties from being wounded for some time after drinking it.
Lasts for 1 minute per quality level.
Clotting Salve
Base DC: 180
A thick, white paste. When spread into a bleeding wound, it immediately makes the wound scab over and stops the loss of the blood.
Cures a number of bleeding wounds up to its quality level when used.
Mosquito's Bane
Base DC: 150
A light oil that repels insects from any who rub it on their body. The odor is quite strong and makes it easier for animals to track you by scent, but it can keep away even the nastiest insects without fail.
Lasts for 1 hour per quality level.
Grave's Kiss
Base DC: 210
This dark red liquid can either be used as a medication or a poison. When carefully given to a patient in small doses, they fall into a death like trance and will feel no pain or distress when a shaman treats the most grievous wounds, but a full dose is lethal.
Can keep a person unconscious for one hour per quality level, if a skilled healer is there to administer it regularly. When a full dose is ingested at once, the consumer receives a penalty of -1 to each of his attributes every round. If all his attributes sink to 0, he person perishes from this effect.
Purging Sludge
Base DC: 150
When a person eats this green sludge, they will start vomiting within moments. This expels any poisons they have in their body, even if the poison was injected instead of ingested.
Removes one quality level of poison from your blood per quality level.
Jungles Scent
Base DC: 150
A heavy cream that covers up the natural scent of a person and makes it blend into the surrounding scents.
Lasts for 1 hour per quality level.
Base DC: 150
When drunken, this brew purges the pain and troubles of injuries from you. You can ignore the penalties from being wounded for some time after drinking it.
Lasts for 1 minute per quality level.
Clotting Salve
Base DC: 180
A thick, white paste. When spread into a bleeding wound, it immediately makes the wound scab over and stops the loss of the blood.
Cures a number of bleeding wounds up to its quality level when used.
Mosquito's Bane
Base DC: 150
A light oil that repels insects from any who rub it on their body. The odor is quite strong and makes it easier for animals to track you by scent, but it can keep away even the nastiest insects without fail.
Lasts for 1 hour per quality level.
Grave's Kiss
Base DC: 210
This dark red liquid can either be used as a medication or a poison. When carefully given to a patient in small doses, they fall into a death like trance and will feel no pain or distress when a shaman treats the most grievous wounds, but a full dose is lethal.
Can keep a person unconscious for one hour per quality level, if a skilled healer is there to administer it regularly. When a full dose is ingested at once, the consumer receives a penalty of -1 to each of his attributes every round. If all his attributes sink to 0, he person perishes from this effect.
Purging Sludge
Base DC: 150
When a person eats this green sludge, they will start vomiting within moments. This expels any poisons they have in their body, even if the poison was injected instead of ingested.
Removes one quality level of poison from your blood per quality level.
Jungles Scent
Base DC: 150
A heavy cream that covers up the natural scent of a person and makes it blend into the surrounding scents.
Lasts for 1 hour per quality level.
Other Recipes
Curare
Base DC: 150 (Herbalism)
A simple poison made from various plants. When applied to a weapon, Curare causes the victim to lose on wound per turn of combat as his muscles go limp. Unless an antidote is administered, it is lethal within minutes.
Base DC: 150 (Herbalism)
A simple poison made from various plants. When applied to a weapon, Curare causes the victim to lose on wound per turn of combat as his muscles go limp. Unless an antidote is administered, it is lethal within minutes.
Companions
Age: 24
Birthday: Long Count: 1.6.16.5.15.12 - Tzolkin: 8 Akbal - Lunar: 0.12 Coming
Occupation: Former Mercenary
Attributes
Strength - 6 ( 0 / 10500 )
Dexterity - 7 ( 0 / 14000 )
Constitution - 7 ( 0 / 14000 )
Intelligence - 4 ( 0 / 5000 )
Charisma - 4 ( 0 / 5000 )
Concentration - 6 ( 0 / 10500 )
35/35 Wounds
Wound Penalty every 7 lost wounds
Skills
Bladed Weapons - 5 ( 0 / 2100 )
Bashing Weapons - 2 ( 0 / 600 )
Archery - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Evasion - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Sneaking - 5 ( 0 / 2100 )
Survival - 5 ( 0 / 2100 )
Tracking - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Endurance - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Perception - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Weaving - 1 ( 0 / 300 )
Woodcarving - 1 ( 0 / 300 )
Medicine - 1 ( 0 / 300 )
Animal Lore - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Spirit Lore - 2 ( 0 / 600 )
Astronomy - 1 ( 0 / 300 )
Diplomacy - 2 ( 0 / 600 )
Intrigue - 1 ( 0 / 300 )
Charm - 2 ( 0 / 600 )
Traits
Equipment:
- Exceptional Obsidian Knife
- Exceptional Longbow
- 22x Exceptional Obsidian Tipped Arrows
- 6x Exceptional Bronze Tipped Arrows
Total Encumbrance: 5 / 13 (Strength + Constitution)
Birthday: Long Count: 1.6.16.5.15.12 - Tzolkin: 8 Akbal - Lunar: 0.12 Coming
Occupation: Former Mercenary
Attributes
Strength - 6 ( 0 / 10500 )
Dexterity - 7 ( 0 / 14000 )
Constitution - 7 ( 0 / 14000 )
Intelligence - 4 ( 0 / 5000 )
Charisma - 4 ( 0 / 5000 )
Concentration - 6 ( 0 / 10500 )
35/35 Wounds
Wound Penalty every 7 lost wounds
Skills
Bladed Weapons - 5 ( 0 / 2100 )
Bashing Weapons - 2 ( 0 / 600 )
Archery - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Evasion - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Sneaking - 5 ( 0 / 2100 )
Survival - 5 ( 0 / 2100 )
Tracking - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Endurance - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Perception - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Weaving - 1 ( 0 / 300 )
Woodcarving - 1 ( 0 / 300 )
Medicine - 1 ( 0 / 300 )
Animal Lore - 4 ( 0 / 1500 )
Spirit Lore - 2 ( 0 / 600 )
Astronomy - 1 ( 0 / 300 )
Diplomacy - 2 ( 0 / 600 )
Intrigue - 1 ( 0 / 300 )
Charm - 2 ( 0 / 600 )
Traits
When you are spotted while sneaking, you can try to make a Quick Retreat. Re-roll you Sneaking check. If you succeed, you can get away before the enemy can attack you, but he will still be aware that you where present. If you fail this second check too, you loose your attack in the first round of combat and get a penalty of -10 to defense in the first turn for every degree of failure of the second check.
By eschewing the chance to strike at your enemy, you prepare yourself to defend against his strikes. You can't attack in the combat turn where you use Full defense, but add your weapon skill to any defensive check you must make.
You learned how to use a bow even in close combat. When engaged in close combat, you can shoot your enemy with a bow, but you halve the bonus gained from your Archery skill when doing so.
When using Tracking to follow an animal, you gain a +5 bonus for every rank in Animal Lore. When using Tracking to follow spirits, you gain a +5 bonus for every rank in Spirit Lore.
By impairing your chance to defend yourself, you can strike a vicious blow to your enemy. You can take up to 10 points of bonus per level in the weapon skill you use for an attack, but you get twice this bonus as a malus on all defensive actions in the next turn.
You are not easily cowed into submission. You can retry a failed Intimidation check once at a -50 penalty.
You have learned to ambush your foes. When you attack someone out of hiding, you gain +5 on your attack for every degree of success of your Sneaking check against the targets Perception check.
Equipment:
- Exceptional Obsidian Knife
- Exceptional Longbow
- 22x Exceptional Obsidian Tipped Arrows
- 6x Exceptional Bronze Tipped Arrows
Total Encumbrance: 5 / 13 (Strength + Constitution)
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Lore
- Location
- Germany
Known Spirits
Minor Spirits
Spirits
Calendar
Minor Spirits
Usually found around dawn and dusk near the fruit bearing trees, these spirits look a lot like monkeys, if you can spot them. As long as they stay in the shadows, only the most attentive onlooker might see them, where others just notice a slightly darker patch of shadows.
While mostly similar to spider monkey, the few differences are stark. Bearing three tails instead of one and their yellow eyes have two parallel slits. Their faces resemble eerily that of a man and while they are nearly always silent, their cries when agitated sound oddly human too.
These spirits are rather harmless though. They have no hankering for meat and prefer overripe fruit. When they feel their meal threatened or are approached, they might defend themselves, but usually they prefer to run away instead. While a single one of them is neither strong nor dangerous as far as spirits go, they always come in large packs that can easily overwhelm the unwary.
While mostly similar to spider monkey, the few differences are stark. Bearing three tails instead of one and their yellow eyes have two parallel slits. Their faces resemble eerily that of a man and while they are nearly always silent, their cries when agitated sound oddly human too.
These spirits are rather harmless though. They have no hankering for meat and prefer overripe fruit. When they feel their meal threatened or are approached, they might defend themselves, but usually they prefer to run away instead. While a single one of them is neither strong nor dangerous as far as spirits go, they always come in large packs that can easily overwhelm the unwary.
These small spirits seem like embers dancing in an unseen breeze. They look almost playful as they twist and turn in the air, dancing around things and their compatriots, yet it is dangerous to approach them. When startled, the small ember can turn into a mighty blaze, scorching flesh from bone and blackening even stone. Where one of them might still be dodged if agitated, they tend to come in huge swarms that fill entire rooms, making it perilous to cross such locales.
However, these spirits are not malicious in nature. If left alone, they will not attack or pursue someone out of their own accord. Some daring individuals who walked inside their swarms even say that they are merely warm to the touch and that it is pleasant feeling when they brush against your skin during their movements.
However, these spirits are not malicious in nature. If left alone, they will not attack or pursue someone out of their own accord. Some daring individuals who walked inside their swarms even say that they are merely warm to the touch and that it is pleasant feeling when they brush against your skin during their movements.
Spirits
Small moths that look harmless on their own with only their strange, orange glow hinting at their true nature. These spirits lay their eggs into the living flesh of their unwary hosts, where they and their spawn start to dig cavities into their victims. After a while, only the outer skin remains, held in shape with thin strings of a black material that anchors it to the remaining bone.
The host doesn't notice any of this. He might experience some prickling or numbness in the affected areas, but without digging into his own flesh, he will never notice the spirits who devour his insides. After a while, the Flesh Moths spread into the skull and the victim starts to behave oddly and seek the company of others. When close to uninfected persons, the moths will travel from one host to another to spread.
As the body starts to be nearly entirely consumed, the moths have full control of their host and use it to travel around and hunt for new hosts. Often the remaining skin of the host starts to acquire tears and rips at this point, revealing its true nature for all to see.
A single moth is all it takes to spread into a new body. Such a mild start usually means the host has weeks or months before being wholly consumed, but the swarms that are released by a host being crippled to much to move are known to take over a man in mere moments.
The host doesn't notice any of this. He might experience some prickling or numbness in the affected areas, but without digging into his own flesh, he will never notice the spirits who devour his insides. After a while, the Flesh Moths spread into the skull and the victim starts to behave oddly and seek the company of others. When close to uninfected persons, the moths will travel from one host to another to spread.
As the body starts to be nearly entirely consumed, the moths have full control of their host and use it to travel around and hunt for new hosts. Often the remaining skin of the host starts to acquire tears and rips at this point, revealing its true nature for all to see.
A single moth is all it takes to spread into a new body. Such a mild start usually means the host has weeks or months before being wholly consumed, but the swarms that are released by a host being crippled to much to move are known to take over a man in mere moments.
Statues made from stone in the shape of man. Despite looking ponderous, these spirits move easily and swiftly as if they where made from flesh.
In the time before the Fall, they served old Cualli. Some have been driven mad by the Fall or reverted to the feral natures they had before being made servants, while others still carry out the orders of their passed masters or have started to perform actions that make only sense to their alien minds with unrelenting dedication.
To approach them without knowing what kind of Stone Men they are is dangerous and foolhardy. Some might appear peaceful and yet become raging beasts upon spotting a man.
In the time before the Fall, they served old Cualli. Some have been driven mad by the Fall or reverted to the feral natures they had before being made servants, while others still carry out the orders of their passed masters or have started to perform actions that make only sense to their alien minds with unrelenting dedication.
To approach them without knowing what kind of Stone Men they are is dangerous and foolhardy. Some might appear peaceful and yet become raging beasts upon spotting a man.
These spirits take the shapes of wolves and live like them in many regards. Nearly always travelling in large packs, they are some of the greatest hunters who prowl the jungle. Taller then a man and with the wits to match, few are those who can claim to have seen them and lived to tell the tale.
They have no fur, but are garbed in figments of earth and greenery, which flow around them and fool even keen eyed hunters. Their gaze is said to sap the will of all they level it on, to make it easier to rend their prey apart with mighty claws.
They have no fur, but are garbed in figments of earth and greenery, which flow around them and fool even keen eyed hunters. Their gaze is said to sap the will of all they level it on, to make it easier to rend their prey apart with mighty claws.
These spider like spirits are found mostly in the Red Forest, though some say that they venture forth from there sometimes. From the flesh of their victims, they weave great nets around their nests. Once touched, the vile sludge clings to the poor soul who stepped into it and fixes them into place. The Fleshweaver is always perfectly aware of any thing or creature touching its net and will quickly come for its latest morsel.
In a fight, this spirit often tries to kill its victims with his legs before encasing them in a cocoon made form the same substance as its net. However, they are also known to spit globs of the substance to catch those trying to run from them and their bite confers a poison that dissolves the victims flesh and bones, given some time.
In a fight, this spirit often tries to kill its victims with his legs before encasing them in a cocoon made form the same substance as its net. However, they are also known to spit globs of the substance to catch those trying to run from them and their bite confers a poison that dissolves the victims flesh and bones, given some time.
Calendar
This quest uses a modified meso-american calendar (mostly known as Maya Calendar, but it was in fact used in the entire region). It is divided into 3 separate systems to track time, which serve different purposes.
Long Count
This system tracks the solar year and will be the most common way to measure time in the quest.
The basic unit is a day, called Kin. They are numbered 0 to 19 in every month, with the 0th day being referred to as "the seating" of the month.
Next comes the month, called Winal. The Winal are named and there are 18 Winals of 20 Kin in every year. At the end of a year, there are 5 days who are not formally part of a month, which are called Wayeb and are considered to be the days of bad omens as the borders between our world and the spirit world grow thin during these days.
The list of Winals and their names can be found here.
This sums up to the solar year, called Tun.
While the real world Maya calendar knows no leap days, this quest will use them. The first Tun of every Katun lengthens the days of Wayeb from 5 to 10, thus bunching up the leap days for 20 years.
The Katun is a group of 20 years.
Next comes a Baktun, which are 20 Katun or 400 years.
The greatest unit of the Long Count used in this quest is the Piktun, which are 20 Baktun, 400 Katun or 8,000 Tun.
Long Count is written by starting with the largest unit and then going down.
Yaxkins birthday is thus:
1 Piktun . 6 Baktun . 16 Katun . 14 Tun . 6 Winal . 0 Kin
Thus 10,734 years and 120 days since the beginning of the Long Count.
Tzolkin
This is the ritual calendar and not tied to the movement of any celestial bodies. It assigns a number and a name to every day. Unlike the Long Count, the numbering of days starts from 1 and goes to 13, and there are 20 names.
There are no changes to the Tzolkin in comparison to the real world equivalent, which is why I suggest you read up on it here.
Lunar Calendar
While the Aztecs and Maya tracked the moon and its phases, it was never formally part of their calendars. For the purpose of this quest, I have added a Lunar Calendar to the system.
This calendar is divided into 16 months before resetting. Even numbered months (0, 2, 4, etc.) have 30 days, while odd numbered months have only 29. The 16th month is special and has 31 days, after which the months reset to 0.
The days are numbered from 0 like the Long Count, with 0 to 12 being the waxing phase (called Coming). Then follow either 1 day for the full moon (called Reign) or 2 days if the lunar month has more then 29 days. The next 14 days are the waning phase (called Decline) and end with the new moon (called Absence), which has always 1 day, except in the 16th month where it has two.
Example:
Long Count
This system tracks the solar year and will be the most common way to measure time in the quest.
The basic unit is a day, called Kin. They are numbered 0 to 19 in every month, with the 0th day being referred to as "the seating" of the month.
Next comes the month, called Winal. The Winal are named and there are 18 Winals of 20 Kin in every year. At the end of a year, there are 5 days who are not formally part of a month, which are called Wayeb and are considered to be the days of bad omens as the borders between our world and the spirit world grow thin during these days.
The list of Winals and their names can be found here.
This sums up to the solar year, called Tun.
While the real world Maya calendar knows no leap days, this quest will use them. The first Tun of every Katun lengthens the days of Wayeb from 5 to 10, thus bunching up the leap days for 20 years.
The Katun is a group of 20 years.
Next comes a Baktun, which are 20 Katun or 400 years.
The greatest unit of the Long Count used in this quest is the Piktun, which are 20 Baktun, 400 Katun or 8,000 Tun.
Long Count is written by starting with the largest unit and then going down.
Yaxkins birthday is thus:
1 Piktun . 6 Baktun . 16 Katun . 14 Tun . 6 Winal . 0 Kin
Thus 10,734 years and 120 days since the beginning of the Long Count.
Tzolkin
This is the ritual calendar and not tied to the movement of any celestial bodies. It assigns a number and a name to every day. Unlike the Long Count, the numbering of days starts from 1 and goes to 13, and there are 20 names.
There are no changes to the Tzolkin in comparison to the real world equivalent, which is why I suggest you read up on it here.
Lunar Calendar
While the Aztecs and Maya tracked the moon and its phases, it was never formally part of their calendars. For the purpose of this quest, I have added a Lunar Calendar to the system.
This calendar is divided into 16 months before resetting. Even numbered months (0, 2, 4, etc.) have 30 days, while odd numbered months have only 29. The 16th month is special and has 31 days, after which the months reset to 0.
The days are numbered from 0 like the Long Count, with 0 to 12 being the waxing phase (called Coming). Then follow either 1 day for the full moon (called Reign) or 2 days if the lunar month has more then 29 days. The next 14 days are the waning phase (called Decline) and end with the new moon (called Absence), which has always 1 day, except in the 16th month where it has two.
Example:
| Date | Phase | Name |
| 0.0 - 0.12 | Waxing Phase | Coming |
| 0.13 - 0.14 | Full Moon | Reign |
| 0.15 - 0.28 | Waning Phase | Decline |
| 0.29 | New Moon | Absence |
| Lunar Month changes | ||
| 1.0 - 1.12 | Waxing Phase | Coming |
| 1.13 | Full Moon | Reign |
| 1.14 - 1.27 | Waning Phase | Decline |
| 1.28 | New Moon | Absence |
| ... | ||
| 15.0 - 15.12 | Waxing Phase | Coming |
| 15.13 - 15.14 | Full Moon | Reign |
| 15.15 - 15.28 | Waning Phase | Decline |
| 15.29 - 15.30 | New Moon | Absence |
| Long Count | Tzolkin | Lunar | Notes |
| 1.6.17.10.7.16 - 16 Mol | 12 Kaban | 15.11 Coming | |
| 1.6.17.10.7.17 - 17 Mol | 13 Etznab | 15.12 Coming | Unmaking - bad for Alchemy |
| 1.6.17.10.7.18 - 18 Mol | 1 Kawak | 15.13 Reign | |
| 1.6.17.10.7.19 - 19 Mol | 2 Ajaw | 15.14 Reign | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.0 - 0 Chen | 3 Imix | 15.15 Decline | good for Alchemy |
| 1.6.17.10.8.1 - 1 Chen | 4 Ik | 15.16 Decline | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.2 - 2 Chen | 5 Akbal | 15.17 Decline | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.3 - 3 Chen | 6 Kan | 15.18 Decline | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.4 - 4 Chen | 7 Chickchan | 15.19 Decline | Empowering - good for Alchemy |
| 1.6.17.10.8.5 - 5 Chen | 8 Kimi | 15.20 Decline | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.6 - 6 Chen | 9 Manik | 15.21 Decline | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.7 - 7 Chen | 10 Lamat | 15.22 Decline | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.8 - 8 Chen | 11 Muluk | 15.23 Decline | bad for Alchemy |
| 1.6.17.10.8.9 - 9 Chen | 12 Ok | 15.24 Decline | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.10 - 10 Chen | 13 Chuwen | 15.25 Decline | Unmaking - bad for Alchemy |
| 1.6.17.10.8.11 - 11 Chen | 1 Eb | 15.26 Decline | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.12 - 12 Chen | 2 Ben | 15.27 Decline | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.13 - 13 Chen | 3 Ix | 15.28 Decline | good for Alchemy |
| 1.6.17.10.8.14 - 14 Chen | 4 Men | 15.29 Absence | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.15 - 15 Chen | 5 Kib | 15.30 Absence | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.16 - 16 Chen | 6 Kaban | 0.0 Coming | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.17 - 17 Chen | 7 Etznab | 0.1 Coming | Empowering - good for Alchemy |
| 1.6.17.10.8.18 - 18 Chen | 8 Kawak | 0.2 Coming | |
| 1.6.17.10.8.19 - 19 Chen | 9 Ajaw | 0.3 Coming |
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Locations and Contacts
- Location
- Germany
Locations and Contacts
Tribe
The tribe into which you where born and grew up among. A rather sizable group of hunters and gatherers who travel around the lands in a one year long cycle. After some strife during your years as an apprentice, you where slightly alienated from them. While the rifts have been mended over the years, there is still a healthy distance between you and most members of the tribe, which prompted you to leave them behind and travel the world.
Once a year, the tribe stops at a small farmer village that lays directly on the caravan route between Tlamaca and Zacatl.
Tlamaca - Tlamacatzintlihuacan / Wise Mens Place
Long known to you as a place of learning, you had dreamed of going here long before you actually could to learn from the Wise Men who rule this city and the smiths who are said to work metal here. It is a large city for this time that is centered around the palace of the Wise Men, an old palace from before the fall, and mostly consists out of repaired buildings of the old Cualli city in this place. It is protected by a sturdy stone wall and the guards under command of the Wise Men.
Due to the Wise Men and artisans who live here, Tlamaca is a rather busy place with many traders coming from far and wide to ply their wares on its marketplace or buy valuable products from the artisans.
Xoxo - Xoxohuictetl / Green Stone
A small settlement which surrounds a large copper mine a bit to the north of Tlamaca.
Nono - Nonotzale / Unity
Home of the nameless group that has split from the Wise Men and opposes their teachings, this cities location is as of yet unknown to you. All you know that it is to the west of Tlamaca and the path there is perilous and skirts areas that are touched by the spirits.
Zacatl - Zacatltlalmonton / Grassy Hill
Next to a large river, this small city has been built on top of one of the few dry places that rises out of the surrounding swamps. It is an important trading location, but the river is fickle and so it can be a bustling place in one month and a slum filled with starving people in the next.
Nearby are the ruins of a large city from before the Fall, which is usually only called the Sunken City, due to it being mostly flooded.
Tribe
The tribe into which you where born and grew up among. A rather sizable group of hunters and gatherers who travel around the lands in a one year long cycle. After some strife during your years as an apprentice, you where slightly alienated from them. While the rifts have been mended over the years, there is still a healthy distance between you and most members of the tribe, which prompted you to leave them behind and travel the world.
Once a year, the tribe stops at a small farmer village that lays directly on the caravan route between Tlamaca and Zacatl.
Occupation: Shaman
Relationship: Master
On a childish whim, you traveled with him to a large ruin near your tribes path and aided him with his work. Impressed by your natural skill, or more likely luck, he offered to take you on as an apprentice, which you gladly accepted.
In your time together, he taught you the trade of a healer and herbalist, about the spirits, and even the basics of a the rare skill of Alchemy. As his age began to catch up with him, you tended to him until he passed away in peace.
Relationship: Master
On a childish whim, you traveled with him to a large ruin near your tribes path and aided him with his work. Impressed by your natural skill, or more likely luck, he offered to take you on as an apprentice, which you gladly accepted.
In your time together, he taught you the trade of a healer and herbalist, about the spirits, and even the basics of a the rare skill of Alchemy. As his age began to catch up with him, you tended to him until he passed away in peace.
Occupation: Shaman
Relationship: Good Friend
Once you knew him as Atl and he was your fellow apprentice under the shaman Mahuizo. Back then he was a timid and slightly clumsy boy, but over the years he has grown a lot. When your master died, he became the new shaman of the tribe.
He has a good relationship with the chieftain and is well liked among the tribe folk.
Relationship: Good Friend
Once you knew him as Atl and he was your fellow apprentice under the shaman Mahuizo. Back then he was a timid and slightly clumsy boy, but over the years he has grown a lot. When your master died, he became the new shaman of the tribe.
He has a good relationship with the chieftain and is well liked among the tribe folk.
Occupation: Guard / Huntress
Relationship: Good Friend, former Master
A mysterious woman at first, who constantly seemed to be around wherever Mahuizoh went. At first you didn't particularly like the rather abrasive woman, a mutual feeling, but after impressing her in a hot-headed challenge, she agreed to teach you and a friendship grew. Her rather sharp tongue and mind can be rather endearing once you got to know her.
When you left the tribe, she stayed behind to watch out for Icnoyotl like she did for his master before.
Relationship: Good Friend, former Master
A mysterious woman at first, who constantly seemed to be around wherever Mahuizoh went. At first you didn't particularly like the rather abrasive woman, a mutual feeling, but after impressing her in a hot-headed challenge, she agreed to teach you and a friendship grew. Her rather sharp tongue and mind can be rather endearing once you got to know her.
When you left the tribe, she stayed behind to watch out for Icnoyotl like she did for his master before.
Tlamaca - Tlamacatzintlihuacan / Wise Mens Place
Long known to you as a place of learning, you had dreamed of going here long before you actually could to learn from the Wise Men who rule this city and the smiths who are said to work metal here. It is a large city for this time that is centered around the palace of the Wise Men, an old palace from before the fall, and mostly consists out of repaired buildings of the old Cualli city in this place. It is protected by a sturdy stone wall and the guards under command of the Wise Men.
Due to the Wise Men and artisans who live here, Tlamaca is a rather busy place with many traders coming from far and wide to ply their wares on its marketplace or buy valuable products from the artisans.
Occupation: Scholars
Relationship: None
While they where the biggest reason for you to travel to Tlamaca in the first place, you've only met one of them so far and said meeting went anything but good. You still desire to join them and are currently trying to unravel a riddle they gave you to undergo the trials they require prospective apprentices to undergo.
Relationship: None
While they where the biggest reason for you to travel to Tlamaca in the first place, you've only met one of them so far and said meeting went anything but good. You still desire to join them and are currently trying to unravel a riddle they gave you to undergo the trials they require prospective apprentices to undergo.
Occupation: Herb Trader
Relationship: Aquaintence
On your first day in Tlamaca, you've met this kind old woman next to the marketplace and talked a good long while with her about your shared interest in herbs and healing.
Relationship: Aquaintence
On your first day in Tlamaca, you've met this kind old woman next to the marketplace and talked a good long while with her about your shared interest in herbs and healing.
Occupation: Smith
Relationship: Friend
Trying to see how a smith works, you traveled to the artisan district and met Noche working on a bronze blade. The gregarious man was more then happy to indulge your curiosity and after the discussion drifted to his missing apprentice Ixtli, who had gone missing on a trip to some nearby ruins.
After finding Ixtli and bringing him back to Tlamaca, you asked if you could stay with them for a while and have moved into their house.
Relationship: Friend
Trying to see how a smith works, you traveled to the artisan district and met Noche working on a bronze blade. The gregarious man was more then happy to indulge your curiosity and after the discussion drifted to his missing apprentice Ixtli, who had gone missing on a trip to some nearby ruins.
After finding Ixtli and bringing him back to Tlamaca, you asked if you could stay with them for a while and have moved into their house.
Occupation: Smith Apprentice
Relationship: Friend
You've met him wounded in some ruins near Tlamaca, the result of an ill fated expedition. Through your skill in medicine, he made a full recovery and arrived safe and sound back home, even with the codex in hand that he had set out to find. His quiet and withdrawn manner reminds you a bit of Icnoyotl and while you have become quick friends since then, it's sometimes hard to tell with him.
Relationship: Friend
You've met him wounded in some ruins near Tlamaca, the result of an ill fated expedition. Through your skill in medicine, he made a full recovery and arrived safe and sound back home, even with the codex in hand that he had set out to find. His quiet and withdrawn manner reminds you a bit of Icnoyotl and while you have become quick friends since then, it's sometimes hard to tell with him.
Occupation: Street Urchin
Relationship: Informant
When walking the streets near the market of Tlamaca, you spotted this young girl playing a game with some passersbys and cheating them out of their beans. You followed her afterwards and learned that she lives in the slums, apparently together with other orphans and earns her bread in this fashion. By promising her 30 beans a month for her services, you got her to keep her ears open for you and get you rumors from the worse parts of town.
Relationship: Informant
When walking the streets near the market of Tlamaca, you spotted this young girl playing a game with some passersbys and cheating them out of their beans. You followed her afterwards and learned that she lives in the slums, apparently together with other orphans and earns her bread in this fashion. By promising her 30 beans a month for her services, you got her to keep her ears open for you and get you rumors from the worse parts of town.
Clothing per set:
Basic (rough fabric, farmers garb) - 100 Beans
Regular (decent cotton) - 1 Quachtli
Fancy (good cotton, possibly died) - 2 Quachtli and more, depending on quality and artfulness
Leather Armor:
Armor penalty applies to all physical attributes and skills and is reduced by 1 point if the armor is custom-made, which costs 50% markup.
Wood and Leather Shields:
Weapons:
Bronze Dagger - 10+ Tlaltepoztli
30x Bronze Arrow - 1 Tlaltepoztli for Regular, 2 for Exceptional
Other:
Trail Rations per day - 2 Beans
Wound Dressing - 5 Beans
Basic (rough fabric, farmers garb) - 100 Beans
Regular (decent cotton) - 1 Quachtli
Fancy (good cotton, possibly died) - 2 Quachtli and more, depending on quality and artfulness
Leather Armor:
| Type | Penalty when worn | Simple | Regular | Exceptional |
| Light | -1 | 2 Quachtli | 4 Quachtli | 8 Quachtli |
| Medium | -2 | 6 Quachtli | 12 Quachtli | 1 Tlaltepoztli |
| Heavy | -3 | 18 Quachtli | 40 Quachtli | 3 Tlaltepoztli |
Wood and Leather Shields:
| Type | Penalty when worn | Simple | Regular | Exceptional |
| Light | -1 | 100 Beans | 1 Quachtli | 3 Quachtli |
| Medium | -2 | 1 Quachtli | 4 Quachtli | 8 Quachtli |
| Heavy | -3 | 4 Quachtli | 10 Quachtli | 1 Tlaltepoztli |
Bronze Dagger - 10+ Tlaltepoztli
30x Bronze Arrow - 1 Tlaltepoztli for Regular, 2 for Exceptional
Other:
Trail Rations per day - 2 Beans
Wound Dressing - 5 Beans
Xoxo - Xoxohuictetl / Green Stone
A small settlement which surrounds a large copper mine a bit to the north of Tlamaca.
Nono - Nonotzale / Unity
Home of the nameless group that has split from the Wise Men and opposes their teachings, this cities location is as of yet unknown to you. All you know that it is to the west of Tlamaca and the path there is perilous and skirts areas that are touched by the spirits.
Occupation: ???
Relationship: ???
When you tried to find out where the troubles of Xoxo stemmed from, you've met the mysterious man in the jungle. He told you of his group, which opposes the Wise Men and offered you to join them in their quest to knowledge, if you would slay the Wise Man you unknowingly traveled with at the time.
Accepting the price, you became part of their group, but elected to stay in Tlamaca to work for them in the shadows of their enemies stronghold.
Little do you know yet about Matlal, except that he has knowledge of the higher lores. Due to a partially failed ritual, he is blind, but possesses a powerful sight wholly alien to you, which allows him to see deeper then flesh and bone.
Relationship: ???
When you tried to find out where the troubles of Xoxo stemmed from, you've met the mysterious man in the jungle. He told you of his group, which opposes the Wise Men and offered you to join them in their quest to knowledge, if you would slay the Wise Man you unknowingly traveled with at the time.
Accepting the price, you became part of their group, but elected to stay in Tlamaca to work for them in the shadows of their enemies stronghold.
Little do you know yet about Matlal, except that he has knowledge of the higher lores. Due to a partially failed ritual, he is blind, but possesses a powerful sight wholly alien to you, which allows him to see deeper then flesh and bone.
Zacatl - Zacatltlalmonton / Grassy Hill
Next to a large river, this small city has been built on top of one of the few dry places that rises out of the surrounding swamps. It is an important trading location, but the river is fickle and so it can be a bustling place in one month and a slum filled with starving people in the next.
Nearby are the ruins of a large city from before the Fall, which is usually only called the Sunken City, due to it being mostly flooded.
Occupation: Trader
Relationship: Good Aquaintence
On your first journey from your tribe to Tlamaca, you hired as a scout for him so that he could evade some bandits in the area. After proving competent in that task, he warmed up to you and gave you some advice about the life in Tlamaca and cities in general and offered to hire you as a guard or scout whenever you have the same destination as him.
Relationship: Good Aquaintence
On your first journey from your tribe to Tlamaca, you hired as a scout for him so that he could evade some bandits in the area. After proving competent in that task, he warmed up to you and gave you some advice about the life in Tlamaca and cities in general and offered to hire you as a guard or scout whenever you have the same destination as him.
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Prologue 1: Boredom
- Location
- Germany
You idly throw another rock into the water. For almost ten days now, you are already done with your chores before the sun has reached it's zenith. Not that you appreciate the drudgery. A girl of merely eight years is not supposed to do any of the important work in the encampment. It is just an endless stream of get this, take that, bring this over there and don't pester the people working and so on. The life of a hunter tribe braving the deep jungle on unbeaten paths is supposed to be exciting or at least that's what the children of the farmers you always meet near the end of the year tell you, but so far, you can't really agree.
When the tribe marches, you are right in the middle of the trek. Among whining babes, expecting mothers and those to old or crippled to go very fast. Usually bearing a pack that weighs as much as yourself. You just walk all day, except when a runner comes back from the scouts and tells you to make camp for the night. Then you sleep a few hours, before marching a few hours more, stopping for a small meal, marching some more and repeating that until your reach the next clearing in your yearly path.
And when you are not on the move, you sit among the tents all day doing this and that for everyone who can't be bothered to walk ten steps on his own. Even if your mother Tlalli is around you all day, she rarely has time for you. If she is not cooking, she is taking care of the small children and if those are quiet for a moment, she is tending to your stocks. That apparently must be done for what feels like half a day on each and every day, even if all she does is turning fruit and meat around, but apparently that is vital work and she can't just stop for a while to do something with you.
It's much better when your father Iuitl comes back from a hunt with his group. While he is never there for more then a few days before going back out, he always has a bit of time for you. On the other hand, the hunting parties returning means other work. Not the dull, but the gross kind. Gutting a pig is obviously nothing you are allowed to do, because you can apparently spoil meat by being to dumb to cut it, which seems like kind of a achievement to you. Your part is always to gather the guts and other offal left over from the butchering and stuff it into the offering pots. Large clay pots filled to the brim with the half-rotten mush left of the last hunt. Calling the stench stomach turning is greatly underplaying just how disgusting the smell can become after a while and even with the lid closed, it still wafts out until you seal the pot with fresh clay again.
Apparently the spirits like these things. Why, you can't even guess, but the elders always say that it's of great importance to properly pack away the leftovers of butchery, lest they come on their own and think your tribe denies them their due.
You are Yaxkin, the sun in the life of your parents, and you are, in a word, bored.
Another rock flows into the small stream. Where just a few weeks ago a few toads and salamanders would have been startled by it, nothing stirs. Pickings have been lean for a while now and when another hunting party came back with empty hands, the woman had started to hunt and cook those things living here to stretch the rations a bit.
You sigh once, not out of any real emotion, but more as a statement to end your visit to the stream bordering the camp. The tribe will probably move on in a bit to the next clearing, where the game is more plenty again. Not that much longer until you reach that farmer village again. Maybe you complain quite loudly about their pestering you for stories, but you do quite like the farmer children, for they seem to always have time to keep you company at least.
As you wander between the tents and back to the central fireplace though, you spot someone who makes you quickly run the rest of the way. Your father has returned and is speaking to the chief. You can't just barge into him for a hug as it is your first impulse, especially with how grim the chief looks at the three sloths that seem to be your fathers parties whole catch, but at least you can stay and listen in.
"So nothing more over at the ruins either?" "Should we have plucked the young from their mothers teats? The game is gone already. I think the spirits scared off what little was left so that we move on. Ill omens if we stay any longer if you ask me." The chief just shook his head at that and gestured to your father to pass the small catch to the woman waiting with a knife in hand. "Let the shaman decide what the spirits want. He wishes to stay a few days longer, so that he can gather some herbs among the ruins. If there's nothing left there to hunt anyway, he will move out tomorrow. Besides, there are two more parties out and they need to come back before we break camp." "I take it I shall gather them?" "Indeed." Then the chief swept his gaze over the gathered people and nodded once to confirm what he already said. "Be ready to break camp in four days. We will move once everyone has returned and the offerings to the spirits where made."
And just like that, your mood had soured again. Breaking camp means days of hauling things from one place to another, followed by marches, followed by hauling things from one place to another in the new camp. Apparently this was your punishment for complaining too loudly about having nothing to do, even if it was just in your head. And your father will move out again before spending any time with you. In fact, he is already talking to the others of his party and will probably be gone by sunrise.
It is not much longer until you are deemed old enough to learn a trade or join the hunters and gatherers. But right now? That is too far off. You are not one of the little kids anymore and while you can't match the skills and strength of the hunters, you are certainly capable of doing something that isn't just walking around lugging things.
With fire in your heart, you walk up to your father. A mere four days is rather quick to break camp and able hands will be in short supply. As distracted as he is, you might just wheedle out his approval for you to do something interesting.
You are going to ask him to...
[] Join him on his way to the hunter camps.
The hunter parties always make smaller camps to store their supplies and sleep at night. While it's not entirely safe to go there since they are rather far out, it's not truly dangerous either. Surely he wouldn't mind you coming along this time.
[] Join the shaman to gather herbs.
While it's a bit of thankless task to help the old man in his errands, he loves to talk with anyone when he has the time. On the journey to the ruins, you can certainly get some interesting stories out of him with no other work distracting him. Learning a bit about his trade and the spirits would be great.
[] Join the party giving the offerings to the spirits.
You've always wanted to see a real spirit of the jungle. The elders always tell about the strange and terrifying things around you, but you never saw one yourself. You can't recall a single group venturing out for an offering running into trouble, so why shouldn't you be allowed to sate your curiosity?
[] Stay at camp.
On a second thought, maybe waiting a while longer isn't so bad. The jungle is dangerous after all.
AN: Your name, Yaxkin, is not yet set in stone. You will be able to change it at the ende of the prologue.
When the tribe marches, you are right in the middle of the trek. Among whining babes, expecting mothers and those to old or crippled to go very fast. Usually bearing a pack that weighs as much as yourself. You just walk all day, except when a runner comes back from the scouts and tells you to make camp for the night. Then you sleep a few hours, before marching a few hours more, stopping for a small meal, marching some more and repeating that until your reach the next clearing in your yearly path.
And when you are not on the move, you sit among the tents all day doing this and that for everyone who can't be bothered to walk ten steps on his own. Even if your mother Tlalli is around you all day, she rarely has time for you. If she is not cooking, she is taking care of the small children and if those are quiet for a moment, she is tending to your stocks. That apparently must be done for what feels like half a day on each and every day, even if all she does is turning fruit and meat around, but apparently that is vital work and she can't just stop for a while to do something with you.
It's much better when your father Iuitl comes back from a hunt with his group. While he is never there for more then a few days before going back out, he always has a bit of time for you. On the other hand, the hunting parties returning means other work. Not the dull, but the gross kind. Gutting a pig is obviously nothing you are allowed to do, because you can apparently spoil meat by being to dumb to cut it, which seems like kind of a achievement to you. Your part is always to gather the guts and other offal left over from the butchering and stuff it into the offering pots. Large clay pots filled to the brim with the half-rotten mush left of the last hunt. Calling the stench stomach turning is greatly underplaying just how disgusting the smell can become after a while and even with the lid closed, it still wafts out until you seal the pot with fresh clay again.
Apparently the spirits like these things. Why, you can't even guess, but the elders always say that it's of great importance to properly pack away the leftovers of butchery, lest they come on their own and think your tribe denies them their due.
You are Yaxkin, the sun in the life of your parents, and you are, in a word, bored.
Another rock flows into the small stream. Where just a few weeks ago a few toads and salamanders would have been startled by it, nothing stirs. Pickings have been lean for a while now and when another hunting party came back with empty hands, the woman had started to hunt and cook those things living here to stretch the rations a bit.
You sigh once, not out of any real emotion, but more as a statement to end your visit to the stream bordering the camp. The tribe will probably move on in a bit to the next clearing, where the game is more plenty again. Not that much longer until you reach that farmer village again. Maybe you complain quite loudly about their pestering you for stories, but you do quite like the farmer children, for they seem to always have time to keep you company at least.
As you wander between the tents and back to the central fireplace though, you spot someone who makes you quickly run the rest of the way. Your father has returned and is speaking to the chief. You can't just barge into him for a hug as it is your first impulse, especially with how grim the chief looks at the three sloths that seem to be your fathers parties whole catch, but at least you can stay and listen in.
"So nothing more over at the ruins either?" "Should we have plucked the young from their mothers teats? The game is gone already. I think the spirits scared off what little was left so that we move on. Ill omens if we stay any longer if you ask me." The chief just shook his head at that and gestured to your father to pass the small catch to the woman waiting with a knife in hand. "Let the shaman decide what the spirits want. He wishes to stay a few days longer, so that he can gather some herbs among the ruins. If there's nothing left there to hunt anyway, he will move out tomorrow. Besides, there are two more parties out and they need to come back before we break camp." "I take it I shall gather them?" "Indeed." Then the chief swept his gaze over the gathered people and nodded once to confirm what he already said. "Be ready to break camp in four days. We will move once everyone has returned and the offerings to the spirits where made."
And just like that, your mood had soured again. Breaking camp means days of hauling things from one place to another, followed by marches, followed by hauling things from one place to another in the new camp. Apparently this was your punishment for complaining too loudly about having nothing to do, even if it was just in your head. And your father will move out again before spending any time with you. In fact, he is already talking to the others of his party and will probably be gone by sunrise.
It is not much longer until you are deemed old enough to learn a trade or join the hunters and gatherers. But right now? That is too far off. You are not one of the little kids anymore and while you can't match the skills and strength of the hunters, you are certainly capable of doing something that isn't just walking around lugging things.
With fire in your heart, you walk up to your father. A mere four days is rather quick to break camp and able hands will be in short supply. As distracted as he is, you might just wheedle out his approval for you to do something interesting.
You are going to ask him to...
[] Join him on his way to the hunter camps.
The hunter parties always make smaller camps to store their supplies and sleep at night. While it's not entirely safe to go there since they are rather far out, it's not truly dangerous either. Surely he wouldn't mind you coming along this time.
[] Join the shaman to gather herbs.
While it's a bit of thankless task to help the old man in his errands, he loves to talk with anyone when he has the time. On the journey to the ruins, you can certainly get some interesting stories out of him with no other work distracting him. Learning a bit about his trade and the spirits would be great.
[] Join the party giving the offerings to the spirits.
You've always wanted to see a real spirit of the jungle. The elders always tell about the strange and terrifying things around you, but you never saw one yourself. You can't recall a single group venturing out for an offering running into trouble, so why shouldn't you be allowed to sate your curiosity?
[] Stay at camp.
On a second thought, maybe waiting a while longer isn't so bad. The jungle is dangerous after all.
AN: Your name, Yaxkin, is not yet set in stone. You will be able to change it at the ende of the prologue.
Prologue 2: The First Adventure
- Location
- Germany
While he always seemed calm and easy-going, you are quickly discovering a quite different side of Mahuizoh the shaman on your way. As you had guessed, there's a distinct shortage of people helping him today. Aside from you, only Atl, a boy two years your senior, is there to help him and only a lone huntress is guiding your way and standing guard. The poor woman seems rather put off by the loudness of your little trek, but Mahuizoh insists on cramming as much knowledge as possible into you two before you reach the ruins.
He prattles down an endless list of plants and how they look before switching to descriptions of frogs and which ones you shouldn't touch. Just as you have already forgotten about most of the plants again, he switches back and needles you with questions. It's rather embarrassing to see his pitying look whenever you get a question wrong, but at least he never appears angry at your inability to tell the bark of different Sapote trees apart when you have never seen one before. At least not at you. He isn't shy about his displeasure at having to go out with such a tiny group just because the chieftain wants to leave in a hurry. It seems Mahuizoh had recommended to move on a while ago already, but was rebuffed multiple times.
In the end though, it's all worth it. You have seen your fair share of ruins on the marches between camp sites, but the clearing you reach after three hours of walking is far beyond what you imagined.
At first it's just a few overgrown foundations and a stone path that has become more uneven then the jungle floor with all the tree roots breaching through its cracks, but as if you've crossed an invisible boundary, the trees just stop growing at some point. A little while longer you walk among shattered houses and even Mahuizoh keeps quite while you wonder at the whole city you have wandered into. Their roofs caved in long ago and the remaining walls covered in moss and lichen. A few times you try to take a peek into the empty interiors, but can spot nothing but ferns and rubble within them before you are called by the huntress to keep up and not to dawdle.
At last you reach a large pile of rubble, which apparently was a once a very tall and impressive building judging by the broken wall two men in height that it leans against. Mahuizoh waves the huntress to stop for a moment before taking a few steps up the pile and waving to Atl and you. "Come on, children. I want you to have a good look at this." You don't wait a second at that request and rush up the broken stones, Atl following right behind you, and from the top of it you look over the field of ruins before you.
Broken houses as far as the eye can see. You can only faintly spot the other end of the field where the jungle begins again, and in between there is so much. It's hard to comprehend just how many people must have lived here once. If everyone in your tribe had a score of houses for himself, you still wouldn't even use a fraction of this place. And in between, there are so many even bigger houses, even if they are half collapsed. Mansions they were called, you dimly recall, and even of those there are enough for every single member of the tribe to have one all for himself. Lastly, your eyes linger on the greatest of them all—a great building with many tiers and stories rises in the center of the ruins. Before it stands a great, quadratic pillar of stone with a faintly shimmering and gleaming tip.
You wonder what this place must have looked liked in the past, when Mahuizoh finally reaches the top of the rubble pile behind you and lays a hand on Atl and your shoulders each. "It is quite different to see it for yourself, isn't it? Not all tall tales by old men. Look as long as you like, but don't wander off. We will take a break before starting to gather the plants."
You nod absentmindedly as he points to a broken wall there huntress is already sitting on while rummaging in her pack. Stories are what you came for on this trip, but as you drink in the view from your vantage point, you silently decide that this alone was worth it.
Nonetheless, after a while longer, you creep back down the broken stones, leaving Atl up there alone for a while. Mahuizoh had sat down in some distance to the huntress and was eating a few dried fruit from his pack as you sat down next to him.
"Something you wanted to ask me Yaxkin?" He grins broadly as you look at him in surprise. "Oh, don't be like that. I know quite well that a young girl isn't asking to pluck herbs for me without a reason. Not the ruins that you wanted to see, then?"
"That too, but... You are always so busy. I thought, you would maybe tell me a bit about the spirits and the world?"
"If that isn't a pleasant surprise." He offers you some fruit which you eagerly take while nodding towards the place where the huntress is sitting. Apparently Atl joined her and tries to ask her questions too, but is utterly ignored by her. "It's rare these days for young folk to ask me about such things. They always want to hear the boasting of the hunters about how big a sow they got and how many men high that jaguar was they escaped so narrowly. Well then. What question drove you to me?"
"What are the spirits? Where do they come from and why do they want offerings from us?"
"Not the easy questions then. What they are, I think no man can truly say. I can only tell you what they are made from and that, my girl, is magic. The power that once made our forefathers great is not something foreign to them, but their very flesh and blood. Strange powers do they wield without any effort. Some can become one with the shadows around them as easily as if they stepped through a tent flap. Others crawl though the earth and stone like fishes in the water. It's only right and just that we make offerings to them. Much ill they could bring down on us if they feel slighted by our presence in their lands, so they always get their fair share of what we take. It would be folly to fight the spirits, for they ask for little and there is no victory against them. I've seen the young and brash strike them with knifes and arrows, but they all shattered like a clay urn upon striking their skin. Peace with them has served us well for as long as I can remember and it will still serve us well when you have grown into a old crone like me."
You mull over this for a bit as you chew on the fruits and some smoked meat from your own pack. If your forefathers could do the same? Swimming through the earth sure sounded strange, but maybe it was just as fun as in the water? It was probably a lot harder to see something though. "My mother sometimes told me of the dead walking. Is that something that spirits do? And why would they?" At this Mahuizoh sighs and looks into the distance for a bit. "What can I say? My life I dedicated to understand the spirits, but their ways are still strange to me to this day. I think they punish us for our bad deeds by doing these things."
He shakes his head with a sigh. "A long time ago, I've met a traveler. He had walked all the way from the sea through Cualli and seen many things. He told me of the greatest city. Far greater then this here. It was once the biggest and most important city in these lands. But now only the dead walk there. Twisted bones that walk of their own accord. All sharp teeth and claws, cobbled together from a dozen men. Of a great beast he spoke, like a centipede, but so large that it could look above the trees themselves and it too was made of nothing but broken bones fused together into this shape. They all wander the empty city to this day and nobody knows why or for what purpose. Like beasts they fall upon all who dare to approach the city, to add their bones to their endless number."
You grow quite at his words. Some part of you is afraid at the mere mention of these things, yet another stumbles about how outlandish it sounds. Then again, had some described the place you sit now to you, it would have sounded no less outlandish. What truly startles you though are his next words. "Maybe a young mind can find an answer where a old man set in his ways can not. What do you think is their reason for doing these things?"
Truth be told, you never really thought about this. Why do spirits do what they do?
[] [Reasoning] Write-In
After you give your answer, Mahuizoh just smiles and nods before rising. "Maybe I will show you something once we are done with our work. There are more things here to see then old stones and men." He gives no indication that your answer was either right or wrong like on the way here when he asked about the plants, and you honestly don't know what he thinks about it. Maybe it's just important to have an answer for yourself.
What will you do while working for Mahuizoh?
[] [Work] Gather plants as you are supposed to.
[] [Work] Sneak off when nobody notices to explore the ruins.
-[] [Work] Explore one of the mansions.
-[] [Work] Go into the large palace at the center of the city.
-[] [Work] Write-In
AN: And this marks your first trip away from the safety of your home. Mahuizoh was rather distracting while you walked through the jungle, so you didn't really have the attention to spare to your surroundings.
If you got any more questions or more specific ones for him, feel free to ask and I will answer them in the thread.
He prattles down an endless list of plants and how they look before switching to descriptions of frogs and which ones you shouldn't touch. Just as you have already forgotten about most of the plants again, he switches back and needles you with questions. It's rather embarrassing to see his pitying look whenever you get a question wrong, but at least he never appears angry at your inability to tell the bark of different Sapote trees apart when you have never seen one before. At least not at you. He isn't shy about his displeasure at having to go out with such a tiny group just because the chieftain wants to leave in a hurry. It seems Mahuizoh had recommended to move on a while ago already, but was rebuffed multiple times.
In the end though, it's all worth it. You have seen your fair share of ruins on the marches between camp sites, but the clearing you reach after three hours of walking is far beyond what you imagined.
At first it's just a few overgrown foundations and a stone path that has become more uneven then the jungle floor with all the tree roots breaching through its cracks, but as if you've crossed an invisible boundary, the trees just stop growing at some point. A little while longer you walk among shattered houses and even Mahuizoh keeps quite while you wonder at the whole city you have wandered into. Their roofs caved in long ago and the remaining walls covered in moss and lichen. A few times you try to take a peek into the empty interiors, but can spot nothing but ferns and rubble within them before you are called by the huntress to keep up and not to dawdle.
At last you reach a large pile of rubble, which apparently was a once a very tall and impressive building judging by the broken wall two men in height that it leans against. Mahuizoh waves the huntress to stop for a moment before taking a few steps up the pile and waving to Atl and you. "Come on, children. I want you to have a good look at this." You don't wait a second at that request and rush up the broken stones, Atl following right behind you, and from the top of it you look over the field of ruins before you.
Broken houses as far as the eye can see. You can only faintly spot the other end of the field where the jungle begins again, and in between there is so much. It's hard to comprehend just how many people must have lived here once. If everyone in your tribe had a score of houses for himself, you still wouldn't even use a fraction of this place. And in between, there are so many even bigger houses, even if they are half collapsed. Mansions they were called, you dimly recall, and even of those there are enough for every single member of the tribe to have one all for himself. Lastly, your eyes linger on the greatest of them all—a great building with many tiers and stories rises in the center of the ruins. Before it stands a great, quadratic pillar of stone with a faintly shimmering and gleaming tip.
You wonder what this place must have looked liked in the past, when Mahuizoh finally reaches the top of the rubble pile behind you and lays a hand on Atl and your shoulders each. "It is quite different to see it for yourself, isn't it? Not all tall tales by old men. Look as long as you like, but don't wander off. We will take a break before starting to gather the plants."
You nod absentmindedly as he points to a broken wall there huntress is already sitting on while rummaging in her pack. Stories are what you came for on this trip, but as you drink in the view from your vantage point, you silently decide that this alone was worth it.
Nonetheless, after a while longer, you creep back down the broken stones, leaving Atl up there alone for a while. Mahuizoh had sat down in some distance to the huntress and was eating a few dried fruit from his pack as you sat down next to him.
"Something you wanted to ask me Yaxkin?" He grins broadly as you look at him in surprise. "Oh, don't be like that. I know quite well that a young girl isn't asking to pluck herbs for me without a reason. Not the ruins that you wanted to see, then?"
"That too, but... You are always so busy. I thought, you would maybe tell me a bit about the spirits and the world?"
"If that isn't a pleasant surprise." He offers you some fruit which you eagerly take while nodding towards the place where the huntress is sitting. Apparently Atl joined her and tries to ask her questions too, but is utterly ignored by her. "It's rare these days for young folk to ask me about such things. They always want to hear the boasting of the hunters about how big a sow they got and how many men high that jaguar was they escaped so narrowly. Well then. What question drove you to me?"
"What are the spirits? Where do they come from and why do they want offerings from us?"
"Not the easy questions then. What they are, I think no man can truly say. I can only tell you what they are made from and that, my girl, is magic. The power that once made our forefathers great is not something foreign to them, but their very flesh and blood. Strange powers do they wield without any effort. Some can become one with the shadows around them as easily as if they stepped through a tent flap. Others crawl though the earth and stone like fishes in the water. It's only right and just that we make offerings to them. Much ill they could bring down on us if they feel slighted by our presence in their lands, so they always get their fair share of what we take. It would be folly to fight the spirits, for they ask for little and there is no victory against them. I've seen the young and brash strike them with knifes and arrows, but they all shattered like a clay urn upon striking their skin. Peace with them has served us well for as long as I can remember and it will still serve us well when you have grown into a old crone like me."
You mull over this for a bit as you chew on the fruits and some smoked meat from your own pack. If your forefathers could do the same? Swimming through the earth sure sounded strange, but maybe it was just as fun as in the water? It was probably a lot harder to see something though. "My mother sometimes told me of the dead walking. Is that something that spirits do? And why would they?" At this Mahuizoh sighs and looks into the distance for a bit. "What can I say? My life I dedicated to understand the spirits, but their ways are still strange to me to this day. I think they punish us for our bad deeds by doing these things."
He shakes his head with a sigh. "A long time ago, I've met a traveler. He had walked all the way from the sea through Cualli and seen many things. He told me of the greatest city. Far greater then this here. It was once the biggest and most important city in these lands. But now only the dead walk there. Twisted bones that walk of their own accord. All sharp teeth and claws, cobbled together from a dozen men. Of a great beast he spoke, like a centipede, but so large that it could look above the trees themselves and it too was made of nothing but broken bones fused together into this shape. They all wander the empty city to this day and nobody knows why or for what purpose. Like beasts they fall upon all who dare to approach the city, to add their bones to their endless number."
You grow quite at his words. Some part of you is afraid at the mere mention of these things, yet another stumbles about how outlandish it sounds. Then again, had some described the place you sit now to you, it would have sounded no less outlandish. What truly startles you though are his next words. "Maybe a young mind can find an answer where a old man set in his ways can not. What do you think is their reason for doing these things?"
Truth be told, you never really thought about this. Why do spirits do what they do?
[] [Reasoning] Write-In
After you give your answer, Mahuizoh just smiles and nods before rising. "Maybe I will show you something once we are done with our work. There are more things here to see then old stones and men." He gives no indication that your answer was either right or wrong like on the way here when he asked about the plants, and you honestly don't know what he thinks about it. Maybe it's just important to have an answer for yourself.
What will you do while working for Mahuizoh?
[] [Work] Gather plants as you are supposed to.
[] [Work] Sneak off when nobody notices to explore the ruins.
-[] [Work] Explore one of the mansions.
-[] [Work] Go into the large palace at the center of the city.
-[] [Work] Write-In
AN: And this marks your first trip away from the safety of your home. Mahuizoh was rather distracting while you walked through the jungle, so you didn't really have the attention to spare to your surroundings.
If you got any more questions or more specific ones for him, feel free to ask and I will answer them in the thread.
Prologue 3: Students
- Location
- Germany
After the break, Mahuizoh leads you and Atl further into the twisting ruins while the huntress goes off on her own. You are hardly moving very fast, for he regularly makes you stop among the shrubbery on the wayside and even leads you into some broken houses now and then to finish the impromptu lesson he had started on the march. He points to this plant and that, always quizzing one of you to name it and know which parts of it to harvest before showing you how to do it first hand. While you expected him to just cut and pluck the herbs he needs, the old man shows much caution and steady hands as he carefully pries flowers from their stalks and gently pulls roots out between the cracks. It's quite a lot of effort needed to not ruin the plants, or worse, cause them to release sap or pollen that is apparently quite dangerous for the poor sod who does it.
After a while, you reach a small clearing in between the ruins, which looks rather out of place in between the sea of buildings. While it does remind you of a field, it seems rather small to feed more than a few people. While most of it is covered in grass growing up to your chest, a veritable wall of trees rises in the last stretch of it. While the rather sudden end of the jungle didn't seem strange to you on the way into the ruins, seeing the same invisible border between the thick brush and the grassy field is rather odd. Maybe this too was the work of spirits? But why would they want a neat line between the trees and the old city? And why draw it in the middle of the buildings instead of farther out?
The clatter of clay jars tears you back out of your thoughts, and you know the less interesting part of the day is about to begin. Mahuizoh has set down his pack again and is laying out jars and pots of various sizes into three neat rows. "Well then, it is time for us to get to work. I'm afraid that I won't be able to help you two as much as I would like. We have to do the work of five men today, so I will have you both go off on your own into the ruins. Don't venture farther than ten houses out from this field, lest you get lost. I will accompany you for a bit and then gather among the trees, but I'm sure you wont need much help with how well you listened to my prattling all day."
You nod curtly at that statement. Not quite as confidently as you'd like, but at least you are fairly sure you won't embarrass yourself. As you steal a glance at Atl, though, he looks a bit pale around the ears all of the sudden, which isn't lost on Mahuizoh. "Yaxkin? You can start over there. There are usually some blue poinsettia flowering in these two houses around this time of the year. Keep an eye out for the thorns. I will be with Atl first."
As the two depart in the opposite direction, you let your gaze wander a bit while walking to the houses the shaman had pointed out. While it's a bit harder to see from the ground than from a pile of rubble, it's also hard to miss the four-men-high mansion jutting into the sky at the edge of the forest. Compared to the other mansions you've seen, this one looks nearly pristine. A large tree hangs precariously out of one of the windows in the upper parts, but apart from that it looks like the owner had just left.
For a long moment you stand in between the two houses you are supposed to go into and stare at the magnificent building. If the view from the pile was already great, what must this city look like from up there? And what might you be able to find in its walls? But in the end, you tear you gaze away. You promised your father to be on your best behavior should he talk with the old shaman to take you along for this. Running off all on your own instead of doing the work you came for would hardly be something he would approve of. So you step into the first house and into a field of vibrant blue leaves. Stretching from wall to wall, the poinsettia covers every bit of the room, and it's easy to spot the wicked barbs on their stems.
At first you are worried quite a bit about looking as if a Jaguar chewed on you when you leave this place again. After a bit of careful prodding, though, you quickly notice that the thorns don't really hurt at all if you are just careful and move slowly. It probably looks a bit silly how you wade through the tender bushes as if they were knee deep mud, but there's nobody here to see you and it becomes quite easy to spot the tiny blossoms amidst the blue leaves if you can get that close to them. After what feels like no time at all, you walk back out with nary a nick and large pot full of the blossoms.
And then you nearly drop it as you notice the smiling old man waiting in the doorway for you. "My, my. And here I was expecting that I would need a poultice for you and do the second house myself." He carefully takes the full vessel from you and puts on the lid before binding it in place. "That should be quite enough to last us a while. No need to do the other one. Let's see what else we can find, shall we?"
Working directly with Mahuizoh is rather nice actually. Given his lectures during the march, you expected him to hover behind you and watch your steps like a hawk. Instead he just points you to the interesting plants and offers the occasional bit of advice while letting you work mostly on your own. In between he chatters on about what he will use this and that for, which was mostly glossed over by him so far. It would be quite nice to go on like this for a while, but from one moment to the next, the huntress suddenly re-appears. A few short whispers between her and the shaman later and they both dash off in the direction of the field again, leaving you with a curt order to finish up and head back too with the jars.
What you find when coming back is at once both worse then hoped and much better then feared. Atl is sitting with his back leaned against a wall and cries furiously. His eyes are completely swollen shut, while his mouth hangs open bonelessly. The shaman is sitting next to him with a lot of open pots and furiously grinding something in a small mortar he apparently brought on the trip. Furiously is probably too mild a word, for as you come closer, you notice that his face is positively thunderous. The huntress meanwhile stands above Atl with a damp strip of bark and drips some liquid into his throat now and then.
You carefully approach her instead of Mahuizoh, since it seems rather unwise to interrupt him. "What happened? Is he...?"
"Not dying if that's what you think. His jaw is just numb from the oil I'm giving him. Keeps the swelling from getting worse."
"But what did he do?"
"Ate some yellow plant. No idea what exactly. Ask the old coot once he is done with the antidote."
You blink as you think about what might have possessed Atl to stuff some random plant into his month as slowly, ever so slowy, you realize what it probably was.
"But why..."
"I'm pretty sure Mahuizoh will ask him the same once he can speak again. Probably just a wee bit louder then you just did." For the first time, you saw the woman grin as she looked at the still working man. "Might involve his shaman stick and the boys head for good measure."
In the end, the trip had to end right there. You where a bit sad that you wouldn't get to see whatever the old shaman wanted to show you after the work was done, but Atls health had priority. While the swelling had gone down after the he got the antidote, he was barely capable of staying awake anymore and was still running a slight fever. Once the packs where filled again, the huntress had grabbed him and was now hauling him like a bag of grain over her shoulder on the way back. Which was probably a bit unkind of her to handle him like that, but him drooling down her back wasn't any better. This was probably one of those things you never spoke of ever again you sometimes heard you parents talk about.
Mahuizoh was walking with you a few steps behind them. His mood had taken a good while to get better again and you had nearly passed half the march in silence before he looked calmer again and spoke to you again.
"The boy is my apprentice, did you know? The chief was quite insistent that I take him on, since I have no successor yet."
"Successor?"
"The next shaman. Someone to follow in my footsteps once I die. My hair is nearly all gray by now and my face mostly wrinkles upon wrinkles. These old bones still have a few years in them, but I won't live forever."
You didn't look at him after that for a while. People dying in the tribe was not that uncommon. The life of a hunter was dangerous and even if you stuck to the safe parts of the jungle, there was always a risk that something might lurk there that was missed by the scouts. To say nothing about mishaps like the one that befell Atl. Still. It was kind of off-putting to think about Mahuizoh dying.
"I'm sure he will make a fine shaman." Your heart really wasn't in that statement, but it felt kind of the right thing to say. Better then the silence at least.
The response came a lot quicker, but you didn't quite expect it to be an amused snort. "You should be a honest girl Yaxkin. Lying isn't one of your strengths." He just shook his head when he looked at Atl again. "The boy has been with me for two moons now. And what does he do when I turn my back? Stuff something into his mouth because it smells like sweet fruits. I have you with me for but one day and you are doing a finer job than some of the dullards the chief saddles me with whenever I need a hand for something."
"Can't you... un-apprentice him again? I mean, he probably could do something else. Maybe this is just not his work."
"Sadly not. This is still a while off for you, but apprentices are nothing you can undo. For good or ill, I will teach him as long as I can."
Another lapse into silence follows. You haven't had much time at all to talk to Atl and never spoke to him in the camp either, but he didn't strike you as a bad sort. He was just... not terribly a terribly shaman-y person. Mahuizoh might be able to fix that with some time and patience.
"However..." You hadn't even noticed as the old man came to walk a bit closer to you. He was leaning down to you and whispering as if sharing a great secret. "There are no rules that forbid me from taking two apprentices. Maybe a bit of competition would help him even."
You nearly stumble over a tree root at that. While you don't know much about trades and apprenticeships, one thing you know for sure. They are entered when a child is counting ten years. While there have been cases of some doing so early, it's still rare and likely to garner you much attention, especially if you are the apprentice of the shaman of all people.
Do you accept Mahuizohs offer to become his apprentice beside Atl?
[] Yes, become his apprentice right now.
[] Not now, but you want to become his apprentice in two years if the offer still stands.
[] No, you wish to follow a different path.
-[] Become an apprentice among the scouts and hunters.
-[] Learn among the woodcarvers and tanners.
-[] Write-In
AN: The first official dice rolls of this quest are already temperamental. I wanted to do one more scene in the ruins that had to be axed due to becoming illogical with Atls mishap and wanted then to time-skip two years so that you can pick a profession to learn. The main benefit of working diligently for the shaman was supposed to be that you could apprentice under him, which would otherwise have been closed off.
Since you made a rather impressive showing here, Mahuizoh is offering to take you early and thus I folded that part into this chapter.
After a while, you reach a small clearing in between the ruins, which looks rather out of place in between the sea of buildings. While it does remind you of a field, it seems rather small to feed more than a few people. While most of it is covered in grass growing up to your chest, a veritable wall of trees rises in the last stretch of it. While the rather sudden end of the jungle didn't seem strange to you on the way into the ruins, seeing the same invisible border between the thick brush and the grassy field is rather odd. Maybe this too was the work of spirits? But why would they want a neat line between the trees and the old city? And why draw it in the middle of the buildings instead of farther out?
The clatter of clay jars tears you back out of your thoughts, and you know the less interesting part of the day is about to begin. Mahuizoh has set down his pack again and is laying out jars and pots of various sizes into three neat rows. "Well then, it is time for us to get to work. I'm afraid that I won't be able to help you two as much as I would like. We have to do the work of five men today, so I will have you both go off on your own into the ruins. Don't venture farther than ten houses out from this field, lest you get lost. I will accompany you for a bit and then gather among the trees, but I'm sure you wont need much help with how well you listened to my prattling all day."
Yaxkin: 1d100 = 51 -> Success
Learned enough to get by.
Atl: 1d100 = 14 -> 4 Degrees of Failure
Flowers are pretty.
Learned enough to get by.
Atl: 1d100 = 14 -> 4 Degrees of Failure
Flowers are pretty.
You nod curtly at that statement. Not quite as confidently as you'd like, but at least you are fairly sure you won't embarrass yourself. As you steal a glance at Atl, though, he looks a bit pale around the ears all of the sudden, which isn't lost on Mahuizoh. "Yaxkin? You can start over there. There are usually some blue poinsettia flowering in these two houses around this time of the year. Keep an eye out for the thorns. I will be with Atl first."
As the two depart in the opposite direction, you let your gaze wander a bit while walking to the houses the shaman had pointed out. While it's a bit harder to see from the ground than from a pile of rubble, it's also hard to miss the four-men-high mansion jutting into the sky at the edge of the forest. Compared to the other mansions you've seen, this one looks nearly pristine. A large tree hangs precariously out of one of the windows in the upper parts, but apart from that it looks like the owner had just left.
For a long moment you stand in between the two houses you are supposed to go into and stare at the magnificent building. If the view from the pile was already great, what must this city look like from up there? And what might you be able to find in its walls? But in the end, you tear you gaze away. You promised your father to be on your best behavior should he talk with the old shaman to take you along for this. Running off all on your own instead of doing the work you came for would hardly be something he would approve of. So you step into the first house and into a field of vibrant blue leaves. Stretching from wall to wall, the poinsettia covers every bit of the room, and it's easy to spot the wicked barbs on their stems.
Yaxkin: 1d100 = 89 -> 4 Degrees of Success
This isn't so hard after all.
Atl: 52 (1d100) - 40 (Knows Nothing) + 50 (Help from Mahuizoh) = 62 -> 2 Degrees of Success
Learning by doing.
This isn't so hard after all.
Atl: 52 (1d100) - 40 (Knows Nothing) + 50 (Help from Mahuizoh) = 62 -> 2 Degrees of Success
Learning by doing.
At first you are worried quite a bit about looking as if a Jaguar chewed on you when you leave this place again. After a bit of careful prodding, though, you quickly notice that the thorns don't really hurt at all if you are just careful and move slowly. It probably looks a bit silly how you wade through the tender bushes as if they were knee deep mud, but there's nobody here to see you and it becomes quite easy to spot the tiny blossoms amidst the blue leaves if you can get that close to them. After what feels like no time at all, you walk back out with nary a nick and large pot full of the blossoms.
And then you nearly drop it as you notice the smiling old man waiting in the doorway for you. "My, my. And here I was expecting that I would need a poultice for you and do the second house myself." He carefully takes the full vessel from you and puts on the lid before binding it in place. "That should be quite enough to last us a while. No need to do the other one. Let's see what else we can find, shall we?"
Yaxkin: 67 (1d100) + 20 (Got the hang of it.) + 20 (Advice from Mahuizoh) = 107 -> 5 Degrees of Success
Many a filled pot.
Atl: 5 (1d100) - 20 (Knows A Bit) = -15 -> 7 Degrees of Failure
"That smells tasty!"
Many a filled pot.
Atl: 5 (1d100) - 20 (Knows A Bit) = -15 -> 7 Degrees of Failure
"That smells tasty!"
Working directly with Mahuizoh is rather nice actually. Given his lectures during the march, you expected him to hover behind you and watch your steps like a hawk. Instead he just points you to the interesting plants and offers the occasional bit of advice while letting you work mostly on your own. In between he chatters on about what he will use this and that for, which was mostly glossed over by him so far. It would be quite nice to go on like this for a while, but from one moment to the next, the huntress suddenly re-appears. A few short whispers between her and the shaman later and they both dash off in the direction of the field again, leaving you with a curt order to finish up and head back too with the jars.
What you find when coming back is at once both worse then hoped and much better then feared. Atl is sitting with his back leaned against a wall and cries furiously. His eyes are completely swollen shut, while his mouth hangs open bonelessly. The shaman is sitting next to him with a lot of open pots and furiously grinding something in a small mortar he apparently brought on the trip. Furiously is probably too mild a word, for as you come closer, you notice that his face is positively thunderous. The huntress meanwhile stands above Atl with a damp strip of bark and drips some liquid into his throat now and then.
You carefully approach her instead of Mahuizoh, since it seems rather unwise to interrupt him. "What happened? Is he...?"
"Not dying if that's what you think. His jaw is just numb from the oil I'm giving him. Keeps the swelling from getting worse."
"But what did he do?"
"Ate some yellow plant. No idea what exactly. Ask the old coot once he is done with the antidote."
You blink as you think about what might have possessed Atl to stuff some random plant into his month as slowly, ever so slowy, you realize what it probably was.
"But why..."
"I'm pretty sure Mahuizoh will ask him the same once he can speak again. Probably just a wee bit louder then you just did." For the first time, you saw the woman grin as she looked at the still working man. "Might involve his shaman stick and the boys head for good measure."
In the end, the trip had to end right there. You where a bit sad that you wouldn't get to see whatever the old shaman wanted to show you after the work was done, but Atls health had priority. While the swelling had gone down after the he got the antidote, he was barely capable of staying awake anymore and was still running a slight fever. Once the packs where filled again, the huntress had grabbed him and was now hauling him like a bag of grain over her shoulder on the way back. Which was probably a bit unkind of her to handle him like that, but him drooling down her back wasn't any better. This was probably one of those things you never spoke of ever again you sometimes heard you parents talk about.
Mahuizoh was walking with you a few steps behind them. His mood had taken a good while to get better again and you had nearly passed half the march in silence before he looked calmer again and spoke to you again.
"The boy is my apprentice, did you know? The chief was quite insistent that I take him on, since I have no successor yet."
"Successor?"
"The next shaman. Someone to follow in my footsteps once I die. My hair is nearly all gray by now and my face mostly wrinkles upon wrinkles. These old bones still have a few years in them, but I won't live forever."
You didn't look at him after that for a while. People dying in the tribe was not that uncommon. The life of a hunter was dangerous and even if you stuck to the safe parts of the jungle, there was always a risk that something might lurk there that was missed by the scouts. To say nothing about mishaps like the one that befell Atl. Still. It was kind of off-putting to think about Mahuizoh dying.
"I'm sure he will make a fine shaman." Your heart really wasn't in that statement, but it felt kind of the right thing to say. Better then the silence at least.
The response came a lot quicker, but you didn't quite expect it to be an amused snort. "You should be a honest girl Yaxkin. Lying isn't one of your strengths." He just shook his head when he looked at Atl again. "The boy has been with me for two moons now. And what does he do when I turn my back? Stuff something into his mouth because it smells like sweet fruits. I have you with me for but one day and you are doing a finer job than some of the dullards the chief saddles me with whenever I need a hand for something."
"Can't you... un-apprentice him again? I mean, he probably could do something else. Maybe this is just not his work."
"Sadly not. This is still a while off for you, but apprentices are nothing you can undo. For good or ill, I will teach him as long as I can."
Another lapse into silence follows. You haven't had much time at all to talk to Atl and never spoke to him in the camp either, but he didn't strike you as a bad sort. He was just... not terribly a terribly shaman-y person. Mahuizoh might be able to fix that with some time and patience.
"However..." You hadn't even noticed as the old man came to walk a bit closer to you. He was leaning down to you and whispering as if sharing a great secret. "There are no rules that forbid me from taking two apprentices. Maybe a bit of competition would help him even."
You nearly stumble over a tree root at that. While you don't know much about trades and apprenticeships, one thing you know for sure. They are entered when a child is counting ten years. While there have been cases of some doing so early, it's still rare and likely to garner you much attention, especially if you are the apprentice of the shaman of all people.
Do you accept Mahuizohs offer to become his apprentice beside Atl?
[] Yes, become his apprentice right now.
[] Not now, but you want to become his apprentice in two years if the offer still stands.
[] No, you wish to follow a different path.
-[] Become an apprentice among the scouts and hunters.
-[] Learn among the woodcarvers and tanners.
-[] Write-In
AN: The first official dice rolls of this quest are already temperamental. I wanted to do one more scene in the ruins that had to be axed due to becoming illogical with Atls mishap and wanted then to time-skip two years so that you can pick a profession to learn. The main benefit of working diligently for the shaman was supposed to be that you could apprentice under him, which would otherwise have been closed off.
Since you made a rather impressive showing here, Mahuizoh is offering to take you early and thus I folded that part into this chapter.
Prologue 4: The Path to Wisdom
- Location
- Germany
It is with surprisingly little fanfare that you are officially made Mahuizohs apprentice two days later. Your parents consent is easily given, and your father is needling your mother quite a bit about how worried she was about you. She wasn't quite happy with the news that you would be traipsing around the jungle or might embarrass yourself in front of the tribe's shaman. The chieftain seems less happy with this arrangement, claiming that Atls accident is proof that Mahuizoh should better focus on a single apprentice and instruct him well instead of spreading his time on two. However, he seems to have complained quite a while about the lack of candidates to replace the old shaman and his arguments that teaching a spare one in case of other accidents would be wise quickly won the other elders over.
Now you wear a necklace made of leather string and three wooden beads. It looks the same as the one Atl wore when you've got to know him, but the significance of the carefully polished spheres of pleasant smelling wood was lost on you back then. You are now a shaman's apprentice for all to see, and as your knowledge about the world and the spirits grows, so too will new baubles be added to your necklace.
You would have nearly started to run around and brag to the other children with the sign of your success, but Mahuizoh was quite adamant that you shouldn't act like a hunter managing the grand dead of picking up his first sloth from the ground. Dignity and wisdom is what people will expect of you. Not to chatter on and on, but to be quiet and composed so that people will know the importance of what you have to say when you deign to do so now and then. You are somewhat dubious of that, given that your master isn't exactly known for his quietness, but you vow to at least try to adhere to these values. Sometimes. You will definitely brag to the villager children who always thought you boring for not having any adventures to tell them about.
The tribe breaks camp the next day and for the first time in your life, your are slightly sad to leave. Next year, you will come to this exact same spot again as you do every year, but you still can't help to look in the direction of the ruins. The thick jungle makes it impossible to see them from here, not even the tallest mansions, but in your mind's eye, you can still see them clearly. And all the wondrous things that they might hide. It worked out quite well for you to not give into your impulse to run off and explore, but that doesn't mean that you have abandoned the notion. In a year, you will make up for the lost time.
For now though, you march. Not hauling spare pig skins and and tents, but instead... clay jars and parts of a tent. You guess a marching tribe pays little mind to who you are, as long as you are loaded down with something. At least you have something to look forward to in the breaks, since Mahuizoh thinks that unless you are sleeping, you are better doing something useful with your time and complaining about sore feet isn't useful. It's far less rushed than on your first trip together, but the way is much longer too and you doubt that the lessons will get any less intense when you settle down again.
What does Mahuizoh teach you over the next two years?
Pick 2 main topics:
[] [Main] Healing and Plant Lore
[] [Main] Spirit Lore
[] [Main] Social Skills
While he is a harsh task master, you still have some time for other things. You can help other members of the tribe for a while in exchange for them teaching you some of their skills or you could devote some time to "frivolous" activities as Mahuizoh calls them.
Pick 3 secondary activities:
[] [Secondary] Learn to fight with a knife.
[] [Secondary] Learn archery.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to evade an attack.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to survive in the jungle.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to track animals.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to move silently.
[] [Secondary] Learn something else: Write-In
[] [Secondary] Explore the ruins when you tribe is in the area again.
[] [Secondary] Explore the jungle.
[] [Secondary] Attend the offerings to the spirits.
[] [Secondary] Do something different: Write-In
AN: Your apprenticeship is divided into 2 year chunks for which you can choose what to focus on. Since you started early, you get 4 turns instead of only 3.
Main actions teach multiple skills, while all the secondaries train only a single one, but they are locked into what Mahuizoh can teach you. He would greatly prefer if you take every branch of study he offers at least twice over the course of your apprenticeship, but he won't push the issue.
Next up is a small time-skip and then the yearly visit of your tribe to the nearby farmer villager, which will be your opportunity to see how other people live or try to learn a bit more about the world around you from the traders.
Statsheet and a short introduction into the mechanics coming in a bit.
Now you wear a necklace made of leather string and three wooden beads. It looks the same as the one Atl wore when you've got to know him, but the significance of the carefully polished spheres of pleasant smelling wood was lost on you back then. You are now a shaman's apprentice for all to see, and as your knowledge about the world and the spirits grows, so too will new baubles be added to your necklace.
You would have nearly started to run around and brag to the other children with the sign of your success, but Mahuizoh was quite adamant that you shouldn't act like a hunter managing the grand dead of picking up his first sloth from the ground. Dignity and wisdom is what people will expect of you. Not to chatter on and on, but to be quiet and composed so that people will know the importance of what you have to say when you deign to do so now and then. You are somewhat dubious of that, given that your master isn't exactly known for his quietness, but you vow to at least try to adhere to these values. Sometimes. You will definitely brag to the villager children who always thought you boring for not having any adventures to tell them about.
The tribe breaks camp the next day and for the first time in your life, your are slightly sad to leave. Next year, you will come to this exact same spot again as you do every year, but you still can't help to look in the direction of the ruins. The thick jungle makes it impossible to see them from here, not even the tallest mansions, but in your mind's eye, you can still see them clearly. And all the wondrous things that they might hide. It worked out quite well for you to not give into your impulse to run off and explore, but that doesn't mean that you have abandoned the notion. In a year, you will make up for the lost time.
For now though, you march. Not hauling spare pig skins and and tents, but instead... clay jars and parts of a tent. You guess a marching tribe pays little mind to who you are, as long as you are loaded down with something. At least you have something to look forward to in the breaks, since Mahuizoh thinks that unless you are sleeping, you are better doing something useful with your time and complaining about sore feet isn't useful. It's far less rushed than on your first trip together, but the way is much longer too and you doubt that the lessons will get any less intense when you settle down again.
What does Mahuizoh teach you over the next two years?
Pick 2 main topics:
[] [Main] Healing and Plant Lore
[] [Main] Spirit Lore
[] [Main] Social Skills
While he is a harsh task master, you still have some time for other things. You can help other members of the tribe for a while in exchange for them teaching you some of their skills or you could devote some time to "frivolous" activities as Mahuizoh calls them.
Pick 3 secondary activities:
[] [Secondary] Learn to fight with a knife.
[] [Secondary] Learn archery.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to evade an attack.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to survive in the jungle.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to track animals.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to move silently.
[] [Secondary] Learn something else: Write-In
[] [Secondary] Explore the ruins when you tribe is in the area again.
[] [Secondary] Explore the jungle.
[] [Secondary] Attend the offerings to the spirits.
[] [Secondary] Do something different: Write-In
AN: Your apprenticeship is divided into 2 year chunks for which you can choose what to focus on. Since you started early, you get 4 turns instead of only 3.
Main actions teach multiple skills, while all the secondaries train only a single one, but they are locked into what Mahuizoh can teach you. He would greatly prefer if you take every branch of study he offers at least twice over the course of your apprenticeship, but he won't push the issue.
Next up is a small time-skip and then the yearly visit of your tribe to the nearby farmer villager, which will be your opportunity to see how other people live or try to learn a bit more about the world around you from the traders.
Statsheet and a short introduction into the mechanics coming in a bit.
Prologue 5: Learning
- Location
- Germany
Life quickly settled into a new routine for you. On most days, Atl and you just followed Mahuizoh on his various errands and helped him do his work. Most of it looked quite absurd at first, like how to make a foul-smelling brew by adding various herbs to it in a very specific order, but apparently the resulting fever medication wouldn't work all that well if you just tossed everything into the pot as was your first impulse. Other things shed some light on the puzzling things the other adults did all day, like giving a rare grass a good shake four times a day before putting it back on its rack so that it dries instead of molds.
In the evenings, you would usually sit around a small fire as he taught you about the various spirits in the lands. Little embers that float harmlessly in the air, just to erupt into a furious blaze if you get too close to them. Of young woman who completely wrap themselves in strips of cloth and grow furious at anyone glimpsing what lies below. It certainly puts your desire for exploration into perspective to hear about these things. All too easily you could see yourself chasing such a strange ember and getting burned for it. Though what's supposed to be so terrifying about a woman in tattered cloth still eludes you.
And today is finally the day you will meet a spirit in the flesh! Mahuizoh had promised this to you for the better part of a year now, claiming that it you would go once your work reached a good standard, but you suspect he just wanted to get you to work harder while waiting for the tribe to come into this area again. It's supposed to be a quiet and solemn walk to a specific clearing, were it not for your ever-present fourth companion.
The sharp whack of a wooden spear against your shoulder shakes you out of your thoughts. "Eyes on the bushes, Yaxkin. The beasts won't wait until you are done admiring Atls backside." Despite your attempts to not let her get under your skin that easily again, you stand straight as tree and very pointedly look above Atl, who is walking right in front of you. Where else are you supposed to look? Well... probably at the bushes.
A soft poke with the butt of the spear prods you forward. "You can always make this stop. Just say that you give up." You don't even deign that comment with an answer anymore. The huntress who accompanied you so long seems never to go out with the others and is instead always nearby and ready to accompany Mahuizoh on his various trips out of the camp. You see her more often than your own mother these days, and yet the woman isn't even telling you her name!
"Two on the left. Ten steps in." As no response comes, you are slightly relieved. The rules of your game where simple. Whenever Mahuizoh had nothing to say to you, you would call out all red flowers on your way and a rough distance from your path. Miss something? Whack with the spear. Call out a wrong count? Two whacks for not looking closely enough. The wrong distance carried no punishment, except when it did. That was supposed to keep you alert. This was supposed to train your awareness of your surroundings and how to evade unexpected attacks, since you were theoretically allowed to dodge the blows. Except that the woman was silent as a cat and fast to boot. There was not a single strike you had dodged thus far and her sardonic comments made you suspect she just liked to torment you.
"One on the right. Twe- Fifteen steps." You get a whack on each shoulder for that and look back over again before whirling around. "What was that for? It's right over there! A huge red flower and not a second one in sight."
She grins far too broadly for your taste as she leans down to you. "That, my little shaman, isn't a flower, but a mushroom. Even I know that."
"What!? But it's shaped like a flower!"
"Oh wise old man. Please enlighten your apprentice where the words of a simple huntress are not sufficient."
As you look over your shoulder, you see Atl and Mahuizoh have stopped again to look at the exchange. "I'm afraid that she is right, Yaxkin. That is the corpus of a fungus. A rather foul-smelling specimen, which has a few interesting properties when added to a bruise balm. I will explain the details later."
You look back to the huntress who still grins at you and slowly mouths 'three words' at you. "I thought you would be training me..."
"I've actually only agreed to your master's request to 'do something with her' and I think this counts as 'something'."
"Shouldn't my master protect me from abuse?" You looked back over your shoulder, but Mahuizoh just shook his head and looked amused by the whole thing.
"Not if my apprentice is asking for it. My, I seem to recall that you nearly begged her to train you in some of her skills. Truth be told, it is quite funny to watch you two and I'm very curious by now which of you stubborn womans folk will give in first."
"But..."
"Look little shaman, as long as you try to pretend to be a hunter, I will pretend to train you as one. If you had wanted to become one, you shouldn't have apprenticed under Mahuizoh. You can't have both. And now eyes back on Atl and go on, for your actual master has a lesson for you. And I've heard something about bruise balm and smelly mushrooms, so look happy. Your sore shoulders will come in handy for another one when we are back!"
You slowly turned around and started marching again. You would have both. If she liked it or not, you would do what was needed to...
"Oh, and that where roughly twenty steps, not fifteen. Surprise attack!"
... beat her over the head with her own spear.
"Leave the packs here and just take the fruit we brought."
You could have hugged Mahuizoh for that statement, since getting the heavy pack off your poor shoulders is the best thing happening to you since sunrise. Getting the mushy and slightly rancid papayas out of their jars is decidedly less pleasant, but it seems that spirits like their food a bit spoiled. Or it's just that they don't mind and thus there is little point in giving them the fresh ones.
"You remember the rules I've told you?"
Both Atl and you nod and rattle them down one last time in near perfect unison. "Don't move unless told to do so. Don't try to take the fruit back. If they come for it on their own, throw it halfway to them. Don't throw it at them. Don't try to hide it. If they make eye contact, keep it until they break it."
A quick nod is your only acknowledgement as you slowly walk to the clearing. No grass grows here for one reason or another, despite the sun shining brightly down on fertile soil. Even the indistinct sounds of the jungle are oddly muted here. The huntress had stayed back with the packs and so it is just the three of you who walk to the middle of the clearing and silently wait for the spirits to come. You don't know for how long you waited, since standing around with mushy fruit in your hands while waiting to see something that you can't see was quickly proving to be quite trying on your patience. Especially since you needed to be very quiet or they wouldn't come at all.
It startles you a bit to hear one of the papayas hit the ground behind you, and as you slowly turn, careful to not make any noise or drop something, you see Mahuizoh pointing to a spot between the trees and motioning to crouch down. It strains your eyes to squint into the shadows while facing the sun and you nearly miss it, but then the papaya rustles a bit as if something was prodding it. 'Hard to see, even when you know they are there' had your master told you, and as you see the rank fruit wobble around, you are inclined to agree. It is not until there is piece of the fruit missing all of the sudden that you spot the spirit. A tiny face, not unlike that of a man, which is stained with the slightly orange juices of its meal.
It's as if you are trying to look at the tip of you nose. It's there and you can clearly see it, but doing so is requiring all of your attention. You blink once and instead of a tiny, black monkey with three tails you had managed to make out, you only see a slightly darker patch of shadows resting next to the fruit. With great effort you can see behind... whatever it is that is hiding the spirit again after a while, and curious yellow eyes with two slits stare back at you for a few heartbeats before it digs back in.
The day passes all too soon for your liking. At Mahuizos direction, you throw the fruit into the shadows at the edge of the clearing one by one and silently watch the peaceful spirits feast on them. So this is what it meant to be a shaman and to commune with them. In the end, not all of them were the great and terrible monsters others saw them as.
It is quite nice to return to the farmers village this year. No longer are you just another child or the snot-nosed brat hanging around Mahuizo. Your necklace has grown by quite a few beads and a few feathers over the two years you've been his apprentice already. It's a shame that the tooth you pulled out of the jaw of that hunter last moon broke during the procedure. The tribe still makes jokes about the mighty beast you've felled on that day, though you feel a bit sorry at the hulking man who cried quite pitifully as you pried it out of his jaw.
Not much has changed in the village since your last visit. You make camp on one of the fallow fields around the palisade protecting the accumulation of huts within as always. Soon the hunters will swarm out and intentionally over-hunt the area so that there are fewer animals around to damage the crops. That arrangement was always greatly profitable for both parties, and trading furs for grain and medicine for a few odds and ends is another nice benefit.
To you, the village has lost a bit of its luster. Being different than dreary camp life and the chance to meet interesting people had once appealed greatly to you, but tilling fields is not quite as interesting as some of the more arcane things Mahuizo is teaching you these days. He cryptically hints lately that you might be not that far off from being ready for a rather difficult branch of his arts and you are rather intrigued by that, even if the old man is staying mum on what exactly it is. However, the traders are another matter.
They are walking back and forth between Tlamacatzintlihuacan and Zacatltlalmonton. The first is a settlement in some ruins and apparently a place of learning. Mahuizo once told you, should you wish to learn to read and write the old tongue of Cualli, this would be the place to go and that it's supposed to have many texts from the ancient times preserved there. The other is a larger village like the one you stand before, built on a grassy hill near a large river.
You can usually spot in which direction the traders go by the load of their carts. When they come from Tlamacatzintlihuacan, they bear tools made out of metal, good bows, and an assortment of herbs, while on the way back they carry barrels of salted fish and corn. The skins your hunter bring seem to be quite in demand on both sides of the route, so there is nearly always someone willing to haggle with you tribe, even though the more exotic goods are far too pricy for anyone of yours to afford.
None the less, you've worked a bit extra the last months after Mahuizo allowed you to barter some of your medicines away.
Do you wish to buy something from the traders?
[] [Trade] Write-In
[] [Trade] Nothing for now.
What do you wish to focus your studies on for the next two years?
Pick 2 main topics:
[] [Main] Healing and Plant Lore
[] [Main] Spirit Lore
[] [Main] Social Skills
Pick 3 secondary activities:
[] [Secondary] Learn to fight with a knife.
[] [Secondary] Learn archery.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to evade an attack.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to survive in the jungle.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to track animals.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to move silently.
[] [Secondary] Learn something else: Write-In
[] [Secondary] Explore the ruins when you tribe is in the area again.
[] [Secondary] Explore the jungle.
[] [Secondary] Attend the offerings to the spirits.
[] [Secondary] Do something different: Write-In
AN: Nothing new in the turn options. Next turn, you will be able to learn Spear Fighting and Wrestling too, but it's still unavailable due to your youth and thus small frame.
You are currently in possession of a knife made from sharpened bone and can get a simple bow from the tribe if you intend to pick up archery. If you want better equipment, you will have to haggle with the traders, but don't expect metal goods.
In the evenings, you would usually sit around a small fire as he taught you about the various spirits in the lands. Little embers that float harmlessly in the air, just to erupt into a furious blaze if you get too close to them. Of young woman who completely wrap themselves in strips of cloth and grow furious at anyone glimpsing what lies below. It certainly puts your desire for exploration into perspective to hear about these things. All too easily you could see yourself chasing such a strange ember and getting burned for it. Though what's supposed to be so terrifying about a woman in tattered cloth still eludes you.
And today is finally the day you will meet a spirit in the flesh! Mahuizoh had promised this to you for the better part of a year now, claiming that it you would go once your work reached a good standard, but you suspect he just wanted to get you to work harder while waiting for the tribe to come into this area again. It's supposed to be a quiet and solemn walk to a specific clearing, were it not for your ever-present fourth companion.
The sharp whack of a wooden spear against your shoulder shakes you out of your thoughts. "Eyes on the bushes, Yaxkin. The beasts won't wait until you are done admiring Atls backside." Despite your attempts to not let her get under your skin that easily again, you stand straight as tree and very pointedly look above Atl, who is walking right in front of you. Where else are you supposed to look? Well... probably at the bushes.
A soft poke with the butt of the spear prods you forward. "You can always make this stop. Just say that you give up." You don't even deign that comment with an answer anymore. The huntress who accompanied you so long seems never to go out with the others and is instead always nearby and ready to accompany Mahuizoh on his various trips out of the camp. You see her more often than your own mother these days, and yet the woman isn't even telling you her name!
"Two on the left. Ten steps in." As no response comes, you are slightly relieved. The rules of your game where simple. Whenever Mahuizoh had nothing to say to you, you would call out all red flowers on your way and a rough distance from your path. Miss something? Whack with the spear. Call out a wrong count? Two whacks for not looking closely enough. The wrong distance carried no punishment, except when it did. That was supposed to keep you alert. This was supposed to train your awareness of your surroundings and how to evade unexpected attacks, since you were theoretically allowed to dodge the blows. Except that the woman was silent as a cat and fast to boot. There was not a single strike you had dodged thus far and her sardonic comments made you suspect she just liked to torment you.
"One on the right. Twe- Fifteen steps." You get a whack on each shoulder for that and look back over again before whirling around. "What was that for? It's right over there! A huge red flower and not a second one in sight."
She grins far too broadly for your taste as she leans down to you. "That, my little shaman, isn't a flower, but a mushroom. Even I know that."
"What!? But it's shaped like a flower!"
"Oh wise old man. Please enlighten your apprentice where the words of a simple huntress are not sufficient."
As you look over your shoulder, you see Atl and Mahuizoh have stopped again to look at the exchange. "I'm afraid that she is right, Yaxkin. That is the corpus of a fungus. A rather foul-smelling specimen, which has a few interesting properties when added to a bruise balm. I will explain the details later."
You look back to the huntress who still grins at you and slowly mouths 'three words' at you. "I thought you would be training me..."
"I've actually only agreed to your master's request to 'do something with her' and I think this counts as 'something'."
"Shouldn't my master protect me from abuse?" You looked back over your shoulder, but Mahuizoh just shook his head and looked amused by the whole thing.
"Not if my apprentice is asking for it. My, I seem to recall that you nearly begged her to train you in some of her skills. Truth be told, it is quite funny to watch you two and I'm very curious by now which of you stubborn womans folk will give in first."
"But..."
"Look little shaman, as long as you try to pretend to be a hunter, I will pretend to train you as one. If you had wanted to become one, you shouldn't have apprenticed under Mahuizoh. You can't have both. And now eyes back on Atl and go on, for your actual master has a lesson for you. And I've heard something about bruise balm and smelly mushrooms, so look happy. Your sore shoulders will come in handy for another one when we are back!"
You slowly turned around and started marching again. You would have both. If she liked it or not, you would do what was needed to...
"Oh, and that where roughly twenty steps, not fifteen. Surprise attack!"
... beat her over the head with her own spear.
"Leave the packs here and just take the fruit we brought."
You could have hugged Mahuizoh for that statement, since getting the heavy pack off your poor shoulders is the best thing happening to you since sunrise. Getting the mushy and slightly rancid papayas out of their jars is decidedly less pleasant, but it seems that spirits like their food a bit spoiled. Or it's just that they don't mind and thus there is little point in giving them the fresh ones.
"You remember the rules I've told you?"
Both Atl and you nod and rattle them down one last time in near perfect unison. "Don't move unless told to do so. Don't try to take the fruit back. If they come for it on their own, throw it halfway to them. Don't throw it at them. Don't try to hide it. If they make eye contact, keep it until they break it."
A quick nod is your only acknowledgement as you slowly walk to the clearing. No grass grows here for one reason or another, despite the sun shining brightly down on fertile soil. Even the indistinct sounds of the jungle are oddly muted here. The huntress had stayed back with the packs and so it is just the three of you who walk to the middle of the clearing and silently wait for the spirits to come. You don't know for how long you waited, since standing around with mushy fruit in your hands while waiting to see something that you can't see was quickly proving to be quite trying on your patience. Especially since you needed to be very quiet or they wouldn't come at all.
It startles you a bit to hear one of the papayas hit the ground behind you, and as you slowly turn, careful to not make any noise or drop something, you see Mahuizoh pointing to a spot between the trees and motioning to crouch down. It strains your eyes to squint into the shadows while facing the sun and you nearly miss it, but then the papaya rustles a bit as if something was prodding it. 'Hard to see, even when you know they are there' had your master told you, and as you see the rank fruit wobble around, you are inclined to agree. It is not until there is piece of the fruit missing all of the sudden that you spot the spirit. A tiny face, not unlike that of a man, which is stained with the slightly orange juices of its meal.
It's as if you are trying to look at the tip of you nose. It's there and you can clearly see it, but doing so is requiring all of your attention. You blink once and instead of a tiny, black monkey with three tails you had managed to make out, you only see a slightly darker patch of shadows resting next to the fruit. With great effort you can see behind... whatever it is that is hiding the spirit again after a while, and curious yellow eyes with two slits stare back at you for a few heartbeats before it digs back in.
The day passes all too soon for your liking. At Mahuizos direction, you throw the fruit into the shadows at the edge of the clearing one by one and silently watch the peaceful spirits feast on them. So this is what it meant to be a shaman and to commune with them. In the end, not all of them were the great and terrible monsters others saw them as.
It is quite nice to return to the farmers village this year. No longer are you just another child or the snot-nosed brat hanging around Mahuizo. Your necklace has grown by quite a few beads and a few feathers over the two years you've been his apprentice already. It's a shame that the tooth you pulled out of the jaw of that hunter last moon broke during the procedure. The tribe still makes jokes about the mighty beast you've felled on that day, though you feel a bit sorry at the hulking man who cried quite pitifully as you pried it out of his jaw.
Herbalism
Main Action + Passive Gain (Survival Training) -> 14d100 = 825
Herbalism 1 (0/300) -> Herbalism 2 (525/600)
Trait: 81 -> Yes. See bottom.
Medicine
Main Action -> 12d100 = 559
Medicine 0 (0/100) -> Medicine 2 (159/600)
Trait: 28 -> No
Spirit Lore
Main Action -> 12d100 = 497
Spirit Lore 0 (0/100) -> Spirit Lore 2 (97/600)
Trait: 33 -> No
Spirit Talking
Main Action -> 12d100 = 543
Spirit Talking 0 (0/100) -> Spirit Talking 2 (143/600)
Trait: 46 -> No
Astronomy
2x Secondary Gain (Medicine, Spirit Lore) -> 12d100 = 562
Astronomy 0 (0/100) -> Astronomy 2 (162/600)
Surgery
Passive Gain (Medicine) -> 2d100 = 191
Surgery 0 (0/100) -> Surgery 1 (91/300)
???
2x Marginal Gain (Medicine, Spirit Lore) -> 2d100 = 97
??? 0 (0/100) -> ??? 0 (97/100)
Bladed Weapons
Secondary Action -> 6d100 = 348
Bladed Weapons 1 (0/300) -> Bladed Weapons 2 (48/600)
Trait: 98 -> Yes
Second trait? 12 -> No
Evasion
Passive Gain (Hunter Tribe) -> 2d100 = 116
Evasion 1 (0/300) -> Evasion 1 (116/300)
Survival
Secondary Action + Passive Gain (Hunter Tribe) -> 8d100 = 467
Survival 2 (0/600) -> Survival 2 (467/600)
Trait: 81 -> Yes
Tracking
Passive Gain (Hunter Tribe) -> 2d100 = 156
Tracking 1 (0/300) -> Tracking 1 (156/300)
Endurance
4x Passive Gain (Hunter Tribe, Survival, Bladed Weapons, Sneaking) -> 8d100 = 349
Endurance 2 (0/600) -> Endurance 2 (349/600)
Perception
3x Passive Gain (Hunter Tribe, Survival, Sneaking) -> 6d100 = 411
Perception 2 (0/600) -> Perception 2 (411/600)
Sneaking
Secondary Action -> 6d100 = 351
Sneaking 0 (0/100) -> Sneaking 1 (251/300)
Trait: 5 -> No
New Traits
Bladed Weapons -> Knife Fighter
You are trained in the use of knives for combat. Add +20 to your Bladed Weapons skill when using a knife, dagger or similar weapon. Add +10 if you are using a short sword.
Survival + Herbalism -> Living Off The Land
When using your Herbalism skill, add +5 per rank in Survival and when using Survival, add +5 per rank in Herbalism.
Attributes
Main Actions (Medicine, Spirit Lore) -> +1 Intelligence, +1 Concentration
Attribute gain from secondary actions? 87 -> Yes, +1 Dexterity
Main Action + Passive Gain (Survival Training) -> 14d100 = 825
Herbalism 1 (0/300) -> Herbalism 2 (525/600)
Trait: 81 -> Yes. See bottom.
Medicine
Main Action -> 12d100 = 559
Medicine 0 (0/100) -> Medicine 2 (159/600)
Trait: 28 -> No
Spirit Lore
Main Action -> 12d100 = 497
Spirit Lore 0 (0/100) -> Spirit Lore 2 (97/600)
Trait: 33 -> No
Spirit Talking
Main Action -> 12d100 = 543
Spirit Talking 0 (0/100) -> Spirit Talking 2 (143/600)
Trait: 46 -> No
Astronomy
2x Secondary Gain (Medicine, Spirit Lore) -> 12d100 = 562
Astronomy 0 (0/100) -> Astronomy 2 (162/600)
Surgery
Passive Gain (Medicine) -> 2d100 = 191
Surgery 0 (0/100) -> Surgery 1 (91/300)
???
2x Marginal Gain (Medicine, Spirit Lore) -> 2d100 = 97
??? 0 (0/100) -> ??? 0 (97/100)
Bladed Weapons
Secondary Action -> 6d100 = 348
Bladed Weapons 1 (0/300) -> Bladed Weapons 2 (48/600)
Trait: 98 -> Yes
Second trait? 12 -> No
Evasion
Passive Gain (Hunter Tribe) -> 2d100 = 116
Evasion 1 (0/300) -> Evasion 1 (116/300)
Survival
Secondary Action + Passive Gain (Hunter Tribe) -> 8d100 = 467
Survival 2 (0/600) -> Survival 2 (467/600)
Trait: 81 -> Yes
Tracking
Passive Gain (Hunter Tribe) -> 2d100 = 156
Tracking 1 (0/300) -> Tracking 1 (156/300)
Endurance
4x Passive Gain (Hunter Tribe, Survival, Bladed Weapons, Sneaking) -> 8d100 = 349
Endurance 2 (0/600) -> Endurance 2 (349/600)
Perception
3x Passive Gain (Hunter Tribe, Survival, Sneaking) -> 6d100 = 411
Perception 2 (0/600) -> Perception 2 (411/600)
Sneaking
Secondary Action -> 6d100 = 351
Sneaking 0 (0/100) -> Sneaking 1 (251/300)
Trait: 5 -> No
New Traits
Bladed Weapons -> Knife Fighter
You are trained in the use of knives for combat. Add +20 to your Bladed Weapons skill when using a knife, dagger or similar weapon. Add +10 if you are using a short sword.
Survival + Herbalism -> Living Off The Land
When using your Herbalism skill, add +5 per rank in Survival and when using Survival, add +5 per rank in Herbalism.
Attributes
Main Actions (Medicine, Spirit Lore) -> +1 Intelligence, +1 Concentration
Attribute gain from secondary actions? 87 -> Yes, +1 Dexterity
Not much has changed in the village since your last visit. You make camp on one of the fallow fields around the palisade protecting the accumulation of huts within as always. Soon the hunters will swarm out and intentionally over-hunt the area so that there are fewer animals around to damage the crops. That arrangement was always greatly profitable for both parties, and trading furs for grain and medicine for a few odds and ends is another nice benefit.
To you, the village has lost a bit of its luster. Being different than dreary camp life and the chance to meet interesting people had once appealed greatly to you, but tilling fields is not quite as interesting as some of the more arcane things Mahuizo is teaching you these days. He cryptically hints lately that you might be not that far off from being ready for a rather difficult branch of his arts and you are rather intrigued by that, even if the old man is staying mum on what exactly it is. However, the traders are another matter.
They are walking back and forth between Tlamacatzintlihuacan and Zacatltlalmonton. The first is a settlement in some ruins and apparently a place of learning. Mahuizo once told you, should you wish to learn to read and write the old tongue of Cualli, this would be the place to go and that it's supposed to have many texts from the ancient times preserved there. The other is a larger village like the one you stand before, built on a grassy hill near a large river.
You can usually spot in which direction the traders go by the load of their carts. When they come from Tlamacatzintlihuacan, they bear tools made out of metal, good bows, and an assortment of herbs, while on the way back they carry barrels of salted fish and corn. The skins your hunter bring seem to be quite in demand on both sides of the route, so there is nearly always someone willing to haggle with you tribe, even though the more exotic goods are far too pricy for anyone of yours to afford.
None the less, you've worked a bit extra the last months after Mahuizo allowed you to barter some of your medicines away.
Do you wish to buy something from the traders?
[] [Trade] Write-In
[] [Trade] Nothing for now.
What do you wish to focus your studies on for the next two years?
Pick 2 main topics:
[] [Main] Healing and Plant Lore
[] [Main] Spirit Lore
[] [Main] Social Skills
Pick 3 secondary activities:
[] [Secondary] Learn to fight with a knife.
[] [Secondary] Learn archery.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to evade an attack.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to survive in the jungle.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to track animals.
[] [Secondary] Learn how to move silently.
[] [Secondary] Learn something else: Write-In
[] [Secondary] Explore the ruins when you tribe is in the area again.
[] [Secondary] Explore the jungle.
[] [Secondary] Attend the offerings to the spirits.
[] [Secondary] Do something different: Write-In
AN: Nothing new in the turn options. Next turn, you will be able to learn Spear Fighting and Wrestling too, but it's still unavailable due to your youth and thus small frame.
You are currently in possession of a knife made from sharpened bone and can get a simple bow from the tribe if you intend to pick up archery. If you want better equipment, you will have to haggle with the traders, but don't expect metal goods.