[x] Give the man a drink from thy flask. It won't solve the root issue, but it would alleviate the pain. Small steps.
[x] We need to gather more information. From this man and others in the community. Already we've heard about bandits, capricious gods, the tax collector and war. We need to complete the picture in our head and locate clear leads we can follow, from small to big. Then probably murder a lot of people when they inevitably refuse to give up power brought with misery.
You take the flask from the folds of your robe and hold it out to the wizened farmer. "Drink. It will give you strength."
He eyes the flask uncertainly, as the characters on its sides glimmer a deep green. He hesitantly swallows a mouthful, and the effect is immediate; he rises from his stoop, and his limbs flesh out in an instant. He still looks half-starved, but his skin doesn't look so desiccated anymore. "Ah. Thank you, Wise One. That is a blessing indeed." He hands the flask back with reluctance. "Take care with that; there are many who would take it from you if they could."
{Discovery: Partial! +1 XP}
As he finishes the cut with his renewed strength, you ask him for more details about the locals' plight. You walk with him into the village as evening draws in, and as he introduces you to his neighbours, you continue your inquiries. Sifting the grain of truth from the husks of gossip is difficult, everyone has their own theories and private grievances, but you piece together a picture of the situation:
More than half the people you talk to are Dead, bodies and wills worn thin by the day's labours. The flask in your robes feels very meagre as you look at them; even refilling the flask as fast as it allows, to try and sustain even this small community with it would be like watering a field with a beaker. All of the Dead you speak to still have living family, you notice. Your friend from the fields has three children, but his wife passed across the sea before the drought came.
The Tax Collector has gone mad, they say; by the sound of it he's one of the Dead, and is still levying the taxes of the days of plenty on these days of ruin. He and his guards might be found upriver, at the brewery and the granaries. No-one here has seen him personally, but he is rumoured to have become monstrous in form as well as in character, since he died.
Taxation seems to be slowly separating the population into the Dead and the outlaws, as those who cannot sustain themselves in the face of the taxes turn to banditry. Feelings on the bandits seem to be mixed, as they make it even harder for the law-abiding to pay taxes and feed those who still live in their communities, but many of the Living feel the same choice bearing down on them; Death and Taxes stalk the land in one body, and the bandits are the only ones who have escaped, for now. No-one will admit to knowing where the bandits might be found.
There is war in the south; some say the Middle Kingdom incurred the wrath of Satat-Mehet by damming the River of Life, and the armies of the Lower Kingdom march to tear it down. But others say the drought began
before the dam was built, and the war is only over what water is left. No-one seems to know much about how the war is going.
Everyone has different theories about the doings of the Gods; there is no priest in the village, and many of them are now looking to you to make sense of this for them. The villagers mostly make offerings at the nearby hilltop shrine of Suteshet in propitiation, to keep the desert from their fields. The local temple to Satat-Mehet, on an island upriver and further into the delta, is too dangerous to visit anymore; apparently a sacred hippopotamus rampaged through the temple, driving out the priests, and now attacks anyone who comes near. This is obviously a dire omen, but no-one agrees on
exactly what it portends.
[x] Introspection: Where is your home? Who are your people? Do you know? Do you care?
{Recollection: Partial!}
During your time among the villagers, you can't help but try to recall your own home and people; you remember a city, somewhere upriver. Busy streets, thronged markets, peoples of all Kingdoms and of the desert tribes coming to trade.
{+1 Culture}
You try to remember your family, and it takes an effort to recall that you had one; your father was a Priest of Banut, God of the Sun. Your mother was a scribe. The memories are fractured; you remember places, generalities, but no faces, no names. As you draw more things up from the well of memories, this becomes a more and more obvious pattern.
Something is wrong.
[ ] Introspection: The priests of Imunhekau are expected to present as gynandromorphs, and you had an inclination towards the feminine side. That would presumably mean your name was either gender neutral or feminine, right? Maybe thinking on this will trigger your memory… Your name remains beyond reach.
[ ] Introspection: Why can't you remember anyone? Why is your memory a theatre of scenes only, of roles with no actors?
[ ] Introspection: Write In.
As dusk draws in, a small informal procession begins to form, as villagers climb the hill in ones and twos to make offerings to the God of the Desert Winds. As if in recognition, the wind picks up from the East, bringing dry air from the Unwatered Lands.
What do you do?
[ ] Climb the hill to visit the shrine of Suteshet; it might be wise to pay your respects, and maybe even seek answers. It's also the only high ground you're likely to reach before the sun sets, if you want to get the lie of the land.
[ ] Make for the Brewery; this is a lesser blight than the drought you are here to end, but one that you cannot leave unaddressed.
[ ] Seek out the bandits; one way or another, the banditry is another strain on the land that cannot be sustained.
[ ] Make for the Delta Temple; the drought is surely tied up with the River God somehow, and this bears investigating, however dangerous.
[ ] Write In.
Sorry this update took so long!
I didn't want to bound this in too much but maybe I needed to give more info to gesture at the possibility space?