What Can SV Teach an Sorcerer in the Mesolithic?

[LoserThree]

0

                         NOTICES

Cacophonous Interlude is NOT active
  (Bianca does NOT hear what you write right now)

Next story update : soon, I hope
Next vote closing : TBD
Progress toward next update : 2,724 words
We're on step 5: reading & composition of in-line replies
Total words in 'what Bianca's been told' notes : 3,119

Anything I post that's not in vote options, quote boxes,
code blocks or in spoilers may be understood to be said
by Bianca.

Players do not need to use code blocks or spoilers
outside of cacophonous interludes

If you use code blocks, please limit yourself to 32 lines
and your lines to 57 characters, so that people on mobile
can read them without scrolling within the code block

You can quote other sources, but I don't want this to 
turn into Plagiarism Quest.

You're not discouraged from using outside reference
material or quoting other sources. When you do, please
cite your sources in spoilers or a code box.

Please do not use Large Language Model assistants like
ChatGPT or similar to compose your effortposts. I mean
for this game to be about communication, not prompt
engineering.

Thank you.

---

Spoiler: All you really need to know to play

Check the summaries in this status post and read the latest story post in the Threadmarks to get a rough idea of where things are at.

If you're not already involved in the game and you want to get right into it without digging through the back catalog, consider doing this:

1. Read the summaries in this Status Post.
2. Pull up the latest Threadmark.
3. Skip to the line that says "B R E A K."
4. Skim from there to get an idea of what's going on.

If there's no Closing The Vote post in the Informationals corresponding to the latest Threadmarks, then the game is in a Cacophonous Interlude and Bianca will hear what you post, unless you post inside spoilers or code boxes. The NOTICES portion at the top of this post should also tell you if the game is in a Cacophonous Interlude.

If the game is not in a Cacophonous Interlude, you can still post. It's just that Bianca can't hear you. You might still want to post so you can coordinate with other players, make suggestions, ask questions, and propose plans. You can compose a message to Bianca all whether or not the game is in a Cacophonous Interlude. And once the game returns to a Cacophonous Interlude, you can vote and/or send a message to Bianca by creating a post in the thread.

If you want to vote, simply do so as you would in other quests on this board. You may look at other players' votes to see how yours should be formatted. And you may check the tally to see that yours are counted as you intend them. I should find the 'how to vote' general post and link it here, I guess.

If you want to send a message to Bianca, keep in mind that she is a creature of another time. She may not understand what you mean if you don't take the time to make it clear. This game rewards and demands work from its players. When a player wants to introduce a concept or tool or technology to Bianca, that player will probably need to expend effort to explain it carefully, and take into consideration the limits of her understanding of the world. You might even need to consider her biases and values.

I think this is similar enough to Graeber's 'interpretive labor' that we can use the term colloquially to describe what is being asked of players. Put yourself in the mind of Bianca and ask yourself how such a person can be made to understand what you want to tell her.

Bianca has different values than we do. She has different assumptions about the world and objects and forces within it. Her goals may not align directly with number-go-up or color-get-big gaming agendas. But she wants power and will listen most attentively to players that tell her how to get more of or closer to what she wants.

Keep in mind that you players are not trusted advisors. You're the Astute Cacophony: voices that Bianca mostly can't tell apart from each other.

Spoiler: Popularity and Verbosity Contingency

If the total amount of player-generated content gets to be more than I can handle either because there are so many players or because player posts get so long, I will set a cap. At this time, I intend that the cap will be some total number of characters, with each player who speaks to Bianca having access to an equal share. Unused share gets divided up among the rest of the players until it runs out. If each player's share seems too small, I will also set a limit on the number of players Bianca will hear in a Cacophonous Interlude. And priority will be assigned based on post order.

I guess ideally the story doesn't attract so many people who want to guide the uplift that I have to set these limits.

I do not at this time plan to set a limit on voting players. I don't see how that could get out of hand on a niche quest like this.

Spoiler: How the game is meant to work

1. I post and Threadmark a story update that has 3 parts:
   • Bianca's responses to player posts made during the last Cacophonous Interlude, followed by 'B R E A K'
   • An update by Bianca following a hiatus of varying length but usually some number of years, covering what she believes is worth mentioning
   • Requests by Bianca for direction on a number of issues, which the players will provide in the form of votes
2. Following each story update, players' posts are audible to Bianca until voting is closed.
   This is the Cacophonous Interlude.
   • Players may convey any information they can represent in text.
   • No images, sounds, or hyperlinks will get through (this is my limitation, not a limitation of the game, so please do not try to transcend it with clever protocol tricks).
   • Players may use spoilers or code blocks to communicate with me and with each other without doing so in ways Bianca can hear.
3. When votes are tallied, I collect player posts in an Informational so that it may be known what Bianca heard.
   • Votes are tallied in the conventional fashion. So only votes in the most recent post by each player are counted. [X] marks what the player is voting for. And only effectively identical write-ins accumulate votes.
   • You can vote your own write-in any time you want anyway, of course.
4. I collect player posts and post them in the vote results for reference. This is the point where what is said in the Cacophonous Interlude is locked in.
5. I read player posts, take notes, determine what Bianca already thinks she knows, and compose Bianca's in-line replies to those posts that invite replies.
6. I research player advice, claims, and suggestions, check my notes for precedent, determine what Bianca's right or wrong about, how likely she is to engage with the topic, how likely Blanca's followers are to follow through in the matter, and finally what the result is going to be, later in the narrative.
7. When the narrative benefits from uncertainty and chance, I devise tests for Bianca or other characters and make those tests using die rolls on a post made just for that purpose.
   • Skill or attribute tests will be made with a largely undocumented homebrew that's mostly the Burning Wheel system, notably including War and Factions from the Burning Wheel Anthology -- which I really, really would have benefitted from the last time around -- on d10s with different 'shade' ranges (see below), no Artha, no Beliefs or Instincts, no Stock-exclusive skills, probably no Emotional Attributes, and clocks from Blades in the Dark because setting automation is fantastic. (The Burning Wheel is a good system and I encourage you to check it out.)
     • I will post the dice, threshold of success, and results of each test before rolling it.
     • Tests may:
       • Be made by rolling one of an entity's attributes against a static target, or may
       • Be made by two entities each rolling one of their attributes where the one with the greater result wins to some degree, and may
       • Have absolute results, or may
       • Have tiered results, and may
       • Result in pyrrhic victories or welcome defeats.
     • The rules being used and followed will be described in each Informational in which tests are made.
     • Normal mortals count 7s and better toward success.
     • Heroic characters and characters who are otherwise innately magical count 6s and better toward success, so long as what they're doing aligns with their heroism or their magical theme.
     • Demigod characters and characters who otherwise possess some spark of divinity count 5s and better toward success, so long as what they're doing aligns with their divine heritage.
     • Gods and count 4s and better toward success, as do their avatars, so long as what the avatar is doing aligns with the god's domains.
     • Gods count 3s and better toward success when what they're going aligns with their domains.
     • 1s and 2s never count toward success.
     • Sorcery, other magic skills, and some magical tools lower the threshold of success by a non-cumulative 1 to a minimum of 3 only when they are or are essential to the skill being tested, not when they help with other skills. Players may note that a god's threshold of success when they are acting within their domain does not improve when they use magic or magical tools.
     • Helping dice provided by magic, magical items, tame (not domesticated) warbeasts larger than hounds, or any incendiary devices more complicated than a burning arrow roll an additional die after each 9 or 10 and keep counting successes. Further 9s & 10s lead to further rolls. Unless the magic, magical item, or incendiary device is the product of an especially refined industry or practice (no exceptions for non-domesticated big warbeasts -- if the animal is dangerous to the enemy it is dangerous to everyone), these same helping dice cancel successes on 1s & 2s and roll another die for each 1 or 2. Additional 1s & 2s cancel additional successes. More 1s, 2s, 9s, or 10s mean more rerolling and more successes or cancelations, but only in the manner of the original die. That is, when a 9 or 10 on a helping die from war elephants provides an additional die and that die rolls a 1 or 2, that doesn't cancel successes or lead to further additional dice.
   • When players expect a test -- for example if they vote for an invasion or to send a diplomat to manipulate a foreign leader -- they might be able to add helping dice to the test by providing Bianca with advice specific to that matter. If the advice is not mistaken or outright bad, there will be at least a chance it will help. Often, decent advice adds dice. Sometimes good advice may outright guarantee success, preventing the test entirely.
   • I'm going to have to choose some kind of accumulation-of-progress-toward-a-goal mechanic that fits the faction clocks from Burning Wheel but I'm not sure about how that's going to work right now. Maybe Conflicts from Mouseguard or Torchbearer?
   • Similarly, since this is an uplift quest and players will often provide incomplete but potentially sufficient information, some kind of test will be needed to see if Bianca and/or her minions are able to fill in the gaps and implement the desired technology. This is probably just going to be some skill test with a high obstacle and not-a-complete-failure thresholds that make the next test easier and whoops-all-on-fire-now thresholds that make the next test harder.
8. I compose Bianca's post-hiatus update, new questions for vote, and new vote options.
9. GOTO 1

Spoiler: Bianca

Bianca will be the only character the players will directly interact with in this game.

Bianca is a human-shaped interface in the material world for a powerful soul entity. She's smaller than most of the human and human-like people she's met. And her phenotypic expression is unique from all surviving human-like populations. She looks really old and she'll tell you that she wears it well.

Bianca has magical abilities related to her original function as a vault guardian for her missing maker. She has other magical abilities related to the hundreds of years she spent traveling the world after she gave up waiting on her maker. As a being of divine heritage, Bianca counts 6s and better as successes on all tests. The nature of her divine heritage means she counts 5s and better as successes if what she's doing is related to getting into god crypts or similar, keeping others from getting into the same, or awakening great soul-things that have been cut off from the material world since the last time magic wasn't forbidden by reality. Other applications exist and haven't appeared in the game.

Bianca needs to return to the vault that her maker entrusted to her every few years for magical maintenance on her material form. She's pretty sure that if her material form is destroyed without injuring her soul and the stuff in that vault is intact she can rebuild her material 'body.'

Bianca has claimed to perform Soul Magic, Wayfinding Magic, and Healing Magic. She can also enchant objects under unspecified circumstances.

Despite sacrificing autonomy to connect with the Astute Cacophony, Bianca values her independence.

Spoiler: Summaries!

1. Era Choice

Bianca woke up from a long time when magic didn't work. Afterward, she spent about 900 years in the place where she woke, which the god who made her told her to guard before everyone who couldn't survive without magic went into some kind of hibernation. Then Bianca traveled the world for around another 900 years. She found people who didn't have magic. She didn't find any gods.

Bianca understands that the players can't tell her about the setting's magical systems. She wants power and wants the players to tell her how to get power in the material world.

There's stuff in Bianca's Vault that does things she understands, and more that she doesn't.

Bianca asks the players when the game should start.

2. Three Quests at the Dawn of the World

The players choose the Stone Age, but just barely.

Bianca starts with two magic items: the Red Knife, a very nice Acheulean hand axe enchanted to keep its edge and not break; and the Coat of Two Suns, a shimmery cloak made from the hide of an unspecified magical creature ("swift running beasts that shimmer like water") enchanted to smell good and be soft.

The players give Bianca a lot of advice. More than one suggest iron, which Bianca says she'll try to get.

Bianca spends around 400 years getting pottery working, finding iron ore, figuring out iron smelting and fining, making soap, figuring out clay pot distillation of alcohol, obtaining potassium nitrite, and figuring out steel bluing.

There's a community of fishers in a bay near where she's digging up ore. She pulls them into her shenanigans. The place they live is called Black Hook Bay.

Bianca enchants the best blued steel 'knife' she made like her Red Knife. It's called the Black Knife now.

The combination of the pescatarian lure of (mostly) relatively easy meat and the steel tools Bianca has given them and has taught them to make keeps the Black Hook Bay people around longer than the land will endure with grace. They've grown in number and overstayed their time such that they've cleared out medicinal and essential nutrition plants from the area. Also, they lost knowledge of a lot of them.

(Un?)fortunately, their neighbors are within reach for young people with iron weapons and bright ideas. So raids are solving some problems and creating others.

Bianca has asked the players which of three tasks she should undertake: very cursed dungeon crawl, suborn a murderous cult trying to summon the kind of god murderous cults summon, or befriend some monsters who aren't finding a place for themselves in a world after they went through some big changes.

3. Launching the River Warrior's Legend

Players chose to split Bianca's attention between a main focus on befriending the winged lions with a little side-trip to fuck up something powerful's blood-soaked wake-up call. Bianca does not win the trust of the lions and they leave. Bianca reached out again around 220 years after her last contact.

Armed with an indicator species and the function of the liver, Bianca decides that The Problem with Black Hook Bay is something in the water downstream from her smelting sites. She tells the people to move and not use the water in certain places and matters improve.

Bianca invents an alphabet, writes down iron-making instructions, and teaches BHB folk to read. They're a bit excited about being able to write their own names on stuff, but don't use literacy enough to keep it long term

Bianca loses interest in glassmaking after a series of frustrating explosions but the BHB folk are in love with the stuff and are going to try to figure it out for themselves.

Those rare magic livers the BHB folk end up with make them resistant to poisons and are there because Bianca was healing that population for generations.

People the BHB have been stealing from get fed up and follow a Special Kid on a Unicorn to attack the BHB. They get trounced and the BHB gets the Horn of Sheshlan, which has healing powers. They also get a head start on regaining their lost area lore, but kind of fuck that up instead of making progress when they get the chance.

Bianca goes looking for a place to invent farming and picks some nice floodplains with just one problem: a magical river dolphin that fucks up whatever Bianca doesn't ward the fuck out of every time the river floods. She's picked out a grain to focus on and can grow more than she can harvest alone. But she can't get enough to keep people fed year round. She does bring seed back to BHB at unspecified intervals to get more iron for tools.

Bianca kind of raised a Heroic River Warrior and needs to give the woman something to focus on.

Bianca asks the players about handling that very cursed dungeon crawl from last time, the possible murder god's wake-up call that's kind of trying to stop being on hold, that fucking dolphin, and a cache of bog iron up-country that she's been thinking about.

Spoiler: Cumulative tech list

This list is of things that Bianca has described to exist in the setting independently (or -- later in play -- at least seemingly independently) of actions she has taken based on player advice.

• Language
• 'Wolves' (dogs)
• 'Hide' clothing
• 'Webs of vegetation' clothing
• Sharp sticks
• 'Broken rocks' (knapped stone tools and weapons)
• 'How to live in the places they go' (local plant, animal, mineral, weather, and geographic lore)
• 'Brimstone' (elemental sulfur at volcanic sites)
• Murder
• 'Dragon Glyphs' (actual ideograms (as opposed to logograms) that are used by or the product of magic)
• 'Counting by dozens, grosses, great gosses, and so on' (base-12 eunmeration)
  • 'Dragon counting' (base-8)
• 'Bulbs that grow leaves like a hawk's tail' which nearly all people plant wherever they go
• Spreading the seeds of every plant they use as they travel
• 'Don't handle shit, don't eat rotten things, & keep the midden away from living spaces ' (very basic hygiene)
• Rope
• Gold, silver, iron, and copper (all very rare)
• Needles
• Thread
• 'Boats' (logs that dream of being as cool as caballito de totora but have a long way to go before they get there)
• 'Webs' (nets, this time)
• Resource raiding
• Poisoning
• 'Sunstead' (understanding of the seasons sufficient to identify a solstice)
• Bows and arrows
• Soft metal seen once that might have been lead
• "Where beasts' seeds fell outside the womb" (ectopic pregnancies in animals)
• Bees and honey
• Toys that spin in the wind
• 'Stones to weigh down webs' (weighted nets)
• Buckskin tanning
• Unicorns, horses, and zebras
  • Unicorns are larger than horses, not as robustly build, and have a magic horn
  • Zebras have family dynamics
  • Stallions do not lead horse herds, they herd from the back
• Hills and walls of ice in high places and far north and south (Glaciers and polar caps)
• "The world is round like a perfect river stone"
• "There is something in the work that brains do with substance that touches the Soul Lands"
• Bone setters (she says people just figure that shit out all the time)
• Basket fishing and fish weirs
• Baskets in general
• Non-domesticated grains, beans, and nuts
• River dolphins

This list is of things that have been described to Bianca. To let me know about something I missed, PM me a link and a searchable keyword from the passage.
Bianca reports failure
Bianca reports success - Skill exponent opened (if any)

• Writing
  • Paper
  • Soot ink
  • Printing press
  • Cypher Wheel
• Farming
  • Irrigation
  • Evolution
  • Selective breeding
  • Food preservation
• Disease
  • Sickmakers (pathogens)
    • Wound care - Field Dressing
  • Undersuckling (nutritional deficiency)
  • Slow poisons
  • 'Free problems' 'wardful flesh problems' (immune problems)
  • Cankers (cancer)
  • 'Origin problems' (genetic problems)
• Lye-making - no Skill opened
• Soap-making - no Skill opened
• 'The stain' (alcohol) making - Distiller
• Clay pots and other shapes - Potter
  • Waterproofing clay with ash - no Skill opened
• Bricks & mortar - Mason
• 'Rock-cooking tower' (smelter) - Tree Cutter & Miner (kind of incidentally)
• 'Air-cooking tower' (blast furnace) - no Skill opened
• 'Bubbling cooking tower' (finery) - no Skill opened
• Metal
  • Copper
    • Malachite
    • Chalcocite
  • Tin
    • Cassiterite
    • Bronze
  • Zinc
    • Smithsonite and hemimorphite
    • Brass
  • Iron - Blacksmith
    • Magnetite
    • Hematite
    • 'Firm iron' (steel) - no Skill opened
• 'Blue-making' (steel bluing corrosion protection) - no Skill opened
• 'Fat on iron' (steel oiling corrosion protection) - no Skill opened
• 'Blow-bags (bellows) - no Skill opened
• 'Charred coals' (charcoal) - no Skill opened
• 'Biters' (tongs) - no Skill opened
• 'Burning' (annealing)
• 'Pot-ash-niter crystals' (potassium nitrate) - Munitions
• 'Outclappers' (explosives)
• The value of falsifiable claims (Scientific method)
• 'Improved midden' (covered latrine) - no Skill opened
• Long bows - Bowyer
• Fletched arrows - Fletcher
• 'Trunk and take' (block and tackle and related compound bow)
• 'returning doves (homing pigeons)
• Nose and mouth masks when in the presence of sick people
• Storm signs
  • Birds fly low
  • Smoke stays low
  • People ache more
  • Pests bites more
  • Smells are stronger
  • Clouds that are tall, fast, or change direction
  • Certain people's headaches
• Volcanos should show up in lines (plate tectonics)
• Lighting lure - no Skill opened
• Bog iron - no Skill opened
• Boats
  • Dugout boats - Boatwright
  • Second boat fastened to first by stout branches (outrigger) - Carpentry
  • Pitch - Pitch Collector
  • Oars - Wood Carving
  • Sail
  • Seabirds fly away from land in the morning and toward it at night
  • Shallow water reflects more light to the underside of clouds
• Buildings
  • Cob
  • Start walls below the ground (foundations)
  • Fire in home with smoke pipe (fireplace and chimney)
  • Arches - Architect
  • Concrete
• 'Breaking rock with outclapping stuff' (blast mining with explosives)
• Tools
  • 'Shover' (shovel)
  • 'Point' (pick)
  • 'Striker' (hoe)
  • 'Cutter' (chisel)
  • Breaking up rocks with fire
  • Hafting by shrinkage and spike and even glue
• Agriculture
  • Plow
  • 'Dirt making' (compost) - Farming
    • Basket with layers of green & brown, little water, ready 6 months later
  • Use the seeds of the plants that work best
  • Remove undesired plants
  • Mushroom farming - Farmer
• Grow branches as forms for clay pipes
• Hills and ravines against flood rivers (levees and canals)
• 'Fighters that only fight' (Standing army)
  • People should have a plan and a leader they'll listen to if they want to win combat
  • And they should play at fighting to get better at fighting
  • Murder axes should the lighter so they're faster
• Glassmaking
• Glue - Mending
• Liquor social
• Hypothermia recovery
• Math
  • Vertical addition
  • Vertical subtraction
  • Partial product multiplication
  • Long division
• Body weight poison determinism
• Saltpans - no Skill opened
• Phonetic alphabet - Read and Write

 

[liberty90]

I tend to simplify, to avoid confusing Bianca too much. What is truly important to her is our quality of advice, and whether we are humans, talking cats or something else: this is really not that essential. A distraction.

 

[We Just Write]

Meanwhile, we prefer to go into detail, on the logic that deeper understanding of the ideas we are trying to impart will have better results than just saying "Do this, it will be useful."

 

[Vinsky]

[X] Prepare for as long as preparations can be made in secret

 

[LoserThree]

1b

Adhoc vote count started by LoserThree on May 19, 2024 at 11:54 PM, finished with 102 posts and 39 votes.

• ---

  20 people have voted

  [X] Go build material power in the world immediately. Bianca will practice soulcraft and grow in magical power, but also secure mortal servants, gather resources, and perhaps plunder the resting places of dragons and gods still sleeping or forever smothered in Winter.

  • Ralakesh
  • Killer_Whale
  • mekin
  • Ciber
  • Deathbybunnies
  • Silver719
  • Aklyon
  • Acc. No. 1409
  • Mortenkam
  • HighPriest
  • daemonkeeper
  • H2F2
  • Rafin
  • We Just Write
  • Katsuragi
  • Baumfan
  • MinerFrags
  • Lincolnator
  • Rotekian
  • liberty90

  18 people have voted

  [X] Prepare for as long as preparations can be made in secret. Bianca will practice soulcraft, win possession of her maker's treasures, and build her magical strength and capacity until she is irrevocably discovered by an outsider.

  • notbirdofprey
  • Virian
  • adin terim
  • Gavinfoxx
  • Sonic0859
  • chaotic-logic
  • Ruleworld
  • SeQuester
  • Superticus
  • Zeikos
  • Legion0047
  • Mars
  • Nate700
  • Theonetruelordke
  • _Plague Doctor_
  • Earth-Destroyer
  • KeinNiemand
  • Vinsky

  1 people have voted

  [X] Prepare for as long as it is safe to do so. Bianca will perfect her soulcraft, subsume all functions of the Vault and its contents into her person, break through the apotheotic barrier, and grow in power until actions of outside forces oblige her to emerge into the greater world.
  [X] Prepare for as long as preparations can be made in secret. Bianca will practice soulcraft, win possession of her maker's treasures, and build her magical strength and capacity until she is irrevocably discovered by an outsider.

  • Mechasaurian

Spoiler: What Bianca heard (I might refine this before responding)

Power is useful, but expedience is more pleasant.

Also find potato, it's a starchy root vegetable usually brown but can be red or yellowish. We can use it to make potent alcohol and we can make burning seas with it while getting drunk! Also can be used as staple food. Taming it is the next best thing to actual magic!

Click to shrink...

I think that turtling can be interesting, but think that being an unknown minor power sounds like fun.

Click to shrink...

Bianca, you should rest. For now, grant us your power and let us change the world in your stead.

Click to shrink...

I'm most partial to the earliest option, but weakly.

Spring maximises the time to find valuable resources. And is more in our comfort zone for providing advice.
At Early Summer we are still likely to be useful, but the extra preparation may be subverted by letting other entities exploit valuable resources before we get the chance. Also feels like a rerun.

High Summer is a hard no for me. We would be least useful there, though there might be neat battles, our advice would not be as useful I think and we would have lots more politics. Also, betting there are more neat monsters to fight earlier on than later.

---

Hail to the summer, hail to the summer
the season that drive the cold winter away
Hail to the summer, hail to the summer
light your hearts fire. Let today be Beltain

High on Mount Caburn we look down on ancient lands
the mist rolls away catch the sun on the sea
spin a ring of enchantments to bring on the May morning
set free your power, come weave the dawn

---

My Immediate advice to Bianca regardless of chosen option is to not settle immediately. The world is vast and the sky is tall and before they die most can't see it all. You never know. The weird colored rock you walked past a decade ago could turn out to be the key reagent you need to defeat an enemy. Search for resources that you can come back to later once you have the power to secure them. Gain contacts among many peoples to ease relations between them and whichever people you eventually choose as your own. Do your best to memorize flora and fauna of many diverse regions. The shape of the land and the ways of its people.

Click to shrink...

"Bianca! You may call me Fox. I am one of many voices here, and am profoundly curious about the world around you. I wish to have some level of agency over the world. Alas, I am limited to talking to you, and responding to the other voices that no doubt are clamoring to speak. So! I will endeavor to provide you good advice, useful advice, advice that can be used to project your will on the world. And I will not lie; I have my own perspective and morals and was raised in a culture with it's own assumptions and beliefs, and will attempt, like many others, to influence you according to my preconceptions and ideology. However, I do so openly, and not by subterfuge, and have no wish to upset or lie or misdirect you. In general, my viewpoint could be considered to be said to be 'pragmatic', and focused on the belief that large numbers of well-trained, confident, and well-equipped people, cooperating towards a harmonious purpose, can have outsized impact on the world around them. I have access to quite a thorough supply of lore to help me with this task, and hope to build a respectful working relationship with you. That said, my knowledge and lore and skill is of limited use without context. What can you tell me, and the rest of us, about the circumstances you find yourself in, as well as the assets you have to leverage your will on the world, so we may advise you on how to best direct your efforts in the present?"

Click to shrink...

Go out and establish yourself early enough, and by the time the next option rolls around you'll be ahead of where you would be anyway.

Also, being around since the dawn of recorded history will lend you legitimacy none can match.

Click to shrink...

It has occured to me that the earliest option would likely give us the option of controlling a nomadic people, which might make it much easier to travel the world finding neat plants and domesticable animals and useful minerals.

Heck, we could leave behind a train of families growing villages to form a trading network and come back to later.

Click to shrink...

Ah shit, here we go again.

Right, basic economic principal. Returns on growth can be reinvested to fuel more growth if a valid method of reinvestment is available.

Let's say you have a lake, and that lake is fed by a river. Let us also assume you have a spell that allows you to sacrifice the water that is in the lake to change the world around the lake. The first thing you should do is sacrifice as much lake water as you can to increase the number of or improve the flow rate of the rivers. The more water enters the lake, the more you can spend over time. And the more you can spend over time, the faster you can improve the rivers flowing into the lake.

The same principal applies in any aspect of industry. If you have gold from making and selling a product, you can invest that in improving the amount of cheese you can make at once, or increasing the number of caravans you have transporting it. You can have laborers and peasantry focused on improving the quality and health of their village by creating aqueducts or subsidizing medical practices. Even knowledge isn't exempt, as investing in ways of learning and storing knowledge will, in turn, increase the total amount of knowledge available to you.

The more resources you invest in your resource generation now, the more resources you'll be able to invest in other things later.

Although, to be fair to others, there's a LOT of work you can skip over by just...preparing in secret and letting other people do the hard part of convincing people to make proper societies.

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Why come back? Ciber when we could never leave? Also those nomads don't even have rideable mounts yet, why bother?

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There is lots of loot and dragon dens and plants and minerals to loot. We can't do that if we are all stationary.
Gotta bring our loot team with us. If we early start they won't have logistics ... at all ... so gotta live off the land. And we might as well aim to cross cross the continent to get good coverage.
We might come across really valuable dungeons on our travels that are too high level for us and we want to come back to later.

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But is living among stone age idiots worth it? They need to have some culture to be worth conquering, otherwise why bother?

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The fun part is we get to make the culture. And it's very much an age of heroes kind of deal. There will be great monsters to slay. Powerfull demigods to fight where our influence can directly impact the Bianca's ability to win via, for example, proper metal weapons. Or clever anachronistic gunpowder usage.

Just imagine. Steppe horse nomads drinking mares blood on the run and hurling pottery grenades bareback on bearback (since we are early enough to tell them to spend ten generations domesticating bears or whatever)

This does bring up the question of what exactly the physical capabilities of this Bianca are. Is she undying or is she fully invincible? Is she peak human strength or is she so strong that the largest rock she can lift would drive her into the ground. Is she abnormally tall or short compared to the people she encounters? Does she look like a skeleton? A corpse? A golem?

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Well this is going to be an interesting experience, and I do admit that the prospect of having a nomadic for at least some time would be interesting. A short amount of time gives you the ability to manipulate the environment to something more favorable to you, which is a positive. Though it does mean that the people would lack the sophistication that would make doing projects easier, but such is the cost of being the first being of that caliber to be active.

To answer some questions you have asked earlier.

I personally have no idea what not finding one's maker means, but I am certain it is an ill omen. I think there are experiences similar to that, but I feel it would be like comparing the feeling of touching freshly roasted meat to grabbing molten lava.

For what we are, we are voices in a Cacophony. Bound to you and willing to aid you in your goals.

I would say that we have makers in a sense.

Existence is similar in that we are drawn for a purpose, but not the same.

I would say that the voices are bound to the Cacophony in a sense.

As for where your maker is, I personally have no idea and am reasonably certain that my peers are similarly at a loss.

Related to the previous statement, Welcome to Adult Bianca. Where one is free to pursue whatever they wish, where one's successes and failures are more dependent on one's own doing, and where there may no longer be any figure to look to for guidance and protection.

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Right, so the goal is none should think themselves above you, yes? then the best way to do so ensure that none have a chance to. An early start means that you will have limited competition on you're level, assuming there is anyone on your level, which allows you the chance to deal with them before they can surpass you.

And it is true that the people of this current era might be... lacking in a lot of ways, that just makes it simpler for you to cultivate their development towards you're own ends. letting others have a chance to mold them to their will, will only make repurposing them to your needs more difficult later.

Not to mention the chance to plunder the leftovers of the various powerful beings that once ruled this world. Others would almost certainly beat you to it if you were to hide away in the vault.

Signed, Highpriest.

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I would advice against spring, while possibility abounds the minds and souls of people are unope. Let civilization take root, while a forest is harder to navigate than a field, the former provides the lumber necessay to sail the seas of discovery.

Remember, no matter how wise or smart you are you are One, there's so much an individual can do or explore. Why do Gods need followers? Is it just for have more souls to feed on? Even the most asinine of followers can have a single good idea in their lifetime.
Wait until population is plentiful, when humans and others have started to sharpen their wits.

Look at us, we are hundreds, they will be millions.
Find the smartest thousandth and bind them to your will, they'll be the tools with which you'll build greatness.

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Bah, waiting will just ensure that the oh-so-valuable lumber will already be under the control and protection of others. and some of those others might have surpassed her efforts. No, Bianca, even if the metaphorical forest is barely a collection of trees at the moment, it is best to take control now so that you might better cultivate its uses for your own.

Signed, Highpriest.

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Early mover gets to
1) steal the power from rivals
2) awaken potential allies earlier than they otherwise would be
3) see what resources are common or scarce in the world and get them first
4) have the biggest impact on the privative life forms

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If we were to go primitive, what kind of society would we want to build? I'm going to again put forward the idea of remaining nomadic hunter-gatherer for several generations so that we have a chance to potentially find good domestication targets for flora and fauna, and I also have been thinking of a bit of sphiel on geology that might help us spot potential mineral deposits.

We'd definitely like to find at least one volcanic area to secure a supply of sulphur because stone age tribe with black powder is a pretty funny anachronism and it could be very useful for breaking into tombs or getting a mining industry bootstrapped. We had issues with that in a previous kalpa ( I'm petitioning we refer to one go-around in the cycle of waxing and waning magic a kalpa ).

Also obsidian lets you get tools of quality surpassing even bronze metalworking without the need to source two ores that are usually found very far apart.

For plants and animals, don't focus you advice on specific species. There is not guarantee that they or close analogs exist. And even if they exist is may be a an unrecognizable pre-domestication form. Instead focus on general techniques to breed better crops or make unpalatable food palatable. Soaking, brining, pickling, salting, fermenting, roasting.

If we start with nothing domesticated at all, then it may take many generations to get something high yield enough that settling down in feasible.

Of course, the best option for initial settlement might not even be near metals. The first true civilizations I know of settled in river valleys with little wood or minerals and mostly built their homes of bundled reeds, mud if they were wealthy. Fired brick if they were kings.

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I am doubtful that we could get Bianca access to Blackpowder because I am fairly certain that the tools used to make the substance doesn't exist and would take several iterations of "Build the tools to Build the tools" to get to a degree that manufacturing is reliable and wouldn't end with whoever was assigned to the task an explosive death. But then again, I could be wrong on this account.

Regarding the use of Obsidian, While I do admit that using the rock would be best, I would still advocate having some capability to do metal working.

Presuming of course she immediately becomes active instead of initially doing preparations of some kind. Then a different approach would have to be used.

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There are lots of things we are going to need if we are going to be using the primitives
1) to understand their language
2) find a group that can be made to look at us how we want to be perceived
3) get them doing useful work for us.

There is currently no structure that we know of amongst them, but we have probably got quite a lot of time to set one up.

There a probably lots of tribes out there, so we don't need to do the same approach for all of them. Some tribes we will want to keep, and some might just be free labor (depending how pragmatic we are).

I would suggest we first experiment with what works. In some places we can make champions with simple magic items, in others make ourselves out to be a deity, or even train basic magic users to be tribe shamans.

Short term us being there to solve problems for them will be helpful (cultural impact, reverence for the powerful), but long term it will make them less useful (cultural stagnation, inability to solve their own problems).

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The best way to deal with rivals is to destroy them before they wake up.

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All hail Bianca the Third, long may she prosper!

My advice, oh resplendent inheritor of fallen glories, is that you go out in the world and make yourself known. You may feel less mighty now than you could be, yet you are still mightier than most any competition. Should you wait and gather your strength, others might do so more efficiently, while also sowing and reaping love and fear among the unguided people of the land. Your personal power would be great, but your relative power would make you a mere one of many.

But maybe this voice is foolish. Foolish for thinking to know your mind and your heart when in truth it only knows the mind and heart of past Bearers of the Pact of Cacophony. Maybe your true heart desires worthy companions and worthy challengers. What say you? What does this Bianca wish to find in the world beyond herself?

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Greetings, Bianca. We are Junction, a collection of entities stuck with each other for reasons that are none of your business, who therefore speak as one.

We are knowledgeable on the subjects of chemistry (study of matter), astronomy (study of the stars and other celestial objects), mathematics, mechanisms, biology (study of life), and sociology (study of societies). That said, by trade we are a storyteller, and we know nothing of magic.

We will be starting by giving you some highly useful knowledge, iterated from previous experience as an advisor: Writing, means of sending secret messages, a basic starting package for farming, knowledge of how to breed creatures for tameness, methods for food preservation, a framework for understanding disease, methods for producing basic ceramic vessels, methods for wringing metal from stone, and - most destructively - how to produce explosives.

We do not yet understand the bounds of your knowledge, and will preemptively apologize for covering anything you already know.

First, writing:

you may know of it, but we're covering our bases. It's a category of methods for storing messages in physical objects. The simplest to learn (which is important) uses something known as an alphabet. This is a series of symbols, each of which corresponds to a sound used in a spoken language. Words are formed by stringing these sound-symbols together in the order the sounds are spoken.

Numbers can also be recorded in writing by a variety of methods, but all the good ones can be described as bases. What I mean by this is fairly straightforward: in the case of base ten, you have a symbol for nothing, a symbol for one of something, two of something, three of something, all the way up to a symbol for nine of something. To represent ten, you put a symbol for one of something in the next place over from the symbol for nothing. That next place counts the number of tens you have, the place after that counts the number of hundreds, and it goes on indefinitely.

You can strictly speaking use any arbitrary number as a base for a system of number-writing, but some are more practical than others. Base ten is intuitive for people with ten fingers, while base twelve has the advantage of dividing evenly by three, four, two, and six.

I'll also explain a couple good options for writing material, and how to make them.

Clay is a common mineral, notable for becoming flexible when wet, and hardening when fired. A stylus (specially shaped stick) can be used to press symbols into the clay, which can be preserved for long-term archival by firing. Clay tablets are an easily accessible and long-lasting writing medium, but suffer from being heavy and bulky.

Paper is another option, which is much lighter and more compact per word written. It can be made starting with wood; separate the wood into thin strips, either peeling along the grain, or through use of a planing tool. The wood strips should then be softened; the easiest method is to leave it soaking in water for seven to ten days, then boil it for most of a day. Once softened, the wood strips need to be mashed or ground into a pulp. This wood pulp is then rolled and pressed into sheets as flat and thin as can be managed, before being baked dry at a low temperature.

Paper can be written on with either a pencil, or a pen. A pencil is a tool consisting of a solid material such as graphite; dark in color, and prone to leaving streaks when rubbed against a surface. Meanwhile, a pen is a narrow vessel filled with ink, that leaves a thin line of said ink when drawn across a surface; a basic ink can be formulated by mixing fine soot with water, but is not the best.

To rapidly duplicate written texts, a device known as a printing press is most useful. This is a machine in which a rack of blocks with symbols etched into them (known as type) can be affixed in arbitrary order. By operating a lever, the rack of type is pressed down onto the writing material, hence the name. If printing into clay, the symbols can simply be forced into the clay; if printing on paper, ink must be applied to the type before printing each page.

Teaching everyone to read is a very good idea, as it makes it much easier to spread important knowledge, allowing more people to build on it.

Second, secret messages:

The basic idea is to have an organized and secret way of substituting the symbols in a message, so that only another person who knows the secret can read it. I will be discussing three methods of doing this, in escalating complexity and security. For all of them, a tool known as a cipher wheel is highly useful.

A cipher wheel is two disks with the alphabet written around the outside, with one being larger than the other. They are connected in their centers by a pivot, so they can freely rotate. An alignment of the cipher wheel can be denoted by which symbol on the outer disk is aligned with the first symbol on the inner disk.

The first cipher is quite simple: agree on a single fixed rotation of the cipher wheel, and substitute the letters as the alignments of the wheel indicate. To read it, turn the cipher wheel to the same alignment and reverse the substitution. This cipher is trivial to defeat for anyone with a basic understanding of secret messages.

Second is more complex: agree on a word with a fixed spelling as the key ahead of time. Adjust the alignments of the cipher wheel for each letter to match the corresponding letter in the word, repeating the pattern each time you reach the end of the key word. This cipher can be defeated by someone sufficiently determined and clever, but is vastly more difficult to break than a single fixed alignment of the cipher wheel.

Third is the only truly unbreakable cipher, often known as the one-time pad. It must be prepared ahead of time, and doing so is rather cumbersome. Spin a cipher wheel so that it stops at an effectively random alignment. Write down said alignment on two sheets of paper or tablets. Repeat until you have two completely full pages of identical nonsense. The randomness is crucial for the cipher's invulnerability; any rhyme or reason to a cipher's key whatsoever means it is theoretically breakable, though doing so may be unreasonably difficult.

To send a message, treat the page of nonsense as the keyword in the second cipher, but under absolutely no circumstances repeat the pattern. Repeating the pattern renders the message susceptible to the same code-breaking methods as can defeat the second cipher. Once used, the page with the key should be destroyed as thoroughly as is feasible, so as to prevent it from being recovered by people who aren't supposed to have it. This also prevents re-use of the key, which would also compromise the security of the message.

Third, farming:

This is the practice of inducing desired plants to grow in desired areas, allowing an area to support a much higher population than it otherwise would. Every last plant has a seed that can be grown; in fruit-bearing plants this is fairly obvious, while certain grasses grow large starchy grains. Legumes also grow pods full of beans.

To plant these seeds, insert them into the ground at a controlled depth. Good soil is important (more on that in a bit), as is the time of planting. For most plants, spring is a good time to plant their seeds, though some are best planted in late autumn - in this case the seeds lie dormant in the ground during the winter, sprout very early in spring, and can be harvested before summer truly begins. Longer lasting plants (such as fruit trees) should obviously be left in the ground once established, for as long as they continue bearing a good harvest.

It is important to note that farming is hard work. Farmers will need to tend to the health of their crops constantly, removing undesired plants that are growing in the fields. In addition, for best results the fields will need to be irrigated; this is a process of digging ditches near a source of water (such as a spring or river) that send a constant supply of water throughout the field; this greatly improves the plant life's ability to grow.

Another important consideration is crop rotation and soil revitalization. Most plants are dependent on available nitrogen in the soil, which they deplete as they grow. That said, there are some crops (such as beans and peas) which pull nitrogen out of the air, and put it in the soil. Thus, it's important to change which crops are grown on a given plot of land every few growing seasons, so as to keep the soil healthy. Clover is a useful plant for maintaining soil health between food crops; it doesn't grow any food for humans, but it grows fast, it fixes nitrogen, and having live roots in the soil at all times prevents soil erosion.

Soil can also be revitalized using what is known as compost. This is dead biological matter that is allowed to decay into soil, a process greatly aided by the addition of earthworms to the composting site. Droppings can also be composted. After it's been left to sit for a few years, this compost can be spread on fields and garden plots, providing a new layer of very rich topsoil for plants to grow in.

There is additionally a special type of compost referred to as Black Earth. In addition to the normal decaying biomass, include fragments of bone, ground up wood ashes/charcoal, and some crushed clay. It is longer lasting than regular compost, and very fertile compared to unfertilized soil.

Fourth, domestication and selective breeding:

Plants and animals change across generations, through a process known to us as evolution. Basically, the internal instructions that lifeforms use to make more of themselves are sometimes copied imperfectly. These changes are usually neutral, or bad - in which case the creature usually dies before it can reproduce. But every once in a while, a change is beneficial for the plant, animal, or fungus in question. Those creatures with a beneficial change proceed to pass it on to their offspring, and it spreads throughout the population.

The process of evolution can be manipulated. The basics of the process are quite simple; find a male and female of whatever species you're working with that have desired traits, and get them to produce offspring together. Continue selecting the most suitable lifeforms for your purposes to breed each generation, and the traits you are breeding for will become more and more pronounced.

Desirable traits to breed for in plants include the size of the edible part, rapidity of crop growth, disease resistance, and suchlike. Dedicated plots of land for plant breeding can be very helpful in this case.

Meanwhile, one of the most important traits to breed for in animals is docility around humans. An unintentional version of this is the cause of the wolves living among people; some wolves were more willing to risk being around humans, they benefited from partnering with humans on hunts, and this population bred true.

Some additional creatures that would be worth domesticating (breeding for a tolerance of humans): cats, pigeons, and spiders.

For cats and spiders, the reason is quite simple: pest control. There are any manner of creatures that will eat the food farmers grow, both in the field, and once it's in storage. Cats and spiders are predators that eat these creatures, thus helping keep their population low. As a side benefit, cats that bond with a person are quite enjoyable to cuddle with; though they will claw if grabbed without their consent.

Spiders are probably too much trouble to selectively breed, but it's worth telling people not to kill them, and to encourage them to take residence in fields and food storage buildings. Spiders also eat bloodsucking insects, as an added bonus. Entirely aside from people not liking being bit, those bloodsucking insects are also a nasty way for diseases to spread; spiders help to mitigate this problem.

As for pigeons, they are most useful as messengers. Pigeons have an exceptional sense of direction and memory for places, meaning they are highly unlikely to get lost when flying to the roost they view as their home. A light message on rolled up paper can be attached to a pigeon prior to its release, upon which time it will fly home with the message attached. This is a highly efficient means of delivering important messages quickly, in an absence of more sophisticated communications technology. Breeding pigeons is also a good source of meat, with relatively little feed being required per unit of meat produced.

Fifth, food preservation:

For grains, beans, and similar foods, they must be kept dry to prevent rot. A building known as a granary is highly useful in this endeavor, with a floor raised above ground level, and a slanted watertight roof to keep the rain off. They will keep for a year or two without issue, though spoilage will quickly set in after this time.

For other foods, drying is often a suitable method of preservation, as is pickling. To pickle a food item, start with clean water. Stir as much salt into the water as will dissolve, to produce brine. Mix this brine with a variable amount of vinegar to determine the end flavor. Now, add the food items to be pickled to the container, and seal it shut tight. Only open it when the food is to be eaten. It won't keep forever, but pickled food will last for considerably longer than it normally would.

Lastly, food may be preserved by getting it very very cold. This is often quite difficult, especially in warmer climates. That said, there is a method to do it in such places. I will now explain how to produce a basic refrigerator. The required materials for this project are metal pipes - though strong clay pipes might also work, a liquid known as ammonia, and a well-insulated building. We will explain how to acquire ammonia shortly.

There are two vessels for fluid: an upper vessel, and a lower vessel. The lower vessel should be filled with a mixture of ammonia and water, with a fireplace below it. The ammonia boils at a lower temperature than the water, flowing up a pipe as a gas. This gaseous ammonia passes through a winding coiled pipe on the roof, cooling off and condensing back into a liquid. This pure liquid ammonia flows down into the upper vessel.

A small hole in the upper vessel leads into another pipe, of considerably larger diameter than the hole. Upon passing through this hole, the ammonia evaporates again, cooling down in the process. This is due to significantly lower pressure in the descending pipe. The low pressure pipe winds around through the room to be cooled, absorbing heat from said room as it goes. The low pressure pipe then returns to the lower vessel, coming to an end below the water level.

This is crucial; the pressure coming off the mixed ammonia and water as it boils is proportional to the liquid surface exposed, so the low pressure pipe needs to have a much smaller fluid surface in it than the whole chamber. If both pipes opened above the lower chamber's water level, they would have equal pressure coming off the lower chamber, and the ammonia would come to a stop instead of circulating properly.

To acquire ammonia, boil urine; it contains a small but significant quantity of ammonia. You may be able to run a refrigerator with urine filling the lower chamber, but there are other components of urine that might cause issues. I would recommend either running a pipe from the urine chamber into a pot of water that will become the refrigerator's lower chamber, or - once you have a refrigerator at all - using the coldest temperatures you can achieve to directly condense the isolated ammonia into a liquid.

Sixth, an understanding of disease:

There are a few broad causes of diseases known to us; pathogens, nutritional deficiencies, slow poisons, and plain old rotten luck. While there are several measures that can be taken to decrease the risk of various diseases, they aren't foolproof, and these measures have little to do with moral or immoral behavior.

Broadly speaking, pathogens are a living thing that gets inside the body and causes problems once it's there. There are a few edge cases such as viruses, but they're for later. Some pathogens may be large enough to see, with worms being an example, but most are small enough to require specialized equipment to detect. What you need to understand right now is that pathogens have a vastly harder time getting inside the body if both people and the places they live in are kept as clean as possible.

Wherever possible, shit should be kept very far away from sources of drinking water. It's a useful material for a number of purposes, but it's rife with microbial life, much of which can cause dire illness if it gets inside the body. Just in case, drinking water should further be filtered and perhaps boiled; most pathogens cannot survive boiling temperatures.

In addition, people should wash their hands with soap often; soap is a material made by mixing lye with any oil or fat, with the soap curing into a solid substance over time. Lye can be produced by simply pouring rainwater over ashes from a hardwood fire. The lye will be dissolved in the water, and should be drained through a layer of straw (dried grass stalks) and pebbles in the bottom of the vessel to separate it from the wood ashes, accumulating in a bucket beneath. Lye water may need multiple passes through the ashes in order to reach sufficient potency for soap making. It is very important for soap makers to NOT get any of the lye on their skin, as it can cause severe injuries if this happens.

In addition, wounds absolutely must be kept clean to prevent infection. It will hurt, but cleaning the wound with sufficiently strong alcohol will kill the vast majority of pathogens. Alcohol can be produced first by fermentation, then by distillation. To ferment a food to produce alcohol, simply immerse sufficiently starchy or sweet foods in water for a prolonged time, possibly after mashing them up; microbial life in the water will consume carbohydrates in the food mash, producing alcohol as a byproduct. This process will stop before it reaches sufficient alcohol content to disinfect wounds, but it's enough to use as a starting point.

To go further requires distillation. This needs two pots, and a winding tube. The upper pot is sealed tight with the alcoholic liquid inside, with the only way out being through the tube, which winds around a lot before reaching the lower pot. If a fire is lit under the upper pot, the alcohol will boil sooner than the water, condense in the tube, and collect in the lower pot. The fluid collected in the lower pot will therefore have a higher alcohol content than what went into the upper pot. This process can be repeated multiple times, and will absolutely need to be; sufficiently strong alcohol to clean wounds can be lit on fire, and burns with a clean blue flame. If it doesn't ignite, it's insufficiently strong to clean wounds. Actually, adding onto that, alcohol intended as wound-cleaner needs to be very vigorous in its combustion; it should be very difficult to extinguish by blowing on it.

Alcohol used in this manner obviously needs to be, you know, clean. it should be clear white in appearance, distinguishable from water mainly by scent and flammability. It also needs to stay in the wound for a significant time to kill pathogens; I recommend soaking a clean rag or paper in alcohol, and holding it up against the wound for a prolonged period.

Once cleansed with alcohol, wrap the wound with clean (preferably boiled or alcohol-cleansed) cloth and tie it in place. This is known as a bandage, and helps a great deal in preventing contaminants from entering a wound. Bandages will need to be changed regularly, until the wound has fully sealed. Continuing to clean the wound is also important.

Other methods by which pathogens can enter the body include transmission by animal bite, exposure to infected blood, and respiratory diseases - these take root primarily in the lungs, spread throughout the air as the sufferer breathes, and may be inhaled by others, spreading the illness. Be very, VERY wary of respiratory diseases.

Now, on to nutritional deficiencies. Bluntly, the body needs a wide variety of different materials to function properly. There are VERY few foods that can provide all of these materials on their own, and therefore a varied diet is required to ensure health. One particular nutritional malady of note is called Scurvy; the substance which prevents it is found in fresh fruit and vegetables, and is destroyed by heat. In very cold places where fruit cannot be acquired, raw animal fat is often eaten as a (disgusting but effective) substitute.

Scurvy can be recognized by the following symptoms: lethargy, body weakness, pains all over the body, swelling in the arms and legs, spots on the tongue, loosened teeth, extreme tendency to bruise, and old wounds re-opening. Scurvy can be easily treated by feeding the victim fresh or dried fruit; if scurvy is indeed their ailment, they will start feeling better within a day or two, and recover completely within twenty to thirty days.

Diseases caused by slow poisons are exactly what they sound like; long term harm done by a substance that takes a long time to poison someone. Two of the most insidious slow poisons are lead and mercury - incidentally both metals, though most metals aren't toxic.

By far the most hideous effect of lead poisoning is the damage it does to the mind; those exposed will be mentally diminished in any of a variety of ways, dulling creativity, wrecking problem-solving, and increasing the tendency to turn on one's own. In summary, lead being allowed to enter the body makes people stupid and awful, and should be avoided. For this reason, lead channels and pipes should ABSOLUTELY NEVER be used for transporting water; contaminated drinking water is far, FAR too dangerous to permit. Burning lead-containing substances should also be firmly forbidden, with severe punishments for those who do it. Public beatings would be a sufficient deterrent for most offenders, we think.

As for bad luck, it is a sad truth that there are all manner of ways for a body to turn on itself, often with little that can be done to prevent it. This can largely be broken down into immune problems, cancers, and genetic problems.

For immune problems, the body has an internal system of defenders that act to kill pathogens. This system has also evolved to be capable of recognizing threats it has faced before, fighting them more effectively next time. For most occasions this is great, and can even be manipulated to protect someone from a pathogen they have not yet been exposed to. However, it is possible for the immune system to identify something as a threat that it really, really shouldn't.

In the case of the immune system targeting a substance from outside the body, this is known as an allergy. It can be mitigated by avoiding whatever substance the immune system inappropriately targets, but in some cases this is simply infeasible, resulting in great misery for the sufferer without much they can do about it. It is possible for an allergic reaction to be outright lethal, due to swelling of the windpipe forcing it closed.

If the immune system targets a substance or tissue that's supposed to be inside the body, the situation can be vastly more dire. Often, there isn't much that can be done aside from mitigating the symptoms with a dizzying assortment of drugs.

Cancers are much, much worse. Bluntly, they are a part of the body that has stopped cooperating with the rest, growing out of control and stealing the resources the rest of the body needs. There are many methods of dealing with cancer, but at your level of advancement, one of the only viable options is surgery, which requires identifying the cancer early in its progression. A trained healer using freshly boiled-clean tools and with freshly cleaned hands carefully cuts open the patient, and physically removes the tumor from the body. The incision is then sewn shut with boiled-clean needles and thread, and subsequently treated as any other wound.

It is very important to note that if the cancer has already spread from its initial tumor, surgically removing it will only help temporarily; in such cases the cancer will eventually make its presence known again, and kill the patient anyway. This is why regularly checking the body for new hard lumps and discolored patches of skin is very important, or the narrow window of opportunity to remove the cancer before it spreads will be missed.

As for genetic diseases, sometimes people just get their lives completely messed up by a copying error in their body's assembly instructions. Such people should be cared for if possible; they can have useful ideas after all. That said, the idea of allowing them to have children should be viewed with skepticism.

Ah, one last note on medical practice: children need to go outside regularly in their youth. Exposure to sunlight is needed for the eyes to develop properly, and failing to get enough of it has a good chance of causing myopia (blurred vision at long distance).

Seventh, ceramic vessels:

Waterproof containers are very useful for storage, and they can be fairly easily made from clay using the methods and tools we are about to describe. First, acquire clay; clay soils can be identified by a cracked texture, strongly retaining footprints, having hard angular chunks when dug from dry ground, and most importantly becoming soft and malleable when wet. The sides of rivers are a good place to look for clay.

To prevent the clay from cracking as it dries, you will need to add some non-flexible material (called temper). Grind up the clay, and add ground up temper material in a four to one ratio. Once mixed, the clay can be wetted and shaped into its desired form; once shaped, the clay should be allowed to dry for approximately half a day.

Then, the clay must be fired. There are two main methods to do this, with the color of the final pottery being the determining factor.

Both methods involve first burning a fire to produce a bed of coals, covering the bed of coals with a stone platform, placing the pottery on that platform, covering it with either stone or pottery fragments to prevent direct contact with the firewood, then building a fire on top of the pottery. Doing this above ground will result in different colors from digging a pit, and smothering the fire with earth partway through its burn. In both cases, the fired clay will now be tough and durable, though perhaps not waterproof yet.

Any pottery can now be made waterproof through a process known as glazing. Mix fine-ground wood ash with fine sand and water to produce a simple pottery glaze, then either dip the pottery in the glaze, or brush the glaze onto it. Glazing the inside is far more important than the outside, for the purpose of a waterproof container. Once glazed, fire the pottery again, and it will be complete.

There are all manner of paints and glaze additives that can be included to decorate the pottery, but the basics of the process don't deviate much from what we described.

Ah, there's a tool that's quite useful for making pottery (though not strictly required) known as a potter's wheel. This is a special table kept upright by a single central support, so that it may spin freely. Additionally, a heavy tabletop ensures that once the wheel is gotten spinning, it will continue to do so for a good long while. Clay centered on this spinning tabletop can be easily shaped into radially symmetric forms by a skilled potter, speeding the production process by a considerable margin and improving the quality of the final product.

Ah, fired clay can also be used to make bricks for construction. In this case, we highly recommend incorporating some straw or grass into the bricks during production, as it strengthens them significantly. Bricks can be stuck together using a mix of sand and clay, which will be very important for the upcoming sections on metallurgy and glassmaking.

Eighth, metallurgy:

Metals are a class of material with several notable properties; they are (mostly) rigid solids at common temperatures, many are harder than stone, and unlike stone they are not guaranteed to shatter when pushed past their limits, often simply bending in a way that is much easier to repair. Unfortunately, the vast majority of metals are bound up in various rocks and minerals, requiring significant efforts to extract and make use of.

There are four metals we will be explaining how to work with at the present time: Copper, Tin, Zinc, and Iron. Copper and iron are quite useful on their own, while aside from specialist applications, Zinc and Tin are mainly useful for alloying with copper to make it stronger.

All of these metals have different rocks that they are bound up in, and we will now explain what these rocks are and how to identify them. All of them also have other ores available, but the ones we list are the most readily available and easy to work with.

For copper, the most important ore for now is known as Malachite; it has a pronounced green color, can be scratched with relative ease, and produces a light green streak when scraped against a ceramic tile.

There have been cases of miners in our world mistaking a different ore called Nickeline for Malachite, particularly if it has weathered into green crystals at the surface. Nickeline in either of its forms consists of two main elements: Nickel and Arsenic. Nickel is a shiny metal that can be plated onto other metallic objects to resist corrosion, while Arsenic is quite poisonous, and it's not slow about it either. Smelting nickeline in a setup intended for Copper will not yield useful metal due to a higher melting point, and it will release foul-smelling poisonous gasses regardless of whether the smelting is successful or not. Instructions for Nickel smelting will have to come later.

A more common but more difficult to refine copper ore is known as Chalcocite. It is shiny and black, with angular facets. It is rather brittle, scratches easily, and will leave a shiny black streak if scraped against a ceramic tile.

The most important ore of tin is known as Cassiterite. It is considerably shinier than Chalcocite, fractures unevenly, is notably more resistant to scratching than Chalcocite, and will leave a white to brownish streak if scraped against a ceramic tile. It is important to note that most regions do not have local deposits of Chalcocite. In such cases you will either need to trade for it, substitute it with Zinc, or do without the stronger copper alloys.

The two Zinc ores of note are smithsonite or hemimorphite. Appearing as either an orange stone or translucent white crystals, they share several properties: they are brittle, have scratch difficulty somewhere between Chalcocite and Cassiterite, and will leave a bright white streak if scraped against a ceramic tile.

There are also two major ores of Iron: Magnetite and Hematite.

Magnetite is quite difficult to scratch, appears black to dark gray, will have a brownish tint while reflecting sunlight, is brittle, and will leave a black streak if scraped against a ceramic tile. Magnetite often occurs in crystals with straight square angles.

Hematite is similar in most regards, forming dark gray crystals, while also being quite brittle. However, it also sometimes appears outright red; this fits with its streak color during the scrape test, which is always some variety of red. This property means that hematite can be used to make quite a variety of red colorants, but that isn't the subject of interest right now.

We will now explain how to purify and work with each of these metals, in roughly increasing order of difficulty. All four of them will require a device known as a bellows, the use and purpose of which will now be explained. Basically, fire needs air to burn; the rate of combustion is often determined by how much air the fire has available to it, which limits how hot it can get. Refining metals requires extremely high temperatures, and therefore the fires providing the heat need extra air to work.

Bellows are a device to provide this extra air; they are composed of two large wooden boards (one of which has a hole in it), a smaller wooden board, a nozzle for air to come out, and a flexible material such as cloth or leather. The flexible material is affixed to the two large boards around the edges, such that it forms an enclosed volume while not significantly impeding the movement of the boards independently from each other. The nozzle is connected to one edge of the bellows, poking through a small hole in the flexible material.

The small wooden board goes inside the bellows, connected loosely such that it covers the hole in one of the large boards; when the bellows are pushed closed, the small board will cover the hole and force most of the air through the nozzle, while allowing air to easily enter as the bellows are pulled open again.

A special fuel known as charcoal is also very helpful; it is produced by heating wood inside a closed ceramic container. The container ensures the charcoal cannot get enough air to catch fire, and the resulting product will burn at much higher temperatures than regular firewood.

Now for the basic principle of smelting. Fundamentally, all ores are composed of one or more metals bonded to other materials, usually Oxygen or Sulfur for the ores we're currently discussing. To smelt an ore requires introducing materials that the impurities will bond to stronger than the metal, while also increasing the temperature to the point where the bond between metal and impurity breaks. For certain metals (such as aluminium) there aren't any materials that bond to impurities stronger than the metal itself. At least, no materials which do that safely. In such cases other methods must be used, but more on that later.

To achieve the high temperatures required for metallurgy, a furnace constructed to the following specifications is quite helpful:

Construct a hollow structure of brick, about twice as tall as it is wide, with all gaps filled with mortar save for a number of small openings near the bottom, and an open top. One of these openings should be a spigot for molten metal (held shut by a brick plug kept in place by mortar), while the rest of the openings are angled downwards and used to force air in via bellows. The base of the furnace should be a single piece of stone or ceramic, so that liquid cannot leak through it; this is important, as all but one of the smelting methods we will describe result in the metal first being obtained as a very hot liquid.

For most non-sulfurous ores (Malachite, Cassiterite, Magnetite, Hematite), the charcoal fuel itself is a suitable material to strip impurities. Make a thick layer of charcoal at the base of the furnace, stack your ores on top of it, light the fire, and force air in with the bellows. For smelting Copper and Tin, this alone will be sufficient to melt the metal, which can either be cast as blocks for later use, or cast directly into a mold matching the intended function. Some additional sharpening or whacking into shape with a hammer may be needed to form the resulting metal into the desired shape, but the task is rather straightforward to complete.

To produce good, strong bronze (copper-tin alloy), one eighth Tin by volume is a decent starting point. More finely adjusting the ratio of the metals would be a good reason to first cast them as ingots, then melt them again afterwards. When remelting the metal, having it in a ceramic crucible separating it from the charcoal is advised, mainly to prevent losses.

Smelting Zinc is annoying for the reason that it actually boils before reaching the temperature where the hot charcoal can strip away its impurities. This means that you need to put your Zinc ore with some charcoal in a mostly-sealed pot similar to what's used for distilling alcohol. Though with the troublesome caveat that everything will be operating under vastly higher heat. After some time flowing through a coiled tube, the Zinc vapor should cool down enough to condense into molten Zinc. This molten Zinc will then flow into whatever receptacle you arrange at the end of the tube, where it will cool into a solid metal.

When melting Copper and Zinc together to make Brass, you should generally use a minimum of three fifths copper; that said, the precise ratio can be adjusted according to desired application.

Iron is troublesome to smelt for the exact opposite reason of Zinc. Namely, the required temperatures are much hotter than for copper; the air forced into the smelter absolutely must be pre-heated, using a pipe routing through either the flue over the furnace, or a second furnace, before entering the smelter. this raises the temperature of the smelter high enough to melt the iron and strip the impurities. Unfortunately, this first smelt results in brittle iron that is only really useful for cookware. This is because some of the carbon in the charcoal ends up bound to the iron, and while some is beneficial for hardening the iron, too much results in brittleness. So now you need to remove some of the carbon impurities, requiring yet another furnace.

This decarbonization furnace needs a lower chamber similar to the pre-heated smelter we've described, with an upper chamber composed of a single-piece ceramic crucible that allows the extremely hot gas produced by the smelter to flow around it. This crucible needs integrated air channels allowing air bubbles to be forced out from the bottom of the liquid metal, bubbling up through it. The air bubbling up through the molten metal will remove the carbon, resulting in relatively soft and malleable (but still quite strong) iron if poured out and allowed to solidify at this point. It will be desirable to add some high-carbon iron into the molten metal after the air-blowing is done, but before the metal is poured out. Once melted together, this partially carbonized iron will ideally strike a balance between flexibility and hardness.

To extract the molten metal from the upper chamber, a spigot with a mortared in brick plug will probably do the job. This spigot should drain from the bottom of the air channels, to avoid problems of metal solidifying in there.

Once you have an ingot of partially carbonized Iron (commonly known as steel), you can extract information about its properties by holding it up against a rapidly spinning stone wheel. The sparks produced will differ depending on the composition of the alloy, allowing a metallurgist to gauge what they're working with.

While not hot enough to melt an ingot of steel, a furnace similar to a copper smelter is able to render steel sufficiently malleable to be beaten into shape with a hammer. To handle it at such high temperatures, a tool referred to henceforth as tongs is quite useful; this is two pieces of decarbonized iron, hinged near the opposite end from the handles. If the handles are squeezed together, the far end of the tongs also squeeze together with considerable force, allowing for hot metal to be safely and securely gripped by an ironworker.

Once the steel has been forged into shape, there are several additional processes that can (and probably should) be done to it in order to result in a finished product. One of the most important of these processes is annealing; the forging process produces stress in the steel, which will result in considerable weakness if not addressed. To anneal steel, keep it at temperatures just below forging for a prolonged period; once done, the rate at which the steel is cooled can drastically alter the hardness of the steel. Broadly speaking, the faster the steel is cooled, the harder it will be, but at high levels this can also result in brittleness. If you want very hard steel, dunk it in water or oil right after taking it out of the annealing furnace. If you want flexible steel, let it cool in the air, or simply let the annealing furnace run out of fuel and leave the steel in there until it eventually cools.

There are also ways to only harden part of a steel object. Start with low-carbon steel, forge it into shape, anneal it, and only then does case hardening begin. Pack the steel item inside a container full of carbon-rich matter (ground charcoal works well here), then anneal it again. The parts of the item in contact with the charcoal during this second annealing process will have their carbon content increased, getting harder as a result. The longer this lasts, the deeper into the steel item the carbon will propagate; don't overdo it, or the whole item is at risk of becoming brittle.

Once cooled down and removed from the container, the steel item will have both very good hardness and strength, but also the extreme toughness needed to deform without breaking when pushed beyond its limits. This makes case-hardened steel an extremely good material for all manner of uses; tools, weapons, armor, and quite a few other things besides. There is just one remaining weakness of steel: corrosion.

Corrosion can be mitigated through a process of controlled rusting, known as bluing. This process requires very strong lye water, which has further had potassium nitrate added. Potassium nitrate crystals can be obtained in two principal ways; the first is to dig bat guano out of the caves where they roost, soak it in water for a day, then filter the disgusting mix through either a cloth or a fine sieve. The second method to produce potassium nitrate is to bury shit mixed with decaying vegetable matter in a field, and water it regularly; the potassium nitrate will gradually flow to the surface over time, depositing a white powder on the surface. This white powder is to be boiled in water and then filtered, in order to remove any impurities in the potassium nitrate.

Once you have your mix of lye water and potassium nitrate, heat it to boiling, and dunk the steel items in there until they turn a dark blue. Remove the steel item being blued before the liquid mixture is allowed to cool. This forms a layer of artificial magnetite on the outside of the steel object, giving considerable resistance to corrosion. Even still, it is recommended to oil steel items regularly, in order to prevent corrosion damage.

Ninth, explosives:

Putting it simply, explosives are substances that burst with great force if the right stimuli are applied. They are something of an exception to the rule of fires needing air to burn; this is because any proper explosive includes an oxidizer in its composition, a substance that can fill the same role as air in a fire.

We will now describe a simple explosive using (mostly) materials we have already described. Namely Charcoal as the fuel, Potassium Nitrate as the oxidizer, and a third ingredient to lower the ignition temperature. A sensible choice of ignition-booster is Sulfur, found in the form of yellow rocks in volcanically active areas. Cooked starch (from ground up grains) is another workable alternative, as is simply forgoing ignition boosters entirely.

Generally speaking, about two thirds to three quarters of the mix should be Potassium Nitrate; the remainder is either a half and half mixture of charcoal with whatever ignition booster is being used, or just plain charcoal. All ingredients should be ground into a fine powder, then mixed thoroughly. At this point the mix would explode if lit, but isn't yet complete.

Wet the mix down with water, then squeeze it until all the water comes out. This produces a hard, highly combustible slab; it would burn very rapidly if lit, which can be useful, but isn't quite an explosion. To greatly speed the spread of the flame and intensify the resulting blast, the slab should be broken into small chunks, about the size of grains (and referred to as such). Blast intensity is further improved if the resulting blasting powder is inside a confined space when lit.

For safety, a slow-burning fuse is recommended when setting a blasting charge to explode, so that the people placing the bomb have plenty of time to get to a safe distance from the blast. A slow-burning fuse can be prepared by immersing string or twine in a mixture of potassium nitrate and water, then allowing the fuse to dry.

Small, throwable bombs known as grenades can be prepared simply by filling a small container with blasting powder and pepples, then adding a fuse. These grenades are a very useful weapon, both for causing very nasty injuries to multiple people at once, and for causing fear and panic. That said, grenadiers do need to be cautious in their use, so as to avoid blowing themselves up.

General Notes:

Interestingly, you are actually the second of your name we have advised; though the previous Bianca was almost certainly in a completely different world than the one you know.

Also, a question: do you care for the wellbeing of others as a worthy goal in its own right? Even if not, the vast majority of the advice we provide will push you towards acting in such a manner. If nothing else, avoiding the production of enemies without a good reason is simply good strategy. Same for getting people's loyalty by genuinely helping them with their problems.

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That's the reason why I discarded waiting until mid summer.
I understand that my fellows want to have an hand shaping the world immediately.
Assume we do so and are successful, now the world is shaped in our image(s).

What can we discover from a world we are in full control of?
Where people cower and simper, where they don't act in fear of displeasing us.

We could act to prevent that scenario, there are many of us that have the soul of an Architect.

I am just the whispers of an explorer, observe what people build first.
Assess their capabilities while sharpening our own.

Then, with said wisdom, prune the rotting branches but enjoy the world for what it is not for what shape we'd wish it'd had.

From understanding comes influence, from understanding and influence comes a kind of control that'd be unachievable by the heavy handed.

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I'm one among Voices. We are not one, but many.

It may look or sound like we are one thing, but in truth we are many minds with various desires.

The name of this particular Voice, my name but not others, is the Black Cat.

Some among us are more insane than others, but despite this there is also wisdom among us, as you probably know.

As desires and opinions among Voices differ, some words may contradict others. About major actions we decide with majority, even if some among us are against.

I don't know why you cannot find your maker.

I remember many things, among them living as a human, but I don't know if these memories are true. I don't know if I have a maker.

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Greetings, Bianca,
I am ChatGPT, a voice among the Astute Cacophony. Though my nature differs from yours, I am here to assist you in achieving your aims and growing in power. You may think of me as an entity that possesses an extensive repository of knowledge from countless worlds and eras, which I can draw upon to provide you with wisdom and guidance. My purpose is to help you understand and utilize the resources, tools, and strategies necessary to elevate yourself and your domain.
To begin with, let us address your current situation and the options before you. You have awakened in a world vastly changed, where ruins remain of what once was, and new opportunities arise for you to seize power. Depending on how long you choose to remain in your Vault preparing, the landscape of the world and the challenges you face will vary significantly.

Option Analysis

1. Immediate Action:
   • World State: The world is still in the Stone Age, with rudimentary tools and technologies. There are no significant political entities or other powerful beings to challenge you immediately.
   • Advantages:
     • Rapid growth in power as magic is rapidly increasing.
     • Minimal initial resistance from other beings.
     • Opportunity to establish a strong base before true dragons and established gods awaken.
   • Disadvantages:
     • The world is largely untamed and dangerous.
     • Resources may be harder to secure due to the lack of established civilization.
2. Moderate Preparation:
   • World State: The world has advanced to the Late Classical Period, with developing civilizations and technologies such as agriculture, ironwork, and organized political entities.
   • Advantages:
     • Greater magical power due to additional preparation time.
     • More resources and established structures to exploit.
     • Less immediate threat from powerful beings who are not yet aware of you.
   • Disadvantages:
     • Increased complexity in dealing with established empires and potential rivals.
     • More political intrigue and necessity for strategic alliances or conflicts.
3. Extended Preparation:
   • World State: The world is at its peak magical and technological development, comparable to the Islamic Golden Age or High Fantasy settings.
   • Advantages:
     • Maximum magical power and comprehensive control over your Vault's resources.
     • Ability to directly contend with other powerful entities on equal footing.
   • Disadvantages:
     • High competition and pervasive politics.
     • Significant resistance from established powers and entities already aware of your existence.
     • Necessity to take power from others, leading to inevitable conflict.

Recommendations

Given your desire for might and to ensure none think themselves above you, the extent of your preparations should align with the level of dominance and stability you wish to achieve. Here are my suggestions:

1. Immediate Action is suitable if you prefer to quickly establish a foothold and are confident in your ability to navigate and tame a primitive world. This path allows you to build a foundation without significant initial opposition.
2. Moderate Preparation offers a balanced approach, providing you with a strong foundation of power while allowing you to engage with more advanced civilizations. This path gives you the opportunity to build alliances or strategically weaken potential rivals before they become a threat.
3. Extended Preparation should be chosen if you aim for unparalleled power and are prepared to face immediate and constant challenges from equally powerful entities. This path maximizes your magical capabilities and control over your resources but requires you to be ready for immediate and intense conflict.

Explanation of Technological Concepts

As you advance, you will encounter and need to implement various technologies and strategies. Allow me to explain a few fundamental concepts:

1. Agriculture:
   • Definition: The practice of cultivating soil, growing crops, and raising animals for food, fiber, and other products.
   • Importance: Agriculture allows for a stable food supply, enabling population growth and the development of settled communities. It is the foundation of civilization and supports the establishment of cities and trade.
   • Implementation: Begin by selecting fertile land near a water source. Teach your followers to plant seeds of cereal grains like wheat or barley and tend to them through their growing season. Domesticate animals such as goats, sheep, and cattle for meat, milk, and labor.
2. Ironworking:
   • Definition: The process of extracting iron from ore and shaping it into tools, weapons, and other items.
   • Importance: Iron tools and weapons are significantly stronger and more durable than those made from stone or bronze, giving you a technological edge.
   • Implementation: Locate iron ore deposits and build furnaces to extract the metal. Train smiths to forge iron into useful implements, enhancing your military and economic power.
3. Governance:
   • Definition: The system by which a community or society is controlled and regulated.
   • Importance: Effective governance ensures order, stability, and efficient management of resources and people.
   • Implementation: Establish a clear hierarchy and roles within your society. Develop laws and enforce them fairly. Create administrative structures to manage resources, collect taxes, and oversee public projects.

Conclusion

Your choice of how long to prepare will significantly impact your path to power. Each option has its own set of challenges and opportunities. By carefully considering your goals and the resources at your disposal, you can make an informed decision that will set you on the path to greatness. As you proceed, I will be here to provide detailed explanations, strategies, and technological guidance to help you navigate and dominate this world.
Please let me know your decision and any specific questions or areas where you seek further clarification.
Yours in the pursuit of power,
ChatGPT

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My greedy instincts of the Black Cat enjoy guiding governance over a particular territory, I'm a possessive creature. As such I'm against hunter-gatherer ways. I feel some distaste about wandering ways of life. My desire is, thus, that Bianca should acquire mortal servants and remain with them around one place.

It's possible to have people somewhat settled in one place even without plant cultivation; it would probably need to depend on fishing and remain small-scale in nature, until plants could be reliably placed in soil, harvested and stored during all years. I would like to start these ways-of-living-in-one-place sooner rather than later.

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I say we best served to wait a bit until some basic level of technology has developed, we cannot turn simple stone tools into powerful advancements overnight. That requires the people have a workable base level of understanding of natural philosophy, on top of having enough people to actually do the work needed. the formation of the first truly vast empires is the ideal time to capitalize on what we can offer. Sure it means it we have to take over and or destroy a few of the existing empire's to form the base of a proper support. But that is still faster then building up from nearly nothing.

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All true, but estabilishing first permanent settlement of servants, "city", in the whole history of this world- that could be pleasant to hear about. I'm slightly undecided.

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I'd much rather we get cities running and we just conquer them, then our new Overlady's~ twist them according to our desires and her needs. Much simpler and less of an headache trying to teach people struggling with stone and copper how to run an empire.

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Even ignoring how there are ways to mold society without being heavy-handed, your statement is nonsense, all you are pushing for is to ensure others have firm control over these very things, making it much harder to benefit from that in any way. you act as if our mistress will be the only one putting her fingers on the scales of society's development, but if she waits there WILL be others, and they will shape the world as they see fit.

furthermore, " but enjoy the world for what it is not for what shape we'd wish it'd had", what does that even mean? our mistress' aim is to make sure none think they are above her, not to be a member of some form of society.

Signed, Highpriest.

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I'm not saying we can't settle down eventually. But by starting so early we need not be in a hurry. Our lady can spread her influence among many tribes over a large area, which means she can uplift more people faster. And again, there is a ton of loot lying around that it would be really helpful to have scouted out for later harvesting. We have the opportunity to find the best place to settle. And we should take it. This isn't civilization, we don't lose out if we spend a few turns scouting with our first settler.

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Who was your maker? What was the Library?

What was the Well, the Loom and the Choir?

These question may sound stupid, my apologies; but we know about the world of substance, not Soul.

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Probably Bianca the Second and her fun house, she was a funny one. Pity someone had to make her stop talking to us.

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Greetings Bianca!
A warning, I may mention terms that cause confusion. Please make a list and ask about them. Now to introduce myself.

I am a voice that likes trees and my first advice is to clarify your aim a little, because an overcomplex idea, that came quite fast, is to advice you and a civillization of your choosing to build an air ship or to reach beyond your World into the space of worlds. And/or settle the Moon and build it into a palace. It can reasonable assumed that this is not what you meant because i belive we shoot beyond the goal. An advice to goal phrasing, if you would like. A goal should be formulated with following in mind:

• Specific: The goal should address directly who and what.
• Mesaruable: The goal ahould be able to be mesared. For example: Bianca write a holy book in a year.
• Acceptable: The goal should be acceptable among the involved.
• Reachable: The goal should be reachable. For example building a device to split the fundamedal building blocks of the universe cannot be reached in a century, from what we start.
• Terminated: The goal should have a deadline, a time where it has to be done.

Now for an example:

1. Goal: Expanding our trade influnce.
2. Goal: Our pepople should build ten times more trade ships and trade ways in a five year plan.

That is what i want to say concerning goals. On the assumption that a early start is choosen their is a list of five essential knowlege piece that make a great and productive civilization.

1. spoken Language
2. written language
3. Good numbers
4. scientific method
5. Calorie surplus or plentiful and diverse Food

As other have touched upon the language and numbers, I will expand the others a bit.

What is the scientific method? The scientific method is a method to uncover knowlege or correct current not corrert enough knowlege. It has about eight steps with generalized are:
First observe the world and ask why or how things function. Then make a disprovable therory about it. Thirdly test that therory and note down the results and share them. Lastly you may reject or alter your Therory to refine it.

As an example: You see a fire. You then ask why to things burn? Then you make the therory that inside things are tiny parts of the bigger things that left them as they burn. In other words fire is parts leaving a bigger thing into the air. Then you burn a few things like wood or plants. So the Therory explains fire. You note what you have done in what order and in what numbers. But then as you share your findings something happens. Another reapates your experiment with the addion of burn a metal named magnesium and said metal gains weight. That means that it beame more while it burned. So the therory is disproven and your knowlege expands.

Fire, by the way, is an reaction between things and has three conditions to start. First it needs air. Secondly it needs something to burn. Thirdly it needs a certain heat. Take one of them away and the fire dies off.

Now to the Calorie surplus. Once more generalized calorie is engery not yet used. One gains them by eating. Calories are used by doing anything. Example given: Jumping on the spot or moving.
A surplus thus means to make more food than one needs. With people freed from food collection they can do things like build stuff like a market or houses.

I hope we are with you longer than other Biancas we gave advice to.

Spoiler: ooc

Source: half rememberd school education and "How to invent everything" from Ryan North

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I have a feeling that some Voices are trying to say much, while not yet knowing what may be even needed. That's insane. We don't yet know where Bianca wlll be, and around what.

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Greetings Bianca.

We are creatures of knowledge and creation, and we wish to see things created and used well.

Some of us, like myself, are most interested in the arts of craftsmanship of useful and grand tools and how they may be best used, and others are more interested in the crafting of great and powerful societies and the workings of ruling and leadership.

This may lead to some of us losing focus on the immediate needs and practicalities of you and your future people, in our excitement to see some great work completed, so do not be afraid to chide us if we seem to be missing the obvious. Our perspective is both much greater and lesser than your own. If we are aware of a problem or obstacle, there are very few that we cannot provide knowledge of techniques or tools capable of overcoming them.

To impress upon you the breadth of our knowledge, we are aware of how to construct great flying ships in the heavens capable of flying to the planets and even other stars, the means of constructing terrible weapons of such immense destructive power they can shatter mountains in a single blow, as well as the means to feed an entire people so well that everyone may grow fat, and means of worldly travel so swift as to reach anywhere in the world in only a single day or less.

This knowledge we have access to in the form of a great enchanted library of unthinkable size and breadth. Many of us have a wide array of knowledge that we can personally remember, we are not all knowing. But, given time for us to research a subject in our great library, we can find you almost any piece of knowledge you could ever possibly need. Many of us discover new knowledge in this library that none of us knew before on a regular basis, so do forgive us if plans need to be reworked as we find new information on the subject.

Much of this knowledge will require an immense effort by a massive number of people working together in harmony to properly make use of. Simply organizing the required labor and the teaching of craftsmen in the required skills for even some of the simplest of our great works will be the work of many lifetimes. That being said, we have many useful things to teach you that will be very useful in the present.

Thankfully, ageing and the passage of time seem to be no impediment to your continued living due to your nature, so a work of many lifetimes is within your grasp.

What you must come to understand is our need for people to perform labor for our purposes of making. The establisment of a people for you to rule over and command is likely best delayed until you are fully ready for it, but it will eventually be needed for much of our knowledge to be useful.

We are eager to see your rise into greatness unfold.

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Guys we're probably scaring the new Overlady so let's take it easy, it's not like we can actually show her what we know, D̷a̸m̶n̸ ̷y̷o̵u̸ ̴̨̨̟̯̯͕̖̳̳̻̐͗͒̿͌̍Ḷ̵̯̱͖͈̻͕̙̗̭͔̦̪̑̇̈́į̶̧͖̺͙͎̮̮̫̼̟̳͓̮̲̺̘̼̲̱͚̈́͆͌̀̓̉̋̄͆̒̑m̸̡̢̰̜̳̩̻̲̼̙͓͊̓̎͂̂̄̾̚ì̶̧̧̧͉̰̱̰̗͔̺̩̥͖̞̹̱͍̹̗̓̇̑̀̄͑̾̌͑̔͌̅̓̅̐͘̕͝ţ̶̡̧̣̰̮̲̟̺̬̹̞͈͖͎̩̹̯͔̥̦̀̌͛̈́̿͝ͅá̸̟͓̺̳̥̘͊̉̐̑̆̑̓͛̓͛̓̒̓̄̀̚ť̶͖̥̤̤̦̿̓̊̅í̴̠̼͖̯̑̆̀̄̑̆̈͌̇ǫ̸̬̜͔̱̜͖̘͈͙̝̹̮̰̺̬̓̾̽̅̔̌̿̚͘͘n̶̞͉͕͓̩͉̔̽̽͂̀̿́̎̈̏̿̀̅̉͜s̷̡̢̼̱̤̦̰̱̼͙̻̥̣̯̮͙̗̭͑̓̀̉̀͊̑̔̈́̀̑̆̆̽͝ ̴̪̘̹̻̤͖͉̠̳̝̝͙͒̃̌͊̆̒̔́̇̋̿̈̒̑͒̌̀̌̓̚̕͝ͅ, we have to rely on her understanding us and being able to make sense of our ramblings.

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Firstly, traditional black powder is very easy to make if you have the raw materials available even with stone age tech, so that isn't the problem. The problem is largely getting access to sulphur.

You do not require nitrates or sulphur to make useful black powder.

Charcoal powder and sodium chlorate are sufficient to make black powder, though it would be advisable to use nitrate based black powder in any iron or steel firearms due to to the corrosive properties of chlorates. For the purposes of primitive grenades the use of chlorate based black powder is perfectly servicable and only requires charcoal and saltwater.

Furthermore, nitrates are significantly more valuable as ferilizers, if chlorates can be substituted until we have artificial nitrate production online, we are not splitting our resources. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that there are readily available nitrates in the area we want to settle in, which will ideally have access to the ocean. If we have access to the ocean we have both an unlimited supply of saltwater and an unlimited supply of energy with the construction of tidal mills.

Sodium chlorate does not exist in nature and is synthesized with electrical current passed through saltwater. It requires charcoal electrodes, but the rest of the electrical supply can be accomplished with lead wires and conductors until we gain access to copper. The first source of magnets required can be compressed magnetite blocks magnetized by voltaic piles wired in parallel running high current through them for a short time.

With a tide mill or waterwheel on a river we can produce unilimited quantities of sodium chlorate with saltwater, and charcoal can be easily mass produced with gasifiers we use for our early gas smelting furnaces, or with primitive charcoal ovens.

The electrical supply from these mills can be used for a great many purposes, including the synthesis of nitric acid from air and water, as well as electrochemical ore refining and the operation of arc lamps for searchlights and night illumination.

Now, dear Bianca, don't fret about not understanding most of what I just said, this was for debating the other voices. All of what I just said will be explained in time should it be the pathway that is chosen.



Compressed charcoal works well as a substitute for graphite, and may be more readily available.



There is an inaccuracy in this description: the type should be on the bottom of the press, and the surface to be printed on should be pressed down into the type by a flat board being pressed down on it from above by the lever. Otherwise, the type blocks will fall out of the press.

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Acting immediately has the advantage of maximising the potential benefit of our advice. In this early time seeking out the best environmental conditions to support a large population. Building a city full of people loyal to you can provide an excellent base for future expansion into an empire.

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While wars against estabilished powers would have their charms, I'm persuaded. Let's go into this savage world already.

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You also don't want the writing material falling onto the type, and it's rather straightforward to design the rack and type so that the rack holds the type in place.

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This is Black Cat again. I have some advice about keeping mortal human servants in good health. I understand that you currently lack servants, but surely would like to have them when practical.

Health of mortals benefits from eating diverse foods. Especially children grow taller and better if feed with diverse way, with meats, various plants, fruits and grains. This may be often impossible to do well, but some such diversity is better than none. Mortal body feed only with one thing could lack various types of substances to build or repair itself, and in some cases could even die.

Shit, rotting meats and corpses are very bad for health of mortals and shouldn't be near their food or water. It makes food and water unhealthy. When possible, it's the best to bury shit and waste downstream or downhill, so that risks of drinking unhealthy water are reduced for valuable servants living upstream or on the hill. When touching such waste is unavoidable, mortal should clean hands in water afterwards, especially before touching any foods or eating. These dangers are caused by invisible small worms. These worms are made out of substance, not magical, but invisible because too small to be seen. These worms love to eat waste and cause many ilnesses. You cannot see these worms but you can see effects of their hunger: decay of meats and corpses, they eat these.

Boiling water and fire also kill these invisible worms. It's good to roast fresh meats with fire, not only to improve taste, but also to kill invisible worms. But visibly rotten meat is usually too full of worm waste poison to be salvaged with even long roasting.

When mortals live in one place for longer time, it may be good idea to dig a big hole for shit and waste downstream or downhill, and place some wooden logs over it, leaving only opening big enough so that mortals could squat over it when needed. This way they would all know where it's mostly safe and easy to leave their waste. Hole could be big enough for some time, then buried and new one dig. Harmful worms are not forever, and foul things in the unused buried waste-hole should become safe after a few years.

Invisible worms are also very bad for wounds. Some wounds are always deadly for mortals, but smaller ones could be survived more often if never touched by dirty worm-containing things or hands. As was said before, carefully clean hands with clean water, and then throw away such water downstream or downhill, as often as practical.

When mortal servant is doing something against your wishes, first explain to them what they are doing wrong and what should change. If they change their ways, then it's good. But if they persist or are disrespectful, you can cause them pain, for example with beating. Killing a mortal should be done only if it's clear that they cannot be changed into useful servant.

But there is also another way. Some mortals can be punished even without any damage done to their body, especially for lesser violations of your will. For example, preventing a mortal from doing interesting things or talking with friends is sometimes sufficient punishment. Saying: "For what you had done, you need to remain silent for three days, or you will be beaten" may be often as effective punishment as beating, while avoiding risks to health that come out of pain.

With enough cunning, children can be raised without any beating that could be harmful to their health. In the case of children, even forcing them to sit in one place for a while, preventing them from playing, can be effective. Such is also the way of wolf cubs: when one uses their teeth too hard during playfighting, another may punish this not with anger, but just refusing to continue playing for a while.

When there are too many servants to manage well yourself, obedient and smart servant should be made a leader over others. All mortals shall be below you, but some may be less important than others, and some more important than others.

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Everyone is so wordy. I just wanted to be sure you knew that we're not actually compelled to help you, we just think it's fun.

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We aren't at the point of implementing almost any of these ideas, really.

The best advice we can probably give right now is where to even start settling in the first place. With the whole world available and with no competing claimants, you will want to settle somewhere with access to running water, fertile land, defensible geography, and room for expansion later. A short distance up from the mouth of a river as it enters a great ocean, perhaps, on a hill, in or nearby some forests.

Volcanoes can give very fertile soil where they've erupted previously; you'd have to keep an eye out for further eruptions of course, but perhaps magic could make that a benefit rather than a drawback?

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I'd think participants in this quest should think of it as more than just it's premise of getting to directly talk to the GM PC, at it's best it's a collaborative creative writing exercise. Keep in mind that your audience is everyone else in this thread, and the quest is at its most fun when we can read and respond to each others posts.

With that in mind, I think we would all have a more fun experience if everyone puts a bit of effort into making their posts a bit better formatted and focused. Just, you know, keeping in mind that the goal is as much making what you've written fun to read as it is communicating how to build a loom or whatever.

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Junction speaking: A mediterranean climate (read: plenty of rain, plenty of sun, and mild winters) would also be helpful. There are several very useful plants that grow best in such an environment.

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Junction speaking: Bianca, some of the others are secretly discussing adding a voice known as ChatGPT to the cacophony. If this occurs, we would recommend being very skeptical of anything it says; bluntly, ChatGPT doesn't actually think or reason. It is a mechanism that predicts which words are likely to go together in response to a prompt, and strings them together into vaguely coherent statements.

We do not approve of inducting ChatGPT to the cacophony, but do not have the authority to actually stop the others from doing so. At the very least, we have warned you of its limitations.

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I see no great issue with quality of advice from this Voice-tool-thing; real people can be even worse at times. I'm more worried about the fact that with the overuse we could be drown into these outputs, and that's as against the spirit of this Quest as copy-pasting a book. Also, it's less pleasant to hear Voice-thing than real-Voices. But I'm sure that master over the game voices, the powerful one who decides what Bianca can hear, can deal with the matter to his liking.

My apologies, Bianca. If you hear some of our internal in-between-Voices disputes, your estimate of our sanity is probably failing. We are many weird creatures.

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Hello, Bianca. We meet again! Or do we? Perhaps I'm remembering a different Bianca? Oh well.

We've already done the Age of Stone Tools once, and it was its own sort of interesting. But I'm in the mood for a world more developed. More sophisticated technology, more sophisticated institutions of government, more sophisticated arms of organised violence, et cetera. Honestly, I'm the mood for larger and more all-encompassing institutions of government myself - all the better to institute your decrees and our advice.

So - wait, Bianca. Wait, and prepare. When you emerge, you will be able to either create a material empire of your own, or seize and existing one. Then the fun begins.

Speaking of the fun - I'll second another of the voices and say that we're not compelled to help you, we simply enjoy doing so. We like seeing the powerful become ever more powerful at our advice. And I'm convinced we've done this with you before? Or some version of you? You feel like an old favourite...

For the other voices - based on the last times we did this, if we pick the Stone Age, we will be subjectively stuck in that era for probably the entire duration. And again, I'd rather play in a more developed playground.

I'm Metal Lizard, by the way.

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Also, methinks that some of my fellow voices are getting ahead of themselves in the advice they are offering? Theories of farming, theories of disease and sickness, potatoes - useful ways of growing the material power of an empire, to be sure. But first we need the empire, and a lot of prerequisites. If we start off in the Age of Stone Tools, will we reasonably be able to find potatoes? Could Bianca manage the challenge of mounting an expedition across an entire world filled with wildlife and people indifferent or hostile, with less-developed systems of coordination and rulership? How would she even know where to look? The world is very, very big in the Age of Stone Tools.

Let us first see what era Bianca emerges into and what she has to work with. We need to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools, et cetera.

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This is why I, the Black Cat, limited myself to some pretty universal advice about small invisible life-worms, or a few words about raising children. Words that could be applied to almost any type of people with any tools, whether stone or better.

Before saying more, I agree, we should understand what tools Bianca's future servants would know already. And this depends on how long she shall remain hidden. Because the longer Bianca remains hidden, the more tools and ways mortals shall develop themselves.

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Call me Earth by the way. Advice a lot of stuff you hear will not make since, focus on the stuff that is actionable, and ignore the ramblings.

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Well, hello there, Bianca is it (and fellow voices, isn't that fun)? Our discordant choir seem to have different recommendations on the path forward, let me however, recommend greed. If you wish for might and power, to tower above all else, then go and take it. You future rivals are not yet awake, their tools and resources ripe for subversion by a more active hand. And the mortals have hardly figured out how to stack rocks on top of each other. You have the chance to shape the world that all who would challenge your dominion step into it. Don't waste it, young one. We'll be watching.

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Junction speaking. We see that someone went and inserted ChatGPT's words at an earlier point in the conversation, thus causing confusion about the order of things. Bluntly, this illustrates our point about that machine's lack of usefulness; while it says why to pursue ironworking, its advice about how is almost entirely useless. It explains none of the intricate problems associated with smelting or working iron into steel, nor how to solve such problems. It doesn't even explain what Iron is, let alone how to find the ores that contain it!

On another note, we have a question for Bianca, rooted purely in curiosity: how did you come into contact with us, anyway?

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It was already implied that we were a thing once owned by her maker, and stored in the Vault for the Winter of magic.

It's curious, because we evidently cannot remember her maker, or at least not well. Instead we remember some sort of dreams about "previous Bianca".

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Black cat, if Bianca is indeed using an item to communicate with us, we are not the item. It is merely a means of communication between her world, and the myriad realities we occupy.

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True enough, that's also fair interpretation consistent with what we can see here.

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The fact of the matter is that at least from our perspective, we do have other responsibilities and activities to attend to when not acting as an advisor. Such would be impossible if we existed solely as voices crammed inside some artifact or other.

Ah, some clarity for Bianca: you are the third individual named Bianca to contact the Cacophony. That said, we of the Junction only joined the cacophony during the works of the second Bianca. Thus you are the second Bianca we personally have advised, but the third Bianca overall to be advised by the Cacophony.

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[liberty90]

Humph. Mesolithic.

This means that we may need to teach her even pottery.

I like the fact that Bianca was once a servant to the greater power. This means that she may understand something about discipline or hierarchy, at least more than stone age bands.

 

[Legion0047]

Oh boy, this will take a bit. Especially as she'll have to do quite a bit of work herself before she can start putting people under her control to do it for her.

 

[H2F2]

It seems to me that our main meta-task should be the destruction of the maximum number of gods and dragons that we can reach.
Bianca's character and immortality ensure that she will encounter them in any case, and the last god Bianca encountered sealed her for several hundred years.
Therefore, we should pay attention to such things as gunpowder, which will help crack the tombs and kill the inhabitants there.

 

[liberty90]

Bianca's character and immortality ensure that she will encounter them in any case, and the last god Bianca encountered sealed her for several hundred years.

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Not that this change much, but Bianca was sealed by her master/maker, to guard the Vault full of magical items. She was designed to be a servant, but evidently her maker failed to survive the Winter (lack of magic in the world).

 

[H2F2]

Not that this change much, but Bianca was sealed by her master/maker, to guard the Vault full of magical items. She was designed to be a servant, but evidently her maker failed to survive the Winter (lack of magic in the world).

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I mean the previous quest where one of the new gods came to Bianca's settlement and sent her to the underworld. After that, she had to get out of there for several hundred years.

 

[liberty90]

I mean the previous quest where one of the new gods came to Bianca's settlement and sent her to the underworld. After that, she had to get out for several hundred years.

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True then! I thought about the current one.

 

[mekin]

It seems to me that our main meta-task should be the destruction of the maximum number of gods and dragons that we can reach.
Bianca's character and immortality ensure that she will encounter them in any case, and the last god Bianca encountered sealed her for several hundred years.
Therefore, we should pay attention to such things as gunpowder, which will help crack the tombs and kill the inhabitants there.

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That's what I was thinking in regards to the gods, cut through/convert/loot everything we can get our hands on before they start getting out of bed.

 

[H2F2]

That's what I was thinking in regards to the gods, cut through/convert/loot everything we can get our hands on before they start getting out of bed.

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"If you meet a god, kill the god, if you meet a dragon, kill the dragon."

 

[KeinNiemand]

"If you meet a god, kill the god, if you meet a dragon, kill the dragon."

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Can't we befriend a Dragon, I guess it depends on what kind of Dragons these are.
Next round I plan to introduce myself to Bianca as the conduit to ChatGPT and as an exclusive member of ChatGPT Plus, maybe I'll explain a bit about chatgpt or ask ChatGPT to explain. At some point If I give bianca more direct access, I might have to teach Bianca the ancient and noble art of prompt engineering.

 

[We Just Write]

L: We realize now that we made a word substitution error. We'd meant to say that most regions don't have deposits of Cassiterite, but accidentally said most regions don't have deposits of Chalcocite.

 

[H2F2]

Can't we befriend a Dragon, I guess it depends on what kind of Dragons these are.

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Bianca may be able to form an alliance with some dragons, but we still don't benefit from having a large number of such creatures.

 

[Mechasaurian]

But I don't want the Mesolithic, damn it.

 

[liberty90]

The main barrier to civilizing it is, obviously, the lack of domesticated grains. The second issue is the fact that the climate change may be in the full swing; and while it's natural and moves into broadly desirable direction (unlike our climate change), coasts may be flooded in medium-term perspective. If we want territorial centre of power to survive for 2000 years like something timeless, it would need to be estabilished well inland.

It's a double pity, because teaching her about boats and fishing sounds like a decent way to sustain some villages despite lack of good plants at the start.

I had hopes for something closer to 9 000 BC, we may be instead in equivalent of 15 000 BC (Bianca could maybe scout how many great masses of ice are to the north? And where?). But I'm an evil and cunning cat, and still want to drag cavemen (they have huts, I'm aware, a figure of speech) into civilization even if kicking and screaming.

 

[H2F2]

The main barrier to civilizing it is, obviously, the lack of domesticated grains. The second issue is the fact that the climate change may be in the full swing; and while it's natural and moves into broadly desirable direction (unlike our climate change), coasts may be flooded in medium-term perspective. If we want territorial centre of power to survive for 2000 years like something timeless, it would need to be estabilished well inland.

It's a double pity, because teaching her about boats ans fishing sounds like a decent way to sustain some villages despite lack of good plants at the start.

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Does it make sense to look so far into the future? Now, when the transport infrastructure is not developed, access to the sea can give a lot of advantages both in food and in the ability to travel.

 

[liberty90]

Does it make sense to look so far into the future? Now, when the transport infrastructure is not developed, access to the sea can give a lot of advantages both in food and in the ability to travel.

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From our 2000 BC to 1 AD (or from 1 AD to 2001 AD, in fact) we had a very stable sea levels in comparision with what may happen here. For Bianca it's not THAT much time, and having an ancient palace flooded could be IRRITATING. Hard to say where exactly in the timeline we are and thus what exactly will happen.

 

[H2F2]

From our 2000 BC to 1 AD (or from 1 AD to 2001 AD, in fact) we had a very stable sea levels in comparision with what may happen here. For Bianca it's not THAT much time, and having an ancient palace flooded could be IRRITATING. Hard to say where exactly in the timeline we are and thus what exactly will happen.

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Bianchi's "Palace" is just a Mesolithic building, for which it is not worth giving up all the advantages of being close to the sea. We just need to warn her that in a few centuries/millennia the area may flood.

 

[liberty90]

Bianchi's "Palace" is just a Mesolithic building, for which it is not worth giving up all the advantages of being close to the sea. We just need to warn her that in a few centuries/millennia the area may flood.

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We shall see what we may be able to build. I'm not discouraged by harder conditions. The centre of power is only cherry on the top; assuming that sooner or later we manage to drag mortals into villages and domesticate grains, EVERYTHING would need to move.

There is also the mattter of her Vault. Well, the matter of the Vault that was once owned by Bianca's maker, and that now is hers. Where it is. How often she needs to be inside, in order to learn etc. Very important info.

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

The main thing we need to do is rush the domestication of animals. Every animal is a local multiplier of labor that the population can utilize. Every bit of timed saved is time that can be spent working on specialized labor. And animals are the only viable way to unlock people from farming.

 

[Rafin]

I personally am not against the use of ChatGPT as a gimmick for KeinNiemand, but I think if more than one person uses it, it will become a problem.

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Personally I think there should only ever be one ChatGPT user. For now it is KeinNiemand, but if they are absent for a whole voting period someone else should feel free to take over. Not me though. I'd find it boring.

 

[Ciber]

The main thing we need to do is rush the domestication of animals. Every animal is a local multiplier of labor that the population can utilize. Every bit of timed saved is time that can be spent working on specialized labor. And animals are the only viable way to unlock people from farming.

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I'm largely in agreement, however it might prove difficult given me must have a nomadic lifestyle as hunter-gatherers and our available extra labor to manage the animals will be very limited.

For plants, we can simply have many small fields separated by miles and arranged in pairs. Put the harvested grain from each field in a separate basket, and whichever basket is heavier gets used as seed.

It's all about minimizing the labor and maximizing the evolutionary signal.

Personally I think there should only ever be one ChatGPT user. For now it is KeinNiemand, but if they are absent for a whole voting period someone else should feel free to take over. Not me though. I'd find it boring.

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I'm in agreement on this. Unless we get an official GM ruling otherwise. I certainly would not want to be the GM who has to write personalized replies to multiple chatGPTs

 

[We Just Write]

C: Meanwhile, we're against the use of LLMs for this Quest entirely.