Round 20
Event: Solar Storm: The star the ringworld is orbiting is undergoing a solar storm event, causing bright flickers of light during the night cycle, as well as strange sights in the sky. Many call this a portent for things to come. What this omen means differs from band to band, from tribe to tribe. But all would agree, it is a sign from the heavens of things to come.
Kashar (
serialkiller🌴)
Vote: Bows (11)
Outcome: Your crafters have managed to create some bow prototypes. While they manage to shoot arrows some distance, they don’t have much power behind them, and will snap after extended use. As of right now, they are little more than a source of amusement, a toy used to shoot at targets by the young of your band. However, with a little work and refinement, your crafters state that they could make a bow that is more workable as a weapon. However, while progress, this news is soon forgotten in the face of other events.
Vote: Tame the three-eyed goats (18)
Outcome: Your handlers express with great joy that they have managed to tame a couple herds of the three-eyed goats that were seen roaming the mountains of the east. Your handlers and crafters almost immediately discover that not only can you use these goats for meat, their fur is also extraordinarily thick and quite soft to the touch, lending extra warmth to fur clothing made from the goats. When handled properly, female goats can also be milked, creating another source of hydration aside from water provided the milk is kept stored in a leather pouch. Overall, this greatly pleases your people, who enjoy these new comforts provided to them. In fact, many consider this a turn of good luck, until new events arise.
Stability: 0
Power: 2
Extra: Looking to the sky, your people are greatly scared by the strange lights and flickers during the night. Many say that it is a warning about messing with the cursed eastern mountains, which causes even more hysteria. The sighting of lights on the mountain peaks themselves doesn’t help. Though some scouts identify them as being large bonfires, your shamans all agree that this can’t mean anything good. First strange lights in the sky, then the sighting of fires on the mountain peaks that shortly burn themselves out.
Many call for flight from the valley, others call for the Kashar to arm themselves and prepare for battle, while yet more say that the other bands and tribe deserve to be warned. All of this results in a bout of hysterics so great that the elders order heads be knocked together. Quelled for now, your band is still a powder keg of fear and apprehension, as everyone looks to the elders for guidance during what feels like a portent of coming judgment.
In other news, your scouts report that the Azba have copied the Thourians in the creation of the hoe, a farming tool that allows them to more easily till the land they farm, expanding their ability to produce food and reduces the effects of the increasing scarcity of the valley on them. Combined with the ability to smoke their food for preservation purposes, the Azba are quickly catching up to not only your band but also the Thourians, retaining their spot as the third largest group in the home valley.
Additionally, it seems your successor-band has succeeded where yours could not. They have tamed the equines they call Konji, and now care for small herds of the creatures. Some express a bitter envy at this, while others are hoping this development will sway the band’s elders away from trying to tame the Konji for themselves. However, the lights in the mountains and the skies take priority of these worries.
In further news, the Thourians appear to have succeeded in taming the Cotel, creating a more communal breed they use to guard their fields. While this helps them to a degree in maintaining their fields, their later attempt to capitalize on this by using Cotel dung to fertilize the fields instead seems to result in their crops withering and dying except for their lemon crops. This clear hit to their food stores elicits some sympathy from your gatherers, who have to deal with mounted Taji competition for resources in the valley that are slowly becoming more and more scarce. Though their sympathies can’t remain with the Thourians for long, as they have to provide for their own people first.
Yirha (
aviscerator)
Vote: Retry woodworking tools (20)
Outcome: Your crafters have greatly succeeded where they once had failed. Starting with the wood gathering process, they have developed two-handed wood axes, which allow your woodcutters to more easily fell and gather trees, and chop them up as needed to fit onto your carts. From there, they have also developed the adze, a tool that is used to shape the logs further. When fine control is needed, they have developed wedges and chisels from Hunra tusks, which are a bit sturdier than the stones your people use so far. These tusk blades become the norm for your axes and adzes as well, increasing the efficiency of your ability to both gather and shape wood into desired forms massively.
Vote: Smoke communication (4)
Outcome: Desiring an ability to communicate over long distances, your elders order that a way to create signals from smoke be devised. Your crafters try to burn wood and foliage in such a way as to create a lot of smoke, but the canopy of your rainforest home blocks and interferes with the rising smoke, causing confusion at best and sometimes lighting other foliage on fire at worst. At best, this is a waste of resources, and at worst some other things were caught on fire. But all agree that it could have gone worse. Previous success mitigates the grumbling over the wasted wood and foliage, and another event does even more to do so.
Stability: 3
Power: 2
Extra: Your people look up to the skies in some wonder at the strange lights and flickers that they see. Your shamans state that the spirits of the land and sky are happy at your tribe’s successes, and are expressing their approval. This bolsters your people’s spirits, especially those grumbling about previous failures, mitigating the effects of this failure.
In other news, your scouts report that groups of rafts have left the main Bukar village, and are now setting up camps all along the lake shore, growing into small villages in their own right over time. With the Bukari rafts, these new villages are quickly and easily connected to their original settlement, bringing greater prosperity to them than before as the increased territory means more resources are gathered from a larger area in order to feed the greater amount of people. While there is also news of the Bukari king attempting to reinforce his divine right, but nothing much seems to come of it. However, some now express some concerns about Bukari territory encroaching on your tribe’s own.
Kathak (
blackink)
Vote: Establish new settlement on the river (13)
Outcome: Under the direction of your elders, your tribe sends out a group to colonize the land around the river to the west. While they do not manage to reach the river proper, they have still managed to walk about halfway between the main village and the river. This easier access to water allows them to set up a camp, and then a small settlement as the seasons went by. They still have access to the same resources as your primary settlement, but now they have also added the eels the Thaku catch and the crustaceans to their diet in some small amounts. At least, until another development occurred. Communication with this new camp is slow as messengers travel back and forth, but nonetheless you are one of the first peoples to establish a new colony.
Vote: Use strings for fishing poles (18)
Outcome: While your settlers were managing to hand and net catch some raevees eels and crustaceans, it was another development that occurred that soon took center stage. Your crafters have managed to create a simple form of fishing pole by tying string around long sticks and tying bait to the end. When used in the wider section of river, your fishers can now catch small fish with silver scales that at most are the length of an Augrela forearm, but are very thin around. While a great addition to your diet, this success unfortunately becomes greatly overshadowed by other events.
Stability: 2
Power: 3
Extra: Thieves! Raiders! Your crafters report that your stores of murlok meat and tusks, some of which have already been refined into blades and spear tips, have been heavily raided! Your sentries didn’t spot the thieves, but there are Augrela tracks as well as definitively feline tracks leaving the scene of the crime. While the Augrela tracks would otherwise be ambiguous, the feline tracks leave no confusion about the identity of these raiders, the Sartar are the ones responsible. Many of your hunters stomp and grunt in anger, wishing to seek retribution for this crime! However, as your scouts have stopped paying direct attention to the Sartar’s movements for a while, it would take some effort to track them down along their marked route.
What’s more, the sky flickers at night and strange lights appear during the day around the sun. Your people have no idea what this means, but, your shamans have expressed it as the spirits of the sky showing their displeasure at your people’s inattentiveness. This only worsens the displeasure and desire for retribution against the Sartar, as many start to attribute the celestial events as not just a quest to right a wrong, but a spiritual directive to punish those who would steal from others!
In other news, your traders report sighting Thaku scouting parties exploring through and to the north of your tribe’s territory. They aren’t sure what the Thaku might be searching for, but they wish them the best. Additionally, your traders report that Thaku were discussing attempting to tame some kind of woolly sloth creature, and how it had failed so miserably not only were there fatalities, but the creatures have remained hostile to the Thaku so far. This encourages your traders to conduct their business only in the Thaku village due to the nervousness of possible danger from these creatures.
Tuuk (
QuantumCrab of '18)
Vote: Develop bows and arrows (12)
Outcome: Your people begin creating some prototypes of the bow and arrow. While functional to a degree, there is very little actual range on them and they tend to snap under extended use. The lack of power lends them towards a role as a fun toy for children, but they also have enough power for use against wild Ba’arb, so they see some “pest control” use by your hunters and sentries every so often. However, with some further refinement, your crafters say they can make the bow into a true weapon, though what your people would use it against they aren’t sure.
Vote: Retry charcoal furnace (5)
Outcome: Once more, your crafters attempt to create charcoal using mounds of mud and twigs. And just like before, they only fall apart. While less of a waste of resources than before due to caution on the part of your crafters, there is still grumbling on the part of your crafters due to having to wait for wood to either dry out or be cleaned as best as they can before using it again.
Stability: 1
Power: 2
Extra: Strange lights are seen in the skies, and the night sky flickers with light! Your people are unsure as to the meaning of these events, but given recent occurrences, your shamans have looked to the skies and divined a meaning. They have determined that the spirits of the sky are expressing their displeasure with the Tuuk and their recent lack of success, and wish them to know this. While this causes some distress and grumbling amongst your tribe, it could have been a worse reaction.
In other news, your tribe has come into contact with the Thaku tribe! They are a tribe that live far to the south on the shore of a high mountain lake, fishing from its waters for eels and crustaceans, and gathering the reeds that grow on the shore while trading them with another tribe called the Kathak for meat and tusks from another breed of Murk they call Murloks. This intrigues your people immensely, with some calling for your tribe to seek out the Kathak themselves.
This isn’t the only mention of the Kathak your elders hear, as the scuttlebutt around the village is that the Sartar have raided such a tribe’s food and tusk stores, resulting in not only a boost to their own food supplies but also providing them with weapons a step above your stone ones. While this news of aggression against strangers causes grumbling amongst your people, most seek to confront the Sartar over this story, rather than seek aggression against them.
Thaku (
oncpapa)
Vote: Send scouts northward from Thaku and Kathak villages looking for wood and possible other tribes (17)
Outcome: Passing both the Kathak and Sartari territories, your people have encountered the Tuuk tribe! They are a tribe of herdsmen who care for tusk-less Murloks they call Murk, and harbor a hatred for the roaming felines that the Kathak trade the meat of with you. They seem friendly enough, and they know of the Sartar as well, but not the Kathak, whom you notify them of.
Vote: Retry taming Chakistani (1)
Outcome: Rather than trying to tame the Chakistani with Thurn reeds, instead, your handlers get the idea of trying to bait them with Raevees eels. This provokes a reaction, and a violent one as the Chakistani immediately attack your handlers! Caught off-guard, your handlers are trampled and clawed to death by the woolly sloths. What’s worse, is that now the Chakistani regard your people warily if not with hostility in future encounters.
Stability: 1
Power: 2
Extra: In the skies above, the sun flickers with strange lights that are even visible during the night time. With your recent success, but also failures, your shamans interpret these lights as a celestial sign from the Raevees Matron to her Thaku to steel their spirits and power on through with these obstacles in their way. This bolsters your people’s spirits in the face of this adversity, even helping to mitigate the effects of the angering of the Chakistani. Your people thank the Matron for her benediction and compassion for them in their time of great happiness and sorrow.
In other news, your scouts report the presence of a secondary Kathak settlement being founded to the west of their primary village. This puts them within reach of one of the rivers of the Raevees Medrum that flow north. While some of your people are wary of the Kathak’s intent on reaching the rivers of the sacred Raevees, others see it as the Kathak enjoying the benevolence and protection of the Matron.
However, not all news from the Kathak is good, as your traders hear that their stores are being raided by the Sartar! If there was ever anything to convince your people that the Sartar couldn’t be trusted aside from the disastrous meeting some seasons ago, this is it. Animosity towards the Sartar is at an all-time high with news of these raids against your allies and friends the Kathak.
Yslach (
lordclassyus)
Vote: Find a creature that produces wax or a wax-like substance (17)
Outcome: Your scouts are instructed to search the underground forest for new creatures, and they quickly come back with news of flying insects with a distinct head, thorax, and ovular abdomen and two large dragonfly-like wings the size of an Augrela finger that crawl on the undersides of the mushrooms that host the glowing fungus, grinding it up and transporting it to hives buried in the ground, lined with said glowing fungus that is shaped then attached with a waxy substance. This substance is used as the primary tool for shaping these hives, whether using chewed up glowing fungus or other fungal matter such as the mushroom-tree caps to line the tunnels of their hives. Your scouts aren’t sure what the elders think of this, but decide that this fact is worth telling of. However, the animals are also territorial of their hives, drones stinging any who get too close with stings that cause some localized swelling and pain but otherwise are not dangerous unless in large swarms.
Stability: 3
Power: 1
Taji (
agenttine)
Vote: Domesticate the Konji (15)
Outcome: Your handlers have finally done it, they’ve accomplished something the Kashar could not. They have tamed a small amount of Konji! Using gathered flowers and leaves that the equines like to eat, your handlers have managed to tame first some females, then used those mixed with the scent of the females to attract and tame some of the males. While your herd is small at first, it quickly grows with careful tending of their numbers and fresh taming of wild Konji. With this success and triumph over something that had vexed even your parent tribe in seasons past, your people rejoice at this new pack animal. More mobile, this gives your hunters and gatherers a bit of a leg up in competing for the slowly dwindling resources of the home valley. However, new events send a sense of unease through your band.
Stability: 0
Power: 2
Extra: Even as your band celebrates their victory, strange lights emanating from the sun that flicker even at night cause your people a great sense of unease. Your shamans have been called upon to interpret these signs, and they say that the lights are a warning of a coming danger, what it is they aren’t sure, but clearly it is a warning sent to the Taji by the sky spirits. Many wish to heed this warning and take the tamed Konji and flee, while others say they wish to stay and fight this danger. All look to the elders for direction as to what to do.
Meanwhile, the Azba seem to have hit upon a new discovery, the hoe. A tool they use to till the land near the central lake, greatly increasing their farming yields and lessening the impact of the slowly increasing scarcity of the valley’s resources that are now starting to wear thin and competition between the various nomadic bands becomes more and more noticeable.
In further news, the Thourians appear to have tamed the Cotel at long last, and bred a more communal, yet still territorially defensive variant that they use to guard their fields from vermin and scavengers. While this seems to have benefitted them to a degree, your scouts also report the Thourians tried to use their new animals’
dung for their fields, but only their lemon-like crops seem to have prospered, while the others have died. This elicits some sympathy from your gatherers, who know what it's like to have to make do with less as the valley's resources are becoming scarcer, but they still have to focus on providing for your own people first and foremost.
Thourian (
soundwave)
Vote: Tame the Cotel (20)
Outcome: Your handlers have hit upon a breakthrough! They have figured out that the Cotel, while solitary, are also rather sedentary ambush predators. With some careful guidance, they now serve as fully tame guard animals for your band’s farming stops, keeping scavengers and vermin away from the fields, increasing their yield by virtue of decreased thievery. However, they also require that some stay behind to make sure they don’t go unintentionally wandering off. Your handlers express that this would be much easier if the band were to settle down in one stretch of territory in the western edge of the valley. With this new role, your handlers have however managed to create a domesticated breed of Cotel that is far less solitary than their wild cousins, however, they are also smaller and a little less aggressive towards prey. Aggressive enough to ward off scavengers and the like, but not quite to the same degree as when they were wild animals terrorizing your people.
Vote: Advance farming (1)
Outcome: Your elders, not wishing to rest on the laurels of taming the Cotel and bringing them to heel, order the creation of new farming techniques or tools so as to try and escape the growing scarcity of resources in the home valley. Your growers attempt to get the new guard Cotel to defecate on the crops, but it seems only the spicy lemons that your band grows react to any sort of positive degree to the presence of the feces. Otherwise it causes your grain plant and the Degi trees to slowly shrivel up and die, or remain withered, requiring that your growers not only remove the crop entirely to try and plant new ones, but to also transplant the feces and soil mixture to the lemon patches. While a boon to your spicy lemons, they are not themselves a staple food crop and thus your food stores take a nose dive as a result. Once more, your growers argue that your band would benefit much more from being able to tend to their fields and patches through each and every season rather than every so often.
Stability: 3
Power: 2
Extra: Your people look up to the sky, where strange lights flicker in the light and the dark! Seeking answers, your people look to the shamans, who speak that the spirits of the sky seek to give the Thourians a message. A message that, despite the radical difference of recent events between good and bad, that there is hope for the band to survive the encroaching scarcity. That not only can the Thourians survive the shortfalls, they have the potential to survive if they look for the signs as to what to do. This bolsters your people’s spirits somewhat, though some are still grumbling about what ails them. However, with this new reassurance, your people feel more motivated than ever.
In other news, the Azba seem to have copied your own developments and created a hoe to till their fields with, further increasing their farming yields and lessening the impact of the scarcity sinking its claws into the home valley. This further garners support from your growers as to what could be possible if the Thourians were to settle down in one place, especially when they have the Thourshian Cotel to guard their fields from underground.
In further news, the Taji seem to have managed to do something the Kashar could not, and have tamed the equines roaming the edges of the valley, which they call Konji. Their herds started small, but have slowly grown over the seasons and they have become much more mobile than their counterparts in the valley. This gives them an advantage of mobility compared to your Clovern, and thus have a bit of a better chances when searching for resources as they dwindle.
Meanwhile, the Kashar appear to have struck some fortune as well. They have created a form of bow similar to the Azba, though it is weak compared to the Azban weapon, your scouts speculate that they could match the Azba easily with more experimentation. This causes some worry amongst your people, though the taming of the Cotel reminds them of the potency of the predators you have tamed. In addition, they appear to have tamed a three-eyed goat from the eastern mountains, which provides them with warmer furs to wear as well as milk to drink. Your handlers express respect for this accomplishment, recognizing the Kashari fear of the mountains from seasons past and their similar connection to the beasts of the land as the Thourians.
Doggax (
GabrielGG)
Vote: Prepare traps for the invaders (19)
Outcome: Knowing that the signals meant a return of those who sent the marauders many seasons ago, your people spring into action to prepare. They create various traps in strategic locations, ranging from simple string snares to pits full of sharpened stones and sticks that are covered with leaves and brush. In addition, your diggers create special pits in the ground for your warriors to spring out of to ambush the coming invaders, covered by woven thatch panels that are further disguised much like the spike pits. At first glance, it is hard to distinguish between the spike pits and the ambush traps, but with a fervor born of desperation, your drummed up defenders memorize and practice for the coming invasion without a hitch.
You’re ready.
Stability: 3
Power: 2
Extra: When the invaders come, they come out in force. Faces painted with patterns of red; wielding spears, stone headed war clubs, and bows amongst the mob; some holding shields made of leather stretched over wicker and wearing leather armor, they are a fearsome sight to behold. Even more so is their leader, wearing a headdress decorated with long quills and the teeth of an unknown animal, the area around his eyes is also painted black. However, they were clearly not prepared for your traps, their forward attackers getting caught in the snares to be mobbed and stabbed to death by your defenders, and some falling into the spike pits to be impaled. Your ambush pits allow your defenders to spring up behind the initial wave to attack their archers, and then fall upon the rear of the enemy. It is hard fought, as your warriors lack the protection of the invaders, but your traps have given your defense a distinct advantage, as they know where your traps are hidden, and the invaders do not. However, despite the invaders’ best efforts, you drive them off. They leave their dead and wounded behind, allowing your people to scavenge their armor and weapons, while the enemy wounded are promptly and without ceremony finished off, giving them a quick death rather than allowing them to suffer. Your people have suffered some casualties, but you have come out on top! And with the defeat of these invaders comes a wealth of technological innovation for your people to copy for their own use if they so wish it.
The tribe’s shamans declare they are seeing signs of the spirits’ pleasure at your people’s triumph. Lights in the sky that not only create strange yet alluring patterns during the day, but also intermittently light up the night as well. Your shamans have declared this a celebratory action by the spirits of the sky and your people’s ancestors, who had fled that valley long ago, who are greatly proud of their descendants for driving off those who would destroy them. Your people feast and celebrate their continued existence, with many thanking the protection of the ancestors and the spirits in almost equal measure for their survival and to guide the spirits of those who died to peace after death. Your people are both much happier with their victory, and much more confident that they can survive what is thrown at them than before. For now, worries of possible invasion are quelled.