Alright, new round everyone! So sorry this came out late. But hey, it's at least in time for Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone!
Round 19
Kashar (
serialkiller🌴)
Vote: Improve leather hardening techniques (18)
Outcome: Your crafters manage to improve your leather hardening techniques greatly. Mainly by using heated water, they can water harden the leather much faster and to a greater degree than when using cold water. Out of all the types of leather available to your band, Clovern leather is the easiest to shape and creates the hardest cured leather at the end of the process. This easy access to leather, and the ability to weave it into your people’s clothing with their leatherworking tools and string, personal protection becomes easy to acquire. Your people feel a lot safer being able to protect themselves from wild animal attacks and, some hope, the bows of the Azba should the latter become aggressive.
Vote: Tame the Clovern (14)
Outcome: Your handlers, while still stinging from their previous failures with the equines, do everything in their power to turn their attentions to the Clovern. In this respect, they seem to have a lot more success, as now small clusters of the large reptiles follow your band’s migration route along the valley’s eastern edge. This and your previous successes do a lot to restore confidence in your elders’ leadership, quieting the grumbling of before drastically. However, other events mitigate this effect.
Stability: 0
Power: 2
Extra: A new band, calling themselves the Taji, have split off from your band, and with them they have access to all technologies your band has come up with before now. They roam the northern edge of the valley, and thanks to the technologies that they possess, are quickly growing in number. The resources of the home valley are predicted to become strained once more by your scouts. These same scouts report that the Taji have once more tried to tame the horses, which they call Konji. This results in many shaking their heads at the young band’s seeming naivety.
In other news, your scouts report the Azba appear to have once more turned their attentions to shaping clay, only to once more have failed in getting them to keep their intended shapes. While this brings some relief to your people, they don’t let their guard down entirely.
In further news, your scouts report the Thourians seem to have hit a dead end with Cotel taming, though they don’t approach the large predators closely enough to find out for sure. They also report the Thourians are wearing visibly thicker clothing, seemingly attempting to replicate your leather armor. While some of your crafters snicker to themselves over this attempt that doesn’t quite measure up, they do respect their inventiveness as the thicker clothing appears to have an insulating effect similar to your band’s furs.
Yirha (
aviscerator)
Vote: Develop woodworking tools (4)
Outcome: Your crafters attempt to create some tools specialized for woodworking, but each of the prototypes breaks upon use. While not useful as tools, the resulting scrap wood is still good for firewood and the stones can be repurposed for other tools. So while a failure, it could have gone worse.
Vote: Develop rope (14)
Outcome: Your crafters attempt to create a stronger form of string called rope by wrapping woven grass around them. And while the ropes do hold somewhat together, they aren’t very strong and don’t hold up well against the ravages of the environment. Thus, they are a novelty at best, rather than a tool. Overall, this recent progress helps to overshadow your crafters’ failure at creating something new.
Stability: 0
Power: 2
Extra: Your scouts report some slightly worrying news to your tribe’s elders. The Bukar have been seen wielding two new weapons, the bow and the sling, in particular. The Bukari bows, using a slightly stronger wood, are more robust than the Yirhan equivalents due to their Hunra strings. While these bows require more strength from their wielder to use properly, they clearly have more stopping power than your own bows do.
In addition to this, they have also fixed their slings, using Hunra leather, these weapons are able to fling small stones a great distance and are used by the Bukar to kill small game. This makes some amongst your tribe worry about their safety, but your elders placate their worries with reminders of the Bukar’s peaceful behavior before.
Kathak (
blackink)
Vote: Mix clay, mud, or sand to make mortar (10)
Outcome: Your crafters begin experimenting with ways to bind the mud bricks together, mainly by slathering them with mud and sometimes clay. However, while your people manage to create small platforms with these bricks, the improvised mortar isn’t strong enough to support a larger standing structure on its own. It also must be replaced constantly due to wear and tear. However, your people can now create more permanent platforms and raised areas, which allow your tribe to create elevated tents that aren’t as affected by wet ground, and small daises for the history stones and decorative clay crafts.
Vote: Make bows again to test wood durability (3)
Outcome: Your crafters, deciding to test a theory from the elders, try once more to create bows. However, as the elders have guessed, the wood your tribe currently has access to is completely unsuited for this purpose when shaped into a bow shape and tested. However, given that the wood that your crafters are using is the most abundant in the local area and thus easiest to acquire, your crafters aren’t sure what sort of wood would be better for the strain of creating a bow. As a result, this demoralizing result mitigates the benefits of previous progress.
Stability: 2
Power: 2
Extra: Your trade deal with the Thaku is successfully expanded. Now your traders bring your tribe’s wooden crafts to the Thaku to be exchanged for clay ones. This greatly pleases your people, who adorn the small shrines of their history stones with these clay figures and crafts alongside wooden ones. Your people and the Thaku grow only closer with this development.
In other news, your traders report back that the Thaku have attempted to tame, with little success, a form of woolly sloth-like creature they call Chakistani. They also report that the Thaku have experimented with incorporating their clay into food preservation, only to fail when the sticks they are using snap under the weight of the clay domes they crafted.
Tuuk (
QuantumCrab of '18)
Vote: Try to develop simple dye (20)
Outcome: Your crafters’ experiments are a huge success. They discover that, when ground down and mixed with water, certain flowers and plants can be ground into colorful dyes. Vibrant reds, blues, yellows, and a rarer silver color derived from the flowers of a local creeping vine now adorn your people’s faces, particularly when celebrating recent rains and the warm season. Your shamans in particular make use of these face paints when sharing their stories around the cooking fires. In addition to this, the demand for these dyes has prompted the creation of the mortar and pestle, a piece of wood carefully hollowed into a bowl shape, and a stone used to grind up the needed flowers much more efficiently than grinding them on top of another stone. In addition, your gatherers have discovered a bright purple flower that, when ground up and applied to the skin, causes some localized numbness and when ingested, temporary paralysis and unconsciousness. While a slightly terrifying ordeal, your gatherers quickly learn to avoid gathering those flowers for now.
Vote: Attempt charcoal furnaces (4)
Outcome: At the direction of the elders to create a new form of fuel, your crafters attempt to create mounds of mud in which to burn chunks of wood. However, for all their efforts, the mounds do not stay together or the wood burns too fast and becomes ash. While a great source of ashes, it is little more than a disappointment in creating some new form of fuel. While a disappointment, the previous great success with dyes mitigates this disappointment greatly.
Stability: 3
Power: 2
Extra: Your scouts report the Sartar have attempted to treat and “cure” leather by using anything ranging from mud to rubbing mashed berries on it. All they seem to have succeeded in getting is messy raw leather. While their frustration is slightly amusing, it has gotten your crafters wondering if there is in fact a way to do this. To create a “refined” leather.
Thaku (
oncpapa)
Vote: Attempt to tame Chakistani (6)
Outcome: Your would-be animal handlers attempt to tame the Chakistani, but they seem to ignore your efforts entirely. Any temptation with Thurn reeds, the food they seem to eat the most as far as your people can tell, doesn’t seem to interest them. The sloths seem perfectly okay with finding reeds to eat on their own. If there’s anything that your handlers might be able to do to tame them, they aren’t sure yet. While a disappointment, it is still better than if your efforts had gone wrong. Your handlers take some comfort in the fact that the Chakistani seem to be naturally docile creatures, though their grumbling is a bit infectious nonetheless.
Vote: Retry the domes (3)
Outcome: Once more, your crafters try creating the smoking domes, this time with their newly refined clay. However, it doesn’t seem to be the clay that breaks this time, but rather, the sticks your crafters are using to try holding up the clay domes they craft. Your crafters suggest either finding stronger wood for twigs, or making the domes bigger, which your clay gatherers object to due to the time needed to gather clay and the process needed to filter out as much mud as possible from the product by hand. This results in some arguments that require being quelled, but the previous lack of results doesn’t help the matter.
Stability: 2
Power: 2
Extra: Your trade deal with the Kathak is successfully expanded. Your traders now trade clay crafts and figures for the Kathak’s wooden equivalents. These wooden crafts now decorate the huts of your people, while your tribe’s children also play with the wooden figures the Kathak bring with them. With this development, your two peoples only get closer.
In other news, your traders report the Kathak have started building small, raised platforms using their mud bricks, held together by more of the same. Given the structural properties of clay that your crafters have discovered, they wonder if the same could be replicated purely out of clay. Additionally, they report that the Kathak have tried to create bows from wood, but the wood they were using seems ill-suited for this structurally. Your crafters suggest using Durnki wood, which is what your people use to build their houses, and is plentiful at these higher altitudes.
Yslach (
lordclassyus)
Vote: Retreat deeper into the caves, leaving no trace of our presence (20)
Outcome: Fearing for your people’s safety, the elders of your tribe urge them to pack their things and head deeper into the caves. As if sensing the urgency of your flight, the Ti’zos bats and Nathari serpents do not molest your people, and any that do are quickly driven off by swings of torches and spears. You leave behind no traces that the Yslach ever lived in your cave, aside from the fact that they were clearly shaped by Augrela hands. As your people head deeper, things get cooler, though not so cold as to require that your people bundle up, yet the temperature remains far more stable than before. When your torches eventually can’t be spared any further, your people rely on the glowing moss and fungus to light their way.
When reports come back of finding a new cave, a huge one, come back, at first your people are skeptical, but they soon eat their words when your tribe comes upon a truly huge cave! Filled to the brim with tree-like mushrooms with wide caps that the glowing moss grows under, and a whole new ecosystem! Ti’zos roost in the darkness of the ceiling far above, while Nathari hide amongst the sparse ledges on the walls. Roaming this mushroom forest floor grazing on the fungus are small quadrupedal animals with ridged armor along their backs, four stubby legs, large triangular ears that stick out to the sides of their heads, no eyes, a large scoop-like mouth with large bottom teeth that are visible when the mouth is closed, and overall covered in a thick pale grey hide. These animals quickly become the new staple form of meat, given their abundance in this underground forest, with Ti’zos and Nathari becoming secondary in that regard. The fungus is quickly found to be edible as well, and the mushroom-trees are a lot like the wood you used before, and fungus-grass becomes the new material for your tribe’s ropes. Water is gathered from fresh pools that gather around the edges of the cavern and run through the forest in small streams. Your people feel they have found an underground bounty, and quickly settle in, carving homes in the cavern walls for themselves.
Stability: 2
Power: 1
Extra: You send out a scouting party to warn the Oshala of possible marauders. They tell them that they saw the signals. And that they recognize them as the coming of the Donsou, whom they had fled long ago. They suspect they won’t be able to survive unless there is a miracle, as their efforts to create blocks from stone for fortifications has failed for them. However, rather than be scornful of your tribe’s flight, they instead wish you luck and thank your people for their assistance. While the Donsou don’t seem to have arrived just yet, your scouts still hurry back. They encounter some casualties from Ti’zos and Nathari, but otherwise return alright with their frightening tale. Some express a desire to return to the surface to help the Oshala, while others openly mourn their seeming imminent defeat.
Taji (
agenttine)
Vote: Domesticate the Konji (7)
Outcome: Your handlers attempt to tame the Konji horses, though they smell much like the Kashar of before, and the equines immediately attack them on sight. Thankfully, only minor injuries are sustained due to light protective armor and knowledge of the Konji tricks, but this just leaves your handlers, and people by extension, frustrated with this seemingly fruitless endeavor.
Stability: -1
Power: 1
Extra: After your separation from the Kashar, your people have started to rapidly grow in number thanks to the technologies you brought with you. However, since the Kashar’s numbers will also recover, and the Thourians are also experiencing a small population boom, the resources available in the home valley will start to become scarce in the near future.
Almost as if to scorn your efforts, your scouts report the Kashar have managed to attract a small number of Clovern to follow their migration route through the home valley. In addition to this news, your scouts also report the Kashar seem to have improved upon the inefficient leather hardening techniques you took with you. Your crafters aren’t sure how they managed this, but they are jealous at how easily they manage this process.
In other news, your scouts also report the Thourians running into similar taming troubles as you, as their efforts to tame the Cotel beasts seem to have completely stalled. They aren’t sure why, as they haven’t approached the large predators enough to find out. However, they also note the Thourians are wearing thicker leather clothing that keeps them almost as warm as your own furs do. While slightly amusing for your crafters, they also respect the inventiveness of the Thourians even though they don’t have access to the same processes your people do.
Thourian (
soundwave)
Vote: Try to create leather armor (17)
Outcome: With the new Kashar leather armor, your crafters attempt to replicate it. The end result is nothing more than leather clothing with some extra layers of leather sewn in using strings. While this provides some insulation from the cold and protection from weak blunt attacks, it is nowhere close to the hardened leather the Kashar are sporting. Your crafters suspect the Kashar prepare the leather first in some way, but they aren’t sure how yet. Nonetheless, this thicker clothing and the insulation it provides and the very modest protection pleases your people as it grants a small population growth due to less of your people freezing during the cold season. However, given your nomadic nature, your lack of consistent tending to your fields is starting to show as food stores start to become strained.
Vote: Tame Cotel (6)
Outcome: Your handlers attempt to tame the Cotel once more, but it seems their solitary nature is working against them, and the Cotel seem perfectly complacent with receiving food from them from time to time. Your handlers suspect that there might be something else they could do, but are waiting for direction from the band’s elders. This failure to do anything puts a bit of a damper on your band’s spirits, but the impact from this non-starter is similarly mitigated by the previous success.
Stability: 3
Power: 2
Extra: Your scouts report on the presence of a new band in the home vally, the Taji, whom have split off from the Kashar. This band once more tries to tame the equines, which they call Konji, only to fail to make any progress one way or the other. Shaking heads aside, your scouts also report this band’s numbers are rapidly increasing. And with these growing numbers combined with the recovering numbers of the Kashar, the resources of the home valley are predicted to become strained as numbers of Augrela once more climb.
Speaking of the Kashar, your scouts report they seem to have further refined their leather hardening process, making this toughened leather much more common amongst the other band. Your crafters express some jealousy, but are proud of their current accomplishment nonetheless. In addition to this, the Kashar have managed to attract some Clovern to follow them, which your handlers express some respect for.
In other news, the Azba have once again, almost like a recurring joke, failed at crafting pottery from the clay they have gathered. Your crafters have expressed that perhaps they need help in figuring out how to shape and mold this clay. Otherwise it’s going to get old fairly soon.
Doggax (
GabrielGG)
Vote: Bows (3)
Outcome: Your crafters attempt to use the strings you’ve made to create bows. However, the wood when shaped doesn’t seem to be very sturdy, and thus the new weapons snap in your people’s hands. This waste of good wood and string causes some grumbling, but also makes your crafters wary of using the wood they used before for anything but firewood and the tools they made before.
Stability: 0
Power: 1
Extra: Your scouts return with very worrying news. The smoke signals are exiting the valley your people fled from, and can be seen heading in your direction. The raiders from before are no doubt coming, which once more prompts calls to both flee and try to fight, and adds a sense of extra urgency to your crafters’ attempts to craft their weapons.