Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Iituem]

(

Your cultural strength is 61, not 106.  I have no idea where you got that number from.  o_o  If you added the 56 onto your last cultural amount, that's inaccurate - the 61 is the new total amount (and that's because I didn't call you out on somehow having 45 culture last time) because you gained 16 culture this round.)

Oh, yeah I added the 45 cultural from last turn. But does that men that if I had spent all my points last turn, I would only have regenerated 16 cul this turn?

Also, can I check if the House of Esra is still a devoted worshipper?

*ahem*  Did I say there were three members from House Arvay?  I meant House Esra.  </accounting failure>

And yes, you would only have regenned 16 cul (actually 15.5 rounded up).  The culture you get is the equivalent of if you pooled all the health, happiness and population of the entire town and judged their collective cultural strength as a whole (a weighted average of sorts).  In other words, I changed the system again, but actually I changed it in your favour again - in the older system you would have gained 8 cul instead.  Effectively you now gain a weighted culture point for every citizen, averaged out.  It's not the same as double everyone's culture, though.

If it proves underpowered I might double the gain, but we'll go with this for now.

[Digital Hellhound]

Broad SHAPE (-20) the earth, bringing more of this strange stone to the surface for the hillfolk to find.

Personal VIEW (-16) this hillfolk smith.

[Iituem]

Broad SHAPE (-20) the earth, bringing more of this strange stone to the surface for the hillfolk to find.

Personal VIEW (-16) this hillfolk smith.

You shape the Hills [-19 CUL, -1 GEN], driving hundreds of deposits of native copper up to the surface, as gentle tremors shake the hills over a period of several months.  The locals are amazed by the bounty of this shiny new rock, and attribute it to divine providence.  Not really sure whether to thank the sun or the wind, one of them sets up a very crude shrine (literally a handful of rocks stacked together) to an un-named "hill spirit".  It becomes a new tradition to place small votive offerings of twisted copper on the shrine.

You view the one who works the copper [-16 GEN], although he could not be truly described as a smith.  The hillman, an unassuming former goatherd by the name of Urd, spends his days collecting copper with a simple stone pick and beating the soft metal into various shapes.  He has already produced simple copper jewellery in the form of bangles, and has started work on cups and plates to eat from.

At this focus you can tell virtually everything there is to know about this man.  He's thin and wiry, with ripcord muscles, he cuts his beard short with a knife.  He isn't married, and is unsuccessful with women.  He admires the warriors of his clan.  He covets the Sunspear and wishes he could craft something so brilliant.  He is a devotee of Bohromu, like many in his clan.  He doesn't really think of slaves as people.  He likes the grasslander wheat and river fish, and is sick of goat's cheese.  He is curious about the strangers in the valley, but wary of potential slavers.  He is unaware of the irony of that thought process.

You can learn virtually anything about this man, even read his mind.  If you wish for more detailed information, you need only ask.

[Digital Hellhound]

Search his thoughts: What does he think about the enhanced families, assuming he is not part of them? Has he been outside the hills, on slave raids or otherwise, and what did he see there?

[Iituem]

Search his thoughts: What does he think about the enhanced families, assuming he is not part of them? Has he been outside the hills, on slave raids or otherwise, and what did he see there?

Urd is not one of the enhanced clansmen, but he admires their toughness and resilience.  He dreams of perhaps marrying into one of those clans, but thinks this is unlikely.  Urd is not one of the slavers, but he has taken supplies on a raid before.  Searching through his memories you find images of smaller valleys not dissimilar to this one, followed by a wide open plain that borders the sea, cut down the centre by a long snaking river.  Scattered camps of foreigners eke out a living on the plains, farming simple crops or hunting and gathering.  He thinks these people are primitives and worth slaving, but they can fight fiercely and he has only seen one or two slaving raids go particularly well.

[Digital Hellhound]

Broad WHISPER to the hillfolk: to be a leader is to be a warrior, to be a warrior is to lead. Look to the warriors for guidance and leadership. To aspire to be a warrior is good; men and women should test their physical prowess against eachother from an early age.

Sleep.

(Also, as I forgot to say, I am very happy this has returned.)

[Harry Baldman]

Time for the regular Grass briefing, we suppose.

Finely Whisper (4 CUL) to House Modnir. Tell them that they have done well so far, and that in their good work they have brought prosperity to the land alongside the other Houses. But they must remember that they should not grow complacent by any means, for all golden ages inevitably end, and one must prepare for those times in advance. They must support the other Houses in their dealings, collaborate well and save up for poorer times in the process. The task for House Modnir in specific is to continue their work on farming - they must be informed of the mechanics of breeding plants so that they may begin works of artificial selection, perfecting crops for greater yields, using their intuition of plants to improve their work. Aside from that, they must continue their work in the Cult of the Grass, and be mindful of the limits of growth, lest it strangle the land around them.

Finely Whisper (4 CUL) to House Esra. Tell them that their works of construction have been exceptional, but the wall that remains unbuilt is unacceptable, especially in times of prosperity, when the complacency of the people may have dire repercussions at the hands of jealous others. Urge them to continue refining their works, and supply ideas for sanitation systems and other, similar public projects undertaken for the good of all. Express approval for the Ancestor Temple, and tell them to work on refining and improving the monumental place in terms of workmanship, perhaps obtain the help of promising craftsmen to create appropriate temple art. Tell them also that it would be useful for the Cult of the Grass to have a proper temple with similar requirements. Express the sentiment that the current wealth of the village should be used to create things that bring lasting good, such as walls and, as mentioned, sanitation systems.

Finely Whisper (4 CUL) to House Avray. Convey to them the rough scope of the Grass, its intricacy and incredible power, and the beauty it can produce at appropriate times and conditions, its infinite potential. Whisper ideas of artistic expression of their prosperity and happiness in a lasting manner - explain to them that it is their job to both hone their skills as warriors and their humanity as artists. They must seek to bring the grand vision of the Three Houses and the Grass behind them into light, show the common man an insight into the brilliant, altered minds that lead them through artistic glimpses. They can devote their art to the Cult, the people or even the Houses themselves, but it is imperative that they create art of some sort. Drawings, sculptures, writings, scrawls and more - their imaginations must take flight, and act as frontrunners to the workers of today. Or at least they should act as patrons of the arts if none of them show talent at this type of work.

Then Narrowly View (4 GEN) the Houses.

((We're back! Hooray!))

[Evil Marahadja]

Save strength, sleep.

[Salsacookies]

I will broadly focus upon the forest. Then I will narrowly focus upon the cult, and whisper to them that the wielder of the sun spear is the personally selected leader of the Sun Bear. Last, I will personally whisper to the wielder "You will lead the Sun Bear, and those who look up to you leader. Protect the bears, and the trees, or face my wrath. I will then sleep

[Iituem]

Broad WHISPER to the hillfolk: to be a leader is to be a warrior, to be a warrior is to lead. Look to the warriors for guidance and leadership. To aspire to be a warrior is good; men and women should test their physical prowess against eachother from an early age.

Sleep.

(Also, as I forgot to say, I am very happy this has returned.)

Your words sift into the collective consciousness (-2 GEN); aspire to war, always test one another, look to the warriors for leadership.  The first two suggestions fail to really take.  There is no significant increase in the numbers of warriors, and no significant tradition of warrior training develops, but the third suggestion takes.  People look more and more to the warriors of their clans for advice, and the warriors look to one another as well.  Soon enough, the clans join together to form a single tribal government beneath the warrior clan chiefs.  The tribal elders take care of decisions for the tribe, and loosely manage the hills to prevent overgrazing - to a certain extent, at least.


Grass: You take advantage of your unique link to the High Grasslanders and visit them in their dreams.  [-12 CUL Total]  At this level of focus you are able to explain things in great detail, but you dump a lot of information on them, and they may not be able to soak it all up. You also take the opportunity to view your work [-4 GEN].

To House Modnir you encourage them to work with the other Houses and to work with the Cult of the Grass more closely, as well as giving them instructions on the process of selective breeding and an admonition about growing past their limits.  With their native link to the Grass, they adopt the techniques of selective breeding with ease; they are already contributing nearly all of their resources to the wall, satisfying your injunction; for the moment the use of crop rotation will stave off overfarming for a generation or two, so they do not feel pressed to worry about it.  As for the Cult of the Grass, they manage to sway the Grass cultists to contribute time and materials towards the wall as well.

House Esra you pressure to develop better means of disposing waste, to help with the walls, build up the Ancestral temple and erect one to the Grass.  As expected, your instructions on sanitation are received easily and they are able to follow through, digging out simple sewage ditches for the disposal of waste to prevent buildup of filth in the village.  While effective, these improvements will not really pay off until the village becomes more crowded, but you have provided ahead of time for such a contingency.  They contribute some resources towards the village wall and seriously begin working on improving the shrine to the Ancestors to a full temple, but given how cosy the Grass cult and House Modnir are getting, they keep the last of their resources for their own uses.

To House Avray you give two commands; to train for war, and to bring forth art.  To the first command they take, and begin training a small amount of their number as full time warriors.  Over time they come to develop their own traditions and identities as warriors, separate from the general identity of their people and their House.  This dedication to their craft will set them in good stead for war.  To the second command they take as well, mixing pigments from plants and earth.  They begin to paint, to detail the nature of the Grass, to preserve their stories on stone and wood.

You are also able to get an idea of the relative influence and power of the Houses.  The Houses each have around 20-30 members, kinsmen and attached craftsmen or labourers, and House Avray also hosts four men who have begun training as warriors.  They are presently roughly equal in wealth, if you measure wealth in terms of stored grain, clay and copper jewellery and available manpower.  By comparison, the Ancestor cult is about equal in numbers, the Grass cult boasts more followers and both the cults are poorer than the Houses.


Remaining actions will be resolved later, getting sleepy.

[Criptfeind]

Fine Focus Imbue on a group of stones in the river (25 CS + 39 GS + 13 CS from the The Forest of Sleeping Giants + 3 General Strength from The Forest of Sleeping Giants = 80. Leaving me with 16 general strength and 21 natural strength (20 of which is reserved for and open to anything the sleeping giants wants. I hope my math is right.)

The blessed spirit reached into the world more strongly then it has ever done before, and from a bank on the river it gathered into itself a group of highly polished stones. It reenforced them and pushed it's own life and will into the stones, reaching towards, and receiving, even more power from it's sibling spirit of the forest when it found it's own power inadequate for it's intentions. The stones were filled with power, and they became the elemental stones. A set of magically sentient artifacts imbued with a portion of the power of the spirits. In these stones the spirit poured the ability to control the elements and build bodies for themselves from their elements. Each stone would be tied to a single element. Some to water, some to earth, some to air, some to fire, and some to plant life. These elementals were to act as the blessed spirits hands into the mortal world. Protecting the river and the valley and those who lived in it from outside harm and obeying the commands of the blessed spirit. The spirit passed it's love of crafts to the stones, imbuing them with a desire to become part of great works, so that when if they were presented with a true masterpiece of craftsmanship they would allow their core to be built into the piece, allowing it's owner to command them and their power for a amount of time relative to the craftsmanship of the piece.

((Well. That took me a long time to decide what I wanted to do. But, there it is. My intention was to basically make elementals with a connection to me and the ability for mortals to temporary wield their powers. I'm honestly not sure if a fine focus imbue is powerful enough for that, especially since the powers are somewhat varied. (Connection to spirit, control over elements, ability to pass on powers), but I figured it was worth a try.))

[Harry Baldman]

Things are going well! And so the Grass shall sleep!

[RulerOfNothing]

Shape with Narrow Focus (-40 GEN) to bring iron ore deposits into a more accessible location.