Embralish Defining Tech: Stone Age
Proposal: Masters of Nature/Ancient Music (Wells)Masters of Nature
We have long known of the music of the world. Early in our days, we could sometimes exploit it. Those who had survived the deadly trek to the Wells we knew often came back and listened to the songs of things they knew well---the animals they hunted or the food they grew. These Springsingers would grant their communities much greater harvests or bring in animals to be hunted or raised as livestock, long before our neighbors could ever see so much food. And so we grew even when they starved, our jealously-guarded power giving us great strength despite our few numbers and hostile environment.
An Ancient Music
Sphere: Music
From our first days, we have sung, and danced, and made instruments. We have always known that music is important to the world---how could it not be? Everything has a song, and every song is part of the symphony of the world. With music, one can alter these fundamental songs, encourage them to do as you wish. For most of our history, the changes were unnoticeable, impossible to perceive. Our music was not great enough, then.
Then we discovered the Wells. Places where the music is stronger, where one who knows what to listen for can almost hear it. Search around, and you might find a cave, or a crevasse, or a deep lake. Near the bottom, you can find a place where the music is strong enough to be heard, to be understood....to be remembered. And once you know how to make this music, you know how to alter it, how to influence it.
And the Wells are rightly feared, for strange things happen to creatures that spend time so near to the music. You may find yourself facing a beast or plant that sings you into a deadly sleep, or something with a song that is indistinguishable from the shadows around you...
But for those who enter and leave alive, they will have sometimes have learned something.The Wells cannot teach everyone---indeed only one person can be there at a time, if they wish to learn something. And not everyone is right for it---most who enter will hear nothing, find nothing, learn nothing. But if you do hear the call, the music, the power, then you will know. Know how to listen, how to feel. With study, years of study to strengthen the skill and toughen the body and an infinity of patience with which to listen, one can master the song of something else. Songs of bone, of flesh, of leaf, bark, and root, of rock, of iron, of earth, of water. Songs of the air and the fire and everything else that can be seen and listened to.
Find the caves, hear the symphony, learn the songs. Alter the songs, and shape what you know, by drum, by horn, by voice. Shape it to your will if you have the strength and the skill.
Difficulty: Very Hard
Result: (4+3)-2=5,
Below AverageDeep under the Embral homeland, for as long as anyone could remember, laid a network of caverns. While we now know of their scientific significance, their initial discovery during the dawn of our people painted them as mystic, spiritual places of power. These deep caverns, or Wells, seemingly granted those who entered and survive their trials a magical ability to shape the world through music, should that music be created with instruments formed of materials from within the Wells - wood (plant life was oddly abundant in these Wells), chitin or bone, and metal from the walls as time went on. The "trials" one had to overcome were, in reality, hallucinations caused by the moderate concentration of toxic gases. If one was able to fight through the poisoned air, harvest the materials, and leave, they were rewarded with resources capable of twisting and forming the world around them, if worked right.
Well material affect matter on a wide scale, determined by a combination of specific note, key, the type of instrument, and the actual material it incorporates. Each peculiar vibration was capable of affecting molecular structures in their own unique ways. Initially however, the only thing our people were able to use on a regular basis was the steady beat of a large bass Well Wood drum with any sort of hide stretched over it. A soft, steady beat stimulated plant growth, and while it couldn't necessarily be directed, it helped kick the Embralish towards being a dominant agrarian people. Massive drums centered in vast fields were a common sight, and all Embralish came to know the deep, low thumping thumping beat not just heard, but felt, as a sound of comfort, of home.
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IT IS NOW THE REVISION PHASE.As this turn has no previous age's tech to advance, you're given a little more leeway in regards to revision difficulty. So long as it is loosely related to your Wellwood Bass Drum it should be doable. Note that much realism was added to your design, though flavorwise it's acceptable to continue having your people think it's magic. Now that your special resource
(which utilizes the sphere of Sound) is better defined within the parameters of a sci-fi universe you can yell at me for how far off the mark I was. Note, the VH difficulty was because of the complexity of music combined with very specific interactions and a lack of musical notation during the era.
Wellwood Bass Drum: A large man-sized drum made of Wellwood harvested from a Well with an animal hide stretched over it. A steady rhythm helps stimulate plant growth. It isn't a drastic change - a season of growth won't be cut down to days - but harvests tend to be more bountiful if Drummers maintain the beat.
Unique Resource - Wells: Wells are strange, relatively poorly understood subterranean environs housing any number of forms of cave-adapted life whose parts can be used to manipulate the world through sound.
Author
Topic: Mechanized Warfare: Embral Thread / Final Phase, 1941 Cold Season (Read 24890 times)