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[Man of Paper]

Welcome, Embralish Engineer, to Harren Island.
Core Thread

Your people have landed in an area you've dubbed "The Rupture", notable for it's extreme heat, lakes and rivers of molten rock and metal, and pillars of smoke. Your people have pushed their way north, combating the environment every step of the way. While your people attempt to understand and utilize the unique materials available to the island, your efforts are frequently stymied by a mysterious group known only as The Pact. Their headquarters is a centrally located island housing a massive Fortress-City. Past them, in the frozen lands of the north, lies another group representing a nation of the Old World: The Inithar. You must do what you can to ensure that they can't bring the knowledge they gain here back to The Old World and threaten Embralish supremacy.


It is presently the Design Phase. As mentioned in the Core Thread, you will be posed a scenario to be answered with an appropriate design. The prompt is as follows:

The Old World wasn't always a mess of nation-states clawing and tearing at one another. Early on most were nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers. Your people lived off the land, migrating as needed to ensure they could be fed and watered. Stone tools helped push your people forward, granting them opportunities they otherwise would have never had. Indeed, this is the first time your people stand out above the rest. Propose an item that could be constructed during this period and utilized by your tribe in some way. This choice, as with those that come in the following turns, will paint your nation's past as well as influence their opening armory.

You are also to create the unique resource that makes your nation special by the end of the fifth preliminary turn.

Any questions can be posed here or in Discord (linked in the core thread). As we go further and options open up I'll explain some of the finer rules in-depth, but for now that's it!

Spoiler: Territories (click to show/hide)

The Rupture: 2 Ore, 2 Oil, 2 Wood, 2 UNDEFINED
The Mesas: Empty, Pact Caelium, Empty (1/3 Nodes)
Badlands: Pact Gavrillium, Empty, Pact Caelium (2/3 Nodes)
Desert: Empty, Empty, Pact Gavrillium (1/3 Nodes)
Volcanic Range: Empty, Pact Caelium, Empty (1/3 Nodes)
Burning Hills: Pact Caelium, Empty, Empty (1/3 Nodes)
The Wastes: Empty, Empty, Empty (0/3 Nodes)
South Peaks: Pact Gavrillium, Pact Gavrillium, Empty (2/3 Nodes)
Southern Stormlands: Empty, Empty, Empty (0/3 Nodes), Heavy Pact Presence
The Mudflats: Empty, Empty, Empty (0/3 Nodes)

[Madman198237]

I'm too tired for this. Copy-pasted suggestion from Discord, will refine sometime later. Spoilered for all you indecisive sorts who haven't picked a team yet, just in case this is still the first reply.

Spoiler: Embralians Only You Foreign Fool (click to show/hide)

Alrighty, here's a really rough idea totally not based on APGTE:
We have a special resource that is very rare. It is "collected" by people sometimes from rare and dangerous animals, sometimes from rare and hidden plants, but mostly, it is collected by taking it from others or being given it by others. Said resource grants some form of powers, at the slight cost of encouraging a whole heck of a lot of in-fighting amongst people who want a piece of the metaphysical pie and are willing to arrange that rock pile just so that the most powerful local guy gets killed a little bit. This encourages a system of feudalism of sorts, wherein the resource becomes a reward and a source of power both, and thus followers obey their leaders because the most powerful people are the only ones who have the skills necessary to hunt the rare and dangerous beasts that provide it or find the rare flowers etc etc

[frostgiant]

Stone age tech: Dogsled
The early peoples of Embral were said to live in a vast icy tundra, lacking access to metal and most of what people would consider a necessity for civilized life. During this time they used stone, The rare sources of wood and The products of the hunts for everything. The  key Tool to their survival was the Dog, and with them, The Dogsled.
Allowing Long distance travel over the vast icy tundras in search of prey, transportation for the daily hauls, and hunting companions to aid in tracking and killing the creatures that roamed the tundra, it is no stretch to say that The Dog and Dogsled enabled the survival of the Stone age Embral people.

Stone age tech:  Dog Breeds
From the early day's of the tribes, the animal tenders would separate out the strongest and most desirable traits in the litters of young from those without those traits. Through a deft hand, the Tenders steadily created families, sharing traits with each other. Some dogs would be Small and wiry, adept at flushing rodents from their holes. Others would be slim and fast, perfect for exhausting prey and hunting down food for the tribe. And then they were the largest and strongest dogs. Bred for large builds, sharp teeth and aggression towards those, not of the tribe, the war dogs of the Early Embral people were things to be feared among their enemies.

[Madman198237]

An Ancient Music
Sphere: Music
From the most ancient days, we have used a power none can comprehend. It lurks in distant corners of hostile areas, daring the adventurous to find it, to hoard it, to use it. Hunt those that hold it, man or beast, and steal it from them. Kill them if you must. Search for the plants and rip them up by the roots, steal what makes them special. Traverse ancient paths to secret springs, drink the water, see if something is there... for you.

For the few who do find something there for them and survive the trials, they find themselves rewarded. They find themselves with skins, and bones, and hairs, and fibers, or with fruit or water or meat. Those that use these pieces to make something find themselves able to use music in combination with that object to affect the world. Shaping the world around them, increasing their own abilities or the abilities of those around them, almost anything is possible given this music. They find themselves a faint echo of something greater when they do, hearing in their ears a faint ghost of a greater music in everything around them.

I want to make this longer but am not sure how and I really an just done sitting on it.

[Tyrant Leviathan]

Wait what is our tech level?

As for super resourcevwa thinking of Xenonass. Unknown goo that can be used to evolve people Bioshock style or even used as fuel/series of energy guns by exploiting it. Already named it the RED Gun series. Has 6 models.

[Man of Paper]

By the end of the opening turns you'll be mid/late 1930s, but the first five turns will be designs that served various purposes throughout your nation's history based on prompts I give.

[frostgiant]

Stone age design:
Dog-sled (1): Frostgiant

Special resource
Ainulindale(1) : Frostgiant

[TheRedwolf]

Stone age design:
Dog-sled (2): Frostgiant TheRedwolf

Special resource
Ainulindale(1) : Frostgiant

Good bois are always needed!

[NUKE9.13]

So, I don't like the sled suggestion, for two reasons. One, when we came to the New World, we chose the hot climate, and our rivals chose the cold climate. If our home nation has a very cold climate, it would be weird of us to go for the extremely hot region.
Two, I'm not really sure where dogs and sleds are supposed to take us. I know that we aren't literally going to be using dogsleds in the modern era- but this tech is supposed to, like, inspire our starting tech in some way.

I have an alternative suggestion:

Stone-age Tech - Catamaran:
The Embral peoples have their origins on the scattered islands of the tropical seas of the Old World. Archaeological evidence shows signs of habitation on Embrallia (a moderately sized island, formerly the capital of the Embral Empire, until it was moved to a more strategic location) as far back as 20,000 years ago; impressive, considering the distance between it and the mainland. It is believed that the Embral tribespeople built twin-hulled canoes to ferry themselves across the seas, possibly with rudimentary sails for when the wind was right. Similar vessels (although considerably more advanced) continue to be used by fishermen in less developed parts of the Embral Empire.

Naval technology has moved on in the millennia since the first catamaran washed up on the beaches of Embrallia, but their early seafaring experience has stuck with the Embral people through the ages.

Not sure about the special resource. The music thing sounds interesting, but, uh, it is pretty poorly defined currently. It kinda sounds like wish magic, insofar as it can do anything with no limits. I'd like to see Madman expand on how it works, and maybe some examples of what it might be able to do.
Until then, I'm going to vote to wait on the special resource for now.

Stone age design
Dog-sled (2): Frostgiant TheRedwolf
Catamaran: (1) NUKE9.13

Special resource
Ainulindale(1) : Frostgiant
No choice yet: (1) NUKE9.13

[frostgiant]

I am weary about the catamaran because most of what I can find suggests it was a bronze age vessel, not a stone age one and since this is getting rolled like a normal design I would be wary of overreaching.

[frostgiant]

Songwood and the Singing Tree’s

Many legends have been told, about the singing tree’s in the history of Embral, to whom music has been sacred since long ago.  Myth has been woven around the Embral minstrel, The tavern bard, and the kingly orchestra. In the old world, during the times of kings and queens, it was a well-known fact that it one wished to listen to the best music in the lands, one must hire one of the Embrals lot.

mythic their musical arts had been, the most legendary of the Embral were always said to possess an instrument carved from the wood of a singing tree.

Matching the deepest of oak and a luster to match even the shiniest of metals, The singing tree was a work of art even before one would watch its namesake singing. As the wind whistled through its long curved and hollowed branches miracles would take shape.
Fea fire, Earth-shaking, Rain summoned from the clearest of days and flames that could scorch even knightly armor. Some were even lucky enough to have found old injuries melded, and new flesh made hale and whole.
Music made upon an instrument of this miracle tree was said to hold amazing qualities, summoning up godly miracles at the sounds of such music.
These Legendary bards and their instruments gradually fading from history and into myth, as all things do.

But here, in this land. Were the suns are hot, the storms ferocious and the blood of the earth so close to the surface, in this sacred and desolated land, We have made a discovery.

A tree, that produces wonderful music, and miracles as the wind flows through its branches. Within the despoiled lands of salviosi we have discovered a singing tree, just a single one. For now. But they exist, just as the old myths say they do.
Whether the tree existed before the event 20 years ago, or the sundering of this land and the subsequent release of compounds, materials, and energies unseen for thousands of years has provoked its growth, we have discovered a singing tree.

Depending on the pitch, pattern, and tone of the sounds produced from an instrument made of songwood, different manifestation take place upon the world.  A skilled bard might be able to switch from a song that at one minute invigorates those around him, strengthing their bodies before swiftly switching to a tavern shanty that is capable of manifesting flames to be rained upon the enemy. As the music created from the Songwood is made, The songwood seems to, Resonate and in turn the world around it resonates as well. While the Hows and the why's are still poorly understood, We known enough to see that it is the fabled source of our legendary musician's outlandish abilities.

By cultivating this tree, taking clippings and seeds from it we shall be able to form a new source of the legendary song wood, said to have been the greatest treasure of our ancestors. Truly this endeavor will be quite profitable.
We must take this land for our own, even if it is just for the chance of more singing tree’s being present. if we must take it from the Pact and the inithar's expedition through conflict? So be it, let them learn first hand that not all music soothes the soul.

[Madman198237]

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.

Heavily rewritten. Wow, this is a lot harder to figure out than I thought it'd be.

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.

[frostgiant]

Stone age design
Dog-sled (2): Frostgiant TheRedwolf
Catamaran: (1) NUKE9.13

Special resource
Ainulindale(0) :
No choice yet: (1) NUKE9.13
An Ancient music(1): Frostgiant

Sticking with the dog sled, Doge loyalty you must understand, but Moving my vote to the working version of ancient music.

[Madman198237]

Stone age design
Dog-sled (2): Frostgiant TheRedwolf
Catamaran: (1) NUKE9.13
Masters of Nature: (1) Madman

Special resource
No choice yet: (1) NUKE9.13
An Ancient music: (2) Frostgiant, Madman

[Tyrant Leviathan]

What about spear hurlers? If Stone Age? Gotbidea from the Bear Tribe novels. Basically a arm strap on one shot cross bow. Instead of bolts it’s spears and met to drop the big game. Issues though were personally injury and broken stuff. But flungbthem Spears Pretty Good.

Spear Hurlers: Tyrant Leciathan.



Special Reaource: Xenomass. A unknown substance from the sea that can make controllable mutations and used as fuel when it ignites, generates lots of power. The Mad regrow snack st a fast rate. Meaning if fo not burn all reserces, it regenerates. For many, many uses
Xenomass: Tyrant Leviathan.