Expansion III: One Last Gasp (Roll: And spoil the results? Not for combat, nerds!)
The Baobabi have been forced into a lifestyle of fear. Even with their successes they still knew that, at the end of the day, they were prey. Led by the rallying cry of a Minor Founder
(Quarque +1I), a large group of Baobabi Hunter-Warriors set out to put an end to the Maneater Pride and this era of trepidation.
A core of tribesfolk using spears and bolas were supported by a smaller group of the best archers the tribe didn't have out on hunts. When camping at night they made use of multiple watch shifts, ensuring that the Maneaters never caught the group unaware. Their first night within
49-C saw them endure one such attempted ambush. Two younger lions had been stalking the party of well over two dozen individuals and attempted to pick one off as they neared unflattened grasses. They
did maul the guy, but were not able to drag him away nor did they escape without injury to themselves. One of the lions was hit by an arrow and limped off while the second was jabbed in the belly by the hunter it had pinned in the dirt. The wounded beast was struck down by a flurry of follow-up blows from other hunters, collapsing with the twitch of a massive paw next to the dying hunter.
Undeterred, the party continued their trek to the Maneater Pride's lair with a trail of lion's blood as a guide. It was late in the afternoon the majority of the beasts were resting in the shadow cast by their plateau. Arrows were let loose from the bowmen first, having set down and untied their bundles of arrows while the spearmen stalked ever closer. The Pride had grown in size, but not incredibly so, and so the few arrows that struck their relaxing targets still had quite the impact on the battle. Most of the spearmen had arranged themselves in a semicircle and charged in as the lions scrambled to their feet. A few lions charged their attackers, but the creatures were outnumbered more than 2-to-1 against the spearmen alone and the bolas were incredibly helpful in dampening a lion's charge even if they didn't get completely tangled. Most of the lions, faced with an incredible and sudden threat, retreated to the eastern slope where the rest of the warband made their presence known. The spearmen used the tools of their trade to "persuade" the lions to flee up to their pack leader's overlook, trapping the remaining adult lions while their offspring were dispatched with a spearthrust or two. The painful wails of the cubs sent one lioness into a frenzy as she tried to leap from the overlook down the cliff face, but she lost footing halfway down and bounced off the rocks onto her back with a sickening thwack. The furious creature swiped weakly with a forward paw as hunters approached her otherwise immobilized body to finish her off.
The rest of the lions were forced to face their attackers as the Baobabi spearmen slowly moved up the slope and the bowmen repositioned to the neighboring plateau. What followed was an incredible slaughter. The lions, caught between a cliff they couldn't scale, arrows arcing in from above, and a line of spear-and-bolas, had little choice but to charge the spearmen to preserve their own lives. With their numbers whittling away, the charge of the leader of the pride was one of sheer desperation. Even with a pair of arrows stuck in his side and back the thick-maned beast evaded multiple bolas and speartips to rip its claws into a hunter and punched a hole into the line of spears. Seeing even a brief window to escape, the large cats still standing tried to flee through the gap and the Baobabi line devolved into a chaotic brawl of man-vs-beast. The lead lion pushed through, but the others were bogged down by the numerically superior and better equipped (one would hope) hunters. The massive creature limped off, covered in the blood of lion and man, before collapsing in a small cloud of dust at the base of the slope largely unnoticed by the preoccupied hunters.
The lions were quick to fall in this last act of desperation, slaughtered to the last by the vengeful Baobabi people. The last to die was the leader of the pride himself. His chest puffed rapidly with its short, pained, wheezing breaths until one of the hunters walked up, muttered something that roughly translates to "There could have been peace", and landed a solid spearthrust that struck through the creature's heart. One last gasp burst forth from the beast to mark your peoples' own ability to breathe freely.
The Baobabi made use of a significant amount of
Guarri Bark Paste, providing quick if very basic medical attention to those wounded in the field. The hunters then took to field dressing the lions, gathering the meat, bones, and pelts to show off back home. While the meat was eaten and the skins used for clothing, the
Lion's Skull, taken from the leader of the Maneater Pride, was a symbol of prestige passed down from hunter to hunter to represent the most skilled and successful of their number. The
Lion's Skull provided the wearer with a remarkable amount of influence, even outside of the sphere of hunting. As time passed, the
Lion's Skull became a symbol of leadership.
The rest of the bones were strung up from the branches of
The Baobab. The savannah winds often rattled the lion remains, an ever-present reminder of the Baobabi peoples' ability to overcome foes and conquer their fears.
The Baobab is now referred to as
The Baobab of Bones. Both
The Baobab of Bones and the
Lion's Skull do not provide any mechanical bonuses themselves, but provide foundations that can be worked off of as your society continues to grow.
The Maneater Pride is no more. The Stone Upkeep required to keep them at bay is no longer required.With no immediate threats to their existence in sight, your people were able to settle into the more routine, peaceful lifestyles that being the top of the food chain allowed. This led to a slight increase in the rate of population growth which could soon push the Baobabi into an era where living off of the local flora would no longer be viable. (That is to say, in mechanical terms, there be Food Upkeep
on the horizon so long as the d10 is merciful)
(Also: the roll was a 7)
It is now the Exploitation Phase. Remember that you can choose, at present, a single resource to begin exploiting, or propose a development that would facilitate or build upon your ability to gather, identify, or otherwise interact with the resources of the world around you.
Improved Stone Tools: Provides durable tools for basic tasks, doubling Wood and Stone Exploitation, requires access to Stone, Wood, Textile.
-Stone Spear: Allows Exploitation of larger beasts for Food, requires access to Stone.
Bolas: Stones bound by rope used to ensnare and capture or cripple prey at range, requires access to Stone and costs 1 Textile in upkeep.
Baobabi Longbow: A composite recurved bow around 175-180cm long. Powerful and relatively silent. A weapon ahead of its time. Requires access to Textile and a Medium+ Animal Resource and costs 1 Wood upkeep. Uncommon
-Stone Arrows: Stone arrows with wooden shafts and feather fletching. Effective. Requires access to Wood, costs 1 Stone in upkeep.
Primitive Rope: Dried, braided reeds that let the tribe secure and bundle objects. Allows for Wood Exploitation 1 square outside of the civilization's borders, requires access to Textiles.
Primitive Firemaking: A base tech vital for survival.
Persistence Hunting: Allows for Food Exploitation 1 square outside of the civilization's borders.
-Efficient Hunting: Smarter tactics allow your hunters to gain +1 Food from hunted resources.
Waterskins: Animal bladders with wood stoppers and pullstrings used to transport water. +1 to borders around fresh water settlements, +1 to Exploration Range.
Early Animal Domestication: With a very basic understanding of how to pacify animals, your people are capable of attempting domestication.
Animal Bone Accessories: Jewelry, wards, and charms made of bone that provide a positive impact on tribal morale, requires access to a living (nonhuman) animal.
-Lion's Skull: The skull of the lion that led the Maneater Pride. A symbol of hunting mastery, power, prestige, and leadership within the tribe.
Subsistence Foraging: Allows for the bare minimum of passive Food collection for low populations in plentiful regions.
-Societal Herbalism: Your people as a whole have a basic familiarity with how to utilize the plant life around them. They are beginning to understand the life cycle of plants.
--Guarri Bark Paste: A bark and water mash that can be spread over open injuries to provide a level of pain relief and infection resistance.
-Primitive Dendrology: The tribe can identify the useful parts of trees better, providing Food or Chemicals in addition to Wood.
--Seedkeepers: Tribal collectors of seeds who spread them as they travel. They also keep track of tribal folklore using local trees as reference points for certain events.
---Woodsongs: Tales of the Seedkeepers turned into chants and accompanied by a rhythmically plucked bow. Is considered the foundation of the greater Baobabi language.
Hide Tents: Provides basic shelter.
-Pit House: A semiburied wood and grass structure that provides good environmental protection, improves quality of life, and sets the stage for further enhancements to bolster a more sedentary lifestyle, requires 1 Wood per Settlement for upkeep.
The Baobab of Bones: A tree used to mark tribal deaths due to lions now adorned by the sun-bleached bones of said lions. The deceased are left as offerings at its base. Is not a health hazard thanks to local scavengers stealing away with corpses in the night. The bones hanging from the branches act as a macabre windchime.
Food: 5/5
Wood: 0/2 (Pit Houses(-2))
Stone: 1/2 (Stone Arrows(-1))
Magnetofumes: 0/0
Chemical: 0/0
Textile: 0/1 (Bolas(-1))
Sand: 0/0
46-C: Savannah, Desert
46-D: Savannah, Desert, Beach
46-E: Desert, Beach, Coast, Shallow Water
47-B: Savannah, Freshwater Spring, Freshwater Stream, Beach, Coast, Shallow Water [Explored]
47-C: Savannah, Freshwater Stream [Explored]
47-D: SETTLEMENT, Savannah, Beach, Coast, Shallow Water [Explored]
47-E: Shallow Water
48-B: Savannah, Beach, Coast, Shallow Water
48-C: SETTLEMENT, Savannah, Freshwater Stream, Freshwater Lake [Explored]
48-D: Savannah, Beach, Coast, Shallow Water
48-E: Shallow Water
49-B: Shallow Water
49-C: Savannah, Plateaus, Beach, Coast, Shallow Water [Explored]
49-D: Savannah, Beach, Coast, Shallow Water
Identified, Identified but Currently Useless and Exploited
47-B: Food x3 (Barley Fields, Wildebeest Herd, Marula Tree Grove), Wood (Marula Tree Grove), Malachite River Stones (Stone), Alligators? (Alligators?)
47-C: Food (Zebra Herd), Wood (Rubber Tree Copse), Chemicals (Rubber Tree Copse), Magnetofumes (Fumic Geyser), Cheetahs? (Cheetahs?)
47-D: Food x3 (Wildebeest Herd(+1), Acacia Grove), Wood x2 (Acacia Grove), Stone x2 (Granite Inselberg), Magnetofumes (Fumic Geyser)
48-C: Food x2 (Antelope Herd, Elephant Herd) Food x2 (Ostrich Flock(+1)), Ivory (Elephant Herd), Clay (Lakeside Red Clay Deposit), Textiles (Lakeside Reeds)
49-C: Stone (Limestone Chimneys), Magnetofumes x2 (Fumic Plateau), Sand (White Quartz Beach)
Major Founders:
Powder Miner - (5I/0P)
m1895 - (2I/1P)
Nuke9.13 - (2I/0P)
Minor Founders:
a1s - (1I/1P)
Taricus - (1I/1P)
Kashyyk - (1I/0P)
Quarque - (1I/0P)
Fluffe1199 - (0I/0P)
Light forger - (0I/0P)
Doomblade187 - (0I/0P)
sketchykeeps - (0I/0P)
Knightwing64 - (0I/0P)
chubby2man - (0I/0P)
Author
Topic: The Founders - A RiskyArmsCivGodPoliticking Game (Experimentation VI) (Read 19813 times)