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[NUKE9.13]

Soul-scouts
It does not take much intelligence to ponder the nature of death. Even primitive hominids treated their dead with respect, believing on some level that an element of the departed persisted. As to the what, how, and why of such post-life existences, it seems like every culture developed their own answers. Before we entered the caves, we too had beliefs regarding death and the afterlife. However, these were quickly discarded. Because where others speculate, we can observe. We can visit the Whispering Lake, and witness a stream of souls siphoned from the world above pour into that vast reservoir- one which drains directly into the afterlife. We can delve into The Depths to 'hear' the cries of those denied access to the afterlife, instead left to drift aimlessly in the miasma until their souls degrade into nothing.
Mourning Dew is simply condensed souls. It is only here, where the souls of the dead congregate, that it is so dense that even the untrained can experience it. By tuning their senses through prolonged exposure to the Dew, some of us have learned to see individual souls. They have seen the souls of the dead gradually detach from the corpse, to then slowly drift towards the Whispering Lake.
But that's not all. Those whose senses are more attuned to souls can not just see them more clearly, they can 'hear' them more clearly as well. Most of the souls that make up the Mourning Dew are indistinguishable, having all-but completely lost their identity. Their spectral presence remains, but they have nothing to say, and just drift along with the current. Other souls retain a modicum of presence, but do little more than whisper unintelligibly- and at present, we have no way of 'talking back', so we can't exactly ask them questions (such passive souls don't even appear to be aware of our presence). However, on rare occasions, a particularly 'loud' soul will be encountered- they retain a strong identity, and seem to actively draw energy from the more passive souls in the Dew, making them a lot easier to see and 'hear'. This is how we know that those in The Depths were denied entrance to the afterlife- we have 'heard' some of them complain about it. By the sounds of it, there isn't exactly a gatekeeper, but there is a barrier- at the very bottom of the Whispering Lake- that some souls are unable to pass through.

Great, cool, so what? Whining spirits are interesting, but not very useful, or relevant. Ah, but here's the thing. We can't ask these 'wild' souls questions. But we can ask those of us about to die questions. And, especially in the case of those who are Attuned, they will retain the question after they die, and can offer answers to us (the souls of the Attuned are also easier to hear). For example, we can ask an Attuned on the verge of death to tell us what they see after they pass. Turns out, souls can see things we can't. They can see through (some) stone. They can see ponds full of crayfish or curtains of lichen in a distant cavern, and give us directions. They can sometimes see stranger things, things we don't speak about.
While souls are generally inclined to drift towards the Whispering Lake, they don't have to. Thus, our soul-scouts can follow our living scouts around (in a macabre twist, it's easier for them to follow if we carry part of their corpse with us), and call out interesting things as they spot them. While the number of Attuned we have is limited (not everyone can afford to- or dares to- spend days on end immersing themselves in Mourning Dew), most soul-scouts are willing to serve the good of the tribe in death for years (before finally announcing they are too tired to continue, and making their way to the Whispering Lake).
It would be even better if the communication was a two-way thing, but c'est la mort. 

GOALS:
-Defining the nature of Mourning Dew
-Establishing the Attuned, starting on the path of communing with the dead (perhaps controlling later). Might have a Mourning Dew upkeep, at the very least a Mourning Dew access requirement, to represent the cost of training.
-Soul-scouts to aid in exploration, letting us explore areas more quickly/thoroughly.

[Maximum Spin]

Can we just... declare what the dew is like that?

[Quarque]

NUKE has written up an awesome idea as usual, but it is honestly a little too good to my taste. Messing with the dead sounds dangerous and terrifying, and turning the souls of the deceased into a prospect tool without a real drawback feels a little cheesy in my opinion.

Pit-fired terra-cotta ceramics is something I would love to see eventually, but right I am afraid that burning lichen at the necessary scale puts too much of a strain on a currently limited resource (it already serves as food, fuel and textile). Same problem as with communal fires.

Succession harvesting is not a bad idea at all. With the lack of photosynthesis down here, plant material is very likely a long term constraint. I feel we can't go wrong taking an early step toward farming.

Pit-fired terra-cotta ceramics: (0)
Succession harvesting: (1) Quarque
Soul-scouts: (0)

[NUKE9.13]

NUKE has written up an awesome idea as usual, but it is honestly a little too good to my taste. Messing with the dead sounds dangerous and terrifying, and turning the souls of the deceased into a prospect tool without a real drawback feels a little cheesy in my opinion.

So, on the one hand, MoP has never been shy about introducing unexpected downsides to proposals that roll poorly, so it probably isn't required for us to include one ourselves. On the other, I wouldn't mind giving MoP a helping hand in suggesting a direction for drawbacks, so if anyone has a suggestion, I'd be willing to give a nod to a potential pitfall. I did include a line about 'strange things we don't talk about', which could potentially serve as a hook for Bad Consequences, but more can't hurt. I mean, it can hurt, that's literally the point, but... you know what I mean.

Can we just... declare what the dew is like that?

MoP literally asked us to (in the exploration results, for instance), so I would say yes.

[Maximum Spin]

While I'm interested in experimenting on the dew (and I also feel like farming is a natural extension of gathering and probably something we can do during a regular Exploit phase), I don't prefer the direction Nuke is taking it. I'd like more information on just how specific we are expected to get about it before I try to make an alternative, but my provisional preliminary proposal is something like...
Do the Dew (Uses: Mourning Dew)
Taking advantage of the continued failure of our society to have developed independent ethics review boards, we have offered several terminally elderly volunteers from the various Families the opportunity to imbibe Mourning Dew, in order to learn what we can about its effects and hopefully dispel some of the superstitious mystery surrounding it, or possibly make it worse.
Which I'll flesh out as appropriate.

MoP literally asked us to (in the exploration results, for instance), so I would say yes.

I didn't really interpret "defining the interaction between our people and the dew" as defining what it is and does, myself.

[NUKE9.13]

MoP literally asked us to (in the exploration results, for instance), so I would say yes.

I didn't really interpret "defining the interaction between our people and the dew" as defining what it is and does, myself.

From the Resources spoiler in the OP:
"Special Resources are resources only found in large concentrations in very specific areas of the world. These Special Resources defy our own laws of the physical universe and can lead to very creative and interesting advancements. Special Resources have undefined reactions, allowing players to come up with unique solutions to whatever problems might arise. The base form of a special resource does not mean other forms would be ineffective or impossible: it is up to you to define what the liquid form of your special gas can do. Special Resources are the only ones you will be made aware of before you have the capacity to gather or utilize them."
In previous MoP games, players were given significant leeway to invent properties and interactions for Special Resources, though MoP always reserved the right to have them do something else in the event of a poor roll or overreach.

Do the Dew (Uses: Mourning Dew)
Taking advantage of the continued failure of our society to have developed independent ethics review boards, we have offered several terminally elderly volunteers from the various Families the opportunity to imbibe Mourning Dew, in order to learn what we can about its effects and hopefully dispel some of the superstitious mystery surrounding it, or possibly make it worse.

While I can't speak for MoP, I'm fairly confident he won't accept this, precisely because it is our burden to say what we want the Dew to do (and his privilege to tell us it does something catastrophic instead when we roll a 1). 


Regarding Quarque's desire for more (potential) downsides, I wrote a thing that I was thinking of adding to the proposal.

It is worth noting that to become Attuned is not always successful.
In some cases, the candidate is simply unable to adapt- their mind too rigidly locked into a material worldview, no amount of exposure is enough to attune them.
In worse cases, the attempt will result in the candidate becoming catatonic, as their own soul proves too weak to withstand the overwhelming levels of spectral energy it is exposed to. The living soul is eroded of its identity and subsumed into the Dew, leaving the body a soulless husk.
The worst case scenario involves particularly strong malicious spirits. Though thankfully quite rare, some souls violently reject the fact of their death, and actively attempt to enter into the bodies of those who immerse themselves in the Dew. In most cases, the resident living soul is far too well entrenched to be kicked out, but when combined with the previous case of the living soul being weakened, the malicious spirit can successfully possess the candidate's body. This would be unfortunate for the former candidate, but to make matters worse, this invariably results in a violent end. For the body itself rejects the intruding soul, causing the possessed to lash out at 'themselves' and others, scratching and biting in an insane rampage until they perish (be it by their own hand or by others defending themselves).

[Man of Paper]

Nuke is correct on all counts pertaining to mechanics. I wouldn’t listen to him about bicycle safety though.

This has been “callback to an old conversation” starring MoP.

[Crystalizedmire]

Since everyone is giving their proposals on our ghost mist, here is my proposal:
Dew for the Dead
The mourning dew whispers to us. Some swore up and down that they heard voices of the recently deceased in them too. So assuming the accounts are true, this means that the ghosts of the dead congregate there seemingly to just talk. So we should bring our dead there(their bodies to be specific) so they wouldn't have to walk so much to hang out with other ghosts. And some accounts said the mourning dew talks about the living too. So maybe we should talk about the dead as they talk about the living. Every time someone dies, we talk about them. We share stories of what they did in life while two people carry their body toward the mist. One of them is a family member or close friend to the dead while the other is a person who could hear the souls of the recent past. The first person(if they could not hear the ghosts) asks a question and the soul hearer would answer the question according to what the ghost said. This makes us close together and our dead closer to us.
I still think my succession harvest proposal is better because we'll probably need a lot of hairy lichens.

Pit-fired terra-cotta ceramics: (0)
Succession harvesting: (1) Quarque, Crystalizedmire
Soul-scouts: (0)
Do the Dew: (0)
Dew for the Dead: (0)

[Crystalizedmire]

Since everyone is giving their proposals on our ghost mist, here is my proposal:
Dew for the Dead
The mourning dew whispers to us. Some swore up and down that they heard voices of the recently deceased in them too. So assuming the accounts are true, this means that the ghosts of the dead congregate there seemingly to just talk. So we should bring our dead there(their bodies to be specific) so they wouldn't have to walk so much to hang out with other ghosts. And some accounts said the mourning dew talks about the living too. So maybe we should talk about the dead as they talk about the living. Every time someone dies, we talk about them. We share stories of what they did in life while two people carry their body toward the mist. One of them is a family member or close friend to the dead while the other is a person who could hear the souls of the recent past. The first person(if they could not hear the ghosts) asks a question and the soul hearer would answer the question according to what the ghost said.
I still think my succession harvest proposal is better because we'll probably need a lot of hairy lichens.

Pit-fired terra-cotta ceramics: (0)
Succession harvesting: (1) Quarque, Crystalizedmire
Soul-scouts: (0)
Do the Dew: (0)
Dew for the Dead: (0)

Forgot to change the vote counter:

Pit-fired terra-cotta ceramics: (0)
Succession harvesting: (2) Quarque, Crystalizedmire
Soul-scouts: (0)
Do the Dew: (0)
Dew for the Dead: (0)

[Powder Miner]

I am a pretty big fan of the soul scouts but would much rather it be without the drawbacks text as the idea of the benevolent dead is I think what I’m generally looking for.

[NUKE9.13]

To note, I've made a slight edit to the soul-scouts proposal, in the third paragraph. It's not significant, just adding a third category of soul that is totally indistinguishable.
I haven't added the drawback I proposed, since Powder doesn't think it's necessary, and I'm fine either way. I'm still open to discussing it, of course. If it really comes down to it, I could make two versions, but I'll stick with one for now.

Pit-fired terra-cotta ceramics: (0)
Succession harvesting: (2) Quarque, Crystalizedmire
Soul-scouts: (1) NUKE9.13
Do the Dew: (0)
Dew for the Dead: (0)

[Maximum Spin]

While I can't speak for MoP, I'm fairly confident he won't accept this, precisely because it is our burden to say what we want the Dew to do (and his privilege to tell us it does something catastrophic instead when we roll a 1).

Well, I very specifically said it wasn't done. I just wanted to post the part I'd already written so that I wouldn't forget it. I did figure it had to have more.

All right, this is what I personally want it to do:
Do the Dew (Uses: Mourning Dew)
Taking advantage of the continued failure of our society to have developed independent ethics review boards, we have offered several terminally elderly volunteers from the various Families the opportunity to imbibe Mourning Dew, in order to learn what we can about its effects and hopefully dispel some of the superstitious mystery surrounding it, or possibly make it worse.

Truthfully, we had no idea what to expect. Some of us — some of them, even — expected that they would die. They did not.

Well, they were all very old and infirm, which is why they signed up for something so dangerous in the first place. Before long, just in the natural order of things, we expected that they would die. They did not.

One man from the test group was severely injured in a rockfall accident. His body broken and bleeding and his breathing weak, we expected that he would die.

He did not.

Or maybe he did. It's a little difficult to say. The body is cold and the wound barely heals, but that didn't seem to stop him from dragging himself back out of bed and going about his business. All of the subjects have gone a little quiet and a little odd, but when they do speak, they're more lucid than they've been in years.
We don't really know, yet, just what the mourning dew is, and it's anyone's guess where it came from, but it seems to make it easier for the soul to hang on, somehow. It acts almost as a fixative, keeping souls from drifting off to wherever it is they would otherwise go — so the dead voices some have heard in the mist really are there, clinging to this world for whatever personal reasons they might have.

Given that all the volunteers joined this project out of a hope for a respite from death, we're pretty sure, or at least hoping, that the effect is voluntary and not permanent. Still, some of us are naturally a little uncomfortable with disrupting the natural process like this. For now, while we'll give people on the brink of death the chance to hang around in their bodies in the same way (especially those who are dying before their time), a less dramatic option also presents itself: by digging out a well in a secluded spot and filling it with water from the Lake, we were able to capture a little cloud of mourning dew above it, where our dead can stay as long as they feel like and pass on whatever messages or wisdom they want to share with the living who come to visit them. Although there's no reason to think the spirits can do anything else yet, some people have even started leaving small gifts for them, hoping for good luck and blessings.

[Crystalizedmire]

Edited Succession Harvesting to apply to crayfish too

[Quarque]

Edited Succession Harvesting to apply to crayfish too

hmm it is not very clear to me how recognizing growth patterns in plants applies to fish. In order to make that work you'd need additional explanation. Honestly I would recommend to leave it out, better to do one thing and do it well.

[Crystalizedmire]

Okay, yeah you're right