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[ConscriptFive]

Somebody say small boats?

Storm Bottlers (2): Andrea, Maxim
Whale Tattoos (2): Powder Miner, m1895
Spire of Light ():
Bote (3): TricMagic, Quarque, ConscriptFive

[Rockeater]

Storm Bottlers (2): Andrea, Maxim
Whale Tattoos (3): Powder Miner, m1895,  Rockeater
Spire of Light ():
Bote (3): TricMagic, Quarque, ConscriptFive

[Doubloon-Seven]

Storm Bottlers (3): Andrea, Maxim, D7
Whale Tattoos (3): Powder Miner, m1895,  Rockeater
Spire of Light ():
Bote (3): TricMagic, Quarque, ConscriptFive

Three way tie. 

Storm Bottlers sets forth a good, clear trifecta of resource uses: the whale oil is electrically charged, the bone is a conductor, the leather is an insulator. Good, useful stuff (though we might have to figure out a way to farm whales, because if whales got hunted to near extinction just because they made good lamp fuel, hoo boy are they gonna have a rough time here.)

The Whale Tattoos are pretty sick I must grant. Even if it doesn't win I think we should incorporate something like Maori-style tattoo culture into our factional milieu.

Bote is perfectly reasonable and some would say prudent, but it doesn't get my imagination going quite so much.

[Doomblade187]

Storm Bottlers (3): Andrea, Maxim, D7
Whale Tattoos (4): Powder Miner, m1895,  Rockeater, Doomblade
Spire of Light ():
Bote (3): TricMagic, Quarque, ConscriptFive

[Maxim_inc]

.

[Man of Paper]

With the forum being deceased, we continued briefly over discord so that the game would not just die. Behold, the turn:

Preliminary Turn 1 Revision

Proposal: Whaleblood Tattoos
Difficulty: Trivial
Result: (6+6)+3=15, Wow Unexpected Boon

The Ritual of Harvest was a central pillar to the society developing at Monsoon Point, enough so that some tribesfolk were said to have spent their entire lives on the beach to observe the comings and goings of the Lightning Whales. Everything the tribe did was, at least in some part, only possible due to the whales, and they understood this. The Whale’s blubber proved to be an excellent preservative when properly harvested and rendered down over a low heat, then poured into some clayware where meat would be placed and the fat solidified around it. The first step in the Ritual of Harvest by the end of the Ancient Era was Consuming, with the WhaleSlayer being fed a preserved chunk of the previous whale before engaging in Slaying. While the effect was very minor, consuming the meat eased the devastating effects of a massive electrical outburst and improved the survival rate of WhaleSlayers greatly.

Survivability increased greatly once more with the introduction of Tattoos. The tribesfolk were not averse to art, but in the Ancient Era there wasn’t much in the way of paint or canvas. Like many early societies, these folk turned their own bodies into works of art. Whalebone needles were used to painfully impregnate the skin with a variety of dyes made with various watered-down minerals or plant pastes. These were all replaced when one of the first two-time WhaleSlayers volunteered for the second Ritual. Having survived the discharge of their first Ritual, this WhaleSlayer had one of the tribe’s tattoo artists use whale blood as a dye and outlined the burn scars that traveled up his arms, through his torso, and down his legs into the ground. The blood, while otherwise normal, held a very, very faint blue glow when it was pushed into the flesh of the WhaleSlayer. When the WhaleSlayer struck their quarry, the usually incredible burst of energy was pulled almost wholly through the WhaleSlayer. For a brief moment their tattoos burned a blinding white before cooling back down to blue rapidly as electricity crackled and discharged into the beach off of his body.

He was left almost entirely unharmed, save for a new bit of scarring he planned on getting outlined.

While the WhaleSlayers immediately following opted to forego the Whaleblood Tattoos and view their first Ritual as a trial or rite of passage, new WhaleSlayers quickly adopted “guidelines” tattooed from their fingertips to their toes. While these weren’t enough to prevent injury and burn scars, they were enough to prevent death and minimize injury. Once properly scarred, the WhaleSlayers would outline their burns with a true Whaleblood Tattoo.

Whaleblood Tattoos improved the quality of life for the Slayers, but it did little to actually improve access to the whales and the resources they provide. But the Tattoos did drastically alter life in Monsoon Point otherwise. WhaleSlayers who survived a few Rituals were often heavily tattooed, which would further improve their survivability during the Slaying. The tribe practically idolized self sacrifice though, so there was no true honor in participating in the Ritual when one was guaranteed to walk away without any issue.

Things changed when one particularly heavily-tattooed WhaleWatcher stood on the beach watching a storm approach. Things seemed normal until there was a loud CRACK and the hair on the WhaleWatcher flashburned away. Then another crack, and another, and another. The WhaleWatcher was struck by lightning and stricken with incredible pain, but nothing he couldn’t endure. When the storm cell passed by and eased into just heavy rains, the WhaleWatcher still stood, slightly more burned and significantly more confused.

It turned out that Whaleblood Tattoos could channel electricity incredibly well, enough so that even absorbing the brunt of an entire storm front was not enough to more than lightly injure the tattooed person in question. The tribe now faced an interesting dilemma: how would they approach this discovery?

Well, with immense and incredible voluntary self-sacrifice, of course. WhaleSlayers who found themselves unable to feel something when Harvesting would step down and allow a new WhaleSlayer to take on the role until they too moved on. Once heavily tattooed, these tribesfolk would contribute to society as normal save for when it was their turn on storm watch. They would set themselves out in the open as a groud when violent storms approached their villages, engaging in a series of aggressive and choppy movements largely dictated by each individual meant to help draw in the lightning (when in fact the tattoos did that enough on their own, especially at higher concentrations of people). Storm Dancers became a regular sight in Monsoon Point, helping prevent lightning-related destruction and giving the world its first real flash mobs.

Whaleblood Tattoos are [Cheap] in large part because each whale has a lot of blood and tattoos aren’t going to need a ton of it.

Storm Dancers are [Very Expensive], being folk who Harvested enough to become covered in Whaleblood Tattoos and were willing to dedicate the rest of their lives to combatting the skies themselves. Increasing the rarity of Lightning Whales will have an equivalent effect on Storm Dancers, as more Rituals of Harvest mean more Tattooed fellers and more Tattooed fellers means more Dancers.

Preliminary Turn 1 “Combat” Report

Life on the Great Continent was, for both of the originator tribes, interesting. While historical records of the time are few and far between, and reliability even rarer, the window we have into the Ancient Era is nonetheless exciting.

While we are familiar with how life and society evolved here in Monsoon Point, our knowledge of the south is incredibly skewed and full of inaccuracies, assumptions, and outright fabrications. Still, one should never turn down an opportunity to know their enemy.

The Painted Land’s tribes kept to themselves and what little archaeological record available in the North simply states they were a hardy people, with some level of connection to the local wildlife - the lizards in particular. Rumors of cave lizards small enough to fit on the head of a pin and large enough to tower over mountains are probably heavily exaggerated.

What wasn’t exaggerated, as far as we can tell, is just how ingrained the lizards were in every aspect of society. Nearly every relic and artifact recovered from the Ancient Era, save for their obsidian tools, can be traced in some way to the parts of a lizard.

While there is obviously no written record from the time period, some tales can be traced back to traveling holy men bringing the Word of Todd to any who would listen. And any who would not.

Preliminary Turn 2 Design

Your people have, at the very least, learned how to survive in their environment long enough to develop villages, towns, and even their first cities. Tribes split off from their fellows for a number of reasons equal to the number of tribesfolk themselves. As Monsoon Point was developed by the villagers who stayed, the Choladaic Rainforest, Evergreen Riverway, and Frosthollows called to those who sought their own lands. These migratory groups would eventually settle their own villages, towns, and cities, and soon all four northern regions were made up of a variety of city-states and aspiring empires. One of these stood out over the rest, enough so that their mark is still felt to this day.


Your current task is to address the following prompts in your Design Proposal:


Which Northern Region was the Unifying Party located? This will increase the defensive capabilities of your forces in the area, as the region becomes important historically or culturally for your people. If not located within your capital, the next turn’s prompt will be modified to address the capital returning.

What method/tool/approach did they take to unifying the other tribes? Conquest, diplomacy, commerce, or general fields work for this, as will more specific suggestions.

What mark did they leave on the world? Roman roads, Roman aqueducts, Roman sewers, Roman siege engines, Roman Catholicism, I think you get the point.


This turn takes place over the course of the Classical Age, so you can model whatever empire you make after anything from the Akkadian Empire to the Roman Republic. Man, those guys keep popping up.

Spoiler: "Armory" (click to show/hide)

Lightning Whales: Massive physiologically unique beasts that can be found migrating through waters off of the northern coasts. They build static through their teeth as they filter-feed, using the constant discharge to stun their wide range of prey. Excess buildup is discharged when they surface. When unable to process their buildup normally, such as when they are beached, the body builds up a potent amount of energy beneath the insulative skin. If allowed to continue without a "forced discharge", the buildup ruins the chances of any usable parts being harvested. The bones are large and strong enough to provide some shelter, the meat nutritious and ample enough to feed entire villages for weeks at a time, and the blubber a means of maintaining that ever-evasive but equally necessary fire. [Very Expensive]
-Whaleblood Tattoos: Tattoos made with whale blood. Very electrically conductive, and capable of channeling energy through the body without harming it. [Cheap]
--Storm Dancers: WhaleSlayers who have survived enough to acquire an excessive amount of tattooing and volunteer to redirect the power of the storms and skies away from their people. Practically immune to everything cetrical but the most intense lightning. [Very Expensive]

Spoiler: Map (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Map Key (click to show/hide)

The key defines the borders of the map first, then the river, and then describes each region North to South and East to West, like reading a book.

The Ice Wall (Eastern Barrier): While borders can be quite fluid in nature, the easternmost extreme of the land is harshly cutoff by a monolithic wall of pure ice, 3000 meters tall. The surface of the wall contains somehow fewer features than the barren cliff face: an everstretching plane of blinding white. No plant or animal dares to brave the blisteringly frigid, cutting winds driving ice and snow constant off the wall and toward the continent below.

The Desert of ‘Amit (Western Barrier): The desert of 'Amit shrouds the west in heaps of dazzling white sand. The evening winds stir up sharp, stinging sandstorms which scatter the light of the setting sun and blast the young Cholades Mountain Range separating it from the rest of the continent. Through the heat haze, you can sometimes glimpse the peaks of the Anti-Cholades mountain range, grasping at the far horizon and further reinforcing the rain shadow cast over the desert.


The Interbarrial River Network: The Interbarrial River Network is birthed from two points: the geysers and healthy water table in the Wild Savannah and the runoff and melt flowing off of The Ice Wall. These networks of streams join together to form large, slow moving rivers that steadily meander toward the center of the continent. A veritable (relatively shallow) inland sea forms where the rivers meet in the Vale of Waters and proceeds to divert both toward the north and south. Tributaries and distributaries line the entire calm, slow-flowing river, providing the only real navigational issue along the equally calm riverbanks. The arterial river flowing north and south empties into the Northern and Southern Oceans. The Great Lake manages to regulate flow during the wetter northern seasons, providing a steady and reliable flood pattern across the continent and keeping the extreme wet or dry seasons from impacting the reliability of the River Network throughout the region.


THIS IS YOU Monsoon Point (North Capital/Bay12): This area point is bounded by its impressive coast containing multiple natural harbours. Monsoon Point is so named because winds that come off of the coast, off of 'Amit north of the Cholades, and off of the Icewall contact to create a spectacularly broad storm network which ensures Monsoon Point is constantly lashed with rain. An extremely rainy season dominates nine months out of the year, followed by three months of the year that can't accurately be called a dry season as much as a "less rainy season". The landscape in Monsoon Point itself is surprisingly dramatic as a result - a hilly region has been carved out into a land of beautiful red cliffs, with intense and verdant greenery blooming across the slopes - the sole exception being the incredibly wide Interbarrial River Network and the gentle, flat lands that follow it.


Choladaic Rainforest (West Front, North):  This region is absolutely dominated by a tropical rainforest. While most definitely less waterlogged than the areas to the northeast and east, it is still a rainforest - you can still expect to get soaked. The tropical rainforest rolls across gentle hills, fed by the Monsoon Point rainstorms which gather here and bowl against the Cholades. While the rain is certainly an obstacle, the unsettling nearly endless twilight beneath the canopy should not be underestimated.

Evergreen Riverway (Center Front, North): The hills in the surrounding regions flatten immensely within the Riverway. The Evergreen Riverway is a temperate pine rainforest - unbelievably lush, unbelievably green, fed both by brunt of the rainstorms coming down from Monsoon Point and the wide, fast-flowing arterial continental river flowing up from The Vale of Water, central Evergreen Reach is... well, it's wet as hell. The riverine environment leads to plenty of mud, fallen logs, ponds, small lakes, and streams, but other than that it's actually quite a pleasant place to be in, if humid.

Frosthollows (East Front, North): Temperatures drop dramatically in this uneven, rough, but beautiful alpine forest terrain. Bitter snowstorms hamper that beauty, driven west by the powerful and biting wind blasting off of The Ice Wall. The deep valleys in this region tend to catch these winds, creating absolutely unbearable conditions within the crags and ravines that crop up in the area. These ravines open up into the foothills and lowlands that dot the area, pummeling them with frigid temperatures rivaled only by the surface of The Ice Wall itself. These Frosthollows, open areas where even the pines refuse to grow, are treacherous, but often the safest and most direct way geographically to navigate the region.


Wild Savannah (West Front, Center): Resting against the shadow of the Cholades and ‘Amit, the land is a savannah of tall wildgrasses and scattered acacia copses. The climate is warm here, but not prone to drought due to a high water table fed by geothermal heat. When one spots a little hillock on this savanna, it is a geyser as often as it is a termite mound. The biodiversity in this region is staggering: giraffes and dwarf elephants in the patches of thin forest, great wildcats and wildebeest patrolling the grasslands. A river cuts this land too, fed by the water table and rare torrential downpours, flowing west to east. The geological activity here has left behind kimberlite pipes, the source of elusive diamonds and other precious gemstones, as well as a fair few rare earth metals.

Vale of Waters (Center Front, Center): The Vale of Waters is where the fresh waters sourced from the east and west join to run north and south. A great lake sits here, relatively shallow but broad. Its waters are flush with freshwater fish and waterfowl. The terrain beyond the lakeshore of brown sand and clay beds is some of the most supremely fertile earth in all the world, a temperate country of low hills and beautifully green grass. The summers are warm but mild to crops, the winters thinly blanket the land in snow for a month or so before melting. Little of the wildlife is dangerous; foxes, burrowing rodents from shrews to beavers, hares and the like.

Glacial Taiga (East Front, Center): The freshest remnants of The Ice Wall’s glacial activity can be identified here; gravel beds, moraines and the like. This land is a taiga of warmly-colored shrubs and sedge grasses intermixed with the occasional copse of spruce and birch, grazed by herds of caribou that alternately can be found migrating to the Evergreen Riverway. In summer, multicolored wildflowers blossom from the earth, areas of which are warm enough to tolerate agriculture. The morning sun lights the crags of the Ice Wall like a bonfire, and sends a glut of meltwater to swell the banks of a river heading west. Beneath the permafrost are vast beds of anthracite coal and petroleum.



Great Dry Sea (West Front, South): Once an ancient inland ocean, the Great Dry Sea is a massive salt flat that exists in a depression stretching from the edges of the Painted Land outward toward the 'Amit desert, where the ground begins to elevate once more and transfers from salt into sand. While outwardly unremarkable, the Great Dry Sea holds a unique characteristic of a deceptively active groundwater environment, forming and dissipating subterranean rivers at will. This results in turning the Great Dry Sea into an invisible minefield where one false step can send a man plummeting into a thick brine pool if he's lucky, or a many dozen foot drop to his death if not. The reprieve for these hazards is the rises in the flats that ages ago were once islands surrounded by water but now are encased in salt, dotted across the Dry Sea like freckles.

Sandoras Thornsea (Center Front, South): This entrance to the Painted Lands is host to a myriad of cactus families and hardy flora that take advantage of the presence of running water - thousands of species ranging in size from a child's fist to taller than a man, interspersed among a splattering of cork oaks and stunted juniper trees. The cacti mainly stick to the banks of the river and the distributaries that break off from it, creating thick bands of cactus that form the main hazard in crossing this region.

Motoro Conelands (East Front, South): Volcanic energy in this region is just powerful enough to breach the surface before running out of energy and forming the squat towers of basalt known as “splatter cones”. Ranging from only one meter in height to over twenty, these miniature volcanoes pocket the land in the thousands. Many of them are still active, needing only a slight disturbance to ooze molten rock from the ground. Despite the danger, the Conelands have long been a source of intense mining efforts - splatter cones contain high concentrations of metals across the entire range of metals available beneath the surface. In the areas populated by inactive or dormant vents, there is a large coverage of greenery that feeds off the rich volcanic soil and the Interbarrial River Network.



Painted Lands (South Capital, BPL): The riverway flowing south from the Vale reaches its southern terminus in the Painted Lands. What began as a clear flow of babbling water has been transformed into an even wider, slower thing laden with sediment. Millions of years of river action have carved a canyon through the country's soft rock strata, sharp and jagged at first but growing as broad as the horizon by the time it reaches the sea. Wandering distributaries branch off of the river, leaving winding shallow bands of fertile soil behind when they inevitably wander off again or dry up between flooding seasons. The land takes its name from the bands of rock exposed by the river to form a panoply of color: white limestone, black shale, and sandstones in pink, red, yellow, and every color in between.

The fertilized highlands beyond the water-carved walls (a distinction less marked as one proceeds southward) are relatively arid, with hot summers and cool winters. Groundwater is exposed to the highlands by limestone sinkholes, or cenotes. Papyrus reeds and olive trees grow in abundance and alligators sun by the riverbanks with regularity as one travels further south. The coastal bay experiences a cooler climate, with sea breeze coming off the ocean to regulate temperatures year-round and provide gentle winter rains.

The sedimentary rock of the Painted Land bears countless karst caves, connected by underground rivers and home to strange species of eyeless fish and cave-adapted lizards.

TURNTURNTURN

[Doomblade187]

My Proposal:

Spoiler: Blood of the Gods (click to show/hide)

The tribes that spread into the Choladaic rainforest found themselves in a wonderland of sorts. The thick canopy made night darker than ever before, the bioelectric glow of the local wildlife barely providing light as the thick foliage shrouded the moon from view. And with new creatures to encounter came new prey, new hunting parties.

The wildlife of the jungle tended smaller and more agile than the other regions along the coast. Chimpanzees, orangetangs, lizardfish, and crocomaws swung through the branches and waded along the shadows. But our hunters found new prey to hunt and challenge themselves against, looking to the Voltasuchus, a species of alligator with thick bony plates around its skull and a set of glands that generated and controlled releases of electricity in ambush to stun and kill prey.

While the weapons and tactics of the tribes changed with a new prey, the traditions remained unchanged, and any war wounds our hunters received were tattooed in the blood of the kill. This change in environment and prey resulted in similar effects at first, but soon the tribes of the west discovered something. Hunters attempting to catch small, fast prey soon found themselves lunging faster, reacting more keenly, and most notably - channeling lightning through their whalebone spears. It quickly became the prevailing mythology that all the imbued wildlife of the sacred land was charged with the energy of the gods, and that hunters were blessed by the power of the kill as they took it into themselves. This was not far from the truth, as modern historians show that the blood of imbued wildlife possesses strong natural mutagenic effects.

This highly developed control of electricity in hand, the tribes went about their lives, trading and hunting as normal. But soon word spread of skirmishes against a tribe expanding their power base from the zone of the Evergreen Riverway. Sensing an opportunity, a band of particularly decorated and experienced hunters from the Choladaic tribes struck out, aiming to challenge themselves and sell their services as mercenaries. Their propensity for amphibious fighting and ambush tactics served them well, as well as their fine control of electricity that allowed them to fight non-tattooed tribespeople with a considerable advantage as they made a name for themselves.

This initial conflict set the stage for a level of recognition, as the other tribes took full note of what kind of storm had been brewing within the rainforest. As the hunters had practiced control over the lightning, several new traditions and hunting methods had risen. While hunting parties still went forth on honorable hunts, fishermen would often be tattooed and use the power of the lightning to channel energy through a controlled section of the river they were fishing in, aiming to stun and collect and fish not resistant to the charge. It also saw use in lighting for the villages that formed beneath the canopy, jars of fat from alligators and whales alike being charged with the lightning that now surged through our people’s veins like the blood of the gods. Starting fires became easier, and natural copper deposits were found and worked, the metal proving a sublime conductor of lightning to fill in for the now limited supply of whalebone.

Between the burgeoning coppersmithing trade, the availability of clean and non-fuel requiring light sources, and the increase of free time freed up by improved hunting and fishing techniques, the tribes saw a flash of development in art and scholarship. Poetry, stories, and art became more common, but so did idle investigation to see what new things could be discovered in the wonderland beneath the canopy.

It was one such curious team of smiths that stumbled upon a strange metal oxide of Narwhalina. The tribe was able to recognize it as an ore due to similarities to copper, but was unable to extract it for the longest time. Of course, this led to experimentation and research until one day, the rocks used for insulation of the metal started to melt under the heat of the lightning, and the ore within began to change into the new metal. Narwhalium wasn’t as strong as copper, but it was much lighter by volume, and as we refined this new plentiful metal it began to fill in for wood and other metals.

This new export further drew attention to the tribes of the Choladaic rainforest, and burgeoning trade routes began to form, bringing favor and wealth to the tribes. While this did raise tensions about losing relevance and business with some of the other prominent tribes, the formidability of their hunters and the dense, dark terrain made any attempts to weaken their power with raids fraught with risk.

Over time, marriage and negotiation saw more lasting bonds formed with the tribes further East, and while there was still tension, things rarely spilled into full bloodshed. As the ways of metallurgy and channeling of lightning spread, a grand city began to coalesce out of the villages of the west. Ohm was a city of light, gleaming houses fitted with metals, and cozy forest roads bustling with merchants, a space free of the darkening canopy above. Ziggawatts were built even, a cultural import from the tribes of the East, and they were festooned with whalebone and metals as a new syncretic religion was formed, one which brought the lightning from the sky and the lightning from the land together into one faith. Through metal and imbued flesh, the Choladaic tribes left their mark on history.

[Jerick]

Perpare for a flood of proposals a bunch of people have already read.

Spoiler: The age of Alchemy (click to show/hide)

The Age of Alchemy.
It started along the banks of the Evergreen Riverway where there were deep deposits of excellent clay. The tribes that had migrated down there had become known for the quality of their pottery. Good sturdy pots were essential for trade, especially if you wanted to trade in the products of lightning whales. Such materials were always in high demand but couldn't be produced down at the Riverway. Lightning Whales didn't exactly swim upriver. Instead, their pottery became a point of pride and they made many attempts to improve it. They started intricately decorating their pots and trying to find new ways to improve and better glaze them. They tested all kinds of materials to find better glazes. Perhaps it was inevitable that one pot used to store those materials had previously been used to store whale blood and hadn't been properly cleaned. The resulting explosion kickstarted the age of alchemy.

It ignited a race to master Whaleblood and create new ever more wondrous concoctions. They brewed up liquids which could cure the sick and others that helped with healing wounds or helped plants to grow. Using whaleblood as a trigger they mastered controlled blasting before they ever discovered metalworking. They used this ability to carve canals through the landscape, extending the reach of their boats deeper inland and building what would evolve into a complex network of waterways. These canals also helped manage and control drainage. Bit by bit the tribes began to unite, bound together by trade becoming a confederation of twelve tribes where each tribe would nominate a storm dancer to represent them in a grand council. The requirement for a storm dancer representative meant that some of the more inland tribes needed to be represented by someone who wasn't from their tribe. This meant the council tended to favour coastal tribes despite the tribes downriver becoming massive trading hubs.

Most alchemical recipes (at least the more remarkable ones) required whaleblood. The demand for whaleblood exploded but initially, the supply didn't follow. Hunting them remained difficult, dangerous and entirely dependent on the weather. Attempts at riding boats out to hunt them in open water hadn't had much success. At least until an alchemist found a concoction that would attract them if poured into the water. Taking on a beached lightning whale was difficult. Taking on a whale in its element was another matter entirely. At least such hunts weren't as limited by the weather, though the waters around monsoon point were rarely what you could call calm.

Still, the boons of the rapid development of the age of alchemy continued. The need to take notes, preserve recipes and pass along the secrets of alchemy resulted in more complex writing. They discovered glass while experimenting with chemically treated fuels, extreme heat and very sandy clay. It didn't take long for the discovery of glass to spread as alchemists abandoned clay for cleaner and more reliable glassware. Efforts to improve glass resulted in the accidental discovery of metalworking. It wasn't long before the conductive nature of copper was noticed and the metal quickly became associated with storm dancers. Copper became a sign of high status.

Despite the boons of the age of alchemy, alchemists were still not viewed as the highest members of society. That honour was reserved for the storm dancers but the rapid and sudden rise of alchemy had caused tensions between alchemists and storm dancers. However, the storm dancers and the whaleslayers, who all aspired to be storm dancers, supplied the whaleblood the alchemists desperately needed. On the other hand, the whaleslayers needed the medicines and treatments the alchemists could provide. This tension was only exacerbated by the unequal setup of the grand council that favoured coastal tribes so much. However, mutual needs managed to hold the confederation together.

Caught between the alchemists and the storm dancers many of the poorest and most inland of folks, those who lived away from the main waterways, needed to make do without. Especially copper, with copper being dominated and hoarded by the wealthy they needed something else to make tools out of. Eventually, they found and turned to iron. Which is part of how iron became so associated with poverty, banditry and rebellion.

The age of alchemy was a technological explosion. It upended the simple tribal societies of the time and rewrote the rules of what we were capable of. It was the start of record keeping and our first steps towards the scientific method.

It feels good to be back on the forums.

[andrea]

My first proposal:

Spoiler: Cities of Thundering Pillars (click to show/hide)

Since we discovered by accident that marking our bodies protect us from the arcing energy released by the sky, our ability to harvest whales has far surpassed the quantity that naturally beaches in the lagoon. Thankfully, our mastery of cetacean matters and the energy we named Cetricity has also evolved over the centuries.

While we discovered that metals can conduct it as well, they are vastly inferior to ink and for whatever reason to reach the full potential whaleblood needs to be applied to the skin with experiments on engraving mostly failing. However, we discovered that being on elevated ground helps attracting the lightning from the sky; the tattoos we can make are more intricate and skilled users in tune with Cetricity can achieve a degree of control over the release with practice; whale blubber can store Cetricity if preserved in jars.

The most skilled dancers gave rise to a priestly class which lives in tower temples calling lightning from the sky through prayer and rituals, even more than would normally fall even in this thunderous region. The towers themselves are adorned with whale bone and leather as befitting to places of worship of those leviathans and contain large stores of blubber kept charged by the priests. The purpose however is not limited to worship and sparing the city from lightning: the stored Cetricity is then brought in jars to the lagoon where skilled tattooed whale callers release it in a controlled manner to lure cetaceans to the low waters where hunters on rafts and pontoons can slay and butcher them.
Over time, the pontoons moved more and more in the lagoon with facilities to cater to the hunters, to facilitate their task and to process the carcass.

But as whale harvesting became safer and easier, enterprising groups started looking for more whaling grounds: lagoons and shallow bays all over the north became home to small whaling outposts, then colonies and then fiercely indipendent cities all following the same pattern of thundering spires wrapped around a bay dedicated to whale hunting.

As natural, conflict arose between those settlements as their areas of influence started to collide, leading to an age of wars. Very bloody wars, as it turns out that if the defender can unload large quantities of stored Cetricity, albeit uncontrolled and at the cost of fried priests, casualties tend to be high. Over time the main polity became a confederation of twelve cities, known as the Twelve Bays Confederation. While nominally indipendent allies, the focal point is without doubt the original city from which it all began.

The largest of all the city states, its many temples cover not only the city but also the hills surrounding it shrouding the area in a near constant thunder and everlasting glow with lightning occasionally jumping from tower to tower. The pontoons now cover almost the entire lagoon except for whale corridors and slaying areas. Taverns and inns, butchers and oil makers. Leatherworkers and bonecarvers. In older areas, even homes are built, with a network of channels so extensive through the city that there is no longer a clear border between land and lagoon and small boats are as common a mean of transport as feet.
The city is ruled by a council of priests, accomplished hunters and callers and some wealthy landowners, which elect a leader for life among their number.

This aimed at getting a cool aesthetic , while also working toward man-Cetricity integration. (Lights are and always have been Cetricity. What is this "electricity"you talk about?)
However, the flood of very interesting proposals led me to try and merge several of them. Thus was born the next proposal, using the defining wars of a proposal yet to be posted, Jericks alchemy as foundational tech, my aesthetics and Ziggawatts.

Spoiler: Ixam of 121 Ziggawatts (click to show/hide)

Since we discovered by accident that marking our bodies protect us from the arcing energy released by the sky, our ability to harvest whales has far surpassed the quantity that naturally beaches in the lagoon. Thankfully, our mastery of cetacean matters and the energy we named Cetricity has also evolved over the centuries.
 
The first development was simply the knowledge that the lightning dances are more effective the higher up the dancer is, leading to the use of tall trees and towers as platforms where the rituals can be conducted to spare the village from lightning strikes. This combined with increasing refinement of tattoos proved extremely effective not only in attracting lightning, but also in producing more than naturally would occur in a stunning Cetrical display and ultimately it gave rise to a caste of Sky Caller priest separate from the Whale Slayers they originated from.
 
The relation between lightning strikes in the lagoon and beached whales has been known for a long time and so many attempts were made to artificially achieve it. Lightning redirecting is a pipe dream with only the most skilled priests being able to attempt it and most often with disastrous effects on nearby houses. Jars of blubber were found to be a workable solution, but very finicky: unless handles very carefully the Cetric charge would erupt destructively, and once in the lagoon the jars had to be used by a whale slayer or a priest with some danger, as the discharge could not be controlled.
 
The revolution happened when an apprentice poured some whaleblood in a jar of charged blubber instead of an empty one by accident and, in a panicked state, kicked it down a nearby slope (as it was common sense to handle blubber near a quick way to dispose of it) and awaited for the inevitable destructive explosion, followed by the just as inevitable destructive explosion of rage of her master. To her surprise, neither happened: the jar came to a rest after rolling to the bottom and even cracked a bit, but only a few sparks emerged amidst an opalescent glow. Growing curious and gathering a lot of courage, she opened it and found it filled with a mixture of whaleblood and blubber that appeared to be surprisingly stable and could gently discharge its contents gradually instead of all at once and was a more manageable liquid rather than the solid blubber. It was so that the first alchemist discovered that whaleblood gains power not only from mixing with human blood in tattoos, but also when mixed with other materials. Thus was born the science of Alchemy.
 
This new liquid, called Ichor, was the first such innovation. Another one that was most useful was a mixture of whaleblood, charcoal and sulphur which would explode only when struck by a Cetrical charge, which the Ichor graciously could provide. Whales were now more abundant than ever, with barrels of charged Ichor arriving daily at the lagoon where a system of pontoons ad walkways allowed the whale slayers to discharge it in such a way that whales would be lured in places most favourable for slaying. Excavation became easier thanks to the blasting paste and large quantities of stones were extracted to build palaces and large terraced temples rising in the sky to serve as the new temples of the priests, which would continuously call down lightning from the top terraces of the so called Ziggawatts to refill vast stores of Ichor. It was a time of prosperity, with the pontoons encroaching ever more in the lagoon, stilt houses appearing in the older parts, more and more Ziggawatts being built to gather more energy.  Many new towns were settled at this time in the lagoons and bays of the northern coast each following the same pattern and each growing wealthy and prosperous on the blood of whales. Trade and craft boomed and it was as if a forever golden age was coming.
 
Then came the disaster.
 
content warning human sacrifice

One day, the ground started shaking and a pillar of dark cloud started emerging from the far north. Great waves washed ashore sweeping away much of what the earthquake didn’t, with people finding refuge in the sturdy Ziggawatts. When they emerged, they found the dark cloud to have encompassed the entire land to the horizon in each direction. A perennial night befell on the people with the sun only truly passing through in the morning and the evening when it coloured everything in a deep crimson hue. In the northern horizon shapes as tall as mountains could faintly be seen casting a faint shadow on the bloodied clouds, mighty titans which tore the very Earth. And then the wind stopped and so did the currents and thunder fell silent. For the first time in centuries the storms of monsoon point stood still.
Crops failed, animals fled, and fish no longer arrived from the open ocean, only whales could still be called, as long as charged Ichor was still available. But stores were running out and the efforts of Sky callers to force lightning down from the dead clouds couldn’t produce enough to feed everybody, not nearly. Maybe the sky was now to far and separated to hear the call muffled by this stifling blanket? But Man can’t fly, and yet we must reach the sky. If the power of tattoo derives from the mixing of whale blood with human blood and flesh, maybe a substitute could be arranged, to deliver the call? Breaking every taboo, a human skin pouch was created from recently deceased remains, filled with human blood freely donated from the living mixed with a drop of whaleblood and then expertly tattooed. Then using a sling it was thrown into the sky from the tallest Ziggawatt on top of the highest hills and everything stood silent for a moment till it broke through the clouds. And a thundering column of lightning came down, commanded by the sky callers and harnessed to grant a glimmer of hope in this dark age. Word did spread of this method in all the colonies and towns and put in practice, but limited and wasteful as it was it soon became clear that some voluntary donation would not be enough and the only ones to survive, perhaps thrive, would be the ones who could sacrifice the most flesh and blood to this hungry sky. So began the Thirsting Wars.
 
The Thirsting Wars were a chaotic period in which the starving cities gathered whatever forces they had left and marched against each other fighting no longer for wealth, land, fame, or honour, but for the very bodies of the opponents. Swords and spears were forgotten and clubs and ichor tipped batons took their place in a bid to not waste even a drop of the precious blood. After each engagement the victor would return with tens or hundreds of captives, which would then be slaughtered in sacrifice in the Ziggawatts, dismembered and drained alive for the sake of summoning the gods of sky and sea. Ziggawatts and priests alike as red with blood as the sky itself. Population steadily dropped, each war more destructive than the last and desperation ever mounting till the remaining cities were on the brink of final collapse, last standing among their many sisters which now laid in ruins.
 
And then, finally, the Earth shook again. More waves came rushing and the shadows far away disappeared, their titanic fight over. And from the north a cold wind arrived, blowing away the black and red cover and showing to the survivors something that no living eye had ever seen before in monsoon point: a clear sky, cloudless and blue with a bright sun shining. And shortly after came the grey clouds once more, bringing thunder and lightning, and with them a school of whales dancing in the storm. As the clouds arrived so came the rain, the greatest rain in living memory, flooding hills and valleys and washing away the blood and the gore, washing away sin and deed, hate and fear. As if waking from a long nightmare lasted years everyone laid down weapons and cried together with the sky. The Thirsting Wars were finally over.
 
Only twelve cities were left after the wars and, faced with the reality of what they had done in their time of desperation, vowed to never fight again among each other and to thrive or die together against any future calamity. So was born the Twelve bays Confederacy, heralding a new age of rebuilding and hope.
 
Of those cities, the most prominent one was the original city of our civilization, Ixam, thanks to its greater population and its numerous Ziggawatts providing shelter during the beginning and stores for the thirsting wars. As such, it naturally became the focal point of the Confederacy and the main focus of rebuilding efforts. Decades after the fact, one would be hardly aware of the tragedy there unfolded, now again a bustling centre of activity and with a bustling population of both natives and migrants from scattered town and tribes seeking a new home. Palaces and houses of stone were built in imitation of the Ziggawatts which survived the quakes and waves, with ample terraces dotting the city. The lagoon was once again filled with pontoons and stilts full of taverns and inns, butchers and oil makers, leatherworkers and bonecarvers to cater to the now plentiful again whale hunting. Canals were dug in the city blurring the line between land and lagoons and making boats as popular as feet as a mean of transport. The old Ziggawatts were restored and new ones were built, resulting in a nearly continuous lightning shrouding the entire area with continuous thunder and everlasting glow day and night. It is the great network of Ziggawatts which earned the city its nickname: Ixam of the 121 Ziggawatts.

It is somewhat long, but not yet to the point of the master bonking me in the head, so I can only assume it is not long enough.

[Doubloon-Seven]

Okay, that was a hell of an interruption. Hope everyone's still with us. Like MoP said, about a week into the outage we decided to carry on with the game over the discord. In doing so, this is the most recent votebox:

Age of Alchemy ():
The Thirsting Wars (1): Quarque
City of Thundering Pillars (1): Rockeater
Ixam of the 121 Ziggawatts: (6) NUKE9.13, Andrea, TricMagic, DoubloonSeven, Jerick, Maxim
Blood of the Gods: (1) Doomblob

I swear, the Ziggawatt proposal seemed more proportionate in a google doc. It was still long as hell, but you know.

Also, I wrote a proposal of my own, and though I'm not voting for it anymore, someone is, so I'll post it here. Besides, it's just courteous.

Spoiler: The Thirsting Wars (click to show/hide)

The people of Monsoon Point offered worship to numerous gods, personified forces whose comings and goings were witnessed as the systems of the natural world. These gods were innumerable: Laughing Monkey, the Cruel Rot, Jungle-Burner, more. Among the most prominent were Old Mother Stormcloud,  Lady Seafoam (plus her son, Fat Whale), and the Skinless Man. As the cultural sphere of the Monsooners grew southward, these gods and variants of them followed alongside.

   The importance of rituals and martial virtue to the early Monsooners promoted the development of stratified society: a warrior caste differentiated by the ritual tattooing of the whale-hunters, a priestly caste with a rich material culture of piercings, and a larger peasant caste that vastly outnumbered the other two. No unified state ruled over these people; instead a few great city-states and many small ones held sway over the northern provinces of the continent. Some were hereditary monarchies ruled by Storm Dancers, others overseen by the temple bureaucracies of priestly houses.

   For a long, hundred-year span, the ceaseless rains of Monsoon Point slackened somewhat, and the remainder of the north suffered a drought. The Monsooner civilization, recent arrivals to the iron age by that time, suffered greatly. Jungle-Burner sent arrows of flame to scatter the people of the Choladaic Rainforest, and the Cruel Rot plagued the Frosthollows with a terrible pox. In this climate, the Cult of the Skinless Man performed a coup d’etat upon the whale-slayer aristocracy of the city at Monsoon Point. They declared He Whose Blood Flows in Runnels was growing tired of the world, and sacrifices had to be made to turn back the clock on armageddon.

   The Cult sent evangelists to eleven smaller city-states on Monsoon Point whose leadership was favorable to the priests, and signed a treaty to form the Twelve Bay Confederation. They raised an army clad in plates of woven baleen, and sent them south to conquer and capture cities in the name of the Skinless Man.

   These armies brought their shortswords, their round bronze shields, and their carven spear-throwers, but they also brought a weapon invented a generation prior by the followers of Old Mother Stormcloud: stun-spears. The oil rendered from Lightning Whale blubber was a potent fuel, sure, but it could also store electrical energy. Sealing the charged oil in a bamboo spear shaft and capping it with a conductive spike gave a warrior a weapon that could stun an enemy without killing them, enabling the capture of great numbers of ritual sacrifice victims. Depleted oil could be recharged with lightning strikes or harvesting the power from more whales.

   As the armies of the Twelve Bay Confederation captured cities, the temple bureaucracy of the Skinless Man cult was quick to follow. With corvee slave labor, they built stone ziggurats that served both as administrative centers for the Confederation, and as sacrificial temples for the Cult. Invariably, these ziggurats were capped with great lightning rod towers. The monumental remnants of these structures are the great material reminder of this period in our history, the Thirsting Wars.

You can see a lot of the DNA that went into the Ziggawatt proposal.

[Man of Paper]

Preliminary Turn 2 Design Phase

Proposal: Ixam of the 121 Ziggawatts
Difficulty: Normal
Result: 1+1=2, Utter Failure

While there aren't an abundance of records from this time, a plethora of geological and archaeological findings as well as old tales passed on by word of mouth paint an incredibly vivid picture.

Accidents happen. Sometimes they lead to great developments, as is the case with the discovery of Ichor. Early civilization was quick to experiment with their curious whale parts, and stabilizing the highly volatile Charged Blubber Jars was an incredible turning point. A Golden Age fell upon the people of Monsoon Point as an entire caste developed centered on calling lightning, the Sky Caller Priesthood, who saw their influence expand with the growth of the tribes and their growing reliance on Ichor.

The Priesthood drove coastal expansion, with massive temples dedicated to the harnessing of the Sky's gifts, the Ziggawatts, cropping up as the centerpiece of each settlement. The whaling industry exploded, sometimes literally, as pontoon bridges and artificial shores were created to increase accessibility to Lightning Whales. With Ichor used to summon the creatures whenever they wanted, the Priesthood that recruited ranks straight from the WhaleSlayers saw their own numbers, and influence, grow once again.

Artificial islands of wood and stone were constructed within the lagoons and bays of Monsoon Point in order to house an increasing number of Ziggawatts seeking to maximize their access to Lightning Whales. Stilt homes developed into entire floating cities scattered along the coasts, and the the Priesthood seemed to be leading this exploding population toward ever-growing greatness. The most impressive of these Ziggawatt towns was in the lagoon of Ixam itself - The Great Ziggawatt. It was here that the priesthood would show off their grandest skycalling rituals, choreographing elaborate shows resulting in cetrical displays to awe and amaze. This, of course, increased the influence of the Priesthood, and saw their numbers grow with their power.

When a population becomes densely packed there is bound to be inescapable friction. A few WhaleSlaying groups had gathered at the end of one of the Blubber Jar-blasted canals used as a whale trap. Both groups laid claim to a Lightning Whale as it moved down the canal, and an argument over who would attain the honor of Slaying it ensued. One party was for a first-timer who was seeking to get his first real markings, while the other was for a very highly-regarded WhaleSlayer presumed to be ascending to the Priesthood after his next Slaying. The Veteran, having had the foresight to properly prepare before the whale beached itself, exited his dry-tent and strode with purpose to the Whale, brushing aside the Novice and the protest he was raising.

The fragile ego of the young Slayer-to-be could not handle the slight, and before anyone knew what was happening, the Novice's axe had left his hands, taking a short and swift flight before embedding itself in the base of the Veteran's skull. The Novice's fears were magnified, and his frightful flight, as the cloudy skies parted with an intense fire. A ball of light fell from the sky, shedding smaller fires as it went, a gift unlike any the sky had given Monsoon Point before. Every set of eyes (except the Novice's) locked onto this great streak in the sky as it slowly faded into the horizon. A horizon that lit with an unexpected intensity usually reserved only for those who stand within the lightning.

The waters withdrew, the ground shook, and before the people of Monsoon Point could do more than feel a sudden mix of terror and excitement with the number of suddenly beached Lighting Whales set out in front of them, the waters came back with a vengeance. Distant pillars of fire could be seen by the few lucky enough to be atop a Ziggawatt near the shores during the Great Flood, and massive shadows sprouted from these geysers as quickly as a person breathes. The ground continued to shake as blackened clouds poured down from the North, choking out all light and life with great ashfalls that inundated the coastal regions of the north. Red arcs of lightning lit the sky in these clouds before dissipating almost directly over the Ziggawatts themselves. This continued for days, casting Monsoon Point in an eerie darkness and shaking most structures to rubble.

When the shaking ceased and the storm stopped, Monsoon Point was faced with a brand new, frightening reality. The survivors inland and on high ground (at least, high ground that hadn't been destroyed by the constant quaking) bore witness to a sky of roiling black clouds, schools of fish washing ashore and fauna in the jungles dropping dead as plants withered and died from the less-than-nontoxic ashfall, and in general can be understood for thinking it was the end of times. Even the Lightning Whales were ignoring the calls of Ichor more often than not. This makes the following slightly more understandable.

Trigger Warning: Description Of Human Sacrifice
>
Months after the ashfall, a group trying to find some food for their Ziggawatt out in the wilds came across a trail that ultimately led them to the cave The Novice had been living out of since he fled. He was ripped from his hiding place and beaten while transported back to The Great Ziggawatt - which had only just managed to survive the disaster. The Novice was accused of angering the gods of the seas and skies, and was brought before the highest members of the Sky Caller Priesthood. Accused of bringing about the end of the world, and found guilty, the Priesthood almost spontaneously developed a torturous ritual to right perceived wrongs.

Having slain someone over his desire for tattoos, the priesthood slowly tattooed the entirety of his body atop The Great Ziggawatt in view of whoever was alive to gather. As his skin was tattooed it was also peeled away, depriving him of any actual possible satisfaction he'd have for being tattooed. Alive, screaming, and slowly covering the top of the Ziggawatt in blood, The Novice then had to experience his beating heart be ripped by hand from his chest before being wrapped in his own tattooed flesh and launched into the sky via a hastily constructed ballista-like sling. The hope was that the gods would accept this sacrifice, and when the sky above the Ziggawatt exploded with a blast of lightning that struck The Novice's empty chest cavity and blew the body to chunks, and then the clouds parted to allow sunlight, everyone thought their offering had been received and accepted. When the skies elsewhere did not open, and the dark clouds above The Great Ziggawatt began to constrict once more after a couple of days, it became clear that the reprieve was only temporary. Punishment would remain collective. One of the members of The Novice's party had survived the apocalypse and was quickly pulled up by the priesthood to be offered to the gods. When their second ritual, replicating the first down to the less-than-willing sacrifice, resulted in the same outcome, The Priesthood of The Great Ziggawatt plotted to initiate what would become known as The Thirsting Wars.
>


Ziggawatts quickly formed alliances as word spread of the "cure" to the end of days, and the entire region quickly devolved into raiding factions hoping to steal away some human sacrifices, draw the god's favor, rinse, wash, and repeat until the skies stayed clear - or better, the rains returned. Many scholars misattribute the "Thirsting Wars" to water and the general drought that beset the region for the following two hundred years - it is indeed a reference to a thirst for blood. More people died as a result of sacrifice atop the Ziggawatts than any other cause during this period, a problem that was magnified by the construction of Sacrificial Ziggawatts wherever they could be built increasing the frequency of sacrifices. Ichor Staves and Clubs were used to hit opponents with a crippling burst of cetricity, enough so that they were incapacitated and able to be dragged off the battlefield for use later. At the end of these centuries of general darkness and crimson twilight, when the last of the Ziggawatt alliances seemed ready to collapse into one final self-sacrificial effort to appease their unkind gods, Sky Caller Priests standing opposite one another on the field of battle preparing to order a charge into oblivion, things changed once more. The earth shook so violently that The Great Ziggawatt split, the shores were hit by tidal waves once more, and the winds whipped violently without direction. The shadows to the north retreated, the ashen clouds parted to the east and west, and the skies finally dropped their rains again.

Having shown themselves willing to sacrifice themselves down to the last, it seems, had been enough to satisfy their gods. The alliances of Ziggawatts joined one another as The Bay Twelve Confederation, after the fact that they were the last twelve Ziggawatt-States remaining. It was fortunate that they had come together at this point, because the change the climate was enduring would be tough on them as well. Development of most things stagnated as Bay Twelve put effort to rebuilding The Great Ziggawatt and the lost forum within. Difficulties were exacerbated as a landscape largely left dead or dying after two centuries of environmental negligence suddenly found itself with an excessive abundance of what life craves. Eventually life returned to normal, outside of biodiversity in the area imploding during the Thirsting Wars as the series of events was one of the greatest Extinction Events we've been able to find evidence of.

The Confederation rebuilt and repopulated, and the capital of Ixam even grew to 121 Ziggawatts (hence the name). WhaleSlaying redeveloped once again, but the scars of the near annihilation of these peoples would be felt forever, and in this time it took the form of excessive caution and regulation of WhaleSlaying by the Sky Caller Priesthood. Slaying could only occur in areas with prior reservations, and the canals weaving between the Ziggawatts were barely deep enough for the rafts the people used to prevent any unplanned beachings in populated areas. Keeping track of who was slaying where and when was a painfully boring, but necessary, task controlled by the Priesthood, which led to their ability to pick and choose who to elevate from WhaleSlayer much easier, increasing their numbers and boosting their influence. And of course, if there were ill omens afoot, the Priesthood had their choice of who to offer...


----------------


It is now the Revision Phase, and will continue to address the same prompt. As with the last turn, your design is not your past set in stone - you can utilize your Revision to advance something within the results/armory, but if there is anything specific about the given backstory in this Design that the team would like to address or modify, that is also allowed.

Spoiler: "Armory" (click to show/hide)

Lightning Whales: Massive physiologically unique beasts that can be found migrating through waters off of the northern coasts. They build static through their teeth as they filter-feed, using the constant discharge to stun their wide range of prey. Excess buildup is discharged when they surface. When unable to process their buildup normally, such as when they are beached, the body builds up a potent amount of energy beneath the insulative skin. If allowed to continue without a "forced discharge", the buildup ruins the chances of any usable parts being harvested. The bones are large and strong enough to provide some shelter, the meat nutritious and ample enough to feed entire villages for weeks at a time, and the blubber a means of maintaining that ever-evasive but equally necessary fire. [Expensive]
-Whaleblood Tattoos: Tattoos made with whale blood. Very electrically conductive, and capable of channeling energy through the body without harming it. [Cheap]
--Storm Dancers: WhaleSlayers who have survived enough to acquire an excessive amount of tattooing and volunteer to redirect the power of the storms and skies away from their people. Practically immune to everything cetrical but the most intense lightning. [Expensive]
Storm Caller Priesthood: The religious structure built off of the Storm Dancers which controls every aspect of Confederacy life in some way. Like the Dancers before them, Priests are drawn from the WhaleSlayers and capable of great cetric feats. Replaces Storm Dancers. Expensive

Ziggawatts: Large complex structures used for just about every aspect of life in the Bay Twelve Confederation. Used primarily for religious rituals and the creation of Charged Blubber Jars and Ichor. The Great Ziggawatt of Ixan is evidence of a cultural focus in Monsoon Point. [Very Expensive]

Charged Blubber Jars: Clay jars full of Lightning Whale blubber that has been charged via Sky Caller rituals. Explosive and unstable. Cost tied directly to Ziggawatt expense. [Very Expensive]
-Ichor: Blubber Jars stabilized with whaleblood. Discharge happens slowly relative to Charged Blubber Jars, resulting in safer handling and more control with a less impressive discharge. Cost tied directly to Ziggawatt expense. [Very Expensive]

Skyfeeders: Ballista-like slings used exclusively in the ritual practice of Bloodyeeting launching sacrificial remains into the clouds. One is available atop each Ziggawatt. [Very Expensive]

Ichor Clubs: Wooden weapons coated with Ichor that discharge on impact, potentially incapacitating victims. [Cheap]

Spoiler: Map (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Map Key (click to show/hide)

The key defines the borders of the map first, then the river, and then describes each region North to South and East to West, like reading a book.

The Ice Wall (Eastern Barrier): While borders can be quite fluid in nature, the easternmost extreme of the land is harshly cutoff by a monolithic wall of pure ice, 3000 meters tall. The surface of the wall contains somehow fewer features than the barren cliff face: an everstretching plane of blinding white. No plant or animal dares to brave the blisteringly frigid, cutting winds driving ice and snow constant off the wall and toward the continent below.

The Desert of ‘Amit (Western Barrier): The desert of 'Amit shrouds the west in heaps of dazzling white sand. The evening winds stir up sharp, stinging sandstorms which scatter the light of the setting sun and blast the young Cholades Mountain Range separating it from the rest of the continent. Through the heat haze, you can sometimes glimpse the peaks of the Anti-Cholades mountain range, grasping at the far horizon and further reinforcing the rain shadow cast over the desert.


The Interbarrial River Network: The Interbarrial River Network is birthed from two points: the geysers and healthy water table in the Wild Savannah and the runoff and melt flowing off of The Ice Wall. These networks of streams join together to form large, slow moving rivers that steadily meander toward the center of the continent. A veritable (relatively shallow) inland sea forms where the rivers meet in the Vale of Waters and proceeds to divert both toward the north and south. Tributaries and distributaries line the entire calm, slow-flowing river, providing the only real navigational issue along the equally calm riverbanks. The arterial river flowing north and south empties into the Northern and Southern Oceans. The Great Lake manages to regulate flow during the wetter northern seasons, providing a steady and reliable flood pattern across the continent and keeping the extreme wet or dry seasons from impacting the reliability of the River Network throughout the region.


THIS IS YOU Monsoon Point (North Capital/Bay12): This area point is bounded by its impressive coast containing multiple natural harbours. Monsoon Point is so named because winds that come off of the coast, off of 'Amit north of the Cholades, and off of the Icewall contact to create a spectacularly broad storm network which ensures Monsoon Point is constantly lashed with rain. An extremely rainy season dominates nine months out of the year, followed by three months of the year that can't accurately be called a dry season as much as a "less rainy season". The landscape in Monsoon Point itself is surprisingly dramatic as a result - a hilly region has been carved out into a land of beautiful red cliffs, with intense and verdant greenery blooming across the slopes - the sole exception being the incredibly wide Interbarrial River Network and the gentle, flat lands that follow it.


Choladaic Rainforest (West Front, North):  This region is absolutely dominated by a tropical rainforest. While most definitely less waterlogged than the areas to the northeast and east, it is still a rainforest - you can still expect to get soaked. The tropical rainforest rolls across gentle hills, fed by the Monsoon Point rainstorms which gather here and bowl against the Cholades. While the rain is certainly an obstacle, the unsettling nearly endless twilight beneath the canopy should not be underestimated.

Evergreen Riverway (Center Front, North): The hills in the surrounding regions flatten immensely within the Riverway. The Evergreen Riverway is a temperate pine rainforest - unbelievably lush, unbelievably green, fed both by brunt of the rainstorms coming down from Monsoon Point and the wide, fast-flowing arterial continental river flowing up from The Vale of Water, central Evergreen Reach is... well, it's wet as hell. The riverine environment leads to plenty of mud, fallen logs, ponds, small lakes, and streams, but other than that it's actually quite a pleasant place to be in, if humid.

Frosthollows (East Front, North): Temperatures drop dramatically in this uneven, rough, but beautiful alpine forest terrain. Bitter snowstorms hamper that beauty, driven west by the powerful and biting wind blasting off of The Ice Wall. The deep valleys in this region tend to catch these winds, creating absolutely unbearable conditions within the crags and ravines that crop up in the area. These ravines open up into the foothills and lowlands that dot the area, pummeling them with frigid temperatures rivaled only by the surface of The Ice Wall itself. These Frosthollows, open areas where even the pines refuse to grow, are treacherous, but often the safest and most direct way geographically to navigate the region.


Wild Savannah (West Front, Center): Resting against the shadow of the Cholades and ‘Amit, the land is a savannah of tall wildgrasses and scattered acacia copses. The climate is warm here, but not prone to drought due to a high water table fed by geothermal heat. When one spots a little hillock on this savanna, it is a geyser as often as it is a termite mound. The biodiversity in this region is staggering: giraffes and dwarf elephants in the patches of thin forest, great wildcats and wildebeest patrolling the grasslands. A river cuts this land too, fed by the water table and rare torrential downpours, flowing west to east. The geological activity here has left behind kimberlite pipes, the source of elusive diamonds and other precious gemstones, as well as a fair few rare earth metals.

Vale of Waters (Center Front, Center): The Vale of Waters is where the fresh waters sourced from the east and west join to run north and south. A great lake sits here, relatively shallow but broad. Its waters are flush with freshwater fish and waterfowl. The terrain beyond the lakeshore of brown sand and clay beds is some of the most supremely fertile earth in all the world, a temperate country of low hills and beautifully green grass. The summers are warm but mild to crops, the winters thinly blanket the land in snow for a month or so before melting. Little of the wildlife is dangerous; foxes, burrowing rodents from shrews to beavers, hares and the like.

Glacial Taiga (East Front, Center): The freshest remnants of The Ice Wall’s glacial activity can be identified here; gravel beds, moraines and the like. This land is a taiga of warmly-colored shrubs and sedge grasses intermixed with the occasional copse of spruce and birch, grazed by herds of caribou that alternately can be found migrating to the Evergreen Riverway. In summer, multicolored wildflowers blossom from the earth, areas of which are warm enough to tolerate agriculture. The morning sun lights the crags of the Ice Wall like a bonfire, and sends a glut of meltwater to swell the banks of a river heading west. Beneath the permafrost are vast beds of anthracite coal and petroleum.



Great Dry Sea (West Front, South): Once an ancient inland ocean, the Great Dry Sea is a massive salt flat that exists in a depression stretching from the edges of the Painted Land outward toward the 'Amit desert, where the ground begins to elevate once more and transfers from salt into sand. While outwardly unremarkable, the Great Dry Sea holds a unique characteristic of a deceptively active groundwater environment, forming and dissipating subterranean rivers at will. This results in turning the Great Dry Sea into an invisible minefield where one false step can send a man plummeting into a thick brine pool if he's lucky, or a many dozen foot drop to his death if not. The reprieve for these hazards is the rises in the flats that ages ago were once islands surrounded by water but now are encased in salt, dotted across the Dry Sea like freckles.

Sandoras Thornsea (Center Front, South): This entrance to the Painted Lands is host to a myriad of cactus families and hardy flora that take advantage of the presence of running water - thousands of species ranging in size from a child's fist to taller than a man, interspersed among a splattering of cork oaks and stunted juniper trees. The cacti mainly stick to the banks of the river and the distributaries that break off from it, creating thick bands of cactus that form the main hazard in crossing this region.

Motoro Conelands (East Front, South): Volcanic energy in this region is just powerful enough to breach the surface before running out of energy and forming the squat towers of basalt known as “splatter cones”. Ranging from only one meter in height to over twenty, these miniature volcanoes pocket the land in the thousands. Many of them are still active, needing only a slight disturbance to ooze molten rock from the ground. Despite the danger, the Conelands have long been a source of intense mining efforts - splatter cones contain high concentrations of metals across the entire range of metals available beneath the surface. In the areas populated by inactive or dormant vents, there is a large coverage of greenery that feeds off the rich volcanic soil and the Interbarrial River Network.



Painted Lands (South Capital, BPL): The riverway flowing south from the Vale reaches its southern terminus in the Painted Lands. What began as a clear flow of babbling water has been transformed into an even wider, slower thing laden with sediment. Millions of years of river action have carved a canyon through the country's soft rock strata, sharp and jagged at first but growing as broad as the horizon by the time it reaches the sea. Wandering distributaries branch off of the river, leaving winding shallow bands of fertile soil behind when they inevitably wander off again or dry up between flooding seasons. The land takes its name from the bands of rock exposed by the river to form a panoply of color: white limestone, black shale, and sandstones in pink, red, yellow, and every color in between.

The fertilized highlands beyond the water-carved walls (a distinction less marked as one proceeds southward) are relatively arid, with hot summers and cool winters. Groundwater is exposed to the highlands by limestone sinkholes, or cenotes. Papyrus reeds and olive trees grow in abundance and alligators sun by the riverbanks with regularity as one travels further south. The coastal bay experiences a cooler climate, with sea breeze coming off the ocean to regulate temperatures year-round and provide gentle winter rains.

The sedimentary rock of the Painted Land bears countless karst caves, connected by underground rivers and home to strange species of eyeless fish and cave-adapted lizards.

TURNTURNTURN

[Maxim_inc]

Beautiful.

[Powder Miner]

The Wovenmen

Not every surviving human being in the vast forests to the south of Monsoon Point was a member of the Ziggawatt Alliances. After the initial apocalyptic eruptions which cast the northern lands under ash, many of the Monsoon Point peoples had initially sought cover further inland, within the forests - famously, of course, including the first sacrifice of the Thirsting Wars, the Novice. However, while most of them either died or sought shelter in the cities as ecological conditions worsened, not all did - completely unbeknownst to the Ziggawatt Alliances, a minority of the original inland survivors managed to seek survival within the Choladaic Rainforest, within the Evergreen Riverway, and within the Frosthollows.

These inland survivors ultimately engaged in a highly nomadic way of life, traveling to the coast, engaging in extremely occasional WhaleSlaying (able to get away with this thanks to their extremely low population). They would store their gains in Ichor Jars, and then travel back inland. But they didn't slay whales to subsist - WhaleSlaying was still far too rare for that to be remotely possible, and the air would still have killed them. Instead, whereas the Ziggawatt Cities were led by their circumstances and sociopolitical order to sacrifice each other, the much more solitary inland survivors were driven to to become far more radical in the traditional way of self-sacrifice, using the products of the whales they slayed to heavily alter themselves beyond the limits of their human form, a process performed across their whole lives.

The lines of tattoos across the bodies of these rural survivors became incredibly, increasingly complex patterns that covered nearly one's entire skin by the time one was a mature adult, often looking as if they were shrouded in an extremely detailed piece of red fabric - hence the term "Wovenmen" they came to be known by. Further, pieces of organ, pieces of blubber, pieces of flesh from the whales were often implanted into these Wovenmen, seemingly at random, but very much intentionally - the Wovenmen came to understand that they could use whaleblubber to store cetrical charge (usually acquired through Storm Dancing far inland, far from the cities, and find particular ways through their tattoos to have these pieces of charge interact with whaleflesh and whale organs to produce certain effects. Further, through time living inland, some Wovenmen found that they could create implants out of other objects within the other regions of the world they lived in, using strange fruits, seeds, or minerals.

For the most part, given the extreme survival environment, these effects imparted the Wovenmen with a certain vitality, as if they were being driven by the charge itself - making them faster, making them stronger, but usually just making them less hungry, less thirsty, less lethally poisoned by the air (even if Wovenmen didn't usually get incredibly old). Some Wovenmen, using a substance called "xocolatl" produced from the seedpods of the rainforest, are said to have been able to expend this energy in rare bursts of speed and strength when they were not in survival mode. Some Wovenmen, implanting a mixture of pine tar from the Riverway and whale-flesh, are said to have been able to rapidly climb trees through a strange attractive cetric force. Some Wovenmen, implanting crystals from the Frosthollows, were able to quicken their reflexes to practically instant levels.

(I tried to keep all the clearly mechanically relevant pieces above this line.)

For many in the Bay Twelve Confederation, the end of the Thirsting Wars was seen as a clean slate - the rains opening back up to quite literally wash away the blood of the most horrific era that essentially anybody of the Monsoon Point people or their descendants had ever seen. A new time in which to move on towards new beginnings, new constructions, new lives, with the sins of the old days forgotten (or at least forgiven) with the end of the ash and the return of the rain. However, history is full of irony - it was only years after the Thirsting Wars ended at all that eerie strangers showed up at the walls of the Bay Twelve Confederation's cities. Worse, these strangers had skin seemingly entirely the color of whaleblood tattoos, and unrecognizable flesh-colored lumps lodged halfway into the outsides of their bodies - it was usually quite clear to the city guards that these were in fact the vengeful wraiths of their sacrifice victims, wearing their own flayed skins and carved-out hearts. The first response was usually absolute terror and violence.

While the cities had been unaware of the Wovenmen during the Thirsting Wars, the reverse had not been the same - it's pretty hard to miss large cities constantly bringing down lightning onto Ziggawatts, and also very frequently on fire during wars. The Wovenmen had obviously figured something had been wrong, and had kept a distance anyway simply due to the cities leaving very little charge for them to draw from the skies. However, with the end of the ashes and the return of the rains, a renewed optimism filled many Wovenmen - they had had to sacrifice much to survive, out in the harsh wilds, but as much as most Wovenmen venerated strict self-sacrifice, the idea that their brethren had had to sacrifice less was appealing. History is full of many ironies, though. Being met instead with violence was a harsh wake-up - and in the cases where the cities' guards could be calmed down and an explanation could be provided, the realization that the cities had turned to truly horrifically sacrificing OTHER people to survive usually made the Wovenmen, harshly traditionalist, much angrier.

The result rapidly turned into larger-scale violence. Despite the difference in scale between the Wovenmen and the Bay Twelve Confederation, the fighting went in the former's favor for a few reasons. Firstly, the gradually improving conditions allowed Wovenmen to meet and coordinate far more easily than they had previously been able to. Secondly, the Thirsting Wars themselves had so exhausted the Bay Twelve Confederation that even after some years of recovery their size was far smaller than the twelve cities should have supported. Thirdly, the Wovenmen were joined by many defectors from the Bay Twelve Confederation who had grown incredibly embittered with the rule and actions of the priesthood and Ziggawatt Alliances and craved a change in leadership. Fourthly, the electrical weapons left from the Thirsting Wars were completely useless against the Wovenmen, who were almost entirely covered in tattoos. Thankfully, even this "larger-scale" violence was still very small, given how few people... existed, in the North, and ultimately the twelve cities that were only mildly diminished by the fighting.

With the Wovenmen, those who so prized self-sacrifice over the sacrifice of others, victorious over the bloodthirsty priesthood of the Bay Twelve Confederation, those who had so happily opted to tear the skin and hearts off and out of their own kin and subjects, one might think that things changed dramatically. But history is full of ironies. The twelve cities were still, of course, the only populated cities around, and the Wovenmen certainly didn't change that, so they ultimately just set themselves up as the new ruling class within the cities. The Wovenmen didn't actually know how to operate the Ziggawatts, or the many aspects of city infrastructure (short of the WhaleSlaying, which they were the ones to reintroduce), so they just had to rely on those who were already around to do it - and that, of course, meant the priesthood stayed around as a class theoretically second in power to the Wovenmen, even if their method of human sacrifice was now technically banned. And so the Bay Twelve Confederation became the Twelve Bays Confederation - its slight change of name reflecting its nature as essentially the same civilization with a different set of figureheads.

[Jerick]

Mastering the nightmares
The thirsting wars were an era of horror, suffering, pain and fear. Fear was everywhere, it contaminated every decision made and plagued every single thought of so many people. Perhaps all the horror unlocked something or perhaps it was a cruel gift from darker gods but the most feared and infamous warriors of the thirsting wars began emanating an aura of fear. It was an unnatural and primal fear, one that could reduce even the most disciplined soldiers to a quivering mess. The more feared they became the stronger the effects of their ability would become. Everyone near them would experience ceaseless and horrific nightmares and the fear caused by that would only feed the power of these 'blessed'

It was a power separate from lightning whales and a blessing from the few gods seemingly that hadn't abandoned their people.

These blessed became a vital weapon in the thirsting wars and as time went on they became better able to command their powers. The best of them learned how to cast their dread aura and blanket entire enemy camps with it or to torment a specific target from a considerable distance away. Some even learned how to contain and conceal it.

Fear became a weapon and a tool. Each group sought ways to make more blessed and many found that propaganda was the most effective way. They reminded their people at every turn how twisted, cruel and unstoppable their greatest warriors were and if enough people were convinced those warriors would be 'blessed'

[TricMagic]

The Towers of Light, and Oslux Code
While little remains of the records of the time, what does remain are the source of lighthouses once used by those of that era. Ichor was crystalized using a lightning ritual into crystals serving as beacons for the sea travelers of the time. They played a critical role to those tasked in luring lightning whales onto the artificial beaches by providing light that could be seen from far away in the clouded days and nights. They were one of the casualties of the great flood, tearing apart the towers and taking these crystals into the sea, where fragments were later found drained.

During the Thirsting Wars, smaller crystals were used as signals for the various tribes, allowing directions to be sent over distances through the use of Oslux Code. While conjecture, artifacts recovered from that time period do suggest it existed at that point, and were used by the The Bay Twelve Confederation to ease communications after the unification. Indeed, these crystals are one of the earliest stable light sources known to us.


Oslux Code, light signaling named after the assumed creator of the art. So Morse Code. This is me wanting light early. (And fascination with lighthouses.) Not too fancy lore addition, but eh. Light~