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[Kot]

There is Fire in the Sky.
It was hard to miss it when every night it roared and lit up the World. Some said it was a place where beings that could end the World in a single gesture fought their battles, or maybe the mating grounds of primodial beasts that tore reality asunder with every flap of their wings. Some said it was a place where Water and Sky met, where existence ended with incomprehensible force or, maybe, it actually was where existence began, born in rage and toil by the Mother of the World. What we know now, is that we did not Understand it.
Like with anything we did not Understand, we feared it. Like with anything we feared, most ran away as far as they could, shivering in their caves and dirt dens from the wrath of the thunder and lightning.
But not Us. We are Brave.
We were those that went into the Eye of the Storm. We were those that spent their lives lashed by the rain, struggling to stay afloat in the flooded rivers. We were those that fought, not ran away. We made the Eye of the Storm our home, creatures of the World, standing proudly between Water and Sky, the Brave few that could.
And, after all that, we finally Understood. We Understood and were Gifted.
The Fire in the Sky wasn't a threat. The Fire was our Gift all along, a Gift for those that were Brave enough to grasp it in their hands. It now provides us with warmth and light. It's what makes us separate from the animals. Water still stifles the Fire and so the Fire must be protected, for the Gift is seldom given to those that are weak and don't keep Watch over Fire, but by keeping Watch and mastering the Fire we can create, destroy and rule the World.
Of course there is still much we don't Understand. But what we know now, is that we can Understand everything if we remain Brave.

Lunar Madness (3): Doomblade, m1895, Rockeater
The Leviathan Fishers (4): Maxim, Powder Miner, UristMcRiley, Kashyyk
Hydrodruidism (3): Jerick, Quarque, TricMagic
Living With the Rain ():
Stone Shapers ():
Beast Keepers ():
Fire in the Sky (1): Kot

I have absolutely no idea how to make this have floatplanes but I'll figure it out later. I'm also not sure what this actually gets us (apart from calling the other guys female cats) but historically speaking many areas where storms played a huge part often had them be very important part of their beliefs because they were both very hard to predict, very incomprehensible and had direct impact on the world around. Apart from the obvious like (d)Zeus, Thor or Perun, there's Indra, the Hindu "King of Gods" is a "Storm God", Abrahamic God most probably started out as a "Storm God" too (flash floods in Middle East are a female dog), so on and so on. One could probably argue it comes from some proto-Indo-European all-important "Storm God" but w/e, so it would be weird if a culture of guys that live in a place where it rains most of the year (which probably means a lot of thunderstorms - see Catatumbo lightning) weren't into that stuff.
I'm open to modifying this to have some specific specialization but I suppose it's just "we dig fire and lightning". Also, as some of you know, I'm a boring old codger so instead of weird magic stuff I like GUNS and TANKS and PLANES WITH AIR TANKS ATTACHED TO THE LANDING GEAR SO THEY CAN FLOAT ON WATER.

[TricMagic]

Lunar Madness (3): Doomblade, m1895, Rockeater
The Leviathan Fishers (5): Maxim, Powder Miner, UristMcRiley, Kashyyk, TricMagic
Hydrodruidism (2): Jerick, Quarque,
Living With the Rain ():
Stone Shapers ():
Beast Keepers ():
Fire in the Sky (1): Kot

I like themall. But think I'll go for the one where there be beeg fish in the water.

[Quarque]

Lunar Madness (3): Doomblade, m1895, Rockeater
The Leviathan Fishers (5): Maxim, Powder Miner, UristMcRiley, Kashyyk, TricMagic
Hydrodruidism (1): Jerick
Living With the Rain ():
Stone Shapers ():
Beast Keepers ():
Fire in the Sky (2): Kot, Quarque

[TheFantasticMsFox]

Lunar Madness (3): Doomblade, m1895, Rockeater
The Leviathan Fishers (6): Maxim, Powder Miner, UristMcRiley, Kashyyk, TricMagic, TFF
Hydrodruidism (1): Jerick
Living With the Rain ():
Stone Shapers ():
Beast Keepers ():
Fire in the Sky (2): Kot, Quarque

[Quarque]

So sorry Kot

your writeup is the best

but that frog

Lunar Madness (4): Doomblade, m1895, Rockeater, Quarque
The Leviathan Fishers (6): Maxim, Powder Miner, UristMcRiley, Kashyyk, TricMagic, TFF
Hydrodruidism (1): Jerick
Living With the Rain ():
Stone Shapers ():
Beast Keepers ():
Fire in the Sky (1): Kot

[Maxim_inc]

Lunar Madness (4): Doomblade, m1895, Rockeater, Quarque
The Leviathan Fishers (5): Powder Miner, UristMcRiley, Kashyyk, TricMagic, TFF
Hydrodruidism (1): Jerick
Living With the Rain ():
Stone Shapers ():
Beast Keepers ():
Fire in the Sky (2): Kot, Maxim

Changed my vote because Kot's is actually something normal I can get behind and not weird druidism, biopunk or magic.

[FallacyofUrist]

Lunar Madness (4): Doomblade, m1895, Rockeater, Quarque
The Leviathan Fishers (6): Powder Miner, UristMcRiley, Kashyyk, TricMagic, TFF, FallacyofUrist
Hydrodruidism (1): Jerick
Living With the Rain ():
Stone Shapers ():
Beast Keepers ():
Fire in the Sky (2): Kot, Maxim

[Jerick]

Lunar Madness (4): Doomblade, m1895, Rockeater, Quarque
The Leviathan Fishers (7): Powder Miner, UristMcRiley, Kashyyk, TricMagic, TFF, FallacyofUrist,Jerick
Hydrodruidism ():
Living With the Rain ():
Stone Shapers ():
Beast Keepers ():
Fire in the Sky (2): Kot, Maxim

[Maxim_inc]

Great.

[Quarque]

So Maxim, we all know you like the more quasi-realist flavour of cool rather than ninja-wizards-and-bears-shooting-lasers kind of cool. I happen to share your taste, but we're on Bay12 here, we'll have to accept that. Being grouchy won't win anyone for the cause. Cheer up, embrace the nonsense you signed up for. 

Lunar Madness (3): Doomblade, m1895, Rockeater
The Leviathan Fishers (7): Powder Miner, UristMcRiley, Kashyyk, TricMagic, TFF, FallacyofUrist,Jerick
Hydrodruidism ():
Living With the Rain ():
Stone Shapers ():
Beast Keepers ():
Fire in the Sky (3): Kot, Maxim, Quarque

anyway the fisher origin story is good, I love this one even more so I will vote with my heart and explode Froge

[Taricus]

Lunar Madness (3): Doomblade, m1895, Rockeater
The Leviathan Fishers (7): Powder Miner, UristMcRiley, Kashyyk, TricMagic, TFF, FallacyofUrist,Jerick
Hydrodruidism ():
Living With the Rain ():
Stone Shapers ():
Beast Keepers ():
Fire in the Sky (4): Kot, Maxim, Quarque, Taricus

[Kot]

I wasn't part of it because, ultimately, who cares about games on Dwarven basket weaving forum, but I feel like our earliest origins should play more into the area you guys created rather than adding even more stuff to it. Not to mention whales and weird stuff underwater strikes me more of a cold, glacier theme thing than OH MY GOD IT'S RAINING 24/7 FOR 270 DAYS OF THE YEAR, especially since it's supposed to be "extremely rainy" and only slightly less rainy the rest of the time, so there's a chance it rains for entire years without end. A place like this seems relatively hostile to development of advanced civilization. The one guy to actually acknowledge the issues of living in constant storm is surprisingly Tric, but it's not like he's a real person anyway, so whatever.
Like, sure, we can't farm because rain washes it out (which I think is weird considering the area is supposed to be green with plants, so there must be stuff that can grow there, not to mention it's probably a herbivores wet dream, so there's hunting and domestication), but... how do those guys even cope with going fishing when there's a storm going on constantly? While I'm ambivalent to the two tribes thing because it could be interesting setup for caste system or slavery or w/e, you're basically introducing a race of supermen who can go out onto open sea during a storm in what I assume are stone age canoes and dugouts and then harpoon whales. I don't think people really got around to killing big whales that early, more like scavenging or something. Also, even if I didn't really like Dishonored that much I thjnk we can go hunt whales later, I'm sure developing ships that can actually cope with constant storm and then able to murder weird fish could be a part of our ancient or medieval history.

[Powder Miner]

I haven't actually played Dishonored, so I don't really know what people are talking about with that. When it comes to the actual means of the 'fishing', what I have in mind is mostly that these guys have developed a means of reliably baiting the Leviathans into beaching starting from some of the deeper points along the natural harbors on the coasts, rather than doing open-sea fishing.

As for your design, I have a question since there seems to be sort of a split in how this is being interpreted among the people voting for your design: is it meant to be symbolic and just lead to mundane warfare, or is it meant to be another magic proposal?

[Kot]

There was a longer discussion on the Discord thing regarding this. If you don't read Discord actively then woe be you because you will not understand what people are talking about most of the time. I'll summarize what I said for posterity though.

I haven't actually played Dishonored, so I don't really know what people are talking about with that. When it comes to the actual means of the 'fishing', what I have in mind is mostly that these guys have developed a means of reliably baiting the Leviathans into beaching starting from some of the deeper points along the natural harbors on the coasts, rather than doing open-sea fishing.

This does make some sense as constant storms and rainfall would probably cause some whale and whale-like creatures to beach naturally, though I'm not sure if natural harbours are most conductive to this. I still don't neccesarily like the concept of different, better, more fortunate group of people saving "Our" ass. It burns my slowly developing Ultranationalistic pride and honestly feels like we could just have done this ourselves, especially if the area is flooded with beached whales.
Also, Dishonored is Whalepunk, which I feel is what we'd be going for with your whole thing.

As for your design, I have a question since there seems to be sort of a split in how this is being interpreted among the people voting for your design: is it meant to be symbolic and just lead to mundane warfare, or is it meant to be another magic proposal?

I assume there will be later phases that will actually clarify the presence and tone of magic in the setting. If it's just mundane then it's fine as being symbolic or maybe a path into electricity based weaponry and making sure our stuff works despite constant rainfall, if it's magic then we can supercharge frogs to give them bullet time so they serve as computers of our tanks active protection systems, spitting their tongues at incoming missiles which causes a frog charged with fire get fired at the missile to intercept it. Or, IDK, just throwing fireballs. Personally I do like more mundane or at best low magic systems so I don't like firmly establishing some magic system or specialization so early, especially since we can probably change most of it later, so I focused on what we cannot change - our starting location. It just so happens it's sometimes hard to distinguish between water on the ground and water in the sky in our starting location, which I believe would cause plenty of thunderstorms ("storm" systems are mentioned in the location thingy) which are bound to have a huge impact on any people who live in the area.
Thunderstorms are also the probable source of early access to fire through lightning which can be considered one of pre-requisites for any realistic technological progress. Access to fire creates an interesting dichotomy between "everything is water" and "fire is cool" because all the moisture and rainfall would make fire easy to lose which would also make it an extremely important part of our early culture.
I don't even think my thing is objectively perfect since I do agree that in a pure powergamer sense it doesn't give us anything concrete but I cannot vote with clear conscience for something that ignores the giant elephant-shaped cloud in the room. Constant rain is the defining feature of our location and I think we should use that as a springboard or at least allude to it rather than just invent something completely new because we disagree with what we're given.

[Doomblade187]

As this is an actual design with a roll, i would like to have the main "tech" be clearly defined.