Turn 7
SnaugImpact will send out one hunting party, and one half-party (5) for scouting.
Mudpost will send out two half-parties; one for mud-crab hunting and one to find food in this new environment.
Impact’s hunting party brings back a definite trophy-sized Mud Crab. This one is pretty massive and will provide enough food to last a few days at least. Impact’s food stores are overflowing with a huge surplus of Mud Crab flesh- pity there isn’t anything to gain from a whole lot of excess food. This crab gives enough shell to completely finish reinforcing the wall. On that note, a scouting party (with plenty of food) is sent out from Impact in the opposite direction of Mudpost. They speed through the mud’s silty surface on their way to the mountain passes. At the end of the day, they arrive and set up a temporary camp. They await further orders.
Mudpost’s hunting party takes down a shrimpy little crab, barely enough to feed its inhabitants. The other foraging party makes its way into the Sandbar to look around. They don’t see any Mud Crabs, but they do notice an enormous patch of uneven ground; in the distance, they see something large in the water.
Snaug (Yellow)
Impact, Camp
Traits:
- Capitol
Population: 23
- Leader
Food: 51
+55 Mud Crab
-23 Eating
Buildings:
- Pod (Can be deconstructed for 18 scrap metal, 8 metal plates, 3 circuit boards, 13 glass, and odds and ends)
- Shell-Plated Mud Wall
- Mud Mines
Materials:
- Mud (18 OMU)
Items:
-
Mudpost, Camp
Population: 14
Food: 3
+17 Mud Crab
-14 Eating
Buildings:
Materials:
Items:
Mine the quartz metal and any other mineral found. Test the material by cutting it, hitting, biting it, etc. Find out it's properties.
Make some picks and spears with the quartz.
Investigate the cliff mentioned from before.
Investigate the spiny creature. See if their are any weak points. If there are, launch spears and bullets into them. Do not enter melee range with it.
As for the fish, hide the hunting party within the seaweed, send three lofani to bait one fish. When it starts to chase the lofani, lure it near the remaining lofani. When the bait-lofani and the fish get near the ambush area, get the bait to stop movement, turn around, and display the spears.Plunge the spears into the fish's mouth right as the fish is going to devour the bait. The lofani ambushers will then fire their bullets and spears at the fish. (How many OMU's are the fish anyway?)
Cut up some weeds and bring them back to Deephome. Fashion nests out of these and place the eggs there. Post a permanent guard to watch over them.
Finally, allow a pair of lofani to breed. Only one.
The sample of gold quartz is put through a rigorous test- it is beaten, battered, slashed, and even bitten in the course of the Lofani’s experiments. They find out that it isn’t very hard and can be shattered upon forceful contact with the ground, much like glass. Its golden color comes from hundreds of tiny veins of gold lacing through the crystal. When in direct light, it refracts the illumination into a hundred bits of shimmering gold. Not only that, but the gold in it easily conducts electricity. When a current is put through it from one of the Pod’s near-dead circuitry chunks, it lights up extremely bright and shines a golden light. Unfortunately, the crystal’s fragile nature makes using it for harvesting rock impossible (it would simply shatter on hard contact). Spears might be a possibility, but you’re not sure how effective they might be.
The spiny creature (known to the Lofani as a “Spiny Hexfish”) is observed by a party of hunters. They take note as it suddenly stops its slow crawl and begins to shuffle itself in the sand, almost making a “sand angel” with its arms. In the fastest movement you have seen it do so far, it raises its bulk up on three of its arms and uses the other three to sweep underneath it. The three arms probing the sand come out suctioned onto a strange tube-like worm. The arms pull the struggling invertebrate towards the bottom of its body… And then the hexfish does something odd. The mouth on its underside opens up to reveal the stomach. The stomach then envelops the tubeworm and retreats back into the body cavity. Bleh. Echinoderms are strange creatures.
At first, the hexfish does not seem to have any weak points due the creature’s bony body armor and long (possibly poisonous) spines, but then they realize that the spiny hexfish’s underside would probably be quite weak. Of course, how to reach the beast’s underside is another matter entirely. For now, they scouts head out to the cliff to check out what could be on the other side. The Lofani carefully pull themselves up the scarp and peek over it. In the distance, they can see a plume of smoke rising over rough and rocky terrain. On their way back, the scouts notice that the fish are about 100 to 150 OMU, many times their size. Are you sure you wish to attack? On a more peaceful note, the seaweed is brought back to Deephome to provide nesting material for the fish eggs. A Lofani is appointed Keeper, and is set to watch the eggs at all times.
((Only one pair? I was assuming that the Smalls were breeding regularly… Or do Lofani breed in huge numbers only occasionally (Huge batches of eggs)? If that’s the case I’ll adjust your population growth so that you don’t grow until you say so.))
Lofani (
Brown)
Deephome, Camp
Traits:
- Capitol
Population: 26
- Kyridgem (Leader)
- Bone Craftsman
- Fish Keeper
Food: 4
+21 Copepods
+9 Oysters
-36 Eating
-13 Training
Buildings:
- Pod (Can be deconstructed for 18 scrap metal, 8 metal plates, 3 circuit boards, 13 glass, and odds and ends)
- Rock Wall (With 7 small anemones and 3 large anemones (trained in 1 turn))
- Fish Keeper’s Nests
Materials:
- Rock Oyster Shells (18)
- Lapis (5)
- Gold Quartz (18)
- Fish Eggs (30)
Items:
- Marblit Spears (21)
- Marblit Shields (4)
- Bullets (67)
- Rough Rock Picks (
Scout Outpost, Camp
Traits:
- Camouflaged
Population: 10
Food: (shipped in from Capitol)
Buildings:
- Resupply Post
Materials:
Items:
Finish breaking up the seeder pod (Space variant of seeder ship, it’s not going to go into play again though), and finish up the Command Crystal.
The Pyroids have completely broken down the Seeder Pod into workable materials and the Command Crystal is finished; however, it will not be completely operable until tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Pyroids have begun converting liquid magma into Pyberium and laying the proper crystalline matrices necessary for further Synth Ship construction. Two Synth Ships are available now, split directly from the Command Crystal to aid construction. The Synth Ships begin to convert additional magma for the Pyroid Synthesizers’ crystalline matrices
Pyroids (Green)
Command Crystal, Camp
Traits:
- Capitol
Population: 24
- (Leader)
- Synth Ships (2)
Food: 17
+17 Matter from Synth
+10 Matter from Seeder conversion
-24 Absorption
Buildings:
- Small Command Crystal
- Crystalline Matrix - Synth Ship (1 turn)
Materials:
- Pyberium (13)
Items:
-
Kyeraeon Orders:
There shall be 15 men at Kyeraeon, including Ehndras.
Have Ehndras, 2 assistants, one an apprentice biologist and one an apprentice mechanic, and two armed guards work with the crustaceans.
First, have them test the young crustaceans. As the Divine Soul of the Ul'mare, Ehndras is both the Great Engineer and the Great Speaker, representative of the Ul'mare people. As Great Speaker, Ehndras has the gift of communicating with creatures, as well as sentient beings. Not entirely, but just enough to slightly improve our chances to befriend, assimilate, or calm a creature.
Ehndras shall attempt basic communication with the crustaceans, in order to establish if they are passive, aggressive, apathetic, or obedient. Have the 2 armed guards stand by in case they attack, while the the apprentices monitor the biological signs via coloration, movement and behavior while the mechanic figures their strengths and weaknesses by analyzing their armor, claws, and mode of feeding, movement and communication with each other. If communication can be established, attempt to render them passive so that they may be trained. Perhaps we can use them as hunters or as guard creatures to accompany us and keep us safe. If they are undeniably hostile and there seems to be no way to calm them, take one crustacean, preferably leaving a male and female alive in the tank, and slaughter it without pain. Take it apart, making sure to take note of the quality of its armor, any interesting features on its body, the value of its meat compared to that of baby shrimp, the strength of their claws for possible use as tools/weapons, and ensure we take advantage of every bone, shell and scrap from its body. It should not have died in vain.
When that is done, have Ehndras attempt to engineer a new item type; the shield. Ehndras shall attempt to fashion a disc of floatstone, hollowed out on the inner side to decrease their weight and fashioning a handle made of metal bits or if possible, simply hollowing out an interior bit so that it may be grasped as a handle. If this is feasible, we can produce a small number of floatstone shields as a rudimentary defense for our men, taking advantage of the light weight yet hardness of floatstone. Make note of the thorns we scavenged, seeing if they can be employed on our shields for extra defense and a bonus to damage when attacked, or attacking via shield bash. If Spiked Floatstone shields are workable, make a few of them. Floatstone shields should be fairly easy to fashion. Spiked floatstone shields, perhaps not as much.
Thirdly, have the remaining men at Kyeraeon collect the shells shed by the shrimp and crustaceans, and conduct a test to see if they're usable or just worthless waste product. Perhaps they are also edible, or they're hard enough to be used for armor/weapon reinforcement, or they have some other quality. Have them speculate how much silkweed would be needed to create a net big enough to capture an eel or other manageable local creature for harvesting/analysis. Mainly, have them simply scavenge for materials and food
Exploration Team Orders
Have 3 men remain in the Air Chamber to analyze the location for any interesting features or anomalies, while the rest converge with the larger scout team following the Eel's Road. If shields are created, have them equipped. This should allow them to protect themselves by entering a turtle formation, effectively blocking the entirety of the small tunnel and keeping them safe. If spiked shields are synthesized, this formation should damage any attackers and allow them to track the injured prey to its home.
Have the new mass of 12 Ul'mare ((15 at Kyeraeon; 12 at Eel's Road and 3 at Air Chamber, 30 total)) continue further down the Eel's road, taking care to be very cautious. Spears facing forward to engage anything that attacks them from the darkness. They are to search for identifiable landmarks and a possible place to set up camp, or possibly even an outpost if there is any interesting feature useful to our people. First though, let us secure this location in the name of our people! If we are attacked, let our spears be thrust out in the enemy's direction while we retreat back towards the city, keeping us safe.
If the men from Kyeraeon finish their savenging and a messenger can reach them, and should the Exploration team have established a beachhead, have a squad of men build a floatstone barricade as far into the Eel's Road as possible, allowing us a bit of protection in case the Eel's come back to visit. Effectively, this should allow us to traverse the Eel's Road quickly and efficiently as the area is now safe and mapped by our scouts.
Research is done on the juvenile crabs. They appear to be quite passive actually, showing no real aggression- true to their herbivorous nature. Their legs are arranged in a row going down their tail, each with a single claw facing inward. This configuration is obviously geared towards attaching them to something. Their two front claws ferry food to their mouth, but it doesn’t seem that they are quite interested in the algae brought to them. They will eat it, but reluctantly. The crab’s back carapace is quite tough and is lightweight enough to be used as armor or tools. The underside is made of a soft and flexible armor, like the kind that binds its joints. Once shed, the crab’s carapace keeps its hardness but becomes partly transparent. The shells from the bottom of the cell could be used for armor or a coloring substance (the larva retain the color of food fed to them in their shells).
Floatstone shielding is tested by Ehndras and his assistants. The floatstone by itself is too fragile to be more than just a one-time use shield. However, with a protective coating on the outside of the shield and a buffer with the floatstone, a heavily shock-absorbent shield could be made. Most of the thorns are much too long to be used effectively on the shields, and you have no way of attaching them yet.
Some of the weavers look to netting the tunnel eels. Judging from the size of the ones they saw jumping between tunnels, it could take a good 50 units of silkweed to make a net big enough to trap an eel. The nets that they just wove are set up around the perimeter of Kyr’raeon; they will be checked for new catches in the morning. They harvest some more of the silkweed from the Plateau to make up for the used silkweed.
Back in the Eel’s Road, the scouting party is equipped with a few of the one-use shields that were created during testing; these are given to the units in front of the advance team. They slowly work their way deeper into the tunnel. After traveling a good distance, they hear something farther in and feel a vibration in the water! They stand their ground and raise their shields to defend from the front, poking their spears through the cracks in the shields. What do?!
Ul’mare (Red)
Kye’raeon (Heaven’s Gate), Camp
Traits:
- Capitol
Population: 32
- Ehndras the Divine Engineer (Leader)
Food: 1
+23 Larval Shrimp
-32 Eating
Buildings:
- Rough Metal Holding Cells (3)
Cell One: (Empty)
Cell Two: Juvenile Crustaceans (3)
Cell Three: Tunnel Algae
- Silkweed Nets
Materials:
- Rough Floatstone Chunks (100 OMU)
- Heart Crystals (6 OMU)
- Circuit Boards (3 OMU)
- Glass (7 OMU)
- Silk Algae (28 OMU)
- Thornweed Thorns (12)
Items:
- Rough metal chips
- Metal Spears (14)
- Crystal Welders
- Fragile Floatstone Shields
((Yaffi will eat nearly anything that they can pull bits off of.))
Visionary Yaa commends the scouts on their discovery, and requests that moderate-scale bacteria farming commence.
The five most clever Yaffi are made philosopher-scientists, and attempt to harness the heat of the vents for smelting and power.
The construction team will continue to expand Coilhome, making room for an expected population explosion.
The patrol team will scour the bacteria mats for easy prey and useful natural features.
The Yaffi excavate another chamber, this one even larger than the two before it. It has more area than it does height though, and will be used for farming. The area is seeded with bacterial spores in the hopes that they will grow. They are already sending out tiny threadlike tendrils around where they were tossed.
The investigation of the vents for their heat is begun by the newly-appointed philosopher-scientists. They locate a smaller vent near the camp and find that it continuously expels incredibly hot water. The continuity of the vents would mean that power flow from the harnessed vents would be constant and reliable. Smelting is not out of the question and could be used to process the iron once a proper smelter is set up.
The Yaffi diggers are already exhausted from digging out the farm and will enlarge the living chambers tomorrow.
Yaffi (Violet)
Coilhome, Camp
Traits:
- Capitol
Population: 34
- Visionary Yaa (Leader)
- Philosopher Scientists (5)
- Enslaved Mussels (4)
Food: 43
+28 Mussel
-34 Eating
Buildings:
- Shelter (Shell)
- Low rock wall
- Storage Area
- Living Area (will be enlarged in 1 turn to ensure room for others)
- Mining Tunnels
Materials:
- Stone (79 OMU)
- Mussel Shells (10)
- Scrap Metal (18)
- Circuit Boards (3)
- Glass (13)
- Iron Particles (17 OMU)
Items:
- Mussel Shell Blades (28)
have the Fernnigains Flannigans start building houses out of kelp.
The Flannigans begin construction of living areas around the camouflaged pod. They construct their new dwellings out of kelp lumber and roof them over with kelp fronds. One of the fronds carried into the camp has one of the brown sea-spiders seen earlier clamped onto it, nibbling away.
All the other Flannigans concentrate on chopping kelp stalks for lumber and harvesting young kelp for food. The barracks is now idle and is serving as a repository for axes when not in use for lumber. The Flannigans want to know what to all their colony.
Flannigans (Orange)
Colony 1, Camp
Traits:
- Capitol
Population: 32
- Leader
Food: 38
+54 Young Kelp
-32 Eating
Buildings:
- Camouflaged Pod (Can be deconstructed for 18 9 scrap metal, 8 7 metal plates, 3 circuit boards, 13 glass, 10 Kelp Fronds, and odds and ends)
- Kelp Homes (1 turn)
- Barracks (by shell)
Materials:
- Kelp Fronds (No end)
- Kelp Lumber (72 OMU)
Items:
- Wooden Hammers (27)
- Rough Metal Axes (10)
- Large Rough Saw
And here be mine:
Five Goabu scouts will go with caution and begin to harvest long, wavy strips of the the brown seaweed, testing it first for edibility and strength. If found useful on either count, they will fold it into neat clumps and return these to the pod site.
Three of the others sit cross-legged around the pod and inspect the fragmented stone, looking for pieces with which to chisel and fashion simple but sharp stone knives to aid in the task of gathering the "earth lettuce," as well as a supply of spear heads to be stored in the pod. Bits of cast-off stone will be delicately piled around the pod, and under no circumstances is to be discarded.
After a short meditation and a few sets of body-warming exercises, another seven proceed to gather at the nearest, least debris-filled rift between the first cobblestone and the next. Five of these will descended single-file into the depths of the crevice, hoping to find a place where the stone opens up or soft sand at the bottom. The remaining two wait patiently and keep watchful, acting as spotters for their brothers.
Of the last five Goabu, two patrol the camp and assist the chiselers and weeders from time to time, but never at once. The three, who are eldest of all the Goabu, will sit in meditation around one clump of barnacles, uttering prayers and sprinkling the crustaceans with holy sand from between the cobble.
The five Goabu carefully inspect the lazily waving fronds of the seaweed. The earth lettuce’s leaves are fairly normal. They are neither edible nor particularly tough, but a few squares are neatly stored in the Pod- they may yet have a use later. A slight bulge beneath the sand belies something below, however. Perhaps the plants have a rhizome or tuber that could be used.
Some of the sharper bits of rock are chiseled into simple stone blades. Smaller fragments are chipped into spearheads. Since they have no use for now, they are placed in rows on the ground in front of the impact site. The other chunks of stone are gathered and cleared from the impact site. All the debris is placed in a pile slightly behind the Pod. With the debris out of the way, the next team of Goabu begin their work.
They descend into the crevice one by one, carefully drifting down. They each land with a muffled thud on the warm sand below, sending up tiny clouds where their feet touched down. The stones are touching the sand, partly sunk into the surface of the desert, leaving no space underneath. The spotters do not sight anything out of the ordinary yet.
The barnacles don’t seem to enjoy having sand dumped in their shells and clam up whenever sand seeps in. It seems to be irritating them, but the elders remain stoic and continue their sprinkling.
Goabu (Ochre Yellow)
Cobblestone Path, Camp
Traits:
- Capitol
Population: 24
- The Three Elders (Leaders)
Food: Rations
Buildings:
- Pod (Can be deconstructed for 18 scrap metal, 8 metal plates, 3 circuit boards, 13 glass, and odds and ends)
Materials:
- Rock Spearheads
- Cobblestone Debris (behind Pod)
Items:
- Stone Knives (18)
Poll
1 (6.3%)
Author
Topic: Smalls of Tolla: A Smalls RP (Read 27426 times)