Okay Im back sorry I havent posted in a while was having midterms and writers block. Are/have we doing/done a year jump yet or are we still in the same year?
Looks like everyone's been a little busy, we haven't had a time advancement yet but considering that nations won't have interaction as soon it might be possible to plan ahead a few turns, get out some of the details and then expand on them.
In other news, I'm finally getting some free time, albeit not as much as I'd like and in tiny chunks throughout the week, so I'm going to try to update the map again.
Considering no one has a culture spread over all their claimed land yet, I think we can tell you and DarthTaco apart for now. Also, laziness on my part.
Going away for the weekend, so no one expect any work out of me until Tuesday.
An insight into the daily life of a Family of The People
The Elders bowed thanks as we left their food for them. It was a bit early, but we had a lot to do today - the weather had been bad for a week, and we were behind on our jobs. The women were clearing up the cooking fires after the first-light-food, some with screaming infants, most with toddlers or small children running after them. Our Family was lucky, I think, that so many of our womenfolk had children. The Other Family, at the lower end of the Long Valley, had very few children left - most of their womenfolk were sad and unable to keep their babies alive. It made dealing with them unpleasant - the men were always scowling, quick to raise their fists or voices. For months now, we had done without the small things that we might have got by swapping our things for theirs.
Today, we were off to get some of those special things that only we could find, up here in the high lands at the top of the Valley. In the cold season, they were buried under deep snow or even hard ice, but now, after the wet weather that marked the end of the Cold, we could find the mosses and herbs - the Purewyte moss that added a burning heat to food, and brought the diner a special warm glow inside that would last for hours, and the straggling greyish Niedls, sweet and fragrant when chewed on raw, cloyingly sickly if baked or boiled to a pulp. The Elders in particular loved to eat Niedls, and they would sleep for hours afterwards and claim that they spoke with the ancestors, with the animals, and even with the Gods. We young folk laughed at them, because we had eaten Niedls and it didn't do that. It made the colours seem very bright, and the noises very loud, but that was it. In past summers, we had always sent a few folk down the Long Valley, a journey of six nights and days, to swap bags of Purewyte and Niedls for the bones of fish that the Others had pulled from the sea. The bones were made into needles, sharp and strong, for sowing.
Sometimes the Others had different things to swap - the teeth of some great monster, that would be made into spear-points for our hunters, or hides from the bigger animals that were used to build and repair our homes.
Collecting Purewyte was easy, but time-consuming. It grew around the lower rim of rocks that were exposed to the air, at most a hand's-breadth from the ground. So we had to move around on hands and knees, or sometimes even flat on our bellies, scraping the moss away with fire-hardened wood or with cut-stones. Cut-stones were made by putting certain rocks into the heart of a fire. When the heat of the fire was too much for the spirits that lived in the rock, they would burst out and flee to the mountaintops. They would not take action against us, because the fire had driven them out, and fire is another spirit, their equal. They would throw shards of stone at the flames though, and we had to stand well back - I remembered as a child, seeing a grown man cut open by such a hot shard, from armpit to buttock. Unlike anyone else who had received such an injury, he had survived - we always said that the fire spirits had helped him. The stone had been aimed at them, after all, not at him.
So, these flat shards, the cut-stones, were great for cutting and scraping. They were normally reserved for hunting tools though - spears and knives. Then the women would take the next-best cutstones to use for cooking, in preparing hides, and many other tasks. We herb-gatherers had to make do with the cast-offs, older, chipped, or very small pieces. So some of us preferred wood. I certainly did - it was kinder to the hands than the stone, and did just as good a job. But I preferred finding Niedls anyway. Crawling around scraping at the moss was easy enough, but my mind would go crazy at the endless repetition of the crawl, scrape, stuff-moss-in-bag, crawl, scrape, stuff-moss-in-bag....
Niedls grew in windy spots, gripping tiny cracks in the rocks that were otherwise blasted clear of moss or weed by exposure to strong wind. You had to be a good climber, and fearless, to get to them. I was both of those, and loved the rush of gripping some tiny scratch in the rock with hands and feet whilst I bit the Niedls off and spat them into my throatbag. It was the only way - to try and use a tool or bare hand would result in almost certain fall, and death, as the wind spirits shrieked abuse and tried to throw the climber from their cliff or outcrop. Nobody dared to climb for Niedls on rainy days. A windless day was rare at this time of year, and by the hot season, when the wind spirits skulked down by the sea or only on the very highest crags, the Niedls would flower and throw their seeds, losing the sweetness as they did so.
So I climbed, my fingers and toes cramping as they gripped the rocks, and I bit into the greyish stems and spat the mouthfuls into the hide bag that hung below my chin. It was not a big bag - Niedls were not big, and very potent. It took all morning to fill it though. The plants were fewer on this side of the mountain than they had been for many winters now.
While the tribes of the Laejiu Nor, Eloumoere, and Ju’Amaulea have remained relatively constant, the only major difference being minor population growth and increasing knowledge of the territory; the peninsula has become home to a migrating tribe travelling from the south along the coast. These newcomers, who call themselves the Burallang, are a people who are of greater physical stature than most, their forms rising above even the long-limbed Eloumoere and thick around as a swamp-bear.
The Burallang bear with them formidable stone weapons, axes and hammers often preferred, typically made of granite of the mountains. They have few beasts of burden, animal husbandry having not taken root yet. Their homes are often simple affairs, but sturdy nonetheless, for they prefer having a secure house. In addition, they have also began constructing walls around their communities, no more complex than sharpened poles and stakes in the ground, but an extra layer of protection should their enemies or predators decide to strike the camp.
Their culture is patriarchal, but not based around long family lines or respect of elders. Indeed, precisely why they began migrating was unknown to the ones that eventually decided to stop at the lower foothills of the mountains. Rather, the Burallang respect independence and strength, and thus their warriors and leaders are united as a council that elects itself. Their religion is surprisingly monotheistic, very early, and describes their over-father in the sky, who created the earth as his resting place and sky as his hunting grounds.
A little simplistic, but there's not much to tell about them yet, they'll be more important after the little tribes get a chance to expand.
I will write more of my people, treat my first 'history' as a messy application and a muddle of ideas that form the basis of my civilisation, my posts will be more professional.
I'm sorry for not updating the Wiki for a while, somehow, I got drunk twice last weekend, and once this weekend, continuously for two days. I'll do it soon though.
Well, random isn't what I would call it, creative is better.
You can simply choose an unoccupied part of the map where you will create your culture and than make a nice introduction. It doesn't have to be very formal, just make sure all the basic information, like the name of your people, ethnicity, religion, etc... , are there. Also try to be somewhat realistic.
After that, you can continue writing posts about the details of your country.
Just read other people's posts for examples. If you do anything wrong, we'll tell you.
remember, we're somewhere near -10,000. People are just beginning to settle down. Technology is very primitive.
So nice of you Lord Tim, thanks. Anyways, can I get a latest map regarding the political situations of the world, so that I get an idea to build a nation?
For the younger ones, it had just always been hot. Older members of the Family talked about how in their youth, the world had been cool and fresh, but the young men and women just shrugged and went on their way. It was good in the wet season, things dried out every afternoon as the sun baked the islands - but in the dry season, it made for hardship. Streams dried up, grasses flared in running fires, and the animals disappeared.
Down by the coast in Jonsland the extremes were even worse, and it led to hard words, even fights. The Jonsland Family went to the trouble of hammering thick stakes into the turf around what they considered their area. Up in the hills, the Family laughed at this - it took them days to walk to Jonsland, and they really didn't care where exactly it began or ended. But sometimes, the Jonsland Family would be waiting for them when they came to the stakes, trading, and would follow them, not threatening, but there.
The young ones grew old, and they told the Family the old stories about how it used to be cool and fresh... They didn't quite know why it was important, but they told the stories anyway. The youngsters went about the usual business, moving rocks to please the Gods, gathering herbs to trade, fishing when they could, grinding the grass seeds to make bread... They liked the heat - their babies did not fever and die, the grasses produced lots of seeds, and the herbs ran riot in the wet season. The Marklan Family prospered. They even found a way across the high mountains and down to the coast, without having to bother with the Jonslanders.
This allowed them to find their own fish and washed-up sea-monster bones. Now, when they traded with the Jonslanders, they were able to drive a better bargain for themselves, secure in the knowledge that whilst the Jonslanders couldn't get what they offered anywhere else, they could, if need be, supply themselves with what the Jonslanders were offering.
The Jonslanders didn't like this much, but after calling the Marklaners bluff a few times and seeing them walk away with their trade offerings, they slowly began to give ground.
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