In the Beginning, There was Man [Civilization Quest]

In the Beginning, There Was Man​

Lately, you've been dreaming. Not of the hills and plains of your youth, long since left behind as your tribe wanders from place to place, in search of food and game. No, you dream of other things. Strange things.

Inhuman whispers echo in the corners of your sleeping mind, promising you power, riches, fame, anything you could possibly desire, if only you'll let them in. There's other voices, as well, begging for you to save them dying, for you to relieve their hunger and quench their thirst and soothe their injuries and a thousand thousand other things.

And always, ever always, you can feel...

[ ] ... the salty breeze of the waves upon the sea, deep and dark.
[ ] ... the warmth of the sun upon your face, bright and proud.
[ ] ... the bright colors of the autumn leaves, inconstant and ephemeral.
[ ] ... the cool caress of the earth beneath, solid and unchanging.
[ ] ... the racuous cries of your fellows, loyal and dependable.

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This is a civilization quest. Each turn, you will be voting on actions to guide your people towards (hopefully) success.

For each action you make, I will be rolling 1d100. Results will be interpreted as follows:

97-100 : Great success!
66-96 : You succeeded. Your actions are of higher quality, or you make more progress than expected.
36-65 : You make some progress. Nothing bad happens, and everything continues on-schedule.
5-35 : You failed. Whatever it is that you were trying to do, it's been delayed by quite a bit.
1-4 : Interesting times.

Each action will be assigned a fixed penalty depending on how many actions are attempted that turn. Note that no bonuses or penalties, including this, will affect your chances at critical failure or success. So if you roll a 97, you'll still succeed, even if you have a -100 penalty (for whatever ungodly reason). On the other hand, if you roll a 96, no matter how high your bonus is, you're not going to get a critical success.

Each turn, you will have a fixed pool of manpower to draw from, divided between Defense, Research, and General. Defense manpower represents soldiers, hunters, and fighters - the people who defend your homes and keep it safe. Research manpower represents scientists and artists - the thinkers who bring new ideas into the world. General manpower can be used for anything else. Research and Defense manpower can be used on General actions at an exchange rate of 2:1, rounded down. Each point of manpower applied to an action gives an additional 1d6 bonus.

Additionally, certain effects will give you fixed bonuses to your rolls.

More rules/amendments/clarifications will be added as needed.

 

This space is reserved. Don't touch it, please.

 

[X] ... the salty breeze of the waves upon the sea, deep and dark.

 

[X] ... the cool caress of the earth beneath, solid and unchanging.

 

[X] ... the salty breeze of the waves upon the sea, deep and dark.

 

[ ] ... the bright colors of the autumn leaves, inconstant and ephemeral.
God of the harvest? Autumnlord? Something like that?

 

[X] ... the warmth of the sun upon your face, bright and proud.

 

[X] ... the salty breeze of the waves upon the sea, deep and dark.

 

[X] ... the salty breeze of the waves upon the sea, deep and dark.

 

[X] ... the raucous cries of your fellows, loyal and dependable.

 

[X] ... the raucous cries of your fellows, loyal and dependable.

 

[X] ... the salty breeze of the waves upon the sea, deep and dark.

 

[X] ... the salty breeze of the waves upon the sea, deep and dark

 

[X] ... the salty breeze of the waves upon the sea, deep and dark

This seems like it will be the most interesting. I do not think I have ever seen a quest in which the protagonist race is aquatic.

 

Well, more like fishermen I'd guess, although who knows?

 

Considering the title is "In the Beginning, There was Man" I think it's fairly safe to say we're controlling humans.

 

[X] ... Your crushed enemies, driven before you and the lamentations of their women.

 

[X] ... Your crushed enemies, driven before you and the lamentations of their women.

 

[X] ... Your crushed enemies, driven before you and the lamentations of their women.

 

Turn 1: Spring​

[X] ...the salty breeze of the waves upon the sea, deep and dark.

For as long as you can remember, you have wandered. Your tribe travels south towards warmer climes during the cold days of winter, and wanders north as life gradually returns to the world, when the ice and snow that grips the land melts and thaws. This year is like any other - as the days grow ever longer, you and your people wander north.

The dreams you've been having are of the sea. You remember being there once, a long time ago. You remember the waves, slate gray beneath an overcast sky, and the way that they surged forward again and again, driving themselves onto the cliffs that ringed the seashore. There's something in you that wants to go back there, back to the seaside and the crashing waves.

For now, though, you need to worry about other, more important things.

There are two dozen of you, an odd handful of families banded together for mutual protection, ranging from the very young to the rare tribesmember who survives to old age. During the day, hunters leave with their heavy, stone-tipped spears to try to bring home food, and at night, you all shelter by the warmth of the a central fire that gives light and heat and drives away those animals who stalk around in the dark.

This year is like any other. Once again, as the snows recede, you and your tribe travel north, in search of game. One night, you encamp by the banks of a river. The next morning, you wander away from the others to wash yourself in the water. As you cup your hands in the ice-cold water of the stream, you feel a tingling in your hands, one that you cannot simply attribute to the coldness of the liquid. And to your surprise, when you lift your hands up out of the water, a thin stream of water floats up into the air, following you as you rise up into the area.

You yelp with surprise, and the water almost immediately falls back down to the ground. You try again, and after a while, you manage to find a way to consistently make a small handful of water follow your hands around. It's tiring, in a strange way - not the physical exhaustion of a hard day's work, but a tiring, mental exhaustion that leaves you drained and unwilling to do anything more than sit still and rest.

While you don't exactly go around telling people of this discovery, the news spreads quickly, and soon everyone knows of your supernatural ability.

One night, one of the elders, a wizened old woman, announces that these powers of yours are a Sign, yes, a Sign that you are destined to lead this tribe to greatness. And so it is that you, a young girl of barely twenty years, finds herself leading an entire tribe.

This is all really unexpected, and really, you're not old enough or experienced enough to do this, and you're going to mess things up and... Oh. Really? You too? All of you? No, you don't really want to do this, but if everyone insists, you suppose...

Rise up, young child. Make yourself a legend.


One hex is approximately half a mile.

For the sake of simplicity, directions are N, S, NW, SW, NE, SE.

Manpower:
Defense: 1
Research: 1
General: 1

[ ] What do you do?

 

[X] River carrying meltwater south? Ideal time to catch fish like salmon to supplement the hunters. Practice your strange magic to help them.
[X] Research something depending on our current technology. Preference on nets, but throwing spears/atlatls/bows would be great too.

What kind of shelter does our tribe build? We're nomadic, obviously... teepees carried in travois? Yurts or wagons? Are we lucky enough to have fishhooks or nets, or do we have to make do with spear-fishing?

 

[X] Exploration.

First thing to do is to find out what's out there.

We've only got information on the terrain within 1 mile of the ?campsite?, 2 miles at the furthest.

 

[X] Military Action: Scout Northwards.
Research Action: Work on agriculture
General action: General improvements of base camp?

 

Yurts/teepees would probably be the best way to describe them. They're rather crude shelters with wooden supports of some sort covered by skins.

So far, you've focused more on hunting than on fishing, but it shouldn't be too hard to come across the idea of nets. The heavy spears that you use aren't particularly suited to fishing, but, again, adapting the concept to spearfishing isn't going to be terribly difficult.

 

[X] River carrying meltwater south? Ideal time to catch fish like salmon to supplement the hunters. Practice your strange magic to help them.
--[X] but we do not have the right tools, so we shall have to make them. spears of lightest wood with split and sharpened tips and nets.

 

[X] River carrying meltwater south? Ideal time to catch fish like salmon to supplement the hunters. Practice your strange magic to help them.
--[X] but we do not have the right tools, so we shall have to make them. spears of lightest wood with split and sharpened tips and nets.

 

[X] We haz boats!