Twitter: https://twitter.com/Line_of_Heroes
Archives: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Tide%20of%20Ages
You and Elia slowly inch your way closer to the aurochs herd, staying low in the grass. You spot a cow slightly more separated from the herd and you silently sign to Elia that she is your target. Closer and closer, you edge into range of your javelins and Elia fits a stone into his sling. Just as you are about to rise however, disaster strikes! The wind changes and as one mass, the aurochs lift their heads and catch your scent. There's a low, roaring moo of rage, as you stand, pulling your arm back. Elia's stone flies, but simply bounces off the auroch's tough hide and strong bones. Your javelin leaps from your hand and bites, hanging out of the creature's shoulder as it turns. More than the stone, the sharp wooden shaft pains and angers the cow so much that she screams and as one wall of muscle, the herd begins to move.
The earth shakes as they run towards you, stampeding through the grass and leaving it trampled, as you scramble to run! You have enough presence of mind at least to run diagonally, hoping to escape the herd's path of destruction, but just as it seems you're about to make it, the herd is upon you! A bull's broad horns pass either side of you and you feel its skull slam into your spine! With a toss of its head, its horn rips along your ribs and back and you are thrown into the air, landing in a sprawling heap, just to the side of the herd's thundering hooves. You lay in a small heap, covering your head with your arms and your legs curled up under you as the unstoppable force crashes by.
Finally, the stampede passes by and you hear Elia hurrying over to you. "Trym! Trym, are you alright?"
"What do you think?" you groan in response, slowly un-curling and gritting your teeth at the pain.
"It doesn't look like anything's broken... And the cut's not deep. Thank goodness. That was bad luck with the wind."
>>43793865
You and Elia bind your injury as best you can. The cut may not be deep, but the sheer impact of the massive beast's bulk has cracked and bruised your ribs badly. You will suffer -1 to your strength until they heal. With no other choice left in the face of your injuries. You are forced to return to the clan.
You slowly make your way back up the valley to the clan. Beren sees your injuries and just shakes her head, after she hears your story of how you got them. "And you didn't even win? What did you expect? You and Elia can't bring down an auroch on your own!"
It is currently late summer. You have enough food stockpiled to see one person through another half a season.
What will you do?
>Hunt in the forest 4d10 (Speed +Hunter)
>Fish in the river 1d10+3 (Skill +Trait)
>Explore the forest (gather plants too)
>Explore up the valley
>Explore down the valley
>Explore the hills
>Try and investigate something new
>Make something special
>See what the mood of the clan is like, talk to people and get to know them (free)
>Change your active jobs and examine your inventory (free)
Enjoy the temporary map of the valley, guys! Figured it might help.
Rolled 4, 7, 7, 7 = 25 (4d10)
>>43793891
>See what the mood of the clan is like, talk to people and get to know them (free)
>Hunt in the forest 4d10 (Speed +Hunter)
>>43793981lucky sevens must be worth some
Slow start, as usual. Wonder if it'll pick up this time, or if Beren's pregnancy has scared everyone off?
Rolled 4, 8, 5, 5 = 22 (4d10)
>>43793891
>Hunt in the forest 4d10 (Speed +Hunter)
Hey, I made it to the first post for once. I love this quest. Wish it got more love, britfag
>>43793891
>>Hunt in the forest 4d10 (Speed +Hunter)
work, work, work ... gotta keep the family fed I guess
>>43794895
If only there was some way to make the plants and animals stay in one place for you... Nah, that's just crazy talk!
Votes called. Writing!
Rolled 10, 7 = 17 (2d10)
>>43795549
NO META DAMMIT.
[s]Rolling to build a fence though.[/s]
The mood among the clan is growing increasingly more divisive. For generations, the Elders have kept your people together through their guidance and council. Their stories say that even when your clan encountered other, smaller families, they were accepted and soon became bound by blood. Such has not happened since before you even came to the valley however. Now, with the strangers' presence, some are saying that the Elders passiveness and inability to act are signs of weakness. It's all just talk and rumours at the moment, however Paku again asks you to join Mesut's hunting band, saying that you "Might need the help sooner than you think..."
To try and take your mind of the squabbles building within your clan and even within your family, you head for the forest. Your ribs still aren't healed, but you stay away from anything too strenuous, preferring the more skittish animals where your speed and reactions are more of a benefit than your brute strength. You're quite successful too, bringing home birds and even a young goat that's wandered down from the mountains. All in all, you have enough to feed you and Beren until the middle of fall. What worries you however is how thin on the ground the herds seem. Even if you wanted to hunt deer, you see precious few of them around.
>>43796155
Your injury isn't healing well... Your extra exertion over the last few weeks has prevented it from healing. Beren, now heavily pregnant, urges you to rest and let it recover, before winter comes with its strength-sapping cold.
It is currently early fall. You have an abundance of food stored; enough to keep you and Beren fed for a full season and one of you even into winter!
What will you do?
>Hunt in the forest 4d10 (Speed +Hunter)
>Fish in the river 1d10+3 (Skill +Trait)
>Explore the forest (gather plants too)
>Explore up the valley
>Explore down the valley
>Explore the hills
>Try and investigate something new
>Make something special
>See what the mood of the clan is like, talk to people and get to know them (free)
>Change your active jobs and examine your inventory (free)
>>43796226
>investigate something new
Let's try for a spear thrower. Works with rocks, spears are a logical next step
>>43796226
>Try and investigate something new
Damn, if only there was a way to keep the herds closer to us.
>>43796226
>Try and investigate something new
Taking Beren's advice to heart, you decide it's time to take some rest. After just a couple of days resting in your bivouac however, you can already feel yourself going completely crazy. You need to do something, if not to occupy your body, then your mind. You have a few options available to you, but if you try and work on more than one thing at once, you may find yourself pulled in too many directions.
What will you try and look into?
>The glowing crystals the river woman gave to you
>A way of casting spears further and harder
>Those tents the strangers have are a world apart from your clan's sad bivouacs
>If you didn't always have to follow the herds and rely on the seasons, the clan would be so much better off
>Whatever happened to those two white leaves that once glowed?
>>43796875
>If you didn't always have to follow the herds and rely on the seasons, the clan would be so much better off
Animal Domesitcation for the win! Guns, Germs and Steel baby!
>>43796875
>>If you didn't always have to follow the herds and rely on the seasons, the clan would be so much better off
>>43796875
>If you didn't always have to follow the herds and rely on the seasons, the clan would be so much better off
On day soon i hope we can look into the Glowing Crystals
Just so you guys are aware? Crop and animal domestication are BIG goals. As in, they'll take YEARS to complete...
I'll see if you want to change votes in light of that, but if not, I'll give it about 5 mins
>>43797452
Well in that case....
>The glowing crystals the river woman gave to you
after that move onto the animal thing
>>43797452
Then we'd better start then.
>>43797452
big goals, yeah but think of the payoff
>>43797452
As long as we can sprinkle things in in between, there's no problem.
>>43797452
Curently ever other action basically has to be go hunting or go fishing or what-have-you, and thats kinda boring. If domestication changes that from being food collection ever third action rather than every other action it means we get to do twice as much exploring/adventuring/plot-hooks etc. Plus we'll soon have the wee bairn to take care of so a long term goal is good.
stone age painting bump
>>43797840You can. Accumulated research doesn't vanish all that quickly. Slower if you could write things down etc.
Rather than go mad enough to cut Paku's snoring off permanently, you decide you'd rather try and apply your mind to something useful. Your mind drifts back to watching the aurochs graze and you find yourself frowning as you look up at the grey, drizzling fall sky. The tribe has always had a stigma against eating grass and the like, not only for obvious reasons, but because it was considered a sign that someone had fallen as low as it was possible to go; unable to hunt for food. Eating fruit and the like in fall is completely acceptable, of course; if it's there, there's no reason to just leave it, but grass... You pluck a blade from the ground and regard it closely. A simple green stalk. Not much value there. But the grass the aurochs were grazing on wasn't like this. It had a heavier head... Maybe that's where the secret lies? After all, if something their size can survive on it...
Obviously, grass is never going to be good for people though. You shake your head, dismissing the idea. What about fruit? Why is it scattered all over, rather than conveniently in one place? Could THAT have a solution?
>Roll 1d10 (Wits)
Rolled 9 (1d10)
>>43798149
HERE IT COMES!hopefully
Rolled 3 (1d10)
>>43798149
Rollin for Rollins sake.
Rolled 2 (1d10)
>>43798149
Hopefully this doesn't cancel out that 9
>>43798314
>>43798244
why gods?
>>43798314
>>43798381
Why are you guys freaking out? It's best of three
>>43798425
Not if a 1 is rolled.
>>43798425
yeah but i'm still unclear whether crit fails are just 1 or 1 and 2.
>>43798381Relax. I take the highest of the first three. And not everything can critfail.
You have little enough to go on. As far as the clan has ever questioned it, no-one knows where trees and brambles and grass and EVERYTHING comes from. When you were a child, you once asked the elders and they spent half an hour making circular remarks to one another that largely served to say, "We don't know, but you should listen to what we say anyway." You're sure the secret lies with the plants themselves however and so resolve to examine them more closely next time you're out in the forest.
Your ribs have had a little time to heal, but still ache badly. They might need a little longer, after you aggravated them by hunting.
It is now late fall. You have enough food to keep you and Beren fed until the winter, but after that, one of you will have to live leanly, unless you want to hunt.
What will you?
>Hunt in the forest 4d10 (Speed +Hunter)
>Fish in the river 1d10+3 (Skill +Trait)
>Explore the forest (gather plants too)
>Explore up the valley
>Explore down the valley
>Explore the hills
>Try and investigate something new
>Make something special
>See what the mood of the clan is like, talk to people and get to know them (free)
>Change your active jobs and examine your inventory (free)do?
Rolled 7, 9 + 3 = 19 (2d10 + 3)
>>43798593
>>Change your active jobs and examine your inventory (free)do?
go to fisher trait
>Fish in the river 1d10+3 (Skill +Trait)
is it 210+3 if fisher trait employed
rollin
Rolled 7, 9, 5 + 3 = 24 (3d10 + 3)
>>43798593
Check the mood of the clan. See how a Beren is doing. Change hungry to fisherman. Fish the river.
Rolled 8, 4, 2 + 3 = 17 (3d10 + 3)
>>43798593
>>Fish in the river 1d10+3 (Skill +Trait)
change hunter into fisherman
>>43798659
3. Pretty sure at least.
>>43798593
>>Fish in the river 1d10+3 (Skill +Trait)
change to fisher trait
Rolled 5, 10, 3 = 18 (3d10)
>>43798780
forgot dice
Rolled 3, 7, 1 = 11 (3d10)
>>43798593
>Change your active jobs and examine your inventory (free)
Swap leader out for fishing and fish
Beren is heavily pregnant and has trouble moving these days. She's also eating for two, but her incapacitated state has had no impact on her ability to offer you loving advice, or speculate at great length what it will be like to become a mother. It's clear the pregnancy is taking its toll on her however, as every day as winter draws closer, she gets weaker. Grandfather Akyon takes you to one side one day and expresses his concern that the baby will be late. If it is, the tribe may have to choose between delaying its migration to the winter camp, and leaving you and your woman behind. He makes it clear that this is not a decision he looks forward to having to make, but the safety of the tribe will have to come first, should it come to it.
The threat to you, Beren and your unborn child stays in your mind all season. You occupy yourself by fishing, your usual talent making itself clear, as you land enough to keep you both fed for the season and into winter (one of you clear through to the spring and if it comes to it, you know who'll be getting THAT share). As you are fishing however, you look up to see someone watching you from the reeds on the far bank of the river. No-one else seems to have spotted her, all so busy at gathering the last of the fall's bounty, but while you've never seen her before, she seems somewhat familiar to you. She smiles as eyes amber as the falling leaves meet yours, but then you are startled by a voice calling from behind you. Paku and Elia are running for the river, calling your name and when you look back, the woman is no-where to be seen. She is soon driven from your mind however, at your brothers' news.
Beren has gone into labour and it's not going well.
>>43799231
fug
>>43799231
>.Beren has gone into labour and it's not going well.
oh please don't die, that would fucking suck
>>43799231
You race back to the camp, leaving Elia to see to your fish, cursing your injured ribs for every twinge of still-unhealed pain they send through you as your feet pound alongside Paku's. You can hear Beren's cries of pain from a good distance away, but much as you wish to see her, the clan's grandmothers stop you and tell you sternly to wait. One might go against the grandfathers, but NEVER the grandmothers (if only because the grandfathers assure everyone of who is the really scary ones), so you are forced to wait, biting your lip, worried out of your mind and hearing Beren's loud cries turn into exhausted moans of drawn-out anguish.
You wait the rest of the day and well into the night. Paku and Elia wait with you, but both pass out from exhaustion close to midnight, leaving you to hear Beren's sobs alone. Finally, just before dawn turns the horizon to fire, amid the pale half-lights of grey that mark the world on the brink... Beren grows silent...
>>43799293
FUG
>>43799293
Just as you start to fear the worst, a high, shrill wail cuts through the air, destroying your tension so much your legs are cut from under you and you pitch into the dirt. Elia and Paku start awake at the keening squall of the baby and shout for joy, Elia pounding you on the back and both of them laughing in relief. You feel like joining them, but you can't, not yet. You stagger for the bivouac and this time, the grandmothers let you pass. Beren is pale as her snow-white cloak and clearly exhausted, but the rise and fall of her modest chest tells you that she is alive.
One of the grandmothers finishes wrapping your child in a soft-worn buckskin and smiles with her few remaining teeth, before handing it to you. Beren's eyes flicker open just long enough to smile, as you awkwardly take the tiny, screaming bundle. It quiets slowly, as it hears your heart, clasped against your chest. "A girl," the grandmother tells you. "A beautiful daughter. Name her well, won't you?"
>What name will you give your new daughter?
>>43799293
oh man. I can't handle these feels, fuck
>>43799389
Luthien?
>>43799389
Lakethi
>>43799389
Sera
>>43799389
Ieva
>>43799389
>>43799467
Seconding Sera
>>43799434
This guy here. I'm cool with Sera too
>>43799253
>>43799315
>>43799393God I love you people. I've had waaaay too many late nights thanks to this thread, but you make it worth it. Just so you know? I rolled the dice secretly. Beren had a 3/10 chance of complications (which she got, obviously) and I rolled a 1 for severity. Both she and the baby could have died. You guys got LUCKY, but until good medicineor something strongeris developed, childbirth is RISKY.
"Sera," you reply quietly. "Her name is Sera."
For once in her life, Beren doesn't look in any fit state to object. In fact, to your horror, she isn't in much of a state for anything for days! Your daughter has to be nursed by another of the women in the clan, as Beren struggles to recover from her weakness. Finally, just as the season is starting to turn, she assures you that she is strong enough to travel and immediately demands to see her daughter. Your demanding, hooked-featured, loudmouthed wife takes Sera in her arms and tears spring to her eyes. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't separate mother and child for the world. Sera's tiny presence seems to calm Beren's mood immeasurably and she becomes soft-spoken, quiet and blissfully contented whenever the baby is in her arms.
Beren is doubly again thankful for the white fur cloak on your journey up the valley, as it keeps both her and the child safe from the chill wind that seems to almost reach out with immaterial fingers to snatch the young life away almost before it has started.
>>43799728
It is early winter. Sera doesn't need any extra food for now, still suckling at her mother's breast, but you have enough food to last both you and Beren until spring, quite happily.
What will you do?
>Fish in the river 3d10+3 (Skill +Fisher +Trait)
>Climb the rapids to the waterfall
>Explore down the valley
>Explore the hills
>Continue trying to make sense of how to tame plants
>Try and investigate something else
>Make something special
>See what the mood of the clan is like, talk to people and get to know them (free)
>Change your active jobs and examine your inventory (free)
>>43799747
>Make something special
Some sort of token for Sera? Or gifts for the other tribe to reconcile after the incident.
>>43799747
>Continue trying to make sense of how to tame plants
This would be best befire spring
>>43799747
>>Continue trying to make sense of how to tame plants
>>43799747
>>Climb the rapids to the waterfall
Visit the strange lady thing, maybe bring a small gift of something? get some form of communication going?
>>43799747
>>Continue trying to make sense of how to tame plants
While making a small necklace for Sera
>>43799747
>Continue trying to make sense of how to tame plants
>Make something special (necklace for daughter)
We can visit the waterfall when it's warmer
>>43799985
was actually wondering if the mer thingo may be hungry...I think those spheres in the little pool were its eggs, so it may need food?
Man I am out of it...
We're going with the plants, but I need a 1d10 (Wits) roll from you guys. I really should have put that in.
Christ, how sleepy am I?I hit enter and thought it posted. That's how sleepy.
Rolled 6 (1d10)
>>43800337
Rolled 10 (1d10)
>>43800337
Become one with nature
>>43800457
Noice.
>>43800457
Guess we herbalists now
>>43800457
o bby
Rolled 4 (1d10)
>>43800457
Best! Around! Nothing ever gonna keep you down!
>>43800457
Fuck me, you did as well.
Nothing grows in winter. This is plain for everyone to see. Nothing grows, but in the spring, what's covered by snow lives again. Every year it's the same - the leaves fall and then grow again; new shoots wake from the frost-hard ground; what was dead, lives. There's a cycle to it. It's not luck and chance alone. You're starting to close in on something, you're sure of it, but just what truth it is that you're edging closer to escapes you still. You know just enough to know you're not yet even halfway.
As the nights grow longer however, your thinking is disturbed, as is the sleep of the whole tribe, as an eerie sound floats over the wind, growing closer and closer every night... Wolves are prowling, patrolling in a long, wide circle around your camp and gradually edging closer and closer still. Finally, as you return with firewood one night, a sight catches your eye that stills your heart in your chest and puts ice in your blood that has nothing to do with the lightly falling snow.
Out of the gathering darkness, looking straight into yours, are the shining, yellow eyes of a monstrously huge, white wolf.
>>43800682
FUCK YOU HRUNTI!! You ded stay ded!
>>43800682
Cool. We can either make a hammock for the baby or a cloak for ourselves.
>>43800682
ready the spear that best wife made for us, daddy's getting a new coat
For a moment, you stand frozen. Without your spear, shivering in un-fitted furs, you are as vulnerable as a fawn. A fawn... The sudden realisation that the pack has closed in on where your infant daughter is fills you with a burning energy that shatters your fear like brittle ice before a hatchet! The fiery clarity also lets you see something else... This wolf is not the one you fought before. Its coat is newer, bereft of scars, its body younger, leaner and stronger. But its eyes are the same, caught between a beast's mute instinct and a human's wit.
As you go to shout, to yell for help, the wolf calmly walks towards you. It skirts the edges of glowing circles of firelight, never flinching or hesitating and never breaking eye-contact. Soon it stands before you, its head nearly equal with yours... And it passes you by. It just looks away and walks right past you, close enough for you to feel the heat of its body. "I like this coat," it says, snarling through its teeth, but with much more intelligence than the last time, "You can have that old one. I keep this one though." It sniffs, still standing by your side. "You have pup. Good. Hope your pack is strong." Its tail idly swishes from side to side, sweeping at the peaks of the snow. "I watch your pup. Not hunt, but watch. Human pup will be interesting." You fight the urge to reach for your knife, instinct screaming at you to protect your child, as the wolf lets out a horrid sound, as if it's trying to mimic laughter, walking away and leaving you alone in the snow.
>>43800930
good?
>>43800930
fuk... Ok make our way back home and check on everyone...dont tell anyone though, undo stress and panic may follow
It takes a solid effort to control your legs as you make your way back to your family's bivouac. Once there, your fears are dispelled a little. Beren is safe. Sera is safe. No-one in your family even saw the white wolf, its coat hiding it against the snow, beyond the illumination of the fires. You decide not to mention its appearance to anyone. Winter is a bad time already. The last thing that is needed is you telling stories about wolves that return from the dead...
Beren however, is not fooled by your silence. She passes you Sera, after she's done feeding. The small child sucks her thumb as she falls asleep, swaddled in furs and held against your chest. "Something is worrying your mind, Trym," Beren says, staring intensely at you. "You're going to tell me what it is."
"I will not though," you respond, gently rocking your daughter as she dreams.
"You will," Beren nods, decisively. "Maybe not right now, but you'll tell me. You'll tell me because you know full well that I will not be satisfied until you do. You know that I will pull it out of you sooner or later, like a crow pulls a snail from its shell. And you know that when I know what worries you, my man who gave me this cloak, who gave me that child, I will find some way of knowing what to do. If it is your work, I will press that spear into your hands and tell you to straighten your spine. If it is my work, I will dig in my nails and twist. But you also know the longer you make me wait to know, the more I'll make you pay once what worries you has passed." She kisses your cheek as you sit there, stunned. Somehow your woman worries you more than the wolf does, in her own way...
I will be calling this thread here tonight, folks. I'm already going to sleep forever tomorrow. I hope I all have your attention for Thursday, that you like your new child and that I had you sufficiently worried about Beren. Isn't it funny how a white wolf the size of a bear is somehow less of a concern than the birth of your child?
Stay safe everyone. I'll see you next time. Feel free to leave questions and comments and I'll answer them or address them if I can.
>>43801240
How close are we to getting domesticated plants? Will we miss our chance fir the year if we don't get it by spring? Can we seek out the white wolf?
>>43801240
When do you think we can go up in Wit? I'd make the argument that with all the stuff we've either invented or recreated, we should have more then a 1
>>43801619
Oh you're a ways off yet. Agriculture's a serious advancement. Not quite a life's work, but still a pretty big leap. Mind you, if you keep rolling like you have been, perhaps it's not so far after all...
>>43802909
If you complete your farming research you'll definitely go up a point. I'm awarding stat points based solely on achievement and roleplaying. Faggotry of the writing and drawing variety nets you guys those sweet, sweet points.
There's also another, crunchier method of increasing stats, but you guys haven't found that yet.
>>43804150
What just hope for a ten?
>>43805471
My bet is magic. We should find the fish lady and the wolf to learn more about shit like that
>>43805471
Rolling tens isn't enough for stats, only for jobs. To increase a job, half your dice have to be a 9 or a 10 and the rest have to be 6 or higher.
To increase a STAT, it's down to you guys. Achievement is the goals you pursue and the faggotry istake a wild guess.
>>43805499
You won't know till you try. That might have consequences though. Or it might not. Just letting you know.
>>43805636
Oh so we need to rape a guy then? Hey Elia come ere!! I gotta show ya my little wolf!!
[spoilers]And no I'm not serious.[/spoilers]
