Cyclone

Civilization - New Lands, New Glory

@KaiserAuto
I'm flattered that you like my metaphors and wording; and here I was thinking that what I'd came up with so far was mediocre at best. As in for it being difficult to understand, thanks for pointing that out. I'll try to keep that in mind and not go overboard with the flowery phrasing, though admittedly I allow myself more slack on this type of RP than others because if somebody gets confused they can always just read the summary to make sure they understood the gist of what I was trying to communicate.

Admittedly I have a difficult time writing from the perspective of a nation, which is why I've been trying to write from Danr's perspective as much as possible.

Speaking of difficulty understanding what I try to voice, something that's been bugging me as of late is that if I read my own work, I always feel that I need to break up my longer sentences. Of course I know what I am trying to say, but I often get the feeling that I've made a sentence so long that it becomes confusing to the point that someone would have to read it three or four times to understand. Sometimes my sentences just seem to stretch on and on for lines, yet breaking them up usually leaves me unsatisfied as the writing usually seems more choppy and the thoughts that I try to convey more fragmented. A good example of what I mean is the third sentence of this post. It's just...long, but I'd have difficulty breaking it into two sentences whilst somehow having a smooth transition and keeping the paragraph as a whole on topic.

I'm interested in your thoughts, as I've seen you write some rather long ones yet I thought that they still flowed well. Do you think that I tend to ramble on and could do a better job segmenting some parts, or am I fine?

Civilization - New Lands, New Glory

@KaiserAuto If I try hard enough I can find minor grammar problems, but I'm sure you could say the same for all of us. Overall I like your writing style and enjoy reading your posts.

I've noticed that you tend to put a lot of dialogue into posts, which is something I've occasionally experimented with, but I usually try forgoing it to some extent in my own posts in favor of more detail and better imagery. Still, I like dialogue too.

What do you think about my posts?

Civilization - New Lands, New Glory

@Chenzor

Last time you said that my hunters found some animals but not what sort of animals they were. Can the scout parties bring back descriptions of the local wildlife so that I know what is available to hunt/domesticate?

Civilization - New Lands, New Glory

Ards

E) Explore / G) Prospect further

Danr's Fears

Skraelings. The word resonated within Danr's head, over and over. He had been at peace in this tranquil land, pleased with the success that his people had found, until that one word had wandered into his mind. Now it would not leave; he incessantly repeated it in his mind, tormented by it. In all of Danr's lifetime and in his father's, the Ards had never encountered any foreigners save the other warring tribes of their frigid homeland, much less any foreigner that was not human. Still, in his peoples' folk tales there was mention of 'Skraelings', strange people from other lands. The tales near always had a bloody end for one side when Skraelings appeared in the story.

The chieftain sat on the ground a little ways from the small town of Njor, with five buildings that already billowed smoke from their warm hearths. He stared off into the bleak landscape with suspicion, a heavy feeling in his chest and tingling in his limbs. Was it fear? "Is this what cowards feel like?" the chieftain asked himself, being so unaccustomed to worry and nervousness. As he stared off into the distance, he wondered if there were Skraelings here. "Suppose the Skraelings already know that we are here", he silently mused. Perhaps one day the warriors would awake to find warriors breaking down their doors and the village aflame. The paranoid chieftain thought back to the boatbuilders on his homeland, and how his tribe had laid in hiding for days before making their strike, taking their weaker enemies unaware and massacring them. That fate would not befall the Ards, he vowed.

The chieftain stopped entertaining thoughts of fear and hopelessness, though he remained every bit as paranoid. The slight tingle of the cold that he felt made way for a burning desire. At a brisk walk he returned to a village, and shortly after barking out orders to the nearest people to gather the rest of the tribe in the mead hall, his people were ready to be addressed.

The chief, a tall and stout man already, loomed over the crowd after standing atop a table in the feasting hall. After some time, the last of the Ards somehow crammed in to the crowded room. He boomed, his voice loud enough that he needn't even shush the murmurings of the crowd, "My mind is plagued by thoughts...thoughts of Skraelings." The crowd's murmuring instantly died down once he at last spoke to them. It was replaced by obvious skepticism and confusion on the faces of many people.

"Suppose that we are not only people in these lands, nor the first people here. We know there's a pine wood nearby and that there are some animals to hunt nearby. This is not enough. I want to ensure that there are no skraelings living nearby. We need to explore our new homeland anyways."

All the some hundred men stood to their feet in preparation to grab their weapons and leave. They were stopped as soon as their chieftain proclaimed, "No! We will not march as one great horde, for we need organization if we are to scout these lands effectively."

He soon arranged three scout parties, each consisting of twenty archers and spearmen. Two of his closest friends and most trusted warriors were placed in command of two of the scout parties. One would trek south of Njor and the other would head west. Danr would personally lead the third scouting party, taking it southwest. Each of the three groups carried a rather large yet thin and flat stone. Be it with mud, blood, or coloring from crushed plants, they would paint maps of what they saw on these stone tablets as they went. Each group was ordered to travel for three and a half days before turning back so that they would be home in a week. Aside from simply mapping their surroundings and searching for signs of skraelings, the groups were also told to take mental note of any resources they encountered or beasts that they saw.

A) Improve Food

Dag's Task

Dag hefted his battleaxe over one shoulder and stuffed the pockets of his fur clothing with dried meat from the storage room. Now he had to find the others before they left, and go on a journey with the rest of the tribe's true men and great warriors. Eagerly he spun around, only to find the chieftain right behind him. Dag looked down at Danr. Danr's beard was barely graying and his shoulders were still broad and his stature formidable, as every warrior-chief of the Ards ought to be. Yet Dag still had to gaze down to look into the eyes of his father, so tall and robust was he. The warrior gods surely envied Dag for his form.

"Father, I am ready!" Dag proclaimed to the chieftain.

"No, you remain here." Danr replied. There was a time when that would have crushed the spirits of his son, but that time had faded shortly after Dag became stronger than even his father. Now his son only felt anger at such things. Before he got a good blow or even a few strongly worded insults, Danr continued, "Many of our warriors must stay with the people here, to protect them from any danger that comes. They need a leader, and I need someone to ensure that the tribe does not idle or slacken while I am gone. You must be every bit as demanding as I am: only give food to those that work hard and remain loyal to us. The Ards cannot afford to be made lame by the slothful and weak."

"What shall we do while you are away?" asked Dag, now satisfied with his role.

"Build fishing boats. I know that our people can make nothing like the wonders that carried us from our homeland to here, yet we only need something that can row a little ways into the ocean so that our fishers may have some success. This is crucial; our warriors need good food, and in time we will hunt these lands and drive the animals ever farther away. The sea god's bounty shall always be there, it is our salvation."

Danr clapped his son on the shoulder, and then spun around to leave. Dag allowed the tribespeople to see off the scouts, and then he was quick to put them at work on the tasks at hand. More trees were felled. Small rowboats and oars were shaped by some, while others set about building a small pier and dock on the nearby shorline.

Summary:

-Danr is worried about what he calls 'skraelings': strange, nonhuman people from other lands that appear in the stories of his people. He suspects that some skraelings might inhabit this new land.

-Three scout parties have left to explore the land, search for signs of the 'skraelings', and look for resources. One went south from Njor, one west, and one southwest.

-Most of the people ended up remaining in Njor. Danr's son Dag is having them build fishing boats and a small pier/dock on the shoreline.

Civilization - New Lands, New Glory

>Has huge longhouses bigger than everybody else's houses

>Has like fifty or sixty people per house though

>Sad face.

Civilization - New Lands, New Glory

So just to be clear it's okay to do some combination of actions in one turn (like explore/find food at the same time)?

Civilization - New Lands, New Glory

C) Improve Infrastructure

Five houses and a couple hundred people

The several groups of hunters eventually returned to the shore where the rest of the Ards awaited. Fortune had favored the tribe, for the men had brought back a variety of game, small and large, perforated by arrows and impaled by spears. After skinning the animals, a fair few were immediately roasted and eaten. The rest of the meat was preserved through drying and smoking.

Now that the Ards had a small stockpile of food, they set about building shelter to protect themselves from the cold wind's bite and provide some much needed working space. They would build their traditional longhouses, just as they had done in their previous homeland. A squat hill that overlooked the coast were the site chosen by Danr to be the site of Njor. The hill offered a decent view of the surrounding area and were the most defensible spot in sight, while still being close enough to the coast to allow easy access to the sea. The hill was also fairly flat on their top and had no large boulders or trees that would impede construction.

Unfortunately, the lack of trees immediately accessible on top of that hill posed a problem. The warriors that bore axes were once again set loose to fell trees in the nearby forest, though they now needed entire logs of lumber for construction rather than mere twigs for firewood. As such, the strongest men were organized into teams to help carry the lumber to the top of the hill. Some of the largest of the trees took a dozen men to move, but in the end a sizeable pile of lumber was accumulated.

All of the Ards worked together to begin building one great mead hall on the very center of the hilltop to be the heart of Njor, and four much longhouses arranged around the central hall. The longhouses were much smaller than the central hall yet still huge when compared to the houses of most other people; it would be extremely crowded, but all the some 250 Ards would live inside of these five buildings until more housing could be created. All of the buildings would have frames of solid wood, with entire trees used as beams and support pillars in some places. Between the wooden frame of the walls, a mixture of hardened mud and turf would be used as those materials were easily accessible and would effectively insulate the buildings. The roof would be made of dried grass and foliage carpeted over light wooden rafters. For floors, the Ards simply pounded the dirt beneath the buildings until they were hard. Perhaps when their tribe was more wealthy the floors could be made of cobbled stones, tiles, or even planks of wood, but until then such luxuries could not be afforded.

The longhouses were divided into four sections: each had a central hall with a firepit in the middle and many benches and tables around the fire, with bedding along the walls. The end of the longhouse behind the central hall was to be used for storage, and the end that one entered was reserved for use as a working space. At this point the Ards had no industry and nothing but a little bit of food to store, so the storage rooms and work spaces were temporarily being used as sleeping areas. The longhouses were large and warm, but with about fifty people in each longhouse and a hundred sheltering in the mead hall, calling them crowded would be an understatement. Still, conditions were far better than they would be if the Ards were forced to continue sleeping in the open, exposed to the elements.

Summary

Now that they have some food, the Ards are building four longhouses and a central mead hall atop a nearby hill. The warriors with axes are chopping down trees from a nearby forest and a large amount of manpower is being used to simply carry the logs up to the hill.

Civilization - New Lands, New Glory

@KaiserAuto

Oh, yeah. That was supposed to be directed at Chenzor.

Civilization - New Lands, New Glory

@KaiserAuto

I saw you mention NPC nations in the OOC. Do you plan to make some of them to add to the map, or are we free to just discover a bunch of elves/trolls/whatever living nearby to interact with?

Civilization - New Lands, New Glory

A) Improve Food

First Steps

With jubilant cheers and hard earned satisfaction the Ards watched as the ships that had carried them so far were burned on the beach. When the salt air had killed the last embers, a grim realization began to silently spread through the hardened men and women, and even the children as they too had seen a good deal of hardship and were aged beyond their years. The realization was that they were in as precarious a situation as ever; they had eaten the last of the preserved food that they had brought on their ships. Now they had nothing save the clothes on their back and the armor and weapons of the warriors.

Sensing that his people needed their leader, Danr assembled his tribe on the shore. The 250 Ards watched as their chieftain stooped down to grab a fistful of loose earth. Shouting over the crashing of the waves and the sea breeze, he held the handful of dirt high and proclaimed, "Be joyous! This land- I shall call it Njor, North in our old tongue, for our old lands to the North are no more- this is our land now, and it is a rich enough land. Yet there are still more trials before us: our bellies will soon be empty, and our longhouses have yet to be built. We have much work before us."

Without wasting much time, Danr set about arranging the Ards into groups. Food was desperately needed. The warriors, of which there were many since the Ards were a strong and warlike tribe, carried one of three weapons: longspear, bow, or axe. The warriors that had spears and bows were better suited for hunting, so they were ordered to explore the nearby area in search of food. Those that had axes were ordered to fell trees for firewood, as cooking fires would be needed. The women and children did not venture out as far as the warriors that went hunting, but several of them still searched the nearby, boreal landscape for any plants that could be gathered and used for food. The rest of the women and children would try to fish along the coastline.

Danr hoped that between hunting, fishing, and gathering for some time, his people would be able to stockpile enough food so that they could focus on other things without worry of starvation.