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Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, I got started with writing online on the Spore forums. Man, those were the days. We're talking like 12 years ago 2010-ish!

I've been here on and off for almost as long, and have GM'd a bunch of different things to varying success.

Word of my splendor:


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@Kho

I think the closest would be something like, "Cyclone served Kho a cocktail of gasoline and bleach."

The Iceborn




Dusk approached with the swiftness of the wind, so the tribespeople ceased their labor and retreated to their longhouses. For supper there was the occasional bit of rabbit to be seen, but most ate fish freshly caught from the new boats. They cooked these meals over firepits in the center of the longhouses, though for a lack of other fuel they were burning sod, grass, and twigs.

Most of the little trees to be found nearby had already been felled, used to build the pier and fishing docks if not the longhouses. More lumber was needed for Dagshall to grow and the tribe to have ample firewood when winter inevitably came.

Fortunately, the Gods seemed to favor the Iceborn. There was a large forest nearby that would make a suitable spot to begin logging, and as fortune would have it, that forest was just upriver. The river would make transporting the lumber easy enough. They would just have to tie the logs together and float them downstream to the village.

So when dawn rose, Dag sent his lumberjacks to find a suitable place to set up a logging camp. It wouldn't have to be anything too complicated; the forest was close enough that they would just need a few simple huts to store tools and perhaps rest if they became snowed in or were unable to make it back to Dagshall before night fell.

Dag still hadn't heard from the men that had been sent out in search of goats, though he was not yet worried about their fates. Perhaps they would return to see their tribe already amassing a plentiful stockpile of fish and lumber.

The Iceborn




A) Improve Food

In the back of one of the new longhouses the Iceborn had designated an area as their food stockpile, though by this point it was generous to even call it a stockpile. There were but a few barrels and crates of smoked fish and salted meat, and that was expected to feed the entire tribe as they worked on their stomach. With a grunt Dag opened one barrel to see if the provisions were beginning to turn, and with mixed disappointment and fear he found that barrel empty.

It could wait no longer. Now that they had roofs above their heads, the tribe's attention would need to be turned towards finding food and averting a starvation. Fortunately, Dagshall was blessed to be upon the coast and have not one but two rivers within eye's sight. It hardly took imagination to see what they should do.

By his decree, a band of workers was immediately assembled to begin building a small pier on the coast as well as a few small fishing boats. With those the tribe would never have to hunger, be it winter or be it summer.

As the chieftain left the food store, he caught sight of one small girl eating a piece of fish for dinner. Her smile warmed his cold heart like the sunlight warmed one's face, yet a girl that could only be her elder sister almost choked upon the food. His eyes snapped towards her immediately to see if she spat it out. Though the taste fish did grow bland if it was all that one had, to waste food was a grievous thing indeed for the Iceborn. They had lived the past decade on the brink of starvation, so not even a morsel was allowed to waste. The girl noticed Dag and locked eyes with him. "Does this new land have milk and cheese?" she asked hopefully.

Without thinking, he answered with words that cut like a frigid wind, "An Iceborn takes what she is given, and thanks the gods for her blessings." He left with a scowl, but it melted as her words still echoed through his mind. The last of their livestock had been butchered long ago, probably before that girl had even known how to speak. Yet she still remembered milk and cheese. They had endured so many hardships...

For the children, he would try to give them their milk and cheese. To do that they would need some sort of livestock, yet here they had none. Memories of the mountain goats of his Fatherland came back to Dag, and he knew that they could be milked. Hopefully, he looked to those harsh mountains in the distance. His tribe's ships had wrecked upon those fjords, yet with every curse there came a blessing too. Perhaps some goats lived in those mountains?

Dag arranged a small group, and ordered them to search those mountains and capture him a herd of goats. It was a tall order, to be sure, but it would be well worth it.



The Iceborn




X) Other

With a mighty heave, a dozen men lifted up the log that they had dragged along the ground. With another great heft, they added it to the crude framework that was the skeleton of a longhouse. Several such longhouses were being built; they were huge by the standards of the dwellings that most people inhabited, though each of the longhouses were also shared by a dozen people. The Iceborn built in an organized and planned manner, which each of the longhouses arrayed in a circle around a small hill. Atop that hill they would eventually build a great mead hall that would house their chieftain.

As in for their chieftain, he sat upon a nearby rock and looked at their progress without truly watching; he was deep in thought. He was similarly building, though his struggle was a mental one. He grappled with how he would lead his people, for he knew that in the future, all eyes would look back upon him as an example of how to rule the tribe.

Their warrior culture and ancient traditions were sacred and those were the things that had made them strong; he could not give that up. At the same time, this new land was green and much larger than their Fatherland; to fully utilize its resources and seize control of it, the tribe would need greater organization. That same organization would prevent the various villages and their petty chieftains from quarreling with one another and fighting. Iceborn were not meant to fight one another.

At the end of that day, Dag proclaimed himself High Chieftain. Though there were no settlements other than Dagshall, in time more villages were sure to be built, and when those villages were raised, their chieftains would swear fealty to him. Such would be the way in which the tribal kingdom operated; gone were the days of disorganized and bickering villages under the arbitrary banner of some confederation or tribe. The Iceborn would be one people, and they would have one High Chieftain.



I'm sure orc architecture will be stunning forms of... Straw and wood huts covered in gore and bones. But at least they'll be structurally efficient huts of gore and bones!


See, the pinnacle of orcish architecture is adding as many pointless spikes as possible, to every single building. In doing so they look really cool and scary, but also waste their resources. This forces them to be jerks and invade other lands so as to obtain the resources that they need to make more spikes.

Well I pitched that sheet up and also started a list where I'll try to keep a sentence or two about all the named characters that I introduce. I figured it'd be nice to keep track so that I don't get them mixed up in case somebody else forgets who one of the random viking guys are.

But don't read it if you don't want the SUPER BIG SPOILERS of what government I'll pick for the next post


The Iceborn





@Chenzor

Do you care if I post on the character section with the optional sheet? I ask because usually I see the GM reserve the first post for a catalogue or something similar.


The Iceborn




When Father Frost's grip found our Fatherland, it was a cold and windswept place, yet still green and lively. But with one long breath he brought a winter that knew no end, and so transformed that land into a frigid waste. Many things died. First, the crops. Then cattle. Then kindred.

The sea was merciful and her bounty spared us. The fish fed us, but they brought no warmth. Only ale or fire could warm our blood, and with the forests themselves freezing and the graincrops long gone, we had neither. The cold cut into our bodies and hearts. It remade us, and we became a hundred times stronger and crueler. It was said that we were so thoroughly changed that ice flowed through our veins, and so our tribe became known as the Iceborn. We are still only men, though of a hardier breed.

Eventually a mother must set loose her children to fend for themselves, and so it seemed that the ocean and Mother Nature herself were casting us away. The last of the deer were long gone and the seals were near hunted to extinction, and the bounties of fish grew smaller by the day. Initially we had turned away from the lesser tribes of our land and left them to fend for themselves. We witnessed many of them starving or succumbing to the cold, and could only deem them weak and unworthy of survival. But now, with resources so scarce, we could tolerate not even the strong and the fit that had survived alongside us. It was clear that only one tribe could ever rule the Fatherland, for the cold had claimed its due and now there was not enough to share.

So we turned on the other tribes and a war was fought, and though many of us fell, the Iceborn stood victorious and alone. A hint of spring came, and we took it as a sign that we were Father Frost's chosen. Then another winter came, and it was ten times worse than any that we had suffered before. Tribespeople froze in their own homes, turned blue and entombed by hoarfrost, and then were buried beneath the blizzards of ice.

Our Fatherland was nothing now but a frozen rock that promised death, and not even we Iceborn could survive it now. We took our weapons and tools and the last of our foodstuffs, and we stowed them upon our ships and sailed into the distance. The tales of our ancestors spoke of some other lands, but we found them dead and just as frozen as our own. So we could only sail past them, farther south, following the warmth.

By no means of our own will did we find this new land that we now stand upon; a storm battered our fleet and cast our ships into the rocky cliffs. Many drowned and much was lost, but here we survivors stand upon a new and green land, and so that storm was both a blessing and a curse. Like all things.

We gathered what we could from the wreckage of our ships, then followed the coast in search of a new place to build our settlement. Eventually we found an island between the mouths of two rivers as they empty into the ocean. In the distance beyond the second river, we can see some forests. It is a fine place to build a port, so here we shall settle.

I, Dag, am chieftain of this tribe, so in my own honor I shall name the new village Dagshall.



@Cyclone

Keriss doesn't have any known fetishes... so does that disqualify her from the list?


No.

If I said she wasn't crazy, you'd have to add me onto the list.
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