Year 50,000: The Bellaron Sacrifice Chamandra

Previous history

     Year 0: The Brun return to the frozen north 
          Year 30,000:  The cleansing ritual of Oparron

(I started off the players with How The Beast of the Sea Slew the Weak.  The title alone made them apprehensive.  The fingers began pointing in Connor's direction almost as soon as the story was concluded.)

The Oparron tribe has crossed the island chain, in boats and rafts, for millennia. In that time, their society has changed; those who are strongest survive, and those who perish weren’t strong enough. Leaders of the tribe (now called Bellaron) are chosen by combat prowess; a loser who survives, which doesn’t happen often, is exiled. A loser who fails to survive is purified: that is, boiled or burnt. Mates are often selected by contest as well, with men fighting for the right to a woman or, just as frequently, women fighting over men.

Upon reaching adulthood, men and women must undergo a rite of passage, to do something daring and possibly deadly. Thousands of years ago, such demonstrations included hunting game alone; more recently, demonstrations involved far-ranging expeditions to find new islands, or deep-diving demonstrations to bring up pearls.

Now, as the seas are rising, their islands are disappearing, but salvation is in sight: land is just visible on the horizon.

The leader of the Turning Shell tribe has organized expeditions to neighboring islands to bring back as many trees as can be found, to make rafts to get the people to the mainland. The leader, Windstrong Ravvy (M, 50) is a tough, judicious leader. Yes, the trip to the mainland is perilous, but we cannot remain. Some will die, but the strong will make it.

Not all are happy with the decision to go. Many of the younger generation follow the words of Nightsky Chamandra (M, 16) who says he is the strongest who ever lived. He has personally killed seven men in combat, he can have any mate he wants, and he is not afraid o the water. He will remain behind with all his mates and any who will stay. In fact, Chamandra claims that the Sea Spirit spoke to him and told him he was immortal. He will remain behind and the tribe will witness that no harm comes to him.

Ravvy says he cannot allow this. Those that follow Chamandra include most of the women of childbearing age, and without them, Ravvy will have a short-lived time on the mainland.

The medicine woman of the Turning Shell tribe, Copperdawn Dainar (F, 43) is not much use. Although she agrees that the waters will consume all the island and it is not safe to remain, it is also not safe to go. The berries which grow on the island are key to fertility: without the seaberries, we have no children. Have you not noticed that a woman only bears children when she eats of the seaberry? Have you not noticed that men only sire children when they have eaten the seaberry? There is a reason we use the seaberry in our rites of passage ritual, she says; we cannot abandon the islands, and yet we cannot leave. Our way of life is doomed; the world is ending; game over, man, etc.

That is nonsense, says Queenfisher Abda (F, 22). We all eat of the berries. Who here has not? In any case, the sea will support us. I will show you the way. I, who have dived deeper than any, and I who can remain below the water for hours at a time, will show you how the sea can sustain us.

Chamandra and Ravvy are squaring off to see which of their people will follow them.

What The Players Decided  

"He says he's immortal?" asked Connor.  "Let's kill him.  That will solve it.  They won't pay any attention to him once we kill him off."

What if he is immortal? I asked reasonably.

"Oh." And they went back to the drawing board.

"Hang on, that purification ritual," Joe the Leader said, glaring at Connor.  "The whole burning and boiling heads thing. If he is immortal, he'll be the last to fall. So who will purify his remains? He can't leave his people. What does he say to that?"

"I am immortal," said Chamandra. "The question shall never arise."

"So he says he's immortal," the Joe said, trying again. "That doesn't mean he can protect the people that stay behind. Doesn't he care about them?"

"If they're strong," Chamandra says, "they'll survive. If they don't, they weren't strong enough."

"Boy," said Connor the Mystic, "we really messed these people up."

"What do you mean we?" asked Dave and Joe, together.

"All right, let's test his immortality," Joe said, coming back around to Connor's first solution. "He doesn't seem to afraid to demonstrate it. If the people see that he's not immortal, they won't be as likely to take his advice and remain on the islands."

"We'll make him dive into the water and stay there for ... like, two days," Dave said.

"What about that water-breathing chick — Abda?" Joe asked.  "She can stay down for hours. What if she breathes air into his mouth?"

"We don't let her go down with him."

"What if he can breathe water too?"

"Hmmm. Okay, let's not use water. Let's say, All right, you're immortal, do as you will. Before we depart the island we must perform the purification ritual for you. For if we all leave, who would perform these rites for you? Just step over here and stand in this fire..."
 

They built a giant bonfire to purify the body of Chamandra prior to his death. If he really wasn't immortal, he'd die, no problems, and we don't have to worry about him.

Chamandra was happy to oblige, and gathered the people before the fire. "I accept my purification directly from the hands of the Four Warriors, the only ones who have the power to do so—"

("I knew he was going to do that!" said Joe.)

"I will die, but I will be reborn—"

("Aaargh, why didn't we think of that?" asked Dave.)

"—for I am immortal. You must now leave my islands. You will rue the day that you ever chose to leave."

He then stepped into the fire and burned to death.

The Players looked at each other.  "Oh, great," said Joe.

Results  

The effects of this event are too complex to enter into here, but suffice to say that the tribes of Brun who would now populate the mainland would have a strong element of sacrifice in their mythology.  They would all tell the tale of Chamandra, who was sacrificed to make the rising waters fall.  At the time I prepared this event, I thought it might be amusing to introduce a character that was actually immortal, considering how the Players would continue to return to the world and see the changing face of culture and technology.  Wouldn't it be fun to see one familiar face?  I did not, however, expect the Players to immediately resent this supposed immortal and order him burned to death.  You might say that the Players hadn't handled this particular Event very well.  I say that they gave me a gift, such that any GM would love to receive.

How the Beast of the Sea Slew the Weak

When the world was young and the seas were cold and the skies rained, the Island People did long ago live in the Land of the Setting Sun.  Their leader, a mighty leader called Axe-Hand Oparron, led the people to a place where there was nothing but water on all sides, and here he told them to rest and prepare for the hunt.

As the people rested and prepared, Four Warriors came forth from the Land of the Setting Sun, and they called out a warning.  But the people did not listen, and behold!  Two giant beasts of shell and horn emerged from the sea, and did slay five of the people.

Huntress Javaz said, “We must slay these beasts in kind,” and she led her mighty warriors to the battle, and they did kill the beasts of the sea.

And the mighty leader Axe-Hand Oparron said, “You have done well, you have slain the beasts.  Now we hunt.”

But the people were starving and two of the weakest of them ate the flesh of the beasts, and those people turned red in the face and died at once.

And the people said, “These are not beasts that we can eat!  Axe-Hand Oparron, what shall we hunt?  For there is no food.”

Huntress Javaz said, “Only the strongest among us can eat the flesh of these beasts.  Dare you to see if you are strong, or if you are weak?”

And Axe-Hand Oparron consulted Warrior Zoad and Mystic Olan, and they said, “From this day forth, on the day when a boy becomes a man, and on the day a girl becomes a woman, each shall taste of the sea berry, and each shall partake of the flesh of the sea beasts, and we shall know if they are strong.”

And thus it was so.

And Huntress Javaz said, “And if ever question arises who is to hunt, the hunt shall be led by the strong, and not by the weak.”

And Mystic Olan said, “And if ever question arises who is to be our medicine man, we shall choose the one with the strongest spells, and not the weakest.”

And Axe-Hand Obarron, who was wisest of all, said, “And if ever question arises which is the strongest, remember the Four Warriors, who saw the beasts of the sea when others saw it not.”

The First Pilgrimage

Back in the beginning of Time, the gods fashioned the Earth.  They shaped it round, like a fruit, and they scattered it around with stars, and they hung over it a sun and a moon.  At the north of the world, where on a fruit might be a stem, and on the south where might be found a blossom, the gods placed ice.  And they shaped the Earth into mountains and rivers and lakes and islands, and they placed the People upon it.

Now the People all came from one place in the beginning, for all tales start there.  And over the years the People did move in all different directions, separating, rejoining, marrying, and making war.  And so it came to pass that the People did live in every corner of the Earth.

Some of the people in those days were crossing the ocean, and the oceans were rising, though know man today knows why.  And there was one among them who was named Chamandra.  And Chamandra was young and foolish in those days, and he believed that he could stop the rise of the oceans and save his people, and he taunted the gods with his foolishness and he dared them to cast him into the flames of sacrifice.  And Chamandra boasted that although he might die, he would be reborn, and thus it was so, for Chamandra was the first Immortal.

Now Chamandra was reborn at the will of the gods, but he did not return to his people on the ocean.  He was reborn first in a faraway land where men and horse were one beast.  He lived there, and died, and was again reborn.  And each time he was reborn, he became less a fool, and he began to understand the grand creation of the gods, and he began to repent his previous ways.

So Chamandra began the First Pilgrimage, and he walked and walked and walked, until he died and was born again.  And when he came of age, he again walked and walked, until he reached the place where the land fell away into ocean, and from there he sailed, until he died and was reborn.  And when he came of age again, he sailed and sailed until he reached the place where the Four Gods had cast him into the flames of sacrifice.  And when he saw that island, which he knew of old, he knew that he had been a fool, for he had not been sacrificed, and yet the oceans had fallen.

And Chamandra regretted his boast, and he renounced it, and he decided his Pilgrimage must be over.

It was then that the women of the sea whispered to Chamandra, “Your Pilgrimage is not at an end.  Have you not learned?  Are you not wiser?  Do you not recall that you swore to protect your people?”

Then Chamandra knew that the real purpose of his Pilgrimage had been to remind him of his duty to his people, and thus he set off to follow in the footsteps of Windstrong Ravvy and Copperdawn Dainar, who last he saw, a hundred years ago, had talked of sailing for the mainland.

Round 3

The third round of the game was actually our second actual physical gathering, since we had played the first two rounds in one night.  That had required a certain amount of anticipation on my part; to prepare the various alternatives in  the second round, I had to predict a range of actions the players might take, translate those actions into major historical forces, and devise new scenarios based on how I estimated that society might evolve.  That method had limitations, in particular the difficulty of predicting how civilized humans would view primitive historical crossroads.  I had already seen how the players were averse to taking extremes.  Where the ancient civilizations were apt to solve their problems with brutally direct methods, with war and conquest and death, the players were trying to shepherd their cultures with compromise and diplomacy.

Diplomacy doesn't stop famine.  Compromise doesn't stop the seasons.  Until their civilizations had the means to survive the great catastrophes of their age, diplomacy and compromise would be limited tools.  Still, I couldn't see the players abandoning them entirely, and therefore their actions would be hard to foresee.  At this stage I concluded that one event at a time would be best.

Since so many years had passed between the last events and these, I decided that the clans* had entirely forgotten the true nature of what had occurred.  They had passed down their recollections and interpretations from one generation to the next, and the actual events had been converted from history into myth.  To represent each clan's interpretation of the historical events that preceded it, I began this round to present the players with a written Myth for each clan to precede the Event.

Year 50,000:  The Interglacial Period

All tribes are being affected by the major event taking place in the world's geology:  the planet is getting warmer.  Everywhere, glaciers are retreating, ice is melting, and seas are rising.  What were once seashores are becoming tidal flats, or drowning in salt water.  The warm subtropical band around the equator is becoming a tropical sauna.  Plants and animals are adapting to the warmer temperatures, migrating in search of food, or dying out, changing the balance of flora and fauna available to the hunter-gatherers.  Their ancestral hunting grounds are changing.  In all the clans, there is environmental change that they are just barely conscious of.

The Thrian Telepath Chooses.  The devotion of the Thrian aguen herders is tested when the ancient bridal exchange ceremony is in direct conflict with their promise to keep the herds safe.  The players cannot decide whether to allow the Big River tribe to slaughter the herds, or to destroy a new civilization of half-human, half-aguens, and so they put the entire decision into the hands of a telepath descended from Temu.

The Evanu Exile The Swift Hand Clan.  When a small tribe of Evanu break the law against mining without the supervision of a priest, they are exiled.  The players choose the method of exile, sending the Swift Hand clan into the caves, accompanied by the rock goat.

The Hybesh Valley Is Burning.  Two distinct tribes of the Abequa have evolved:  the Ascenders, who are strong climbers, and the Leapers, who appear to be developing the capacity for gliding between the treetops.  The two tribes disagree how to handle the raging forest fires that are consuming their valley — is it their quest to stay and guard the trees, or to follow the herds?  The players elect to send the tribes in both directions at once.

The Teyo Nami And The Moon Tiger.  When the moon tiger confronts the people of Teyo Nami, separating their souls and frightening the people, the players are called in to destroy it.  The question of placing the souls back into their rightful bodies, however, they leave up to the tribe.

The Bellaron Sacrifice Chamandra.   They have crossed the island chain in search of new lands, for the seas are rising.  They have finally come within sight of the mainland, but it is a very great distance to sail.  The tribe cannot decide between following their leader to the mainland, or following Chamandra, who claims to be immortal and is not afraid of the rising waters.  Immortal, are you? the players ask.  We can disprove that theory.

Players

Joe the Leader

Dave the Artisan

Connor the Mystic
Jack sat in this week.  He was a long-time roleplayer I had known for years, but who hadn't been free for Game Night lately.  His frequent absence was one reason we had started this campaign in the first place.  Not that I'm blaming you, Jack.  Jack was assigned the role of the NPC Storyteller and loremaster.

*About my use of the words tribe and clan:  I will try to maintain clarity when I write this blog, because we are talking about so many different and varied people.  When I say clan, I mean many thousands of separate hunter-gatherer tribes that reside in that general area and have the same mythical interpretation of history. When I say tribe, I mean one hunter-gatherer unit consisting of 30-60 people and only a few interrelated families.  The players, as the Great Spirits, are called down by a tribe which is facing a crisis that I feel will help to shape history to come.  The survival advantages thus conveyed to that tribe will help its stories spread to the rest of the tribes in that clan.  By no means are all the tribes within a clan identical or monolithic in culture, but they will share some common elements for the sake of simplicity; there's simply no way to create the complexity of ten thousand separate tribal units, each acting on its own.

Rounds 1 and 2

The very first gaming session was in some respects the least interesting, even though we covered two rounds of progress.  I say this not because the concept wasn't good, and I don't mean to suggest that the Players weren't keen to sink their teeth into such an unusual concept.  I merely mean that none of us had any idea what to expect from a campaign of this kind — its scope, its magnitude, its complexity.  We didn't know what kind of consequences we might face.  I didn't have a good notion how even to prepare such a campaign, because as far as I knew, nobody had ever tried anything like it.

Since we had to cover two rounds of the game in one night, it meant I had to prepare Round 1, Year Zero with a limited palette of consequences.  I imagined various cultural forces which might come into conflict, such as curiosity, mysticism, tradition, medicine, discipline, fear of the unknown, and pit them against each other in what I hoped were relative binary ways.  Either mysticism would win, I expected, or rationality would.  I was prepared for either contingency, with a string of if-then statements woven into my preparatory materials.  If the players chose to do X, I would follow up with Scenario B, and so on.

I hadn't anticipated the dedication to which my apparently Taoist campaigners consistently sought the Middle Path.

Players
Joe:  the host of our gaming nights, my best friend for 25 years, and the Leader of the triumvirate.
Dave:  a friend of several years, whom I met while doing a play for a local theater company.  He would play the Artisan.
Connor:  a friend and co-worker of Dave's who had been incorporated into our gaming group; his role was the Mystic.

Year Zero:  The Earth Gathering
The Dar tribe loses their leader and their medicine man as a result of an earthquake which destroys their cave.  The survivors seek answers, blaming a deformed six-fingered child of Uman, but the Great Spirits deny them justice.  In fact, the Great Spirits insist that the Dar offer up one of their women to Uman's deformed child as a bride when he comes of age.  A Dar midwife, their only remaining healer, attacks Uman in her rage and despair and is killed.

The six-fingered son of the Uman tribe is allowed to live despite his obvious mutation, and no special mystical significance is attributed to the earthquake.  The Uman boy is prophesied to become a great leader and wizard, and is promised a bride of the Dar people when he comes of age.

The curiosity of the Pagh toward the reason for the earthquake leads them on a quest into the mountains, to learn why the earth moves.  Perhaps the Earth has rising and falling cycles, as do the Sea and the River.

The Kufu are encouraged to add a medicine man to their tribe, and take on Tor the Sage of the Pagh.  They return to their ancestral lands with a renewed appreciation for the value of strong medicine.

The Brun warn that although the sign of the earthquake is meaningless, the sign of the lunar eclipse is worse.  Their fears are ignored.  The Brun return to their cold northern lands, unsatisfied.

Year 30,000:  Hominid Migration
The Drim Acquire A Telepath.  The tradition of bridal exchange is interrupted when the Drim suspect a young healer to be possessed by evil spirits.  The Great Spirits demonstrate that her telepathy is actually beneficial, for young Temu is the equal of old Ral the Raven in a contest of skills.

The Mannut Discover Mining.  The Mannut tribe discovers a copper deposit when an avalanche destroys their cave.  Nobody is harmed, but the Great Spirits warn that any further investigation into the stones of the earth would require the presence of a skilled shaman.

The Abequa Enter The Great Valley.   After wandering for millennia in the high mountain passes where food is scarce, the migrating Abequa reach a valley where flora is lush and fauna is unimaginably plentiful.  The sudden surplus almost crumbles the discipline within the tribe, and there is a crisis of leadership.  Only Jebba the Healer can bring back the mighty huaca alive.  Reluctantly, she accepts that it is her Quest to lead her people, for among all of the Eagle tribe, she is best suited for the task.

The Ayuté Have Two Toolmakers.  When Noves, toolmaker of the Ayuté, is killed by a tiger, the tribe looks to his son Novan to fill the role of craftsman, though he has not the skill of his father.  There is a challenge from Faya, even younger than he but no less adept at making weapons in her own particular style.  When the two types of weapons are put to the test, the women of the tribe are far more successful catching fish than are the men, and the balance of power in the tribe begins to shift.

The Cleansing Ritual Of Oparron.  A tribe is being pushed farther out onto a rain-lashed peninsula, where food is scarce and tempers are frayed.  Discipline can no longer be maintained, and some hungry tribesmen secretly hunt for crabs on the seashore, without bothering to share their bounty.  After three people die from shellfish allergy, a phenomenon the Oparron are not equipped to understand, the Great Spirits are there to help.  The eating of crab meat is a rite of passage all must undergo, to determine if one is strong enough to suit the needs of the tribe.  A grisly pyrophiliac cleansing ritual is invented as a purifying rite for the bodies of those slain.  Soon after this, the Oparron advance out across the lowlands and onto the island chain that spans the North Ocean.         

The Brun Clans

A Timeline of Events in the History of the Brun Clans

For a full rendering of the game's timeline, start here with the Stone Age, or here for the Bronze Age.

Rounds 1 and 2: The Paleolithic Era
Year Zero:  The Earth Gathering.  The Brun warn that although the sign of the earthquake is meaningless, the sign of the lunar eclipse is worse.  Their fears are ignored.  The Brun return to their cold northern lands, unsatisfied.

Year 30,000:  The Cleansing Ritual Of Oparron.  A tribe is being pushed farther out onto a rain-lashed peninsula, where food is scarce and tempers are frayed.  Discipline can no longer be maintained, and some hungry tribesmen secretly hunt for crabs on the seashore, without bothering to share their bounty.  After three people die from shellfish allergy, a phenomenon the Oparron are not equipped to understand, the Great Spirits are there to help.  The eating of crab meat is a rite of passage all must undergo, to determine if one is strong enough to suit the needs of the tribe.  A grisly pyrophiliac cleansing ritual is invented as a purifying rite for the bodies of those slain.  Soon after this, the Oparron advance out across the lowlands and onto the island chain that spans the North Ocean.

Year 50,000:  The Bellaron Sacrifice Chamandra.  When a hotheaded youth arises in the Bellaron tribes, claiming to be immortal and promising his people have nothing to fear from the rising oceans, the tribes are tempted to remain behind and not migrate to the mainland.  Chamandra is sacrificed to the gods in the cleansing ritual.

Year 30,000: The Cleansing Ritual Of Oparron (Brun)

Previous history

     Year 0: The Brun return to the frozen north

In the intervening millennia, the Brun — always a tribe of colder climates — migrated north and spread out across the coastal plains.  Competition for game became greater as their numbers increased, pushing some of the Brun out onto a cold, marshy, wind-lashed peninsula (orange arrow).  The seas were lower in those days, so a mid-oceanic tectonic ridge took on the appearance of an archipelago, and low-elevation tidal flats made interconnected land masses out of what would, in twenty thousand years' time, be islands.

The Brun, now called the Oparron, are accustomed to following herds of game, but food has become scarce on the peninsula.  Stronger tribes are forcing them out of the good hunting grounds.  Lately, especially during Round 2, they have turned to fishing to support their tribe, and what little fish that is caught is shared by all.  Rationing, such as it might be called in the Paleolithic, was rigidly enforced.  The safety of the tribe, their ability to resist encroachment by other tribes, depended on strength in numbers.

One rainy evening during , three of the Oparron discovered a way to capture several scuttling crabs on the sandy beach.  They roasted the crab secretly, away from the rest of the tribe, and ate them.  Almost immediately thereafter, those tribesmen died horribly:  they were gasping for breath, their faces red and blotchy, and they were gabbling on about their impending doom.

The leader of the tribe is Zoad the Axe (M).  He wonders if the crabs are simply poisonous.  It wouldn't be the first time the tribes had discovered inedible foods.  His medicine man, Olar the Mystic (M), declares that it's something in the crabs which is poisonous, possibly because they come from the salt sea.  If he were to cleanse the crab meat with his Purify Water spell, perhaps it would be safe.

The explanation doesn't sit well with the overzealous enforcer, Javez the Huntress (F).  She says they got what was coming to them.  It was their punishment by the gods for failing to share the meat that they caught.  Let that be a lesson to all!

Zoad the Axe has summoned the Great Spirits for answers.

What The Players Decided

As soon as I had described the symptoms of the tribesmen's death, Joe the Leader (who is a nurse) muttered sarcastically, "Great, now we have to invent Benedryl."  He had spotted quickly, as I had suspected he would, the symptoms of an acute allergic reaction to shellfish.

Originally I had intended for this to be a way of establishing dietary law.  It would not surprise me to learn that the rules of kosher and halal each stem from a rational, logical warning against certain types of foods and methods of preparation, the Bronze Age equivalent to "wash the cutting board before you start."  I had also mused that the Players might take action here to purge the tribe of those members with an allergy, which might later preclude the birth of someone important.  Those were just vague plans, and I hadn't formulated anything specific.  Fortunately, they handed me a gift on a silver platter, as Players sometimes do:  they gave me a direction that was much more interesting than the one I'd thought of.

"First of all, that shaman guy, that's not going to work," said Joe the Leader.  "Purify Water?  That's not going to make the crabs hypoallergenic.  Connor, can you teach them a Neutralize Poison spell or something?"

"Uh... I don't have it," Connor said.

"What spells do you have?  No Tell Time, no Neutralize Poison..."

It was true.  I had decided that a Neutralize Poison spell hadn't been invented by this stage in the Paleolithic.  Connor hadn't taken it because he wasn't allowed.

"If we agree with the Huntress," said Dave the Artisan sagely, "she's going to go on a power trip.  She'll love that, being able to crack down on everybody.  We don't want that to happen."

"Can we lead them off of this peninsula?" asked Joe the Leader.

They're not really strong enough to battle the other tribes, I said.  That's why they're here.

"We could help them.  But they'd probably still lose a few, and they've already lost three."  Joe considered it.  "But they have to eat something.  How many more would they lose if we just had them all eat some crab?"

I shrugged.  Try it and see.

Eventually they came around to this idea, but as I remember it, they took some time getting there.  In the meantime, Connor the Mystic busied himself inventing a new ritual for the Oparron.  The bodies of the dead who had been poisoned by the crab, he said, should be cleansed.  Burn bodies, and boil the skulls—

"Connor, what are you doing?" asked Dave the Artisan.

"I'm teaching them a new ritual," Connor said.  "It's for purification."

Sensing that Connor was becoming sidetracked with inventing new and complicated religions involving skulls and death, Joe and Dave quickly moved to their conclusion.  The Players were to arrange a feast of crab, fresh from the sea.  All of the members of the tribe would eat.  It would be a rite of manhood.

"A rite of manhood?" sneered Javaz the Huntress.

"A rite of passage," Joe amended himself.  "Everyone must eat crab."

"Everybody must smear berries on your face," said Connor.

Berries, I said, and scribbled a note in pencil.  Interesting.

"No, no, I didn't say that!" Connor protested.

"Too late," said Joe and Dave with resignation.

"Everyone must eat crab," Joe said again, "and if you are strong, you will prove your worth."

Result

They had their feast.  Two more of the Oparron died, but they had proved that seafood was indeed (usually) safe to eat.  The Oparron would, in the next millennia, move out onto the North Ocean island chain.

Year 0: The Earth Gathering (Dar, Uman, Pagh, Kufu, Brun)

Welcome to the Paleolithic Era.  As you can see, we're in the middle of an Ice Age; some of the continents are being encroached upon by massive sheets of polar ice.  The map above is an elevation map; it doesn't depict forests, deserts, plains, or other environmental features, because after all, a hundred thousand years is quite a long time.  I didn't feel up to the task of redrawing the map, re-coursing every river, or rearranging every landform feature throughout the Paleolithic, so we'll just use this single elevation map as a shorthand.  I'll describe the features of the environment as we go, if they're essential to the plot.

When we begin the game, the tribes of proto-humans aren't very numerous yet, nor have they spread very far (see the red shaded area on the western edge of the central ocean.  They're all in one convenient place so they can all share distant elements of a common mythology, however fragmented it might be.

The hominid tribes are having their Earth Gathering.  All the tribes are gathered together to share lore and medicine.  The Players are present as four wandering tribeless hunters, who have been invited into the Gathering to participate and share in the hunts and feasts and stories.  As yet, the Players are not yet Great Spirits or demigods.

During the festivities, there is a massive earthquake and the cave of the host tribe collapses.  They have nowhere to live, and both their leader and medicine man has died.  Now the tribes are lost and confused.  What caused the earth to shake?  What have the tribes done?  How can they atone?  There is some understandable concern among the primitive people.

The mood is worsened after only a day of mourning, for there is a terrible omen:  the moon is swallowed up in darkness.  It is a partial lunar eclipse.

The Dar Tribe.  Formerly led by Dar (M), who is now dead, and Shan the Medicine Man (M), who is also dead.  The Dar tribe once was the largest, with about 48 members, and now they are third at about 37.  The Clan of the Serpent believes firmly that the earthquake and moon are bad omens.  As the host tribe, they were punished for the misdeeds of one of the visitors, and they demand to know which tribe caused it.  Mala (F), the tribal midwife (and the late Shan’s widow) thinks it was because of the deformed child of the Uman, who came from the mountains to the northwest.  She wants to see the Uman clan punished.

The Uman Tribe.  Led by Uman the Hunter and Nib the Medicine Woman.  The Uman were and are the smallest tribe at 20 people.  The Clan of the Fox has seen the earth move before in the mountains, which causes avalanches of rocks and snow.  They do not believe this earthquake is because of Uman’s deformed son (who has six fingers and toes).  The reassurance of the Uman does not allay the fears of the Dar, who see it as a sign that the Uman brought the earthquake with them.  But the Uman respond that the earthquake was sent to punish Dar and Shan:  everyone saw that Shan did not follow the Old Ways in the Earth Ceremony, and Shan has paid!  They also see this as a warning to the Kufu tribe, who have no medicine man to guide them.  Uman and Nib strongly believe somebody should punish the Kufu for having no medicine man, but they are not large enough to do it, and the Pagh, who are, will not.

The Pagh Tribe.  Led by Pagh the Warrior (M), who has both Zifa the Medicine Woman (F) and Tor the Sage (M, wizard).  They were the second-largest tribe at 44 people, and now they are the largest.  The Clan of the Eagle believe there is no sign.  The Pagh come from the southeast, and have watched the rivers and the tides.  Sometimes the rivers go up, and sometimes the tides go out, but they always come back.  Perhaps the Earth rises and falls, too.  The Pagh see this instead as a quest, which the tribes must take up:  we must go to the mountains to see why the Earth shakes.  The Uman and Brun say this is foolish, because there isn’t enough food for everyone in the mountains.

The Kufu Tribe.  Led by Kufu the Toolmaker (M), who has at his side Gom the Skinner (M).  They were the third-largest tribe, with 39 people, and now they are second, but they have many who are sick and injured, with scars from hunting.  The Clan of the Tiger comes from the south.  They believe the earthquake is a sign that the People can no longer meet here, and must go their ways to atone.  They are all equally to blame.

The Brun Tribe.  Led by Brun the Shaman (M), who is backed up by Hon the Strong (M).  They are the second-smallest tribe, with only 28 members.  The Clan of the Mammoth come from the north, and they watch the stars and the moon.  They dismiss the earthquake but they are troubled by the eclipse of the moon, which tells them that there will be a terrible winter.  The Kufu object because they don’t really know seasons, as they come from tropical lands.

Usually, at a time like this, all the medicine men would gather and discuss it, but because Shan is dead, and the Kufu have none, they have not enough shamen to perform their rituals.  Instead, they turn instead to the Players to solve their problems.

"Why did the earthquake destroy the cave of Dar, mighty Spirits?" they ask.  "Are the Uman to blame, for bringing the deformed child here to this place?  Shall they be punished for their offense?"

Others say, "Mighty Spirits, should we punish the clan of Kufu for not having a medicine man?  They are not following the old rituals."

The Pagh tribe says, "We are going on a quest into the mountains to see why the earth moves.  What shall we tell the Earth Spirit that it will appease her?"

And the Brun, of course, are worried about the upcoming winter, which they fear will be terrible.  How will they survive?

What The Players Decided

Unsurprisingly, they first decided that the six-fingered child of Uman should survive.  Their twenty-first century knowledge told them that six fingers on a child is a harmless birth defect.  Convincing a bunch of 100th-millennium-BC tribesmen of this took some doing, however.  Connor the Mystic (who was in charge of religion, philosophy, medicine, and so on) invented a phony-baloney ceremony for the purpose of "driving away evil spirits," he told them, and assured the medicine men of the clans that the Old Ways were nothing special.  Go ahead, use your power, improvise! he exhorted them.  At the end of his make-up ritual, he pretended to read the fortune of the six-fingered child, and pronounced that the boy would become a mighty leader and a wizard, to seal his survival.

They also pooh-poohed any mystical significance to the collapse of the cave and the earthquake.  Even when pressed they refused to concede there was any Sign to be read.  Dave the Artisan (our Mr Spock hard-sciences character) simply advised the toolmakers of the tribes how to reinforce the insides of caves with some stout trees.  He then crafted toys for the children.  ("Putting trees indoors, and giving toys to children.  What are you, Santa Claus?" asked the Joe the Leader.)

Last, Joe the Leader arranged a bridal exchange between the tribes of Uman and Dar — Dar's clan would send the six-fingered child a woman to be his bride, when he was of age.  This, Joe the Leader hoped, would smooth over any animosity between the clans about the strange child they had saved.

Results 
I decided that since the players had saved the child and emphasized the importance of saving lives, it would show the Kufu clan the importance of medicine.

Also, the players had terribly snubbed the clan of Dar:  first, they did not avenge the death of Dar or his shaman Shan; second, they had had the affront to declare that the Old Ways were nonsense; third, they had forced the bridal exchange upon them.  Because of all this, and the outright dismissal of the mystic significance of the earthquake, Mala the Dar midwife snapped and attacked Nib of the Uman.  Uman was forced to kill Mala, leaving Dar without any medicine woman.

Since Connor the Mystic had suggested that the Old Ways weren't important, I ruled that Brun would step down and hand the clan's leadership over to his warrior Hon the Strong.  But they'd also strongly recommended that the Kufu have a medicine man, which influences Pagh to turn control of his tribe over to Zifa, his second.

Not that it would much matter whether one individual or another would lead the clan in the short term.  I wanted to see which direction each clan might be pushed, which developments would be emphasized for the foreseeable future, because this would be the last time all five tribes would be in the same place for a while.

After the Earth Meeting, the clans all went their separate ways.