The Thrian Telepath Chooses

Previous history

     Year 0: The Dar's cave is crushed in an earthquake
          Year 30,000:  The Drim acquire a telepath, the svencat, and the aguen
  
Over the past 20,000 years, the Drim tribes have developed the healing challenge between Ral the Raven and Temu the telepathic healer into their own set of myths, called The Tale of the Serpent People and the Promise of Temu.  Today, the Drim are known as the Thrian.

Ever since being given the proto-horse for the challenge of healing magic between Temu and Ral the Raven back in Year 30,000, the Thrian have tried to keep Temu’s promise and domesticate the aguen.  This is not easy, because although the aguens can eat grain, they must eat some fruit.  This makes them less than ideal for domestication, as among the most useful traits of domesticable animals is that it does not impinge upon the humans' own food supply. The herds, therefore, do not entirely revolutionize the Thrian.*

Aguen are limited in range to places where fruit is available year-round, largely only in the humid tropics.  They are not large, and cannot be bred for size because of their dietary needs, so they are not ridden.  Instead they are used as pack animals, to speed collection of foods, help carry children, and to bring spoils back from the hunt.

Over time the Thrian tribes become more dense and centralized.  When they adhere to the range of the aguen, their numbers grow quickly and their mobility is great; when they get beyond that range, they have no pack animals to assist them.  This means for the tribes beyond the range of the aguen, they have no extra hooves or horns or bone, no extra hide, no extra meat, and no extra milk for children.

There are difficulties caused by the magical adaptation of the tribes to the aguen.  Women in tribes where children are raised on aguen mare’s milk now occasionally give birth to children with aguen traits:  horse-like ears and hearing, adapted sense of smell, stronger muscles, and often a diminished IQ and herd mentality.  Sometimes this manifests after the child is born, complicating the tribe’s marriage and matchmaking efforts.

Scenario:  Jatto the Climber (M, 34) is leader of the Big River tribe (rose-colored dot, center).  His people have for centuries gone up and down the river banks with their aguen, feeding on the once-plentiful fruits and fish (and the large game animals that came to eat them).  The Big River tribe trades its aguen for all things:  shelter, tribute, respect, and courtesy.

Now both fruits and fish are disappearing as the climate changes.  The fruit trees are being drowned by the river and there is less fruit for the herd to eat.  They desperately need land where fruit trees grow.  Jatto’s eldest son and the tribe’s chief aguen herder, Hadro the Swift (M, 18) says there is such land upriver at the lands of the Cold Cave tribe.

The Cold Cave tribe (magenta dot, upper left) lives in the foothills, which like the rest of the world are warming; fruit trees now grow ferociously at their elevation.  But Zak the Widow (F, 45) of Cold Cave does not want to give up her lands.  Her tribe has used the cold for centuries to keep meat cold, to dry and freeze fruits and meat, and they will not yield their hunting grounds to feed the Big River's herds.  Zak is the widow of Vok the Strong, who died three years ago; Vok was an aguen halfbreed also, very strong but not too bright.  He was ostensibly leader but all the commands came from Zaki.

Zaki wants Jatto’s son Hadro to fulfill his promise to mate with Lino Half-Child, promised him when he was only 3.  Promises such as these are taken very seriously, as their whole culture is built upon promises:  the bridal exchange from Year Zero persists in their memory and is enhanced by the Promise of Temu.  However, Lino is part aguen:  fertile, four-breasted, and attractive enough for their purposes — that is to say, healthy and strong.  Even though she can speak well enough, she’s dimwitted and lacks imagination and initiative.

Jatto is unhappy with the match, and sees as a burden.  Aguens are for toil, and for food.  Lino can neither hunt nor tend herds.  Hadro has less difficulty than his father imagining himself marry her, but still sees her only as breeding stock.  She will serve her purpose.

Complications arise.  Unt Stone-Shaper (M, 40) of the Blue Water tribe (red arrow) has come upriver.  His people are wading up the river, while towing rafts tied around their waists.  The Blue Water people are running short of game.  Fish they can eat, but they cannot wear, and fish give neither bone nor hide for their toolmakers.  He was sent in desperation by Gug, leader of the Blue Water, to kill or steal aguens and bring the carcasses back down to the mouth of the river on his rafts.  If he cannot get them — there is no plan B.  He must bring back large quantities of meat, bone, and hide, however it must be done.  He is more than happy to consider butchering the half-aguen people of the Cold Cave tribe.

Unt’s solution is simple and brutal.  "Together, with your numbers and our bows of horn," he tells Jatto, "we kill the Cold Cave people.  The Big River will keep the land, and the Blue Water will keep the meat.  Instead of marrying the half-breed, your son Hadro can marry our apprentice medicine woman, Bonna Bone-setter.  She is a fine woman, and a healer, and she would be a good match.  She has second sight, and she can see thoughts; our people say she is a descendant of Temu herself."

The Cold Cave tribe hunts with bows of horn, assisted by a few svencats; these are the small felines which the players gave to the Drim long ago, which hunt in coordinated fashion, surrounding the prey and using a magical fascination ability to prevent the prey from escaping.  If the prey looks into the eyes of a svencat, it is difficult to look away, so long as the svencat doesn’t move.  Other svencats approach from other directions to cover all the escape routes; as the prey’s back is turned, a cat comes in for the kill.

What The Players Decided

This round really put a spotlight on the players' tendency for compromise.  The Big River tribe was on a path toward animal domestication; the Blue Water tribe had telepaths, hunting cats, and were developing technology for a primitive fishing culture; the Cold Cave tribe could eventually become something like centaurs or minotaurs.

They talked around and around for a few minutes, seeking a way to keep all of the tribes happy.  The expedition led by Unt Stone-Shaper might be thwarted temporarily, attacked or killed, but it would not prevent the Blue Water tribe from sending more.  That tribe had to have meats, hides and bones to develop its technology, and they would certainly try again to raid the herds of aguen sitting so tantalizingly upriver from them.  The Cold Cave tribe might be relocated, but if they, too, relied upon fruit as the aguen did, there would be little future for them.  The Big River tribe had to have fruit for its herds, and the habitats were disappearing.

"What about the son?  What does he want?" Connor asked.

"Is he okay with marrying a half-breed aguen?" Dave asked.

"She's got four breasts, are you kidding?" said Joe the Leader.

"I think he should marry them both," said Connor the Mystic firmly.  "That will unite the tribes."

"But it won't feed them," Jack pointed out.  "These Big Water people—" he pointed to part of the map— "are still going to need animals to hunt.  And they'll come and get this Blue River people—" he pointed at a completely different part of the map— "to get it."  Jack loves maps, and I hadn't the heart to tell him that pointing at the map and saying "these people" wasn't clarifying the issue unless he was pointing to the same parts of the map that we were.

"We can teach them to fish," Dave said, perhaps recalling the Ayuté tribe of Year 30,000.

"They already know how to fish," Joe the Leader said.  "They're not going to starve, that's not the problem.  They don't need meat, they need supplies."

"If we let them come take the aguen herds, we're going to lose the domestication thing we've got going on," Dave said.  Putting on a noble face, he said, "We have a responsibility to geeks everywhere to make sure the four-breasted horse people don't die out."

"So we're going to lose these people," said Jack, pointing to a different part of the map that he had pointed to before.

"They're over here," Joe said, pointing to the river delta.

"I thought they were over here."

Note to myself:  draw landmarks on the map, I thought.

"We can't let those guys die out," Dave objected.  "They have the hunting cats and the telepaths and everything."

Eventually, after realizing that there was little room for maneuvering, the players punted.  It would not be the first time.  They went to Bonna Bone-setter, the telepath, and asked her if she was prepared to watch as her people slaughtered and ate another tribe of humans.

"Are they human?" Bonna asked.

"You're the telepath," the players suggested.  "You tell us.  Do they think human thoughts?"

"I have not met them," Bonna said.

Aha, the players said.  "Before your people agree that the half-aguen tribes should all be killed, you should meet them first," the players told her. "Use your telepathy to see if they truly are human."

They left it at that.  They must have absolutely hated the fact that there was no weaselly middle ground to be found.

Results
I had been given carte blanche to devise whatever solution I felt most appropriate.  I decided that of all the tribes at stake, the herders were the easiest to replace.  The players had tried to implement animal domestication in a rather haphazard way — they meant well, but it was far too early in history for that.  Domesticating animals would take either a stable non-migratory society or a food surplus, neither of which the Drim had at that time.

Therefore, my conclusion rode on the player's deference to Bonna Bone-setter.  Here are the Four Heroes of legend stepping out of the sky and telling a mortal being to use her better judgment.  That would certainly elevate the telepaths in the eyes of society.  I decided she would choose to spare the half-breed aguen people, given her telepathy; but in time, the rest of the Blue Water tribe would come upriver again and slaughter the aguen herds.   The Big River tribe would be no more.

*The players had asked me in Year 30,000 if there were animals around that they could capture for their healing demonstration.  They hadn't asked about domesticable animals, which have a very specific set of behavioral and dietary traits.  Since there are many more non-domesticated animals in the world than domesticated, I decided I wouldn't be generous and give them an actual proto-horse, but something similar.  There are, after all, many four-hooved animals that to this day defy domestication — the zebra, for instance.

The Tale of the Serpent People and the Promise of Temu

In the long ago, when the Serpent People were few, we lived in the caves in the shadow of the Mountains.  The fathers of our fathers’ fathers kept true the rituals of the Old Ones.

But a foolish man named Uman, who brought great evil, came down from the mountains.  This evil cursed the Serpent People, and made the earth to shake, and the rocks to fall.  The great leader, Dar the Mighty, was killed, and so were all who stood with him.  And foolish Uman said it was not he who brought down the evil spirits.

But the skies parted and the Four Heroes stood forth, each with a mighty club, and they said to the Serpent People, “You have done well to keep sacred the ways of the Old Ones.”  They gave to the People a tree tall enough to hold up the sky, and to all in the tribe the Four Heroes gave mighty gifts.

And they raised up Dar’s son, Drim, and promised unto him that he should have a bride from among any of the People.  And he chose the best woman from all the tribes, the daughter of Uman.

Then Uman said, “Mighty Heroes, why must my daughter be taken?”

And the Heroes said, “It was you who brought the evil spirits.  It was you who corrupted the ways of the people, and caused them to put aside the ways of the Old Ones.  Your wrong will be made right by giving your daughter to Drim.”

Then they took their mighty weapons they drove away Uman, and all those who believed him, to live in the Cold Mountains forever, and they became the Fox People.  And that is why the Serpent People have a matchmaking ceremony.

Drim led the Serpent People for years and years, and when he was as many moons old as half the earth itself, Drim took a mate, and his mate gave to him a daughter.  And her name was Temu, and she was a mighty healer, and a great sorceress.

One day a witch, in the form of a raven, came unto Dar’s daughter Temu and said, “I too am a mighty healer, and I challenge you for the leadership of the Serpent People.”  And the raven brought forth two cages, and each cage was an aguen.  And the raven said, “I have hunted for two days and nights, and I have killed these aguen.  Now you must bring it back to life.”

And Temu knelt by the first cage, and the witch knelt by the second cage, and each worked great spells.  And the witch brought back the aguen to life, but lo! The aguen in the cage of Temu also lived.  And the witch was defeated.

But behold!  It was not a witch, it was one of the Four Heroes, and he said unto the aguens, for he spoke the tongue of beasts:  “Now you and your kind shall labor for the Serpent People for all the days, and they shall feed you, and they tend your wounds, and they shall shelter you from the deadly winter.”  And the Hero said to Temu, “Now you must promise that this shall be so.”

And Temu promised, and thus it was so.  And by the hand of Temu the aguens were fed, and their wounds were tended, and they were sheltered from the deadly winter, and the aguens grew bigger and stronger, and they were laden with meats and furs from the hunt, and they bore great burdens, and to this day, the Serpent People keep the promise of Temu.

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 Dar Clans

A Timeline of Events in the History of the Dar 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 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.

Year 30,000:  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.

Year 50,000:  The Thrian Telepath Chooses.  Bonna, the telepath of the Blue Water tribe, is told by the Four Heroes to use her best judgment.  She decides that her people of the Blue Water should not slaughter and kill the half-breed aguen people of Cold Cave.  Instead, her tribe slaughters the herds of the Big River.

Note:  The intervening years will be filled in as I have time.  Watch this space!

Year 105,618:  The Pharaoh Takes A Bride.  The female Pharaoh, first of the dynasty of Sathad-Zin, cannot take a bride; instead, she becomes one.  Volunteered as the father to produce an heir for the Sathad-Zin is Dave, the Fire God. 

Year 105,710:  A Conqueror is born.  The trial of Dytoclanes elevates his philosophical teachings on Truth and Goodness to the status of art.  His student, Attades, takes this a step further and declares that in order to do good, one must do harm.  The most prolific student of Attades is Celestrones the Conqueror.

Year 105,739:  The Celestrian Code of Laws.  Celestrones destroys the Great Temple and all but five of the statues of the gods.  In its place he builds a courthouse. 

Year 105,743:  The Conqueror Turns East.  Before the Conqueror left for his invasion of Zefar, he had to decide how to handle the Sathad-Zin giants at his back. 

Year 105,742:  War Between Celestria and Zefar.  The bronze-clad armies of Zefar are unprepared to meet the iron of the Conqueror.  A change of tactics is desperately called for, lest the Zefari be buried by the Celestrians.

Year 106,072:  The Abbadar Found Boladine.  In order to quell the fears of their Oracles, the Boladine leader's son Rolojer marries both of the twins, rather than just one.

Year 30,000: The Drim (Dar) Acquire A Telepath

Previous history

     Year 0: The Dar's cave is crushed in an earthquake

For the past 30,000 years, the Dar (red arrow) have spreading out over the southeast.  There are a multitude of Dar-related clans all over the Big River region.  In this part of the world, they are called the Drim, for languages change over time (probably more than this, but I wanted things to sound recognizable to the Players).

Round 2 begins with a Gathering where the various clans of the Drim get together to exchange tales, hunt the giant water buffalo and trade knowledge.  There is a matchmaking ceremony, of the same kind that the Players had set up in Year 0, where brides are exchanged between one Dar clan and another.

One of the promised brides is Temu (F, 15), the medicine woman for her tribe.  However, at the Gathering, a scandal breaks out:  Temu is rumored to be possessed by evil spirits!  Without using magic at all, she can touch a person and know what he is feeling or thinking.  She cannot be a medicine woman, say the other tribes:  nobody would have her! 

Her tribe’s leader and father, Vock the Tall (M), says she is a better medicine woman because she knows where it hurts.  The other tribes at the Gathering are unconvinced.

The Council of the Drim get together and summon the Heroes, and make their plea.  "Dispose of these evil spirits for us!" they beg the Players.  "Kill her if you must, but drive the spirits away.  We have tried the Old Rituals for driving away spirits, and they do not work!"

("Connor!" said Joe the Leader.  "Thanks a lot.  You told them to ignore the Old Ways.  And improvise."

"Hey, it sounded like a good idea," Connor said.)

The Council of the Drim includes three people:  Golm the Carver, the toolsmith to whom all toolsmiths bow, wise in the ways of spirits and craft.  Cheb the Stick, the powerful hunter and disciplinarian, who has mastered the art of drawing maps in the dirt.  Last is Ral the Raven (F), a healer ahead of her time.  She thinks the evil spirits are in Temu’s head and they can be removed.

("I don't like the sound of that," said the Dave the Artisan.)

What The Players Decided

First, they decided to persuade the Gathering that Temu really was a better healer because of her power.  "Prove it," said the Council of the Drim. 

"Uh..." the Players said, never a good sign, and they immediately confabulated.

"We'll just bring some animal or something that's sick, and she can heal it, and that'll be that," said Joe the Leader.

"That just proves she can heal animals.  They'll want to see she's better at healing people," argued Dave the Artisan.

"I can see to it that some of them need healing," said Joe grimly.

"We'll just hold some kind of contest.  We'll get some animals — are there any animals around here that we could trap?" Dave the Artisan asked.

Yes, I said; there was a small proto-horse called the aguen, and a small ocelot-sized hunting cat.

"Hey, maybe we can get them to start domesticating animals," Dave said.  "We'll get some of those."

What with? I asked.

Dave rolled a few dice, hoping to successfully invent the first animal cage.  He succeeded, and the Players took a short expedition to go find some animals that they could use to test Temu's alleged healing prowess.  (I noted with interest that they didn't actually test the assumption that Temu had any healing prowess.  They were just going to stake their reputations on this ability sight unseen.  Making assumptions could get them into trouble someday.)

Once two similar aguens were captured they could begin planning this healing demonstration.  "All we need is for the animals to be injured equally," said Joe the Leader.

"Not equally.  We want Temu to win," Connor the Mystic reminded him.

"And do we really want to encourage a tribe to go around maiming animals?" asked Dave.  "We just want them to look sick."

The Players scrounged around for plants with a pharmacological effect, rather than physically injure them.  They drugged both animals, one more heavily than the other, and presented them to both Temu and to Ral the Raven.  Temu, of course, was to get the aguen who was less heavily medicated.

"We should test the effect of the plants," said Joe the Leader, who in Real Life is a nurse.  "Then we can time how long the drugs last.  Connor, how good is your Tell Time spell?"

"Uh ... I didn't take that one."

Boldly (because they had no choice) they proceeded with the demonstration.  The two healers, Temu and Ral, sat down before their unfamiliar animal patients.  Ral the Raven discerned that the animal had eaten something that didn't agree with it, and found some herbs she could use an emetic to make it vomit up all those lovely drugged leaves.  Temu, meanwhile, had simply touched her aguen and sat back placidly, doing nothing.

"Are you not capable of healing?" asked the jeering tribesmen at the Gathering.

"It isn't sick," Temu said.  "It's sleeping."

The diagnosis was confirmed when Ral the Raven's aguen vomited up its narcotic salad.  The tribesmen were convinced and the Players were off the hook.

As a finishing touch, Connor the Mystic taught Temu some magic spells to help her defend herself should her fellow clansmen again conclude that she was a evil soul-stealing witch.  (That she might really be an evil soul-stealing witch apparently never occurred to him.)

Result

The Drim tribes of the Big River area would now have a strain of telepaths, and possibly other psionic or psychokinetic powers to come. Furthermore, they had been given a great big push in the direction of animal domestication, although it must be admitted that the players weren't asking me for domesticable animals for their demonstration.

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.