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.

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.