mesnoth Turn #9

Gamemaster's Post
Mesnoth Turn # 9

Reserved Points: 1 Maintaining crytal aura, -1 Altar Rituals

Faith: 32 (0 +33-2)
Fear: 4 (0+4)

Pop by village:
Mesina: 395 (capital)
Mesarai: 300
Nesarith: 112
Ethesa: 112
Seveda: 112
Weverly: 112
Total: 1,143

Technology Known: Weaving Bowls/Plates/Mats, primitive farming (mansa, manboo, rice, and yams), Swimming, Woven mat cottages and pontoon cottages/walls, Reed fish traps, woven canoes and pontoons, Manboo spears, chamber pots, dried fertilizer, basic cooking, basic clay (tiles, pinch pots, plates, red and black glaze)

Rituals Known: Male\Female Sacrifice Rituals, Altar Creation Ritual

Special:

The Altar at Mesina, a crystal slab six foot long, 2 foot wide, and 2 foot tall where the people make sacrifices of meat and grain to the god.

Mock Altars: 5 mock altars that look like the one at messina but were created by the alter creation ritual located at the villages Mesarai, Nesarith , Ethesa, Seveda, and Weverly

Gamemaster's Post
Description:

These were the years of the great exodus. After so long on our Island we had been scolded for filth and taught more pleasing ways, mesnoth had accepted our noble sacrifices and saw that it was time for our people to expand. He tested us first with the founding of our sister city Mesarai and we thought he still found us displeasing yet to prove his care for us he came and gave us the arts of clay with which to make our homes waterproof and our walls attractive.

We decorated our villages with clay murals in black and blue; pictures celebrating the great life he'd given us. Our plants, the harvest, the hunt, our boats, and of course his great obelisk! In Mesina the people gave him sacrifice and he accepted them in a flash of blue light, but the people of Mearai had to trek far to appease the god until they had proved their worth. At which point he showed us how to make them their own altar.

And as if we'd passed his test by founding a successful village and earning the honor of an altar there he had us found four more towns at spots of his choosing. Since the exodus from Mesina disease is nearly gone from our lands. We hunt and fish, grow our crops, and trade amongst ourselves glazed clay tiles, elaborate basketwork, and whatever foodstuffs we have in excess. If a crop is doing poorly in one village often another has extra! Life is good.

Not so cabbage brained this time! LOL. Of course last game was my first one and I made a bad race, plus I kept having to improvise. This time I'm the man with a plan; the master plan. I'm going to rule!

(1) First a new ritual, it's very minor so it should be cheap. I want a ritual where the man or woman carves his sharp shell carving hook on my alter on a specific schedule. He works thrugh sunrise, from noon till one, and then again sunset. He repeats this each day making his sexes sacrifice at the begining and end of each carving period. At the end a small flash of blue light turns his shell or bone hook into a razor sharp glowing blue crystal one the same color as the alter and with the same glowing worm patterns in it.

The hook has the following properties:

[A] It never dulls or breaks
[B] It carves easilly through wood, bone, reeds, or manboo without cutting flesh unless willed too.
[C] If willed to cut flesh for a ritual the wound heals within the day and the cutter can determine if it will scar. If it scars it will scar cleanly and the cutter can determine HOW it scars: raised, white, glaring red, or flat, or puckered. Cutting yourself or another still hurts of course; otherwise these would be useless for sacrifice.

(2) The first bit was a preparation for this second bit. I want to make a ritual of scarification on the backs of my people. This is painful and involves a LOT of cutting. The ritual begins with the recipient laying on the altar as the sun rises a male "priest" intoning a set prayer to Me while holding one of my new gemstone carving hooks.

Then the priest carves the pattern slowly into the persons back from sunrise till sundown willing a clean raised scarring. Each bit of flesh goes into a manboo "sacrifice" basket at the foot of the altar. Throughout the priest chants asking me to accept this flesh and this person as my own.

The priest will finish carving the pattern as the sun sets and then take the the basket over his head as the person sits up on the altar and perform the male sacrifice ritual giving ME the flesh in a blinding flash of blue light.

Once this is done the tribesman will gain the ability to instantly teleport himself and up to 300 pounds of cargo from any location within my aura area directly to one of my altars. Multiple people with this power can work together to move larger objects. I figure the length, complexity, and sheer pain of this ritual should keep the cost down but I'm willing to pay up to 20 points for it; at my discount of course. lol.

The finished scarring will look like something like the first bamboo picture on this site: http://freshpics.blogspot.com/2008/04/scarification-tattoos.html

(3) I'm going to teach both rituals to the elders in a mass vision complete with how to do the cuts, the pattern and how to TEACH the cuts and chants, and how to make a sundial and tell the exact times for the rituals.

Gamemaster's Reply:
Feedback

(1) Done, it would normally be a five point cost but in your discount area it only costs 4 points. Technically 3.75 but this time I'm rounding up I can see these being very useful to you later on.

(2) Ouch you sick bastard! Look at all that flesh and the blood . . . But your right that is worth a decent point cost the faith and dedication it takes to allow THAT to be done to you, or at least the greed, is enough to help power the thing without a lot of help from you. Congratulations you've just invented this worlds first mass transit system! All aboard the PAINway! Choo! Choo! Normally I'd call this a 40 point cost, but I'm discounting it to 30 for the sheer ouch factor and then your 25% for a 22 point point cost. It's above your cap, but take it or leave it, that's one buff power.

(3) not enough power.

Mesnoth's Reply:

(2) How much would you discount it if I agreed to raise my point reserve for these rituals another point? Like you said that was one buff ritual and you did mention that simply making the cost go up would be an option for buff rituals to be included.

Gamemaster's Post
Feedback

To include rituals like this without a huge cost you'd have to raise the point reserve to at least 4 a turn. That sort of investment would raise the total power of all of your altar magic rituals and abilities though . . . but if you do that and also agree to two other conditions I'll give you an extra 10% discount to creating altar magic rituals within your area of effect.

First Make Altar magic intrinsically only work within your aura. That means your giving up the ability to EVER make altar magic abilities that work outside the aura. Not merely choosing as you have been in the past to take the discount and suffer the penalty.

Second objects made with altar magic physically CAN'T cross the border of your aura. The includes your nifty little gemstone cutters, but also anything else you make in the future. Your scarred men can cross but their abilities won't work, but other more effects on a person may make them prisoners within your zone of control rather than just shutting off.

Mesnoth's Reply:

(2) Agreed. I'll take it.

Gamemaster's Reply:
Feedback ~EDITED~

(1) Done, a ritual this simple would normally be a four point cost but with your 35% discount added on it only costs 3 points.

(2) Ouch you sick bastard! Look at all that flesh and the blood . . . But your right that is worth a decent point cost the faith and dedication it takes to allow THAT to be done to you, or at least the greed, is enough to help power the thing without a lot of help from you. Congratulations you've just invented this worlds first mass transit system! All aboard the PAINway! Choo! Choo! Normally I'd call this a 35 point cost ritual, but I'm discounting it to 25 points for the sheer ouch factor and then your 35% for a 16 point point cost. Since this is kind of a nasty ritual that HELPS your people out you can spend both fear and faith on it evenly.

(3) Done for points 11 points.