Explaining turn #9

The Basic Data:

The trends here are clear the fear level amongst the tribes is rising and their faith is falling, the opposite trend is happening amongst The Chosen. Another thing to look at is the way the numbers for faith gained are processed a little differently this turn.

The gamemaster realized he'd made a MISTAKE when he seperated out the two previously. He had been doing (0+X) to show faith gain and how much faith REMAINED. This turn he finally had a good portion of remaining faith to calculate, but since the player spends the lump sum as a whole he wasn't sure where to put that faith.

He solved it by moving the whole remainder down to the bottom, it doesn't actually come from either tribe this turn, it came from the great gods hoard of faith points left over from last turn. In other words putting it at the bottom was both simpler and made more sense.

Description: The Drethen Cattle Clans

Wow the tenor of this post has changed! Initially Drethnor has been worshipped as the lord of the vultures by a small tribe who survived mostly by scavenging the kills of others. Then he was the teacher who taught them to hunt, and finally the wise lord who gave them the cattle. For a time he had hunters, herdsmen, and scavengers all living together with buzzards and honoring him as the lord of their TOTEM.

However since the scavengers were chased off and turned into vulture men the cattle clans have lost their dread vulture pets and replaced the value on carrion eaters for a value of cattle. They honored Drethnor for teaching them good ways cursing the carrion eaters even though they didn''t really honor his image as a great vulture anymore.

Then he asked for a sacrifice and cursed their cows and their people when they refused. That got them fearing him and they still have/had a lot of faith and gratitude to him as their teacher. But the faith has been going down and the fear increasing as his curse is an ongoing thing in the land. A steady trickle of people are turned into The Wretched now, and every so often some cheif tries to buck the rules and his cows get sick.

Worse the wretched aren't allowed to be killed or driven out, and have been given the task of disposing of the tribes dead. They REALLY don't like this last bit at all. Most of them ignore the rule and they've been able to get away with it thus far but . . . It really doesn't make them happy. The people really resent these aliens in their midst.

They have began to be reminded that Drethnor is the dread lord of the Vultures, not just their cuddly teacher god or some protector totem.

Description: The Chosen

For the chosen this was a good turn. They have embraced a warrior/hunter culture and the ability to communicate lets the clans keep in touch with each other and even elect a community leader, the leaders of the clan with the most prestige each year. No actual warfare has broken out amongst them yet, but they skirmish and as things stand it's only a matter of time before the contests break into open violence over someones wounded pride.

The Conversation:

The player starts out by asking me a question. I answer it since it is something his particular god would know, he's messed with everyones genetics pretty thouroughly and has watched them for nearly a thousand years, if the question had been more complex or required more direct action to figure out I might have charged him something, but . . . this time he got lucky. Gods are pretty smart and attentive.

Beyond that though it's an interesting turn. He's really favouring the chosen this turn, giving them a nudge in a direction to let them make the best use of their natural weaponry and providing them some ideas on how to give a SAFE outlet to their aggression. These guys are feirce. He's also working to give them a quick boost to the population.

With the Drethen clans though he's getting pissed and finishing his transition back from a protector or teacher god into the dread lord of carrion bringer of plague to cattle, lord of the vultures. These zombies are interesting. The player is setting himself up with an army, and providing the "wreched" with a very valuable tool should they decide to use it. Next turn should be very interesting.