[The Quiet Year] A single point of light - Winter

GrimmyTOA

Gentle nudge @Iron Weasel. How did the exploration go?

Iron Weasel

@Neaden goes first.

GrimmyTOA

Oh, nuts. He does. Sorry guys.

Iron Weasel

No worries. Do you want me to pull my post for now?

GrimmyTOA

Hmm. Maybe just spoiler it so that Neaden can make his decision without the benefit of prescience.

Iron Weasel

I’ll just pull it for now, as what the scouts found might be impacted by Neaden’s choices.

Neaden

No worries didn't see.

A group of 3 men come to the village, priests of the old God. They ask for hospitality and a space to preach and offer the protection and blessing of the old God.

A discussion. Should we stay here in our new home our return to the old island?

GrimmyTOA

My contribution to the discussion:

Our new home seems safe and strong. Let us put aside the mistakes of our past and stay here.

Iron Weasel

It would be very sad to abandon all the work we’ve put into settling in our new home. We should remain here.

Erin The Red

Remaining would seem most prudent. For now, anyway.
So sayeth the doctor

Iron Weasel

And I should have just spoilered my previous post, because now I've lost the map and post I made earlier

I'll try to get it back up tonight after Neaden closes this discussion.

Iron Weasel

Map update :



Our scouts have returned. They admit they did not search every inch of the island, but they still have much to report.

To the Southeast is a small range of rolling hills, and nestled among them, a man-made opening into the earth; a mine shaft perhaps. The scouts did not enter.

To East, a lush green forest divides the island in two. Though they saw few animals, the scouts felt that their presence was noted, and did not linger in the woods.

Beyond the forest, on the Northeast tip of the island, they found a small campsite, recently abandoned. Who could have stayed there?

Finally, on the shore at the Southeast tip of the island, the scouts found a semi-permanent dock and a fair-sized shed. The windowless building was securely locked, and no boats were present.

Neaden

This home is new and dangerous, but may be out best best for safety

GrimmyTOA

And we move on to @Iron Weasel's turn.

The Thirteenth Week of Autumn

Someone returns to the community.
Who? Where were they?
-or-
You find a body. Do people recognize who it is? What happened?

We have Scarcities of Hope and Weapons.
We have an Abundance of Shelter and Food.

Grimmy's Tapestry will be complete in three weeks.

One contempt token is held by TRV and Neaden, and two are held by Grimmy.

Iron Weasel

Lyda, the warrior who left some time ago, has returned to us!

She has lost some weight, but seems otherwise to be in good health. There is a afar-off look in her eyes, however, and speaks almost unceasing praise of the Old Gods. When questioned about where she's been, she alternates between equivocation and evasion.

Her return is taken as a good omen, but many in the community worry that Lyda is a different person now.

Start A New Project
A group of villagers will be dispatched to explore the cave/mine to the South and determine if it offers us an opportunity or presents a potential problem. One week should be sufficient.

GrimmyTOA

One week should b e enough time to assess it, though we have few to spare for mining.

Erin The Red

For a basic exploration, a week should be fine

Neaden

A week.

GrimmyTOA

I'm going to assume that IW is okay with his own plan, and we'll move on to the next turn.

@TheRoadVirus, Winter has arrived.

The First Week of Winter

Someone goes missing. They’re alone in the winter elements. Choose one:
• The community organizes constant search parties and eventually the person is found. Project dice are not reduced this week.
• No one ever hears from that person again.

We have Scarcities of Hope and Weapons.
We have an Abundance of Shelter and Food.

Grimmy's Tapestry will be complete in two or three weeks, depending on TRV's choice.
Iron Weasel's mine exploration is maybe complete, depending on TRV's choice.

One contempt token is held by TRV and Neaden, and two are held by Grimmy.

Erin The Red

The mother who let her child die has taken a turn for the worst, mentally. Whereas everyone else seemed to be in higher spirits as of late, she only saw the negative. They were wasting food. Nobody is trustworthy. Nobody helped her, or her baby. She is last seen walking amongst the dwellings and sobbing. She does not respond to anyone who tries to speak with her. When the morning comes, she is nowhere to be seen. With the storms rolling in, it is unlikely she will ever BE seen again.

PROJECT: I think we should try and use some of our natural resources to make new weapons. We need them, whether it be for hunting or defense/offense. Scouting for materials, testing, and then mass production should take... let's say 4 weeks?

Iron Weasel

Agreed.

GrimmyTOA

Agreed. As well.

Neaden

Four weeks should be plenty of time, 3 weeks would be better if we hurried.

GrimmyTOA

Alright, @Iron Weasel, what did we find in the mine?

Iron Weasel

It appears to have been a coal mine, perhaps to fuel some of the dilapidated machines we found in the Tower. There is an ample supply of picks, shovels, helmets and other equipment, should we decide to restart the operation.

Several levels beneath the surface, our scouts found a broken-down elevator. They pulled a beaten and rusty sign off the heavy-duty elevator door:


RESTRICTED ACCESS
LEVEL 5+ CLEARANCE ONLY
NO EXCEPTIONS

GrimmyTOA

The Second Week of Winter

You see a good omen. What is it?

We have Scarcities of Hope and Weapons.
We have an Abundance of Shelter and Food.

Grimmy's Tapestry will be complete in one week, depending on TRV's choice.
TRV's Weapons will be complete in three weeks.

One contempt token is held by TRV and Neaden, and two are held by Grimmy.

GrimmyTOA

Event:
A brilliant shower of meteors lights up the sky one night. All agree that they haven't seen such a beautiful sight in ages. A child is overheard to say that she wants to study the stars when she grows up.

Action:
We will begin to convert one of the unused areas of our lighthouse home into a classroom. This may not pay dividends in the short term, but perhaps we may be able to benefit from it in the long run. Four weeks to convert the room and prepare a teacher is all that we can spare.

Iron Weasel

Anything we can do for the young in our community is worth the effort. The teacher will have to be someone with a breadth of knowledge.

4 weeks it is.

Erin The Red

4 weeks sounds reasonable

GrimmyTOA

In the interests of moving things along, I'm going to take Neaden's silence as assent.

It is, unfortunately, irrelevant as after a short winter we draw this card:

The ThirdWeek of Winter

The Frost Shepherds arrive. The game is over.

We have Scarcities of Hope and Weapons.
We have an Abundance of Shelter and Food.


One contempt token is held by TRV and Neaden, and two are held by Grimmy.

So, @TheRoadVirus @Iron Weasel, and @Neaden - at this point the game has ended. The restrictions on communication are lifted. How did our community fare? Would we have survived the arrival of the Frost Shepherds? What/who are they anyway?

Iron Weasel

I think our community did pretty well. We unfortunately over-reached in our conflict with the Torch People, who seem to have fled ahead of the Shepherds.

Picking up and moving to a new home was risky, but it seemed to have worked out; we might have made a go of it if we'd had more time.

Perhaps the Tower could have sheltered us from the Shepherds.

As for the Shepherds, I imagine monsters of some kind,
drawn to us by those priests who visited a few weeks ago. Will we be destroyed, converted, or something else?

Iron Weasel

Thanks for running this, @GrimmyTOA. I only participated for the second half, but it was a good time. Hopefully you guys liked my contributions; I thought you guys were great.

GrimmyTOA

I enjoyed it, IW, and thought that everyone made great contributions. Sorry to everyone for the occasional lulls.

As for our community: with a lack of weapons, and of hope, I can't imagine that we lasted long against the Shepherds. Maybe it would have gone okay if we had been given a little more time...

Iron Weasel

Yeah, I feel like the best we could have done was hunkering down. But how long before despair got the better of us?

Anyway, this was fun and I'd definitely play it again.

Neaden

Our main defense was our abundance of shelter and food and being in a different spot, perhaps we escaped their notice or they saw our original island and assumed we had died. Thanks for running the game Grimmy.

Erin The Red

Frost shepherds make me think of the ice warriors from Dr. Who. Brutal, efficient killing machines. our weapons weren't ready and we had no hope. Our home was fortified enough to allow us the barest resistance, but the outcome was obvious from the outset.

Thanks for running this, Grimmy! It was fun

GrimmyTOA

Thanks for playing, guys. If we'd had a winter of average length we'd have come through fine.

Iron Weasel

Time and the Shepherds wait for no one.

Erin The Red

Frost Shepherds = Spanish Inquisition