NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited June 2022
A contingent within the community demand to be heard.
Who are they? What are they asking for?
A cross section of people from the community come to the Overseers with a long-simmering complaint: our food stocks are well supplied with Numaize, yes, but the variety of our sustenance is lacking. These people, with Driscoll's scientific knowledge and assistance, believe they can refurbish the old artificial meat plant to the north. They are here now, petitioning to send a reclamation team to begin an initial survey of the factory.
Start a Project
With the Desert Devil discipline codified it is time to spread knowledge and understanding of the martial forms throughout the community, for both self-improvement and to raise the capability of the settlement to defend itself from threats. All able-bodied individuals are to be introduced to the basic katas and moves, and those that take to the new form swiftly will be ushered down the path to higher level, more intense training.
Training the Community in the Desert Devil martial discipline will take six weeks.
My table has never really come up with a concrete answer in a one vs the other scenario, and my research online when the question first arose always turned up nothing.
As a consequence, my answer has since been - Either.
For the player in question, it basically boils down to:
1) If you feel the community has had it a bit too easy so far, make an existing resource scarce.
or
2) If you think the horizons of the community need broadened a bit, or they need a new conflict to worry about as their existing resource issues seem 'solved', bring in something new.
Something goes foul and supplies are ruined. Add a new Scarcity
The deep wells which provide the majority of the settlement's water are one of the prides of our people. The shacks which cover each well and its machinery are dotted about, paired with large reserve tanks and the filtration systems that keep the water suitable for human (or other) consumption.
The water from the wells to the south and west sides of the village has changed, recently, having a slightly soapy texture to it and occasionally a pinkish tint. At first only one well was affected, but the contamination, if that's what it is, rapidly spread to several other wells. A quick inspection indicates that the filtration equipment on the affected wells seems to functioning just fine, but several people have gotten sick after drinking the strange water. The wells on the north and east sides of the village - where many of the Overseers' houses are located - seem to be functioning normally. The affected wells and several surrounding them are closed until the issue can be addressed, and while there is seemingly enough water for our needs, currently, the village has moved to stricter water rationing out of an abundance of caution.
Water is now a Scarce resource.
I Discover Something New.
A runner from our trade partners to the west has arrived along with a recent shipment of AcceloGel, letting us know that a trade caravan from the outside world has recently arrived in their village, appearing out of the desert one morning and offering strange items from, as claimed, far away. The caravan has indicated it will stay there for a few weeks before traveling to our village, explaining to the leadership that they already know how to get to our location.
@discrider, you draw the Four of Diamonds! Your choice is as follows:
The eldest among you dies. What caused the death?
OR
The eldest among you is very sick.
Caring for them and searching for a cure requires the help of the entire community. Do not reduce project timers this week.
Grouse, the eldest Overseer, was found dead this morning in his farmstead hovel.
That he was found dead there was no real surprise; He had always maintained that his fields would not be handed on until he himself was part of the fields.
Even as his apprentices, family and fellow Overseers alike suggested that the work was too taxing, and that it was better to live out retirement in comfort than doing a young body's work.
But he was adamant.
Too adamant it seems.
His bed was found slick with his blood from the stab wound in his chest.
Someone had murdered him in the night.
Project: Secure our water source
As much as recent events pain us, the spoiling water needs to be addressed before we have no water at all.
Driscoll has examined the scum in the local wells, and believes he might be able to develop a purifying agent with 5 weeks research.
We can’t go weeks without decent water! We need to convert tents into water catchers, boil the water and drain it away from the muck. It’ll use up our resources, but it can be done in 1 week! We don’t need to get high tech, we need dedicated manpower!
We’d have to pull half the regular teams from the numaize fields to do it that quick though…
0
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
We've survived in the salt deserts this long, with proper rationing we should be able to give Driscoll the time he needs. Five weeks seems too long though; he should be able to complete his work in four weeks.
This distrust of Driscoll seems.. well-placed.
Even if we did stand over him, there's no guarantee what he's saying is truthful.
But we shouldn't sacrifice the harvest either.
We'll spend two weeks repurposing housing for distilleries instead.
We don't need manpower, we need space.
A headstrong community member decides to put one of their ideas in motion.
Start a foolish project.
Yak is going to build a god damn wall around this settlement with or without any help. They’re making bricks out of that weird sludge we don’t like to talk about, sand and salt. Letting them dry out in the heat and then laying them one at a time.
Yak’s opinion of where the settlement starts and stops probably isn’t accurate. How high they can manage to make it by themselves is as yet unknown.
Project: A god damn wall around this settlement. It’ll take 6 weeks.
Action: Discover Something New
The farthest west of our map falls away, north to south, plummeting into molten abyss. The lava rises to meet the surface bit by bit, day by day. Ash is carried on the wind, settling on the houses like snow. The violent quaking of the world thankfully left all our buildings standing and has since subsided.
But hey, that’s more ingredients for Yak’s bricks!
@Nipsyou draw the Queen of Diamonds! Your choice is as follows:
A project finishes early.
Which one?
Why?
OR
If there are no projects underway, boredom leads to quarrel.
A fight breaks out between two people. What is it about?
Pick a choice, explain it, and take an Action.
The 'Metal Hole' Investigation project is complete! Tell us what happens
The Brayster on
Steam: TheBrayster
PSN: TheBrayster_92
+3
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
The distillery conversion project finishes early.
Driscoll and a team of builders works feverishly to architect and construct the works necessary to clean the water supplies, knowing that in a desert a lack of water means death for the community. They make an early breakthrough when Driscoll uses the resources of the Mobile Science Base to break the strange contaminant down into its components through a full analysis. He discovers that the material fouling the water is a combination of a plant-derived lipid and the naturally occurring limestone beneath the salty surface of the earth. With this revelation he and the team are able to quickly alter their construction plans for the stills to more properly filter the contaminants. Our water supply is made safe again, but we will face the growing question of what to do with the materials separated from the formerly-fouled drinking supplies. While the plant fats and lime are largely nontoxic, for now they will just accumulate in storage barrels until we determine a way to properly use or dispose of them.
Water is no longer scarce.
The project to plumb the depths of the hole comes to an end.
While initial surveys discovered that the volume beneath the surface hole was a largely-empty chamber, exploration towards the chamber's edges discovered a number of metal doors rusted shut with age. Through diligent elbow-work with crowbars and saws several of these doors were eventually opened. The halls and rooms beyond paint a strange story: it looks as if there is an entire underground facility here, its purpose lost to time. The chambers are lit by dim purple lights, and growing in ever-denser masses are tangles of some sort of pale subterranean flora. Thick roots, vines, and trunks wind through the halls and through doorways, and the further the exploration team gets from the surface hole the denser the foliage becomes. After several days of mapping the open paths it's concluded that the plant chokes off any further ingress into the complex, and in fact the plant system penetrates the metal walls in places as it burrowed its way into the earth beyond.
Though the community does not immediately benefit from this discovery, the revelation that there is subterranean plant life below the cracked surface of the salt desert changes our view of what this region is, and might have been.
A salvage project is begun on the underground facility.
The returning explorers of what is now called the Deep Facility advocate for returning to the complex; in their work to map and explore the space, they discovered a great many machines were found installed in the complex. The expedition leads believe some of these machines can be salvaged and brought to the settlement to be put back into service. Though it appeared most of the machines were built to grow or sustain the now-overgrown plantlife that's choked the halls, the expedition leads also think there may be machines built toward other purposes in the facility.
Identifying, salvaging, and transporting any useful machines from the Deep Facility will take six weeks.
I'd suggest that any machines found in the Deep Facility should be studied in situ, and that could easily cut the expedition time down to 4 weeks, what with not having to lug them up and down the hole.
And taking contempt as not only do we not recall asking Driscoll to fix anything, he's managed to decontaminate the water faster than we were able to set up simple boiling and condensation stations.
See? We knew it wouldn’t take long, and that makes us right, and we won’t look to deeply into how in case that makes us wrong.
While we hardly need more machines, the prospect of revealing lost history is keeping the morale up for the overseers and kung fu masters alike. 4 weeks!
I take contempt; the water shortage was far too easy for Driscoll to address; and, we plainly ended to search of the caves beneath or village too quickly, as Mud is still missing!
4 weeks, because most of the items can probably be used without dragging them up, which would take a significant amount of time: breakdown and cataloguing, transportation, then reassembly.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited June 2022
The project will take five weeks, then. We'll focus the first two weeks on a thorough survey of the machines, eliminate from the list ones that are thoroughly useless or beyond repair, and then focus on bringing useful ones out of the facility and repairing them with our remaining time.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Project: 1 week is fine.
Discussion
Driscoll has been nothing but helpful and giving to our community, and has asked for nothing in return. Our settlement is better and more materially stable for having him. We should continue to work with him, to gain training in his sciences while he continues to develop a fuller understanding of our philosophies.
Without our beliefs what are we? They’d do well to put effort into martial training regardless of whether they’re of use or not. Honing the body is good for the mind.
Project:
What.
We may have a mass murderer running around, and we want to put paid to this quickly?
These things take time, 4 weeks
Discussion
Although Driscoll claims to be helpful, he comes from nowhere, encroaches on the Overseers' territory, and then one dies. As well as 'fixing' our water issues.
Some proof of his character is required, and a dedicated martial regime would do that and keep him too busy to make trouble.
We will spend 1 week searching exhaustively for Mud. If she has not been found by then, we will need to consider other options - or reasons for her disappearance.
Discussion: Driscoll?
Driscoll has brought much which is useful to our village, but he is not yet truly one of us; this leads to suspicion which can spread like a cancer. He should be given a chance to integrate more fully into our village.
Posts
Who are they? What are they asking for?
A cross section of people from the community come to the Overseers with a long-simmering complaint: our food stocks are well supplied with Numaize, yes, but the variety of our sustenance is lacking. These people, with Driscoll's scientific knowledge and assistance, believe they can refurbish the old artificial meat plant to the north. They are here now, petitioning to send a reclamation team to begin an initial survey of the factory.
Start a Project
With the Desert Devil discipline codified it is time to spread knowledge and understanding of the martial forms throughout the community, for both self-improvement and to raise the capability of the settlement to defend itself from threats. All able-bodied individuals are to be introduced to the basic katas and moves, and those that take to the new form swiftly will be ushered down the path to higher level, more intense training.
Training the Community in the Desert Devil martial discipline will take six weeks.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
We just don't train the people asking for meat as they lack purity of body.
Resources:
Projects:
'Metal Hole' Investigation 3
'Desert Devil' Training 6
Contempt:
None
@Elvenshae , you draw the Nine of Diamonds! Your choice is as follows:
A project fails.
Which one?
Why?
OR
Something goes foul and supplies are ruined.
Add a new Scarcity
PSN: TheBrayster_92
As a consequence, my answer has since been - Either.
For the player in question, it basically boils down to:
1) If you feel the community has had it a bit too easy so far, make an existing resource scarce.
or
2) If you think the horizons of the community need broadened a bit, or they need a new conflict to worry about as their existing resource issues seem 'solved', bring in something new.
PSN: TheBrayster_92
The deep wells which provide the majority of the settlement's water are one of the prides of our people. The shacks which cover each well and its machinery are dotted about, paired with large reserve tanks and the filtration systems that keep the water suitable for human (or other) consumption.
The water from the wells to the south and west sides of the village has changed, recently, having a slightly soapy texture to it and occasionally a pinkish tint. At first only one well was affected, but the contamination, if that's what it is, rapidly spread to several other wells. A quick inspection indicates that the filtration equipment on the affected wells seems to functioning just fine, but several people have gotten sick after drinking the strange water. The wells on the north and east sides of the village - where many of the Overseers' houses are located - seem to be functioning normally. The affected wells and several surrounding them are closed until the issue can be addressed, and while there is seemingly enough water for our needs, currently, the village has moved to stricter water rationing out of an abundance of caution.
Water is now a Scarce resource.
I Discover Something New.
A runner from our trade partners to the west has arrived along with a recent shipment of AcceloGel, letting us know that a trade caravan from the outside world has recently arrived in their village, appearing out of the desert one morning and offering strange items from, as claimed, far away. The caravan has indicated it will stay there for a few weeks before traveling to our village, explaining to the leadership that they already know how to get to our location.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Added Merchant Caravan
Resources:
Projects:
'Metal Hole' Investigation 2
'Desert Devil' Training 5
Contempt:
None
@discrider , you draw the Four of Diamonds! Your choice is as follows:
The eldest among you dies. What caused the death?
OR
The eldest among you is very sick.
Caring for them and searching for a cure requires the help of the entire community.
Do not reduce project timers this week.
PSN: TheBrayster_92
PSN: TheBrayster_92
That he was found dead there was no real surprise; He had always maintained that his fields would not be handed on until he himself was part of the fields.
Even as his apprentices, family and fellow Overseers alike suggested that the work was too taxing, and that it was better to live out retirement in comfort than doing a young body's work.
But he was adamant.
Too adamant it seems.
His bed was found slick with his blood from the stab wound in his chest.
Someone had murdered him in the night.
Project: Secure our water source
As much as recent events pain us, the spoiling water needs to be addressed before we have no water at all.
Driscoll has examined the scum in the local wells, and believes he might be able to develop a purifying agent with 5 weeks research.
@Nips @Endless_Serpents @Elvenshae
We’d have to pull half the regular teams from the numaize fields to do it that quick though…
We should budget several weeks just to make sure we understand the problem!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Even if we did stand over him, there's no guarantee what he's saying is truthful.
But we shouldn't sacrifice the harvest either.
We'll spend two weeks repurposing housing for distilleries instead.
We don't need manpower, we need space.
(Replacing a water scarcity for a housing one)
Resources:
Projects:
'Metal Hole' Investigation: 1
'Desert Devil' Training: 4
'Houses to Distilleries' Conversion: 2
Contempt:
Nips
@Endless_Serpents you draw the Eight of Diamonds! Your choice is as follows:
Someone tries to take control of the community by force.
Do they succeed?
Why do they do this?
OR
A headstrong community member decides to put one of their ideas in motion.
Start a foolish project.
PSN: TheBrayster_92
Start a foolish project.
Yak is going to build a god damn wall around this settlement with or without any help. They’re making bricks out of that weird sludge we don’t like to talk about, sand and salt. Letting them dry out in the heat and then laying them one at a time.
Yak’s opinion of where the settlement starts and stops probably isn’t accurate. How high they can manage to make it by themselves is as yet unknown.
Project: A god damn wall around this settlement. It’ll take 6 weeks.
Action: Discover Something New
The farthest west of our map falls away, north to south, plummeting into molten abyss. The lava rises to meet the surface bit by bit, day by day. Ash is carried on the wind, settling on the houses like snow. The violent quaking of the world thankfully left all our buildings standing and has since subsided.
But hey, that’s more ingredients for Yak’s bricks!
Maybe being put out in the ash is something we should have considered before evicting people.
Resources:
Projects:
'Metal Hole' Investigation: Complete!
'Desert Devil' Training: 3
'Houses to Distilleries' Conversion: 1
Settlement Wall Construction: 6
Contempt:
Nips
@Nips you draw the Queen of Diamonds! Your choice is as follows:
A project finishes early.
Which one?
Why?
OR
If there are no projects underway, boredom leads to quarrel.
A fight breaks out between two people. What is it about?
PSN: TheBrayster_92
Driscoll and a team of builders works feverishly to architect and construct the works necessary to clean the water supplies, knowing that in a desert a lack of water means death for the community. They make an early breakthrough when Driscoll uses the resources of the Mobile Science Base to break the strange contaminant down into its components through a full analysis. He discovers that the material fouling the water is a combination of a plant-derived lipid and the naturally occurring limestone beneath the salty surface of the earth. With this revelation he and the team are able to quickly alter their construction plans for the stills to more properly filter the contaminants. Our water supply is made safe again, but we will face the growing question of what to do with the materials separated from the formerly-fouled drinking supplies. While the plant fats and lime are largely nontoxic, for now they will just accumulate in storage barrels until we determine a way to properly use or dispose of them.
Water is no longer scarce.
The project to plumb the depths of the hole comes to an end.
While initial surveys discovered that the volume beneath the surface hole was a largely-empty chamber, exploration towards the chamber's edges discovered a number of metal doors rusted shut with age. Through diligent elbow-work with crowbars and saws several of these doors were eventually opened. The halls and rooms beyond paint a strange story: it looks as if there is an entire underground facility here, its purpose lost to time. The chambers are lit by dim purple lights, and growing in ever-denser masses are tangles of some sort of pale subterranean flora. Thick roots, vines, and trunks wind through the halls and through doorways, and the further the exploration team gets from the surface hole the denser the foliage becomes. After several days of mapping the open paths it's concluded that the plant chokes off any further ingress into the complex, and in fact the plant system penetrates the metal walls in places as it burrowed its way into the earth beyond.
Though the community does not immediately benefit from this discovery, the revelation that there is subterranean plant life below the cracked surface of the salt desert changes our view of what this region is, and might have been.
A salvage project is begun on the underground facility.
The returning explorers of what is now called the Deep Facility advocate for returning to the complex; in their work to map and explore the space, they discovered a great many machines were found installed in the complex. The expedition leads believe some of these machines can be salvaged and brought to the settlement to be put back into service. Though it appeared most of the machines were built to grow or sustain the now-overgrown plantlife that's choked the halls, the expedition leads also think there may be machines built toward other purposes in the facility.
Identifying, salvaging, and transporting any useful machines from the Deep Facility will take six weeks.
And taking contempt as not only do we not recall asking Driscoll to fix anything, he's managed to decontaminate the water faster than we were able to set up simple boiling and condensation stations.
While we hardly need more machines, the prospect of revealing lost history is keeping the morale up for the overseers and kung fu masters alike. 4 weeks!
4 weeks, because most of the items can probably be used without dragging them up, which would take a significant amount of time: breakdown and cataloguing, transportation, then reassembly.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Resources:
Projects:
'Desert Devil' Training: 2
Settlement Wall Construction: 5
Underground Salvage: 5
Contempt:
Nips
Discrider
Elvenshae
@Elvenshae you draw the King of Diamonds! Your choice is as follows:
Summer is fleeting.
The top two cards have been discarded from the Deck.
Take Two Actions this week.
PSN: TheBrayster_92
PSN: TheBrayster_92
Does two cards being discarded mean that there are only 10 weeks in the season, and three have been discarded in total?
Cause I sort of assumed the 13th card being discarded was what kept the game from being predictable.
Mud is still missing. Dust has added regular calls to find her to his radio shows. We will spend 1 week exhaustively searching for her.
Hold a discussion
Driscoll is becoming an increasingly divisive voice in our community: bearing many gifts but also possibly some unforeseen challenges.
He also does not practice king fu.
What is to be done with him, to ensure that his goals match ours?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
@discrider
@Endless_Serpents
For discussion of duration of the search and the actual discussion.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Discussion
Driscoll has been nothing but helpful and giving to our community, and has asked for nothing in return. Our settlement is better and more materially stable for having him. We should continue to work with him, to gain training in his sciences while he continues to develop a fuller understanding of our philosophies.
Discussion
Without our beliefs what are we? They’d do well to put effort into martial training regardless of whether they’re of use or not. Honing the body is good for the mind.
What.
We may have a mass murderer running around, and we want to put paid to this quickly?
These things take time, 4 weeks
Discussion
Although Driscoll claims to be helpful, he comes from nowhere, encroaches on the Overseers' territory, and then one dies. As well as 'fixing' our water issues.
Some proof of his character is required, and a dedicated martial regime would do that and keep him too busy to make trouble.
PSN: TheBrayster_92
We will spend 1 week searching exhaustively for Mud. If she has not been found by then, we will need to consider other options - or reasons for her disappearance.
Discussion: Driscoll?
Driscoll has brought much which is useful to our village, but he is not yet truly one of us; this leads to suspicion which can spread like a cancer. He should be given a chance to integrate more fully into our village.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]