End of Empires - N3S III
- Thread starter North King
- Start date
Ninja Dude
Sorry, I wasn't listening...
.....You're happy that the destruct-o-horde is getting closer to you?
Yes. It sounds like a very fun neighbor.
Sheep
Orange Shrooms!
To nations that follow the relgion of Ancestor Worship
From the Hafnid Empire of Bisiria
The Hafnid people were ready to begin to learn the ways of those more powerful than it... To the north there was a ruler who saw the Hafnid promise..... Ancestor worshiping is seen as a better way as it has been shown little power lies with the gods themselves, better to honour the spirits of those who followed us. Thus we ask you to send our missionaries.
Lord King Kral'taq
From the Hafnid Empire of Bisiria
The Hafnid people were ready to begin to learn the ways of those more powerful than it... To the north there was a ruler who saw the Hafnid promise..... Ancestor worshiping is seen as a better way as it has been shown little power lies with the gods themselves, better to honour the spirits of those who followed us. Thus we ask you to send our missionaries.
Lord King Kral'taq
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Late order senders should be "severely reprimanded" for their behavior. 
flyingchicken
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2007
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Lurkerism: When I think of "ancestor worship" I think of family- or clan- wide shrines without any real organization that would require missionaries, but I haven't been following this NES so I wouldn't know.
das
Regeneration In Process
More or less. We, the Moti, have ancestral worship-based polytheism, which does not at all sound like what Sheep said (since the ancestors and the gods, unless you mean the foreign Iralliam dualistic gods, are one and the same); the Sesh have a religion known as Ancestor Worship which is an organised, proselytising religion, but I somewhat doubt that it is what Sheep is looking for either (not sure, but I think the lines between gods and ancestors are blended as well? Also, some fish person said that it is "the worship of the law rather than of the gods" or something along those lines, but that's a third matter entirely).
das
Regeneration In Process
3. Human Child Darti Rises Up Against Injustice.
In the beginning of the reign of Eso Kotuu, there was but one campsite [1] of the Great Family, but as evil began to crack the perfect world and the Great Family apart what was one became many shards, and each shard broke further and further as the world detiriorated further and further; and therefore every campsite in the broken world of today is a misshapen reflection of the original campsite, and each campsite misshapen in its own way - some are richer and some are poorer, some are larger and some are smaller; all campsites differ also in their location and in the shape of their perimeter; each has populations of different lineages and numbers; each belongs to one family or another and within that family to another family still, and each focuses on different trades to different extents.
And yet, each campsite has its own place and is peopled by its own family, every campsite is surrounded by a pallisade, and in every campsite there is a chief-tent, a justice-place and an ancestor-temple, as well the animal-pens and the dwellings of the children [2]. Thus it was also with the campsite of the Arti human-family within the Cow Family, which was located two weeks to the east from the feast-tent of Eso Kotuu. It was situated amidst the Inner Mountains and near the Ur river that proceeded from the Inner Mountains and eventually, far to the west, entered the Yensai river; but here it in itself seemed somewhat large though not great, and the Arti humans always went there to fish and since recently also went there to gather tin, which was abundant in these waters - but of that more shall be told later. Also, the Arti humans worked the lands by the river and near the campsites, and hunted for gold and game in the mountains and the forests alike; there were goats and deer in the mountains and in more recent times there also were bandit treasures and evil foreign traders in the forests. Bandit treasures were protected by bandit arms, whereas evil foreign traders were protected by Cow Family laws; nonetheless the Arti human-family owed a heavy debt of filial piety to the Cow Family godlikes and therefore strove hard to acquire gifts for the Cow Family-Chief.
What to say of the Arti human-family itself? It was no bigger and no smaller than the most, and its men were accomplished hunters who often clashed with the humans from other nearby families, as well as the bandits from the nearby outcast-camp, but for as long as the oldest members of the family could remember it always stayed away from the rest of the Moti Great Family and the rest of the Moti Great Family stayed away as well: only the neighbouring human-families and the Cow Family godlikes occassionally visited the Arti human-family campsite, the former to trade and the latter to collect gifts; and sometimes the human-chief and his immediate relatives visited the Cow Family-Chief in the godlike campsite, to present gifts by themselves and partake in the feast, from which they brought back memories of good food and evil customs, as well as of the wealth and of the decadence of the godlikes - and all those things grew with every visit, because evil grew stronger and spread farther with every generation, and so it eventually came to the Arti as well, as the godlikes began visiting the campsite more and more often, and demanded more and more gifts, and when some young human-children protested those abuses they were beaten and expelled, so the Arti human-family was forced to recognise that its debt of filial loyalty to the Cow Family godlikes was heavy indeed. As though that were not enough, evil foreign traders began coming through the Arti lands and buying and selling at unjust prices as was their wont, and when the Arti humans began killing them and taking their goods for free, the Cow Family godlikes attacked them as though those traders were their kin and, unable to find the killers, demanded more gifts as a compensation to the friends and families of the traders - and the human-chief, threatened with exile, found no choice but to agree. And another evil thing happened: not much later the almost harmless nearby outcast-camp turned into a veritable campsite of the Evil Family, as bandits gathered there from everywhere and attacked everyone, and some even said that the Arti men that have been expelled by the godlikes went joined them too - and the strangest of things happened, as some began to envy them.
Of the familial temple it must be said that it was dedicated to Arti, the human-ancestor of the human-family; and outside of the campsite it was generally known that he was one of the many children of Tikhupata Afono-Gog, the fertile Cow Family-Chief, and as much as often said within the campsite as well; but in recent years some began saying that he was indeed a son, but an adapted one - for Arti was orphan, whose father was perhaps killed by the Lion Family, or perhaps by the Cow Family itself. At first it were mostly the family-members that said that Arti's father was killed by the Lion Family, but no more than fifteen years ago a wise-man visited the campsite and, having impressed the people with his wisdom and magic, stayed for the night as the chief's guest; and on the morning he came to the justice-place, which was a clearing in front of the chief-tent, and told to those who had gathered there that in truth the father of Arti was killed by the Cow Family so that it could enslave the Arti-family and all of its relatives; the godlike representatives were not there to dispute his claim, having left the campsite three days ago after having taken many gifts, broken the table in the feast-tent whilst drunk and ordered the Arti-family to prepare seventy seven buckets of tin by the time they return next year; and for the rest of the year the Arti pondered his words, though he had long gone further in his wanderings. When the year ended the godlikes returned and were outraged that their requested gifts were nowhere to be found, so their leader exiled the human-chief who had protested that the Arti were hunters and not miners, and demanded that from now on the humans send twenty-one buckets of tin to the godlike campsite every year. And after they left it turned out that many family members had indeed been convinced by the wandering wise-man. Monthly sacrifices to Arti and annual sacrifices to Tikhupata Afono-Gog were sent just like before, but the new human-chief, Yereti, no longer called out to Tikhupata Afono-Gog when sacrificing to Arti, and instead cried out to the father; thus the godlikes thought that he still meant Tikhupata Afono-Gog, but the Arti humans knew that he meant someone else.
Of this Yereti it must be said that he was an uncle to the previous human-chief, but that when the Arti humans gathered in the justice-place to decide upon a new human-chief [3] he was quickly elected not because of his close relations, but rather because he was already respected and obeyed by most of the Arti human-family, for he was a shaman [3] before he was a chief and he spoke to the minds [4] of the deceased and so was able to acquire great and special wisdom which immensely helped hunters, fishers and wives alike as long as they obeyed him - and obey him they did. For all the preceding years, though many chiefs changed due to the spread of evil, he did not want to be the chief, and so they obeyed him by not as much as mentioning him on the day of the elections; now he changed his mind and so the chief he became, because clearly he had a good reason to want to become such. Even before this the hunters hunted and the fishers fished as he instructed them; now he instructed the hunters to hunt for treasures and merchant camps, and the fishers to fish for tin. Soon, plentiful gifts of tin, coin and gem alike began to go to the godlike campsite, and the new Cow Family-Chief, Third-Frono, became content and even began sending some reciprocal gifts, so as to encourage the newly pious human-family; and in the meantime Yereti also sent out hunters to the outcast-camp and to Moti-city, and in the former he sought friends whereas in the latter he bought iron weapons with the Cow Family-Chief's reciprocal gifts. Thus things proceeded for the next ten years, and those years were surely fortunate; but one day several bruised evil foreign traders bereft of any goods other than their torn and bloodied clothes arrived before the Cow Family-Chief. Before he could throw those vagrants out they told him that the Arti humans were attacking caravans that went across the Inner Mountains to trade with the other human-families there, and robbed them and used the stolen goods to bribe bandits to attack the loyal human-families within the Cow Family. So the Cow Family-Chief threw them in the dungeon for impersonating foreign traders and sent his youngest immediate son, Kono, to investigate this, because it was not the first time that he had heard suspicious truths and truth-like allegations about the Arti human-family and its newfound wealth, and he very much wanted to take this wealth for himself and his family, because he was greedy and animal-minded; and so was Kono.
Kono and twenty-eight godlikes, each decked out in familial bronze armour and armed with foreign-bought iron spears and swords, rode on their white and brown steeds (gifts of the southern human-families) to the Inner Mountains. They were immediately greeted by Arti hunters that invited them to visit the Arti human family campsite, where human-chief Yereti was anticipating their arrival for two weeks now. Kono remembered that the merchants only arrived a week ago and realised that Yereti was doubtless a powerful shaman; so he ordered his men to carefully knock out the hunters lest their minds escape from their bodies to warn Yereti and rode to another campsite instead. Then to another, and the one after that; and everywhere he conscripted young men to a militia, which he then ordered to pretend to be slaves as he and his retinue belatedly arrived at the Arti human-family campsite. Yereti looked at the godlikes and their entourage, sighed and allowed them in. During the welcome-feast the slaves suddenly freed themselves and started attacking the elders and lineage-heads of the Arti human-family that were gathered there; Kono shouted that they were rebelling and rallied the Arti defenders against them, then arrested all the elders and lineage-heads and ordered his militiamen to stand down. Great was his surprise when it turned out that Yereti, who knew what happened to his hunters and easily saw through the trick with the slaves, had apparently escaped somewhere at the beginning of the havoc; he grumbled, but nonetheless released his militiamen and took charge of the campsite, appointing Fiti, one of the elders, as human-chief, gathering gifts by force and sending out patrols to search for Yereti and messengers for more godlike warriors to be sent to him after he had discovered the bandit-camp.
Now, human-chief Yereti had two sons, long before he was a human-chief: at first he had Darti and four years later he had Kirti, and though neither of them were shamans, both were strong and cunning hunters, each in his own way. Darti preffered to command bands of men and hunted mainly for bandits and later for merchants; as for Kirti, as he grew up he sometimes accompanied his immediate brother, but more often he wandered off by himself and hunted beasts. Both because of his age and because of his disposition towards leadership, Darti involved himself in familial affairs from since when he became seventeen and his father became the human-chief; Kirti also supported his father within the family and helped his hunters conduct negotiations with the bandits, but on the whole he was not wholly interested in familial affairs, because he was a man of a singular passion and that passion was hunting. When Kono took over the camp, Kirti was hunting, whereas Darti was at the welcome-feast. Darti helped his father escape into the wilderness and himself hid out in the campsite for the first four weeks of Fiti's reign; he disguised himself as a poor fisherman and was sent to mine tin, as were many hunters slightly later on. There he spoke with the disgruntled and starving hunters and fishers alike, and so learned that Yereti had successfully disappeared, whereas Kirti never returned from his hunt - and neither did many other hunters, especially after Kono started sending them to the tin stream as well. On the fourth day of the fourth week Kirti and the free hunters that followed him and lived off the land met up with Darti, and for this and the next day they met further up the river, shared food and talked about what was happening in the campsite and elsewhere.
On the evening of the fifth day of the fourth week, they talked as follows:
"Is there still no word of father?" - asked Darti, for everyone has been anticipating his return from the beginning of Fiti's reign.
"No; neither among the hunters nor among the bandits, and I suppose that the fishers have likewise told you nothing." - replied Kirti.
"Indeed they are as silent as those they fish, and quite unlike the human relatives of their prey. But the godlikes say that he has likely perished and that they might soon leave." - said Darti, though he had no obvious way of knowing what the godlikes said, since they held themselves to be above speaking to the tin-miners and tin-wives, which were just about the entirety of the Arti human-family that stayed at the campsite.
"Leave?!" - exclaimed Kirti, who was cunning in his own way, but did not expect such underhanded treachery - "But then Fiti will remain the human-chief and father will remain unavenged and unable to return!"
"If you agree to my plan then we should be able to keep them from leaving and to exact our revenge in blood!" - replied Darti - "If father comes back, we shall reinstate him; but we cannot wait for much longer. If we strike within the next seven days, we shall launch an uprising against injustice, and it might succeed; if we strike later, even with father's help, then I fear that we shall instead launch a war within the family, and will surely fail in one way or another."
"Let us at least wait for the end of this week," - pleaded Kirti - "Father has prepared this rebellion; without his instruction we cannot hope to prevail."
"He had prepared that which has already failed," - pronounced Darti - "We must prepare that which shall succeed. We can wait for the end of this week, but only if we begin preparations."
"Very well, brother." - said Kirti - "Tell me what you expect of me and the free hunters."
"Listen carefully..." - said Darti.
On the seventh day of the fourth week, the tin-miners refused to go to the river; when the surprised godlikes assigned to herding them there tried to flog Darti and the other tin-miner-heads, they were quickly stabbed and slashed by iron swords that have been safely stashed near the campsite until yesterday evening, and found it necessary to retreat into the Evil-God's camp. Other godlikes rushed to see what the commotion was about and were pointed in the same direction by the tips of the spears that pierced their skins and souls. Some of the godlikes then fought their way out of the campsite and tried to hide in the wilderness, but soon ran into the sight of their brothers-patrolsmen who have been hunted down and skinned by the very same hunters that proceeded to emerge from their ambush and do the same to them. So Kono and ten other godlikes were holed up in the chief-tent with Fiti and his immediate relatives and children. The tent (which, it must be said, was quite unlike most ancient tents inasmuch as it was a long wooden building) was surrounded by two hundreds of Arti humans, who only hesitated for the fear of desecrating the tent; that said, when they finally attacked they were driven off, as Kono told the godlikes that death was before them and that they should emulate their ancestor who tore humans into shreds with his bare hands, so as to not meet his disappointment afterwards; enheartened, the well-armed godlikes grouped themselves at the two narrow entrances and fought off all attacks. Then Darti decided to wait them out; but Kono took out his bow, aimed, and killed two fishers with one arrow, and the godlikes were once more enheartened and started shooting at the hunters and fishers, forcing them to fall back. Darti cursed the Cow-God and his meddlesome offsprings and contemplated setting fire to the tent, but decided against it.
Instead, he and ten other hunters went to the edge of the justice-place; the justice-place was now cleared of the living, and its edge was just outside of Kono's range. Darti called out for Kono to emerge with his men and fight him and his fairly. Kono claimed that Darti's father was not Yereti at all, but rather was a hedgehog and said that if he did as Darti requested he would surely be attacked by all of Darti's followers and slaughtered. Darti loudly posited that Kono's mother was a cat and quietly cursed because that was indeed his plan. Kono stepped out, fired an arrow and killed the hunter who stood next to Darti, then went back into the house before any of the javelins could hit him. Thus the siege of the chief-tent continued for several more hours.
Finally, as the godlikes began to grow tired, frail old human-chief Fiti stepped out; Darti ordered the hunters to hold their fire and approached Fiti at the justice-place.
"What do you seek?" - asked Fiti.
"I seek justice." - replied Darti, in accordance with the usual formula.
"Justice against whom?"
"Justice against godlike Kono and those who came with him."
"How have they wronged you?"
"They have tried to kill my father and forced him into exile, and they took away his rank and gave it to someone else, and afterwards they behaved in an evil and injust manner with regards to my family."
"What compensation do you seek?"
"Their death."
Then Darti rushed towards the tent, followed by his hunters and fishers, whilst Fiti ran back into the tent and shouted as though he was having a stroke: the godlikes looked at him and Fiti's sons and brothers looked at the godlikes; then, as per their agreement with Fiti at the beginning of his reign, they drew their knives and threw themselves at the godlikes, finishing off most of them by the time Darti rushed into the tent and assessed the situation. Kono, who killed the three humans who had attacked him, saw Darti and Darti saw Kono; they charged each other and Kono chopped off Darti's ear with his sword whereas Darti pierced Kono's abdomen with his spear. Kono cursed and tried to rise, but Darti forced him to the ground and, taking out a knife, slit his throat.
By the first day of the fifth week, human-chief Fiti and human-child Darti had reached an agreement, and human-child Kirti recognised it as well, returning to the campsite with his "free hunters" and envoys from nearby campsites, where human-children and human-chiefs alike were displeased by Kono's conduct with regards to their men and particularly outraged by the defeat of the godlikes, which was a tell-tale sign of their evil and injustice. Envoys were sent out to the Chief-of-Chiefs, to the Lion Family and to the bandit camp; patrols were once again searching for Yereti, though with a different purpose than before; the Arti-family had risen against injustice and the Cow Family-Chief was in mourning for his son.
---
[1] Campsite in this case means a family settlement - but not to, say, trade outposts (which contain but a portion of the family, and most of it impermanently) or cities (which contain people from many different families).
[2] That is to say, all the family members that are not the immediate and direct children and relatives of the family-chief.
[3] To avoid any misunderstandings - such are the customs of backwater families. They do not apply to the Elephant Family, the godlike families and the human families in more civilised regions, where power is hereditary (though the question of inheritance law is somewhat more contentious, as North King already knows) and "shamanistic" influences are mostly negligible.
[4] Or "spirits", or "souls", but I already translated this same Moti word as "minds" before so let's go with that.
In the beginning of the reign of Eso Kotuu, there was but one campsite [1] of the Great Family, but as evil began to crack the perfect world and the Great Family apart what was one became many shards, and each shard broke further and further as the world detiriorated further and further; and therefore every campsite in the broken world of today is a misshapen reflection of the original campsite, and each campsite misshapen in its own way - some are richer and some are poorer, some are larger and some are smaller; all campsites differ also in their location and in the shape of their perimeter; each has populations of different lineages and numbers; each belongs to one family or another and within that family to another family still, and each focuses on different trades to different extents.
And yet, each campsite has its own place and is peopled by its own family, every campsite is surrounded by a pallisade, and in every campsite there is a chief-tent, a justice-place and an ancestor-temple, as well the animal-pens and the dwellings of the children [2]. Thus it was also with the campsite of the Arti human-family within the Cow Family, which was located two weeks to the east from the feast-tent of Eso Kotuu. It was situated amidst the Inner Mountains and near the Ur river that proceeded from the Inner Mountains and eventually, far to the west, entered the Yensai river; but here it in itself seemed somewhat large though not great, and the Arti humans always went there to fish and since recently also went there to gather tin, which was abundant in these waters - but of that more shall be told later. Also, the Arti humans worked the lands by the river and near the campsites, and hunted for gold and game in the mountains and the forests alike; there were goats and deer in the mountains and in more recent times there also were bandit treasures and evil foreign traders in the forests. Bandit treasures were protected by bandit arms, whereas evil foreign traders were protected by Cow Family laws; nonetheless the Arti human-family owed a heavy debt of filial piety to the Cow Family godlikes and therefore strove hard to acquire gifts for the Cow Family-Chief.
What to say of the Arti human-family itself? It was no bigger and no smaller than the most, and its men were accomplished hunters who often clashed with the humans from other nearby families, as well as the bandits from the nearby outcast-camp, but for as long as the oldest members of the family could remember it always stayed away from the rest of the Moti Great Family and the rest of the Moti Great Family stayed away as well: only the neighbouring human-families and the Cow Family godlikes occassionally visited the Arti human-family campsite, the former to trade and the latter to collect gifts; and sometimes the human-chief and his immediate relatives visited the Cow Family-Chief in the godlike campsite, to present gifts by themselves and partake in the feast, from which they brought back memories of good food and evil customs, as well as of the wealth and of the decadence of the godlikes - and all those things grew with every visit, because evil grew stronger and spread farther with every generation, and so it eventually came to the Arti as well, as the godlikes began visiting the campsite more and more often, and demanded more and more gifts, and when some young human-children protested those abuses they were beaten and expelled, so the Arti human-family was forced to recognise that its debt of filial loyalty to the Cow Family godlikes was heavy indeed. As though that were not enough, evil foreign traders began coming through the Arti lands and buying and selling at unjust prices as was their wont, and when the Arti humans began killing them and taking their goods for free, the Cow Family godlikes attacked them as though those traders were their kin and, unable to find the killers, demanded more gifts as a compensation to the friends and families of the traders - and the human-chief, threatened with exile, found no choice but to agree. And another evil thing happened: not much later the almost harmless nearby outcast-camp turned into a veritable campsite of the Evil Family, as bandits gathered there from everywhere and attacked everyone, and some even said that the Arti men that have been expelled by the godlikes went joined them too - and the strangest of things happened, as some began to envy them.
Of the familial temple it must be said that it was dedicated to Arti, the human-ancestor of the human-family; and outside of the campsite it was generally known that he was one of the many children of Tikhupata Afono-Gog, the fertile Cow Family-Chief, and as much as often said within the campsite as well; but in recent years some began saying that he was indeed a son, but an adapted one - for Arti was orphan, whose father was perhaps killed by the Lion Family, or perhaps by the Cow Family itself. At first it were mostly the family-members that said that Arti's father was killed by the Lion Family, but no more than fifteen years ago a wise-man visited the campsite and, having impressed the people with his wisdom and magic, stayed for the night as the chief's guest; and on the morning he came to the justice-place, which was a clearing in front of the chief-tent, and told to those who had gathered there that in truth the father of Arti was killed by the Cow Family so that it could enslave the Arti-family and all of its relatives; the godlike representatives were not there to dispute his claim, having left the campsite three days ago after having taken many gifts, broken the table in the feast-tent whilst drunk and ordered the Arti-family to prepare seventy seven buckets of tin by the time they return next year; and for the rest of the year the Arti pondered his words, though he had long gone further in his wanderings. When the year ended the godlikes returned and were outraged that their requested gifts were nowhere to be found, so their leader exiled the human-chief who had protested that the Arti were hunters and not miners, and demanded that from now on the humans send twenty-one buckets of tin to the godlike campsite every year. And after they left it turned out that many family members had indeed been convinced by the wandering wise-man. Monthly sacrifices to Arti and annual sacrifices to Tikhupata Afono-Gog were sent just like before, but the new human-chief, Yereti, no longer called out to Tikhupata Afono-Gog when sacrificing to Arti, and instead cried out to the father; thus the godlikes thought that he still meant Tikhupata Afono-Gog, but the Arti humans knew that he meant someone else.
Of this Yereti it must be said that he was an uncle to the previous human-chief, but that when the Arti humans gathered in the justice-place to decide upon a new human-chief [3] he was quickly elected not because of his close relations, but rather because he was already respected and obeyed by most of the Arti human-family, for he was a shaman [3] before he was a chief and he spoke to the minds [4] of the deceased and so was able to acquire great and special wisdom which immensely helped hunters, fishers and wives alike as long as they obeyed him - and obey him they did. For all the preceding years, though many chiefs changed due to the spread of evil, he did not want to be the chief, and so they obeyed him by not as much as mentioning him on the day of the elections; now he changed his mind and so the chief he became, because clearly he had a good reason to want to become such. Even before this the hunters hunted and the fishers fished as he instructed them; now he instructed the hunters to hunt for treasures and merchant camps, and the fishers to fish for tin. Soon, plentiful gifts of tin, coin and gem alike began to go to the godlike campsite, and the new Cow Family-Chief, Third-Frono, became content and even began sending some reciprocal gifts, so as to encourage the newly pious human-family; and in the meantime Yereti also sent out hunters to the outcast-camp and to Moti-city, and in the former he sought friends whereas in the latter he bought iron weapons with the Cow Family-Chief's reciprocal gifts. Thus things proceeded for the next ten years, and those years were surely fortunate; but one day several bruised evil foreign traders bereft of any goods other than their torn and bloodied clothes arrived before the Cow Family-Chief. Before he could throw those vagrants out they told him that the Arti humans were attacking caravans that went across the Inner Mountains to trade with the other human-families there, and robbed them and used the stolen goods to bribe bandits to attack the loyal human-families within the Cow Family. So the Cow Family-Chief threw them in the dungeon for impersonating foreign traders and sent his youngest immediate son, Kono, to investigate this, because it was not the first time that he had heard suspicious truths and truth-like allegations about the Arti human-family and its newfound wealth, and he very much wanted to take this wealth for himself and his family, because he was greedy and animal-minded; and so was Kono.
Kono and twenty-eight godlikes, each decked out in familial bronze armour and armed with foreign-bought iron spears and swords, rode on their white and brown steeds (gifts of the southern human-families) to the Inner Mountains. They were immediately greeted by Arti hunters that invited them to visit the Arti human family campsite, where human-chief Yereti was anticipating their arrival for two weeks now. Kono remembered that the merchants only arrived a week ago and realised that Yereti was doubtless a powerful shaman; so he ordered his men to carefully knock out the hunters lest their minds escape from their bodies to warn Yereti and rode to another campsite instead. Then to another, and the one after that; and everywhere he conscripted young men to a militia, which he then ordered to pretend to be slaves as he and his retinue belatedly arrived at the Arti human-family campsite. Yereti looked at the godlikes and their entourage, sighed and allowed them in. During the welcome-feast the slaves suddenly freed themselves and started attacking the elders and lineage-heads of the Arti human-family that were gathered there; Kono shouted that they were rebelling and rallied the Arti defenders against them, then arrested all the elders and lineage-heads and ordered his militiamen to stand down. Great was his surprise when it turned out that Yereti, who knew what happened to his hunters and easily saw through the trick with the slaves, had apparently escaped somewhere at the beginning of the havoc; he grumbled, but nonetheless released his militiamen and took charge of the campsite, appointing Fiti, one of the elders, as human-chief, gathering gifts by force and sending out patrols to search for Yereti and messengers for more godlike warriors to be sent to him after he had discovered the bandit-camp.
Now, human-chief Yereti had two sons, long before he was a human-chief: at first he had Darti and four years later he had Kirti, and though neither of them were shamans, both were strong and cunning hunters, each in his own way. Darti preffered to command bands of men and hunted mainly for bandits and later for merchants; as for Kirti, as he grew up he sometimes accompanied his immediate brother, but more often he wandered off by himself and hunted beasts. Both because of his age and because of his disposition towards leadership, Darti involved himself in familial affairs from since when he became seventeen and his father became the human-chief; Kirti also supported his father within the family and helped his hunters conduct negotiations with the bandits, but on the whole he was not wholly interested in familial affairs, because he was a man of a singular passion and that passion was hunting. When Kono took over the camp, Kirti was hunting, whereas Darti was at the welcome-feast. Darti helped his father escape into the wilderness and himself hid out in the campsite for the first four weeks of Fiti's reign; he disguised himself as a poor fisherman and was sent to mine tin, as were many hunters slightly later on. There he spoke with the disgruntled and starving hunters and fishers alike, and so learned that Yereti had successfully disappeared, whereas Kirti never returned from his hunt - and neither did many other hunters, especially after Kono started sending them to the tin stream as well. On the fourth day of the fourth week Kirti and the free hunters that followed him and lived off the land met up with Darti, and for this and the next day they met further up the river, shared food and talked about what was happening in the campsite and elsewhere.
On the evening of the fifth day of the fourth week, they talked as follows:
"Is there still no word of father?" - asked Darti, for everyone has been anticipating his return from the beginning of Fiti's reign.
"No; neither among the hunters nor among the bandits, and I suppose that the fishers have likewise told you nothing." - replied Kirti.
"Indeed they are as silent as those they fish, and quite unlike the human relatives of their prey. But the godlikes say that he has likely perished and that they might soon leave." - said Darti, though he had no obvious way of knowing what the godlikes said, since they held themselves to be above speaking to the tin-miners and tin-wives, which were just about the entirety of the Arti human-family that stayed at the campsite.
"Leave?!" - exclaimed Kirti, who was cunning in his own way, but did not expect such underhanded treachery - "But then Fiti will remain the human-chief and father will remain unavenged and unable to return!"
"If you agree to my plan then we should be able to keep them from leaving and to exact our revenge in blood!" - replied Darti - "If father comes back, we shall reinstate him; but we cannot wait for much longer. If we strike within the next seven days, we shall launch an uprising against injustice, and it might succeed; if we strike later, even with father's help, then I fear that we shall instead launch a war within the family, and will surely fail in one way or another."
"Let us at least wait for the end of this week," - pleaded Kirti - "Father has prepared this rebellion; without his instruction we cannot hope to prevail."
"He had prepared that which has already failed," - pronounced Darti - "We must prepare that which shall succeed. We can wait for the end of this week, but only if we begin preparations."
"Very well, brother." - said Kirti - "Tell me what you expect of me and the free hunters."
"Listen carefully..." - said Darti.
On the seventh day of the fourth week, the tin-miners refused to go to the river; when the surprised godlikes assigned to herding them there tried to flog Darti and the other tin-miner-heads, they were quickly stabbed and slashed by iron swords that have been safely stashed near the campsite until yesterday evening, and found it necessary to retreat into the Evil-God's camp. Other godlikes rushed to see what the commotion was about and were pointed in the same direction by the tips of the spears that pierced their skins and souls. Some of the godlikes then fought their way out of the campsite and tried to hide in the wilderness, but soon ran into the sight of their brothers-patrolsmen who have been hunted down and skinned by the very same hunters that proceeded to emerge from their ambush and do the same to them. So Kono and ten other godlikes were holed up in the chief-tent with Fiti and his immediate relatives and children. The tent (which, it must be said, was quite unlike most ancient tents inasmuch as it was a long wooden building) was surrounded by two hundreds of Arti humans, who only hesitated for the fear of desecrating the tent; that said, when they finally attacked they were driven off, as Kono told the godlikes that death was before them and that they should emulate their ancestor who tore humans into shreds with his bare hands, so as to not meet his disappointment afterwards; enheartened, the well-armed godlikes grouped themselves at the two narrow entrances and fought off all attacks. Then Darti decided to wait them out; but Kono took out his bow, aimed, and killed two fishers with one arrow, and the godlikes were once more enheartened and started shooting at the hunters and fishers, forcing them to fall back. Darti cursed the Cow-God and his meddlesome offsprings and contemplated setting fire to the tent, but decided against it.
Instead, he and ten other hunters went to the edge of the justice-place; the justice-place was now cleared of the living, and its edge was just outside of Kono's range. Darti called out for Kono to emerge with his men and fight him and his fairly. Kono claimed that Darti's father was not Yereti at all, but rather was a hedgehog and said that if he did as Darti requested he would surely be attacked by all of Darti's followers and slaughtered. Darti loudly posited that Kono's mother was a cat and quietly cursed because that was indeed his plan. Kono stepped out, fired an arrow and killed the hunter who stood next to Darti, then went back into the house before any of the javelins could hit him. Thus the siege of the chief-tent continued for several more hours.
Finally, as the godlikes began to grow tired, frail old human-chief Fiti stepped out; Darti ordered the hunters to hold their fire and approached Fiti at the justice-place.
"What do you seek?" - asked Fiti.
"I seek justice." - replied Darti, in accordance with the usual formula.
"Justice against whom?"
"Justice against godlike Kono and those who came with him."
"How have they wronged you?"
"They have tried to kill my father and forced him into exile, and they took away his rank and gave it to someone else, and afterwards they behaved in an evil and injust manner with regards to my family."
"What compensation do you seek?"
"Their death."
Then Darti rushed towards the tent, followed by his hunters and fishers, whilst Fiti ran back into the tent and shouted as though he was having a stroke: the godlikes looked at him and Fiti's sons and brothers looked at the godlikes; then, as per their agreement with Fiti at the beginning of his reign, they drew their knives and threw themselves at the godlikes, finishing off most of them by the time Darti rushed into the tent and assessed the situation. Kono, who killed the three humans who had attacked him, saw Darti and Darti saw Kono; they charged each other and Kono chopped off Darti's ear with his sword whereas Darti pierced Kono's abdomen with his spear. Kono cursed and tried to rise, but Darti forced him to the ground and, taking out a knife, slit his throat.
By the first day of the fifth week, human-chief Fiti and human-child Darti had reached an agreement, and human-child Kirti recognised it as well, returning to the campsite with his "free hunters" and envoys from nearby campsites, where human-children and human-chiefs alike were displeased by Kono's conduct with regards to their men and particularly outraged by the defeat of the godlikes, which was a tell-tale sign of their evil and injustice. Envoys were sent out to the Chief-of-Chiefs, to the Lion Family and to the bandit camp; patrols were once again searching for Yereti, though with a different purpose than before; the Arti-family had risen against injustice and the Cow Family-Chief was in mourning for his son.
---
[1] Campsite in this case means a family settlement - but not to, say, trade outposts (which contain but a portion of the family, and most of it impermanently) or cities (which contain people from many different families).
[2] That is to say, all the family members that are not the immediate and direct children and relatives of the family-chief.
[3] To avoid any misunderstandings - such are the customs of backwater families. They do not apply to the Elephant Family, the godlike families and the human families in more civilised regions, where power is hereditary (though the question of inheritance law is somewhat more contentious, as North King already knows) and "shamanistic" influences are mostly negligible.
[4] Or "spirits", or "souls", but I already translated this same Moti word as "minds" before so let's go with that.
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
I just realised that I am actually being somewhat anxious about North King updating too soon (since my aforewhinedabout schedule problems have gotten in the way of me writing nearly as much as was intended during the weekend). It's a very weird and confusing feeling, though I am sure it will pass.
Well, I only have about 3 or 4 days left of my break, so if I don't get it done soon...
das
Regeneration In Process
You do have the necessary orders now, right?
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
Not really. I'm still missing a few important ones.
Cuivienen
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2003
- Messages
- 8,011
Thanks for the answer, NK. I should have a few stories written over the coming days which I will PM to you. They should probably count towards the next update rather than this one, however.
Also, if important nations didn't send orders by now, just have them make some major but not fatal tactical error. Great nations decline suddenly and much more often in real history than they do in NESes as it is.
Also, if important nations didn't send orders by now, just have them make some major but not fatal tactical error. Great nations decline suddenly and much more often in real history than they do in NESes as it is.
Vertinari118
Deity
I second that! Empires who are lazy or distrated in RL make mistakes and die. In the Nesing world we should be more forgiving but not too forgiving. If you can NK write around them and see orders appear otherwise please get cracking.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
While I agree, I believe that moderators should be much less forgiving to players that forget orders. Anything that can go wrong, should and will. 
At the least, an apathetic player should translate into apathetic and weak willed leadership.
At the least, an apathetic player should translate into apathetic and weak willed leadership.
Well, when I moderate, I usually equate no orders as apathetic and/or mildly inept leadership. Also, people shouldn't have to cover all of their bases- it's pointless, and should be taken for granted that they have taken the most basic and obvious measures.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
just noting that my gf just called, orders are 75% complete.
lurker's comment: What is obvious to someone might not be obvious to someone else.
conehead234
Braves on the Warpath
You got my orders right?
