MNES: The Tides of Change
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Neverwonagame3
Self-Styled Intellectual
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That is an idea, but could you give me some inspiration? I don't have enough to sustain a decent story (even by my standards...) in this setting.
Write 'A day in the life of ______' to explore everyday life in your nation, showing how some things which we might view as bizarre are common in their culture. Create a crisis in the leadership! Write about your leaders- are they backbiting opportunists, noble warriors, pirates, or something entirely else? Write about an explorer visiting another country, or a sailor heading upriver. Write a little myth to illuminate your culture's beliefs? Write a NESer totem story! Penguins, Polar Bears, Pandas, etc... pick your own species!
Neverwonagame3
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Thanks. While the nation isn't unified, I'll try one of them.
I know that Acolhnahuacatahkushtal (A-kol-na-hwa-ka-ta-kush-tal... that's a mouthful. Akolna hwakata kushtal...) is less than unified- that makes it all the better for story material! There's little good material to be gotten from a perfectly unified state with one ruler other than stories along the lines of 'My advisors tell me that this has happened, I will point at a map and declare that my infalliable will shall be done to correct this situation'. 
Sorry for the delay, I've ran into numerous errors, or oddities I found within the stat calculator, which I just fixed or adjusted yesterday. Expect the update by the end of the week.
Also, is there anything I can do to help foster story writing with this setting? I know I've been general, but this is a BT over a 1,000 years, its hard not to be rather vague and general.
Also, is there anything I can do to help foster story writing with this setting? I know I've been general, but this is a BT over a 1,000 years, its hard not to be rather vague and general.
Milarqui
Deity
THing is that I don't know what exactly to write about. It isn't as if I have hundreds of things to talk about. Maybe it could be something about how I manage to expand the Apple Trade with my neighbours, but I'm not sure if it could work out...
T_F
Reynardine the Great
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A problem I've found I have with story writing is that I want to write about what I intend to do in the update. The problem is, I can't post it before the update because I'm revealing my actions, and it feels wrong to post it after the update, because it's as if the actions I'm describing have already been described (especially if it has to do with preparations for stuff that's already happened in the update).
Abaddon
Deity
Update closing in yet?
Milarqui
Deity
Any chance of having the update tomorrow? I'm leaving next Saturday on a four-day trip with my family.
Eh, I haven't been able to get much time to work on it until now. The entire north is done, working on the south, and then I have a third to do which will be much easier then the first two. The stats will take awhile because I have to add many more country slots plus make sure all the new changes are in.
Edit: I'm finally getting somewhere with the south! Expect the update by 3:00 PM EST tomorrow, and if it isn't done then, then not till Sunday. It'd be nice if we could get this to the top of the next page.
Abaddon
Deity
I'm sure we can manage that 
T_F
Reynardine the Great
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You can post them after the orders deadline because there is nothing that can be done about revealing your plans by other players. The NES Guide goes more into depth about this IIRC.
Well, that makes sense. <_<
I hope the update isn't before Sunday, since I'll be on a weeklong trip starting then and not getting back till the next Sunday.
Seems I was a tad confused about what you meant. Since I'm rather vague about the events in the update, you can write a story going more in depth than what I do in the update, despite being about the same thing, by possibly using the methods that Iggy listed earlier, which as he mentioned, can also clue us in more to your culture or something esle. It also helps me updating if you weren't as in depth in your orders as you were in a possible story. Either way, I'm not really the stories expert, seeing as I don't write that many myself, the NES Guide also helps, and then Iggy and NWAG seem to write many also of good quality, reading theirs could help.
Personally, I really like reading stories that give an indepth look at someone else's culture that you otherwise don't see in updates. Another thing that's fun to do is drawing- architecture, people, how they look and dress, and so on.
Egnoligo Institute for Anthropological Studies: Restored replica of the 'Ahndigo Map'. Medium: Clay. Location: 20 km from the Historical Coastline of Lake Zreva, Near Present-Day City of Edzervoy. Unearthed by S. Kareng and Egnoligo Students. Dated 3200 Years Prior to Present, with an inaccuracy of 50 years. Believed to be the craftwork of an early Suretegan Culture, displaying the world as known to its maker or makers at the time. Annotations Translated.
T_F
Reynardine the Great
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Since I can't draw anything worth crap, I'll write culture stories then. (Thanks for the advice, everyone!)
Here's one (it's a bit long, it just started to flow):
Savalyaru was on his way to the library. It was a new library, since this town was fairly new - one of the government-sponsored fishing towns along the coast - but it got a library since according to the statisticians it was one of the fastest-growing towns in Emitaru. Out here in the country, it surprised a lot of people that he could read, since he wasn't particularly rich or anything, but pretty much anyone that had lived in Everu at some point knew how to read. It was one of those things you just picked up. Savalyaru remembered one day as a kid, he had seen a man scratching electoral propaganda on a wall, and had asked him what he was writing. The man had said, 'It says "Vote for Kavaru!" Don't forget to tell your parents to!', and walked off. Savalyaru had been interested in the concept of writing ever since, and had been slightly disappointed when he had realized that it was nothing more than an arbitrary assignment of symbols to sounds. But that was ok - the wealth of information it afforded more than made up for it's lack of magicalness.
Wealth of information, if you lived in Everu. Out here, the library was small, and getting smaller - despite the frequent shipments of texts, it was still getting smaller due to its inability to easily keep track of books. At the moment, checking out books under fake names and then selling them was an unfortunately viable way of making a living (another detriment to living in a small town was that the police were rarely competent). Ah well - what he could get at least passed the time, and the librarians had come to love him for actually returning his books.
At the moment he was returning Various Poems by Fourth-Century Authors, a bit of a long anthology, but interesting nonetheless. He didn't know what he might find to check out, he was hoping they still had Ösjikaru's A Grammar of Acolhnahuacatahkushtal, hopefully no one had stolen it yet. If he got lucky, he might splurge and check out two - not that the fee was very large, but two at once was just a bit much for a fisherman trying to sell his catch in a town where that was the basis of the local economy. Whatever he found, though, he would be happy - even the dryest text on agriculture was interesting on days when the fish weren't biting.
The library was now just around the corner. He reached it, walked up the steps, and opened the door.
Here's one (it's a bit long, it just started to flow):
Savalyaru was on his way to the library. It was a new library, since this town was fairly new - one of the government-sponsored fishing towns along the coast - but it got a library since according to the statisticians it was one of the fastest-growing towns in Emitaru. Out here in the country, it surprised a lot of people that he could read, since he wasn't particularly rich or anything, but pretty much anyone that had lived in Everu at some point knew how to read. It was one of those things you just picked up. Savalyaru remembered one day as a kid, he had seen a man scratching electoral propaganda on a wall, and had asked him what he was writing. The man had said, 'It says "Vote for Kavaru!" Don't forget to tell your parents to!', and walked off. Savalyaru had been interested in the concept of writing ever since, and had been slightly disappointed when he had realized that it was nothing more than an arbitrary assignment of symbols to sounds. But that was ok - the wealth of information it afforded more than made up for it's lack of magicalness.
Wealth of information, if you lived in Everu. Out here, the library was small, and getting smaller - despite the frequent shipments of texts, it was still getting smaller due to its inability to easily keep track of books. At the moment, checking out books under fake names and then selling them was an unfortunately viable way of making a living (another detriment to living in a small town was that the police were rarely competent). Ah well - what he could get at least passed the time, and the librarians had come to love him for actually returning his books.
At the moment he was returning Various Poems by Fourth-Century Authors, a bit of a long anthology, but interesting nonetheless. He didn't know what he might find to check out, he was hoping they still had Ösjikaru's A Grammar of Acolhnahuacatahkushtal, hopefully no one had stolen it yet. If he got lucky, he might splurge and check out two - not that the fee was very large, but two at once was just a bit much for a fisherman trying to sell his catch in a town where that was the basis of the local economy. Whatever he found, though, he would be happy - even the dryest text on agriculture was interesting on days when the fish weren't biting.
The library was now just around the corner. He reached it, walked up the steps, and opened the door.
Neverwonagame3
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EDIT: I don't envision the Acolhnahuacatahkushtal as having a unified grammar- others might percieve it as such plausibly, but this may make T_F's story partially invalid.
A Chieftan's Title
Within the Acolhnahuacatahkushtal, there are significant distinctions. Only a common system of Confederations is completely ubiquitous- between tribes, there are significant cultural differences.
For example, the practice of the Acazin tribes with regard to their Chief's titles is seen by other Acolhnahuacatahkushtal as pompous, arrogant, and weird- a contributing factor to their strategic policy being one of self-defence instead of expansion.
According to tradition, each Chief measures himself up to his predecessors. Every Chief has the titles Chief of the Acazin and Representative of the (Whatever Confederation they're in at the moment).
According to Acazin tradition Chiefs will gain more titles if they are better as a Chief, and lose titles if they are worse. The problem is that the Chief himself is the judge in his own case.
As a result, over title there is a phenomena of "titular inflation"- a man by the name of Chief Ghanan, for example, called himself Chief of the Acazin, Representative of the Ah Kin Confederation, Defeater of Francisco, Enemy of Elbanco, Creator of Peace and Prosperity, Defender of Our Mountain, Maintainer of the Sacred Tradition, Negotiator of the Great Treaty, and Lord of All Deer and Fishes.
The impression given by "Lord of All Deer and Fishes" in particular was very bad for Acazin's reputation in the world- Chief Ghanan claimed to have a "strange empathy" with deers and fishes, but in reality it was a poorly thought out excuse for an extra title. Dignity required that a title would never be dropped once it was taken up, but it would take years for the "Lord of All Deer and Fishes" to live it down.
A Chieftan's Title
Within the Acolhnahuacatahkushtal, there are significant distinctions. Only a common system of Confederations is completely ubiquitous- between tribes, there are significant cultural differences.
For example, the practice of the Acazin tribes with regard to their Chief's titles is seen by other Acolhnahuacatahkushtal as pompous, arrogant, and weird- a contributing factor to their strategic policy being one of self-defence instead of expansion.
According to tradition, each Chief measures himself up to his predecessors. Every Chief has the titles Chief of the Acazin and Representative of the (Whatever Confederation they're in at the moment).
According to Acazin tradition Chiefs will gain more titles if they are better as a Chief, and lose titles if they are worse. The problem is that the Chief himself is the judge in his own case.
As a result, over title there is a phenomena of "titular inflation"- a man by the name of Chief Ghanan, for example, called himself Chief of the Acazin, Representative of the Ah Kin Confederation, Defeater of Francisco, Enemy of Elbanco, Creator of Peace and Prosperity, Defender of Our Mountain, Maintainer of the Sacred Tradition, Negotiator of the Great Treaty, and Lord of All Deer and Fishes.
The impression given by "Lord of All Deer and Fishes" in particular was very bad for Acazin's reputation in the world- Chief Ghanan claimed to have a "strange empathy" with deers and fishes, but in reality it was a poorly thought out excuse for an extra title. Dignity required that a title would never be dropped once it was taken up, but it would take years for the "Lord of All Deer and Fishes" to live it down.
Great stories guys! T_F- if I may ask, how did Emitaru grow to be so advanced so as to have democracy, widespread literacy, government sponsorship, bookbinding and statisticians so early in its history? It's kind of unrealistic for our time period (I would guess it to currently be around the equivalent of 1000 BC) and I think it takes a bit of the sense of wonder out of development if a nation starts off with so much advancement already under its belt.
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed reading this!
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed reading this!
