THE STORY SO FAR...

Well, the game's been running a month or so now so I thought I'd furnish my many (pah!) readers with an update...


PROLOGUE (view the game thread here)


Our tale unfolds at the camp of K'harg, war-chief of all the Hulun tribe. The new moon of the great auroch spirit, Xa signals that winter is passing and the Hulun must begin their migration toward the highlands. Winter has been hard and K'harg's band of warriors has grown, with many smaller bands flocking to him for protection during the cold, lean months.


The passing of winter is usually celebrated with a great feast, and three young shaman Bolen, Wyk and Grimach have busied themselves with many preparations, under the watchful eye of High Shaman Moraath. Tongues wag around the camp that an earlier scouting party- led by the taciturn Daromir- has been away for many days. His eventual return does nothing to quell the band's anxieties: his scouts depart on horseback almost immediately, and the Daromir spends most of the day in secretive counsel with K'harg.


The feast begins with a riotous celebration of the coming of spring: Lugana and Tudaam- both promising bars- perform the traditional song, dance and drumming whilst warriors Ret and Grolik engage in mock combat. Celebrations are cut short when K'harg announces that their traditional grazing lands have been usurped by an enemy tribe, the Raven, and he gathers a host about him to meet the invader head on.


Though many elder and less experienced fighters remain to protect the camp, there is a great deal of concern that they are vulnerable to attack. The warrior Bundu organises a guard, sending the young tribespeople to stand sentry against potential infiltrators. On one side of the camp, a shadowy figure is spotted in the long grass, who some believe to be the troubled young sorcerer Marek. He flees before he is apprehended. On the other side, Ret, Lugana and Bolen deal with a wild animal. Too late they realise that the panther they have slaughtered belongs to the wandering druid-shaman, Lomnu. This ill omen is swiftly followed by a mysterious fire at the tent of Marek's father. The camp quickly deal with the flames but tensions run high , with many accusing Marek of having started the blaze. Marek, meanwhile, appears to have fled the camp- much to the dismay of elder Fanwé, who had hoped she might be able to take him on as her apprentice. Though she appeals for clear heads, his guilt is cemented by the claims of the young girl Nina, who says she witnessed him start the blaze.


There are many questions about Marek's guilt: the fire appears to have been accelerated by the use of birch tar, a rare material only manufactured at the nearby village of Forl. Whoever is responsible, the uneasy truth that there is at least one traitor amongst the camp hangs overhead. Fearful and wary, the night is long for many of the tribe, with a round-the-clock guard posted. Those who do get sleep are troubled by disturbing dreams of some impending doom... whether the new day eases troubled hearts and answers worrying questions remains to be seen. Whatever it may bring, few are optimistic whilst the best warriors are far away, fighting the opening battle of what may prove to be a great and bloody war.

UPDATED TRIBES TAB

I've added some pretty pictures to the tribes tab...

...have a look

MAP OF THE PLAINS

Here's a crude map of the plains I've managed to fashion on photoshop soon as I get a new scanner, expect much more imagery on the site, hand drawn too!

And for the total nerds out there, here's the political boundaries amongst the tribes:

I'll stick this up on the "tribes" tab, I think... if you want a larger image, please visit the World Information thread at dndog

INSPIRATION

In the real world, contemporary civilisation owes everything to that period in history, many thousands of years ago, when men and women forsook their nomadic existence and began to cultivate the land. This was only possible through the domestication of crops and animals and huge changes to a way of life that had defined human culture for millennia.

The social, political and economic changes that occur in such a time period are the stuff of high drama: I imagined a setting somehow caught between the neolithic transition period, the rampaging of the Indo-European horseman (like the Scythians, in the Viktor Vasnetsov's painting below) and the growth of the central Asian empires (Babylon, Assyria, Persia).

For the campaign setting, I imagined a vast plain criss-crossed by rivers, much like the Ukraine steppe. I was helped along by this image of Kamyana Mohlya site, featuring neolithic and bronze age statuary with petroglyphs:

Of course, when thinking of barbarian horseman the Mongolians are never far from one's mind. The land they inhabited was also an inspiration for the geography of the Plains, particularly the uplands. This beautiful picture was taken in the Mongolian steppe and arrives courtesy smashingspy.com

In the fantasy world of the plains, most tribes follow pastoralist/ hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies, and I have looked at peoples practising this today. This photograph by Brent Sturton is of a Samburu elder, east Kenya.

The plains are dry, but temperate. This image by the same photographer serves as a reminder of the impact of drought on hotter areas.  

Look at these beautiful axes! The neolithic brought with it refinement of stone technology. Grinding stones were utilised to bring these objects to a fine finish, providing them with a keener edge, but also decorative qualities. Image courtesy wikicommons.

The British museum has been particularly inspirational, but I really love old monochromatic field illustrations like the one below. It's impossible to genuinely reconstruct neolithic life, but a lot of fun can be had imagining our ancestors utilising these implements as the engage with the prehistoric environment. Image courtesy http://iws.collin.edu/rfender/image.html

Though much later in history, I found the story of Native Americans and the horse particularly interesting. When the conquistadores first arrived in the New World, many Aztecs believed that horse and man were one creature, having never seen the beast before. It did not take long for the Apache to master horsemanship, however. I find the storyof the mustang (feral horses descended from the steeds of the conquistadores) enthralling, too.

 The culture of traditional peoples across the world gives us a hint of our paleolithic and neolithic ancestors lived, but we must be wary of making comparissons: these peoples have tradition and history, they are not frozen snapshots of the past! Nevertheless, in a fantasy setting there is nothing to stop the author from borrowing from whatever sources he or she feels fit. I picked out this photograph of Sami people (of northern Scandinavia, Finland and Russia) as an example of how I imagine the Hulun home life might be: small family groups living in mobile tents, organised in larger bands.

Though the image below is of the steppe in Argentina, it is a beautiful example of the kind of landscape the Hulun inhabit.

The paintings at Lascaux- though predating the neolithic- display the veneration of man for horse. Horses were a vital part of human culture.

The auroch was the wild ancestor of the cow: archaeologists believe that this fierce, territorial east was the last to be domesticated, and it would have almost certainly taken place in sedentry, not nomadic communities. But my vision for the Hulun was a tribe always on the move with a close tie to this creature, something contradicted by archaeological evidence which suggests that pastoralists who herded cattle would have either acquired them from sedentary peoples or begun life as settled farmers. Fortunately, in a fantasy world where shaman and spiritual leaders have real magical powers, the Hulun are able to exist alongside semi-wild herds whilst carrying out some practices of real-life pastoralists like castrating bullocks and drawing blood from livestock. This is where I imagined the tribes adepts would find much gainful employment!

When picturing the plainsfolk I imagined that they represented every possible physical variation on the human phenotype. Black, white, red, yellow or brown with no clear divisions between the tribes beyond the cultural. There was no politically correct agenda at play here: having placed a raft of restrictions on players (no non-humans, limited equipment, no starting gold, limited class options) I wanted to give players the chance to create a character that looked however they wanted. Of course, I have manufactured a reason for this situation arising, which shall be revealed later in the campaign...

This has justified my pick and  mix approach to cultural appropriation: I've paid particularly close attention to the Mongolians, however. Not only is the traditional way of life of the people of Mongolia based upon trans-humance, pastoralism and equestrianism; they also have some amazing tattoos.

The woman on the right is pretty much how I imagined the tribal elder, Fanwé, even before I saw the image.

And finally, there is the magical lyric to "The Day We Fell in Love" by French indie electro pop band, Appaloosa:

"A fluo rose is a fluo rose is a fluo rose

I wonder how many girls are into horses, and write on this planet.
What is more normal than that? 'Normal', what a charming word.

When I was a little girl, my bedroom was covered with posters of horses.
Like 100,000 other bedrooms. And then- as a teenager- things changed. I felt strange. Things could feel strange before, when I was a child, but as a teenager it became way more strange. I started to write, not that I wanted to become a writer, but it just became very normal to write. I was using a fountain pen and a notebook. There is something quite prehistoric I think, about a bedroom covered with posters of horses: it is somehow like the walls of the cave-men.

As I was writing, horses were stepping out of my bedroom.

It was the prehistoire uh the prehistory of the little girls everywhere.

They were wearing jeans or skirts there were no genders nothing like think this way behave this way talk this way.I think when you write you free horses.

They wer all watching the same cartoons, reading the same books, Harlem Globetrotters, Christiane F, stuff like this. And it started then.

I always wanted to have a sister when I was a kid.

And I think I found one, a sister.

One day, the posters of horses were replaced by posters of musicians, singers, rock stars.
I was a teenager, and THEN I grew up and I went to New York. And that's where I met my sister.

One day, she asked me how you say hair in French and I said "yeh cheveux"

And she said 'CHEVEAUX'

Les CHEVEAUX dans le vent...

Les CHEVEAUX dans le vent...What do you think: horses are masculine or feminine?

I think they are both, like children.

Two hearts. Unchained. Flying"

...yet another new tab...

So, the game seems to be going well: everyone's still feeling their way around their characters (and we're not yet stuck-in to the adventure proper) but so far the interest level has been steady and the post quality excellent.

In other news, I've just posted YET ANOTHER page on the blog, this one entitled "Growing Up Amongst the Hulun". It's my attempt to offer a snapshot of life in the plains by following the path from birth to death. Once again I've managed to produce something that is both sprawling AND incomprehensive (though hopefully comprehensible)! If you have some time to kill, please have a look. As usual, I've linked it here but there should be a new tab for you to click on just above.

As a post script, I should add that as soon as my shoulder is healed I'm going to be drawing like a man possessed, so hopefully I'll get some "art" up here soon, if only because pages and pages of prose make for tired eyes...

MYTHS AND LEGENDS

There's a new page up detailing just a few of the myths and legends of the plains. I plan to add to this as bards, spirit shaman and clerics recount tales of heroes and deities. Already Achard- playing the young bard Lugana- has produced an excellent account of the legend of the Great Spirit of the Auroch, Xa!

The page can be found here or follow the tab at the top of the page. Read and enjoy!

LANGUAGES

New page devoted to the languages of the plains updated, follow this link or the tab at the top of the page.