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>>3937842
You think about the options for a few moments. Scouting out the deep forest settlement would allow the two groups to finally decide on whether they’d stay or leave while also allowing for their village to become a valuable trade partner if it is indeed on the river coast. However, how should you do it? You can’t just let the groups send their own scouts because it would take forever and potentially endanger them. The same applies to hiring monster hunters. You would prefer to look into boat building instead even though you could easily go there yourself. Then… maybe Mina? Yeah, she is powerful enough for the trip to pose next to no threat to her and it might as well be the first test.

You find your new muse meditating in Nike’s shrine. She stands up and greets you: “Good day, goddess Agatha. How may I help you?” You explain that you need her to check the existence of a settlement. She only needs to check that it is there and that it is on the bank of the same river that runs near to Farsalos, no need for first contact. If it is there, the tribals would introduce themselves once they arrive. She replies that it shouldn’t take more than a day and she will move out immediately. You nod and leave her so that she can gear up.

In the meantime, you take a hike to the river to size up your future dock. The river is around 90 meters wide and about 14 meters deep on average making it into a good barrier that protects Farsalos farms from most of the monsters that live further to the north of it. This is the reason why the fields are clustered in this area and not just surrounding the settlement like in many other villages and towns. There is currently no way to cross it other than swimming so if you want to expand further north, you’d need to construct a bridge. The biggest boon of rivers in the modern day is rapid bulk transport. If more settlements are established on its banks it would be possible to trade and ship materials faster than what paved roads would allow. Even if the deep forest settlement no longer exists, construction of a dock and a few boats would be a decent investment. How should you do it…

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>>3937848
>Just boats (1 day): In this time, you can build four small barges designed to carry a dozen people each. These boats would need to get carried back on the shore by hand once not used, but that’s how ancient Greeks managed to handle even larger warships so it shouldn’t be too problematic

>Small pier (1 day): several paths installed above water on top of wooden stilts. It would accommodate only several small boats that carry no more than 4 people, maybe 6 at most. Assembly time includes a couple of small sailing boats

>Bigger pier (3 days): Bigger wooden structure assembled in deeper water designed for barges with over a dozen rowers along with a crane that is needed to haul the boats on the shore. Assembly time includes one of those ships. Can accommodate smaller vessels

>Dry dock (2 weeks): Large stone structure that is dug into the bank and equipped with floodgates and pumps to empty the dock from water which is required for assembly and maintenance of even larger vessels up to potentially small sea- going ships. Probably a bit of an overkill. Ship not included

>Other ideas?

>>3937849

>Bigger pier (3 days): Bigger wooden structure assembled in deeper water designed for barges with over a dozen rowers along with a crane that is needed to haul the boats on the shore. Assembly time includes one of those ships. Can accommodate smaller vessels
And some boats like in
>just boats

>>3937854
>>3937849
yeah, this makes sense
the wooden structur would making protection of the boat easier and could provide protection from the wolfs for those that are near

>>3937857
>>3937854
Agreed

>>3937863
>>3937857
>>3937854
Alright, writing

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>>3937875
In the end, you’ve decided to construct a bigger pier that can service larger vessels. This means that the docking points have to be constructed in deeper waters and you ended up having to take a swim on several occasions to install the wooden stilts required to anchor the pier to the river bed. The path also has to be wider and with more structural support to accommodate more throughput and heavier loads. You could have gone for pontoons, but those are much less stable and can’t carry as much weight. The sides around these paths can be used to dock many smaller boats.

On the land you create a wooden platform with a warehouse to the side for later use as well as a separate cleared area for boats. In the current age it is difficult to make nails and iron would quickly corrode so the boats have to be assembled out of almost purely wood. The trick is to create such connections that once the wood gets soaked in water it would expand and get wedged in the places where you need the pieces to connect. You’d also add tar coating on the inside to waterproof the boats even more, but that’s not strictly required for such boat to function. Unfortunately, wooden boats also tend to rot if you leave them in the water so they have to be pulled out on the coast when not in use for storage. For smaller boat it is less of a problem since you can just get some help and pull it out manually, larger boats would require dozens of people to pull it out of the water completely. To mitigate this issue, you’ve assembled a crane with a pulley system which would allow for only a small group of people to handle this task.

Now, for the boats, you need to decide on their purpose. The main purpose of these boats is transport of people with a secondary purpose of carrying cargo. You’ve decided to assemble five vessels in total, four “small barges” and one “river barge”. The small barges are completely based on rowing with five oars on each side and are optimized for ferrying passengers. They are capable of carrying up to 15 people including rowers in relative comfort (aka seated) and a small amount of room for personal possessions or some cargo. The river barge would be more optimized for carrying cargo and it would require deeper waters. Unlike small barges it would have a deck with below deck space reserved for cargo and it would have an actual sail along with eight oars on each side and a small shack to cover the entrance below deck and to provide some shelter if needed.

>>3937959
With the roots of your merchant marine planned, you set off to prepare the materials and start the construction. You only manage to complete the foundations when you get approached by Mina. She has returned 18 hours after she has left with the prepared report. “…I have located the settlement that fits the description on the eastern river bank just under 80 kilometers upstream. It contains a hunter- gatherer society of about 350 people with only rudimentary small-scale farming of wild herbs in the inner territory. The settlement is surrounded by an intact wooden palisade and several rows of stakes and consists out of wooden huts with either animal hide or bark roofs with a single hut usually given to a family of 6 or 7 people.

The settlement has rudimentary textile production from wild plant fibers, widespread use of pottery and it has access to a deposit of flint which is mostly used for tools and weapons. They have several small rowing boats designed for one to three people but they have no pier. No evidence of metal tools, but I’ve seen several bowmen. A circle of wooden totems with animal figure carvings at the core of the settlement suggests that these people most likely have some kind of animism based proto- religion. I couldn’t observe if they have any magically gifted individuals among their shamans. I was not detected and I haven’t encountered any evidence of slavers beyond a forest clearing with charred remains of hut carcasses close to the river bank roughly 65 kilometers upstream from Farsalos. I believe those might be the remains of that other settlement that you’ve mentioned.”

You thank her for her work, direct her to notify Signy of the findings and then she is free to return to her devices. Well, this is nice, looks like that settlement managed to survive. Now once the tribals make up their minds you can start shipping them back home. Thinking of which, maybe you could make a gift to these people? You have the cargo capacity, but whatever you’d choose could have unpredictable effects on their lives beyond their opinion on Farsalos as a neighbor.

>No, you think that returning their people home after years of absence should do the trick on its own
>Let’s ship them food: Hunter- gatherers are very vulnerable in that department and they most likely can’t store food for long. Something less perishable would go nicely
>Let’s ship them fresh food: while it wouldn’t last long, these people probably never heard of artificially selected vegetables and grain-based produce
>Tools: since these people rely on stone tools, an import of various bronze instruments would revolutionize their lives overnight
>Weapons: a bunch of bronze spears and knives would buff up their defenses considerably
>Other ideas?

>>3937964

>Let’s ship them food: Hunter- gatherers are very vulnerable in that department and they most likely can’t store food for long. Something less perishable would go nicely
And

>Tools: since these people rely on stone tools, an import of various bronze instruments would revolutionize their lives overnight

And if they can visit we will be willing to trade I imagine

>>3937964

>Weapons: a bunch of bronze spears and knives would buff up their defenses considerably
Defense

>>3937972
>>3937964
lets give them just a few example of tools, if they really are such a traditional people they might not want to many new tools and they could think about which they would prefer to test

>>3937981
>>3937972
+1

But make sure to tell them they can have more later if they like it

>>3937972
This, a material understanding of our capabilities and the benefits of trading with us should work to our benefit. After all, even if they don't like us for whatever reason they'd be foolish to turn away bronze axes and stable food.


One thing we might consider is gifting these things to the people we are sending back however, to show how they've got our support and hopefully create a new class of people who are familiar with our tools / methods and will happily trade with us out of familiarity just in case the greater tribe is against it.

>>3937972
>>3937975
>>3937981
>>3937993
>>3938003
Alright, a mix of every proposal then. Writing

>>3938003
that would just generate strife between the rescued ones and the old guard
in the long run it might drive them apart, its not worth it, if they trade as a tribe fine, if not its not a big loss

>>3938006
Ah but that could work to our benefit, after all they would probably just send them to where their destroyed village is since a fight is always inherently risky.

If that occurs then we've managed to create a second settlement with no attachment to anyone but us (as their tribe has abandoned / isolated them) meaning we can expand to them as well.


Plus I doubt there'll be that much strife if any at all. More realistically they might just decide to come back to us if any shit were to start happening.

>>3938007
i could agree to let the rescuees show the others how to use any new types of tools, learning it from people they know would make their value more apparent

>>3938012
Fair enough man, all I'm saying is that OP's worried me with his message and I'd like to make sure that the people in this tribe we know we can trust are kitted out with as good a set of gear as possible.

>>3938022
I am pretty sure we are gonna accompany them in the boat, we can easily fly back before they reach it if they are concerned

>>3938004
Now this is an interesting decision. You are not sure how these people would react to your gifts, but you can make some assumptions based on their current society. Hunter- gatherer settlements are always suffering from food insecurities. The area might get depleted and fluctuations in animal migrations and wild plant growth means that food output in the area can change from plentiful to almost nothing in months. The food preservation technology that they might have is insufficient to save up most of the food from the times when it is plentiful. Shipping a decent amount of food to them would signal that we have access to a stable and plentiful source of nutrition which can fuel the trade.

Then there are bronze tools. A strange technology from the future for these people. Here you think that you’d give them a small selection of different bronze tools and weapons. They would be free to test them however they like with the rescued people capable of demonstrating them all of the advantages of the new material. If they wish to get more, they are free to trade with us.

The possible dark side to this whole idea is that this might create a schism in their society. The part about “not living in a home you didn’t build” is most likely a part of a culture based on self- sufficiency. Something like that would probably help a lot to survive through the Long Night where those who weren’t self- sufficient would die out if they couldn’t replace some critical import. Some of the tribals might decide not to trade with us simply not to get “hooked up” to something only we produce.

In any case, the three extra days it took you to finish all of the boats was enough for the tribals to figure out their next moves. The news of the settlement still being there had a massive emotionally positive reaction. In fact, even some of the people who wanted to stay initially still decided to take a trip there. Only a handful decided to definitely stay at home plus the entire cat-mom group whom you should deal with separately. This is not permanent; a significant part of these people wishes to spend some time in that village either to decide whether they want to return or to recruit their friends and families to move to Farsalos.

The expedition would be accompanied by you personally from the board of the river barge as well as by Sig, Haven and a few of the Farsalos militia to help in case of monster attacks and just for general crowd control and coordination. Mina and the other team of hunters would handle village defense in the meantime. With everything set, it is time to finally lower the boats into the water and set sail upstream…

>Roll 1d20 for encounter
>Oh wait, what should we call these ships? Do we even have any naming guidelines?

>>3938113
Also we would have to pause now. Voting and discussion continues until I wake up tomorrow

Rolled 15 (1d20)

>>3938113
about the names, i had an idea
the large barge, would be the Enterprise, a cliche, i know
the smaller ones would be named after arctic explorer ships, the Advance, Italia, Alert, America and Assistance

Rolled 19 (1d20)

>>3938113

>>3938115
have a good night and see you tomorrow

>>3938134

Our naming convention should be video game characters from games we used to play

Rolled 14 (1d20)

>>3938113

>>3938133
>>3938134
>>3938351
Hmm, what should you call these boats? Enterprise? Well, the boats are a bit too small for this type of shoes to fill. You should probably continue this tradition with some actual ship. Maybe even a steel one with a steam engine. What else can you choose? Video game character names? Uhh… maybe, maybe not. While next to no one would get the reference, it might end up sounding too cheesy and Elspeth already has a monopoly on bad naming schemes. Then maybe you could call them in honor of historical ships? Like famous arctic explorers Advance, Italia, Alert, America and Assistance. Yeah, those sound good, at least for now. You can change the naming scheme later anyway.

From 81 of the rescued slaves 11 stayed due to being in the cat-mom’s group and a dozen stayed by their own wishes meaning that you are delivering 58 people. It is less than the maximal load of your ships in total but you were planning for the future prospects so that’s ok. There were enough able- bodied tribals to man all of the rowing ships while you would take over the river barge Italia’s operations by yourself. It would also carry people who couldn’t row such as children along with a few of the older people.

You’ve also taken Sigrid, Haven and Signy along plus a couple of the village militia members who volunteered. Signy is here mostly to just translate the language while the others would separate themselves between the boats to instruct the rowers so that they are in synch and on course.

A sizeable group of villagers came to the pier to say their farewells to the people who lived here for almost half a year. It is not a final farewell, however, since only 21 of the tribals wished to stay at the deep forest settlement. The rest would either decide if they want to return in a month or would try to convince their families to join them.

>>3939578
With a flick of a wrist the sail unfolds and positions itself as Italia departs from the pier and heads for the center of the river. Rowing boats quickly catch up to it and fall into formation to the sides of the larger vessel. This is in case of a monster attack. Since you are positioned centrally it would be possible for you to react quickly if something goes wrong from any direction. Luckily, it was not needed. The river current was slow and you haven’t seen anything that would dare to even approach your small fleet. Whether that was just luck or if the river pushes away the monsters is yet to be known, but this trip went without a hitch.

As you approached the settlement from the riverside the tribal patrols noticed you and by the time you could directly observe it the welcoming party was already prepared. Everyone capable of holding weapons in the village had a flint spear on them standing prepared in case you turned out to be hostile. However, it didn’t last long since the rescued people on your ships started shouting something in their common language which at first confused the welcoming party.

The four passenger transports, Advance, Alert, America and Assistance separated from the formation and headed for the settlement. They didn’t have walls from the river side and the ships simply partially beached themselves to unload the people. Your vessel required slightly deeper waters but it could do something similar through the use of a wooden gangway that you’ve prepared just for such an occasion.

>>3939583
Some of the tribals dropped their spears and ran towards their long-lost family members once they realized what was happening. The people who were hiding inside of the huts started to slowly pour out and join their returning friends and family. It was a very touching reunion. Once this moment has passed you and Signy approached the group of elders that had the highest ruling position in their society and explained them the situation. They reacted positively to the gifts, especially to the food. They were also interested in the trade. They relied on the nearby tribes to make it through the times of famine but now with their closest partner burned to the ground they couldn’t supply their own food all the time.

There were enough huts to house everyone and the food that you’ve brought them would help to compensate the sudden influx of people so in just three hours you were ready to depart. By prior agreement, you would return here sometime next month. But for now, you and your people would leave. And here comes the problem: the four boats were designed for multiple rowers. Your friends could probably row them alone for some distance but it would be slow and tiring. You could just telekinetically push the boats but who knows how the tribals would react. Then there is an option to just leave several smaller barges in the deep forest settlement for the time being so that you wouldn’t have to pull them all the way back here when you return.

>Leave two or more small barges in the tribal settlement. They might as well use them to return on their own
>Row some distance away out of visual range after which you’d kick in with telekinesis
>Try to string up the boats into a “train” with some rope. It is probably just stupid enough to work…
>Who cares about hiding your powers at this point? Just use some TK
>Other ideas?

>>3939588
OOC note: I'm having some stuff IRL that would take a few hours. Sorry about that. The voting continues until I'm back. I'll still pop up in the thread from the phone, I just won't be capable of editing the actual posts.

In the meantime, is this naming scheme ok or would you like to change it?

>>3939588

>Leave two or more small barges in the tribal settlement. They might as well use them to return on their own
>Row some distance away out of visual range after which you’d kick in with telekinesis

Leave two here so they can make a visit to us if they need and we bring the others with us.

This reminds me of the time Sigrid and Haven sailed through thw Labyrinth with us, we can joke with Sig that we almost lost our head to those crabs, shame we were so awfully clothed that night too.

>>3939598
This, we threw those boats together really quickly so it's not like it's a big investment. Might as well make a gift of them too.

>>3939598
Sounds good

>>3939598
>>3939589
Agreed

>>3939589
I like it, but it was my suggestion
We can easily do other names, or old video games later

>>3939598
this.

leaving the boats means we need fewer rowers next time; remember we might actually get a similar amount of people back since some will try to convince their families.

don't encourage them to return on their own, though:


>>3939583
"Whether that was just luck or if the river pushes away the monsters is yet to be known, but this trip went without a hitch."

actually, maybe ask if there's any threats we should look out for on the river. seems like they think it's pretty safe since there's no walls on that side.


>>3939589
if we want to communicate our involvement to any pod people who see the boats, this scheme is fine. even if they don't get the reference, they'll recognize english and place names. better than something media related.

if we don't, we could look into local customs.

>>3939636
>local customs.
I was thinking we should go with that, let them name it after their myths and stuff

>>3939636
I think the America alone will be tell a pod person is involved

>>3939636
>ly, maybe ask if there's any threats we should look out for on the river. seems like they think it's pretty safe since there's no walls on that side.

Ok I'm back and going to start writing soon. In response to this information request:

The river mostly acts as a natural barrier. While swimming across would be possible, it puts the monsters at a huge disadvantage since they have to fight the current, they must be capable of swimming and so on and so forth. If a monster is big enough to just walk across the river floor or if they are amohibious or flying then the river would not pose much of an obstacle, but for the majority of others it is too inconvenient to cross.

Regarding the danger of the river, there are some common river "monsters" in the way of a certain type of fish with a nasty arrangement of teeth, but it seems to be much closer to an animal than to a human tormenting machine since it homes on any blood and thus if you don't have any gaping holes in you it doesn't attack and hunts other animals beyond humans. By the way, its meat is not that palatable with a lot of tiny bones. It is the main reason why Farsalos fishermen don't stand in the water when they fish.

Regarding actual monsters, there are some capable of crossing the river but none are known to do that quickly or stealthily and they seemingly avoid using that approach to attack. They tend to cross the river in an uninhabited area and then advance conventionally on the ground. And anything too big to be slowed down by the river neglects settlements of this scale.

>>3939598
>>3939600
>>3939603
>>3939616
>>3939619
>>3939636
You decide to leave two of the small barges at the tribal village. You can’t realistically move them with the people that you have and they would be required to ship a lot of people back to Farsalos in one month of time. In addition, they were quickly assembled and it is not like you need to use them in the meantime anyway, you’d have 3 other ships for any of such purposes. Considering that this settlement has only tiny boats you might even gift these things to them for easier shipping, fishing or whatever. So, after explaining the basic maintenance to the tribals, they pull out Advance and Assistance on the shore completely.

This allows you to place two people on each rowing boat which decreases the load on your friends and thus the ships could leave the visual range on their own power before you just completely switch to telekinetic propulsion. While very simple, it requires your presence so for actual travel without you the villages would have to assemble entire crews. But that’s probably a matter of time anyway once the river trade reaches the point when one could make a living off of it.

The oars are hard work while the wind can be fickle. You might even need to think of some steam engines to power the boats at this rate... However, steamers are no joke. They require high precision in addition to industrial quality materials. You’d need some interesting colored metal alloys like gunmetal as well as a powered steel lathe for the simplest low pressure design while anything better would require industrial rolled steel in large quantities. While you could rush for that, you don’t think that it is a feasible short term goal. Still, steam powered ships with metal hulls would be an amazing asset eventually.

Of course, you arrive back much faster than when you made your way to the deep forest village. These people didn’t actually give their settlement a separate name, they just call it “home” which to you sounds like “Ghape”. It is distantly similar to Cenophilan word for home: “Hapi”. The languages are from the same branch, they are just far enough apart to be only partially intelligible to each other. Further apart than English and American English but closer than English and German.

Since you were away for less than a day, you weren’t surprised that nothing big has happened in your absence. No monster attacks or visitors. After unloading the passengers, you casually pull the boats on the dry land without the need for the crane to prevent rotting and this small adventure is officially over.

>>3939790
Ah, there was one new thing. Mina has received some information from Nike’ about the meeting with Elspeth. It is roughly scheduled for some time within a month and she is asking about where would you prefer for it to happen.

>In Farsalos: The teleport anchor is close and it is your home turf
>In the middle of nowhere: Some spot away from any settlements but not so deep in the wilderness for monsters to become an annoyance
>In a Polis: Platania seems like a nice place. Recommend Elspeth to grab civilian disguise
>In Valhalla: Well, you might as well come to her, right?
>Other ideas?

>>3939791

>In Farsalos: The teleport anchor is close and it is your home turf

Invite her for tea (do we have tea?) at the temple and a pleasant afternoon, let us talk amicably

>>3939791

>In Farsalos: The teleport anchor is close and it is your home turf

Invite her over, but if she doesn't like it we can go to
>middle of nowhere
Too

>>3939791
>>In the middle of nowhere: Some spot away from any settlements but not so deep in the wilderness for monsters to become an annoyance

>>3939799
>>3939805

the thing is, we don't want what we talk about be overheard by anyone
plus we still have to slap her from what uncle dan asked us to do
all of that is much easier if we meet her without anyone nearby

>>3939807
Also don’t forget that the two pods are currently below our home. Just a reminder

>>3939810
oh right, for now we don't want her to know about the kid
we can still show it to her later and then deal with it in a way she would recommend, since i assume she has done something like this before

>>3939807
I was thinking of having it on the temple not the actual city but ok, it can be in the middle of nowhere.

Pick some place with a nice view that we have crossed during our walks, make sire to bring some tea and panstries too.

As for the slap, I was thibking, we should do it slowly, she probably has those speed activated countermeasures so it has to be slow enough to bypass that or we risk having our hand pulverized

>>3939816
i don't think we should slap her right away, or even hard, we can just explain the situation and then slap her lightly

>>3939807
>>3939810
>>3939816
Ok, middle of nowhere it is, maybe by a waterfall in a nice valley.

>>3939818
I was thinking the same.

"Dan left a message for you, it's not flattering but I have to deliver it anyway."

>>3939816
The temple is on the inside of the inner defensive wall of Farsalos. It is already the part of the village/town.

>>3939828
i like that wording, Dan was the reason we are here and is the last connection to our old life and family
as much as Ag likes it now as a trans human goddess, him asking for this is the last connection to everything we had before it went to shit

>>3939799
>>3939805
>>3939807
>>3939814
>>3939816
>>3939818
>>3939828
>>3939839
Points taken. In the middle of nowhere it is. Writing

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>>3939853
You tell Mina that the meeting should happen in the middle of nowhere. That way there would be less people who could overhear the chatter or see the three of you. Plus, you are not sure how Elspeth would react to Dan’s last message to her. In addition to all that, you don’t want her to know about the second pod in your basement just yet. While she could help out with it, Synthetic Gods are pretty rare and powerful so who knows how the discussions would go with that little girl on the table. In any case, with arrangements made your meeting with Elspeth is officially planned. Now it is not just some nebulous future, it is a certain day in just under a month.

This small revelation didn’t sink in with you before this point and as you’ve made your way to your home you started thinking. “Well, this is it, I’m going to officially become a goddess. This is kind of scary but also a bit exciting.” Your mind pulls out the image of Elspeth’s temple in Platania with its beautiful blue banners that displayed a simplified drawing of an eagle owl. Then you notice a small addition to your temple. Mina has installed a metal disc with Nike’s symbols above the main entrance. Her bow and sword on top of a round shield surrounded by two laurel branches on the sides. Huh, you… don’t have a symbol. Well, you guess that you never really needed it before so why would you have a symbol? You still might need one now though. You are a very powerful being, the news of which would only spread once you get recognized by the pantheon so it would be nice for you to have a symbol that represents your values. If you don’t make it, the people would make it for you whether you like it or not.

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>>3940072
So, you head back to your home, set up a few pieces of paper and start pondering the design. Since Ceno has no access to modern pigments the selection of colors available for flags is a bit short. You essentially have ten distinct colors to choose from separated into three categories:

Metallic:
Or (Gold), represented by yellow on fabrics, signifies truth, sincerity, peace, innocence and purity.
Argent (Silver), represented by white on fabrics, signifies wisdom, generosity, glory, constancy and faith.
Copper, represented by brown on fabrics, historically used in Canadian heraldry and somewhat more commonly among Teryian nobility houses, it has no defined concrete meaning

Colours:
Sable: jet black color. Signifies wisdom, serenity, hard work, grief, constancy and prudence.
Vert: emerald green color. Signifies beauty, youth, abundance, joy, hope and loyalty in love.
Azure: sapphire blue color. Signifies sincerity, piety, loyalty, chastity, truth, strength and faith.
Gules: ruby red color. Signifies excellence, fortitude, fire, magnanimity, military strength, warriors and martyrs.
Purpure: purple color. Signifies temperance, regal, justice, royal majesty, and sovereignty.

Stains:
Sanguine: blood red color. Signifies Fortitude, patience and victory, as well as… well… blood.
Tenne / Tawny: orange color. Signifies worthy ambition.

>>3940074
But before you can color your flag you need to decide on its form. It should be something that has meaning, something that signifies your position. At the same time, it should not be too complicated. Flags have to be easily replicated to be used commonly. You can’t cram in more than 3 or 4 objects but even then, it would probably be too much and the same argument applies to colors. There is also the rule about not placing same type of colors in close proximity aka no two metals touching, but with flags rules can be broken. The main principle with them is “if it works, it works”.

To initiate the flag, you decided to go for a big central seal. You weren’t obsessed with flags back in the day but you had listened to a few people discussing US state flags and New Zealand flag referendum so you managed to at least get a taste of what you like in flags. The first object on the flag would be the round shield. Shield signifies defense and protection and can be found on many flags such as Kenya and Portugal. Round shields are not always used but it would add to the uniqueness. When drawn on flags and banners the shield would turn into a circle with the seal in the center and the background of a plain color. You think that you should go with gold for the shield since your own shield is made out of aluminum bronze which has a golden color but you are not sure yet.

Then there is the imagery. What themes do you want to add there? Defense is already done which would signify the protection and safety that you provide, so what else do you plan to do? Maybe enhance that even more? A wall with a gate maybe? It would literally display the fruits of your labor in attempts to improve the livelihoods of the people.

Maybe something about knowledge and science? Owls are considered to be smart animals by Ceno people, but both Elspeth and House Elim already use owls on their banners. You don’t think that you’d manage to just switch the animal either, ravens have the edgy theme to them and parrots are almost unknown to the local people. Atom model, while looking sciency, would not go well with the locals, especially when you remember that planetary model is inaccurate. Then maybe a book? If you have it open you might have a chance to write something there. Maybe a slogan on one side of the book and some kind of symbol on another that you could use to signify the purpose of whatever the flag is waving on. Like an anchor for your navy or a beaker for your labs.

What else… you’ve done a lot of construction so maybe something that means industry and engineering? Like a gear. Its simple circular repeating pattern would go well on top of a shield and it would clutter the flag space less being a relatively simple object.

>>3940077
Then maybe you should add some weapons? Like a sword and a halberd? Many of the local “coats of arms” use them, but then again… Sword and halberd are of different lengths and they would additionally clutter the flag. They also add limited symbolism to the arrangement so are they really necessary in comparison to the complexity that they introduce? Also, for how long would we keep our weapons? Would we electroplate steel weapons with bronze once we upgrade? What about firearms or maybe even magitech that we might acquire?

After some further thought you’ve prepared several examples of the flag designs. It is time to pick a favorite:

>A book and a gear seal in the center of the shield: Decent design which highlights the parts of your work that you consider important
>Book, gear and weapons: Somewhat more cluttered version of the first proposal
>A wall with a gate on a shield: The wall literally symbolizes the fruits of our labor
>A gearbox assembly in the shield: Three gears in the center of a shield signify your prowess with mechanisms. Similar to Yawgmoth’s design
>A gear crossed by a sword, bow and halberd. You have faith… in human ingenuity and applied firepower
>Wait, you have some other idea
_________________________________________________
I expect for this discussion to take a while so it would be the last game post for the day. It is time to decide on the symbolism for real. While you are free to choose the colors and shapes, my recommendations are the following:

1) Gold colored shield would probably be fitting
2) Please don’t forget to pick the main banner color. It is for fabric outside of the shield/seal
3) I kind of like the first option, but don’t let that bias you
4) Current proposal for the writing on the book is “Knowledge is power, guard it well”. Suggestions are still open

I hope that you’ve enjoyed the thread and I can’t wait to read your choices tomorrow morning. Feel free to discuss, ask questions and make suggestions.

>>3940079
And also, I’ll ask a guy to draw it once we reach consensus

>>3940079
>>Book, gear and weapons: Somewhat more cluttered version of the first proposal
A big gear, an open book in front of it and a sword lying infront of the book

>>3940150
>>3940079
ah, i forgot the colours
black for the gear, tenne for the book and azure for the sword would be my pick

>>3940150
I like the design, the sword horizontal in the front of it.

For colors

The golden shield and the sword too

The book will be white with with its outline and the visible part of the covert in Vert as a subtle reminder to take pleasure in the new chance we got like we wished during birthday, and the faithfulness to our loved friends or something more.

The gear should be in Sable as well as the background

As for what us writen, I'll think of something

>>3940265
i like it so far, but don't do background or writing, that is just more complicated stuff

>>3940271
The background is what the qm was refering to what color the flag would be

>>3940320
ah, no then its ok
but keep the writing of the book, its just small stuff, but we could add it to the symbols we wear later on

>>3940150
Using a sword as a bookmark? So long as it's clean I'm ok with it.
Golden shield, black gear, White book with Brown cover, Grey sword, Tan or Brown background.

>>3940546
>>3940265
>>3940150
Since you guys want a sword, what sword would you prefer? Your artifact dwarven weapon or something different?

>>3940265
I like the colors,specially the black and green, but maybe make the background some other neutral color

>>3940948
how about a normal ceno shortsword? more about the symbolizm of having to fight and explore than actual equipment we have

>>3940948
>>3940969
I can support that, maybe even something similar to a Roman gladius

>>3940150
>>3940155
>>3940265
>>3940271
>>3940320
>>3940326
>>3940546
Ok guys, I have good news and bad news. Bad news is that I have some bank card issues that would take some time tomorrow and the game would start at an unpredictable time later than planned. I’ll keep you posted through twitter, discord and this thread.

Good news is that we have few disagreements! The symbol components are agreed upon and are now locked. Most of the symbol colors also have obvious winners with exception of sword color and background color. Current locked results are the following:

The banner consists out of a circular shield with a large gear, a Cenophilan sword and an open book on top of the gear. The shield is golden, the gear is black, book paper is white, book binding is green.

We have the two things to decide on: the position of the sword and the colors of the background and the sword itself. I would like to note that background color would be the largest color piece of the flag which gives it some extra importance. In addition, I assume that it would be considered as a color associated with Agatha so potentially things like parade uniforms would use it as the main color. Think base flag color in most of the RTS games, same sort of deal.

Sword position:
>Vertically behind the book: The hilt and the tip of the sword are visible behind the book binding
>Vertically in front of the book: The sword is fully visible and is positioned like a bookmark
>Horizontally in front of the book: The sword is fully visible and obstructs a large part of the book
Horizontally behind the book would completely obstruct the sword so it is not an option
>Let the artist decide, he probably knows what would look better

Sword color:
>Blue
>Gold
>Grey
>Other?

Banner background color:
>Black: kind of edgy for the main color, don’t you think?
>Brown: the second suggestion
>Any other color except gold?

>>3945432
>>Vertically in front of the book: The sword is fully visible and is positioned like a bookmark
>grey
can we get a rust brown, otherwise just brown

>>3945442
Yes, we could do rust brown. In fact Ag's hair is "martian soil red" which is close to rust color.

>>3945432

>Vertically behind the book: The hilt and the tip of the sword are visible behind the book binding

For color of the sword i would say Grey

For the background I would like Green because I like the color and the meaning is nice(and green would look good with Ag's hair) or copper since it doesn't have a meaning in setting, but then we would run into the two metalic colors touching problem

File: agsym.png (11 KB, 278x265)

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>>3945432

mockup. not good enough at inkscape to do gears or books fast.

vert or also rust brown handle cloth on the sword.

>>3945432
>>3945442

>>3945454
note this is a vote.

>>3945464
>>3945460
>>3945454
>>3945453
>>3945446
>>3945442
Alright, guys. I'm back. It took way longer than I thought. But I am starting to write the next post.

Current vote results:
Sword position
>Vertically in front- 2 votes
>Vertically behind- 1 vote
>Below the book horizontal- 1 vote

Sword color
>Grey- 3 votes
>Gold- 1 vote

Background
>Rust Brown- 3 votes
>Green- 1 vote

Voting results finalized, sending the results to the artist. He's been having some blender issues so it might not be quick, but we're getting there. Writing

>>3946528
After some considerations, you’ve managed to compose what you think is a pretty decent design. You grab your own aluminum bronze shield, take a final look at the surface polished almost to the mirror shine and apply a black gear pattern over it. The gear would have 16 teeth as a kind of very nerdy inside joke going back to your programming days. After that you draw an open book in the middle of the gear. On the left side it has two pages, two gaps and one more page to signify the two lost millennia, on the right it has five intact pages for the millennia yet to come. Then you add a painting of a Cenophilan short sword with ashen grey blade and green handle. Since it is symbolic, you decided not to go for the particular artifact in your possession instead preferring a more conventional design for this area. Most common short sword design in Ceno is somewhat similar to ancient roman gladius with the exception of having a larger and more formed cross guard.

While it looks a bit cluttered in comparison to nation- state flags of your time, it is not even the worst offender compared to some of the local banners that you saw or even 21st century institutional flags. You think of what to add as a text, imagining what quote or phrase you could stand for. To be fair, blank pages would have some significance. “Knowledge is power” comes to your mind, you think of how you could expand it but “guard” implies not sharing it with the people while "preserve" implies more of preventing the loss instead of collecting new knowledge, so you go with the shorter option. You inscribe it in Latin: “Scientia est Potentia”. Plain, maybe, but it is short and on point. Like departmental flags, this slogan could be replaced with images that would signify what is below the banner. Like an anchor for ships or a beaker for labs. For battlefield flags you'd go for an even simpler design, but you are not in a hurry for those.

For the banners, however, you’ll change things a little. The drawing of a shield would turn into a large yellow disk in the middle of the banner. For the main color, you decide to go for rusty reddish brown. It is somewhat similar to your hair color and you know no other banner that uses something like that. In addition, it can be made from a combination of locally sourced pigments so it would go nicely for uniforms and such. Some uniformity would be great if you’d ever go for something like armed forces.

>>3946600
By the end of the day you end up with a stack of banners made from sailcloth for extra durability. For the hell of it, you decide to hang a couple on both sides of the main door to your home, two on both sides of the fireplace in the dining room, one above your bed, a couple deep in your lab even though you’re pretty sure that no one besides you would see them until you finish that electric lighting. The one you’ve had left you turned into a banner that you can carry and it could be carried in your hands or attached to your backpack. You now have a weird sensation of pride for your work, not something that you usually feel, or at least not that strongly. Now you have an actual symbol, something to represent your goals and ideals. Something that shows that you are your own person.

While you’re at it, maybe you could plop some more of your new symbol around the place?

>Make some uniforms for your friends and allies. Maybe surcoats worn over armor for Sig and Haven and a nice official outfit for Rheia?
>Make uniforms and banners for the militia and add flags to the ships. That would make them look more professional
>Make a banner for Mina. She is your cup now after all
>Install banners on critical infrastructure such as Labyrinth Entrance, escape tunnels and water towers
>Gift some banners to the Farsalos Town Hall to signify your position as their protector
>Hang some banners on the inner gates to display them to all who comes here
>Gift a banner to the cultists, they’ve been having some issues with finding a suitable symbol for you
>Other ideas?

>>3946602
>Other ideas?
Gingerly ask Haven and Sig what they think of it, see if they like it and would like some.

Then we gift some to the town hall so they can use on the militia or whatever else they want, don't impose

>>3946602
>>Gift some banners to the Farsalos Town Hall to signify your position as their protector
>Gift a banner to the cultists, they’ve been having some issues with finding a suitable symbol for you
but explain to them the symbolism
>Install banners on critical infrastructure such as Labyrinth Entrance, escape tunnels and water towers
to signify they are protected
everything else can come in time, don't go too ham with it

>>3946609
Secondus

>>3946610
Agreed. But I'm against personally giving it to the cultists, we should be a little more hands off with and giving them the symbol might be seen as an incentive for them to worship us, which I'm not too confortable with at them moment.

>>3946609
Asking our friends about it is cool too, mention that we thought of them too while making it.

>>3946620
>>3946619
>>3946610
>>3946609
Ok, writing

>>3946620
fair point

>>3946628
pls dont give the cultists a banner

>>3946633
I can see two people against a flag for cultists, no worries. We won't be doing that

To be fair, the Cultists will just make their own if we don't give them it. After all, we've condoned their continued existence and I see no reason why they wouldn't adopt this as a symbol of their faith with or without us.

Also to be entirely fair, I feel uncomfortable with giving it to anyone else without putting it to a public vote first: the militia and the town hall for example are technically "independent" entities, even if they do respect / obey us. Might be wiser to see if they want to be identified with us first. Also clearly we should carve it into the door of our house, so people know where we live and shit.

>>3946636
we hung 2 banners outside our door, thats plenty

>>3946637
Fair point, missed that.

>>3946636
Oh yeah, I assume that Ag would gift the banners, not demand them to be displayed. It would be the choice of the town hall whether they want to display those or not. Regarding the critical infrastructure, we are literally the only person who knows how to operate and maintain most of it so we de facto own those anyway.

>>3946636
There is a difference in giving to them and they adopting on their own I think, we allowed but didn't endorse, I'm still conflicted about the worship thing.
Maybe the meeting with Elspeth will change my mind one way or the other

>>3946651
>There is a difference in giving to them and they adopting on their own I think
True.

>I'm still conflicted about the worship thing
I mean there are much worse things they could be worshipping, especially since we can actually influence their faith's development and shit.

File: Surcoat.jpg (18 KB, 364x606)

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>>3946628
The first thing that comes to your mind is to show your new banner to your friends, Sig and Haven. It doesn’t take long to find them. Sig is in your library, which is not the place where you’d expect a badass warrior woman to be in, but she is literate and she loves ancient stories. So, it shouldn’t be that surprising that she was trying her best to make sense of one of the books that you’ve printed for Rheia. Ancient History 101, mostly school level stuff about the Sumers, Ancient Egypt, Mycenean Greece and so on. You wonder how she would react once she finds out all the stuff that modern pantheons plagiarize from history.

Haven was in Claudina’s shop apparently chatting about something with the dark elf herbalist along the cup of her fungal tea. The first floor of Claudina's home almost turned into a small café with a couple of tables and a counter while the living space was moved to the second floor and all the growing was set up in the basement and outside. You decided that it would be ok if you and Sig join her to discuss your newest project.

“What do you think?” You gingerly ask your companions along with Claudina who was a little dragged into the chat. You’ve previously given them the overview of your design choices and it seems that they all think that it is a decent banner.

“Well, it was bound to happen” said Sigrid. “I feel like it is a little cluttered, but I think that it works. I’ve seen much busier banners on some people from the “Hero University. Not sure if I would wear a surcoat with it all the time. No offense, I just don’t want to figuratively wear an “I belong to someone” sign 24/7, but I realize that it might be needed sometimes such as if you need me to represent or accompany you in some official setting.”

“I like how everything has symbolic meaning” replied Haven “You’d be surprised how many uninspired crests there are, especially among the monster hunters. For hunters it is the symbol of their group or guild, like the master’s claim on high value items, but not everyone knows or cares about the rules, stepping aside the fact that there technically are no codified universal rules for heraldry in Ceno. And I don’t mind wearing it as much as Sig, but it would make it a bit harder to hide and it would be confirming my allegiance to everyone in the village. Thus, I would agree with Sigrid on the uses of the banner with us, but I would be fine with wearing it as a uniform if you wish so.”

“I’m not that big on banners, but I like the colors and all parts of it make sense so I don’t see any problems with it” added Claudina. “Back at my home we use… used a lot of purple in our banners, but we also had one central image for the different factions of the templars and the defense forces. I like how the shield highlights the central image.”

File: Warner Bros.jpg (121 KB, 768x1024)

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>>3946765
After the tea break you’ve returned to your home to grab some more sailcloth because you’ve decided that you’d be making some more of these. You want to gift a couple of these banners to the Town Hall. They don’t have to display them if they don’t want to, but you would like to show that they work under your protection. The village chief has accepted the banners and you’ve made it clear that she has a choice on the matter. The reason why you’d present several banners is because you expect that the small cult in your honor would like to get their hands on one. You don’t want to just hand it to them since you’d be accepting the cult, but they were struggling with finding the correct imagery to represent you so they might as well have something to work with.

Then you’d be making several differently sized banners to be placed on critical infrastructure that you own. So, one banner goes on your gunpowder plant, another one goes on the gunpowder bunker. A couple extra large banners are placed to the sides of the Labyrinth Gate. Then you take a look on the water tower and decide to go with the paint instead. Since no one in the village knows how advanced plumbing works, you maintain and practically own the water supply and the large water tank on top of the brick tower looked a bit plain. You’ve painted the tank whole in your flag’s rusty brown color and then added a large golden yellow circle with your new banner in the middle Warner Brothers style.

After your painting was done for the day, you’ve completed and given out surcoats to Sig, Haven, Mina and Rheia. Rheia was both a bit scared and excited to this present, after all it was the proof of her employ. Mina received her uniform calmly with an approving nod and a light smile. She doesn’t have to wear it all the time, but she might as well have it for the future. When you were done with this, the night has already fallen and the only people left awake were the militia members on night patrol. Even Mina apparently needs the sleep.

>>3946770
But you were a bit too hyped to sleep and under the cover of the night you’ve floated out of your room not to make a noise, lit a candle and headed to your labs to check up on the to-do list. Gee, Ag, what are we going to do tonight? Same as we do every night, trying to finish some projects...

>Construction: you have several things planned such as metallurgic plants, outposts and defenses bumped to the top of the to-do list. Some assembly required…
>Research: you have a few ideas for new psi techniques, but they all need some experimentation and training…
>Exploration: We haven’t explored much beyond the Farsalos immediate area and the Limestone Basin. We still have lots of minerals to uncover, monsters to beat and people to meet. And there are also the Labyrinth expeditions
>Social: you’d like to test Mina’s powers, maybe a mock battle in the morning would do the trick...
>Other: anything else that comes to mind

>>3946771
>>Social: you’d like to test Mina’s powers, maybe a mock battle in the morning would do the trick...

and then we can

>Construction: you have several things planned such as metallurgic plants, outposts and defenses bumped to the top of the to-do list. Some assembly required…
maybe finish the metal working plant so the villagers can produce it on their own now that the mine is secured

>>3946771

>Research: you have a few ideas for new psi techniques, but they all need some experimentation and training…

I want to see if we can learn some new tk tricks or maybe improve our understanding of the psi energy and how to use or create magical stuff

>>3946770
>Research: you have a few ideas for new psi techniques, but they all need some experimentation and training…
Kinda tempted to vote construction too

>>3946773
>>3946771
supporting this, we shouldn't put of the metal production to long, the town could use the work and trade

>>3946784
>>3946775
>>3946774
>>3946773
Alright, two for research, two for social and two for construction. Ok then, writing

>>3946816
We are all over the place lol

>>3946816
You know, I'll drop the research option in first and then we'll go from there one by one. It is too much to fit in one.

>>3946847
You flip through your notebook, something that you’ve made mostly as a joke but figured out that it helps you think, and you’ve noticed that you have quite a few things to do. You’ve been busy lately and your initial timings were so massively off that you needed to reprioritize. There are currently three big blocks of tasks that you need to do: “construction”, “research” and “social”.

Regarding construction, you’ve been thinking of creating some metallurgic industries like steel or colored metals. Both factories would produce high quality materials that you’d need for further progress along with creating objects of high trade value. However, it is going to be a long project no matter what. Depending on the scale at which you want the factory to operate, it would take up to two months to completely establish the production chain at high capacity. Plus, the villagers won’t just know how to operate factory equipment, they’d need time to learn safeties and operations before the plant could work by itself. So, you end up placing this project into the queue under the high long-term priority. In other words, you’ll start working on it within a few days.

The more short-term thing that you need to do is with your social situation. From time to time you want to check up on the people to find out about their problems and worries that you could address. With the village growing, you had less opportunities to get to know everyone, but you still care about these people so from time to time you need to spend some effort catching up with them. Also, for a few days you’ve had an idea to test Mina’s abilities and the best approach that you came up with was a friendly sparring match. You could probably beat her, but you think that even a novice Muse of Nike wouldn’t be a pushover for you. After all, you don’t have hundreds of years of training.

Speaking of which, it is around midnight now and you don’t think that it would be a good idea to wake anyone up. So, you decided to postpone the mock fight with a cup bearer until the next day. And in the meantime, you can take a look at your techniques. While you can improvise with your powers, preparing in advance means more efficient, better and faster casting. So, you pull out a dusty stack of papers that you’ve neglected for quite a while, blow off the dust and look into your notes on the subject…

>>3946952
>Psi theory basics: After observing Nike’s enchantment process, you’ve understood some of the underlying mechanisms of Psi. You need more time to play around with the psi energy currents to deepen your understanding in the field
>Illusion ring operation: Nike’s gift is too disorienting to be useful to you in battle. You need to train yourself to adapt to its quirks or it would do more harm than good

>Physical body research: well, geyser dive was a bust, maybe it was not dangerous enough. Time for something even stupider…
>Mind shielding research: After meeting with Valentina, you can’t shake off a light feeling of dread when you are reminded of her. You might want to invest in some firewalls…
>Goddesses blood research: Antibiotics are hard to make without more infrastructure. With some animal tests you should manage to figure out human safe dosages of the sealing solution that courses under your skin.

>Super heavy gear: You are capable of carrying much more than you do now. A set of armor too heavy for a mortal to lift would have more effect than your current mostly cosmetic set of gear
>Tele- optimized weapons: Your precision with telekinesis has increased, but you don’t utilize it to the full potential. Projectiles have to be adapted to be flung by it and trigger mechanisms need to be designed and tested to work effectively with your powers.

>Other options: I’m always open for writein ideas

>>3946955
_________________________
And for now I have to pause today's thread. I'm getting dizzy from the meds, sorry. Also, we won't be catching up tomorrow. It is my mother's birthday and I would be preoccupied. However, I might manage to squeeze in one more update after I wake up, but I don't promise anything.

In the meantime, feel free to discuss, ask questions and make suggestions. Thank you for playing

>>3946955

>Psi theory basics: After observing Nike’s enchantment process, you’ve understood some of the underlying mechanisms of Psi. You need more time to play around with the psi energy currents to deepen your understanding in the field

Science! Or rather...Magic!

>>3946961
Thanks for running and give your mom a hug from us hehe

>>3946961
its all good, thanks for running, gonna catch up then vote
hope you get better soon, your meds sound tough

>>3946955
>Goddesses blood research: Antibiotics are hard to make without more infrastructure. With some animal tests you should manage to figure out human safe dosages of the sealing solution that courses under your skin.

>>3946955
>>Psi theory basics: After observing Nike’s enchantment process, you’ve understood some of the underlying mechanisms of Psi. You need more time to play around with the psi energy currents to deepen your understanding in the field

>>3947003
Science Magic!

>>3947011
>>3947010
>>3947003
2 for psi theory, 1 for blood. Let's do both I guess. I need a roll of 1d20 for success. I'll probably manage to post a response tomorrow-ish hopefully.

Rolled 19 (1d20)

>>3948543

>>3948548
thats some good success

Rolled 1 (1d20)

>>3948543

>>3948609
Oh well at least is not another hag

>>3948543
>>3948609
well, now i have to roll, lets see how deep we can burry ourselfs

Rolled 4 (1d20)

>>3948609
Salvaging the second research is a go

Rolled 13 (1d20)

>>3948659
>>3948543
... it would help if i actually roll

Rolled 18 (1d20)

>>3948543
Nat 20 for the save

>>3948548
>>3949542
Hopefully this is enough to negate the 1

>>3949544
shit will happenI think, but with those rolls we at least will make progress I guess

>>3949545
Well, luckily it was not a roll that could provide that much backlash. I'll try to write a response tomorrow, today I'm out of steam.

>>3949911
Sorry guys. I expected to write the reply quickly, but I had IRL trouble with time. Next thread will start from the results of this roll.

>>3954649
New thread is up: >>3956298

>>3956304
Thread archived