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I finally played a game with enough of a family narrative to warrant recounting!

Here is the story of the Smith family, and to my unnamed brother, if you're out there, I'll never forget you!

I was born to a second generation mother (i.e. her mother was Eve) in a grass-desert-wetland junction with a small plot of unwatered carrots and not much else. My mother hugged me and let me know that the settlement was young, and asked if I was willing to risk it and survive with them. I said Y, and she placed me in the desert to stay warm. My brother was born, she asked the same of him, and we grew up together in the desert. Our mother started doling out jobs, and I offered to smith -- lately I have been on a kick of just getting really really good at smithing. If you've come upon an abandoned forge recently with all of the tools arranged neatly in front of it and a single grave nearby, that was probably me. So, I figured I had it covered. My brother also offered to smith, but I offered first, so he said he'd hunt instead.

We grew up and got to work, but the settlement was so new that I quickly got distracted by other duties. We needed bowls, and plates, and baskets, and tongs and a needle and somebody had to water the farm and all the while we had no reliable source of food... so, I didn't get very far on my quest to set up our forge. Along the way my mother, grandmother, and various other family members died, til it was just me and my brother left. He was frustrated with me: when he came back to camp with rabbits, he couldn't believe we didn't have steel yet. He said that if only he were blacksmith, we'd have an axe by now. I knew I was doing my best though, so I just kept gathering supplies.

Then, I hit puberty. Since it was just me and my brother, my offspring were our only hope. He made us matching seal-skin coats, then asked one more time if I wouldn't mind if he smithed, and I conceded. He got to work, and from there we were off! The children came like clockwork, and I raised them with efficiency. Everyone gets a name, everyone stays warm, everyone gets a job, everyone gets to feel like part of the family. As the children grew they tended to the farm -- finally, we had a surplus of food. My brother could focus on his work without running off every few minutes to avoid starvation.

Some of the children were more skilled than others. Adele tended to the farm diligently, but when her children started to come, she didn't pay them much attention. The graveyard grew. Once Steve grew hair he asked where to find rabbits and I told him, but never saw him again. Will was a delight -- I totally forgot that our last name was Smith when I named him, and as soon as he could talk he sang the Fresh Prince theme song. He farmed efficiently and collected more soil to grow our settlement. Jenny came next, and she absolutely knew her shit. as soon as she could she was off gathering kindling for her Uncle, and after her first trip she came back with some very stylish and practical cactus shoes. Wilbur was my last child, a sweet boy, well intentioned, and helpful on the farm.

My only regret is Eric. Eric was my third son, the black sheep of the family. As soon as he grew hair, it became clear that he wasn't totally sure what was going on. I think it was just inexperience, rather than malice, all that boy did was eat and get in the way. Even as an adult he'd cry out "F" when his hunger levels got critical between carrot harvests. I was frankly shocked that he, rather than Steven, had survived.

While I was raising the children, my brother finally succeeded in making a smithing hammer. Unfortunately, my son Will became curious and went to inspect the goings on right as his Uncle was in the middle of melting some ore. You know how it is when someone tries to help you smith when you haven't communicated first -- almost always bad. The hot iron bloom cooled, the forge went out, and Uncle was mad. He was very frustrated with Will, and berated him. I understood his frustration, but I also didn't want Will to get discouraged. I suggested that Will be in charge of setting up a milkweed farm for the village, and to pay no mind to his cranky uncle. By this time all of my children had hair, and my own had turned gray, so I offered to gather kindling for my brother. When I returned he apologized for being cranky, and explained that he's not used to playing in such a busy settlement. That's a sentiment I completely understand, and we bonded. Finally he completed our axe, and we felt truly stable at last. We made kindling and coal (despite Eric's constant interference) and prepared to forge the rest of our tools. After a short time, we noticed the axe was no longer nearby, and went off to look for it. I feared that Eric had taken it; a fear that was tempered by the hope that maybe he had fucked off and died and I'd get the axe back and be rid of a nuisance.

I found the axe, as you so often do, at the end of a path of chopped trees in the middle of the wetlands. I carried it back to camp and looked for my brother to show him. I saw his speech bubble first, entering camp from the north: "I've lost the will to live!" I was concerned, but I figured he was just upset because he thought we had lost the axe he worked so hard to make. He appeared, and I saw that he was holding a seal skin coat. "OH! There you are!" he said when he saw me. I realized that it was the thought of my death that had worried him so much. We reconnected, and got back to work making more steel.

Now that I was no longer fertile, Adele took her turn raising children. One of my granddaughters returned to camp from the south letting us know that she had found a monolith in the desert. An idea formed in my head: in all my lives, I've never seen a monolith. My brother and I were getting old, and we had completed the tasks we set out to do and developed a thriving family farm -- maybe we could take a pilgrimage to see the monolith and die there, rather than becoming unceremonious piles of bones next to countless neglected babies in the graveyard. I told him my idea and we decided to leave right away.

We left our coats and loincloths and grabbed baskets of carrots. I bid goodbye to my enormous family, and we were off, headed south, the only heading we had based on my granddaughter's recollection. We ran straight, through biome after biome, past several deserts, and it became fairly clear that we weren't going to find the monolith. "We are badasses!" my brother said.

We died in the snow at 59, our baskets empty.

Good luck, Smiths!