a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Today is my birthday. Today I join the rest of the new Birth Mothers in the Cradle, at the Flowering ceremony to welcome us into our new roles as caretakers of the young.
Being entrusted with the welfare and upbringing of the next generation is one of the greatest honors that the People can bestow
(other than being named an Elder Matriarch, of course) but I am excited for another reason: Today is the day Mother returns from her travels into the World,
to take her place among the Matriarchs and to witness my Flowering.
All morning I have prepared for the ceremony, checking the weave on my dress and hat over and over despite knowing that everything is perfect. It has to be perfect.
Because Mother will be there. It has been years since she left to visit the Outer Villages, to check on the progress made by the crafters and builders sent out to carry out the Plan.
A Messenger arrives to tell me that it is time, and I put on my ceremonial clothes and make my way to the Heart of the Cradle. So distracted am I in my excitement to see Mother again,
that I fail to notice the lack of Guards along the way, the ominous quiet of the courtyard and gardens. Even the workshops of the Tinkers that line the courtyard have fallen silent
-- and Tinkers are never silent. Suddenly noticing that something is not right, I look around -- but it's too late.
The Trolls have arrived. Men, always men -- but also not men. Possessed by twisted spirits of the Otherworld, these are creatures bent on nothing but destruction and death.
I try to run but they see me, rushing in from all entrances to the garden, knives in hand. I feel the blade pierce my belly, a bright red stain spreading along the white cotton dress
as I cry out "Why?"
Darkness, and the Void. A glimpse of the Otherworld. Time passes and I know not how long, but I know what comes next.
I am reborn. A Wild Eve I have become, my spirit returned to the World in a body not much older than I had been in my current -- no, my previous life. This is me, now.
Not Eve of the Cradle, honored daughter of an Elder Matriarch, but just a Wild Eve, naked and cold. Then I remember: The Trolls!
I must make my way back to the Cradle, to retake what is ours from those who would defile it. I look around, but find that I do not know this place of my rebirth.
I must be in one of the Outer Villages, and by the looks of it one that has long been neglected, for there are no Waystations, no caches of supplies. I cannot lead a charge to the
Cradle now; I would surely starve before I got there, or would in any event be no match for the Trolls.
No, this will not be a quick recovery. This will take time, and planning. Already a child is born to me, restless spirits from the Otherworld, so many from that place seeking rebirth
in the World. I must provide for them, until our numbers are greater. I must climb the ladder once again, rise to the level we once held and shall hold again.
I find a farm nearby, its store of supplies sparse but adequate. I take an inventory and settle in, planting my first round of crops. And beginning my work.
Before long, I am blessed with a child, but without the support of the other Birth Mothers or the comfort of the Cradle, it is hard. We barely survive that first year, waiting for our crops to ripen,
living on the meager stores left behind at this place, this rung on the ladder to recovery. I curse the Farmers who failed to properly stock this settlement, I curse the Messengers who failed to
impress the importance upon those Farmers of maintaining places like this for just such an eventuality (for this is not the first time the People have had to rebuild from the shock of a Troll attack,
nor will it be the last) and finally I curse the Matriarchs and Elder Matriarchs who failed to direct things as effectively as they should. As hunger took hold at points and I feared for my very life
and the life of my child, I even cursed the Plan as being nothing but a fool's dream. But deep in my heart, I knew better. I knew that the Plan had gotten us through situations worse than this,
and would get us through this current trial.
Eventually, my little farm began to produce a bounty, and I had more children, three in all. As they grew and as we reached out to the nearby farms and hunting camps we expanded our reach until
we found a Waystation. My eldest son, no more than a boy himself but still old enough to hold a bow, led the charge. We found a road, well-maintained and made our way to the Fortress surrounding
the Cradle. Along the way we found other Wild Eves and their families, shared weapons and supplies and made our plans. We would gather at the Fortress to give other Wild Eves a chance to arrive,
so that we might take the Trolls in force. By now they would be old men, but still dangerous. We passed raised Farms and Waystations along the way, signs of the destruction unleashed by
the Trolls. Fortunately our buildings were too many, too widely spread over the World, for them to do any permanent damage. We would rebuild. We would prepare.
For a year we waited at the Fortress, preparing ourselves, scouting the perimeter, making more plans -- and expanding our forces. Our raiding party would consist of nearly a dozen Wild Eves
and a dozen more of their children, all armed and clothed and well-fed.
We attacked. It was quick, and decisive -- but at great cost. We won, but had lost more than half our numbers. But we won. The Cradle was ours, once again. The task of burying the dead from
our battle was made all that much harder by the fact that the Trolls had never bothered to remove the corpses of those they had slain in their initial -- cowardly -- attack.
I found Mother's bones among those remains. I could recognize them by the clothes left behind, the dyed wool overcoat that she wore to protect against the cold. Her boots. I cried, but did
my duty and removed her bones to the graveyard, and buried her next to the other honored Elder Matriarchs, as she would have wanted.
As we set about our inspections of the grounds and assessment of the damage, making plans on what needed to be rebuilt first, the eldest among us, the Wild Eves first reborn in the aftermath
of the calamity, had our discussions. We would continue with the Plan. As the first to be reborn, I was named Eldest. Mother would have been so proud.
We prepared the Cradle for the new Birth Mothers, warning them to watch for signs that the Trolls may be reborn from the Otherworld, to be wary of any children showing the signs.
When the first new child born in the reclaimed Cradle was presented to me for my blessing, the first thing I noticed was that she was a girl.
The second thing I noticed was that she had a sparkle in her eyes -- the same sparkle that I remembered, from Mother.
And so the cycle resumed.
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Love this. Now the question is, is this the fist 1h1l fan fic, or did this actually happen in the game?
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Thanks, Portager!
It's more like the sketch for a fan fic story. I had just been spending some time thinking about the type of civilization I'd like to see us have (one based around a dedicated matriarchal caste that centralizes births in one location and sends grown adolescents out to outlying villages for specialized work) combined with one of the common themes of "how do we deal with Troll attacks" ?
I imagined a situation in which Trolls killed off the core population of the civilization, but we were able to recover by respawning on the outskirts and climbing a ready-made "ladder of technological recovery" with prebuilt stations that led back to the center. I really think something like that is what we should aim for (and shouldn't build infrastructure that almost immediately falls apart in the absence of people to maintain it, even briefly) and thought maybe a story would illustrate the idea better. Needs work though.
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