Real History: The Megaliths of Bada Valley

There's a valley in Sulawesi that contains lots of weird megaliths. It's funny that I was imagining these kinds of large statues in my game of Elephant Queens & Tiger Kings. It turns out they really exist in this part of the world!

Shout Out: Practical Polytheism

I don't write much about religion because like magic I think that the more you try to clearly define everything the less interesting it becomes. There should be ambiguity and unfamiliarity about it in order to keep it somewhat mysterious. Only the priests and religious leaders understand all the intricate rituals necessary to appease or ask favours from the gods, and even they don't always get it right.

But I found this series of articles about Polytheistic religions really interesting. It mostly explains things through examples of the ancient Roman and Greek religions but I'm sure a lot of it could apply to religions from other eras. Personally I like to make Astrology an important aspect of the religion because ancient peoples were fascinated with the motions of the planets and stars and according to writers like Graham Hancock monuments like the Pyramids or Ankor Watt were built on top of even older sites that were intended to mirror or help track what could be seen in the night sky.

Practical Polytheism 1: Knowledge

Practical Polytheism 3: Practice

Practical Polytheism 2: Polling the Gods

Practical Polytheism 4: Little Gods and Big People

The articles go into quite a bit of depth and I highly recommend you read them if you want inspiration for adding realistic Polytheism to your setting.

But if you want a quick overview of the writer's conclusions he provides the summary which I'm quoting here:

• Polytheistic religion is less about ethics or worldview and more about achieving practical results, by venerating, pleasing or appeasing the right gods.
• Because many gods can produce practical results for you – both good and bad! – you cannot pick and choose, but must venerate many of the relevant gods.
• A society learns how to do this by doing: successful practices are codified into tradition and repeated, creating a body of knowledge about the gods which is carried on through generations by tradition.

• Rituals, including sacrifices, vows and offerings, in polytheistic religions are intended to produce concrete, specific, and usually earthly results for the participants or their broader community.
• They do this through the mechanism of do ut des, whereby the individual or community offers something (sacrifice, votive, etc) to the god in exchange for the given result.
• The god can either accept that bargain (the ritual succeeds) or refuse it (the ritual fails). The humans may impose qualifications and legalism on the bargain, but of course, the god may also just refuse.
• Finally, the rituals are performed with exactness, focusing on orthopraxy – correct ritual practice. Failure to perform any element of the ritual correctly will likely cause the ritual to fail.

• Gods in a polytheistic system are often immanent and present in human society; they are (powerful, mysterious and sometimes difficult) members of the community.
• Consequently, they expect to be consulted for their opinion on important matters, but they can also be a source of good information on matters both large and important, or small and personal.
• This process is an act of communication, not passive observation: the gods can refuse to answer, or send conflicting signals or even lie, if it suits their ends, although for the most part, so long as the traditional forms are followed, the god consulted will render their advice faithfully.
• There is a fantastic diversity of methods in consulting the gods. We’ve left out entire categories here – mostly oracular statements – but each culture has its own systems.
• Because these systems of religious practice are based on knowledge and on repeating what works, they are readily capable of borrowing gods and rituals from foreign cultures which seem to work, including (but certainly not limited to) divination practices.

And that finally gets us to the biggest take-away of this series, which is that these systems make a very real sort of sense. The common temptation as moderns reading history is to assume that everyone in the past was just stupid (as if we don’t believe similarly ridiculous things!) or that all of the ‘smart’ ones (and so often ‘smart’ is unthinkingly equated with ‘rich elites’) viewed this all cynically. As I have said before, and I will say again, it is generally safe to assume that people in the past believed their own religion.

Fiction: An Account of Sundaland by Alom Tikal

I just wanted to draw your attention to the fact that I've collected all the writings of Alom Tikal on one page and linked to them from the right hand menu. I will keep the page updated as I discover more tales from Sundaland.

Now you can read them all in one place if you wish: An Account of Sundaland by Alom Tikal

Elephant Queens & Tiger Kings - 5: Arriving at the City of Pearls

Read the the previous episode: Elephant Queens & Tiger Kings - 4: Safe Passage

Last time Auko and my character (Kiakro) facilitated a reconciliation process between two villages. As a reward we were provided with supplies and a guide to take us the rest of the way to the City of Pearls.

We've been travelling for a couple of days, leaving denser forests behind and moving further into the lowlands. Except for occasional low undulating hills the landscape flattens out. Since the rainy season has only just finished the landscape is lush and green. We walk across grasslands and through lightly forested areas. When cresting a ridge we often have an unobstructed view. 

With each passing day we start coming across more villages and settlements. Most of the people living here survive from hunting, fishing and tending gardens of fruit and vegetables. Some have figured out how to reliably attract wild pigs with a designated rubbish dump, which provides the villagers with easy pickings. 

On the third day we come across a wide, raised and paved road, a minimum of knee height above the surroundings, sometimes higher. This is where our guide leaves us, pointing us in the right direction to reach our destination within another day's walk. We make camp by the side of the road and will set out at daybreak.

Since we already had a partial success on the Reach Your Destination move in episode 3 (which resulted in the encounter with the village in episode 4) I'm going to assume there are no further complications ahead.

The following day we start walking down the road and soon start encountering other travellers. There are merchant caravans, sometimes a couple of water buffalo pulling carts, other times leading groups of captives carrying goods on their heads and backs. There are also pilgrims, priests and groups of soldiers with plumed helmets and long spears, occasionally lead by commanders riding elephants. Little attention is paid to lowly people like ourselves but we're careful and weary of being captured again. We keep our distance and our heads down.

Finally in the mid afternoon we see it on the horizon, the walls of the City of Pearls.

I decide that this is a milestone in our relationship. We successfully escaped our captors and reached the city. I will trigger the Forge a Bond move with Auko. 

Move: Forge a Bond

Action Die: Roll 1d6 + Hearts (1) = 2 + 1 for a total of 3.

Challenge Dice: Roll 2d10 = 1 and 1.

Strong Hit and an Opportunity because of the matched Challenge die.

I can choose either +2 momentum or +1 spirit. I've already have a maxed out spirit of +5 but only 9 momentum so I decide to take that to 10 (I can't increase momentum above 10).

I also decide that because we've started to Forge a Bond that I can add him as a Companion Asset. I mark the Bonded option.

I'm going to roll up some details about the city and the culture of its people using my Sundaland tables. I won't weave all the results together just yet, but will do so as the game develops. I hand picked the first result, for the Cultural Archetype because this city is going to serve as a base for my character and I don't want it to be too 'out there'. All the other results are random.

Shout Out: Patrons in King of Kings

I've been following a great new blog about a setting inspired by late Antiquity Persia called King of Kings. The feeling of the setting has many similarities with what I'm trying to achieve with the Sundaland setting. 

Here's a particular interesting article with some tables for generating patrons, people that will give the players missions and quests:

In King of Kings, the characters are outcasts, criminals, paupers, foreigners, and travellers, people that are fundamentally outside of the local social order. There is plenty to explore in the social structures of the Sasanian Empire (which is the main inspiration for King of Kings), but in creating this setting I didn't necessarily want to build in a Skerples-style feudal hierarchy into character creation (though I definitely intend on writing more posts about social hierarchy in late antique Iran in future honestly). Even though I didn't want to establish a structured system for social hierarchy for characters, I did want social hierarchy to matter for the game... so, I concluded that the best way to do both of those things is to have players outside of the social hierarchy, but still make that hierarchy matter, through the player characters having someone that patronizes their activities!

Check out the tables here: Patrons in Kings of Kings

Elephant Queens & Tiger Kings - 4: Safe Passage

Read the the previous episode: Elephant Queens & Tiger Kings - 3: Journey to the Lowlands 

Last time Auko and Kiakro (my character) were travelling through the forest after having escaped our former captors. Auko is now attempting to take us to the City of Pearls where we can start a new life.

After several days travel we start noticing evidence of slashing and burning, fewer tall trees and more open spaces, this is evidence of a nearby settlement. 

Suddenly a threatening voice calls out.

We both freeze. While the voice is speaking in an unfamiliar dialect we understand enough to know we must stop.

Is there only one person or are there more? 

Ask the Oracle 50/50: 41

A single figure steps out form behind some tall ferns, holding a bow and arrow that's pointed right at us. He's wearing only bark-cloth shorts and a couple of feathered bands around his arms. 

He asks us where we are from

Roll on the Disposition table: 77 Unfriendly

He's not happy to see us. It's sensible to be weary of strangers.

We hold up our hands to show we have no weapons with us and tell him we've escaped capture. The man cautiously comes closer. 

We trigger the Compel move. Charm, Pacify or Banter

Action Die: Roll 1d6 + Heart (1) = 4 + 1 for a total of 5.

Challenge Dice: Roll 2d10 = 6 and 1.

Weak Hit, +1 Momentum

The man doesn't seem convinced but we decide to offer him the fruits and nuts we've collected along the way. We hold the food out in front of us and place it on a large leaf, then step back. It's not much but it's a universal gesture and all we have (-1 supply, we now have 0)

He steps forward slowly, lowers his bow and picks up what we left him, scooping it into a pouch he is wearing around his waist. 

"What are you doing travelling through our territory? Where are you going?"

We explain that we're only passing through and that we are heading to the great city. As he is closer we are able to show him the scars on our body which indicate our cruel treatment while we were held captured and this seems to satisfy him to an extent.

"You may rest in our village, but you can't stay for long."

His bow is now lowered but the motions a direction for us to walk in. We walk for a short while until we get to a clearing where there are around ten small homes built with wood, bamboo and various grasses. There is one larger building in the centre. There are around fifty people, men women and children going about their business.

I'll ask the Oracle whether there is an issue that the villagers need help with. There must be a reason why the man was unfriendly yet decided to bring us to his village. 25% there's no issue, 75% there is. 

90, yes there's something wrong. 

Roll on the Settlement Trouble 

Result: Rival Settlement.

I roll on the Action and Theme tables: Communicate, Risk

The people of the village notice us and the women start gather their children inside their homes. All the men rush up towards us but our guide tells them not to worry, that we're not from the the next village. He explains that there's been tension between the various people's of the lowlands. Over the past couple of months there's been increased competition for food and resources resulting in occasional clashes between both groups. Everyone is weary of strangers. However this village wants to make amends and would like to offer a gift to the nearby village. 

They believe it's too dangerous for one of them to go but we could be a neutral party to open up communication. In exchange the villagers say they will provide us with food, escort us through their territory and point us in the right direction to the City of Pearls. We agree since we don't have any other options right now.

We trigger the Sojourn move.

Action Die: Roll 1d6 + Heart (1) = 6 + 1 for a total of 7

Challenge Dice: Roll 2d10 = 1 and 4.

Strong Hit: Take +2 Momentum and Provide Aid: Take a Quest +1 on swearing a vow.

We Swear a Vow to open up communication channels with the other village. 

Make the Swear an Iron Vow move +1 (Heart) and +1 from Providing Aid.

Action Die: Roll 1d6 + Heart (1) + 1= 2 + 1 + 1 for a total of 4

Challenge Dice: Roll 2d10 = 3 and 2.

Strong Hit: It's clear what we must do +2 momentum. 

I decide this is a Troublesome quest (the lowest difficulty). In the last game I made the Reach Your Destination move and got a weak hit. Normally I wouldn't play out a whole side-quest but I want to learn a bit more about the surrounding lowlands before I get to the city.

We agree to help the villagers. It seems they have a package that we need to deliver. It contains various wooden carvings which look like idols and what looks like some cinnamon sticks in bamboo containers, a valuable gift.

We eat with the villagers in the evening and sleep in a small hut as someone sits outside to watch over us. In the morning they give us some supplies (+2) and a guide will take us part of the way.

We set off in to the forest until we reach a river with a large tree trunk straddling across it. This marks the end of the villagers territory and the start of the neutral area. If we keep walking straight ahead we will reach the other tribe's area within half a day.

In stead of rolling separately for the Undertake a Journey move I'm going to treat the journey and the quest as the same Troublesome progress track.

Undertake a Journey

Action Die: Roll 1d6 + Wits (2) + 3= 5 

Challenge Dice: Roll 2d10 = 1 and 9.

Weak Hit

We reach a waypoint and mark progress (3 out of 10) but suffer -1 supply.

We walk through the forest in the direction that we were pointed in. Talking loudly as we go in order to draw attention to ourselves, we don't want to seem like we're sneaking around.

We are successful as we hear shouts and soon we are surrounded by several men, pointing spears and bows at us. They're a little differently compared to the other tribe but their language is similar and just as understandable.

Roll on the Character Disposition table: 68 Demanding.

They are putting on a big display and demand to know who we are. Luckily the can see we are not from the other village and are strangers to this area.

As before the Compel move is triggered as we explain who we are and why we are here. 

Action Die: Roll 1d6 + Heart (1) + 3= 4

Challenge Dice: Roll 2d10 = 2 and 3.

A Strong Hit. They do what we want or share what they know. Take +1 momentum (8 total).

They seem satisfied that we are not a threat and that we are indeed envoys from the other village. They decide to escort us to their village, which is only a short walk away.

I decide this counts as more progress on this Troublesome quest so we've reached 6 out 10.

When we arrive at the new village there are a group of elders waiting to greet us. They guide us into a circle and we present the gifts that we have brought. The village elders inspect the gifts and start a discussion amongst themselves. One of the elder women comes forward and speaks to us.

I'll roll on the Character tables to find out about them.

Role: 36, Priest

Descriptor: 62, Honest

Disposition: 34, Indifferent

Goal: 39, Restore a relationship

She tells us that they are satisfied with this offering of peace and that hostilities will cease. However we are to tell the other village that they must stay on their side of the river from now on.

With that done and still plenty of time left in the day we head back to the river with an escort where we are met by hunters from the first village. The two tribes confirm with each other that the exchange was satisfactory and we are brought back to where we started. 

I will mark another 3 progress bringing us up to 9 out of 10.

I make the Fulfil Your Vow move. 

Progress: 9 

Challenge Dice:7 and 2.

Strong Hit.

The quest is complete and I mark 1 experience.

The elders of the first village that we encountered confirm with us and the hunters that the gifts were delivered and that a truce has been struck. They are grateful for our help and as promised they will provide us with supplies and a guide who will aid us on our travels.

After a night of rest we are provided with enough food to last us several days (back up to +3 supply) and we follow a guide on the final leg of our journey to the City of Pearls.

Cultural Flavour Tables

Here are some tables to help you create more flavour for your cultures. The results of each table are light on details so you have room to flesh things out as you see fit. An easy way to do this is to combine the results you roll here with some of the other tables I've made.

The distinction between some of the sections below is not that important. After all something considered taboo in one culture might be completely normal in another. A folkway for some people could be a mores for another. Further below I've linked to a video that quickly explains the difference between Folkways, Mores, Laws and Taboos.

Status Symbols

How do people show their status within their culture.

1. Personal decoration or clothing.

2. The way people speak to each other.

3. Weapon or tool privileges.

4. Control or ownership of particular resources.

5. Sponsorship or patron.

6. Access or right of way.

7. Mercantile rights or obligations. 

8. Ceremonial rights or obligations.

9. Military rights or obligations.

10. Political rights or obligations.

Personal Decorations

Which aspect of a cultures personal decoration are particularly important, unique or notable. 

1. Tattoos

2. Piercings

3. Scarification

4. Branding

5. Head binding

6. Body paint or makeup.

7. Teeth filing, painting or jewellery.

8. Unique or elaborate hairstyles.

9. Masks

10. Elaborate clothing, headdresses or jewellery.

Religion

Which aspect of the religion is most important.

1. Sacrifice or offerings

2. Honour and praise

3. Pilgrimage

4. Dream or vision questing

5. Trials

6. Charity

7. Asceticism

8. Indulge

9. Meditate

10. Proselytise and convert

Burial

What do people do with the dead.

1. Burial in a pit, grave or tumulus (mound, barrow or kurgan).

2. Cremation

3. Burial at sea, in a lake or river.

4. Exhumed and paraded, place in an ossuary.

5. Mummify, entomb, placed in a catacomb or mausoleum.

6. Sky burial or otherwise left to the elements.

Ceremonies

What is the key feature of their ceremonies.

1. Dancing

2. Hallucinogens

3. Sports or games

4. Theatre

5. Mock battles

6. Chanting

7. Meditation

8. Story telling

9. Singing

10. Drum or music circle

Customs

1. Bring a gift when visiting someone.

2. Arranged marriages with prerequisites.

3. Unusual dowry, dower or bride price.

4. Men and women live separately or in non-familial groupings.

5. Collective child rearing.

6. Holy sites with special rules of behaviour.

7. Disputes can be settled with fines, through combat or competition.

8. Rites of passage through combat, survival, physical or mental tests.

9. Periodically destroy or abandon the home settlement.

10. Particular significance of singing, poetry or storytelling.

Folkways

1. Clap hands to show anger.

2. Speak in a volume appropriate to your status in the family.

3. Avoid showing strong emotions in public.

4. Conversations and interactions between different groups of people follow formal rules.

5. Toast a drink or smoke from a pipe before eating. (Remember tobacco is from the Americas).

6. Spit on the ground for good luck.

7. Always leave a little food left over to indicate to your host that you are full.

8. Youngest or oldest people eat first.

9. Request council or blessing from religious leaders when making important decisions.

10. Honour and face are important to uphold.

Mores

1. Don't kill, harm or hurt particular animals.

2. Don't kill, harm or hurt particular people.

3. Displaying a particular body part to other people such as the soles of your feet is insulting.

4. Share a percentage of your takings (crops, hunts, trade income) with the group.

5. Don't abuse alcohol or drugs.

6. Be grateful for what the forest, river or sea provides.

7. Listen to the guidance of your elders.

8. Treat prisoners or enslaved people with respect.

9. Work hard to benefit others of yourself.

10. Don't imitate people or animals.

Laws

1. Tax on the import or export of particular resources.

2. Ban on a particular resource.

3. Religious freedom.

4. Restrictions or bans on particular religions.

5. Corvée labour (regular compelled labour for the authorities).

6. Ban on slavery or slaves are set free periodically.

7. Certain games can only be played in particular cultural or religious circumstances.

8. 'Skin in the game' laws. E.g. builders must sleep in the building after it's finished.

9. Only certain people are permitted to acquire particular skills. E.g. reading, mathematics, masonry.

10. Ban on debt and usury or debts are periodically cancelled or under particular conditions.

Taboos

1. Against killing, harming or hurting particular animals.

2. Against killing, harming or hurting particular people.

3. Against eating particular plants or animals.

4. Against consuming drugs or alcohol.

5. Allowing yourself to be captured alive during battle.

6. Against anthropophagy.

7. Against public physical contact between members of the same or opposite sex.

8. Against body modification, or conversely not having it done. 

9. Against using or trying to attain magical powers (whether they really exist or not).

10. Against blasphemy, desecration or ignoring religious rules and laws.

 

Other Random Tables

City Generation Tables

Plant, Animal, Mineral and other Resources of Sundaland

Random Sundaland Culture Generator

Random RPG Faction Generator