Once the ice began melting, everything changed.
Since grandma Amur was a little girl, the clan of Sulla people has been on the move. Once the Sulla occupied a lush valley, full of fruit and meat, since anyone could remember. But when she was little, as grandma Amur retells at the fire, the ice sheets to the north began melting, and the hair-faced people moved into the valley of the Sulla. They also hunted the elk. Facing starvation, the Sulla people were forced to fight the hair-faced people. Too many died.
The survivors of that battle have been on the move ever since, chasing what remains of the great elk, as they migrate north. Now, grandma Amur is dying. Every night, she looks longingly into the fire and tells the fire council she has only one wish left: to see the Sulla people settle down once again, to find a home where they can make their stand against the wilderness, as she remembers in her earliest years.
Now, the council has listened to grandma Amur, and realized that, in her wistfulness, she speaks wisdom. The migration of the great elk has slowed. Open valley, marshes, roaring rivers and caverns lay beyond the mountains to the north, where once ice sheets blocked the passage of people.
You will help the Sulla people decide where and how to settle. This will not be easy. This new land is unknown. You may struggle with dangerous terrain. You may hunt beasts that can also hunt you. You may struggle to find edible vegetation. You may fight disease. You may make contentious decisions that create new opportunities or invite doom. You may need to fear the wrath of the spirits. You may not be alone in the vicinity where you settle. You may struggle to keep the peace within the clan.
It is the beginning of the end of the last ice age, 5000 years before the invention of the wheel. Whether you are a child, an elder, a shaman, a hunter, a gatherer, a medicine woman, one adopted into the clan, or someone else, you have been called upon to make decisions for the clan with vast ramifications for its fate. Ultimately, your task is to go beyond mere survival, and to thrive.
Hosted and narrated by:
Marc B. (marcu)
Started 09/07/23.
Scenes played: 2
License: Host License
18+
