The Gaming Den

This is the second in the cultural explication series. Game mechanics for these guys will eventually follow in the subsequent posts.

Hive Mosyna: Mole Rats and Refugees

Lay of the Land:
The Mosynic Desert is a harsh land with little in the way of living inhabitants. Water is scarce, and even substantial irrigation projects are insufficient to scrape a living out of the land as the stony soil is loathe to give nourishment to grains in the face of any heroic methods of fertilization and irrigation currently known. What few scrubs poke between the yellow-veined black rocks which dot the landscape are sickly and fragile. Rock outcroppings dot the landscape freely and box canyons interrupt practically all land routes across the vastness of the wastes.

The heart of the Mosynic Wastes are undesirable in the extreme, and even Dragons are loathe to make their final stand in such surroundings (although some of the musters do). And it is here, where no territorial claims of any of the kingdoms of human or ormigan extend – in the heart of a land so blasted and infertile that the land and the air are poisonous and foul – that the Mosyna Hive makes its home.

Residents of this region, whether plant or animal, are rarely fertile. Most seeds grown on Mosynic soil are still regardless of where they are sown. Fully nine tenths of children raised in the wastes will never be able to have children of their own.

Major Cities:
Hive Mosyna has no major cities. Hive Mosyna is largely composed of nomads, who prowl the wastes for seasonal berries and migratory animals. The wagon-bound expeditions congregate at special meeting places four times a year. Each of these seasonal meeting places has permanent residents in it as well, which consist of members of the Queens Council, the Drone Harem, and a collection of Warriors and Workers to attend to their needs.

Economics:
Hive Mosyna has no internal currency at all, and all members of the Hive work on behalf of the Queens Council. Food is collected by Workers or hunted for by Warriors. Society is divided into four castes from which mobility is impossible. The Queens perform the tasks of rulership and child bearing. The Drones perform clerical duties and assist in child rearing. The Warriors hunt, scout, enforce laws, and Keep the Traditions. The Workers perform virtually all other tasks – from child rearing to agriculture, from construction to trade.

Every member of the Hive is considered to be closely related to every other member of the Hive, and since the Mosynans do not keep formal track of the parents of any particular member of the Hive, this is entirely possible. The Mosynans have no taboos regarding the associations of relatives. Agriculture is possible only in very small pockets of shaded rocky soil, and the chief grain product is millet. The Hive is not self sufficient, and trades for much of its food from the Ormigan Hive Acatl. Hive Mosynan Workers mine the minerals from the greedy and poisonous earth of the desert and trade them to the Acatln Hive for enough processed prickle fruit to maintain their livelihoods.

Law and Order:
The edicts as set down by the Council of Queens are interpreted and enforced by the Warriors of the Hive. The legal code is somewhat complex, and stored on paper media. The Mosynan language is almost identical to that of Redarkhan, despite their separation.

The laws and histories of Hive Mosyna are exhaustively kept back 400 years, before which is simply the ominous passage “They came and took our land away.” A group of Warriors is given special training in the preserving of society and named The Motherguard. They consult closely with the Queens on all issues and are tasked with protecting the queens and the records.

Magical Traditions:
Different Castes are taught different magics, as befits their status. But before a child's status is known, all of them are indoctrinated into the rudiments of Fire magic, as it comes naturally to those who experience the harsh environs of the Mosynic Wastes.

Workers are taught the forming of things. Workers are taught magics that help things grow and give things shape. Workers are taught the healing capacities of Fire. They are taught the giving of warmth, the preparing of food.

Warriors are taught the being of things. It is the Warriors who determine which seeds are capable of being sown and which seeds are for eating. It is warriors who decide which children are to be taught what tasks. And it is Warriors who are taught the great unrestrained destructive power of fire.

Queens and Drones are taught magic as well, and they are hidden and protected from threats. The Council and the Harem are possessed of the most sacred magic of all – the ability to create the next generation and maintain the Hive for another cycle.

Government:
The leaders of the Hive are unquestionably the Queens. On their fourteenth birthday, every member of the Hive is subjected to The Rite of Choosing by members of the Motherguard and assigned a position in society based upon those findings. Each new Queen is selected automatically if the Motherguard's test of fertility is positive for a female. A positive test for a male immediately places the young man into the Drone Harem. Males and Females who are determined to be infertile are assigned to be Workers or Warriors.

So the ability to survive by these people is done through the magic known by the Workers, combined with nomadic scrounging? Are all castes taught magics to survive the poisons of the Wastes that make day-to-day living hazardous?

FrankTrollman wrote:This is the second in the cultural explication series. Game mechanics for these guys will eventually follow in the subsequent posts.

Hive Mosyna: Mole Rats and Refugees

Lay of the Land:
The Mosynic Desert is a harsh land with little in the way of living inhabitants. Water is scarce, and even substantial irrigation projects are insufficient to scrape a living out of the land as the stony soil is loathe to give nourishment to grains in the face of any heroic methods of fertilization and irrigation currently known. What few scrubs poke between the yellow-veined black rocks which dot the landscape are sickly and fragile. Rock outcroppings dot the landscape freely and box canyons interrupt practically all land routes across the vastness of the wastes.

Frank, you just made tears appear in my eyes.

In all the settings I've ever seen people make, you are the first to make a desert rocky rather than sandy.

virgileso wrote:So the ability to survive by these people is done through the magic known by the Workers, combined with nomadic scrounging? Are all castes taught magics to survive the poisons of the Wastes that make day-to-day living hazardous?

The idea is that everything that anyone does is "magic." If you know how to do something and other people don't,then you obviously have magic that allows you to do that. So to the extent that people survive in the Wastes at all, then obviously they have magic of some kind that allows them to do it because otherwise they would have died long ago.

It's a fantasy world, so the abilities you get for being a member of a culture are allowed to be pretty weird by modern standards. But remember that in setting there is no particular reason to think that people who know how to do things that are considered possible by people in the modern world would seem any less impressive or magical to the people living in the fantasy world. One person can use telekinesis to lift a 4 kilogram object, while another person can make a block and tackle to personally lift a 400 kilogram object. Which do you think is more impressive to people who are born into a world in which both are possible?


Rocky deserts are generally the rule in the real world, sandy deserts are pretty weird. The Jarbahns get a rocky desert too.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:
Rocky deserts are generally the rule in the real world, sandy deserts are pretty weird. The Jarbahns get a rocky desert too.

-Username17

I know (my geology training, such as it is, seems to be coming up a lot lately). Every desert I've ever seen someone include in a setting is a sandy one, possibly because they're more familiar with the image of characters slogging across dunes.

Even the one that was once rain forest but got magi-nuked was a sandy desert when it should have been thin, flat, bare soil or something similar.