/tg/ Inuit setting

/tg/ INUIT SETTING Brainstorm (06/05/14-07/05/14)

Basically, what we have is nomadic hunter tribes, magical dog-people (eternal

rivals) and intruding city-building, Nordic metal men (they steal your kids and

enslave them), forced to band together against killer whale demons.

Oh god the killer whale demons.

How did the world begin? I was thinking that the main hunter-god slayed a giant

walrus, carved a great knife/sword from it's tusk, and divided it's body into the

land and sea from it's blood (their interpretation of creation).

The city-building people worship death, war, and thunder, practice ritual

scarification, tattooing and piercings. They use rough iron tools, which are a

rarity to the nomadic people who only have access to Native Iron.

What do we do with the dog people?
The dog people have two species diurnal and nocturnal and it is believed the dark

walkers prey on any foolish enough to hunt in the night. In recent times there has

been a tenuous alliance, as it means having guards 24/7 in dangerous times, but

stories are still told.

Quallupilluit are trolls that have minor weather powers. This gets worse in

groups.They migrate near years end and it is believed that they follow the storms

and herald three months of night and fighting. In actuality, it is the other way

around the storms follow them. How do the interact with all the other people? do

they get along with the dog-people (Adlet)? The new, war-like invaders? Or do they

not get along with anyone. I imagine other races viewing them as more a yearly

force of nature than a civilized species. No idea what they are internally though.
So they show up and people are kind of like "FUCKGETOUTOFTHEWAY."

I imagine them as a clan-based matriarchy, living most of the year in the hills and

mountains and herd groups of mountain goats. When the other races encounter them

it's during their rutting season, where they come down to the rich (comparatively)

lowlands to mate and fatten up for the coming year. Females direct the clan while

males are used more as beasts of burden and guards for the settlements. The iron

skin of the Eastern Men greatly disturbs them. It is not of the land, it does not

belong here. For the first time in known history, the Quall' have strayed from

their tried and trusted paths and actually taken notice of the world around them.

And they are not pleased. - And this is terrifying. This is the first time since

the great mountains rained fire and anger on the land that the Quall have moved

from their pattern of migration. Many elders fear something similar might be in

store; maybe even worse.


A lot of the violent reactions in the past have been due to use of fire. Sudden

lights cause pain to nightwalkers. (Imagine turning on a flashlight into night

vision). The resulting violent reactions are understandable.

While the nightwalkers look more feral, they have one of the oldest boatmaming and

navigating traditions due to their sharper eyesight and knowledge of the stars.


It (playing as dog-men) would be like something you buy in to, sort of like a

secret society. It involves taking on a fraction of the Adlet protector deity's

soul, which changes you into a much more aggressive form.


Magic in setting could be pact based. The most common way being to make a promise

to one of the spirits that inhabit the world. However, more mundane promises could

still work if the people had enough conviction and followed through. Gaining power

from a promise to protect your family, or to always be respectful to those you

hunted.
I imagine there would be consequences for not holding up your end of the deal. Make

a pact with the spirit of medicine and leave someone to die, spirit won't like you

and makes you sick. promise to protect your comrades and falter and your strength

drains away.
So, synthesis of the two; when you break your end of the bargain the spirit carves

out a piece of your soul (larger for the more important spirits), leaving them

empty and more likely to be inhabited by malign spirits. The more they lose, the

more animalistic and savage they become until they are little more than beasts,

terrible monsters that inhabit the frigid wastelands.

And that, my friend, is how you get Wendigo. A lot of the minor spirits will let

you do something to get your soul back, usually something big. The more powerful

spirits know that they are more powerful and are much harder if not impossible to

appease.
There can also be very powerful spirits of natural features who's gifts only work

locally, but can do terrifyingly awesome things. These pacts are passed down and

reestablished from descendant to descendent in some settlements, resulting in a

kind of hierarchy.
It usually is either something extremely difficult, recovering some lost relic of

the spirit, etc, or that increases the domain of the spirit (setting fire for fire

spirits, sacrificing blood for warrior spirits, giving a portion of your prey for a

year to hunter spirits). The only way to recover your spirit from a truly powerful

spirit is to do something that will be talked about for generations in myth, and is

seen as almost impossible to do.

So the local pacts are sort of like the Master of the Mountain from Mushi-shi; it

is either limited to only that specific area, or makes it physically impossible to

leave the area without breaking down due to the spiritual pressures involved.
Also, weapons have spirits that bond more and more with the wielder as it is used.

Ancestral weapons have the power of generations of use behind it and can be truly

devastating things when in the hands of it's intended wielder.
As everything has the same life essence as it were, there are implicit pacts people

naturally form with their comrades, friends and family. These things can keep a

soul here longer before their souls are collected and can aid warriors seeking the

same cause long after they are gone. Old warriors have been known to make pacts to

carry on causes for their comrades at arms.

In game terms, PCs that die/get knocked out/etc still have some form of influence

on the game (until they are collected/make a new character). See paranoia's

perversion points for the general idea.


This could let them for gestalt beings after death, binding their souls/essences

together with their close comrades to make sure they are reshaped into a single new

being or spirit. This isn't even limited to humans or the other souled-races;

spirits that find themselves grown close to mortals can choose to cast of their

divinity for the chance of reincarnation as a new being, though they usually only

do this with mortals who have spent a long, LONG time with them and have a very

personal bond with them, whether as a group or individual.

This is why the invaders are so terrifying; they DON'T feel this at all. They can't

make pacts, instead having a completely unrelated form of magic. They don't feel

the companionship that the natives do as their souls intertwine. In fact it's

incomprehensible to the natives why the invaders fight, or do anything. They gain

no spiritual (in their eyes) fulfillment from their activities, only brief physical

rewards.


It's purely from the native's point of view. The invaders actually do have huge

motivation, seeking glory and the chance of winning an exalted soul from their gods

that allows them a lot more power, and can let them gain entry into their halls.

The natives just have no idea of how to even begin understanding it, exactly like

how the invaders have no idea how to bond with the spirits of the new, queer land.
Sure, fleshing out the conquerors is worthy of another hour or two of discussion,

that's a fair point.

But saying, "our culture revolves around this community of spirits, outside

aggressors who don't have that are inhuman and terrifying to us", that's a good

jumping-off point.

But yes, that's just the outsider perspective on the second culture, seen from

within of course it will have its own human drives and flaws and such, defining a

faction by how their enemies see them and leaving it there is the definition of 2-

dimensional characterization.


That would make sense, a lot of clashes between the other ethnic/tribal groups

native to the area, or defending against raids from the other cultures. That and

hunting monsters that might threaten the village, fighting against dark sorcerers,

and making sure the local ecosystem of the spirits run smoothly.
they wantonly kill Quallupilluit (which endangers the climate and spirit world) and

other spirit beings without even knowing what they're doing. This makes the greater

spirits angry at all humans and lashing out against the natives as well


They (???) would essential be the leaders of the warbands that come and invade.

Would make excellent late-game bosses before more crazy spirit stuff (I see

journeys through the spiritual realms as being the late-late-end game of the

setting). Essential it would go; invader foot soldier>Kill a number of

enemies/complete number of tasks>gain soul, begin to develop more of a unique

personality> learn sorcery, create warband> set out raiding, trading, and settling.

Once you die and you 1) have a soul and 2) have done enough glorious stuff ON TOP

of what is required to gain a soul, you have a chance to join the gods in their

halls and gain eternal enjoyment in feasting and warring against the god's

spiritual enemies.

Examples; Skaali One-Eye. Bane of the Tiqulamut tribe, his warband captured nearly

half of the tribes populace before their neighbors came to their aid. He can take

control of the creatures of the wild and fill them with a bloodlust to match his

own, as well as using them to scout and gather intelligence. He was granted a soul

directly by the All-Father after slaying an ancient and terrible Wendigo in the new

lands.


Their (the Vikings') iron weapon seems to give some sort of soul-sickness to those

struck by them, as well as being much, much sharper and deadlier than non-magical

native weaponry. On average they are larger and stronger, though not as agile. They

don't know the land well but this hardly seems to slow them down as they have

beast-like endurance and seem to be able to forge through the thickest of wilds.

I.E. they are big and powerful and have an upper hand in technology. They don't

have numbers or speeds, as well as being pretty susceptible to guerrilla attacks

and light skirmishes.

Main materials used by the Natives;

Bone
Walrus and Whale Ivory
Stone
Meteoric Iron
Obsidian traded from the south

For clothing;
Leather
Fur
Bark and rough plant fiber

For Housing;
Leather covers stretched over collapsible bone/wood frames
Ice houses

lso, thoughts about having inupa: northern giants who are not very well known. they are usually identified by weapons or tools left behind by them. there has been talk of trying to ally with them to chase away the conquerors;
They're very rare, very old, and very dangerous. There's maybe a thousand left, as they cannot breed. They were hand - made by the creator god from the teeth of the walrus he slayed to make the world. He left them as watchers and protectors in case of dire emergencies. The problem is; trying to convince a near - immortal giant that is one of the last of his kind and has seen millenia of strife that this problem is more important than whatever he is doing at the time.

That, or they're an extremely isolationist group that had a beef with the natives due to some slight that humans have long since forgotten. Getting help would require great deeds in their service to bridge the generations of distrust.