User blog:NoBanana/Industrial Revolution Setting

I have made this post for many reasons.
 * 1) Uncontrollable creative urge. No excuses to write a text wall. Nothing to write a story on.
 * 2) A potential setting for a Roleplay I may/may not be planning to create in the near future and might have created templates for.

Desert Island
Desert island is a barren, dead, wasteland. Not even the cacti that once grew here can survive anymore. Nayam Discovery= Several centuries ago, the Nayam Tribe of Mainland were the first to visit desert island. They wrote their findings on clay tablets: "The island we have found is not what we expected. Far from the golden lands we saw from our watchtowers, we found a sandy, hot, wasteland, with no food or water. The animals our seers told us of were nowhere to be seen, and the plants hurt us when we touch them. We left soon after we had arrived, there was nothing of value and one of our men had been severely injured by one of the spiky plants, and needed help from our healers. We brought back a single red fruit for further examining." The Nayam Tribe indeed never returned to the island, and the tablet was lost during an attack on the town of the Nayam during one of the early tribal wars, only to be found many years later by the current mainland tribe, who discovered it as a part of the large gathering of information from the Nayam sources, and used it to help guide them to power. Collis Mine= It was not several centuries later until a tribe advanced enough to record their findings returned to the island. That tribe was the Collis Tribe of Plateau, who were the first (and only) people to set up a residence there. In the days of the Collis Tribe, the mainland mithril vein had been discovered and claimed by the tribe who lived there, the superpower of the time, and the spire vein was yet to be discovered. In a desperate attempt to find a way to fend off the inevitable attack, the Collis Tribe was in the process of doing heavy searches on all the known islands to find another vein.

After searching half the islands, they stumbled across the mine on desert island, and halted all searching before they found the final vein, the spire one, to create an outpost at desert and start a large scale mining operation. The Collisians were unaware of how much mithril the mainland tribe was getting, and therefore never realised their mine was the most rich in mithril, so they simply mined huge amounts of the mithril there until the war started, and the mine was evacuated for safety reasons of the inhabitants (the mine had no guards, and the Collis tribe couldn't afford to spare any from the main base). All the remains of the settlement were burnt and thrown into the sea, the valuables taken on the boat, to avoid the mainland tribe being able to use the now abandoned vein. No remains of this settlement exist to date, although many records and stories exist about it, confirming its presence before the Great War. Post Great War= Over the following century, the island has been gradually been getting hotter for reasons beyond anyone's understanding (although the more accepted theory is that it's merely going through a several decade long drought), and has long since stopped being able to support life. The cacti does not grow on any other island, and therefore the increase in heat on desert drove the plant to extinction, much to the dismay of many cooks who used its fruits as a core ingredient in some of their recipes. The island has not been visited since the cacti was confirmed extinct, and so the island has been left untouched. Current State= The island has been increasing in heat steadily for roughly a century, and therefore its temperature is about 50°C during noon at most places. At night, the island drops to a "Chilly" 10°C, making it possible to visit for short periods assuming you have a quick enough boat to get there and back within 12 hours. Should one climb to the very top of desert mountain, it is the coldest area of the islands, and is twice the height of clouds over sea level. During winter, it can go to almost -100°C on some nights, although the lack of clouds at desert prevent any snow from being created at the island.

Sandstorms are frequent there, and it is rare to see desert island without a small cyclone of sand circulating somewhere on it. Such storms have obliterated all the remaining semi-functioning parts of the old settlement, as well as having the adverse effect of killing any fish who come near the island, and churning up the waters enough to create a heavy current in the waters near desert every week or so. On some days, this can affect islands as far away as mainland.

No plantlife is capable of living at desert unless it is constantly supplied with masses of water, and grown roughly halfway up desert mountain. Anywhere else and it is either to hot or cold, and since not enough water can be realistically transported to such locations, so the prospect of plants living there is laughable. As a result, no animal can exist there either, and so the island has been abandoned entirely.

Goldrock Island Lynx Island
Lynx island, a small island in the middle of nowhere that is home to the Felidae Tribe, the oldest of the current tribes. Discovery & Solarium= Going back many centuries to the origins of the first tribes, the Felidae tribe was a group of sailors who, after their ship got destroyed during a storm and their remains blown into uncharted waters, were assumed dead by the original tribe they were from, and left to rot out at sea. After the dying and shipwrecked sailors found their debris heading towards an undiscovered small, grassy landmass with gold and small animals, they unanimously agreed it was the doing of the gods, and this was a promised land. They vowed to never leave it.

After they docked, the tribe quickly set up a farm and began to interact with the animals on the island, dubbed the "Lynx". Although the island was small, the Felidae tribe found ways to get around this, and constructed a small underground space as personal quarters for each person. In doing so they stumbled across a vein of chromium, and proceeded to spend the next two decades inventing an alloy from the two metals. After many years of trial and error, the alloy was eventually discovered by a budding stonemason, who proceeded to become to tribes first smith. The metal was found to have great heat conductive properties, and as of such was named after the sun, becoming "Solarium". Nayam Arrival= Over the course of the next century or so, the tribe made little advancement technologically, although became increasingly better at making use of what they had. Their stone masons were said to be able to make stone tools as strong as iron, and a forge was made to make items of great importance from solarium, such as the shrine to the god (which they believed took the physical embodiment of the sun). After a century of little advancement, they were visited by the Nayam tribe, who found the island on a random trip to discover new lands. This was the only contact from the outside world seen by the Felidae, and it occurred during night (when their god was not present), and so they saw it as an attack of evil forces. They attacked the boats that approached, leaving the Nayam tribe with no more information than the location and basic structure of the island, as well as the obvious information that the residents were hostile.

Having fended off the evil of the godless, the Felidae Tribe became increasingly wary of any more potential attacks. They decided to look further into the properties of solarium, and decided their first step would be to further investigate the glow of the shrine at night. After constructing a miniaturised shrine, they tried placing it in many differing locations, and found that it glowed brightest when exposed to sunlight, and decided that this was yet another symbol from their god that this metal was imbued with holy magic, and that heat and light was the good in the world while darkness and cold was evil. They did little more with this knowledge, although it had a significant impact on their religion. Solar Eclipse= During the period surrounding the Great War, the Felidae tribe was again, left untouched. They did however, begin sacrificing flaming objects to their shrine, having made the connection between light and heat, and fire. This had what would be the expected result on the solarium, it made it glow extremely brightly and burn the fingers on touch. This discovery was made in close conjunction to a solar eclipse that occurred shortly afterwards, and so the tribe burnt huge quantities of flammable objects in the hope they would bring back the sun. They "succeeded" in their endeavours, and in the process discovered the ability to, after heating the solarium to a high enough temperature, induce combustion of flammable objects on touch. The Felidae tribe, from that point onwards, have conducted periodic mass burnings to raise the temperature of the Solarium to that very point, and remind themselves of the victory they had over the forces of evil. Current State= The tribe of Felidae is not currently under any form of stress, danger, or threat, and the lives of the inhabitants differ little from what they did 50 years ago. They guard the secret of how to make Solarium extremely closely, and have all come to the mutual agreement that they will die before they reveal how to make it. Only smiths and high priests know the ratio, and the tribe is the only group of people on the entire island group that know that the metal exists, and that it's ingredients are composed of gold and chromium. As the metal has a melting point far higher than magma, molten bluesteel, or any other substance found on the islands, creating the metal is one-way and can therefore is extremely hard to smith (similar to mithril or bluesteel in difficulty), and Solarium is not capable of being melted down into its original materials to find the materials or ratio.

The island of Lynx is divided into three main sections. There is the shrine and holy area, where the large metal shrine of solarium is found sitting atop the huge boulder at the edge, there is the agricultural area, where the lynx are kept and food is farmed, and there is the forge, a large building with many tools for the creation and moulding of solarium. The farms contain mainly wheat, but a small apple orchard is located at the side for making apple pies, and a few berries are also farmed for use in various recipes. In the centre of these areas is the water source, and a small entrance to the living quarters and food storage areas down below. Each room is a hollowed out part of the underneath of the island, and a mine for chromium is located at one end. The tribe is also aware that food goes off slower when kept away from heat, and stores it in a cold area opposite the chromium mine.

The tribe itself lives off both farms and fishing, and has developed many recipes using what they have. In the ways of combat, they use solarium tipped javelins, and ignite the end of it (and subsequently superheat the tip) on the shrine before throwing them at any incoming boats, which they attack on sight. They also have a two swords, which have a solarium blade and stone hilt. The swords are found lying next to the shrine, constantly obtaining heat energy from the shrine, which is kept hot permanently.

The tribe is unknown to all but Nayam scholars, and the island's exact location is unknown, hence no return journey has been made to the island.

Paradise Island
Paradise island is an island that was heavily contested during the tribe wars, although has since lost almost all strategic value and is therefore now a trade based settlement. First Tribes= Paradise island was originally a place where people ate, slept, and lived. For a while, everyone was independent of each other, but soon, when the first groups of people came together to form tribes, a huge war started over the territory of paradise island, as the abundance of food made it, if taken for oneself, a place of extremely luxury. The first tribe to gain enough power to kick everyone else off the island obviously claimed ownership first, however they were soon thwarted by other groups, who had moved off the island and onto other islands, where they all formed larger groups, and then took paradise island for themselves.

This process repeated until about 500 centuries ago, when the tribes generally became established (paradise, flax, bento and teraphyx) and the owners of paradise island became strong enough to hold the island for what seemed indefinitely, owing to being the first tribe to create an alliance with another (to be specific, the flax tribe). The flax islanders, being the only tribe with an iron source (and having learnt how to use it), could supply the paradise tribe with weaponry, while the paradise exchanged the plentiful and delicious food that existed there. They became do joint and named themselves the Amicus tribe. Established Tribes= This rule was soon to change however, as the bento tribe was the first to colonise rockma, and so when they discovered steel weaponry and iron armour, the allied forces of flax and paradise stood no chance, only a few survivors escaping to find mainland, where they set up a new base, under the name of the Nayam Tribe. The bento tribe, now owning three islands (flax was deemed unimportant and useless), moved their main base to the rockma island, and made the paradise and bento island's the secondary islands, becoming the Adamas Tribe. Since they now owned every island that they saw as useful, they decided that further warfare was pointless and a waste of resources, and began to colonise effectively, forming the first established tribes.

With the new findings of large quantities of rock from the rockma island, the inhabitants of paradise island quickly learned highly developed masonry skills, and created the first grindstone. They had already found that you could make bread by crushing wheat to make flour, wetting that to create dough, and then heating that, although there had never been enough flour to make any sizeable quantity of bread. With this new discovery, populations skyrocketed, as food could now be produced far quicker. This was followed by the discovery of pies, and a huge range of new culinary discoveries, which prompted the slow move of (figurative) money and (actual) power from the rockma dwellers to paradise island. Eventually, paradise became the largest power in the islands. Nayam Conquering= As always, power never stays in one place. When the Nayam Tribe discovered mithril, they quickly learned of its potential, and the elders, who were approaching a century in age and could recall the attack on the Amicus tribe, encouraged a counter attack. After five years of preparation, the Nayam tribe sent an attack force of mithril armed warriors, who (as far as the legends say), sailed upon a boat of mithril. The bento tribe was first to fall, and when the messengers reached rockma island, the inhabitants gathered all the steel and iron for a final stand at paradise.

During the estimated two weeks before the Nayam Tribe arrived at paradise island, the Adamas tribe prepared a vigorous counter, and in the process found, and then mined to the extent of destruction, the sulphur and coal veins, and they then learnt of explosives. Almost the entire island was trained in the ways of a bow and arrow or spear, many could use a sword.

When the Nayam Tribe finally arrived, there was a huge battle, which is recounted vividly by many bards and poets. Both tribes had catapults, but only the Adamas tribe had explosives, so during the battle of the sea, it seemed like the Adamas tribe had the upper hand. Unfortunately for the Adamas tribe, the Nayam docked before they sunk all the war ships, and the light, strong, mithril weaponry eventually outdid the steel weapons of the Adamas. The Nayam won the battle, and rounded all the survivors into their houses, while the Nayam decided what to do with them. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that to kill the Adamas would be a waste, as they had knowledge the Nayam didn't, and so the Adamas were spared under the condition they joined the Nayam. Many refused and were killed, but most survivors took the oath; and so the island fell under Nayam power. The Famine= The survivors of the attack on Paradise Island were loyal to their new rulers, and there was never a rebellion (not that one was possible, the only weapon making substance left on the island was stone). As of such, the Nayam trusted the Paradise inhabitants, and the Paradise became the main source of food and raw plant material (excluding trees, the Nayam had most of them) and so the abundance of food, metal, and a newfound lust for power lead the Nayam to conquer the other inhabitable islands, and find new ones. This lead to the empire of the Nayam, and the four colonial bases.

Eventually, the two new islands that had been added to the empire, both of which having little in the ways of natural food sources, suppressed the limit of the fertile paradise soil and caused a great famine to spread throughout the empire, causing the Nayam rulers to lose power over their three colonies. The communist rule that had once thrived in the empire was broken, and each island split into its own individual tribe. Gold became a common currency, as it was found on none of the islands inhabited by a tribe (the mainland tribe was unaware of it's veins), and so it was exchanged for food, ores, and explosives.

The famine continued for another two decades, by which time any form of friendship between the islands was gone, and each island saw the others as both a business partner and threat. Over time, the population of the islands fell to sustainable levels, and the paradise islanders were able to end the world-wide famine through their liberal trade of food for gold, which they hoarded. Tensions lowered, but the islands were still separate. The Great War= Paradise was once again growing in wealth over the other islands, as food was a necessity and no other island could produce enough to feed it's vast population. This sparked jealousy from other tribes, in particular the Collis tribe of Plateau. Plateau island had always been a "jack of all trades, master of none", with small forests, small ore veins, and small amounts of farmland, and as of such that made it a victim of the economical age it had just pulled out of. Wanting more gold, it saw no better opportunity than to attack paradise and steal all the riches there.

The plan was simple. Attack paradise, kill everyone there, and steal all the gold, then become rich and powerful. However, it failed in practice. Paradise fell to the surprise attack, and with little weaponry, they were overwhelmed by the attacking force. Unfortunately for the Collis tribe, those in the paradise island had hidden the majority of their gold storage in an underground vault, of which the raiders did not find, and so they came back with little gold. Those who happened to be inside the vault (and those who had hidden in it), asked for help from the Mainland tribe, who, after a counter-offer involving money, agreed to a counterattack on the Collis tribe. Paradise also asked magma to help, but those in power there deemed it a waste of resources to engage in warfare, and stayed neutral. The Windmill= This started the Great War, a time of distrust and hunger. The attack on paradise had sparked another food shortage, and the warfare prevented boats with valuable cargo from crossing large distances. The paradise tribe, cut off from the rest of the world by the war between the two superpowers, began rebuilding, and in doing so, their isolation induced experimentation, and the paradise tribe learnt to harness the power of the winds to turn grindstones. Throughout the Great War, the tribe used the majority of their wood and stone supplies to build an envisioned windmill, designed by one of the best Architects and Engineers of the time. The soot from the burnt farmland was compressed into bricks, and much of the bottom layers of the windmill was made from the ashes of the burnt down tribe.

Once the war had ended, the Windmill was nearing the end of it's construction. The two "Superpowers" had now fallen, and magma was the only remaining island unscathed directly by war. Many predicted another famine, but now even worse, as half the islands still had to pick themselves up from the ground after the greatest battle in history, and the only food supplying tribe was recoiling from an unprovoked raid that destroyed almost all the island.

Fortunately for the islands (and potentially the human race as a whole), the paradise tribe finished construction of the windmill. This brought a new age of farming and food production, as wheat could now be made into flour almost automatically. This new building meant that the islands could potentially hold thrice as many as it once did, and take the tribes to new heights. Current State= As of the current, paradise island is a thriving food based tribe, home to the Victus tribe, devoted to creating food and making a profit from the fruits of the island. Paradise island has by far the most fertile soil of any other island, hosting land that grows crops and other plant life twice as quickly. All of the buildings for housing and storage are placed on the cliffs, which can get very windy during the autumn as the wind comes in from desert island, and having had nothing to slow it down over the huge ocean, creates some of the heaviest winds on the island group. This is ideal for the windmill however, as it can process wheat much faster.

Below the cliffs are the orchard and wheat fields. Outside the cliffs (next to the ocean) the Victus tribe plants large expanses of wheat to be harvested, the small islands bordering the outside being reserved for fishing, and the cooking and storage of said fish. Inside the orchard are trees and bushes that grow delicious fruits used in creating luxury foods such as pie and cake, and occasionally the fruit is sold individually if the harvest exceeds the harvest of wheat.

The windmill is the largest man-made structure on the islands, and contains large amounts of stone gears used to rotate grindstones used in processing wheat. On the door it contains a golden plaque with all the names of those who died while creating it, and those who played a key part in its construction. It is centrally placed on the cliffs and overshadows the front entrance to the orchard, next to the spring from which the waterfall comes from.