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« on: December 20, 2019, 07:40:03 am »
Janjiki Pools and Hopshish blades
The pre-Askian tribes fled into the harsh desert "Tu" in a desperate attempt to escape the Retenarians, a vicious, cruel people with weapons made of "fallen stars"; their lack of preparation cost them dearly when they first came across the Darimutu plant, a pomegranate sized melon. desperately thirsty and half mad with starvation, many of them thanked the Great Ancestors and ate of the remarkably plentiful plants. Juices running down their lips, they laughed at their good fortune, and laughed,
and laughed andlaughedandlaughedand-
*Ahem* where was I? Ah yes, their wiser kin were forced to leave them behind, still laughing. The exhausted, thirsty migrants made camp for the night, a nearly tangible aura of despair hungover them, but that night one of their Shamans had a dream that gave them hope. A dream of forgotten ancestors and their greatest work. Once they awoke in the morning, The Shaman exhorted them with half-memories of his dream, giving them just enough hope to press on against the scorching heat of day and the freezing cold of night. At his lead, they made their way towards a rocky bluff within the day. finding a cave entrance, the five remaining shamans gathered together their "Kayas", now known as Askian Thistle, thirty-six in total, thirty-six being a sacred number to some of the tribe's ancestors, and entered the jagged mouth of the cave. Inside, they found strange pools filled with a black, tarry substance, with each pool having an odd stalagmite at the south end. The Shaman who dreamed placed a Kaya in one of the pools and grasped the stalagmite. Instinctively he used it, like a man wielding a dagger, and like that man his first attempt was quite crude and sloppy, a mass of vaguely crescent shaped thorns, but as he made one after the other, he improved quickly, and by the thirty-sixth attempt, he had made the ideal Hopshish still used as a pattern to this day. Exiting the cave, he gave out Hospishes to their finest warriors, and demonstrated their unique ability. Sticking the thorns into a Darimutu, and after a few moments took a bite out of it. This gave the tribal remnants a great shock, as they thought their only saviour had just committed the most terrible suicide, but they noticed he didn't start to laugh. The Hopshish must have absorbed the poison! They were saved! They could survive the harsh desert "Tu", But there were still Retenarians occupying their land. Thusly armed, the 34 "Zakara" began the long march back to Askia. Arriving in Askia in a month, they quickly found the Retenarians camped out in the husk of the Kashe'd village. Using the night to their advantage, they crept into the Retenarian tents and pricked select adversaries with their Hopshishes, before very quickly exiting the camp. Once the laughter began, that maddening laughter, the Retenarians flew into a frenzied terror, slaughtering their own friends in the process. Then the Zakara returned and finished off their now much less numerous enemy. This allowed the various pre-Askian tribes to return to their land, though shamans of all tribes continued to make pilgrimages to the Janjiki Pools to make Hopshishes and pay homage to the forgotten ancestors.
~~a dramatized radio broadcast by Ash Collins, Wettanican Expat and Scholar of Askian prehistory, drawn from his extensive knowledge of Askian oral tradition and personal experience with the Darimutu
Janjiki Pools are strange pools next to strange stalagmites filled with stranger liquid that can manipulate life itself. They are also quite variable in size, with the smallest being a meter or so in diameter, and the largest being the "sea pools", 100s of meters in diameter, and strangely impermeable to water. To activate one you must first place an organic object (such as Askian Thistle) and then place your hand in the stalagmite's liquid filled divet. The experience of shaping is very difficult to describe, but crudely it can be considered to require and screw with nearly all of your senses, from kinesthetic sense to taste, sight to intuition. Skilled Shaper-Shamans (or just Shapers for the irreligious types) are capable of functioning admirably in spite of this, though Initiates typically require a year of study and paying homage to the forgotten ancestors before their even allowed to begin working with a handler guiding them.
Hopshish Blades are crescent shaped blades of thorns. Typically .5-.9m long they are fairly light for their size. while they lack penetrative power, the thorns inject the Darimutu's horrific poison directly into the bloodstream of non-Askians (strangely, it doesn't seem to recognize traitors to Askia as Askian, but it does recognize people who've joined with the Askians), incapacitating them within moments and terrifying their compatriots. This however, is the lesser of it's two boons; The ability to absorb the poison out of a Darimutu has the far more notable effect of declawing one of the most notable dangers (but by no means the only) of traveling through Tu. Thusly making the Askians de facto owners of the desert, allowing them to be very cutthroat merchants.
TL;DR: Pre-Askian tribes get there asses handed to them by dudes and flee into the desert, a lot of them die horribly to poisonous plants, and then a shaman dude dreams of the special resource (Janjiki Pools). He leads the surviving Pre-Askians to where the special resource is and creates the first Hopshishes, thorn blades that can absorb the poisonous plants poison and inject it into some poor bastard, he gives most of them to their greatest warriors, and keeps the rest to feed the civvies.
The warriors kill the dudes, allowing the remaining civvies to comeback as the first Askians. Afterwards the Hopshishes let them monopolize desert trade and deal with raiders.
Janjiki pools work by the dude operating them going on a "spirit journey" of sorts to alter whatever was placed in it.
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