A Domain-Game Summary: What Was Down In The Hole?

Shen go for a nice walk. Very sunny Spring dayshine. Much good smells. All our hunters very happy with all the good game running around waiting to be eaten. Much lumbers coming in, many buildings getting builded. Patrols out in the woods and along the swampy-bits but not much to see yet. Watch tower getting built. Make it much easier for monkeys to spot bad things at distance. Earthworks getting dug and piled and set-up righty-right by expert shen siege engineers. Smoke house going day and night and another one getting built closer to hunter's main campsite. Root cellars dug, cisterns getting dug, all sorts things getting dug. Much digging going on. Buy more shovels in Butrus.

We send back first load of trade goods. Oh-boy-dokey those go over well. Of course they do. We say they from Shenyu. Who want to call cranky egg-layer shen liar within her hearing? We send shens most likely get good dealings, not one get into fights so much. Need fighting ones here. Wherever 'here' actually be.

Much moneys made on first trip. We hire more experts. Get some more carts, hire wheel-wright. Get a book-keeper. Send encrypted messages back to Shenyu. Tell them we struggling toughly against much odds in wilderness. Need more troops, more engineers, cheap labor, lots of melon seeds and more settler-shens.

While merchant-shen go back to markets in Butrus, we two boss-shens and a small group of crossbow-shens go take looksee at small talus cave under 2 miles away from our encampment.

Nice walk.

Could make a road later, if cave worth anything. Might use for storage. There's a small river flowing into cave, maybe a grotto. We okay with that.

Shen explore cave. Find markings, bits of pretty-glass, digging around and we find a pair of nicey-nice decanters. One goes into our office. Sell the other one, or use as a gift-bribe if needed. Good lootings, not a lot, but a start.

Then we smell something.

Kitty!

Not Mister Sprinkles.

We find big cave-beasts with long-long teeth. Dumb big stinky cave-cats. Rotten things kill some shens. We kill them back. Skin them and make armor for chieftain of the hunters who come along with us to this place. Eat the meat for dinner. Stringy. At least the skulls look good over our gate.

We get engineers to examine cave. Too crumbly-unstable to make fortified, but might work for storage and a nice resource depot. We go explore other interesting area next time. Maybe we can capture some cave-beasts, make them guard-kittys for the camp? They might make nice pets for the childrens, once they learn no eat shens.

This good place. We make a good life here.

Shen Goes To Nowhere (Domain-Level Play-testings)

Shen expedition going very, very well. Explorations have been much encouraging. We now branching out from humble villa-front to much vast tracts of good, rich farmland, lovely swamps, and good trees. Even if the trees are infested with littler, paler monkey-things.

Shen building nice settlement-fortress just past the Nexus Point in the swamps outside Butrus. So far no one know what going on. Shen not stupid--we send ships out to Shenyu, bring in our trade goods as rare and exotic things from Shenyu. Most monkeys too frail to go very far inland. Always complaining it too hot. Constantly whining that it too dangerous. Food no good. Water too full of parasites. Lizard-things too big and frightful. Bah. Monkeys like cold too much, makes their brains worker slowerer. Shenyu very nice place. Monkeys just not strong enough to appreciate it.

Working on reports for boss-shen in Butrus. We building good defensible position, much fresh water, plenty game, loads of firewood. Many things to go explore. Much lootings is very likely. This is a good place. Shen like it here.

Even if it is a bit cool.

Going Nowhere Fast

Going Nowhere Fast
So, we have the Expeditionary Force of the Glorious (Yet Necessarily Somewhat Discrete) Shenyu Empire out and about in Chris Kutalik's 'Nowhere' as part of the Hill Cantons' Domain-Level Play-test. We've sent-in our first set of orders for the first two-week turn and now the Shen are busily digging latrines, setting up defenses and investigating their surroundings. They look forward to meeting their neighbors and doing much good business dealings. Once we finish compiling the Summary Report that we are drafting for Mr. Berry for matters back in Butrus, we'll excerpt a few bits here to keep you all in the loop. Let's just say that there are a few rather interesting proposals on the proverbial table and we're looking forward to the results of our initial scouting, hunting and foraging/gathering forays. It will be nice to be able to import exotic wares from Shenyu without having to sail all that way...