[Dork] 180 Things Make a Setting

Stolen from Fiasco and applied to the Pine Province

Relationships

1. Family

1. Granparent and Grandchild – Pine grandparents do most of the child rearing, particularly in the aspects of comfort and family lore.

2. Parent & Child – Parents are often sort of distant, but present in their children’s lives, particularly after they start schooling.

3. Auntie/Uncle & Nephew/Niece – These are sometimes blood relatives and sometimes close family friends, something close to Godparents, but their relationship with the child they are Auntie/Uncle to is usually a little closer. Traditionally, the Auntie or Uncle takes over a child’s education when they get into adolescence or when their grandparents pass away, advising about education, opportunities and romance. Many of these relationships end up as mentor & pupil. Rarely and scandalously, they become romantic.

4. Mentor & Pupil – Pines look on education as a heavy and important responsibility for student and teacher. Both are expected to give their all.

5. Siblings – Not a lot of cultural emphasis gets placed on sibling relationship in the Pines, but that doesn’t stop it from being important.

6. Extended Family – You may or may not know them well, but Pines expect that any relative, however distant will come to the aid of a family member in need.





2. Work

1. Coworkers – Pines are pretty close to their coworkers, often hanging out together after hours or even staying at their job to hang out when it’s time to knock off for the day, camaraderie being viewed as essential for good work to be done.

2. Former Coworkers – The friends of last resort for a lot of people down on their luck. If you can help someone who worked by your side, you should.

3. Task Minister & Work Detail – Pine Province is very centralized and has a fairly streamlined relatively efficient (and regularly pruned) bureaucracy, where projects are awarded to those who promise to do them on a case-by-case basis. A lot of Pines are employed by a class of people who make their living getting these projects.

4. Tradesman & Patron – Reputation is extremely important among Pine businessmen, so the better your relationship with your customers, the better off you are. This is probably most important with tradesmen, who need work from both individuals and Task Ministers to get by.

5. Merchant & Patron – Market forces give merchants a little more wiggle-room than tradesmen, but only just a little. Customer riots are not that uncommon…

6. Bureaucrat and Bureaucracy – An appointment to the Pine bureaucracy is a lot like having a tiger by the tail. You’ll go far and people will get the hell out of your way, but if your grip slips…



3. Friendship

1. Childhood Friends – Much romanticized in Pine storytelling and personal accounts. Sad is a person who has lost their playmates to age or fortune.

2. Horse – Real friends help you move bodies. Your horse isn’t always your best friend, but they are the one you think of first when things get hinky.

3. Army Buddies – Universal service is universal. If you never saw combat, then these are former coworkers at least. If you did, they are a lot closer than that.

4. Correspondents – Pines love writing letters and often have beautiful, deep friendships with people they never met in person.

5. Gaming Buddies – Pines love all sorts of games, most of them are very social, and you can tell a lot about a person by their game and who they play it with.

6. Romantic Friends – Romantic friendships are very much a part of Pine culture, can be same or cross-sex and do sometimes cross into friends with benefits.



4. Romance

1. Pretty Selky – They are very pretty. Bad luck to marry, what with their temperament and passions, but fun to play with. Popular for romantic friendships.

2. Former Lover – If you’re getting the impression that Pines are loathe to give up any connections they make or have, you’re right. Former lovers make present friends.

3. The Bad Match – Generally, your family is going to be really involved in getting you hitched up with someone good for you (the criteria are MANY), but the heart wants what it wants, and it’s almost enshrined in Pine culture that you are going to fool around with someone who is just all wrong before you settle down.

4. Romantic Correspondent – No one thinks it’s cheating if it’s just in letters. The Pine love of writing letters and writing being one of the prime avenues of acceptable emotional expression, correspondence can heat up quickly to full-fledged romance. Note that a letter lovers are often pairs that would not be attracted to one another in the flesh.

5. Torch Bearer & Inamorata – What the young find unbearable, more mature Pines take up as a pleasant pastime with no expectation of reciprocity.

6. Spouses – Love is a much desired accessory to marriage, but not a prerequisite. In fact, a lot of people think love is best kept out of marriage. A lot do not.



5. Criminal

1. Illegal Night Fighter Operation – Night Fighter conversion is pretty dangerous, but it’s a fast route to respect and some people are always willing to pay, however unsuitable.

2. Thieves – Pines are preoccupied with theft and the danger of theft, often out of proportion to the danger of theft. Actual thieves respond by being tight knit and very cagey.

3. Rebels – Whether Hemlock separatists, the Black Princess’s remnants, the White Princess’s remnants, Shokkal sympathizers, or people who don’t like being ruled by a lich, there are portions of the province still run by little armies set against the King of Pine.

4. Feral God & Accomplices – The Pines have been attempting to re-approach their forgotten gods in the years since the civil war. Sometimes it goes wrong. Sometimes the approacher goes wrong. Really wrong.

5. Corrupt Official – Considering how much the KING HIMSELF likes to weed the corrupt out of this government (and anyone who looks at him funny) you’d think they’d stop trying.

6. Bookie & Gambler – Not always or exactly crime, but a bookie or gambling house owner can really drain a family if they get their hooks into a family member.



6. Society

1. Matchmakers – Your grandma is probably part of the circle who sits and discusses and looks up horoscopes and decides who will be a good match. Do not piss them off.

2. The Hemlocks – They are just like Pines, almost. Their culture is just a bit different. They are a little more sallow or freckled, their hair is lighter. It makes all the difference.

3. Crematorium – An important part of every community, however small, if one doesn’t wish to have the Odic force dragging your dearly departed around post-departure.

4. Haruspex – They can be scary, often covered in blood from animal sacrifices, but the Pines won Teigo Stroen by feeding the local Gods blood and now so many are forgotten and addicted and mad with hunger. Someone has to nurse them back to health and sociability.

5. Selky Cult – Some people aren’t happy with being just human, and so they gather at the river to float down in hopes that a water spirit will come to them and make them more.

6. Garrison – In the Teigo, the trees fell you, starveling ghouls will sneak in and eat you, bandits and rebels will sweep in and steal everything. Having a handful of soldiers (never local, sadly) around does help to mitigate those problems.

Motive, Means, Opportunity



1. To Get Out

1. Of Gambling Debts – The most common inheritance of the unlucky Pine. Everyone is related to a gambler. Most are related to bad ones.

2. Of a Bad Family Situation – A person without family has nothing, but sometimes what you have is way worse than nothing.

3. Of a Bad Romance – Okay, maybe you should have listened to the matchmakers before you hooked up with the crazy.

4. Of a Job – Maybe the Task Minister is corrupt, the plans are bad, the crew is a bunch of idiots, or something has gone really wrong, whatever the reason, only a fool doesn’t know when to quit.

5. Obligation – Someone said something to someone else and now it’s up to you to see it through. And it’s bad news.

6. Conversion – They are going to throw you in the river or tattoo your forehead and rob you of sleep or send you into the Ilex to find the Hare and you don’t want it.



2. To Get Even

1. With a Haruspex – They did what they had to for the Gods, but now you’re going to do what you have to for yourself and yours.

2. With an Old Score from the Civil War – Some wounds require more wounds to heal. At least, you’re hoping that will do it.

3. With a Criminal – You’ve been hit by; you’ve been struck by…

4. With the Pines – You’re a Hemlock, conquered, half-assimilated but never accepted. You know only half of what you wish you knew about your people, but you know that this land is yours and stolen.

5. With the Ghouls – They can’t help themselves when they get too hungry, they claim. The bodies were sold to them by the crematorium operator who swore they were bandits, not your loved ones (now doomed to return as ghouls themselves). Whether you believe them or not is beside the point.

6. Task Minister – The fish rotted from its head and got stink all over you.



3. Get Respect

1. Despite a Diminished Family Name – It wasn’t you who wrecked it, but by gods, you’ll build it back up.

2. From a God about to Go Feral – Or else it will kill everybody. Or maybe just kill you. You never know.

3. From Your Commanding Officer – The army is a good place to prove yourself, to bad your CO isn’t interested in seeing you proven.

4. From the River Tigers – Because their respect is so much healthier than their contempt. Whatever your plan is, it’s ballsy, I’ll give you that.

5. At the Gambling House – Heaven knows, enough of your family’s money is in that place.

6. For your Losing Faction in the Civil War – Victory is probably out, but moral victories might still mean something.



4. Get Rich

1. Raiding Feral God Shrines – Theft, blasphemy and total disregard for your life and afterlife! Very audacious. On the other hand, it’s not like they can get angrier…

2. Work Detail Graft – A little is expected; a little more is a bonus for a job well done. A little too much will get you killed by the secret police.

3. Buying Officials – This is the bureaucratic version of running with the big dogs. Run, doggy, run.

4. Getting a Military Commission – Some of them don’t even involve fighting the Shokkals. Sadly, most of them do.

5. Off Deep Stroen Artifacts – It’s the only good part about being in the last civilized stroen.

6. Cooking horoscopes – Arrange a few marriages and make a few alliances, everyone is happy (if briefly) and everyone owes you something.



5. Get The Truth

1. About your Horoscope – Something about it really bothers the old folks, but they won’t tell you what.

2. About the Night Fighter Conversions – Night Fighters are strong protectors and vigilant. And dreamless. And a little bit mad. And sometimes it doesn’t work. And sometimes it really doesn’t work.

3. About the Stakes of the Bet your Grandfather Took – It would be nice to know how you can not owe those sinister people and what you would owe them if you lose.

4. Whose Bones are in the Selky Pool – If at first they don’t succeed, selky cultists try, try again. But there seems to be a lot more tries than seems reasonable.

5. Where the Shokkals Figure into This – You would think the bottom of the civilized stroens would be too far a trip for the people of the mountains, but there are a lot of them down here, and they are dangerous folk.

6. About the Arrangement with the Ghouls – They have things people want. People have things they want, not the least of which being their mortal remains.



6. Get Laid

1. To Get it Over With – All the letters, all the declarations; it’s time for subtext to be text.

2. Not to Die (or Wed), yet a Virgin – And your realized that you were about romance all wrong and certain things were never addressed.

3. By the Sweet Thing You Have Your Eye On – Pine culture doesn’t make a lot of room for just naked lust. You gotta make your own.

4. By and Old Lover to Start Over – Pines are loathe to break any connection, and this one was a good one.

5. To Prove them Wrong – Not the best motivation ever, but not an uncommon one, either.

6. To Get out of an Obligation – There are some situations more easily resolved by throwing someone a pity fuck than actually trying to fix.



Places To Go



1. Around the Settlement

1. The Local Establishment – Restaurant, Bar, Coffee House (usually pan fired tea with citrus peel more than coffee), gambling den and meeting house all rolled into one. Some of them are also inns (though law limits the number and size of the rooms you can have at these places). If something is happening in town, it’s here.

2. Night Fighter Shanties – Tidy little cottages with no place to sleep. Night Fighters tend to work the night through and live close to one another so they can chat in the small hours when the rare notion takes them and so that they can continue their projects without disturbing the sleeping folks.

3. The Widow’s House – All the old folks tend to congregate at the house of one of their more well-to-do friends, most often an old lady whose lost her husband but can afford a servant or two. This is where games are played, matches are made, and the real important business of the settlement gets decided.

4. The Post Office – Pines’ love for writing letters being only exceeded by their love of receiving letters, the Post Runners are popular people.

5. Look-Out Tower – The Teigo is a dangerous forest full of awful things that don’t always stay in the forest. Every settlement has a number of towers posted around to keep watch in case the forest gets cranky.

6. The Local Task Minister’s House – Even when there aren’t any projects coming in from the government, it’s a good place to look for work.



2. On a Bridge Settlement

1. Floating Market – When you have a settlement that straddles the river, it’s got to have a place where you can buy things from people on boats. It’s tradition.

2. Down in the Supports – The sun never shines, the smelly water flows by dark and silent. No one comes down here, or, at least, no one wants to come down here.

3. Nice Home, Mysteriously Abandoned – Space is at a premium, so a house that takes up a lot of it, yet isn’t inhabited is weird. Really weird.

4. The Shrine where the Float Starts – A little upstream, where the Selky cultists gather to try again to get the water spirits or die trying.

5. West Bank, Upstream – Generally regarded as the nice part of a Bridge Settlement, but nice is a very relative term, we assure you.

6. Fisherman’s Pier – Pines love fishing almost as much as gambling, and given the water quality, fishing is a lot like gambling…



3. In the Black Part of the Forest

1. Inexplicably Icy Ravine – Which means there’s probably a Frontier to the Ilex down there, or, at least, some Ilexan Hairy Men.

2. Forgotten Shrine – A God purchased by the Haruspices from the Hemlock priests in the old days with lots of blood, grown addicted and now probably in nasty withdrawal.

3. Haunted Logging Camp – Angry spirits, heavy logs, tools that would make terrifying wounds, some probably animated by the Ddic force. This place has it all!

4. Where No Light Shines – You wouldn’t think that black pines could make such a thick canopy. Maybe you’re right. I wonder what else is up there…

5. Stalking House – Sometimes the Odic force gets ambitious. Be polite to any little old lady you might find within.

6. Lich Tree – The kind of person who gives their blood and bones to the roots of a tree and the Odic force is not the kind of person you want to meet. Unfortunately, it’s too late.



4. The Waters of the Indigo River

1. Too Big to Be Just a Mill – And you’d probably be right. River necromancers need both the water and the Odic force to turn that wheel, and you don’t want to know why.

2. River Tiger Island – River Tigers are evil, sapient, necromantic otters the size of tigers with animated corpse servants and fur the color of an oil slick. They see humans as an annoyance and occasional resource or snack. Sometimes they claim an island. Are you going to dispute that?

3. Oak Camp – Some of them got stuck down here, or tried to set up peaceful trading posts along the river. May be heavily armed.

4. Suspiciously Cheery Little Temple – This is the Teigo, where outsiders complain that everything is always too dark and spend a fortune on lamp oil. Cheery is always suspect.

5. Half-Flooded First One Settlement – Before the Pines were the Hemlocks. Before the Hemlocks were the newcomers whose world ended to make the Teigo Stroen. Most of their concrete-brutalism structures have worn down to grayish sand in the time since they came to be, but some remain. Some even have meals, half finished on tables.

6. Selky Village – To become a Selky, you have to almost drown. The water spirit comes into your lungs with the water. In many parts of Pine Province, attempting to become a Selky is a widespread tradition (and common cause of drowning deaths). Occasional little settlements are composed entirely of Selkies, which shouldn’t technically happen…



5. Shokkal Foothills

1. Military Camp – Before he died, the King of Pine was fighting a fairly successful war against the Shokkals. Before he came back, his children were fighting a fairly disorganized war against each other and the Oaks. Now, things are a little confused, and a lot of soldiers are just stuck up there, waiting for orders.

2. Mining Settlement – Pine Province is strapped for mineral resources in a big way, so when they invaded the foothills, a lot of settlements were plunked down to get ore back down the hill as fast as possible. Some are established, some abandoned, some cut off completely, and some are… well… yeah.

3. Terrace Farm – Pine Province has almost as much problem with crops that require lots of clear land as they do with minerals, and because of this, almost a third of all Pines technically live outside of the Province, farming in the foothills, because mountainside farming is actually easier than getting things to grow (and not having the forest trying to kill you if you cut down a tree) in the Teigo.

4. Rockslide Burying Something Interesting - Rockslides aren’t that common in the foothills, but when they happen, it always seems that they are covering something you’ll miss or uncovering something you didn’t want to know about.

5. Shokkal Camp – The Shokkals still don’t have a lot of political will to retake what the Pines stole from them, but there are camps, and those camps are usually full of Shokkal soldiers and haruspices often in the same state as the Pine Soldiers, abandoned by their own political dust ups in their mountain septs.

6. Mountain God Shrine – Either addicted and abandoned by the Pines or imprisoned and sealed in by the Shokkals. Take your pick.



6. Local Otherworld

1. Odic Zone – The Teigo is deeper in the thorns than the Thanatostroen reaches. On the other side of death is more life, only slantwise.

2. Tesko Frontier – Maple Province military checkpoints, wrist thick strands of Brick Spider web or the chilling howl of Blood Wolves. Pines pride themselves on being tough enough to survive at the bottom of the Thorns, but that layer above gives most Pines pause for reflection.

3. Shokkal Frontier – If you hear them singing, it’s too late.

4. Ilex Frontier – There might be a Province down there, but mostly, it’s endless winter, thorns and hairy men.

5. Slipway to the Deeps – It’s a bad idea.

6. Feral God’s Dreaming Court – Do you know where you are? You’re in the Jungle, baby. You’re gonna die.



Items/Random People/Other

1. Untoward

1. Needles from the King of Pine’s Lich Tree – And I’m sure he’d be interested to know how you came by those.

2. Shokkal Slaver’s Mask – The Shokkal Slavers are, if you believe the Shokkal Haruspices, all dead. Nobody believes the Shokkal anything, least of all their bloody priests.

3. River Tiger Pelt – Marks you as a tough bastard with a death wish. It is waterproof, warm, soft and very sharp looking. Fashion is a bloody thing.

4. Blood Stained Gaming Tile – Evidence that there may indeed be a wrong way to game.

5. Hawthorn Currency – The short answer is Hawthorn Province solved their fuel problems by burning souls and it turned out the worse for them. Anything of, from, genitive, ablative or any other case involving the Hawthorns is tainted by that novel method of powering all the infernal toys they used to love threatening the other deep-stroen Provinces with.

6. Caterpillar Forest Caterpillar Eggs – Because owning a River Tiger pelt isn’t daft enough.



2. Transportation

1. Floating Market Boat – The people who operate the boats in the floating markets tend to live on them. One wonders why, sometimes.

2. Nasty Pine Elk – Sleek black monsters, just barely tamable enough to be mounts. Males have Irish Elk ridiculous antlers, which can be handy in fights.

3. Mine Cart - *May not be fast enough to escape the creepers.

4. Mini Kayak – Pine Pathfinders who are light enough use these. They are cute, light and you can carry them on your back. They have little else to recommend them as boats.

5. Army Bicycle – Popular all over the Provinces, particularly in the deep stroen where a lot of more advanced vehicles simply do not function. The Pine army was the first to adopt a full on bicycle corps, and several Provinces have since followed suit. Newcomer hipsters would appreciate the heavy, fixed gear Pine Army models.

6. Zipline – Common on watchtowers and in the foothills. Fun to use.



3. Weapons

1. Ghostwood Billet Club – Ghostwood is prized in the shallower stroens because you can use it to hit ghosts. In the Teigo, where there are no ghosts, ghostwood trees grow all over the place. Even without need of its spiritual efficacy, ghostwood makes a good, solid club and the standard side-arm for Pine soldiers.

2. Tree Ripper Grapeshot Cannon – If you have a thousand of tree rippers when the Caterpillar Forest comes calling, you will wish for a thousand more – Pine aphorism.

3. Ghoul Digging Gloves – More tools for ghouls, but they are sort of nasty, clawed things that I would not want occupying my personal space.

4. AK-47 – Okay, it might not be an actual Kalashnikov or even a knock off, but it is a convergent design from some world that looks pretty much the same. The People’s Weapon.

5. Elf Spore Weapon – Elves aren’t very common in the Teigo, but they are present, and the Teigo is dangerous to them, too.

6. Djur Poison - *may have harmful side-effects. Like turning you into a watermelon.



4. Valuables

1. Shokkal Petrol – No one knows where they get it, only that they have technology that is comparable to the most advanced newcomers, which means they need it.

2. Grove of Mature Ghostwoods – One of the few things that Pine Province has to trade that other Provinces want.

3. Big Platinum Nugget – Just because electronics don’t work in the Teigo doesn’t mean the metal isn’t valuable.

4. Fox Wine – Teigo grapes like to grow in the forest, and Pines make a lot of wine. People in other stroens really dig this wine, so it becomes at pretty lucrative export. Why is it called fox wine? Good question.

5. Horoscope Almanac – Whether you believe that your destiny is determined by the stars, enough people in Pine Province believe it that it kind of is.

6. Deep Artifacts – Pine Province is the deepest Province, but it wasn’t always. Stuff from below is interesting and potentially very valuable.



5. Information

1. Night Fighter Tattoo Designs – Actually getting the right channeling of spiritual energy into a person to make them a Night Fighter (and not blind, mad or dead) is an important bit of information. The tattoos provide the channels and the means of making them right is important.

2. Notorious Gossip’s Journal – Pines like keeping journals, too. Some journals have very interesting information in them.

3. Bookie’s Odds-Book – Given the popularity of gambling, there can be a lot in here for the right eyes to see.

4. Inside Info on Military Commissions – An officer’s commission is a ticket to a better life, assuming you can keep it.

5. Propitiation Rituals for Feral Gods – Gotten with bloody trial and bloody error.

6. Newcomer Essay on Transhumanism – There is a notion among the Pines that humanity is not the best suited creature to surviving in the Thorns, and there is a groundswell among both intellectual and common people to be open to other options.



6. Sentimental

1. Sheaf of Letters – People carry with them their most treasured letters. Soldiers often have hollowed out hafts or stocks in their weapons to store them.

2. Yellow Float-Day Scarf – Someone who wore it went into the water and came out a Selky, a failure or a corpse.

3. Butterfly Collection – There are all kinds of really pretty butterflies in the Teigo. Some of them have larval forms that climb into your throat, choke you half to death and take over your body when your brain is damaged enough, but most don’t.

4. Lock of a Lover’s Hair – Often sent in, you guessed it, a letter.

5. Handful of Prayer Ribbons – Strips of dyed cloth with prayers inked onto them, when the prayer is gone, the Gods have it. When the dye is gone, they have made their decision. When the cloth is gone, you get your answer.

6. Faithful Dog – Every Pine loves their doggies. Lots of heartbreaking stories about faithful or brave dogs.

Items/Random People/Other Part 2

1. Monsters

1. Tree Monsters – There is a bewildering variety of cunning, predatory tree in the forests of the Teigo from the Flute Tree, whose piping is a song that can kill 1 of every 8 people that passes into earshot to the furnace-like and child hungry Witch’s Oven Tree.

2. Elves – Like elves in the other stroens, elves of the Teigo are like cherubic, sexless infants with feral pointy teeth and beady black eyes. They are at least partly spirit, can fly (slowly) and have potent magical abilities. Elves often adopt humans as friends and can be very kind and protective in their weird, codependent, mischief laden little ways.

3. Djur – They have pointed ears and sharp features, they make clothing that absorbs all light around them but the lanterns of their eyes. They can clear land without reprisal from the Teigo and they desire privacy beyond all reason an proportion. Some people wonder if they are what remains of the First Ones of the Teigo.

4. River Tigers – Denizens of the river with strong ties to the Threshold and the Indigo Light. Like Otters the size of tigers with coats and hearts equally black. Hairy Men – Denizens of the Ilex sometimes filter up from below for short times on errands. Classic sasquatch types, they are generally not interested (or physically capable) of meaningful communication, but are clearly sapient. Other than that, Pines know shockingly little about them.

5. Cloaked Owls – Shape changing creatures that spend some of their time as Barkeresque Cenobites and some of their time as giant owl cenobites. They show up and kill people for reasons that no one has fully worked out or really cares to discover.



2. Odic Emmanations

1. Liches – If you want to live on after death, and you are a very evil person, bury your body under a tree and your will and the tree can fuse, allowing you to make a physical projection that can go forth and be nasty with relative impunity as long as no one knows where your body lies.

2. Ghouls – Neck and neck with the Djur as an explanation for what happened to the Teigo First Ones. Actual biological, human like beings infused with the Odic force. They have to scavenge for food for the sake of the Odic force which will otherwise hollow their bodies and make them into mad, slavering murder machines. Ghouls and the Pines have an uneasy but communicative relationship.

3. Odic Dead – This is why Pines burn their bodies (or, if they are unscrupulous, sell them to ghouls). The walking dead. Romero zombies, only not infectious per se.

4. Odic Foci – Sometimes the Odic force gets into objects to the point that they become animate. Anything with human likeness is a prime target, and given the violent nature of things so animated, stuff with human likeness is really, really rare in the Pine Province.

5. Night Fighters – Infuse a living person with enough of the Odic force in the right way and they lose the need to sleep and can see in the dark. Pretty handy traits in the Teigo.

6. Odic Spirits – Pretty rare, but unlike other spirits, these are not human in origin. They behave similarly, but have some disturbingly alien tendancies.



3. Customs

1. Black Humor – There is no joke too dark for a Pine to tell. In fact, most jokes that aren’t dark enough get very little reaction. Laconic is the way to get a laugh.

2. Gambling – Anything that can be bet upon is. Combined with Pine humor and you get a lot of offended outsiders.

3. Literature – Pines aren’t encouraged to be very expressive or fanciful in person, but there is a strong cultural channel of emotion and imagination into stories and letters.

4. Solitary Drinking – Coffee and tea are consumed socially. Wine is drunk alone. Fox wine comes in bottles meant for a single person, and possessing a bottle is a universally acknowledged signal that one is seeking solitude. Possessing two is a universally acknowledged signal that one is a drunk.

5. Morbidity – Pines dwell on things that foreigners almost always find unwholesome. They talk and think a lot about terrible things that may come to pass as a sort of preparation for when something terrible does happen.

6. Transhumanism – Trying to become a Selky or a Night Fighter is incredibly dangerous and failure is very likely. Becoming a lich requires that a person be pretty horrible and yet some people make themselves into miserable bastards just so they can become liches. Pines have spilled a lot of ink and blood trying to figure out why this is.



4. Foreigners

1. Maples – Maples and Pines have a sort of grudging respect for one another based on the one’s conviction that the other is barking mad. Most other foreigners think they are both right.

2. Shokkals – The mountain people were too busy oppressing the shallower stroens to see the Pines coming. There’s a lot of anti-Shokkal propaganda, which is not helped, from the Shokkal perspective, by the fact that the Shokkal response to the Pine invasion is terror attacks on Pine soil.

3. Hemlocks – No such thing, they assimilated (this couldn’t be further from the truth. While Hemlocks have ended up with more Pine culture than their own, they remain a conquered and colonized people who struggle to keep a sense of identity other than second class Pines).

4. Oaks – Used to be sometime trading partners and distrusted as Maple allies. Now, the propaganda mills are ginning up against them as well.

5. Deep Folk – Some Hawthorn and Holly descendents come up from below. They are regarded with great curiosity.

6. Newcomers – Pines don’t have a lot of interest in Newcomers (other than literary), since very few ever come down to the deeps and their tech does not work in the Teigo.



5. Beliefs

1. Sociability – You may not work for everyone’s good, but by Gods you will play for everyone’s good.

2. Imperialism – No other Province has a king, that’s for sure. No other Province waged aggressive war for a very long time prior to the Pine invasion of the foothills.

3. Doom – Behind the escapism, the transhuman fascination and the conquest of the hills is the understanding that Pines saw what happened to the Provinces that once existed in the deepest stroens, and that they are clearly next. The arrival of Noviere Stroen just underscores this.

4. Transcendentalism – Perhaps it stems from the fact that human spirits don’t continue in their usual form when they hit the Odic Zone, but instead discorporate.

5. Endurance – No one else lives at the bottom of the world. No one is a tough as we are.

6. Agnosticism – When you steal gods from their people with blood and see them drunk on it and then strung out, reverence suffers.



6. Disasters

1. God Rampage – All you can do is run and run and run.

2. Caterpillar Forest – 30 meter trees with mashing roots like crab legs, full of caterpillars that choke people and make them into Odic dead. A whole forest of them.

3. Odic Flux – When the Threshold comes to visit and makes all of your things try to kill you.

4. Ghoul Famine – Sometimes the dead things the ghouls eat aren’t enough and the Odic force burns them hollow and makes them ravenous and mindless.

5. Hail Storms – Really violent and destructive ones, particularly hard on crops.

6. Vanishing – Sometimes settlements just get eaten by the Teigo. Nothing you can do about it, too.