(TFT) progress report

[Maou.Tsaou@gmail.com]

This is the background of the Easter Island stuff telling the story of how  
things came to be the way they are found by the players at the start.
I shan't go into the whole Homo Sapiens vs. Neanderthals bit and will  
similarly skip over the Neolithic Revolution and take up with a brief  
description picking up around the year 1 CE.
Population growth between 200 BCE and 400 CE was spurred by Roman  
technological development, mainly in agriculture and hygiene, and by the  
Roman Warm Period.
This and the requirements of the Roman slave economy helped drive Roman  
expansion into Britain.
By 410 CE Rome had withdrawn from the region trying to defend against her  
eventual fall, and the Dark Ages Cold Period reduced crop yields  
considerably resulting in a period of migration and invasion throughout  
Europe.
Also at the time the Christian church, aka Wizards Guild, is involved in  
pushing out the older Celtic Pagan Wizards Guild.
This brings us to about 500 CE which is when I've set the Goblin port in  
north England.
The result of the whole Goblin thing on this time-line was to force many  
Briton-Pagans, aka Goblins, north with many eventually moving across the  
North Sea into the coastal Skagerrak region over time.
Over the next century or two these peoples became assimilated into the  
culture of the region and as pressure from a growing population occurring  
during the Medieval Warm Period and the Christian Guilds continued  
expansion increased many of these Pagans move steadily west.
At this point the time-line is into the tenth century and I start to get  
pretty speculative.
I have these guys establishing several colonies well into the Americas  
including a major settlement in Rode Island centered around the old tower  
in Newport.
No I don't think the tower was built by vikingr's but there is tradition  
behind the view and the Narragansetts were described as taller than the  
average European sailor with fair skinned, and wavy hair and beards and  
this tribe did not suffer from European diseases with the arrival of the  
English as some others in the area did.
Other tribes in the area like the Quinnipiac and the Beothuk have similar  
connections and the Mohawk Turtle clan describe North America as Turtle  
Island which has a giant cedar tree growing in the center of it that  
connects the under, middle, and upper worlds together.
In the Sagas both Helluland and Markland are mentioned as being encountered  
before reaching what is generally acknowledged to be the location of L'Anse  
Aux Meadows.
In the Saga of Erik the Red an expedition is taken west that winters in  
L'Anse.
When spring arrived one group wanted to sail along the eastern coast of  
Newfoundland while the others were keen to continue west and south in  
search of Vinland.
So I'm plopping Vinland squarely on Aquidneck Island near the pretty little  
harbor Coddington spotted some three quarters of a millennia later.
This gets me to the period of King Olaf and some real headway for the  
Christian Wizards.
After his north Atlantic crossing without stopping in Iceland Leif Erikson  
came to the attention of Olaf and became a member of the Kings bodyguard.
He was then tasked with bringing the Christian Guild to Greenland.
This is right around 1000 CE.
It's at this point that some of the more astute Pagans read the proverbial  
writing on the wall and organize a movement south.
The general rule of thumb for longship navigation allows for roughly 75  
miles covered per 12 hours of sailing.
This allows about 1000 miles per month of sailing as a basic estimate.
Theoretically I could get them to the coast of central Peru in a years  
travel but I stretch it out awhile with some prolonged stops along the way  
inspiring legends of bearded white skinned gods often associated with the  
wind, healing, and teaching among the skraeling tribes encountered along  
the way.
Still, by the early twelfth century I have a small band of Vikingrs  
arriving in Peru stomping about the virgin coastal forests for trees  
suitable to construct longships.
At this point in the time-line the Samoans' are beginning their push into  
Polynesia.
Before the end of the century Easter Island is discovered and settled by  
the early Polynesians.
Play starts with the fourth generation after the Polynesian settlement of  
Rapa Nui around the start of the fourteenth century.
In Northern Europe at this time the Atlantic pack ice has begun advancing  
and summers are becoming undependable (see the Great Famine of 1315  1317)  
causing the far-flung western Viking settlements to become more isolated  
than they already were.
Both groups have a relative period of calm in which to grow but by the  
early 1400's Rapa Nui is beginning to have conflicts over dwindling  
resources while the Viking colony is starting to get considerable pressure  
from the Inca whom have consolidated Cuzco and Lake Titicaca in the  
mountains and are turning their attention to the coast.
Further ahead on the time-line the Conquistadors are scheduled to arrive in  
the mid-1500's.
European explorers start appearing in the mid-1600's with mass-holes from  
Nantucket whalers showing up regularly in the area about a century later.
If a player manages to have the foresight to focus on getting the heck off  
of Easter Island before the wars for resources kick into high gear then the  
whole thing can get pretty interesting as in the old Chinese curse may you  
live in interesting times, elseif from the pov of 'generational turns' the  
whole place is something of a trap.
And, of course, the presentation of the whole thing as a tutorial or  
example is a bit of a trap too actually now that I think about it but I  
have to start with something and putting the desert island in situ goes a  
long way in helping to show some of the things I'm trying to focus on.
As I'm based on Terra I can use a LOT more objective material to give an  
example than poor Mr. Jackson could do with Cidri as an example  
environment.
Everybody can see maps of Rapa Nui even Google Earth the place, while  
Cidri not so much.
I think Cidri does what it was meant to do well, namely inspiring  
imagination.
Hell, I'm an old man now and I still haven't quit it.
Still, I find that using Earth saves me a whole lot of description and  
helps to focus the groups collective imaginations more clearly than Cidri  
does.

Now tying races to all of this is a neat lil' problem.
 From a Roman pov I'm calling the Vikings (Viking is a verb not a  
people) Goblins, at least in part and Pagans to boot.
Pretty much any native seemed to be a skraeling to them.
Yet players are native islanders' so they would be? Orcs' to the?  
Half-Goblins'? Goblins?
Also, seeing as I've Quetzalcoatl'ed the Vikings I'm gonna have some of  
their slave practices rub off on the Inca as well.
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