u/KeyEnergy1803

So this is my meager staring base, “Obsidian“, founded by a Greenland human known only as “Naked Nemo” (don’t ask) of Clan Vulture (owning up to their reputation as scavengers and looters). named for the big black glass mesa that makes up its south face, Obsidian is located deep within Shun, away from all the assholes in the UC, Holy Nation, and the Swamp. the town is almost self-sufficient, the 2 XL and 2 M cactus fields can usually produce enough chew sticks to sustain it’s 11 inhabitants, and there’s enough wild game that the emergency jerky supply can probably last one or two bad harvests (and yes, the base is frigging drowning in leather and hides). Which means that almost all the wheat the 2 XL wheat fields produce is used to make grog. Which is good because it has no ability right now to produce cloth (gotta work on that). Really, I have some long-term goals around acquiring more weapon and armor blueprints so I have more gear options for my recruits.

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a great shot of how the base looks from the river, and also where my mini-misadventure begins. See, during the last Band of Bones raid, our 11th member, a hive soldier named shek, (I think that’s how it’s spelled) and the base’s best chef, got his right leg chopped off. Not good because I’m nowhere near capable of producing homemade prosthetics, and Drifter’s Last doesn’t sell them. So… well I know for a fact that they’re sold in Heft and pretty sure Heng as well, but they’re clear across the map. But “Nemo had heard of a way station in the boarder lands that sold prosthetics“. I mean, Nemo obviously hates this idea, the Boarderlands is too close the the holy nation, and given Clan Vulture’s composition (of the 11 people 4 are hivers, 4 are women, one’s an escaped slave, Nemo has a prosthetic arm, and pretty sure Izumi would sell her left kidney to get a 3rd science book) pretty sure the holy nation hates them before ever meeting them. but given the alternatives, that’s just what the plan has to be, rest up, convert the entire harvest into Grog and Rum, empty out the armory, and make for, a kinda roundabout way, the boarder lands to try and find the way station. The planed journey was to go to Drifter’s last, then to Clownsteady, then swing north to Shark and into the boarder land, hitting every town, way station and village along the way both to offload gear and check all the machinist’s shops on the off chance that they might have a prosthetic leg and this road-trip might end early. To avoid any unplanned raids while gone, everyone is going, even Shek, who Dr. Cheng will be carrying the whole way. Hopefully they don’t get ambushed along this journey.

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So neither Drifter’s Last, Cloudsteady, nor the Hook Waystation carried prosthetics, which was not a surprise. Also, along this trip, the party got ambushed by Outlaw Farmers, Swamp Ninjas, red sabers, and one UC noble that decided our Hive Prince, Twitch, counted as “big game” and take some pot-shots at. The noble and His procession was able to be eluded, but the others? They were More tenacious/ jumped out from good hiding spots. But surprisingly, by the time the group reached the edge of the swamp, the only person that had to be carried was Shek. Surprising because in the past all these groups would’ve wiped my entire team, or if I won, I’d still be having to carry half my people off the battlefield because they were unconscious. Not to mention that back in Shun, those Band of Bones raids were harrowing ordeals and the goat/Garro/skin spider herds Would usually result in a TPK if provoked. Just how friendly is Shun to starting characters exactly?

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who would’ve guessed that Swampers loved Grog so much? because so far all the Swamp‘s traders and tavern keepers (what few there are) are, so far, the only ones willing to buy grog at marked-up prices. who knew? At any rate, the stopover at Shark was well-needed, up until this point only the unconscious or those with severe leg-injuries were allowed to rent beds while stopping in town (200 cat’s a bed is a lot of money when you don’t know how much a decent-high end prosthetic is going to cost), but the dancing skeleton’s beds were only 50c to rent, so; everyone with recovering injuries was permitted a night’s rest. Which left Izumi to her own devices. resulting in her accidentally starting one bar fight with some guy because she was ”eyeballing“ him in a way he didn’t like, turned down one scorchlander offering to cook for the group for 6,000c because, they already had a cook, that’s why they were there, and witnessed a second bar fight, this time the thug had a bounty on his head, so she thought “hey! Free money” and so after getting bounced, she grabbed the guy to get the reward. spent most of the night wandering all over the city before someone finally clued her in that Shark is a lawless town with no police station, and the faction HQ doesn’t collect bounties. So with that information, Izumi chose instead to unceremoniously dump the bar thug into the pond Shark is built over; I’m sure he’ll be fine.

the next morning the team takes off, but not before looting a heard of swamp raptors the guards killed. Things only had a single animal skin and a bunch of rancid meat on them, they really are not worth the trouble. Regardless by the time the team reached the Village of Rot, all their trade goods, old equipment, and looted gear was sold; that was it, nothing left to sell but active gear and Their food provisions, so hopefully the ~31,000 cats they’d accumulated on this trip would be enough to cover the cost.

now to head north and hopefully find the waystation before the Holy Nation, or something worse, found them first.

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Huh, well finding the waystation was easier than I thought. (Though not without getting ambushed leaving the swamp, can’t remember what, I think swamp ninjas) So now, about that artificial limb workshop… oh…. The really nice scout leg was only ~9,000cats, well… huh, maybe we came over-prepared just a bit. So buying Shek the artificial leg, the party used the leftover money to get Nemo a better arm, he’d been making do with his economy arm for so long. Also, bought blueprints for advanced outpost buildings (can’t read them yet but that’s fine, we will soon enough), and while the rest of the team slept, Dr. Cheng was approached by some boy, stitch? Scratch? Scab? Something like that, mistook him for some kind of sword master and our good doctor just, lied to the kid’s face, saying he was some great sword master and would take the kid on as a student, even payed 3,000 cats to the kid’s drunk of a father to cover the boy’s absence. while Cheng is not a swordsman, several members of Clan Vulture are and someone on the way home would set the poor boy straight. Still, new team member!

the journey home would be a different route than the way to the station. The plan was at Rot to buy a bunch of hemp to use to make fabric, cotton won’t grow in Shun, but apparently hemp kinda will. but to avoid having UC guards getting pissed, there’s a pass between the crater and arach that connects the spider plains with shun. So the plan was at Rot to swing west and chance the pass.

almost worked out fine. Except after checking out a mostly passive berserker camp, Nemo made a terrible discovery (he has the stacking backpack): “why is everyone getting hungry? Is it time to distribute the backup jerky rations? Where’s the rations? wait! WHERE’s THE HEMP!? Did we get robbed? Son of a-! No! no, it’s fine, we’re already almost home, I’ll come back later with more trade goods and buy more, and never go back to that damnable swamp if it can be helped”.

leaving the camp behind, the team now moves more hastily through the pass to get back to Obsidian, and it’s larders of emergency jerky. The pass was, mercifully, absent of any hostile creatures and the team was able to enter Shun without incident.

-and were immediately set upon by a band of bones scouting party. because the trip from Waystation might not have been a complete shit show if some tea members didn’t limp back through Obsidian’s gates. So now everyone is settling back into old routines, rebuilding the stockpiles of goods, and putting a crossbow turret on top of the fuel refinery, facing the north Gate.

and that’s my base and recent little mini-adventure. Probably was dull as hell to read compared to the kind of antics other players get up to. but I found it fun, and I’m really digging how this game’s open World with no overarching plot allows for weird stories like this to form naturally.

tell me what you think, thoughts? advice for the future base developments, tips on where to find blueprints for leather. I have so much leather…