Post by Insano-Man on Sept 21, 2018 12:45:33 GMT -5
This topic is a child of the Well of Japes article directory.
STUPID SMART
Living around the Well of Japes takes a special kind of mindset. You've got to learn that permanence doesn't quite work. You've got to know how to build something from nothing, how to eat dirt, and how to kill a thirty-eyed lobster the size of a small mountain. Most of all, you've got to learn not to ask questions. Education, intellect, experience - none of that matters out near the Well. The gut rules the day. Think about it too much, you'll be lucky to leave sane.
That's not to say that the people near the Well are stupid. They live out in the Cackling Circle, usually clustering on the outer rings further away from the Well itself. There's a strong backbone of folk wisdom in most towns that's as much genuine information as it is mythology. People believe in stone gods who rule the Well with an iron fist - a warning to turn back when the statues start getting too strange and too many. They think the glassy sands of the crystal wastes are alive and hungry - walk them long enough, your shoes'll wear down and your feet'll split open. They think an old monster sleeps at the bottom of the Well, dreaming terror into reality all around - and, really, no one can prove otherwise.
Life in the Cackling Circle is desert survival and wasteland wandering on a new level. You don't have to live out of a car or wagon to be a nomad. Towns swap places so many times that they may as well have wings. People have learned to accept all that instability. Every week, they go out, make new friends, meet new people, and try their best to get home before it's gone. Plenty of villages survive on nothing but trade alone, popping up like caravans to make deals with their new neighbors. Others double down on self-sufficiency; they keep their mines close, their farms closer, and their wells near enough to spit in.
Bad weather is everywhere out in the Circle. The people know how to handle it. There's a storm shelter in just about every home, a tough-and-reliable mentality behind every building. Town walls are made just as much to break up wind and sandstorms as they are to keep out raging crabs. Going out on a trip means bringing home on the road - food, water, shelter, and all. Travelling traders usually have enough supplies to bed down into a new town if the weather or warps aren't favorable.
As with the rest of Set, most folks near the Well are human. Aliens usually know better - even tribal sorassan from further into Patzaghd keep their distance. Redworlders are the only exceptions; a few dozen communities claim the eastern edges of the Circle, clamped tight together in pint-sized fortress towns. Pseudocrustaceans form little, ragged crab societies at every bend in the road. Most usually keep to themselves. On top of the lobsters, sentience likes to sneak up on the wildlife. Communities of fuzzy furballs struggle with insect raiders. Hamlets of arachnoid turtles run caravans to citadels of sentient slime. Variety never lets up.
Monsters, mutants, and miscellaneous man-eaters are everywhere in the Cackling Circle. There's no getting away from them. If it's not rascal crabs zapping and warping all around you, it's black horrors down south chasing every rock you've ever used as a toilet. Meat monsters creep in from Talto up on the north shores, glass sirens hide in the caves near the snowy parts. Tacked on top is the endless list of new nightmares popping into existence. Jagnabbers, klaxolds, moon snuffers, cloudfists - the locals stopped writing them down a long time ago.
STUPID SMART
Living around the Well of Japes takes a special kind of mindset. You've got to learn that permanence doesn't quite work. You've got to know how to build something from nothing, how to eat dirt, and how to kill a thirty-eyed lobster the size of a small mountain. Most of all, you've got to learn not to ask questions. Education, intellect, experience - none of that matters out near the Well. The gut rules the day. Think about it too much, you'll be lucky to leave sane.
That's not to say that the people near the Well are stupid. They live out in the Cackling Circle, usually clustering on the outer rings further away from the Well itself. There's a strong backbone of folk wisdom in most towns that's as much genuine information as it is mythology. People believe in stone gods who rule the Well with an iron fist - a warning to turn back when the statues start getting too strange and too many. They think the glassy sands of the crystal wastes are alive and hungry - walk them long enough, your shoes'll wear down and your feet'll split open. They think an old monster sleeps at the bottom of the Well, dreaming terror into reality all around - and, really, no one can prove otherwise.
Life in the Cackling Circle is desert survival and wasteland wandering on a new level. You don't have to live out of a car or wagon to be a nomad. Towns swap places so many times that they may as well have wings. People have learned to accept all that instability. Every week, they go out, make new friends, meet new people, and try their best to get home before it's gone. Plenty of villages survive on nothing but trade alone, popping up like caravans to make deals with their new neighbors. Others double down on self-sufficiency; they keep their mines close, their farms closer, and their wells near enough to spit in.
Bad weather is everywhere out in the Circle. The people know how to handle it. There's a storm shelter in just about every home, a tough-and-reliable mentality behind every building. Town walls are made just as much to break up wind and sandstorms as they are to keep out raging crabs. Going out on a trip means bringing home on the road - food, water, shelter, and all. Travelling traders usually have enough supplies to bed down into a new town if the weather or warps aren't favorable.
As with the rest of Set, most folks near the Well are human. Aliens usually know better - even tribal sorassan from further into Patzaghd keep their distance. Redworlders are the only exceptions; a few dozen communities claim the eastern edges of the Circle, clamped tight together in pint-sized fortress towns. Pseudocrustaceans form little, ragged crab societies at every bend in the road. Most usually keep to themselves. On top of the lobsters, sentience likes to sneak up on the wildlife. Communities of fuzzy furballs struggle with insect raiders. Hamlets of arachnoid turtles run caravans to citadels of sentient slime. Variety never lets up.
Monsters, mutants, and miscellaneous man-eaters are everywhere in the Cackling Circle. There's no getting away from them. If it's not rascal crabs zapping and warping all around you, it's black horrors down south chasing every rock you've ever used as a toilet. Meat monsters creep in from Talto up on the north shores, glass sirens hide in the caves near the snowy parts. Tacked on top is the endless list of new nightmares popping into existence. Jagnabbers, klaxolds, moon snuffers, cloudfists - the locals stopped writing them down a long time ago.
