the end of the old world - The Fifth World

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THE END OF THE OLD WORLD Civilizations do not end all at once. First come recessions and then depressions. Food lines become food riots. The people who live through such days might remember some watershed moment that “changed everything,” but looking back you can see that it began a long time before that, and it kept on for a long time after that. Like the changing of the seasons, the old world passed, and a new world began.

WHAT DID YOUR ANCESTORS DO?

SURVIVE

PIONEER

Your ancestors adapted as the old world fell apart. The experience left them skilled and pragmatic, but sometimes suspicious and hard.

Your ancestors prepared for the end. You have a strong history, but their ideals could become a rigid ideology.

What custom helped keep your family alive?

What custom have you preserved from the old world?

EXAMPLES

EXAMPLES

We have an initiation process for bringing strangers into our family. We each have a “sit spot” where we sit and watch twice a day, so it can teach us.

We keep a nearly-forgotten holiday sacred to our ancestors. We have preserved the faith of our ancestors and revealed its true, animistic nature.

Art by Kirk Quilaquil

THE RUSTING AGES Where good soil remained, neofeudal kingdoms would arise, deplete it, and collapse in a generation or two. When they could no longer extract metal from the earth, the ruins became the mines for an age of warlords and slavers. As miserable as life became in areas such as these, however, in the forests others made a life for themselves beyond their reach, and began to renew ancient pacts of kinship.

WHAT DID YOUR FAMILY DO IN THE RUSTING AGES?

WITHSTAND

WITHDRAW

Your family endured the worst horrors of the post-apocalyptic age. It has left you wary but fiercely independent.

In the surviving wilds, the Rusting Ages seemed far away. You have a long history with your other-than-human kin.

What custom helps keep you free from any who would rule over you?

What custom binds you to your other-than-human kin?

EXAMPLES

EXAMPLES

We consider bossiness a serious disease of the soul. When someone boasts about their accomplishments, we respond by putting them down.

At 12, a child fasts until an animal agrees to become her guardian. You become a wizard when an animal becomes your familiar and teaches you their magic.

Art by Yunior Guerra

THE NEW WORLD As the Rusting Ages ended and the warlords began to die out, even those who had resisted throughout could no longer deny that the world had changed, and they would need to change with it. It did not come easily. Some turned to hunting and gathering. Others grew forest gardens and formed small villages. In truth, though, even the most ardent foragers threw some seeds, and the villagers still needed hunters.

HOW DO YOU MAKE A LIVING?

FORAGE

GARDEN

You gather wild plants and hunt animals to provide for yourselves. You have an intensely intimate knowledge of your territory.

You cultivate plants or raise animals to provide for yourselves — perhaps a food forest, a semi-feral herd, or elaborate gardens.

What custom do you follow to pay back the people who feed you?

What custom do you follow to keep the land fertile and abundant?

EXAMPLES

EXAMPLES

We use fire in the spring to create grazing for the game. When a hunter kills a new mother, she must raise her orphaned young herself.

We plant guilds together — plants that support each other and help each other grow. We have two village sites that we alternate between every ten years.

Art by Kirk Quilaquil

SUCCESSION Every family has its own legends about how their ancestors emerged from the old world and learned to make a living in this new one. Often that process meant that they owed a debt to those who saved them. Sometimes, the realization simply came with a new generation that they had a greater responsibility to the world than simply surviving in it. Eventually, though, they each came to understand their purpose in this world.

WHAT DUTY DO YOU BEAR?

HEAL

PROTECT

Things fall apart, and entropy forever gnaws at the world. Your family pushes against that, healing the world, bringing back life and beauty.

Your family does not merely dwell in this land. They live in a sacred place, and they bear a solemn duty to protect and preserve it.

What custom do you follow to keep the world alive?

What custom do you have about honoring and protecting sacred places?

EXAMPLES

EXAMPLES

Some of us seek out places driven mad and try to soothe them. We consider the creation of art a sacred task that feeds the spirits of our kin.

We have a secret society whose members dress up as monsters to terrorize trespassers. We prepare feasts at burial sites to share a meal with our ancestors.

Art by Kirk Quilaquil

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