Hunting (technology)

Hunting is one of the first technologies a region develops, using skills and tools to gather meat and vegetable-based foods.

Like all technologies, the development of fishing is distinguished by its techniques, processes and societal relationships. The page below describes the technology according to its sub-technologies (shown as minor headings). Details are further classified into tools, culture, blocks, improvements and associated references.

DEV-4

Predatory Hunting

Practice engaged in by all non-developed intelligences, in which the predator stalks, kills and eats its prey. Distinguished from scavenging, which eats material after it has been found dead. Predators are adapted and often highly specialized for hunting, with acute vision, hearing and smell.

Blocks

Barbaric camp: a primitive humanoid settlement thriving in a fertile wilderness region. May be friendly, may even have goods that can be bartered for; will ordinarily have no contact at all with civilization. Usually adjacent to grazing land, verdant or watered land blocks.

Beastland: a verdant or barren area that spontaneously spawns wandering monsters into the Prime Material Plane, typically as rarely as once a year. As these monsters venture outwards, it is often difficult to locate the originating beastland.

Blasted Deadlands: areas devoid of all life, even insects, marked by excessively harsh climate. These areas are inherently malevolent and spawn (serves as a gateway) unnatural monsters such as undead, demons and other creatures from the outer planes.

Cliff Faces & Canyons: vertical or nearly vertical areas of exposed rock, acting as impassable barriers or choke points where passage is enabled between high topographical formations.

Dunes: large masses of windblown sand, most common in desert environments but sometimes located near beaches. An area of dunes is called an dune expanse; large dune expanses are called ergs or sand seas. These are notably devoid of any vegetation (see waste).

Dungeon: a labyrinthine environment serving as a mixed biome for numerous creatures, not usually more than two miles deep. Denizens might exist independently at different levels, or they might be obedient to an overarching master race.

Glacier & Snowfield: persistent bodies of dense ice that form where the accumulation of snow is greater than its melting and sublimation. Glaciers form from snow fields, with crevasses and other stress features due to their movement.

Grazing Land: untapped hunting grounds with extensive grass supporting large herds of meat-bearing animals.

Lakeland: watered land with numerous bodies of fresh water, often acting as barriers to travel. Lakelands also occur where geological shield formations block or minimize river drainage.

River Rapids: sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence.

Roncaria: rough scrubland abounding with brambles and briars, prickly scrambling vines or shrubs, ground thorns or other impassable vegetation. Commonly interspersed with grazing land.

Shingle Land: gravelly areas existing as sandless beaches or as extensive desert areas.

Verdant: mixed meadowland and rich vegetation, wild but excellent for hunting and future homesteading. Excellent habitat for large herbivorous browsing monsters; animal trails abound.

Wasteland: distinct from dunes, ergs and sand seas in that they are sandless, featuring areas of broken stone and gravel without vegetation.

Watered Land: unoccupied verdant land with rich soil and an extensive water table near the surface. Springs are common.

Waterfall: an area where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops in the course of a stream or river. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg of ice shelf. Plunge pools are common features of waterfalls.

DEV-5

Basic Hunting

The primitive killing and trapping of animals for food, with hunters acting in groups to drive and encircle animals so they can be harvested. Plants and other food sources provide staple forage.

Tools: drums, hide huts (portable), javelin, spears (with heads of bone or stone), snares

Culture

Fortitude: the promotion of will to survive and abandonment of the weak increases the natural endurance of the living; humanoids have +1 strength and constitution, 3 minimum hit points regardless of hit die.

Materialism: collection of stones, axes, placer metals and shells as status symbols.

clan Structure: will to defend and protect other clan members, with +1 standard morale.

Blocks

Fertile Land: areas where the soil is capable of producing in abundance, typically well-watered with one or more springs, formerly verdant, with easy access to rivers, ponds and lakes, adjacent to known animal trails and watering holes. Bottomland fits this description.

Forage Land: indicates naturally rich food sources related to animal and plant life, such as patches of fruiting trees and shrubs, bird mating grounds, extensive sources of honey, crab grounds, muscle and clam shoals, etc.

Ford: a shallow place with good footing where a river or stream may be crossed by wading. Such places may be impassable during seasonal high water.

Hut Village: component settlement blocks with semi-permanent wooden huts and movable hide huts. The block provides consistent forage throughout the year, surrounded by grazing and verdant lands. Seasonal change of permanent residents reflects the season, with clans gathering in cold and dry seasons and dispersing when the weather improves. Natural features provide defense and protection from monsters and raiders. The population of such a conglomeration is between 100 and 150 males, females and children.

Improvements

Hunting Grounds: describes the unusual abundance of herds and game, usually due to the amount of water, access, alignment with natural migration routes and lack of overhunting. This is indicated by pre-existing trade references indicating game or furs. May be exploited by up to two T(5-6) hexes per hunting reference (see below). Adds +2 food total (to one settlement if not divided between two) and +1 health.

References

Gathering: fruits, gems (+1 happiness), gold (+1 happiness), honey, shellfish

Hunting: bone, feathers (+1 happiness), furs (+1 happiness), horn, meat, skins

DEV-6

Hunting Method

The improvement of group tactics to used to target, pursue and kill a targeted animal. Incorporates still hunting, stand hunting, calling and baiting. Hunters operate in small, experienced groups, supplying meat to sedentary farmers who do not hunt daily.

Hunting with dogs is limited to driving the hunted animal or distracting the quarry while the hunter moves in for the kill. Dogs cannot be used for tracking. If directed to attack, the dog cannot be called off again, as the training for this amount of control does not exist.

Tools

Bowhunting: most hunting groups prefer the bow to the spear, enabling kills at a greater distance.

Trapping: extensive use of pits, deadfalls and wooden traps are used to capture as many or more animals than are shot. Additionally, traps don't compromise the value of fur-bearing animals and are safer when catching very large creatures.

Culture

Animal-Humanoid Relationships: the employment of domestic dogs as companions and natural hunters establishes an unequalled connection of love and symbiosis between dog and master.

Hunting as Leisure: for those who do not need to hunt in order to obtain food due to their status or profession, the act of hunting becomes an activity of leisure, pursued in small family groups on warm days, post-harvest time.

Professional Hunters: brings the appearance of professional scouts and hunters that form a proto-ranger class, the Strider, possessing a collection of sage abilities related to different wilderness settings. Tracking and wildlife management to ensure continued yields becomes part of the role. Also important is the use of hunting skills to protect livestock from animal predation, and to reduce the number of non-domestic herbivores encroaching on planted fields and seasonal meadowlands.

Test of Adulthood: the act of hunting dangerous boars, lions and other animals and monsters becomes a rite of passage for people of the village to prove themselves worthy of taking part in the circle of decision-making and respect received.

Blocks

Beamhouse: an artisan's workshop where leather is soaked, limed, unhaired, scudded, delimed, bated, tawed and stretched. Replaces individual handicraft-making as leather tanning becomes an occupation.

Improvements

Hunting Camp: intensive management and exploitation of the hinterland surrounding settled areas. Replaces hunting grounds. Striders lead hunting gangs to venture deep into the wilderness, to increase the food supply and hunt larger and more dangerous animals. May be exploited by up to three T(5-6) hexes per hunting reference. Adds +3 food total (to one settlement if not divided between two or three) and +1 health.

References (add to hunting references): bearskins, ivory (+1 happiness), wolf pelts.

DEV-7

Trophy Hunting

An activity intended to hunt specific rare animals in order to obtain their skins, horns, tusks, paws or for their medicinal and magical qualities.

References: lynx pelt, snow-leopard skin, turtle shell

Venery

The breeding of hounds and their training improves the animal's usefulness in finding quarry, enabling the dog's participation as a controlled instrument of attack. Different breeds are used for different tasks, and for different sorts of game. Those available include the greyhound, alaunt and running-hound.

Tools: collar, leash, lead

Blocks:

Kennel: a building or collection of buildings in which dogs are house and maintaied, employing pages, varlets, aids and veneurs. Pages often sleep in the kennels with the dogs, to keep them from fighting and to care for them when they get sick. Kennels include wooden beds to sleep in and often a second level, where the dogs can go when the ground level becomes too hot or too cold./

Higher Development

• Dog Breeding (Dev-8) - development of pointer and setter breeds
• Hunting as Sport (with monarchy) (Dev-8) - hunting preserve (block)
• Rat-traps (with metal casting) (Dev-8) - add cormorants, domestic ferrets
• Falconry (with aesthetics) (Dev-9) - trained birds of prey
• Complex leghold traps with metal pieces (with machinery) (Dev-10)
• Overhunted land (block) (reduces animal populations and food production, disrupting migration and hibernation patterns, may extend over several hexes)
• Ranger class (explorer) (with cartography) (Dev-11)