King of Dragon Pass/Tribe creation

Tribe creation involves a series of choices about the history of the tribe.

Choice One: The Great Marriage

The first choice is about the dawn of history, when the two most powerful deities got married.

How did you prepare for the great marriage?

1. Our men and women donned gleaming armour and stood guard with Elmal to protect the celebrants from Orlanth's many enemies.
2. Our men whooped with Orlanth and drank the Eight Known Drinks, so that their heads would hurt during the ceremony.
3. Our women withdrew with Ernalda and learned a List of Names, which they promised not to repeat to the men.

This choice selects your main god, and you will always start with at least a shrine to this deity. Your clan leader should always be a follower of your main god, so you may wish to choose based on this factor. It may also influence your ancestors opinions on parties?

Elmal worshipers have higher combat skills. Orlanth worshipers have more leadership skills. Ernalda worshipers have more magic.

Choice Two: Early History

The second choice regards what our tribe's favorite myth is about.

Your earliest Famous Event was:

1. The Battle of Extinguish Field, when Orlanth's forces defeated those of his worst enemy, Yelm the Bright Emperor.
2. The Hundred-Day Hunt, when Orlanth's brother Odayla tracked the Sky Bear.
3. Jested's Settlement, when Issaries the Talking God outwitted foreign deities in a difficult negotiation.
4. The Procession of Animals, when Uralda, the Cow Mother led the sacred herds into Orlanth's stead.
5. When Barntar, son of Orlanth and Ernalda, harnessed oxen to plow.
6. When Ernalda and her daughters went to the Hidden Place, and then came back with many secrets.
7. When Lhankor Mhy, the Knowing God learned how to use the marking bone, which could mark signs of power upon anything.
8. When Pella, the pottery goddess, made the first pot to store grain in.
9. When Roitana, lady of dance, performed the Clan-making Dance.

This choice does two things. First, it grants a skill bonus to your nobility. Second, it provides a known blessing that you can then build a shrine to obtain. It does not provide the shrine for free – you either have to build it yourself, or select the appropriate choices to gain free shrines. Each shrine powers just one blessing.

Orlanth's battle raises the Combat skill, and grants the Thunderstone Blessing.

Odayla's hunt raises the Plant, Animal, and Combat skills, though not quite as much as Barntar, Uralda, or Orlanth. It also grants the Tracking blessing.

Issaries's negotiations raises the Bargaining skill, and grants the Bargaining blessing.

Uralda's procession raises the Animal skill, and grants the Calf blessing.

Barntar's plow raises the Plant skill, and grants the Plowsong blessing.

Ernalda's secrets raises the Magic skill, and grants the Bless Children blessing.

Lhankor Mhy's "marking bone" (aka, Pencil) raises the Custom skill, and grants the Literacy blessing.

Pella's pots don't actually raise skills like the other choices, but instead grants an additional 5 craftsmen and farmers, as well as the Preserve blessing.

Roitana raises the Leadership skill, and instead of a blessing, grants knowledge of the "Making Storm Tribe" myth, needed to complete the short game (and get to the second half of the long game).

Choice Three: To Thrall, or Not to Thrall

The third choice involves a story about some refugees coming to your clan, and how you treated them.

How did you add these strangers?

1. Adopted Family
2. Thralls

This choice determines how your ancestors view slavery. As a result, if you adopt these people as family, you will lose magic in the game if you ever take slaves. If you take these people as thralls, you will lose magic if you ever free slaves.

Choice Four: Ancestral Foes

The next choice selects your ancestral enemy.

Which one in particular did we fight?

1. Boztakang, the Troll Lord
2. Ukka Gra, King of the Basmoli Beastmen
3. Chinkis Mor, the Elf Warlord
4. Tada the Green, champion of the flat land called Prax
5. Faralinthor, Salty Lord of the Sea
6. Ves Venna, Son of Valind, Warlord of the Ice Tribe

You will experience more conflicts with these people, and you will lose magic if you ever make peace with them. Furthermore, there is a spell later in the game that will summon an army of your chosen foe to fight for you instead of against you.

Trolls are a very numerous enemy, but not as powerful individually as you might think. Beastmen are less numerous, but extremely powerful one on one.

Choice Five: War & Peace

The next choice contains a story about chaos and how laws beat the chaos back. Each tribe had laws based either on peace or war, or a mix of the two.

Which kind was your clan?

1. War
2. Balanced
3. Peace

This choice does not determine your ancestor's opinions on raiding – no matter what you choose, you will lose magic if you don't fight often enough. Instead this choice determines how much magic you can spend on peaceful things or warlike things, either granting a bonus to one or the other and limiting the alternative, or simply not going for any bonus and forgoing the penalties as well.

Choice Six: Polytheism

This choice is about waking a god up from his/her/its slumber, after a period where all the gods were pretty much napping.

Who was the first deity which your clan helped to awaken?

1. None. Our ancestors were good enough.
2. None. We retained worship of our Living Deity:
   1. Elmal
   2. Urox
   3. Odayla
3. Ernalda, the Mother Goddess
4. Orlanth, the Father
5. Issaries, the Talking God
6. Lhankor Mhy, the Knowing God
7. Chalana Arroy, the Healing Goddess
8. Uralda, the Cow Mother

This is like the first choice, in that it will grant an automatic shrine to the deity of our choice. If you choose the same deity you chose in the first choice, the shrine will be upgraded to a temple instead.

Choice Seven: Dragons

Now your clan history comes across an offer from some dragons to help you out. Did you accept the offer or not?

What was our attitude towards the dragons?

1. Hostile - We fought against them.
2. Negative - We would never believe a dragon.
3. Neutral - We didn't go along.
4. Positive - We joined into their dragon knowledge.

This determines how our ancestors feel about dragons on any sort. As usual, if you go against the ancestors opinions whenever you encounter dragons, you'll lose magic. Regardless how you chose, the story continues to say how anyone who actually trusted the dragons got hastily devoured.

Choice Eight: Land

And now we come to recent history, when your forefathers carved out some land in the valley. How much land did they carve out for themselves?

1. Enough land for our people and herds, no more.
2. More land than we needed, to grow into.
3. Lots more than we would probably need.
4. Huge tracts, far more than we needed.

This is pretty straightforward, it determines the size of your starting area. You'd think bigger is better, but the bigger your lands, the easier it is for enemies to sneak past your watchmen and catch you off guard. You may want to start a little smaller to defend it better, and then take over your neighbors' territory when you have more warriors later on.