Tools of Kith and Kin

 I realized theres a major possibility that players of Kith and Kin wont know exactly whats available to them, tool and technology wise.

Now I could go over every lithic industry that would be available to them, with a note on who would use it. That was my original idea for this post! But there's a lot of those (which I knew, but it took me reviewing them again to realize just how many there are).

I could do it anyways, people sort of know what they're getting into when they agree to have me run a game, but even my energy runs thin going through all the various ways people made use of the world.

So instead im going to go over a handful of very very generalized categories of tools, and who would make use of them, organized by rough level of complexity.

Note that there is actually an inverse of expectations in some cases here. Someone from a settled agrarian society who is not a "toolmaker" will likely start out only understanding the basics of some lower-paleolithic tools. The tools one understands do not strictly correlate to the intellect one is capable of, but more reflect how specifically one understands they can alter their environment.

Rough time frame with regards to the real world is also given in parenthesis.

Images are all pulled from Wikipedia. Note that pretty much all the information here can also be found (in greater detail) on Wikipedia, but not everyone wants to scroll through three dozen pages of scientific jargon to figure out what sorts of tools they can make. To be quite honest, I'll mostly just let Player Characters make whatever tools they have the time and resources to make, but I might use this as a rough guide to determine what their fellows use/what techniques they might use for descriptive purposes.

 

The stick is probably being used to gauge the depth of the water.

Pre-Lithic (>3.3 MYA)

Natural objects, with minimal to no alteration. Sticks broken at an angle, splintered bone, or very basically fragmented rock (or simply rock that remains unaltered). The logic here is around immediate convenience, and the basic understanding that objects have properties that can be useful. Sharp things stab or cut. Rough things scrape. Heavy things break other things, and so on. 

These tools are some of the most basic tools available to anyone, and are only depended on by the painfully archaic and isolated, extremely sheltered, impatient or rushed, those animals that are intelligent enough to make use of altered objects, but lack the physical or cognitive capacity to alter these further and children.

Top Left: Oldowan chopper. Top Right: Acheulean Hand-Axe. The hut has been proposed to be middle paleolithic, but thats the latest possible time, and not everyone agrees with it.

Lower-Paleolithic (3.3 MYA-300k YBP)

The introduction of "flakes" and "cores", the former being the pieces chipped away from the later, which is the central mass of a stone. Time is taken to chip away from a rock to create a shape, and care is taken to make use of the shape. Additionally, flakes and cores are made use of when possible, though most seem to derive from convenience. Basic hammers, choppers, chisels, scrapers and awls appear here. Purely wooden spears would be utilized at this time, sharpened with scrapers or chisels.

Later tools include the handaxes, which lacked handles at this stage and would be held on the opposite side of the chopping edge. The construction of tools would include the use of bone, wood and other objects to alter in ways more specific to the purpose.

The lack of adhesive in this era would preclude the use of handled-tools. The hammers were essentially stones altered to make the striking end more useful to a specific purpose, the axes were sharp stones and so on. Wood was still used, due to its ease of alteration, but was not used in the same tool as stone, unless one contributed to the manufacture of the other.

The very basic control of fire is an element of this category of technologies. Basic hidework and tanning arises near the very end of this, and more advanced leatherworking arises in the next category.

These tools are largely used by isolated and archaic wildfolk, settled people who are unfamiliar with the construction of tools beyond the basics and others with an understanding that tools can be made over time.

 

Speculative reconstruction of Neanderthal Jewelry.

Middle-Paleolithic (300k-50k YBP)

More advanced still, preparation methods are developed. In the real world, this is when "behavioral modernity" starts to arise, art and spirituality, concerns beyond mere survival. In Kith and Kin, however, such things precede these industries.

The prepared core technique is a defining technology of the flake-built tools of this class. The stone is shaped into a form that serves to facilitate an easier extraction of a shaped flake, that then only requires minor touch-ups to render extremely effective. This technique is the bread and butter of this time. There are numerous techniques, but I have included a GIF of one technique to illustrate a somewhat hard to describe method.

Levallois Core Preparation, demonstrated. Thanks Wikipedia.

 Cores are still utilized in the expected way, generally for heavier duty tools, though the more advanced methods of flake production mean that more effective core-tools can likely be used.

Adhesives are discovered here. Such flakes and cores could then be affixed to a shaped shaft of wood, producing the most dangerous wildly used weapon of the entire world of Kith and Kin, the Spear. Handled axes and hammers are possible.

Fishing becomes a thing, thanks to spears and some nets. Long distance trade happens. The earliest seafaring also happens, likely hollowed logs carved into very basic boats, though later refinements are certain to happen.

Extensive use of clothing, likely by the Neanderthals/Broadfolk due to the colder climates they dwelled in, arises around this time.

[Sidebar] Researchers actually determined this by tracing the mutation rate of the human louse and comparing it to related organisms to determine when it would have speciated. Since it requires clothing to transfer between people, its rough range of speciation can give a rough area for when clothing was starting to become a Major Thing. This ends up around 170,000 years ago being when humans were definitively wearing clothes by, though earlier dates are almost certainly when it was first introduced. Given the climates and habitats then, the theory is that neanderthals actually invented clothing, and we merely adopted this technology once it became necessary. [End sidebar]

Control of fire becomes a widespread element of technology at this time, though very basic use of fire precedes this. This is likely to be the technology that grants anyone who vaguely understands it an advantage.

Every forager society in Kith and Kin uses this, except for the settled folk. In kith and kin it is largely mixed with upper-paleolithic technologies in a rather even way. The use of either depends on convenience, knowledge and what would work best at the time.

Top Left: "Lion Man" figure. Top Right: Flint knives. Bottom Middle: A flint core used to extract multiple knife blades.

Upper-Paleolithic (50k-12k YBP)

A greater understanding of the properties of natural materials allows for the use of flint and similar stones to produce fine blades, rather than the typical flakes. Previous advances are made use of liberally. Sharp points lead to the use of darts, harpoons, fishooks, eyed needles and indirectly to the existence of rope, rather than simple fiber cords.

Multiple fine blades might be extracted from a core. Adhesives improve in quality.

Even stone-carved oil lamps appear, the oil drawn from the flesh of hunted animals.

The first evidence of earthen ovens arises here, really just fire pits, but realistically cooking has been a thing for a long long time at this point.

The very oldest permanent settlements arise. Not farming communities, still foragers, just living in a single location for much longer.

Additionally this time carries the earliest signs of Australian Aboriginal culture in the real world. However the earliest theoretical evidence dips back into the middle paleolithic.

The dogpact is honored. This applies to the previous too, but here is when it was first enforced. Domestication is thus "A thing" for at least a single species.

Effectively any stone technology is theoretically available at this point, limited only by contextual need and available time and resources.

Figurative and symbolic art begins to arise in earnest in the real world, though these things have been around for quite some time in Kith and Kin.

Gold dust and fragments have been found in some sites, but this is difficult to assign any actual context to. It is possible it was utilized in some decorative capacity. As a softer metal, it would be less likely to survive weathering.

Once again, just about every forager culture knows this in kith and kin.

 

 

Mesolithic temporary settlement.

The Shigir Idol

Mesolithic (20k/15k-10k/5k YBP*)

Smaller fine tools begin to appear more than heavier flake tools of the prior eras. Large settlements begin to appear and more advanced weaving leads to the use of baskets and tighter-threaded clothing. The use of ceramics also appear at this time.

 

This is an interstitial period, and as such describes less overall change, and more lifestyle differences. Settled forager cultures, the earliest proto-pastoralists.

This is rare but present in some cultures. Weaving has spread far, but ceramics are more difficult to spread due to resources available. This is partially responsible for, and partially because of, the staggered timeline of Kith and Kin.

*Depending on the area irl.

Reconstructed Neolithic farmstead: Ireland

'Ain-Ghazal statues, oldest statues of this level of detail.

Reconstructed neolithic housing, Aşıklı Höyük

Neolithic (12k-4k YBP)

Large settlements thousands or even tens of thousands strong, many of which with social organizations that may or may not be hierarchical. Agricultural emergence leads to the necessity of tools to aid it. Wool and Linen may be available at this time, and definitely are in Kith and Kin, implied by some remnants that may be early spindle whorls and loom weights

Stone tools are mostly polished or ground down, rather than flaked.

Mud brick homes are constructed. Architecture was already a thing in mild amounts, but it becomes more important here.

Finer points and blades are possible with these methods, though in some cases the used material may still render it inferior to some paleolithic tools.

Food storage is a thing, but is imperfect. Sanitation differs. Social roles differ. Specialization becomes more viable. Everything changes for these people. Pottery arises. Proto-writing begins to emerge.

Bellows of some kind may develop and make the creation of copper tools possible. Mostly worked raw copper, hammered into the needed shape. Cast copper is the domain of an extremely small number of very small cultures at the moment.

The neolithic of kith and kin has begun and shattered in earnest several times. New settlements are often built on the foundations of old, or in some cases have some persistent cultural context that remains relevant.

These are available to the settled folk, and those in their immediate proximity, who have need to emulate some of the technologies with regards to clothing and lithic production. Though it is possible some other forager cultures could independantly arrive at some of the finer sewing methods, lithic production methods and so on. The staggered timeline makes all of this possible.

Weirdness

Of course, the timeline of Kith and Kin is far more "staggered". Technologies have been discovered, lost and rediscovered a few times over, and other species have had some cognitive capacities possibly exaggerated, though I would argue that in the real world other human species may have been more intelligent than we give them credit for generally speaking.

Magic means some things are possible that aren't irl (unless I have been hilariously misled about the nature of irl magical practices). Despite this magic is not going to be "industrialized" or a "technology" the way most other tools are in Kith and Kin. Magic in kith and kin isn't a science. Its this weird shit. A toolbox of rules and associations that can be exploited. Sure thats arguably the definition of a technology, but it requires a different mode of thought to properly understand.

And spirits of course. Spirits. The world is lousy with spirits. Its quite literally made of the damn things.

So whats available will be a little strange and not quite match up with the above. Thats fine. These already serve as extremely rough categories irl and dont reflect the more detailed understanding of material culture differences across space and time. This is just a rough guide.

Kith and Kin: Core Mechanics Redux

 

Second post that is an adapted PDF of my stone age game. None of this is fully prescriptive, especially the action resolution mechanic. Thats just my preferred

Core Mechanics

Action Resolution 

Under most circumstances you will not have to make a roll to perform an action. The GM (Genius Mundi, World-Soul) will rely on their understanding of how the world functions, your characters positive and negative traits to determine if you succeed or not.

However there are cases where there is an ambiguity in if success or failure is what would occur especially in person to person, or entity to entity circumstances.
In these circumstances roll 3d6.

If against another entity or active situation, then it also rolls a 3d6, possibly with advantages and disadvantages.

If against some passive object or circumstance (such as attempting to leap a gap), then this is rolled against a target number. If that number is exceeded, then it is a success, possibly with some additional benefit. If the target number exceeds the result, then it is a failure. If they exactly match, then a partial success, partial failure or some other ambiguous result may be the outcome.

In some cases multiple numbers can correspond to “matching”. In this case the target number is represented as a range of values, such as “9-12”. This means anything from 9-12 is a “match value.” This is usually the case for results with “degrees” of success. A 9-12 on foraging might bring an okay amount of food, but a 13 or higher will bring more.

If you have traits or skills that contribute to the action and they do not ensure success or simply allow the roll to occur at all, then you may gain dice of advantage.

This is represented by rolling additional dice, but only taking the highest 3 as your result. This biases the outcome by an increasing amount for each dice of advantage.

Disadvantage works the same, but you take the lowest three. Advantage and disadvantage cancel out, so if you have 2 dice of disadvantage and 3 of advantage, it is treated as you having only one dice of advantage.

Generally if you would have more than three dice of advantage that is probably a good sign you should simply succeed.

Similarly for disadvantage, more than three dice indicates the check should probably just be an automatic failure.

There are some cases where that might not be so, however, such as when two entities have significant advantage.

If the GM allows it, successes that have two results of six counted may be a greater success, and three even greater. Rolling higher than something by a certain multiple (i.e. rolling two or three times higher than required) may provide greater advantage.

If not using a target number, then range values can be used. Im fond of the following table, basically using the attribute bonus ranges from AD&D as a guide.

• 3: Worst result.
  
• 4-5: Worse result.
  
• 6-8: Bad result.
  
• 9-12: Average result.
  
• 13-15: Good result.
  
• 16-17: Better result.
  
• 18: Best result.

With context clarifying what qualifies under each range. "Average result" on foraging in a rain-forest might net decent amounts of food (result-8 meals worth perhaps?) while the same thing in a desert wont give anything. I use this as a guide for passive difficulty.

Any other modification to the action resolution system is not the baseline game, and is reflective of unique circumstances in the game world. Some things may flatly raise the size or amount of dice you roll in some circumstances, and some entities might be mighty enough to warrant such changes to their rolls. 

You may become one such entity, with time. 

 

Resource Management

Resource management can be difficult in some tabletop games. Thankfully, you are playing a game set in the ambiguously paleo-meso-neolithic era and will not be carrying around a backpack with 2 metric tonnes of resources.

Carrying resources is useful, and sometimes you will want to stockpile. For the most part however, you can forage for resources.

Fishing and hunting are similar.

You likely won't be able to stockpile massive amounts of resources, both due to spoilage and your mobile nature. Carrying around a week's worth of firewood is a Sisyphean effort.

Even so, certain skills will let you preserve certain resources (dried and salted/treated food for example). You will have limits to the amount you can carry and certain circumstances can cause spoilage (don't get the dried food wet unless you plan to spend time drying it after).

For every two kilos an animal weighs, you can gain one “meal” of food from it. Foraging and fishing will also bring in food, depending on the area. The less vegetation, the more you’ll have to rely on hunting, and vice versa. 

 

Resources

The actual resources you will need to keep track of are

• Useful Food (Each character needs at least a meal per day or they start to become hungry. Two meals a day will slowly reverse the effects of hunger, but some starvation ailments will be “permanent” until you can fully recover over time.)
• Fresh Water (Each character needs two proper full drinks per day or they start to dehydrate. One full proper drink a day will give small maluses but wont kill you.)
• Firewood (Indicated in hours of fire time. The more you put on the brighter it will burn, but this can burn through them faster.)
• Artisan Materials (clay, hide, fabric, fibers, adhesive, wood, flint, stone, bone etc)
• Medicinal Substances (Measured by effective dosage)
• Psychoactive substances (Measured by effective dosage. Minimal, Low, Powerful, Heroic and Extreme, for hallucinogens.)
• This is about every relevant resource, but others might be possible. Trade goods? Shiny stuff?

Time Management

There are four primary temporal scopes of play. The Gm keeps track of the moon (month), time of day, day in the moon, phase of the moon, season, time of day, and so on.

• Frantic Time: When something happens that requires immediate action. Time is measured in “rounds” (~3-6 second intervals). Characters can generally take two actions (movement, attacking, defending, whatever). This is combat, chases, etc.
• Exploration Time: When PCs are taking their time to explore an area, figure out what is around, forage, fish, and so on time is measured in “Exploration turns” of roughly 10 minutes. Thus, “Exploration actions” (like foraging) take more time to bear fruit (often literally).
• Travel Time: When PCs are traveling long (ish) distances, time is measured in “Hours” or “Travel Rounds”. Each hour there is a chance of something happening, a chance to recheck directions, and so on. These can be interrupted (something can happen in the middle, they can choose to explore a local area), but this is the rough idea.
• Downtime: Perhaps the PCs are choosing to prepare long term for something. To stockpile food, to spend a large time foraging to accrue large amounts of food. During downtime, time is measured in suns (days, 24 hours), moons (months, 30 suns), seasons (3-6 months depending on the environment) and cycles (years 12 months).

Note that years are measured as 12 months of 30 days, giving 360 days to a year. This is only notable in that the life expectancy of beings is a few more years over the course of a human lifespan, though is still the same amount of time. This is just to make sure natural cycles are a little bit easier to keep track of on the GM side.

 

Travel

Space and location is represented in “Zones”.

Zones are not biomes or biotypes. One forest will be split into multiple zones.
The exact spatial dimensions of the zones are not totally set in stone, but “Horizons” is the general measurement at this scale (roughly three miles or 4.8 kilometers in a given direction, the rough distance a horizon is away from an average observer on flat land, making a horizon six miles, ~9.6 kilometers, across).

Rather, the size and the difficulty of the zone is represented by “Travel time” and rough dimensions given in “Horizons”. Remember the average human walking speed is about 4.8 kilometers an hour, and a bit faster based on health. Terrain of course influences this.

Zones can have multiple points of interest scattered throughout them. These almost always have consistent locations. Distance between these points of interest is given in horizons, though characters can wander between them and find other points of interest.

 

Combat 

3d6 attack vs 3d6 evasion, blocking/parrying, etc. with modifications as described under action resolution.

Failure is a failure of the attack to connect, due to having been dodged, blocked, whatever.

A tie is that some consequence happens to both, a success in exchange for small consequence determined by the foe or they succeed with some complication described by you. Really depends.

A success is a hit. Damage is whatever a “hit” is for whatever weapon you use, and is descriptive. The defender gets to choose where they were hit.

Twice or more the defender's roll is a direct hit. Either you get to choose where or the defender chooses and the damage is even worse.

Thrice or more the defenders roll is a critical hit. Essentially both options of a direct hit happen, with increased effect the greater the difference.

The actual severity of the damage depends on the weapon and the defender. If it has a tough enough hide, a character of average strength may not be able to harm it (unless they strike a weak point, such as in the mouth).

Where and how you can hit depends on the weapon. Slashing and bludgeoning weapons struggle to target small weak points or exploit them. 

 

Damage and other Terrible Things

Damage, Illness, hunger, thirst, sleep deprivation and so on are all treated as localized status effects. They are descriptive, and their effects are based on eyeballing a real world-ish consequence of the effects at that particular location on the body.

They can of course be treated with the right medicines (or even magic).

Hunger causes a gradual subtraction of your rolls, and eventually reduces some positive traits semi-permanently if it's too long.

Thirst outright removes one of the dice from your action pool after each day, unless you have some trait that reduces it's effect on you. Once the pool runs out you die.

Sleep deprivation reduces all capabilities and acts as an altered state of mind.

These can all be represented by "clocks" if the GM wants, with "segments" filled per missed meal, drink, sleep session, illness/curse progression, would exacerbation etc. This isn't player facing however.

 

Altered States

Important to magic and mysticism are altered states of mind/consciousness.

These are split into roughly five ranges of effect, listed as follows with an example. Inspired largely by pariah and this system.

• Weak: A minimal effective dosage. Barely any effect besides some descriptive shift and possibly some very minor malus to regular functioning.
• “You feel like your emotions are being carried on a tide. You feel energetic, and the world seems more vibrant.”
• Moderate: A mild shift to perception and sensation. Generally the level you can feel “energies” and “tones” of spiritual presences. Definite but minor maluses.
• “Geometry twists and flows in the grass and dirt, shapes and angles forming and intersecting. The green of the grass and the brown of the dirt feel even more vibrant. Around the mysterious idol, the geometry seems densest and most active.”
• Powerful: A powerful shift. Generally allows perception of spirits and brief glimpses into the otherworlds. Major shift to all perceptions and sensations.
• “Colorful geometric forms twist and shift across your vision, obscuring your vision of the world. Colors flow and twist in accordance to principles you can only guess at. Before you, a towering bestial figure wearing a blank mask tilts it's head curiously.”
• Heroic: The required dose to fully shift your perspective to another realm for a time. What you take to go on spiritual/mystical adventures/”Trips”.
• “The tent blows away in an impossible wind, those who have not taken the sacred herb seem entirely unaware. The camp seems to disappear under the wind and flowing leaves. An impossibly titanic forest now stretches above you, branches and roots growing in geometric lattices. Things dance and sing through the branches impossibly far above. What will you do?”
• Extreme: A dangerous level for when you want to skip the journey and cut straight to the heart of a realm. Often has dangerous side effects even if the other levels don't.
• “A swirling maelstrom of transforming life. That is your entire reality, all you remember, all you perceive. You may be able to act, if only in a mental sense.”