Short Questions/Quick Answers

[PALU]

I don't think there is any active anti character activities going on. Characters ought to start with equipment that's appropriate to their culture. I suspect the game doesn't take the skill points into consideration one way or another.

Regardless, the normal outcome from meeting robbers is that you get robbed, in which case they'll take your weapons unless they're of very poor quality, and beat you up if you resist. The normal outcome of such a start is to start without weapons, as they're taken from you (although there is a chance to run away). Killing a band of robbers at the start is almost impossible without significant save scumming (and is never without danger, although some tactics can make it almost safe, given appropriate skill, equipment, and abuse of the rules).

Usually "good" starting equipment is a knife and an axe, since those are required to do just about anything. For endurance hunting you can use whatever weapon you have, including a rock, but to process the kill you need a knife, and to build anything you need an axe (and you can't even get off an island without either a real (not stone) axe to make a raft, or swimming (any you may have to train a fair bit to get sufficiently proficient at swimming to get more than two tile even with zero encumbrance, and the water has to be sufficiently warm, which it is only for a fairly short period).

[LoLotov]

I believe I noticed something similar, I'm not sure how intentional of a difference it is... but to me it seems like you spawn with more armor and lower quality/less desirable weapons. For example, just my most recent one who specialized in spears and axes with a point each in unarmed and clubs as well. Spawned with a hard staff, a rough hand axe and a rough kaumo knife, but much more importantly for the start condition, a fur overcoat and mail mittens, with enough other clothes for decent armor coverage. On second thought, that was winter... which I don't frequently do, but might have made the difference that I noticed.

[Shadowdweller]

I believe I noticed something similar, I'm not sure how intentional of a difference it is... but to me it seems like you spawn with more armor and lower quality/less desirable weapons. For example, just my most recent one who specialized in spears and axes with a point each in unarmed and clubs as well. Spawned with a hard staff, a rough hand axe and a rough kaumo knife, but much more importantly for the start condition, a fur overcoat and mail mittens, with enough other clothes for decent armor coverage. On second thought, that was winter... which I don't frequently do, but might have made the difference that I noticed.

Hey at least you started with a spear (i.e. hard staff).  Robbers is all kinds of frustrating on its own though....for example, losing all of your valuables because you were knocked unconscious from a hit to the...upper arm?

[PoisonPen]

After more than a dozen tries, I was finally able to wedge myself into some trees where they could only come at me two at a time, but not before they'd crippled my right arm from behind.  I managed to kill all five of them with a left-handed hand axe (I started with a rough one, but snatched up a normal quality one from the first one I killed), but now I'm stuck trying to play the early game with a crippled right arm and a low physician skill.  I'm debating whether or not to abandon the game.  The wound keeps bleeding when I try to tend it, and I've come close to bleeding out a couple of times.  I've already gone through most of the bandits' clothes bandaging all my wounds, and it'll probably be summer by the time I manage to get the arm healed enough to use it.  Spending day after day fishing and setting light lever traps because I can't do anything else isn't much fun.

[PALU]

Characters pass out either because the cumulative abuse pushes the fatigue over the limit, or because the pain from a single injury is too much. I suspect the risk of passing out due to pain is based on endurance, as my last character passed out from being bitten in the arm by a wolf.

The healing rate of injuries varies, but UrW's system is counter intuitive: you get the best result by stopping your bandaging and cleaning attempts when the injury status is as close to green as you can get it. The healing rate is based on this status and cleaning/bandaging doesn't achieve anything else than new rolls for this (as far as I understand it). You can also make use of a shaman's healing to see if that puts you in a better position. Healing a broken arm tends to take somewhere around 30 days, and the arm becomes usable again when the injury level has been reduced sufficiently (I think it's somewhere between 5 and 10). I agree recovery sucks, but I'd expect that to be the case in a real world UrW situation as well.
If my character doesn't have either the blood staunching incantation or herbs to staunch blood flow I'm very reluctant to touch wounds susceptible to bleeding.

[PoisonPen]

Thanks for clarifying how healing works.  I bandaged the arm, visited a shaman, and then left it alone.  It only took a week and a half or so to get it healed enough to use it, then another few weeks to get it healed completely.  I spent my time trapping birds and fishing.  I traded the loot from the bandits for some decent armour and then, since I'd spent a lot of points on weapon skills, decided to head for Njerp territory.  I stumbled across a Njerp village in broad daylight and the next thing I knew I was running for my life through heavy woods with every man, woman, and child on my heels and arrows whizzing past me.  What RNG taketh away, the RNG also occasionally giveth.  I ended up finding trees arranged so that I could occupy a little nook which covered my back and they could only come at me two at a time with not enough room to snipe me with bows.

By the time I was finished I'd grabbed a fallen enemy's fine mace and the bodies of nearly the entire tribe were heaped around me.  When I finally recovered my stamina and emerged from my little hidey-hole, there was just a single Njerp child left who made the poor life decision of picking up a rock when he saw me.  Turns out you don't need paper to beat rock; a big, heavy mace works just fine.

I now own an entire ex-Njerp village and all its varied contents.  Anyone in the market for some scimitars?

[Kiena]

Anyone know what regions you might find a swan?  I'm trying to do the shaman mod, where you need some swan leather for an item, and I understand they're in lakes (and rare), but I've spent all spring & summer searching lakes and rivers around the Driik region (my home base) and haven't found a single one.  Does anyone know if they spawn there, or if I should head somewhere else next year?  Thanks!

[Rhaikh]

I saw one once near one of the northern tribes.  I missed.

[LoLotov]

I see them frequently in north western Kaumo and through the river country between there and Kiesse, though I've never tried to hunt one. I imagine it will require a punt to hunt one actively, but they're probably as easy to trap as any other bird, and that's much more likely to keep the skin in decent enough shape to use than several arrows or a javelin in the gut.

[PALU]

I've seen swans very occasionally, and I'm not sure if that's only on the overland map. You can probably check the files to see if swans are tied to any particular region, although I don't think they are.

When it comes to trapping swans you have the problem that they probably can't be lured with bait, and I'm not sure which trap size they'd fall into, given that they're fairly large.

[LoLotov]

So I've finally lasted long enough in a Njerp conquest to have now had this happen twice: Villages near the edge of the Njerpez cultural area converting to Vagabond villages when a larger, nearby village is eliminated. They were marked on the map as Njerpez villages, and had the full little town graphic, but once the slaughtered town converts in name to Vagabond village, they did as well. Visiting them reveals a bizarre field of many boulders, no cleared trees, and a single kota, as well as a small family of Vagabonds. The first one had a large 3x3 interor kota and kept the town graphic for its six residents, but the second was just a single open tile kota, and appeared on the overworld map as just the kota. It's also marked as one of My Settlements on the F6 map, but has four resident NPCs, including a sage. In neither village were the NPCs particularly poor in their personal inventories, but there are no trade goods.

Is this a bug, or are you able to Liberate the People? Cause I'm reading the situation as they are slaves who took my example and rose up against their oppressors.

[PALU]

It's a bug, and it's happened to me as well. Sami has looked into the issue, and I think it's fixed in the next release, but I don't remember for sure (I believe you'll find the bug thread in the old UrW board, if you care to look it up). I think it's a matter of the cultural region withdrawing as you clear the larger village causing the smaller one to end up outside of the border, even though it should generate a border on its own.

[LoLotov]

Thanks, I honestly kind of like it as a no-fix! Fits the fairly common role-play of being incredibly aggressive to Njerps, but peaceful to everyone else, and gives the illusion of events unfolding that are beyond your control. It's only happened to villages that were cut off from the other villages, so it almost makes sense that they would abandon them/be at a disadvantage with their slaves (who are seemingly imaginary otherwise). If it were to be fixed, it would be interesting to populate Njerp towns with a small number of Vagabond NPCs that do not become hostile [or claim ownership of the goods].

[Kiena]

Thank you all.  Not looking forward to finding one, but I'll start in Kaumo, see what I can find there.  At least someone's actually seen one there, which is more than most areas.  I foresee a *lot* of time on the water in my near future!

[Roman Lodestar]

97% in hideworking skill and still only getting "fine" quality skins while using a broad knife, 6 animals skinned even one of them was a one-shot arrow kill to the thorax, only got a "superior" elk hide once in a previous playthrough and had got some blows that could have reduced its quality, I assume even with a good tool and high skill you only have like a 10% chance to get the best quality fur when skinning the game, ¿it is intended or this is some RNG trolling?