Culture Poll

[koteko]

I've been looking into the different cultures, and trying to play as all of them. Apart from the stats/skills differences, it's quite cool to actually travel to their lands and live according to their customs. I wish there were more marked differences, more lore, more interactions but I'll patiently wait for future updates

In the meanwhile, I'm curious as to what you guys play the most, or which culture you love the most even if you play it little (some are objectively hard!).

I personally used to be a Owl-guy, and never really liked the Kaumo (luckly, they are not the only "big guys"). Nowadays I love Seal for active hunting (spear & club) and Reemi for passive hunting and some farming.

[koteko]

Would be great to know your reasons, too

For myself,

- Seal-tribe because it reminds me of inuits, and is a nice challenge for an active hunters. Slim, not good with bows and not particularly good at dodging, but excellent with a spear, it's harder than an Owl or a Kaumo but each kill (and survived fight) gives much satisfaction.

- Reemi: plenty of skill bonuses so it's a good all-around, almost as big as Kaumo, nice starting area (close to Njerpz but not too close, sea, lakes and forests in abundance) and good agricultural support in villages (all kinds of seeds and produce to be found).

[spamgoose]

The two favourites I picked are mostly for their role-playing value.

Seal Tribe:
I, also, enjoy how the northern tribes transcend just Finland and can feel very much like northern indigenous cultures throughout the arctic (URW has inspired me to start designing a game in my free-time set in North America's northern plains/parkland/boreal forest, early fur trade era, largely for that reason). The seal tribe is my favourite in that regard because of their mixed food-base (ocean, big game, small game). They are also conveniently located, if using rafts/punts, to make voyages to the south for fancier supplies. I have to admit, I think I also just like playing as far away from the Njerps as possible.

Sarto:
They are good enough in a lot of areas, but I really just enjoy their description from the game. Makes me think of them as very clannish, and I enjoy that from an role-playing perspective.

Honourable Mentions:

Kuikka: It's sad to see they don't have votes yet. I like them for a lot of the same reasons as the Seal Tribe, but I also really enjoy their placement. It's fun travelling a bunch of the world by rivers and big lakes, (unsuccessfully) hunting lake birds and fishing for salmon. They feel so far away from it all in an endless sea of trees, lakes, and bogs.

Reemi: They just have a lot of strengths in areas I make characters for (building skills especially). My most successful characters tend to be Reemi or Kiesse.

[koteko]

You just inspired me to make a Kuikka char

PS: I had exactly the same game idea, inspired by a combination of playing URW and watching "The Revenant"

[koteko]

I'm quite amazed by the love for the Driik. Is it the "sword & board" thing?

[LoLotov]

I picked Kaumo and Driik thinking everyone loves Kaumo, but Driik will be underground cause they suck, and I end up the most basic dude ever.

Sword and board I guess, but also in general they start fairly wealthy tool-wise, which makes a garbage character more useable faster than a good character with a rough knife and nothing else but clothing.

[koteko]

I'm actually trying a Koivulainen right now, and I'm enjoying it a lot! It's a farming character, starting in Autumn for early-planting and making a small cabin and trap fence before winter.

They are slimmer than Kaumos but you can still get pretty high rolls (my char is 200cm x 90 kgs). There's a huge river crossing their territory and linking the west sea (near islanders and driik coast) with more central lakes. It's a short trip north to the Sartola or south-west to the Driik for tools, animals and grains/seeds.

[bethefawn]

I like Driik because after I spend the first summer genociding the islanders, I'm usually able to spend the winter taking over a fortified village!

[Kerlysis]

Sart if I'm feeling farmy, Kaumo if I'm feeling more like murdering njerps hunting. Both are fairly centrally located, so I can head for almost any culture I feel like when it's time to exterminate njerps explore. Usually do kaumo tho, their skill negs are less annoying.

[Shadowdweller]

My personal favorites are:

1) Islanders:  They have pretty mediocre stats/skills and possibly the most worthless villages, but I love starting and scrounging out an existence in the archipelago.  (Ultimately with houses, camps, and traps on half a dozen or more different islands).

2) Kuikka Tribe:  Have the insanely good stats and skills of the northern tribesman, but are a bit stronger and more balanced than either owl or seal tribes.  Also have a decent fishing skill, and form large, wealthy (northerner) settlements.

[DfDevadander]

For me, it's Kaumo and Islanders.

Kaumo: The Kaumo culture hits close to home for me, as I grew up living much the same lifestyle as these people; lived in a heavily forested region with no neighbours that were closer than half a kilometer or so (but were very tight knit), got our food mostly by hunting/trapping and fishing with some subsistence farming to round out our diet, and I would spend up to a couple of weeks at a time away from the homestead while hunting with my grandfather and learning about the forest. We made nearly everything we needed, and traded with neighbors for things we couldn't make, only going into town to buy luxury items when we could justify spending what little money we had on something extra.

Islanders: Who wouldn't enjoy the relatively carefree lifestyle of the Islanders? I don't recall ever seeing any Njerpez in Islander territory, and I love hopping around from island to island while setting up traps/nets as well as shelters and small cabins. As a bonus, I can spend weeks at a time just fishing the day away and smoking my catches to prepare for winter!

[spamgoose]

For me, it's Kaumo and Islanders.

Kaumo: The Kaumo culture hits close to home for me, as I grew up living much the same lifestyle as these people; lived in a heavily forested region with no neighbours that were closer than half a kilometer or so (but were very tight knit), got our food mostly by hunting/trapping and fishing with some subsistence farming to round out our diet, and I would spend up to a couple of weeks at a time away from the homestead while hunting with my grandfather and learning about the forest. We made nearly everything we needed, and traded with neighbors for things we couldn't make, only going into town to buy luxury items when we could justify spending what little money we had on something extra.

Islanders: Who wouldn't enjoy the relatively carefree lifestyle of the Islanders? I don't recall ever seeing any Njerpez in Islander territory, and I love hopping around from island to island while setting up traps/nets as well as shelters and small cabins. As a bonus, I can spend weeks at a time just fishing the day away and smoking my catches to prepare for winter!

Good picks. Just out of curiousity, where'd you grow up? I has a somewhat similar upringing in rural British Columbia. The game is like therapy for having to live in the big stupid city.

There can be Njerps in Islander territory. What I've noticed though, is that they tend to spawn over and over again on some islands, and never spawn on others, which makes them at least predictable and easy to avoid. My characters tend to live in the archipelago more than anywhere else, though I don't often play islander characters. You've convinced me to go for it.

[Shadowdweller]

Njerps definitely spawn in the Archipelago, sometimes rather frequently.  I think there's something about a limited land mass that actually concentrates animal and njerp spawns...particularly on the larger islands.  Islands that are only a couple zones in size might be safer though.  Of course, the easy access to coast lines makes it easier to kill things safely from range when they do spawn.

[spamgoose]

Njerps definitely spawn in the Archipelago, sometimes rather frequently.  I think there's something about a limited land mass that actually concentrates animal and njerp spawns...particularly on the larger islands.  Islands that are only a couple zones in size might be safer though.  Of course, the easy access to coast lines makes it easier to kill things safely from range when they do spawn.

Yea you end up with these scary islands that make Lost look pleasant. I've seen ones where Foreign traders are beating up bandits, with bears, and multiple Njerpez within a tile or two all having some evil party.

[LoLotov]

I'm going to have to try living on the islands, this sounds wild... my only question is, do Noaidi mushrooms grow in the archipelago?