My contribution to the Antarctic Adventure Jam - Part 1

I've been participating in Idraluna Archive's Antarctic Adventure Jam. Idraluna used some clever mapping tools to turn the irl continent of Antarctica into a 6 mile-hex map. They then simulated a more moderate climate for the continent and then - using probabilities- generated hex conditions based on that. I hope I didn't totally butcher the methodology just then. Regardless, the output is extremely cool. 

Now a bunch of people are populating the hexes using a variety of OSR systems. I've carved out a small patch for myself as well. I don't think the hexes are quite ready to share but I thought I'd write up a general overview for my own process. As someone who generally finds lore dumps to be extremely boring to read, I'll acknowledge that this is a fairly self indulgent exercise. But hey it's a blog.

The area contains two peoples, the Ksouthern (I believe that is the term for it - because when you think about it... Everywhere is "north" in Antarctica) group are "agricultural" in the traditional sense of the word with static farms and domesticated animals. 

The Knorthern group -the Vaansahri- are nomadic tribes. However they would not view themselves this way. They also practice a form of agriculture. It is just dispersed accross the entire region that they roam. The region is less verdant than the Ksouth. So the Vaansahri have cultivated a thin layer of loan accross large swaths of the area - a project that has taken them generations. The Vaansahri grow a special type of yam in this soil. To maintain this loam, they follow a complex regime of crop rotation, burning and herd control. Overt time the Vaansahri have identified that moved here animals damage the loam too much so they have cultivated other native animals - elephant birds, quails, and kangaroo. They do have not domesticated the herd animals in the conventionally understood way, but because they have shaped the terrain the Vaansahri do control stock and flow of the animals via strict hunting lore.

The two people are seperated by a mountain chain and until recently they have had mutual bin-aggresion pacts. However recently, the more nationalistic Ksoutherners have begun sending cattle headers north under the protection of military outposts. They are aware of the damage this can do to the Vaansahri loam. They are using it as a method of subterfuge to provoke what would be considered a causus belli for war in their democratic system. 

As I write it out, I think it might all be a bit on the nose... But I think it also creates interesting regional tensions. 

At some point I might write a bit more about how to still allow adventuring in a setting that is drawing on real world concepts.