OOC Info [OOC Thread] Moving with the Herd

[Naiya]

Side note, y'all, it was recently pointed out to me that my post boxes are difficult to read. If I post something and you find it difficult or bothersome to read I won't at all be offended if you let me know. I'm hoping to make sure all my posts from here forward are easily legible.

[Naiya]

I found a neat bit of information about a subsistence culture similar to the drykas. It pertains to their food.

It is impossible to define “abundance” of resources absolutely. However, one index of relative abundance is whether or not a population exhausts all the food available from a given area. By this criterion, the habitat of the Dobe-area Bushmen is abundant in naturally occurring foods. By far the most important food is the mongongo (mangetti) nut ( Ricinodendron rautanenii Schinz). Although tens of thousands of pounds of these nuts are harvested and eaten each year, thousands more rot on the ground each year for want of picking.
The mongongo nut, because of its abundance and reliability, alone accounts for 50 percent of the vegetable diet by weight. In this respect it resembles a cultivated staple crop such as maize or rice. Nutritionally it is even more remarkable, for it contains five times the calories and ten times the protein per cooked unit of the cereal crops. The average daily per capita consumption of 300 nuts yields about 1,260 calories and 56 grams of protein. This modest portion, weighing only about 7.5 ounces, contains the caloric equivalent of 2.5 pounds of cooked rice and the protein equivalent of 14 ounces of lean beef

Do the Drykas have an equivalent, or can we discuss and or create an option that would provide similarly?

Edit: I don't mean to ask for a miracle food that will solve the troubles of the Drykas, but rather a food that makes up the bulk of the Drykas diet. In the sea of grass this food is abundant and if nothing is brought back by hunters, you still have something to fill your stomach. Perhaps something as simple as sunflowers, which are abundant, filling, and have a multitude of uses from coffee, to stirfry.

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

I don't pretend to know much about them in real life, but sunflowers might be a good candidate for a staple food. A long time ago, I did a thread with Caelum where sunflowers were discussed.

The seeds can be ground into flour and made into bread, or eaten as is. You can make oil out of the seeds, too. And there were a bunch of other uses as well. It seems reasonable that something with so many uses, and that grows everywhere in the Sea of Grass would be important to the Drykas.

[Colt]

Around water, cattails are very versatile; the seed heads are edible in spring, the inner greens are edible in summer, and the roots can be ground into a starchy flour year-round.

[Naiya]

Sunflowers are really versatile. Flour from kernels, 'coffee' from the shells, the stem is edible like celery when the stalk is still soft, etc.

Cattails too, but I'd be more worried that they wouldn't be available through much except through spring and early summer because of the harsher weather?

[Amunet]

These are the grass lands. anything with a seed head would be edible. wild oats, amaranth, millet, sorghum.

[Gossamer]

What a wretched existence, living off one main food staple. It's not healthy nor is it viable for the Drykas peoples.

They have thousands of miles to roam over richly soiled grasslands. There is not enough wetlands to consider things like cattails as good food sources. But what they do have is a plethora of greens, seeds, roots, and those creatures that live on them. If you throw out a meter sampler... think a pvc pipe frame shaped in a square and counted the species found in that meter of sample earth, you'd find perhaps several hundreds to a thousand types of plants. That's how diverse it is. Just because you think 'grassland' and maybe the expanse of your green kentucky bluegrass back yard, think again. Go out and walk in a true grassland that hasn't been overgrazed or otherwise damaged.

You'll find a huge amount of herbs, grasses, roots, and even brush. I know when I lived in Montana and saw the true grasslands that were over there, I couldn't take a footstep without walking on about twenty different plants. Sage, rubber rabbit brush, arrow leaf balsam root, grasses, sedges, the occasional tree that supported a whole different ecosystem beneath its shade...

The grass got waist high in places in the high seasons and the life that it supported was enormous. The insects in turn supported birds in huge abundances. The birds supported other birds and more plants that they fertilzed via eating seeds and spreading them around. Mice at the seeds and insects... shrews, voles, moles, ground hogs, prairie dogs, and even wild pigs that in turn all supported larger predators like ferrets, coyotes, wolves, which in turn helped control the ungulate populations of deer, elk, antelope, bison, etc.

You cannot imagine what biodiversity a true tundra grassland holds. Those poor bushman are pathetic and stuck in a diet that does them no favors. If they lived someplace that was incredibly rich like the Drykas lived, they'd see a whole host of difference.

Then... you'd have to consider the horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens the Drykas take with them.

Bottom line... only a super inexperienced person with grasslands or someone who just doesn't understand what type of environment they are roleplaying in would think the Drykas need a 'staple' food supply.

[Naiya]

Oh! I don't mean to limit anyone to a singular food supply, or to say that one plant item is the only source of grain or vegetable or fruit, rather I meant to open a discussion in the ooc about what types of plants and things do exist in our grasslands and what different things our players thread about encountering.

Since I live in a city, the only real experience I personally have is with visits to montana, and hiking the Appalachian trail, so my grasp of what a true grassland holds is slim to none. I just have research about edible plants in populated grasslands and my own knowledge of some herbs and flowers.

Which of course is why I found the mention of what is basically a miracle nut so interesting. It prompted me to wonder what sort of abundant edible plant life might be in the Drykas diet. I'm always unspecific, tuber, root, dark leafy green. I have found some things like sunflowers, cattails as Shahar said, and animals like rabbits or squirrels. Other wise I have nowhere to go and nothing to draw from as far as what a nomadic tribe's diet consists of.

Perhaps the Drykas prefer a high fat and protein diet, only supplementing vegetables and grains as needed, but without more information I thought we as a player base should come up with or share the knowledge we have. I don't know how many Drykas players actually know anything about grasslands or horses or nomadic tribe cultures, but I didn't think there would be harm in sharing thoughts and opinions about it.

Since I personally know so little, but am studying bushmen and Eskimos and things in class right now, I thought it would be interesting to everyone to share a tidbit and start a discussion. Without a cuisine for the city, and without a solid bit of information about what type of grassland the SoG is, it seems up to us Drykas players to make things up as we go for the most part. So the OOC is a great place to mention things we have come up with and discuss other ideas.

[Gossamer]

Yea. I understand. But its safe to say that there's no 'miracle' food because honestly the Drykas don't live anywhere near an environment like the Bushman or Eskimo's live in. Most of those environments are very starvation orientated with a lack of diversity.

They call miracle food miracle food for a reason. Usually there's not much to live on otherwise.

[Azmere]

Hey everyone! So... I've been putting some things together in my mind and hinting at this for a while. Thanks to the pirate raid, Az's pavilion was wiped out. I know that there are several other PCs who are "loners" or have found themselves alone for one reason or another. A while back, Prophet encouraged us all to find ways to make pavilions, whether NPC or PC. I did some thinking and bent some plots around so things make sense. Az is going to open his resources and his life up to anyone who needs a home.

Clever man that I am, I named the thread The Pavilion of Misfit Toys. As it states, PM to join and we can discuss the nature of our interactions.

Peace!