Six Ages I: Ride Like the Wind. After Action Report 1

 

What type of game is Six Ages: Ride like the Wind? In short, Six Ages is a clan management game in a Bronze Age mythological world where the action revolves around stealing neighbor’s cows and solving Choose Your Own Adventure-like events where mundane and magical problems vex your people. 

However, that’s not all. Six Ages is not standard fantasy. Or even standard Bronze Age fantasy. No, Six Ages is set in Glorantha, a world created by the practicing shaman Greg Stafford, in which belief in Gods and magical interaction keeps the fabric of the world together. What does that mean? Kill the Sun God and the literal sun goes out. The world becomes very cold. Stafford had been writing about Glorantha since 1966, so the world is rich in detail and mythology. 

This also means that Six Ages is not your standard management game. For example, Six Ages starts with a short illustrated questionnaire that defines your clan, it’s practices, and which Gods it reveres more than the others.  This questionnaire is more than just roleplaying.  It defines what your ancestors did. If you choose to make decisions with your clan that diverge from your ancestor’s customs, the ancestor spirits will become mad at you and you will suffer a penalty to the amount of magic you can raise yearly. And it’s my understanding that loss of magic is just one of the consequences.

Without further ado, here is an after action report of several in game years of decisions made with my clan.  These reports all contain spoilers for the in-game events, so be forewarned. 

Report 1: In my last adventures with Six Ages, things have gotten crazy. This picture is from an early raid of another clan where we were victorious. They (the Old Eagles) have since raided us in revenge and I need more Swords warriors, and the clan is low on food, and lampreys from the sky just ate my Duck Spirit, oh god.

Report 2: Had a good session yesterday. So, things have been going south for our clan since we got into an attrition battle with our ancestral enemy the Trolls in the time of Churka 17 (time is recorded as the number of years the clan leader, Churka, has been in "office"). We lost the battle and lost many Swords and Bows that day. Also, the Trolls ate one of our circle members, which means we lost a named NPC.

Since then, it has been a struggle. When we once started with upwards of 700 cows, we now have around 400 cows. Magic has been drying up; where once it was 10 points of Magic produced every Sacred Time, we are down to 7 produced annually, which is quite limiting. We tried performing a ritual of our Sun God with a strapping promising 19-year-old with excellent combat...and he got frozen solid and broken into ice shards by Cold Sun. We are often raided as many as three times a year and I'm having a hard time keeping my number of Swords fighters around 17 because they keep dying. To prevent the clan from starving year after year I've had to sell off two of our clan's treasures, a non-renewable resource. No one will form new trading caravans with us. But, dear reader, all is not lost.

A few years back, children were born with the power of Elmal the Sun. They could literally throw fireballs. We treated the three carefully, welcoming them into the tribe and turning the other way when they accidently burned down a tent. One of them has now become a man and is available to be put into a position of leadership on our clan circle. He is Renowned in combat which is what we desperately need as we are surrounded on three sides by enemies, all eager for our cows and our blood.

Will the young one become our savior? We'll find out next time...

Report 3: Another Six Ages report! So last time, I was struggling with a downward spiral of losing cows left and right, a lack of food, my Swords (elite fighters) dying, and 3 raids a year against me by enemy clans.

Friends, we’ve turned the clan around and I have to thank two parties: the decisions made by the stream crowd, and our 19-year-old clan member Yatakan with Renowned skill in Combat who, according to the in-game events, throws fireballs. Yeah.

As a reminder, I started with around 750 cows, last time I reported in the clan only had 300-400 cows. Now the people have 643 cows and climbing thanks to Yatakan lead herd raids. And that’s not all. In the past year we have had six major raids. We were threatened by the Alkothi, the Demon People. We sent them packing. The Porganosi, a clan of the Ram Peoples (Orlanthi), threatened us. We took them down. Our ancestral enemy the Trolls showed up. Yatakan took two trolls down in hand-to-hand combat to save one of our nobles (NPC character). While we were recovering from that, the Flame Singers clan teamed up with the Sa-Gorini clan to crush us. Our Raven shaman (Trickster) summoned a Wasp spirit to sting the Sa-Gorini into fleeing the battlefields and then our carefully allocated combat tactics carried the day against the Flame Singers.

Was that it? No. The Andayling clan (Ram people) kidnapped 9 members of our clan. We tracked them down thanks to a divination revealed by the God Elmal and liberated our people. Yatakan the God child is truly amazing.

Report 4: A Six Ages report! Or Everyone Loves Yatakan. In the last "episode" we were slowly regaining momentum and wealth (643 cows) thanks to Yatakan, our warleader with Renowned in Combat who was beating raids against us right, left, and center.

Yatakan remains the crown jewel in the clan, but there were a couple of close calls.

We were raided by the Yellowhill tribe. They brought over 100 fighters and we were outnumbered. Yatakan was nervous about this so we dedicated some clan magic to the fight. During the battle, Orala, our healer, saw Yatakan sustain a terrible blow. This made me really concerned because I had never seen Yatakan become injured before. After some discussion, the streamer clan council decided to send an armed escort with Orala to Yatakan's side. Fortunately, Orala revived Yatakan. For us this was the most important outcome even though the dastardly Yellowhill tribe won the battle and looted our cows.

Later Yatakan was challenged to a duel by Murus, a lion warrior of the distant Ergeshite nomads. Anyway, we took a risk, and Yatakan's might was tested by the lion warrior's magic claws. Yatakan became injured (was away from the clan circle for one season) but he triumphed over Murus, nearly decapitating him.

But all was not ideal. The clan protested that Yatakan was overly litigious and loved lawsuits. One other circle member even wanted our boy thrown off of the council! Essentially, we told the grumblers to go pound sand and we changed the laws so there is now a limit to the number of lawsuits any clan member can raise. Also, we carried out a Heroquest with Yatakan's childhood friend who could also throw fireballs, Ayvtu. 

We devoted many points of Magic to Ayvutu and sacrificed 30 cows. She was turned into a block of ice and shattered by our enemy Cold Sun in the Godrealm. Another 22 year old has been lost to the Gods.

Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind. Stories of Cows and Cupidity. It is fun.