Story Tent

The Story Tent is a vital part of a Hyaloring clan's identity. Riders sew emblems representing the great deeds of their ancestors into the tent, and at certain times ancestral magic causes those emblems to move.

It was invented by Stosuntak, a priest of Relandar during the Exodus Generation, who saw that a wandering people would have to carry their ancestors and history with them.

## Ride Like the Wind

You can read a summary of your Story Tent's emblems on the Lore Screen. The emblems change to reflect your choices in Clan Creation:

### What the Story Tent Says

It was Stosuntak, priest of Relandar, who rode to the sky and came back with a message: we would need a home for our ancestors. In the Golden City we had not needed to ask questions of our long-gone forebears. Instead when we went to the marble mausoleum we revered their glory only.
As Hyalor readied us for the ride out, Stosuntak performed a great ritual to change this. He coaxed our ancestors from their urns, his voice thrumming deep with a new song:
 *The ice comes soon*
 *It will freeze you*
 *It will crush your urns*
 *It will scatter your ashes*
 *So leave them behind*
 *Leap into these threads*
 *Which the women are weaving*
 *They will bind you to us*
You will recognize this as a version of what we sing when we call upon them for blessing. (An urn was a special jar in which to bury the ashes of the dead. As part of Stosuntak’s rite we switched to burying them in funeral dolls, woven from the same fabric as the story tent.)
And our ancestors, including <m1 the <Rein/Mane/Shining/Blazing/Sky Stepper>> and <f the <Sure/Keen/Pure/Knower>> and <m2 <Certain Arrow/Whooping Sword/Chariot Breaker/Two Horse Leaper>> agreed to come with us, and inhabited the emblems, which is why in Sacred Time they seem to ripple and shift.
This first emblem, way up at the top, still contains a portion of their essence, though this is not the emblem woven at that time, but one made later, during the last split. <This shows our long ago ancestors, known to us by deed but no longer by name, helping to make the boat that Anaxial used to save enough of the empire to rebuild after a great flood. The next emblem reminds us of something that happened much later.> It depicts <the Battle of Akashar, when Elmal led us against the wily Changer, who sought to prove him a False Sun. Eluding the many traps laid for him, Elmal proved with his sword and our arrows that change cannot be a property of the sun, and thus that he was true and Changer false./wise Relandar aiding Khorlavus at the Camp of Many Banners, showing him how the bird riders might cease to peck against us, but instead use their beaks in concert with our spears./the scribe god, Buseryan, who other Riders later forgot, writing the Gold Book in which the motions of the planets are laid out./the breaking of Lunaknal's bones. These occasioned his prayers to the Sky World, which summoned Erissa to heal this sort of injury for the first time ever./when the grain goddess Pela showed how to plant and harvest her golden barley. Our ancestor Sarsadiga was there in the celestial fields, and brought back the seeds and sickle./an old battle, the clash at <Hillstop Point/Water Road/Airbridge/Weeping Field>, where we fought the <drunken bears/Usenkari/undulating army/beak walkers> and destroyed them all.> Though we imagine ourselves fighting all our wars on horseback, this took place in an earlier day, back when we fought on foot with outstretched spears.
And here are the Werris Mur, a wandering folk who claimed kinship with the mountains. Our ancestor Terekalan and their leader Yathis Yan hid themselves in a pine shelter for three days, and when they came out, our peoples were one, and now some of us trace our lineage from him, and others from her.
Next come the emblems of the cavalry era, after we transformed into warriors from horseback defending the rights and interests of the Golden City. They started to call us Hyalorings, because it was Hyalor, then still a man, who taught us how to worship Gamari Horse Mother. You have heard these tales, of Hyalor’s emergence, of the taming of Hippogriff, and the treachery of Samnal, many times before. <And you will hear them many times again. Here you see emblems marking great battles against the trolls, and the power we gained against them by swearing ourselves their eternal enemies./Here you see emblems marking great battles against the Rams, whose god slew the Sun Father. We gained power against them by swearing to fight them forever./Here you see the emblems marking the emergence of Chaos, a force we still little comprehend. Its harbinger, the Scorpion Queen, sent a monstrous army to demand surrender from a sister city. During these victories we learned the secrets needed to fight all her brood./Before the horse era in Nivorah, continuing into the city cavalry years, heroes of our line took up arms in the War of Many Suns. Rival sky gods fought a war of succession in the heavens, and on the ground we defended against arrogant former rivals who wished to yoke us to false worship and the renunciation of Elmal. This battle rages even now, and we are always ready to smash those who espouse Wrong Suns--especially Yelmalio, the Weak Sun.>
Gradually the background of the emblems changes. As the Cold Sun edges closer, bringing with it the glacier, gold threads grow scarcer and white and blue take over. They mark the moment when we could no longer deny the necessity of exodus.Here you see <us packing the sky-gazing statue of Buseryan along with his most sacred scrolls./us dismantling Tepekos’s forge so we could bring it with us./the brewers loading the Narva Cauldron onto a travois./Perondeto’s transparent statue being carefully packed in straw for the trip/the children gathering the red-dye insects to tuck inside a statue of Nocheli.> This series of emblems shows the preparation of Hyalor and the other cavalry commanders‚ and the battles with those fools who tried to keep us trapped in a dying city. They show the great departure and the hard but glorious time when all Riders belonged to one clan, led by Ostalar. Descended from Hyalor, advised by Hyalor, he glowed with Elmal’s fire as he led the fight against Yenfar the Capturer. Yenfar, who swore to eliminate Hyalor and his line, worshiped neither Sky nor Storm. Instead he made a people from nothing and called them the Sorcery Tribe. <That is when our ancestor Alarya rode to the sky pasture and said, “The children stay fat while the adults starve,” and Busenari Cow Mother replied, “Then like my babies, Riders young and old may now sustain themselves on milk.”/This is when the god Ekarna first showed us she had bartered for the Trade Rune. See how she demonstrates this, by arranging an exchange of goods between two sides hostile to each other: the cold dwarves of Nida Mountain and the hot jungle folk of Genert’s Garden.>
The second generation is the Generation of Enemies. Thengist the Ram and Goldtalon the Charioteer rise up and try to smash us. Each commits slaughters against us, but the righteous fire of Elmal burns the first. Hyalor’s wise counsel guards us against the second.
Here, where the green backgrounds of the first two exodus generations give abruptly away to red thread, we reach the Great Split, where one clan became four, led by ruthless Stelfor, who went west, clever Zenangar, who went east, Nameforgot, who stayed put, just outside the glacier’s reach, and our ancestor, Basikan, who rode south. This is the part of the tent that shows us going to war against each other for the first time. You see Basikan finding many treasures and launching frequent sallies into the Gods War, gaining power there to fend off Stelfor’s violence and Zenangar’s tricks.
The Warring Chieftain generation ends with the humiliation of Nameforgot and the luckless northern Riders.
Next comes the Far Travel Generation, where we spread out further than before and can no longer say we know the doings of all other Riders. Many inhuman foes beset us at this time. <The worst were the dwarves, who came down at us from mountains of iron. Our ancestors learned how to fight them, and swore that no descendant of theirs would ever forget their pitiless cruelty./The worst were the elves, who came upon us by stealth whenever we tried to chop down a tree. Our ancestors learned how to counter their sneaky way of killing, and swore that no descendant of theirs would ever make peace with them.>
Then comes a gap in the tent’s story. You can see the cuts where our great-great-great-grandmothers tore away emblems from the Madness Generation, so they would not infect our dreams.
After those empty spaces, you see the emblems representing the Healing Generation, where Erissa priestesses perform the greatest deeds. It cleared the way for the Fast Foals Generation, where again our clan split. Families struck out on their own, not all at once but as prudence allowed. After all was done, one story tent was carefully cut into the beginnings of five new ones, to be carried to new destinations. A Winter Generation followed, when frigid winds and deep snow made us fear that the glacier would overtake us. But then the chieftains of the Rekindling Generation went to the Gods War to brighten Elmal and warmth came back. Our chief for most of this time, <m3>, gave more of himself than any other, leaving his heart in the sky hearth. The eldest among us remember those times, but soon we will have only these emblems to go by.
I recall the Honey Generation as do all of our elders. This is the part of the tent that memorializes our deeds. Again clans grew, celebrating that success by breaking up, spreading the influence of successful bloodlines.
Today, after seven generations of the horse era in Nivorah and ten of exodus, we continue to sew emblems into our tent. They mark the actions of your fathers and mothers, and soon will mark yours as well. They will be the emblems of the Valley Generation. May the choices you weave on its walls be glorious, stoking pride in both the spirits of your ancestors and descendants yet unborn.

### Events

The story tent features in the following events:

* Adding To The Story Tent
* Ancestral Enemy Switcheroo
* Ancestral Threads Awaken
* Emblem Animated

## Lights Going Out

By the time of *Lights Going Out*, your clan has converted into a Ram clan, the royal clan of the Berenethtelli tribal kingdom. Thus, it no longer keeps records as part of a story tent. However, in his founding of the tribe, King Beren repurposed the clan's story tent into a royal story tapestry and hung it behind his throne. This way, it still serves the purpose of connecting the clan to its Rider ancestors, the veneration of which has become all the more important as gods slowly started to fade from the world at the onset of the Chaos Age.

### Events

The story tapestry feature in the following events:

* Moths Eating Story Tapestry

## Concept Art

Concept art for story tent illustrations, showing an ancient battle against the drunken bears. In the finished game, the story tent is not illustrated, although it does appear in a few scenes.