Book One
A New Dawn
The storm came on suddenly and without warning. In one moment the clan walked the glacier tracking the great mammoths, the next a blinding storm of snow and ice assailed them. The ground beneath them shook, great cracks in the ice pulled the tribe apart and somewhere off in the distance, the bellows of the mammoths could be heard. A group of survivors made their way through the furious winds and cutting ice. Knowing the mammoths were lost, they now looked to their own survival. Through some miracle, guided by the spirits some thought, the survivors found a great rock that jut up from the earth that offered a reprieve from the winds, until it changed direction and they were once again assaulted.
Feeling their way across the massive stone, they came to a cave and eagerly rushed inside. There they huddled in fear. Outside it seemed the world was ending. The ground shook violently, thunder tore the sky open, and a black acrid smoke and the glowing of a million fires filled the world beyond. After a long stretch of time, huddled around a frail fire, sustaining themselves off of the many bugs that occupy the cavern with them, and a tepid pool that is considerably smaller then when they first took shelter here, the storm finally stops.
Braving their first steps outside, the tribe survey a world vastly different from the one they left behind. Through the storm they had traveled to an unfamiliar region, one of great steppes divided by steep ridge lines. To the north, upon the crown of the world, a great mountain bellows fire, with a desolate region of jagged rocks and great pits stretching on beyond the horizon. To the east is a range of snow capped mountains reaching high up into the clouds. South descends into grassy lowlands and rock formations, while the view to the west is obstructed by highlands.
Upon their steppe beyond the cave there are sparse grasslands, dense rocks, and shrubs. Small rodents tunnel through the grasses but they do not seem to be in any great number. Some of the shrubs have berries, fat and black with a strong, pungent odour when crushed. The branches of the shrubs are nimble and not good for much more then kindling. The step itself is bordered by a steep ridge and rocky hills, the only openings are to the north and south, making the area easily defended, along with the haven of the cave that saved the tribe in recent days. The deposits of stone found strewn about the steppe are very hard, and not easy to work with. Being very dense, the stone is heavy and perhaps only useful for hammers and shaping tools.
It is a new world to discover for the tribe, and without the reliance on furs and meat from the mammoths, their future is unclear. Yet they are not strangers to hardship, and it is in such times, as they may discover, that they thrive.
