by Eric Weiss
What’s in a name?
It depends who’s asking. One person’s woolly raven is another person’s reckoning raven – and is that reckoning the farmer’s reckoning or the reckoning of bees?
We don’t have the answers – but we can explain how we got here with a quick summary of our Namesakes livestream. Watch the replay to see how this lore web came to be, then place a pre-order that includes the Namesakes PDF to get instant access to the beta!
Now then, on to the summary.
Our web begins with the reckoning raven, so called because it was falsely associated with an agricultural catastrophe. The event came to be known as the farmer’s reckoning, though its sometimes known as the reckoning of bees because it was a sudden, massive drop in the bee population that led to crop failure in the first place.
Unfortunately, the ravens were unfairly blamed for the disaster. Before it was the reckoning raven, it was known as the woolly raven, due to the appearance it gets from the algae that grows on the bird in aquatic environments.
So why did the farmers think the raven was the problem?
It all traces back to a researcher’s big mistake. The person they asked to investigate the cause of the catastrophe mistook the algae for spores, and claimed that the spores led to the bee decline. In doing so, the educator prevented people from finding the actual cause until it was far too late, allowing the blight to rampage unchecked.
Now that researcher is famous for their direct involvement in a generational famine. They spend their days trying to atone for their mistake, and wishing they had never been given that raven in the algae garden.
Thanks again to those who tuned in. Check out the livestream for more tips that will help you make the most of the Namesakes Expansion!
