You are a primitive human (Forum game)

[Cruzaeus]

I spit into my hands for more friction and start rolling the bark strips between my palms to remove any outer bark or sapwood and to break the inner bark into threads.
I twist these threads together to make a long and uniform but fairly weak piece of "string". I find the middle of the "string", plus an extra foot on one side then twist until It kinks.
I hook this kink to a broken branch on a tree (small branch, no more than a centimeter wide for convenience).
I take both sides of the kink, one in each hand, and twist both of them separately and at the same time to the right, tightly, (clockwise).
I then pass them around each other to the left, tightly, (counterclockwise).
When I run out of right twisted thread in my hands I twist some more and continue passing it around itself until I reach the end of one of the sides of the kink.
I leave about a finger's length (roughly 3 inches) of the short side untwisted and I loosely twist and tie the long end around it so that it holds it's place.

OOC: This will make thin, strong rope. Strong enough for a sling, or snares. PLUS I can continue making the rope longer because of what I did at the end. Tell me how long a piece of rope i made and I'll tell you if I want to go get more fibers to make it longer. I'm looking for 50 feet long. We'll easily use 5 feet per snare if not more.
I could have made weak rope that's only suitable for lashing but we need the food income, and with food income comes sinew for bowstring which brings more food income and defense. I'll make lashing later, so we can build an actual house (even if it is only thatch). I'll even build a fireplace later so we can be warm if it gets cold.

[Cruzaeus]

OOC: Yeti, I'll let you press cure the next hide. I was planning on a waterproof sewing job with a large piece of smoke dried rawhide. I think your quickie curing method trumps mine. Question does the hide have to be stripped off whole, or can it be taken off in the usual way?

I roughly know how to tan hides into leather but we don't have what we need to do so... namely a vat of some sort... of course if we can take down a big animal we can just cut the bladder out and use it as our waterskin. after rinsing it of course.

Oh and yes, I'm obsessed with cordage. It makes survival so much easier.

[YetiChow]

That rope making sounds great, does this mean that we're building some kind of hut? How do you feel about a teepee instead - it would essentially be the same but a little smaller, so we could untie one lashing and roll the thing up and carry it with us wherever we want. Of course we'll want to build a permenant home later the way you describe, although I see us either:

a) finding a good place to live, building a house from stone or something like an adobe hut and trying to find other people and set up some kind of tribe/settlement with crops and workshops (or perhaps even a town) or

b) Earl gets his memory back and goes back to where he was before.

If you want to make leather, we could probably dig a pit and line it with clay and sand as an impromptu concrete vat, though I'd rather not do this anywhere near our house . For the meantime, if we can find a coastline then any hides could be preserved with salt until they can be tanned.

The way you've made that rope is sounds pretty strong, do you think it could be used to make a ladder? We might be able to build a tree house as an outpost if we can find a suitable tree - it'd be a great lookout for hunting and useful as an emergency base if the cave becomes dangerous (such as winter coming in and a bear deciding it'd be a nice place to hibernate - I know that's unlikely but either way it could still happen...)

[Cruzaeus]

Yeti, A teepee type home sounds good, but we would need hide or leather to cover it. We could make one now, but it would be sticks and leaves.

Personally, I would want to run the rope again before making a ladder with it, as is it's very thin, 1/4 inch thick or so. Or make a three strand. But it could possibly hold the weight of a person. depends on what it's made from. I need to find a willow to kill to make a lot of rope. XD

I also thought about a tree house, relatively safe and if we do it in a fruit tree we have snacks.
but kind of hard to insulate. I'd start with a hut and then turn it adobe. Stone is cold. On the other hand, we could build a wall and door for our cave to keep animals and winter out but I'd like to have a home near food and water.

It's fairly easy to build survival shelters or huts, even using just vines. I wouldn't want to use that good rope on lashings though. save it for snares and fishing line.
The rope I've made I wouldn't try to snare big game with, Nothing bigger than a wild pig.

also I want to find an oak tree and gather acorns so I can make acorn flour. we could make some bread then.

[HoshiGiniro]

(OOC: not sure if earl has a basic understanding of herbs or not but should he not also look for certain plants that will help him if he gets sick or hurt?)

[YetiChow]

(OOC: not sure if earl has a basic understanding of herbs or not but should he not also look for certain plants that will help him if he gets sick or hurt?)

OOC: Duh, that's a brilliant idea. Three pages from the "survival experts" and we'd all totally missed that I definitely agree we should try looking for some medicinal herbs - as you say Earl probably has no idea about them, but you never know - Aduvash might decide to be generous with our previous knowledge (for once - so far Earl is having a hard time getting his head around even general knowledge; although he does have amnesia which is usally the result of massive trauma...)

If we try nibbling just the tiniest tip of various local leaves, roots etc we can test for reactions, and we can make poultices with our mortar and pestle (kind of the whole reason I looked for it). It'll take a while to find out which plants do what, but hopefully we'll find some kind of energising plant with a stimulant such as gurana or caffeine; or perhaps even some kind of medicinal herb. Again, the trick is to test the tiniest portion and wait two days for any ill effects - if nothing bad happens then increase the dosage slightly until you get some kind of effect. This way you don't die from poisoning/allergies, though I'd reccommend steering well clear of red, black and yellow berries unless either rabbits or squirrels are eating them - they have similar toxin resistance to humans, so if they can eat them safely then we should be able to as well.

[Cruzaeus]

(OOC: not sure if earl has a basic understanding of herbs or not but should he not also look for certain plants that will help him if he gets sick or hurt?)

I was actually siting here thinking of the Usnea lichen. (natural antibiotic and poultice) It's fairly well known and grows everywhere, just have to find it.

Yeti, you know that our "morter" is filled with rabbit tallow and a wick right? I did make that lamp.

As for the berries, test red, black and blue, steer clear of the rest. most blue and black berries are edible, and about half of red ones are. very few green, yellow or white berries are edible.

[Ulric]

Gather straw. Gather mud. Make doll from straw and mud. Name doll Little Earl. Talk to Little Earl. Be friends with Little Earl.

[Capt_Kiwi]

Gather straw. Gather mud. Make doll from straw and mud. Name doll Little Earl. Talk to Little Earl. Be friends with Little Earl.

I support this idea. Earl needs company.

[Cruzaeus]

Gather straw. Gather mud. Make doll from straw and mud. Name doll Little Earl. Talk to Little Earl. Be friends with Little Earl.

Rofl "WILSON!"