Paleolithic Neathar - Tools
by Cab DavidsonToralai Tools
While not the most adept toolmakers among the Neathar, the paleolithic people have an impressive range of tools adapted to the various jobs they have to do. Perhaps the most important is the neath, the tool for which their whole race and myriad culture is known. It is crafted from a single flint, with a worked, cutting edge on one side, a pointed end, a coarser blade on another side, and a rounded end to use as a hammer. Indentations are worked into the stone to denote hand holds, allowing to to be used in any direction. Making, maintaining and using this tool is an essential life skill for all Neathar, not just the paleolothic peoples, and the neath is used for all sorts of jobs, from cutting and preparing meat, to cracking nuts, sharpening wooden points, scraping pelts, gutting and scaling fish, chopping kindling, and even as an impromptu weapon (essentially increasing punching damage to 1d3, plus any strength bonus).
Stone multi-tool, source: BBC
Stone tools are crafted for a range of specialist functions.
Hand axes (flint axe blades held in the hand) are used to chop and work wood, whereas narrower flakes of flint are used to scrape hides to cure them, puncture holes in them to stretch and dry them, to butcher prey and to carve bones and antlers.
The burin is a simple, chisel like flint flake typical to all neathar, a simple tool that can be crafted in a few, minutes, ideally suited to antler and bone working.
Paleolithic burin, Source: Wikipedia
With a hand axe and burin, most of the work of butchering an animal is possible. The addition of a specialist scraping tool to remove fat from skin, allows hides to be dried and used for clothing and shelter.
Paleolithic Scraper. Source: Metropolitain Museum of Art
Bone, antler and horn are in turn crafted into needles (for stitching hides into clothing and shelter), digging tools (antler is preferred for this), fixings to hold clothing together, fishing hooks, etc. All Neathar pride themselves in the capacity to make the right stone tool for each job. Hammer stones and grinding stones similar to querns are used to grind nuts and grain for cooking into simple ash cakes.
Paleolithic peoples make pottery from clay, but they do not possess the technology to mill the clay before doing so. The result is that their clay items tend to have many inclusions and may appear crude if examined in cross section, but strength is obtained by making them thicker than those of other cultures. Clay is typically rolled out into strands that are coiled into the shape of a bowl or pot, which is then smoothed over and decorated with indentations, finger marks and geometric shapes, and dried before firing in wood fires. This pottery is usually surprisingly resilient, and is used for cooking (using pot-boilers, stones heated in a fire before dropping in to pots of water to cook food therein), storage, eating, and even crude fermentations and distillations (to produce birch tar and a range of plant extracts for medicine).
While plant fibres are not used for making textiles or clothing, they are used for making cordage for string, binding wooden shafts to tools, and of course fishing nets. Plant fibres such as nettle, flax and other plants that are bound and left in rivers until sufficiently degraded that only the tougher fibres are left, and these are worked into sophisticated, twisted ropes.
While the the paleoloithic Nethar do not possess sufficient understanding of metals to extract from ore, they can work native metals that are occasionally found. Native copper, silved and gold is highly prized and worked into prestige items, such as high status tools or jewellery.