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>The civilisation gets +5 Cohesion.
Slucatal's desire to annihilate the Vuvovic is too extreme, while Prodan's willingness to contact them is naïve and potentially dangerous. The safest course of action is to observe from afar and see how the situation develops. Perhaps they will eventually be whittled away by the Scagravic to the point where they no longer pose a threat, or maybe they will muster the strength and courage to assault the tree-dwellers.
For the time being, they are not a threat. Most of their energy is devoted to maintaining a line of defence along the forest's edge, which hinders the protectorate's ability to expand and blinds them to the possibility of neighbours. The existence is one of constant war against the existential threat that is the tree-dwelling menace – with their attention elsewhere, there is no need for the Ancronic to worry about becoming food for the Vuvovic.
News of the blood-drinkers and their grisly new habit quickly spreads. The Brulicruvic are quick to take advantage of this and present themselves as the superior alternative. Though they still practise scarification and blood rites, as was the Croglatovic tradition, their consumption of vitae is tasteful and limited. Not only that, but the Il that they worship is a cunning protector and a noble father, rather than a terrible blood god whose strength the Vuvovic seek to emulate. At the very least, this is the story that the guardians of truth spin, and the common folk believe it. Few of them are eager to mix with the murderous cannibal cult that the blood-drinkers have supposedly become.
With expansion across the northern shore rendered an impossibility due to the Vuvovic presence, the only other option is to continue west and to venture south, across the Choslitol. Rafts are lashed together over the course of the next few seasons and scouts are sent across the river, to explore the lands along the southern shore of the Croglatol. This is where many tribes once thrived – the smoke people, the light-bringers, the sealskins, the wood-burners. That last tribe were particularly fond of causing controlled forest fires to clear more land for agriculture.
This technique of pushing back the Grascan was adopted by the Rodac and then the Croglatovic. Over the centuries, miles of rolling hills and fertile valleys have been laid bare, so far away from the great lake that it cannot even be seen by the naked eye. Much of this land was left untouched by the deluge and there are no tree-dwelling savages to cause any chaos. Compared to the destruction suffered by the people of Ancron and the eternal threat of the Scagravic that the blood-drinkers have to contend with, this idyllic region and its people have hardly suffered at all.
