Feudal Quest

Indeed, a red dawn awaits!

Hmm, so would heading over to speak with Lala still be a minor action? Or is the travel too far to fit under that category? Either way it's looking like it's going to be rather hard to get everything set up for the April date we talked about with Baron Kiscun.

Is the response lag we're getting from Rogatica still within standard norms then? Or if it's not is there any standard recourse to a neighbor stonewalling the border walk? I would presume it's looked at pretty badly at least.

 

For everyone's info

Current Costs

Montly Upkeep
Dita : 3
Sir Bialis: 5
Jaroslaw: 2
Traian: 2 SP
Total: 12 SP

Units
Men at Arms: 8
Archers: 2
Rangers: 4
Staff: 6

Total: 20

Montly Cost: 32 SP

Yearly Cost 384 SP


Income

Taxes: 917 SP
Tariffs: 1402 SP

X Man Hours of Labor (60 per household. No accurate count of households)

Harvest Tax: Either 3000 SP in cash or 10,000 SP in barter


Unit Costs (local):

Archers: 40 SP / 2SP Upkeep
Spearmen: 80 SP / ? SP Upkeep
Rangers: ??? SP / 4 SP Upkeep


On that note I have a few questions

1) How many units can our keep currently support

2) How difficult would it be train up, well Combat Engineers skilled in raising timber and dirt forts in rapid order not to mention roads. Basically emulating the Romans.

3) How badly insulted should we be by Nikolia's offer to walk the border

4) What stat does Leadership run off of? Mostly asking for Dita's sake

 

It's a long enough trip that it would end up counting as a full action.

Technically you don't have to do all of your borders at once - you could do the Kiscun border in April, and then the Rogatica and Pischia borders in May if need be.

Dita:
"You know, Chesna and Ezti are actually pretty good friends, and I know Lala likes her. Maybe you could organize this as one long ride along both the Pishia and Kiscun borders, with both of them along? Lala won't be as paranoid about Chesna if another lady is going to be there, and Ezti probably won't mind because it'd give her more time to check you out."

"Ezti and Chesna in the same place for days," she mutters. "Wish I could be there..."

He's being rude, but not intolerably so.

Stonewalling the border walk would be playing serious hardball, so he probably doesn't plan to go that far. It's possible he's going to hit you up for some kind of minor concession in exchange for doing the walk, or possibly there's a potential border dispute he wanted to research before setting a date.

You could fit about a hundred men without too much crowding. Repairing the keep would give yoou room for another 200-300, depending on how you arrange the space.

Training a unit to do simple field fortifications takes two months, and Bialas has the necessary skills. Elaborate Roman-style siege works and roads require more skill - you'd need an actual engineer to do th training, and probably a 4-6 month training program.

Incidentally the Roman Empire actually existed in this world's history, so you can blatantly copy them if you want. The big divergence from RL history (aside from no Christianity) happened around 200 AD, when growing numbers of vampires started to topple the empires of the Middle East and generally destabilize civilization.

On a scale of 1-10, about a 3. It's possible he doesn't actually get the implications for your regency magic, since usually only rulers and their heirs are privy to that kind of knowledge.

Charm, like all social skills.

 

So who wants to bring her along with us?

 

Sounds like a good idea. I'm in favor of it.

 

Dita flushes. "Wow, you have good ears. Um, if they find out I'm here they're going to try to make me come back, and I don't want to cause trouble for you."

 

How hard would it be for us to convince them not to do that or tell anyone else she's here?

 

At this point given Cheznis boy craziness..... maybe an open invitation for just her to visit at anytime.

"No Gramdfather I'm not courting my cousin(s). I just treat her (them) like adults instead of mewling babes.

 

Could she come if she was disguised as someone else?

Dominic
[X] Proclaim Lordship to the populace, meet Sir Ditrik while doing so. While making the rounds make it clear to the populace that as a generous lord you are not overly concerned with issues that arose before you were lord, but now that you are the law is the law and will be enforced. However since we understand the burdens of the short notice tax incoming for some households if they cannot pay the tax on April 15th they can choose to take three different options this one year only.
A. Accept a deferment and pay in cash at a later date with minor interest attached.
B. Pay off the tax with extra labor days valued slightly above one SP in worth.
C. Pay a larger portion of their harvest tax valued moderately above one Sp in worth
They can also elect to choose a mix of these three of these strategies.
[X] Research Birth control, having one of the mistresses get pregnant would be a hassle
[X]Visit Atalya Bartok in Tamasi to talk to her about the foreign sorceress, then attempt to track down the sorceress, possibly to recruit if she isn't crazy or evil

Sir Bialis
[X]Recruit archers
hopefully our proclamation as well as the previous archers recruited can make the rest of the poachers realize which way the wind is blowing and take the offer

Jaroslaw
[X]Train Rangers
I'm iffy on this but we want at least some decent troops when we start handling things

Dita
[X]Train Light magic
[X]Accompany Dominic to try to find the sorceress

Traian
[X]Count up the households, if possible get a rough idea of what percentages will be able to pay in cash and on time, this can hopefully be done while traveling with Dominic for more safety

Men at arms
[X] Guard Dominic

Archers
[X]Garrison

Rangers
[X]Be trained

Minor Actions
[X] Give head maid permission to hire another maid.
[X] Send letter to Chesna asking her to perform the walking of the borders in her father's stead.
[X] Send letter to Baron Rogatica asking for his or his heir's presence for the walking of the borders.
[X] Write Father inquiring if the family has or knows of skilled Engineers that aren't tied up with vital works

 

Dominic
[X] Proclaim Lordship to the populace, meet Sir Ditrik while doing so. While making the rounds make it clear to the populace that as a generous lord you are not overly concerned with issues that arose before you were lord, but now that you are the law is the law and will be enforced. However since we understand the burdens of the short notice tax incoming for some households if they cannot pay the tax on April 15th they can choose to take three different options this one year only.
A. Accept a deferment and pay in cash at a later date with minor interest attached.
B. Pay off the tax with extra labor days valued slightly above one SP in worth.
C. Pay a larger portion of their harvest tax valued moderately above one Sp in worth
They can also elect to choose a mix of these three of these strategies.
[X] Research Birth control, having one of the mistresses get pregnant would be a hassle
[X]Visit Atalya Bartok in Tamasi to talk to her about the foreign sorceress, then attempt to track down the sorceress, possibly to recruit if she isn't crazy or evil

Sir Bialis
[X]Recruit archers
hopefully our proclamation as well as the previous archers recruited can make the rest of the poachers realize which way the wind is blowing and take the offer

Jaroslaw
[X]Train Rangers
I'm iffy on this but we want at least some decent troops when we start handling things

Dita
[X]Train Light magic
[X]Accompany Dominic to try to find the sorceress

Traian
[X]Count up the households, if possible get a rough idea of what percentages will be able to pay in cash and on time, this can hopefully be done while traveling with Dominic for more safety

Men at arms
[X] Guard Dominic

Archers
[X]Garrison

Rangers
[X]Be trained

Minor Actions
[X] Give head maid permission to hire another maid.
[X] Write Father inquiring if the family has or knows of skilled Engineers that aren't tied up with vital works

 

Oh yeah, forgot to mention It when I did so, but I've dropped the letters to Chesna and Rogatica, you guys may want to as well as they seemed pretty outdated based on the clarifications we've received.

 

I would be ok with the latest plan though not recruiting more soldiers when we have such a great need of them hurts (beastmen, bandits and Haunts etc). However we would not be able to afford that many more before we get the taxes anyway. We would at most be able to afford one more squad of spearman and that would leave us very little money for unexpected expenses (assuming we can't spend the taxes the same turn as we recive them).

Do we have any idea of roughly how many beastmen there are and what kind of equipment they are likely to have?

Are beastmen generally stronger or faster than humans etc?

 

Very hard, since Lala is apparently the one who's been supervising Dita. You don't know nearly enough to be confident of influencing her at this point.

At some point you may want to get the full story from Dita, but as long as you refrain from doing so it gives you a good out if someone finds out you're giving her a place to stay and wants to know why.

 

March Orders

Once again we have a solid majority plan:

Dominic
[X] Proclaim Lordship to the populace, meet Sir Ditrik while doing so. While making the rounds make it clear to the populace that as a generous lord you are not overly concerned with issues that arose before you were lord, but now that you are the law is the law and will be enforced. However since we understand the burdens of the short notice tax incoming for some households if they cannot pay the tax on April 15th they can choose to take three different options this one year only.
A. Accept a deferment and pay in cash at a later date with minor interest attached.
B. Pay off the tax with extra labor days valued slightly above one SP in worth.
C. Pay a larger portion of their harvest tax valued moderately above one Sp in worth
They can also elect to choose a mix of these three of these strategies.
[X] Training: Flesh Sorcery Research (birth control technique)
[X] Adventure: The Foreign Sorceress
- See what Atalaya Bartok can tell you about the sorceress, then track her down and recruit her if she isn't crazy or evil

Sir Bialis
[X]Recruit archers

Jaroslaw
[X]Train Rangers (Skill)

Dita
[X]Training: Light Sorcery Level (2/4)
[X] Adventure: The Foreign Sorceress
- Accompany Dominic

Traian
[X] Count up the households, if possible get a rough idea of what percentages will be able to pay in cash and on time, this can hopefully be done while traveling with Dominic for more safety

Men at arms
[X] Guard Dominic

Archers
[X]Garrison

Rangers
[X]Be trained

Minor Actions
[X] Give head maid permission to hire another maid.
[X] Write Father inquiring if the family has or knows of skilled Engineers that aren't tied up with vital works

A clarification - do you want to take the men at arms with you when you go to track down the sorceress, or just for your tour of the fief?

 

I'd prefer them to accompany us in both pursuits if possible. Considering what our ranger told us about the lay of the land even if the sorceress isn't violent we're likely to run into some troubles in the search regardless.

 

Pretty sure taking the men at arms with us when we try to find the sorceress means she'll simply run away. So I'd say only for the tour.

Risky, yeah, but we've got superhuman strength/agility/whatever and are pretty badass, and frankly no risk no reward.

 

Eh, based on what ShaperV has said I don't feel we're all that badass, absolute top tier is Conan level and we're nowhere near that. Especially based on how the GM has said he's running things (Exceptional units can only take on several mooks at once). So while I can see your point I think we should take at least a couple of troops with us, even if we don't take them all.

 

No need to take them on our adventure

 

GM Question

When female heirs happen is it usually a question of say 2nd or 3rd sons of ranking nobles marrying into her family, or other families effectively taking over the Barony after the marriage?

Hmm also

"Dita if you turn down the Barony who would inherit it?"

 

I would suggest bringing just ~2 men at arms with us when finding the sorceress.

 

That works for me a lot better. Three men aren't nearly so threatening.

 

In response to questions and upcoming events I've added some information on beastmen and the various types of magic to the Lore post.

You currently have Body+Swordsmanship 6, compared to 4 for a typical veteran soldier. That probably puts you in the top 5% of swordsmen in the kingdom even without your sorcery, and with it you're effectively a 7.

However, if you find yourself fighting two guys at once that's a -1 penalty. Three guys is -2, four is -3, and so on. So if you get surrounded by a large group of enemies you're going to get cut to pieces despite your superior skill. Making sure you don't get cornered by a big mob of enemies is a key part of surviving an adventure.

That's why legendary heroes like Jason and Odysseus always traveled with a band of elite followers. Having a partner to guard your back greatly reduces the number of mooks who can gang up on you, and a group of 6 or more makes it very hard for even a very large group of enemies to bring their numbers to bear. Alternatively you could rely on mobility (to keep enemies from surrounding you), stealth and confusion (to keep them from figuring out where you really are) or destructive magic (to just AoE them down) - but those are all much harder options that just keeping some guys with you at all times.

In Borjeria there is no legal mechanism for making a male noble join his wife's family instead of vice versa - the concept is so alien a lot of people would say it isn't even marriage.

Normally a woman becomes part of her husband's family when she marries, and any lands she would inherit become his. In this case the woman can't hold the title herself, she's just a vehicle for conveying it to her husband. So if Chesna marries some baron's son he'll become lord of Pischia when Pavel dies, and it will no longer be a Petran fief. But if she and her husband die without producing an heir the fief reverts to the next person in the original line of succession, which in this example would be Chesna's younger sister.

There is only one way around this, and it hardly ever happens. In theory a man with no male heirs can go through a considerable amount of legal paperwork and rigmarole to designate his eldest daughter as heir in her own right, instead of merely a vessel to convey the inheritance to whoever she marries. The distinction is that she could then rule without a husband, and if she does marry she retains the final say on how she exercises her powers as a feudal lord instead of being obligated to defer to her husband. This normally only happens if the daughter is a powerful sorceress or some sort of heroic mortal, since no one in Borjeria thinks normal women are qualified to rule and she'd never be able to hold her fief without some kind of extraordinary ability. This is what Dita claims her father was arranging for her, although apparently he never finished the paperwork.

But nobles hardly ever do that. Normally if your wife is getting to old too have children and you don't have a male heir the thing to do is divorce her and get a younger wife so you can try again. This tends to upset the old wife's family quite a bit, since it severs the original marriage alliance and forces them to take her back, but that's often a smaller disaster than losing the fief. Or if you can find some noble girl foolish enough to be your mistress you can father children on her, and then recognize one as your heir - which will piss off your wife as much as divorcing her would while leaving her still living in your house, so it tends to end badly.

She smiles softly. "You mean, what happens if I foil grandfather's little plot? Mom's younger sister married the baron of Arany, so I guess it would go to her son. He's only twelve, but I'm sure his dad would be happy to press the claim for him. Of course, Arany is aligned with the Dardais right now so I'm sure the rest of our family would have a conniption over it."

"No doubt," you reply with a thoughtful frown. "What's the plot, then? The Church found you innocent, so grandfather can only hold Verzi as your regent, right? When you marry he'll have to hand it over, so all he can really do is pick a good alliance."

She pats your hand. "You're a good guy, Dominic. Don't ever change."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Trust me, you're better off not knowing. Plausible deniability, remember?"

 

I wonder if Gramps could be considering running some scheme where he makes use of the heightened tensions to lure a patsy into conquering her lands. Then, should he conquer it back, would the ownership of the land fall completely to him?

 

Or, if the land is not THAT precious/needed, he could simply secure a alliance with a neutral party by marrying her off to a second/third son.

I mean, it's not like the current king is dying without a solid heir and your grandfather is mobilizing to get enough support to be the regent/next king.

 

The Foreign Sorceress, Pt I

The Atalya Bartok lives in the fanciest house in Tamasi.

From the street it seems normal enough. A stout wooden building with a covered porch, decorated with a clutter of little wood carvings depicting angels and woodland creatures. The windows have curtains, there’s a mat to wipe your boots on at the door, and the door even has one of those fancy knocker-gripped-by-a-carved-claw things that have been a fad with the merchant class lately.

But you feel a subtle whisper of magic as you set foot on the porch, and your armsmen hesitate at the steps.

Well, it’s probably best to keep this conversation quiet anyway. There’s no telling what the witch might tell you, or what you might decide to do about it.

A haggard-looking boy of perhaps fourteen answers the door, and quickly ushers you into a small sitting room. Then he runs off to fetch the supposed witch, leaving you to wonder how this woman can afford a house with four or five rooms all filled with decent furniture and assorted frilly decorations.

She turns out to be a middle-aged woman of surprisingly average appearance, a bit on the heavy side with long brown hair that she wears tucked up in a neat bun. Her dress is the sort of thing you’d expect the wife of a minor merchant or prosperous craftsman to wear, and her shoes are practically new.

“Ah, the new lord!” She says in greeting. “I wasn't expecting to see you so soon. Did you have need of my services, perhaps?”

“Perhaps in the future. At the moment it’s information I’m after, Ms. Bartok,” you reply.

“Ah,” she nods. “Adrian, tea and biscuits for his lordship, and don’t dawdle!”

The servant boy scurries off, leaving the two of you alone. Perfect.

“I understand you had an encounter with a certain foreign sorceress when she passed through Tamasi?” You begin.

Atalaya scowls. “That arrogant little hussy! Oh, yes, I met her when she tried to enthrall the town council. Drove her out of town in the end I did, though it cost me a pretty penny.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Mmm. It was summer when she arrived. She came over from Pischia on the ferry, like any normal person. She was a pretty young thing, all bright hair and flashing eyes in that indecent outfit of hers. Said her name was Kat, and her father was an Egyptian magus.”

“A magus?” You interrupt. “What would one of them be doing in Borjeria?”

“Research, according to her. She said the two of them had traveled all the lands of Europe together, ever since she was a little girl. But he died in on her trying to do some damnfool experiment with a haunt, and she didn’t manage so well on her own.”

Atalaya shakes her head. “She was trying to make a go of selling her services to the nobility, if you can believe it. A girl with her looks, unmarried and only sixteen at the time, traveling alone? She should have been grateful when Baron Timis’ son took an interest in her.”

“Is her magic a fraud, then?” You ask.

“Oh, no. I should be so lucky. The girl has the strongest earth sorcery I’ve ever seen, and her father passed on a bit of his arts to her as well. Those tattoos of hers are a wizard’s tool of some kind, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she has an imp or two bound to her will by now. But wizardry is slow, and earth magic is more suited to mending castle walls than fending off bandits. I doubt the baron’s son was the first to take liberties with her person.”

“The rumors weren't clear on what happened there,” you observe.

“She brought the roof down on his head. Dashed his brain out on a falling stone, and then tore a passage through the wall of the keep and fled on foot.”

Holy crap. That would take an amazing level of power, especially to do so quickly. Although… no, if she’s trained in wizardry there’s probably some trick to it that boosts her power. Maybe she can spend a day preparing a destructive spell and unleash it instantly, or something along those lines?

The tea arrives, but you wait to make sure Atalaya is taking a cup before sampling any. No need to take chances, after all.

“Well, you can imagine the Baron was hot to take revenge on her. She tried to convince the village elders to hide her, and she nearly charmed them all with her wild promises to make the fields fertile and build a wall for the village. She’d have swayed them all if I hadn't been her to break her spell.”

“So she was charming them?”

Atalaya snorts. “Yes, she knows that enchantress trick for stealing mens’ will with a flash of bare skin. You should have seen the fools all drooling over her bosom, it was disgusting. Well, I know a thing or two myself, and I wasn’t going to let that stand. I broke her spell, and talked some sense into them while she was still reeling from the backlash. There’s some crafty sorts here in the village, but hiding a foreigner from a lord’s justice like that is over the line.”

“Well, there was a lot of shouting then. The little chit had the nerve to pretend I was the one charming the council, if you can believe it! The menfolk argued it back and forth for half the night, but every time Kat tried one of her little tricks I shut her right down. Finally enough of them caught on that they decided to take her into custody and hold her for the Baron’s men. They were right on her tail, so if we’d just been able to hold her a few days we’d have been able to hand her over.”

She pauses. “I’m sure you've heard that didn't work out so well. Somehow she got loose in the middle of the night, when I’d thought her safely bound and pacified. The first I knew of it was when half the house collapsed into the basement and the rest caught fire. Poor Manfried was killed in the collapse, and I would have lost everything if I didn’t know a trick for putting out fires. I still have scars.”

“She fled into the woods then. The Baron’s men tracked her southwest all the way to the Rogatica border, but they lost her trail at the Lim. Last I heard there’s still a 500 SP reward for her capture, but no one knows where to find her. Well, no one else does.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You do?”

She cackles. “Yes, dearie, I wasn't going to let an insult like that one pass. I've been searching for her ever since. Her person is warded against every spell I've ever heard of, but once I realized that it was just a matter of being indirect. So, what would you say to splitting the reward?”

-----

Well, that was informative. Now what?

 

we need the information and to keep this bitch quiet.

 

So we know that Rogatica is influential with the rural baronies, so does that mean he and Timis have a good relationship? If so then the choice to try to recruit or turn in this sorceress has to be looked at in that light as well, if we do turn her in that could be an alternate path to some goodwill from the region, but if we want to follow the Kiscun route there's probably not much point in doing so.

Of course there's still the issue of how to deal with the here and now choice about Atalya but I feel like we should decide on which Barony we want to court before locking in what we want to accomplish here.

I will say in general that a 500 SP reward is probably worth a lot less than it seems when you consider the infrastructural projects she could be extremely useful in, but I'll also say that the fact she's so skilled in earth magic will likely make it a huge pain to track her down without Atalya's aid.

 

[X] "I don't intend on returning her, reward or no reward. Given her skills and her power, I am hoping to employ her and your story solidifies that intention greatly. Now, while it's obvious that you have some enmity for this woman, I would like you to put that aside and help me here - as a service to your lord. I know that's an unlikely outcome, so I'll ask: what will it take?"

 

I'm incrediably tempted to simply gut this witch here and now.

 

Do not say this. I shouldn't need to point out how badly this will piss her off.