Feudal Quest

The fact that many of the other characters lack horsemanship tells me that its not necessary for long distance travel. Most likely its used in combat, and in that case, Dita's Faerie Gifts would make her better suited to staying on foot. That Ezti lacks skill in tactics indicates that it is not a necessary skill for a leader, and Ezti is much more likely to lead troops that Dita.

 

Darklight I'd suggest we keep Dita grinding Light Sorcery every turn.

The more powerful a sorceress she is the higher the chances Dita will have of pulling off her quest.

Idealy I'd love to see her go with Soul 5 Light 5

 

Why do people keep claiming a castellan/seneschal can be put on hold for months? Even if you half ass every action it's possible to half ass by denying it the supervision it's stated it needs to be effective, there's still actions we absolutely need to get done, for instance everyone seems to agree to expanding our military, well we need to recruit an expanded craftsmen base to properly support that, and the talk about trust honestly rings pretty hollow to me, we already have a bunch of people we know next to nothing about running about our keep, and apparently it's better trust wise to assign them tasks with no supervision and centralized oversight? Instead of, you know, getting a single point man that we can hold to account and monitor much more conveniently? Rather than assuming we're such a failure at spotting and cultivating talent that it would be better to let everything get run like shit for however long it'll take for our father to fix things for us?

As for getting Traian engineering 1, since the items I wanted him to buy aren't time extremely time sensitive I don't mind that. I think your plan for Dita is pretty poorly supported and again basically ignores what she actually asked for though.

 

I think that one problem you are ignoring is Nikolai. He's probably been weakening the duchy for a while by taking part of the gold and everything, probably intending to marry into power with his siphoned resources to put himself into a position of power.

Now you step in. He's not going to just let you take away his chance like that.

However, there is also a chance here. He's ambitious, but he knows well enough that he needs legitimacy to keep power. If we can use that knowledge, I'm sure we can make some huge gains. Not what he planned, as that would lose any hold we can have over him as well as lose a lot of trust, but maybe we can find some use for us...

 

Re: Rules

Deleted

 

Re: Rules

Great. Now I'm going to wonder if I guess too close or completely out to left field. Thanks Shaper!

 

Re: Rules

Heh. No, I just hit the wrong button while I was updating a status post. Numbers for the labor tax and equipment upgrades are now posted.

 

Re: Rules

I've a question about merchant, what stat does it run off, mind or charm? Just curious as my plan previously had Traian purchasing transport in bulk, which I assumed would go fine as he'd already researched the likely expenses beforehand, but now I'm less sure. In general how significant a price increase should we expect when purchasing goods with a character that does not have merchant?

Also is it basically impossible for a character without the (Special Potential) Label to increase stats? I would assume without outside intervention it usually is but wasn't sure, especially in cases like going from 0->1.

 

DarkLight140 makes some good points. I would prefer getting the next level of Diplomacy before riding the border however recruting spearmen and researching haunts is also important.

[X] Plan DarkLight140
-[X] Add a minor action for sending a letter to our father regarding us considering marrying Ezti.

 

I am liking Darklight140's points so far. Walking the borders is still very much high priority, and then we need to get rid of those haunts. Likewise, Dita larning Horsemanship is very important for any kind of action we wish to do. She just couldn't keep up otherwise.

[X] Plan DarkLight140
My hopes are that we learn enough about the haunts this turn so that we can tackle them with Ezti and Dita's help next turn, as well as the beastmen. I am a bit worried by that part:

Rangers
[] Hunt threat: Beastmen
They have no leaders there, and might really mess up. I am kind of tempted to switch out Horsemanship for 'leading the rangers' for Dita there, but we'd have to convicne her that this count as being given a physical skill to train. Of course, if we do so it should be AFTER she learns tactics.

Likewise, we must make sure she knows not to overreach herself when hunting the beastmen, not to be too rpoud to run away if need be.

 

Chesna only has Mind 2 and Soul 2. Teaching her wizardry would probablly be a waste of time even if she would be willing to put in the intense effort required to learn such a subject when she only has Mind 2.

I would prefer getting the books ourselves (perhaps with a few companions) since we can get some very valuable rewards from adventures. We might want to consider some getting flesh sorcery disguse for adventures such as that.

 

[X] Plan Thomasfoolary

Given a choice between ignoring what Dita wants and not, the choice is clear.

 

One final thing I haven't already addressed, Dita can move like a fiend. So no, she does not need to learn horsemanship to keep up.

 

Everyone wants to give Dita what she wants, so i am not getting this argument.

Chesna seems too weak to do anything really high-end anyway, and she likes the idea of learning some wizardry. What Chesna could shine at, if she really wanted to, would be diplomacy/leadership, and we already know magic can help with that somewhat.

Of course she does. Horsemanship is not just a physical combat skill, it's also for long distance travel when in groups. Dita can't keep up by running, we know how exhausted she was the last time. And 'running like a fiend' not only exhaust you, but it also means everyone is going to think she is a fiend/demon, soemthing she already has trouble with.

 

Yeah, because tactics for a unit leadership role she wasn't interested in and horsemanship she doesn't need really matches up to what she asked for.

She was exhausted because she was having her life drained by years worth of exorcisms and was wearing inappropriate gear in the middle of a snowstorm, and she still outperformed what a mounted rider could do, considering humans are already some of the best endurance movers on the planet even without her gifts I'm confident that you're wrong here.

Also when is she going to have to keep pace with a horse in the near term? Only when she's with us alone basically, so yet another spurious concern as there will be no "everyone" to notice.

 

Tactics is not only for leadership (that would be leardership, that she alraeady have) but also for learning what the best plans are to, say, rescue a friend. Likewise, it's not that she doesn't want to go that track, it's that she believes her life will be too bleak.

Where are you getting the idea she outperformed what a mounted rider would do? And it still doesn't speak of the combat application of horsemanship, nor the ability for bringing more gear/etc with one, etc.

Are you joking? Every time we go out of the castle and take her with us Dominic thinks he must convince her to stop acting like this. She is not alone with us then, she is with our troop. Unless your goal is to hide her in a tower out of sight or something, whenever she leave the fief she is going to need to be on horseback.

 

For the last time, she didn't ask for help learning how to make plans, she asked for help learning physical combat skills. Maybe if you want to get her to want to learn plans you should, try to bond with her over what she did ask for, then try that...

40+ miles in less than a day through terrain with no roads in a heavy snowstorm, that's outperforming.

Anyway it's clearly pointless discussing this with you as you just keep shifting the goal posts. I respond by pointing out situation where you say it's a problem if she runs fast isn't actually a problem and then you go on a tangent where for some inexplicable reason she's going to start running around randomly whenever she goes outside (as opposed to any of the other behaviors she's exhibited), and that somehow riding a horse will prevent her outbursts, suure...

 

While i agree with this on principle, i do think that giving a solid base to Dita is also very important if we don't want her to have some very big vulnerabilities in other places.

 

And that's why her learning Horsemanship is proposed, because it's a phsyical combat skill that's much more in tone with what she wants than swordmanship. Likewise, why her leading the ranger is proposed to hunt beastmen, as that's ALSO a phsyical skill much more in tone with her expressed desire.

You mean, how she has been explicitly shown to act? Dita needs to learn Horsemanship because of the help for travelling (better speed, better formation, better combat, better packing), AND because she is freaking out our men when she is running around while we took her outside of the castle.

That's not a 'maybe', that's a fact. That you are somehow ignoring what's been going on, as well as her expressed goals, is a bit weird.

 

Yeah, because she was practicing riding earlier, not sword drills... oh, wait, no she wasn't, and tracking/woodscraft, that's certainly a combat skill rather than a utility skill... oh wait, no it isn't.

She's been shown to act outrageously yeah, and her being mounted isn't going to do a damn thing to curtail that, and I've no idea why you think it would.

You seem to be ignoring that being mounted nullifies over half her faerie gifts, that's also a fact, so not sure why you're so confident it's an upgrade.

 

Well, you'll pick up some additional adventure options from these discussions:

Nikolai's Associates
Chesna reveals that there's an especially shady group whose agents regularly deliver payments to Nikolai, probably a bribe for him to ignore their activities. She's never been able to learn more, but someone good at snooping around might well be able to determine who they are and expose the connection to embarrass Nikolai. Chesna is eager to help with sure a project.

Operation Remove the Problem
Baron Rogatica is the last of his line, and if he dies without an heir there's going to be quite an argument between various distant relatives over who should replace him. Arguments like that generally require a war to settle, which would certainyl keep the barony out of your hair for awhile and might even be an opportunity. Of course Ezti wouldn't approve of such underhanded methods, but who says she has to know?


Chesna is willing to approach Baron Timis about acquiring Katiana's effects for you, and she doesn't think there's any particular risk in it for her. But she has no idea how much money he'd want for magic books, and her allowance if pretty tight. You'll need to advance her at least 100 SP to fund the deal, and if Timis ever finds out he's going to be quite upset.

Unfortunately the fact that Chesna was involved in a battle on your lands is going to damage your standing with Lala a good bit, and she now thinks Corzu is a dangerous wilderness that isn't safe for her daughter to visit. This is going to complicate future plotting, although hopefully the favors you're planning to do her will make up for that some.

As already mentioned, Ezti would be happy to hunt haunts with you. She seems to think it's romantic, but she's also going to have to come up with a good story to tell her father.

That's correct. Horsemanship is only needed if you want to win races, fight on horseback, or do other tricky stunts. And Dita is probably the only noble girl you've ever met who doesn't like riding, because she thinks horses are slow, clumsy creatures. She can easily outrun one on foot, and she has far more endurance than they do.

Of course, it kind of makes people talk when she shows off that kind of ability...

Tactics determines how competently you can deploy your troops in battle, while Leadership determines whether they'll follow your orders. So Ezti actually has a very dangerous skill combination, because she can give her men stupid orders and they'll obey them.

Tactics does not apply to individual combat - I assume anyone with decent weapon skills knows how to handle themselves effectively on a battlefield. It could be used to deploy an adventuring party if they were involved in a pitched battle, but it doesn't really cover sneaking around doing spec ops missions.

So far Dita hasn't found a way to actually do damage with her powers, and throwing bright flashes of light around tends to attract attention. If you want to convince her to go all-in on magic you're going to need to figure out a way for her to kill things with it.

Currently her plan is to get really good with physical weapons, and try to develop ways to use illusions to enhance her stealth and infiltration abilities.

You could argue that either way, so I'm going to say it's whichever stat is higher.

It doesn't normally happen, but I can think of a few extreme measures that could work. For example, if you forced someone like Traian or Chesna to go through an intensive physical training program they'd probably gain a point of Body.

Dominic didn't have a chance to put this together until later, but it appears she was exhausted because she ran across thirty miles of woods through a blizzard at night in about 3 hours. By medieval standards that's an insane level of mobility - a horse would have taken all night and probably died halfway there.

But you're entirely correct that showing off that kind of ability us usually a bad idea.

 

Of the two most popular plans currently proposed I favor Darklight's over Thomasfoolery's.

Darklight's plan is much more cohesive and goal-oriented. It sets out to solve two of our problems in short order, namely clearing out the beastmen and preparing to remove the haunts. We don't waste any actions, like asking Kat to tell us about the Haunts this month, but then not following up on it ourself so that we get the best picture of how to defeat the various supernatural presences right off the bat.

Kat is difficult, as our initial encounter with her proved with her somehow arguing us into giving her a raise even as we watched her huddle for warmth in a cave, wearing rags while hiding from the authorities. I like her, but we'd be stupid to put any serious amount of trust in her.

As for magic I am hoping we can utilize Force more generally-namely, trying to make a bubble around our self and maybe later our allies which turns away anything that touches the barrier. It'd be great for charging into an enemy's lines and sending people off horses. We could learn an application like also trapping the oxygen inside and using it to walk the bottom of our riverbed, imagine how helpful that could be. The flesh magic I definitely agree on. I do not want to rely on anyone else for our birth control, I don't even really want the birth control. Bastards aren't a distinct risk in this setting and if anything having a few around will only help in the long term. What I do want is the in to start working on fertility magic, the possibilities and applications for that are endless if you're playing the long-game.

Both Katiana's book and Atalaya are of lesser concern compared to the more pressing issues we have facing us. They are most certainly not important enough to go charging into Timis' keep to get her book as more recent suggestions pose.

The only major disagreement I have is that we can't just go get a castellan, we're raising a bunch of troops, it makes sense to have one even if we can't trust him perfectly. We have the Charisma to turn vinegar into honey, I'm not worried so much about the old man we end up hiring with Charm 0-1.

Dita may want to learn a physical, specifically a combat applicable skill, but swordsmanship is about the least synergistic skill we could choose. She is leaning towards the ranger archetype, having her get good at archery quickly would be her best bet under the same reasoning as trying to get her to rush for high soul, high light magic capability. That said, it's also a waste of Dom's time. I'd much rather spend a full action talking to Dita, trying to convince her that she isn't going to end up being cast out of her homeland forever and that we can and will help her. We don't need swordsmanship as an excuse to bond with her, we can just bond with her while also having her learn something more valuable. Anything would be more valuable to her. Daggers, polearms, spears, anything.

 

I really want to discreetly find out how they feel about sharing. Chesna probably won't have a problem, but Ezti... can't say about her. Just don't be so crass to actually ask directly, I'm sure Dominic finds a way that is inside etiquette enough to not be an insult or otherwise backfire horribly.

@Grail: That's a bit wall-of-texty...

I never wanted more than one action tactics and one action swordsmanship, anyway. So that's fine.
We could make that one point relevant to her running away - avoiding patrols and such, but meh. Right now I'm more planning to take the course that gets her to stay with us anyway. Definitely okay with that.

@DarkLight140: Good point about Kat. We need to keep her controlled - and finish the birth control thing, I wasn't content with trusting someone else with that anyway. If Dominic does it, there's no way it can get forgotten with or without quotation marks. Except by him, but then that's at least his own damn fault. Might even integrate a version of that in the harem benediction thing if it works out that way.
And on the castellan/majordomo/seneschal one.

I would give her Swordmanship/tactics this turn and swordsmanip/horsemanship next turn, though. She wants to train the sword, and it'S not as if we would really lose anything by spreading it over two turns. Assuming we keep horsemanship, that is.

With these issues considered, your plan is still currently the best one. [X]DarkLight140

Edit: Oh, and no way I'm supporting leaving birth control aside on purpose...

 

This does make us wonder how the heck she is only Body 2. Looking at her intro, it seems this was a active use of her magic, not a passive one, which would explain it- except none of the magic abilities we know she has would permit that.

It makes me think we do not understand her Wyld gifts, nor her light sorcery.

So, huh, what do you people think her gifts and Light Sorcery do? And which part do you think enhances her endurance/speed? As it seems like an active effect that demands power, how do you propose we find a way for her to improve on that?

'Light Sorcery' seems to be about the light itself, but it also has some kind of sacred tone (purification, etc). Do you think it's possible to make a "Smite" like ability for her? 'Summon Archangel?' 'Light Elementals?' 'Aura of clarity?' (+1 to mind and +1 to body of all allies around her). What else?

 

I'll support DarkLight's plan, although I am concerned about the possibility of beastmen attacking Dominic's group while he's riding the border, since that is apparently their current territory. To alleviate that, I'd suggest taking the rangers as well as the assigned archers and men-at-arms, and waiting until next turn to hunt the beastmen with a larger group.

Also, DarkLight mentions the possibility of informing Dominic's father of our need for a seneschal/castellan and getting him to do the work of finding us one, which I think is a great idea, but then doesn't actually add it to the minor actions, so that should be folded in as well.

Edit: I'm also for giving Chesna the money to get the grimoires. Saves us an action.

 

About Kat, once again I also propose that we seduce her and not let her seduce us i.e. Dominic so that she gets to trust us to get a measure of control over her. We do have higher stats in Charm over her.

 

Yeah, i support both of those.

 

Got my support as well.

Edit: And we got stats on equipment, kept our forces in the quote for simplicity's sake.

Edit2: Page 1 now says our staff as grown to the point where we need a castellan or seneschal to supervise them.

And if I look at that map, holy, Corzu is tiny. We really need those links to Pischia and Kiscun.

 

May Orders

It looks like there's a consensus, so Dominc adopts the following orders for May:

Dominic
[X] Walk the Rogatica border with the Baron
[X] Research Corzu - Haunts
[X] Recruit Troops - Spearmen

Dita
[X] Train - Swordsmanship
[X] Train - Swordsmanship
Note: Dita insists on this, and since she's a guest rather than a retainer you can't really order her to do something different.

Sir Bialis
[X] Recruit Troops - Spearmen

Jaroslaw
[X] Recruit Troops - Spearmen

Katiana Nevyana
[X] Begin granary project

Traian
[X] Train Engineering

Men at arms
[X] 6 accompany Dominic, rest escort Traian home

Archers
[X] 6 accompany Dominic, 4 escort Traian, Rest Garrison

Rangers
[X] Hunt threat: Beastmen

Minor Actions
[X] Send a letter to our father detailing our experience in Pisch, he can pass it up the chain if necessary.
[X] Monitor Mira to see if you pick up any further changes. See if Kat knows what kind of methods could have been responsible for the change we noticed
[X] Send a letter to Gavrilla to get an idea about when she’s planning to stop by and any preliminary thoughts she might have, mention she may want to keep her eye open for male prospects as well, as Chesna will likely be heading down soon.
[X] Ask Dita to try to call for a Chosen.
[X] Ask Katiana for any professional assessment she can give of the Dark Moon Well, Three Bells Tower, and Black Beast of the Wood, based upon her greater knowledge of magical phenomena and the rumors we've heard, before we leave to investigate them.

 

Actually... do you think we can wrangle some kind of deal with the Baron or impress him to get some positive trade going while walking the boarders?

That won't take an extra action or anything, would it?