Feudal Quest

Alright, based on the barter update I think we should definitely recruit another unit of archers rather than training the current set.

We don't really have anyone we can spare to teach Traian merchant right now (unless we could pay someone in Eztergrom to tutor him?), so I'd say put him on surveying the roads for improvement.

Pretty unfortunate news about the huntsmen, but since it was a bad roll I think we just have to suck it up. As we're never going to have the actions to hold our troops hands for every routine task we send them on.

 

Given they were pretty much the same plan with only 2-3 changes,

I really liked the action with Dita & Dominic

Changing Traian to Survey Roads though

 

I'd rather build basic forts at our major villages. Both to protect them and also have places to run patrols from.

Given Fire magic Purifies and the Forest is a noted source of Darkness.

Burning it is actually a logical choice to weaken the blasted thing.

Plus the Beast basically screams high level encounter given its soaked up all previous attempts to kill it before.

 

Ok, ShaperV, question: It seems that dealing with Atalaya shouldn't take more than a couple of days at most. Can we consider it a minor action? And if so, can we strike with overwhelming force? E.G, everyone we have, even those doing Actions this turn?

 

Good solid plans but no one seriously wants to train Dominic in Flesh Sorcery to get that birth control spell? At least include it as a minor action just to get it out of the way.

 

Its not a minor action but a major one.

I'd rather work with Dita and figure out whats going on with her this turn

 

I am not sure i understand the logic for it being a major one- actions being minor/major depends on time spent, after all, not how badass an enemy is, and killing Atalaya shouldn't take us more than a couple of days max, especially if we go at her with all we have got.

Of course she could always flee with having pursuing her in the demon realm as a possible future adventure, but that's something else entirely.

 

Before I put up my own list I have a few questions for ShaperV

The rangers presumably have a general idea of where the Beastman range now, so sending them out again would result in more accurate information about their numbers and such? Also are the rangers recovered enough for another sortie this season?

Secondly, could we use a minor action looking for someone we could pay to have Traian learn from for the month to get him merchant, with another task for him to default to in case we don't find anyone?

 

May Event - The Call

Near the end of the month a strange apparition appears in your keep near sundown. A young peasant girl dressed in torn and bloodstained rags, with a short mop of pale blonde hair that looks like it was hacked off with a knife. One arm is heavily bandaged, and she carries an improvised spear made by tying a kitchen knife to the end of a broom handle. She strolls past several startled mean t arms to where Dita is sparring with one of the rangers, and nods to her.

“I heard your call, priestess,” she says in a voice that barely rises above a whisper. “Where’s the monster?”

Dita lowers her sword, and stares at the girl. “Excuse me? Who are… wait, I know that voice.”

The girl nods in a way that suggests a bow. “I am Inga. You didn’t answer me, so I came closer.”

“Wait, you’re a Chosen? But you’re so young!”

“I am the oldest Chosen in Europe, priestess,” she answers. Her eyes are distant, her voice dreamy. “I was called six years ago, and I have fought… everything. Whatever threatens you, I will kill it.”

“Inga?” Another voice calls from above. A second peasant girl drops lightly off the wall as if the fifteen foot drop was nothing, and bounces over to Inga and Dita. This one is older, probably sixteen or so, with a raged mop of red hair and a somewhat more healthy appearance. She wears a battered pair of men’s trousers with most of one leg missing, and the upper half of what was probably a nice cuirboilli chestplate before something ripped it in half. Over her shoulder is slung a chunk of rock that must weigh sixty pounds mounted on a slightly bend iron shaft to make a sort of oversized warhammer.

“Light, Inga, stop trying to ditch me already. I told you, I want to see this new priestess you were talking about.”

“Emma, you have vampires to kill,” Inga objects softly.

“There are always vampires to kill. We haven’t had a priestess since before I was called. Oh, hey, are you her?”

Dita shakes her head in bemusement. “Um, I’m not sure? I’m Dita Petran. I asked the goddess if she’d send a Chosen here, but I don’t know about this ‘priestess’ thing. I always thought the visions were because my mother was Chosen, and she didn’t retire until after I was born.”

“Yes. Priestess,” Ingra nods confidently, as if that was an explanation.

Emma rolls her eyes. “Yeah, like that tells us anything. You’ll have to excuse her, she spends so much time in the spirit world I think she’s forgotten how to talk like a normal person. I’m Emma Stormhammer, and this is Inga Dragonsbane. We were headed back from kicking ass in Anatolia when Inga got a Call to come see you, so I guess your connection to the goddess goes both ways. Must be nice, I’ve got a question or two I’ve wanted to ask her but she doesn’t listen.”

“Vinter,” Inga interrupts. “My name is Inga Vinter.”

“Hush, you. That’s a boring name. So what are we killing, anyway?”

“Haunts,” Dita answers. “We’ve got a couple of them here that my cousin Dominic wants to clear out before he finishes claiming the fief, and I offered to see if the goddess would send one of you guys to help. Oh, and um, maybe we can get you some clothes while you’re here? Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

So, what will Dominc’s attitude towards this odd pair be?

[ ] Friendly - They look like they’ve been through hell and back. Get these girls some new gear and a safe place to sleep, and see if you can fatten them up a little while they’re here. Maybe they’d like to trade some stories, and come back to visit when they need to resupply?

[ ] Businesslike - They’re here to help? Great, let’s get the job done. How they handle their affairs is none of your business, and pointing out how pathetic they look might offend them.

[ ] Cautious - Great, now you have two dangerous supernatural creatures of questionable sanity poking around your castle. Don’t be fooled by the fact that they look like teenage girls, you need to get them to take care of business and get out of here as quick as you can.

[ ] Write In

 

I'm going to suggest friendly because with these two we might have a chance to take out the Black Beast

 

[X] Friendly - They look like they’ve been through hell and back. Get these girls some new gear and a safe place to sleep, and see if you can fatten them up a little while they’re here. Maybe they’d like to trade some stories, and come back to visit when they need to resupply?

 

[X] Businesslike

I could see friendly, but they seem pretty goal oriented, and Inga especially doesn't seem like she'd respond all that well to conventional friendliness, if she even noticed the attempt.

 

[X] Friendly - They look like they’ve been through hell and back. Get these girls some new gear and a safe place to sleep, and see if you can fatten them up a little while they’re here. Maybe they’d like to trade some stories, and come back to visit when they need to resupply?

if Inga wouldn't even notice then we lose nothing by being friendly. anyway, they will do FAR better if they have their wounds treated, are better fed and have some better gear.

 

Yes, assigning a good NPC to lead your troops greatly improves their ability to adapt if something goes wrong. As a general rule you can send troops to do routine tasks on their own, but if they're likely to run into real opposition you should have someone with suitable skills lead them.

If the plan is to just take a party into town and kill her that would be a short adventure, which would count as a minor action on your order sheet. If you wanted to arrest her and hold a formal trial that might end up taking enough time to cost a full action.

That would be quite expensive - the villages are spread out enough that it would take a lot of wall to surround one of them.

It would probably be more cost-effective to build a keep or some other small fortification next to each village. That gives you a base of operations for your troops, and gives the villagers somewhere to flee to if they're attacked.

The whole forest isn't going to burn down just because you set a fire. You'd have to wait for dry weather and then light a whole line of fires along the forest edge, and even then it's hard to predict how well it would work.

Please read the rules post at the start of the thread. Training to improve a skill or develop a new use for your magic is always a major action.

They have a rough idea of which part of the woods the beastmen are living in, yes. But they're also convinced there are a couple of dozen of the creatures in there, and don't want to go back without some serious backup.

Yes, you could do that. There are plenty of boatmen and minor merchants who pass through Tamasi, and it probably wouldn't be hard to find someone qualified who'd do it for a few silver.

 

I wouldn't be so quick to proclaim that with such certainty, first of all of you can certainly lose something by acting to friendly, people can find that kind of thing annoying. As for their gear, who knows, maybe it's magic or something.

That said it's probably not a huge deal either way, as Dominic can likely moderate his approach, though the alienness of the two may throw him off.

 

Wait, killing vampires in Anahola? Isn't this significant?

[X] Respectful. They are killing creatures of darkness and deserve our respect. You're not too sure you want Dita to turn out like that though.

 

ShaperV

I wasnt making forts out of the villages.

More a classic roman field camp / wild west forts. Raised earth with wooden walls.

Something strong enough to resist bandits / beastmen.

Also on the firing the forest idea part of it was to have all sides fire the place on a agreed upon day.

 

@ShaperV:

When training in a specific magic, does training in two different specific sorceries at the same time count as one action turn or training in one type of magic is only one major action per turn and the second type of magic is another? By this I mean Dominic trains in both fire and water magic at the same time it counts as one major action or not?

 

[X] Businesslike

 

[X] Friendly - They look like they’ve been through hell and back. Get these girls some new gear and a safe place to sleep, and see if you can fatten them up a little while they’re here. Maybe they’d like to trade some stories, and come back to visit when they need to resupply?

 

[X]Friendly
If they react well to it they may be more inclined to come back, or hang out longer I guess.

Hopefully they don't take it the wrong way.

 

[X] Friendly

Note changes to action list above. With confirmation that Atalaya is a minor action votes have changed

-> Dominic finishing off birth control
-> Dita assisting Rangers in hunting beastmen


@ShaperV

Did we purchase arms/armor and a mount for Dita as her birthday gift?

 

[X] Friendly

 

Comments on recent items.

I would love to follow up on the Nikolai's Associates plot thread, but frankly we have no one in our employ with an ounce of subtlety. There's not so much as a Stealth 1 to be seen. We personally could probably poke around if and when we find ourselves spending a significant amount of time in Pischia, though- yes, we're not that subtle, but we might be able to talk or murder our way out of any trouble we run into. That said, our father's note that uncle Pavel is fond of complicated plots makes me concerned that we'll be ruining something legitimate if we start messing with it. We may want to leave that be.

Speaking of Pavel, if he really has large fiefs elsewhere Chesna becomes a much more attractive marriage prospect. If things in our native country go south when married to her, we could ditch this place and go rule other, better lands. A lot will depend upon what Pavel is like, though.


The Ezti/Rogatica situation is a nasty snarl. Essentially at this point I'm thinking that we can't marry Ezti unless we can get a solid commitment from our family to back us up militarily, OR unless we have Rogatica assassinated. His bringing a large force of well equipped troops on a mere border walk was a very effective demonstration of his strength, which seems substantial enough that we will be genuinely crushed if we end up in a conflict with him without substantial assistance from other parties. Unfortunately for Ezti, her barony is poor and Rogatica has a lot of political connections; with our father believing that a major war is on the horizon, I doubt that he'll be inclined to favor a marriage that requires the family to make enemies and deploy troops over. I could be wrong, though. Our aunt will likely know.

To completely reverse our position thus far, Baron Rogatica seemed fairly reasonable when we met with him. We could lure Ezti into our fief via diplomatic means, then kidnap her and hand her over to Rogatica for concessions- I'd feel a bit bad about it, but it might bring our family the edge in the upcoming war if we get enough of his favor that he pulls strings on our behalf. Delivering friendships like that to the family could do very good things for our standing with them in the future- and frankly, we'll need all the good standing we can get, since we're messing about with the Dita problem and keeping a sorceress wanted for murder on staff. Of course, if we hand over Ezti and don't get a proper alliance out of it, possibly due to our decisions with that very murderess, we'll just look like an idiot and have burned any reputation as honorable for nothing.

It's almost unfortunate that Dita's call for aid was answered so promptly; Atalaya was, frankly, probably our best bet at having Rogatica assassinated. It would have been nicely clean to bribe her to use dark magic and curse him with something fatal or debilitating, then bring in the Chosen shortly thereafter and have her killed; it would tie up all loose ends. That might still be a possibility- but we'd have to move very, very quickly, sending the Chosen after haunts, speaking to Atalaya immediately, and hoping she can work something out quickly enough that we don't have to kill her before the Chosen leave. Other options for his assassination are dubious as best; we have no capable agents, Katiana doesn't seem likely to possess the requisite magical skills, and attempting anything personally is obviously out of the question. Mentioning it to our family- or even Nikolai, shady man that he is- might produce results, but the topic would have to be approached exceedingly delicately.


Speaking of Inovia's girls, obviously we want to be a good host- they are here at our request, after all. New clothes and good food are the least we can do. Based on their physical characteristics they likely need custom weapons, but I think we can spare a few spears if they're content with normal ones; such would likely serve better than knives on brooms, at any rate. They can sleep in actual beds for a few days.

However, while we want to be as nice as possible, we absolutely do not want them around when our aunt or any other family representative shows up. If there's any truth to what Dita said at all, our grandfather is more than willing to kill family members who get too involved in this sort of thing. With our comparatively low standing, we cannot afford to show or admit to any more of such inclinations than the absolute minimum. It might not be as bad as witchcraft, but it is absolutely vital that we not forget that keeping these girls is playing with fire just as much as working closely with Atalaya would be.

While they are here, our #1 priority is killing Atalaya's monster. That is the whole reason we needed to call them in originally- the haunts we can figure out something for ourselves if necessary (in fact, I'm not sure why Dita's even bringing them up), but if Atalaya has a nasty demon or something we need every bit of force we can get to defeat it. Once the creature is taken down, the witch herself is unlikely to pose anywhere near as great a threat and can be dealt with as leisure. If we take her down without defeating the big evil nasty, there's a chance that it'll come after us for revenge- or persuade other witches to do so. I don't think any of us want that, so we hit the nastiest target as hard as possible and then worry about the mop-up work. The Chosen would also be welcome on the haunts, and while I'm reluctant to push the idea, I bet they would make fantastic assassins if we could get them to kill Rogatica somehow. Dita could probably convince them to do it, and we might be able to convince her to convince them by playing on Dita's fondness for Ezti, but it might end up with some nasty rumors being spread about Inovia- not that there aren't plenty already.


Katiana is going to be trouble, I'm sure. She continues to build contacts amongst our women, she's openly declared intent to pursue us, and frankly I suspect she's lying to our face about the efreeti princess mother because surely heritage that magical would leave her with at two action slots and more special characteristics than a pair of sorcerous affinities and lasting youth. The fact that she was in the wilderness in little but her skin when she had vast wealth (in relative terms) is fairly hilarious, all things considered. Our choice to shelter her is likely to put a sour note on any attempts to make nice with Baron Rogatica in the medium term, since Timis is an ally of his. Our aunt will never approve, except possibly of the fact that we're not screwing her. That said, Katiana is also much too useful to get rid of. We need our improvements, so we'll put up with her.

Having Chesna make a play for Katiana's books still seems like a decent idea to me, given current information. At the moment, my biggest concern is that Uncle Pavel will be pissed that we used Chesna in such a way and accordingly made her enemies of two other baronies, but since apparently Rogatica at least hates him anyway that might not matter. Whether Chesna succeeds or fails, we don't lose that much- and if she does succeed, we get a very nice power boost for one of our retainers. I do wonder if we should insist on selling Katiana the books back, returning them only in exchange for some action or oath on her part, or similar. After all, getting them will be a task that consumes no few resources on our part, and does her a great deal of good but us only a bit, and that indirectly. A concern for later.


The lack of solid information on the beastmen is annoying, as is the Skill 0 of our new recruits. I was hoping to clear them out this turn, but I guess it'll have to wait. It needs to happen soon, though; disposing of major internal fief threats is absolutely essential. That applies to the haunts as well; the tower we should be able to handle in short order by disassembling it if nothing else, but the well... we could try sending Dita or a Chosen down there, and if that doesn't work out maybe Katiana can just fill it in. If the groundwater there is cursed for some reason (which doesn't even make sense), I have no idea how we'd even destroy it; maybe amping up fire/light sorcery and trying to just purge whatever's evil and nasty down there? Hardly seems ideal.


What's the reasoning for the minor action requesting a female retainer from our mother? That feels random to me, and I'm not sure I see how it'll do us much good. Dita doesn't want that kind of training, we don't have any particular use for it personally (new clothes? Why?), and retainers cost quite a bit of money, so we should only be getting one with productive use. Also, does our mother even have retainers, or is everyone our father's? In any case, I'd really like an explanation of that.

 

[X] Friendly - They look like they’ve been through hell and back. Get these girls some new gear and a safe place to sleep, and see if you can fatten them up a little while they’re here. Maybe they’d like to trade some stories, and come back to visit when they need to resupply?

 

Re: May Event - The Call

Huh? What?

I thought it was for Atalaya? Does this mean we can get the chosen to help for multiple threats? That would be nice

[X]Friendly
Also:
[X]DarkLight140

As for the reasoning for asking the mom for a retainer, a post suggested it and i had nothing against it. It also won't take time. Not sure why the poster originally wanted it.

Anyway:

So mini-adventures can be counted a minor actions, good. Does this mean that we can replace []Atalaya with []Deal with Haunts and Atalaya? After all, those three sounds like minor actions time-wise, but added up together should make for a full project.

If that's how it works, i think i will switch my vote to that for Dominic, and Dita can accompany us on those with the Chosen. For the Atalaya part, we'll probably want to bring a lot of soldiers, a earth golem, etc. Striking with overwhelming force and all that. The rest can be done with only a small bad of solider and Dita/Chosen.

Oh, and obviously we should send a letter to Ezti inviting her Haunt hunting.

As for getting Atalaya to kill Rogatica, i think the timetable is too short to do it safely- we can't afford to have the chosen notice us asking a witch to do that, i think.

Re-EDIT:
Also, we have chosen calling Dita 'Priestess', and we are particularly interested in all the possibilities our cousin could grow into. We should ask the chosen:
*What the roles of their priestess normally is, and what are the capabilities that are attributed to them.

*We should ask them if they know anything about Light Sorcery, especially any offensive use, and if they know whether the Wyld Gifts of our cousin can be powered further through magic, or even trained up. And if so, how.

 

This is very short-sighted. The moment Rogatica dies, we're looking at a vengeful Ezti who will be glancing at the very short list of people she actively hates. Even if the Kat situation doesn't cause that relationship to blow up.

In a way I agree. Atalaya is an answer to a lot of rather shady problems, but that's a missed chance. Of course, she probably knows that we're going to look to off her the moment we start asking her to do things like that, so...

I'm actually hoping the attempt will teach her some stealth.

Having said that kidnapping Ezti is a bad idea, I do think that perhaps suggesting her marriage to Rogatica might be a good idea. Of course, we'll be pitching to her that this is the best way to stabilize her lands and it's not likely that Rogatica will live for THAT long. And a political marriage isn't the most outrageous thing as long as it's equal - and I'm pretty sure if we act as a negotiator between them, we could leverage our huge stats to do that.

Why? This will likely stabilize those boarders and generate some good will towards Rogatica. And when Rogatica dies, we're likely the first ones Ezti comes looking for help against the Baron's relatives who will argue that they should take the lands.

 

Why do you believe Rogatica will die soon? He should be only a handful of years older than us considering he got his Barony recently and has since eyed Ezti for a wife- you got to marry quick in order to secure heirs.

 

Well, I was basing that on the fact that he has a lot of relatives looking for his land, but I guess with Ezti protecting him he might actually live longer.

 

He doesn't have a lot of relative looking for his land? What we were told is that if he dies there is no clear succession and his land will become a mess because of this- his relatives do not want an internal war.

EDIT: Ok, going to comment on all the previous posts a bit:

Dominic is very good at being nice, and as long as we don't make either deadly enemies out of them or reliable allies we probably won't see them anymore. Being friendly to them has a few different goals:

A°) They get better gear, which helps for hunting.
B°) We continue to be seen as someone who feeds and take care of his peasants by our men (so no erratic behavior to make people weirded out) and being nice to them earns brownie points from Dita, and possibly Kat, as it may remind her of herself. It might also make Kat think we are weak to damsel in distresses, which isn't a bad thing.
C°)They might actually appreciate the gesture, and Aniova might too.

Very good to know- i'll have to change my vote a bit to have someone leading the hunt against Beastmen. I am tempted that it be Dita even though she doesn't yet have Tactics I. Decision, decisions.

I prefer my changes of []Atalaya+Haunts for both, though i do not yet know if that is possible.

Sadly Dita doesn't like horses, but i am totally in favor of buying her arms/armor.

I am myself inclined to talk more with Nikolai while we are in Psicia, so that we can get a better handle on his character and his goals. We really do need a stealthy character for espionage, and i am actually thinking of training Dita up that way for a bit, as it's a thing that will mesh very well with her proclaimed goals.

Also, her ability to see in the dark, parkour/etc would work really well there. I wouldn't be suprised if Light Sorcery enabled her to become invisible, too.

I would be heavily opposed to this:

Even if it succeeds, it's almost certain that any kind of kidnapping of Ezti will result on a total loss of trust from both Chesna and Dita, which means that it will further isolate us from the family members around here and will destroy any progress we made there. Even if we do end up with superior alliances with Rogatica and our Grandfather and Nikolai- alliances i either believe we can get otherwise or do not want (Nikolai)- it will STILL mark us as someone ready to betray little girls for gain. We do not want a reputation as a betrayer and perjure .

This can be quite tempting, though i am getting the impression that the Chosen are "only kill nonhumans" type.

Kat is severely hampered by having only the one project per month. I wouldn't be surprised if she is lying to use about her mother, but nor would i be surprised if she actually has a second project every month: []Befriend Dominic's retainers.

If she doesn't, i would actually want to look into how to get her a second project per turn- my guess is, if she gets Body I or Body II she will have it. Getting Body I should be a simple matter of putting up with a harsh physical training regimen, and Body II should be something we can give her when we improve our Flesh Sorcery.

As for the political ramifications of Kat, yes- she is a trap politically, one that is offset by her value. Hence we damn should make sure that we improve that value- and make her not a disaster when it comes to the political aspects.

A combination of Fire/Light and Kat's wizardry to purify it might work.