Archon's Curse [Pathfinder Kingmaker]

[Imperator Pax]

25 Gozran 4713AR
Tristian did not wish to be involved in, and was not interested in the national politics of the Padishah Empire. That was in spite of its state sanction and clear preference of the Dawnflower's church. He did not wish to be drawn into factional strife within the church over political schisms... and yet it was within expected orthodoxy that he lobby for Royal Patronage of the church, and the establishment of new churches to the Healing Flame.

A key part of that lobbying was that while it seemed unlikely that migration would eclipse Chelish migration with migrants from Osirion, and Kelesh as well as further there would need to be other churches... in other settlements.

There was another compounding factor this this. Shelyn's response to the golden grove had entailed direct divine intercession when gods intervened the churches paid attention even when it wasn't their deity. Perhaps even doubly so, when it was a third party. Further it was compounded with the church's interest in demonstrate that the Sarenite faithful were prominent among the crusaders of Mendev, and support for the holy mission against the world wound.

With a pause to no doubt compose his thoughts, Eire gestured to the map of his original chartered domain. He began indicating New Colton on the western shore of the Tuskwater, before gesturing to the island they were on further south. Candlemere island and the lake that it shared its name with, "While with urban planning Candlemere can support more people." Indeed many more people potentially, I do not want migration to strain resources that are available. A settlement in the eastern Kamelands," What would become the city of Memphis, "Will be erected there," He indicated the eastern shore of the lake, "Or I suppose more correctly will be established as independent of the island city. If what you are telling me proves accurate regarding the immigration that will need to be but as you have just highlighted," He remarked to the heavily set cleric occupying the bench opposite him, there is the crusade as well." The pen went over the map, and wrote out the name Memphis and on the western shore, New Colton , the lizard folk village to the west of Candlemere... though obviously they wouldn't settle humans with the lizard folk, but it served as a way station up the river to Hereford. "There is another settlement up the Shrike where it meets the Thorn," Where there was an existing way station, Tristian knew.

With no time to advise his co religionists Tristian waited for the priest to contemplate which of the two future townships that they would prefer to have support for a church to the dawnflower. Eire himself had matters to deal with to the east ... a rogue giant or something ...

Rather than Memphis, which was already in proximity to the church here, he graciously accepted the offer of Royal sanction and support for one at the town that would build in between the capital and the Old Scyamore.


--
Her desk was filled with documents that demanded her attention. Things she should have been focused on, to the exclusion of distractions... which was what she called Kalikke's pet projects.

Kanerah on the one hand was happy to be spared questing adventures. It simply wasn't her cup of tea... a drink which was still in unfortunately short supply... she was so much better suited, and Kalikke as well whether or silly goat of a sister wished to admit it, to remaining here. Shrikewall was not Qadira regardless of other otherworldly beings, and trade passing through. It was not Taldor either. The promise of prestige and wealth would draw many immigrants to the realm even if not as many journeyed to the city at the center of the world.

The two divided their responsibilities on the council relative to their own talents. Kanerah was more comfortable focusing on the cold impersonal systems of hierachy and law that the legal code called for. The implementation of the realms coinage and the tax systems. Their division of labor didn't always work out, especially since the kingdom, now that it was a kingdom had to refer leadership matters to other members of the council.

If she had know that the bellflower network had planned to ambush her today she'd have of course switched places with Kalikke, but she have to settle for detailing her meeting with them and insuring that her nicer sister contended with it.

Which was what she was doing now.

A few moments later they changed positions and Kalikke's blue eyes were focused on reading her sister's handwriting and the details there in. Cheliax was a cruel place in a difference to Qadira, though her homeland could also be cruel. Her sister's office was filled with tall stacks of bound paper each page awash with draconic script. They were no longer handwritten but printed by the complex, and rapid movable type of a machine. From the figures marked out some of the papers detailed the cost of goods, fixed, in realm managed 'general stores', outlets that provided standardized goods of many varieties to people... even now there were further plans to expand cermaic production under 'Wedgewood', and plans for greater production of metal for durable iron goods through them.

Her sister's looping handwriting detailed the latest news from cheliax through messenger from the abolitionist bellfower network that helped slaves escape servitude to the north. The Bellflower network's primary mission was the liberation of halfling slaves, but their good work included freeing others from bondage including not just humans but also tieflings... it wasn't just humans and tieflings.

People who when freed from bondage, and safely in a new land would need homes, and work. Something detailed in what probably were imperfect translations from draconic concepts of hospitality as contributions, in the form of taxes, to welfare funds and payment into to create houses, but also entailed a bureaucratic policy of assessment and resettlement. Wherever such ideas had come from it created a framework for her to work with, and meant she could help people without Jubilost or her sister needing to become involved, and thus they could focus on their parts of exchequer.

Kalikke supported the abolition of slavery. There were thousands of tieflings living in Cheliax as a mistreated under class, as slaves, and tens of thousands of halflings. While the Bellflower network tilled the soil to see them free in distant lands... it was not her only responsibility. Tieflings were not the only mixed bloods coming to Narland... and from her sister's handwriting there were plenty of unfortunate half elves, noble bastards are otherwise, from Cheliax or elsewhere in the Inner sea ... it wasn't quite the same thing but it was still a good thing.
--
Notes: This is an addendum to the previous section that was taken off, because while it comments on certain things, I pulled it because I was going to expand it. So it goes up as a Friday update.

And I'm going to side bar here to discert on certain factors, in my personal model of modern economic development and Industrialization firstly I do not think it was a sure thing. I think it was a combination of factors, and I actually think that it was actually delayed from onset by the protestant reformation occurring in England. [That is a specific reading of factors of capital disruption particularly in metallurgy in England, and I'll leave that there.] However I view pre and proto industrialization as well underway in England and in parts of northern Europe by 17th​ century and in specifically the banking reforms, the maritime carrying trade networks, and the development of manufacturing among other factors. I consider England to have become 'Industrialized' by the 18th​ century, which uses a broad definition of industrialization but certainly the arrival and survival of the bank of england is a major factor.

So here, and it should be 'Wedgwood' we're referring to pottery and ceramics is a part of the industrial process of improving the standards of living of the common working man. The same with durable iron (later steel) goods and tools.

Anyway, Wedgwood pottery, in the semi long term, expect abolitionist pottery to make an appearance, but more to the point, coupled with textiles, with metal tools, this is not just about export, but thats important to its also about standard of living. Thats going to be a noticeable thing two or three years towards the latter half of the decade.

 

[PeaceMaker03]

The Narl kingdom has a good position to develop a boat building industry. Rivers, lakes, and source of good timber and iron. A little modern knowledge of sail/ hills, combined with the religion angle to find some boat builders.
Create a standardized hull or hulls. A smaller hull along the lines of the Nivik , but better sail system like the Wherry . On a larger hull form but still viable for river travel: Larger option .
Your story and world, info about the Sellen River system being a trade hub, trade means the need for trade ships. The Dutch and English have sailing barges that are the evolution of the same need.

 

[Imperator Pax]

27 Gozran 4713
He watched sky, and then turned. He had an obligation to do this because because being king meant preventing the predation of ones peasants by interlopers. Whether that was an obligation levelled for moral and pragmatic reasons it existed. Legitimacy was a facet of ability to rule.


The waters of the little Sellen were only a slight curve to their bend, at this place at least they were only somewhat bent with the high side anchoring the northern portion of the river as it crossed. Given the lack of uniformity in the damage it was probably just age, there likely hadn't been any catastrophic flooding... just a couple of supports had gotten old and rotted.

The Taldan ruins were... ruins there really wasn't a much more accurate description. The old stone bridge was in poor condition, but would not be a priority to repair. The simple truth was this was the realm's southern border with Mivon to the west, and what were frankly vast unclaimed hinterlands to the immediate south of the Little Sellen. He supposed that Mivon could have laid claim to lands further west resting on the mountains as their natural territorial feature, but for all practical purposes the real boundary of power projection of the Aldori exiles was the town of Jovvox to the south west down and on the southern side of the river fork.

Without a clear mercantile motive there was little point to dispatching Dave or one of the realm's other engineers to come here and spend time and resources repairing the bridge. There was no reason to project power any further into the tall grasslands that continued beyond the little Sellen river's southern shore.

Gragglebeard himself was a fairly typical specimen of Hill Giants... besides his fancy armor. He was perhaps a little taller than Munguk, a little more muscular even but his distinction lay in his equipment and to a lesser extent the ruthless cunning the part time mercenary full time bandit seemed to exhibit.

Apparently they'd caught the giant as he was still weighing whether or not the bridge could support their weight or if they needed to cross individually. "Hmm ogre attempts at engineering, that's a new one." Jubilost grunted in observation lowering his far eye, and gesturing to several felled logs on the other side of the little Sellen. There were at least eight decently sized trunks that had been rolled towards the riverbank, and it looked there were more in the distance.

Gragglebeard seemed to be making a series of vaguely affirmative grunts to his ogre lieutenant but also looked either annoyed or constipated. Eire eyed the blue wyvern... after Gragglebeard it seemed the most dangerous thing present. It had been suggested that Gragglebeard might have heard stories that wyverns nested in the mountains and was looking for a mate for the beast, or extra wyverns to train in order to increase his own forces and their standing. Wyverns would impress the Kellids he assumed beyond any military utility.

Given a few more minutes Jubilost made the determination given the condition the bridge, and its compromised supports that it would be unwise to risk fighting on the bridge proper... in fact that letting the reavers get on it and intentionally collapsing the bridge might be a practical solution to the problem.

"It doesn't change the fact that the wyvern can fly, or that while it would probably daze the hill giants and trolls they could probably clamber back to shore."

"It would deal with the ogres and orcs though."

Jubilost did have a point there.

Amiri merely grumbled that she didn't want to wait for Gragglebeard to cross the border. He wasn't actually as concerned about the legal ramifications of attackin bandits over the border with mivon. Rather it was, so much as setting the precedent, but even that was less the matter than he didn't want to attack too soon and have gragglebeard or some of his bandits get away and then cause trouble later.

To that end he had kept weighing whether or not to open the attack from that side. He glanced to the others, "I'll begin summoning... give them some incentive to come this way, be ready." He ordered.
--
Archons screamed overhead. A handful of heaven's foot soldiers lobbed flaming javelins herding the Reavers towards the bridge. Amiri tapped her foot, and Regongar kept flexing his fist reflexively. Linzi and Jubilost had both withdrawn to the back row. Jaethal eyed the Legion Archons as the squad pivoted to hack at the angry squawking wyvern with their great swords. The trap was sprung though, the flaming javelins had insured that the trolls in Gragglebeard's ranks had hightailed it towards the bridge and way from the angelic legionnaires.

"For Gorrum!"

Amiri swung her repaired and strengthened greatsword at one of the trolls before it could get any further from the bridge. It wobbled hamstrung. Regongar unleashed a blast of lightning of his own, before waving his corrosive scimitar forward.

The attack on the bridge support began from their secondary force even as Gragglebeard realized they were trapped in the middle of an unstable bridge. He started ordering troops to jump in the water, or to force their way through the force . He didn't try and turn around and go back. The bridge buckled as the supports failed, and the crumbling turned into a deafening roar pitching thousand years old stone into the little Sellen.

The Little Sellen wasn't especially deep, not enough to reach the giants thighs but that didn't mean Gragglebeard was happy to splash into the still relatively chill water of early spring, but he and the other large giants would have little difficulty wading the rest of the way through the debris. If this had been further north, closer to Shrikewall or really anywhere along the Shrike's passage where that river was deeper and faster than the little sellen Gragglebeard would have had a problem... but the Little Sellen was not the Shrike.

Regongar laughed even as the lantern Archons swung around for another pass, and there was a string of profanity in giantish. All that did was make the cursing giant a target as the Absalom born ranger knocked an arrow that struck the giant under the armpit. Jubilost started to say something but was drowned out by the wyvern shrieking.

It's head was snapping towards the more humanoid archons.

Eire didn't expect the beast to last long, but kept it in his peripheral vision as he looked down at the river and prepared to join the battle himself.

--
Amvarean, daughter of Silverstep allowed her maid to brush her hair out. She had assumed her usual humanoid her typical appearance as a half elf. She had always found it much easier to move among humans in such a form, though it wasn't always easy to do so among elves. She had found that disappointing ... well she still found their attitudes disappointing often enough, but it had been a different sort of disappointment when she had been a wyrmling of Shaoyu's age.

Unfortunately today was proving particularly busy, with spring here there was no shortage of things to now contend with. Those ranged from of course having to hear from her sister's retainers... such as the blodeuwedd Dandrael who protected a small shrine with a passage to the first world ... as well the protests against more unruly fae. There were on that account a handful of obnoxious satyrs causing mischief with their drunken revelry. And of course she had only just recently returned from dispatching the will o wisp the peasants had dubbed the friar's lantern.

On top of such things there were reports of a malevolent troll, as well her guards had seized a band of meddlesome goblins who had been causing trouble. Apparently there were enough goblins around that the nerdowells had told them about the goblin village of Greengripe that existed as well. The captured goblins in question had been ordered to leave the kingdom. She was relatively sure that the nomadic band would do so, but if they did not then she would destroy them.

She'd need to send for the centaurs to provide benediction for a pair of dead peasants, or rather their ghosts, or failing that borrow a cleric of Phrasma from Our Lady of Graves in Varnhold, or from the Pharasmin congregation at Candlemere. The laudwigs had been good people and it was likely that the goblin village of Greengripe was responsible for their deaths.

She hadn't yet sent on her memorandum to Shrikewall as such, but it was the direction her investigation pointed towards.

Her own steward entered the drawing room and laid out a map of the eastern kamelands, and specifically the eastern portion of her domain around Silverstep lake. Though she had lived in the region for centuries... she had never paid much attention to the human ruins , or really the ruins in general prior to her death at the hands of ilthuliak.

She had not ruled the area in the sense that she now did. It was her duty to provide guidance and law to that which fell under her wings. That included a long list of things there were the ruins of an ancient canal, which would take some effort to restore but could be useful for farming. There was an old taldan quarry, and presumably nearby a castle that had been built using its bounty. Some Taldane documents recovered named the keep Thornhollow.


... there was also a herd of mammoths that had been discovered that she hoped to have domesticated, either for humans or for the stone giants... the stone giants had also shown her a naturally occurring hot spring and the great projection of a tor that if it were built upon would have made an excellent lair. All of these things, and others made their way to her attentive eye.

--
Notes: because I am a sucker for most things Kingmaker I went and got Gremlin brothers Pathfinder Infinite supplements from drive thru. They're alright. I don't use the VTT or Roll 20 material so they're not really worth the seven bucks per se for how small the actual pdfs are but on the other hand I like Pathfinder infinite lore expansion like this even if it is small., but yeah id say the price is only warranted if you use the VTT assets.

So this particularly uses name drops stuff from their Kamelands pack, i would also say that they need some better proof reading there are some mistakes and repeats between the paths... but at least someone is doing something.

 

[Trek]

VTTs can be quite nice if you are running the game.

 

[PeaceMaker03]

I think you drop the name of a character.
"Regongar laughed even as the lantern Archons swung around for another pass, and there was a string of profanity in giantish. All that did was make him a target as the Absalom born ranger knocked an arrow that struck the giant under the armpit"

I think Ekundayo is the campion being talked about but it is not clear.

 

[Imperator Pax]

I think you drop the name of a character.
"Regongar laughed even as the lantern Archons swung around for another pass, and there was a string of profanity in giantish. All that did was make him a target as the Absalom born ranger knocked an arrow that struck the giant under the armpit"

I think Ekundayo is the campion being talked about but it is not clear.

Click to shrink...

Ekundayo is taking a shot while the half orc laughs at the giant, i've made minor revisions

I'm not sure if this is actually supposed to be the Tuskwater city or not, but it is a nice picture, it is not accurate to how I envision Shrikewall's suroundings, because Shrikewall doesn't have two fuck off huge solitary peaks to the north of it, but it is nice art and in terms of capital city on the hill, thats relatively appropriate for Shrikewall fortress and the Cathedral of the Inheritor in terms of skyline

 

[Imperator Pax]

30 Gozran 4713AR
An interesting bit of trivia: Calistrian wasps apparently produced honey... and with little else to do with the particular gift Eire had left it to ferment into mead over the winter. It hadn't aged quite as long as he might have otherwise done, but he'd filtered it to remove the husk, which was... unusual for most liquor in golarion that didn't come from a still. A distraction over the cold months of the year. Unfortunately the vaguelly oaken tasting notes masked enough alcohol to apparently put Jhod out for the night, and rendered much of the council beyond tipsy after a few glasses.

Maegar ribbed the aldori twins in his service that he'd brought along with him to try some more, despite the caution of temperance. The baron of Varnhold slurred, a skeptical "yeah." He replied to the his own cleric of Erastil as turned to prod his long time companion instead.

Eire sipped the mead, idly musing that this was a drink he had brewed since before he could shave... and with reflection that he wasn't quite human anymore either. He put the glass down. If there was anything Jaethal loathed of being undead it was her inability to enjoy... Urgoatha the pallid princess was a hedonistic goddess the necromancy and undead wasn't her sole domain it was just one more excess though she was among other undead patron of the debauched vampire courts as well which... Jaethal wasn't one of. Jaethal had no fear of sunlight, or of drinking blood, and could actually still be healed by positive energy but she couldn't enjoy her old pleasures.

"Well I suppose I should fetch something less potent."

"I've had dwarven rotgut that doesn't hit like this stuff."

He wasn't sure if that was a protest or an endorsement, but the royal council and this assembly had other work to do. There were investments that needed to be made into the Varnhold, supporting its peopling and work to make it productive... but that was easier said than done. Eire recognized that Maegar's domain would be the most culturally brevic... and most likely the most culturally Rostlandic of the realm.. and that meant contending with certain facets of peasant conservativism.

Erastil's church was hallmarked by conservative adherence to tradition, which among other things included the need communal consent in villages. This didn't have to be the whole village it could just be a body of elders, but the rationale was to mitigate risk. At this level, and the level above it there was simply no central control over the village economy... and frankly productivity of shared fields and the strips system was, so far as Eire measured things, absymal.

Eire suspected that such details at least could have been recognized by someone willing to study the issue... it ws the prospect of more complex financial and economic systems and organizational ideas where even educated persons on Golarion would not have reached certain follow on observations, and conclusions. Eire did question how much 'generalization' could be generated from looking at the native river kingdom villages as well as north to Brevoy. Pitax and Mivon were warm enough to support grapes and olives apparently, which provided both a convenient agricultural niche both locally, in their impact on culture, as well as for export to neighboring realms. By large however they largely followed the brevic manorial model which much as on earth had a practical limiting effect on the supply labor and manors were not really capable of responding to market forces.

It didn't appear to be true serfdom of course... that would have required a more coherent model of government, a more complex feudal arrangement than either brevoy or Pitax had. Peasant labor, as in the riverlands, were not legally bound to the land but at the same time Brevoy was also not a fully monetized market either, frequently commuting cash in favor of in kind payment. Eire suspected part of that was that Issia was less agriculturally focused than the south, and that Issia might have otherwise wanted to keep labor on hand couldn't for other factors.

Simply put the Rogavarian monarchy had for its two hundred year reign had held the kingdom together and in stasis and in turn had ruled in conjunction with the influences of Abadar, Pharasma and Erastil's churches. Presumably, Eire theorized that had created a custom that limitted the ability of Brevoy's great houses from extracting arbitrary rents and services from their peasants.... not that it apparently had stopped the issians, or probably other rostlandic lords from levying tolls and tariffs on goods passing along roads and rivers whenever they could, which was itself a sharp contrast to the river kingdoms...

... but to that end the six river freedoms were themselves, had themselves only been codified at Daggermark a century earlier.

That was part of the matter at hand. Not only did the tors separate Maegar's dunsward and steppe domain from the river kingdoms proper his population ... whatever population had already dwelled in those lands were more Iobarian, besides his brevic settlers. Of course the Varnhold's closeness to brevic traditions was not unique, but Maegar hadn't needed to force the issue on native villages as perhaps Hannis Drelev had needed to do. The Drelev domain had remained quite aloof, quiet, over the past year, likely in no small part due to the Hooktongue slough being closed to trade coming north as a result of alleged monsters in the southern slough. Whatever Drelev was doing it was almost certainly based on imposing the brevic model or noble's ideal of society on the lands of his charter.

The matter of Varnhold however meant that it was not subject to the crown law and the establishment of the realms distinctions of written and thus non arbitrary justice. Not that Varnhold had had a problem with crime before its unfortunate disturbing encounter with the cyclops lich. However it was a matter of standard practice, and one that they needed to contend with.

Eire didn't particularly care how Maegar or his subjects partitioned inheritance. That was a local issue and he wasn't going to tie royal courts up with such a matter, without a pressing reason, such as that a dispute could not be settled more locally. From an institutional perspective the kind of problem, an appeals process, he had not planned to have to deal with prior to the vanishing any time soon... but well then things had happened from there.

Maegar, the Nomen Centaur's under their war priestess, and Vordakai, all represented the eastern fringe of his realm in the mountains and beyond... and also probably there were human inhabitants within the boundaries of the charter Restov had acknowledged Maegar's rule over that didn't even know Restov had done so, never mind the migration of people from Iobaria who were just passing through seasonally.

The varnhold would have formed the obvious nucleus of the development of Maegar's domain, the establishment of farming communities to the north, and the development of the town in Varnhold pass were practical geographically determined courses of action. Similraly the road that Maegar's people had laid to Nivakta's crossing, and the bridge over the shrike to the village that laid on the Brevic side of the border had been clearly practical to the growth of Maegar's barony.

Eire waved to the map that dominated the table. From Hereford, and the boundary of the narlmarches in the west, down to a southern boundary at the Bronzeshield fortress across to the lakelands dominated by the urban centers of the capital, to New Colton, to the Lizardfolk, and to Candlemere island and coming further east to the expanse of the Kamlands, to the trollish hold to the lands beyond rivers , to Silverstep and in the north varnhold pass and leading to Varnhold itself.

Effectively five separate subdivisions, not even counting those portions of the realm to the north and south, to the far western fringes and eastern expanses, not covered by this particular map. It notably did not include the northern stretch of his domain, discounting the Temple of the Elk, the old sycamore, Akiros's fief, the fief of Svetlana's sister at Davik's crossing, the sorrowflow mines, or for that matter the mines north of old scyamore, it did not count Oleg's trading post. It was not that he had forgotten the northern march it was that they were not the subject of this meeting. He would discuss those with the kobolds, with Oleg, with Akiros, and Kressle separately at a later date specifically once they were confident that all the basic planting of the season was completed at their own farmsteads.

"With spring here we turn to both the issue of planting, but also the tax rolls, work for the year." and here year in this case was marking from the present date to roughly the 13th​ of Lamashan ... the harvest feast in the typical Erastilian farming calender. "The thickskins and the raiders under gragglebeard represent a potential recurring problem." :He paused for a moment, "They, themselves, are not the problem," They had been dealt with, "but rather the sort of problem in general." And the sort of problem that required an organization solution to deal with, because he was looking west to where the barbarians were migrating to meet the tiger lords, and recognized something needed to be done... and the crusade provided a further justification for installation of organizational principles in the realm. "This is the outline of the central west to east expanse of the realm, though does not include the fringes that comprise the dire narlmarches, the green belt or our proper border with mivon. We will construct fortifications, or bring into good condition existing structures to support a standing army that will rotate its membership to insure responsiveness to incursion. To accomplish this a survey will be conducted on placing these defenses at locations."

The process of supplying such troops, to stocking the primary granaries, and weapons would be principally a royal requirement though some would be assumed by the troops and facilities raised by Maegar, Harrgulka, and Amvarean.

The castles that would need to be built would need to be supported, would need to be in effect burghs with the aim being that no significant town or village be thirty miles from such a fortified settlement. The problem was immediately self evident. Varnhold didn't have the people to adequately fortify but a fraction of the eastern approaches... and of course the Greenbelt was similarly going to be a difficulty to fortify, and the Narlmarches wasn't exactly going to be easy.

What the Narlmarches could supply though was abundant timber in addition to quarried stone from frequent bald hills and rocky outcroppings the landscape that had made the land so difficult to settle hitherto. Still It could be done because people were immigrating and bringing skills from the south masonry to expand beyond pure timber construction.

There was a pause and Jaethal coughed, "So we're not going to discuss the Archangel of Vengeance's Church?"

Eire paused, Ragathiel was an Empyreal Lord as she had highlighted he was an Angel. One with long ties to Iomedae's church, "I had planned to permit them a place at Hereford, particularly as the castle town grows larger... Amvarean is not against permitting them to raise churches in Silverstep at some point in the future."

Jaethal rolled her eyes, "You summoned Legion Archons to deal with-"

"Giant brigands," He interrupted. The two King and Advisor stared at each other, there was a pause... "Graggle beard needed to be dealt with, and quickly... which I admit coupled with Shelyn's churches actions draws attention focus to religious matters within the realm, especially with the Crusade approaching." There was a pause, "And the ship is intended to be able to ferry supplies." Food, fodder for horses... the world wound had tainted the old lands of Sarkorsis and made it difficult to sustain war in that blighted land... and the truth was contributions to the cruade would bring in hard currency as the good aligned churches paid for the crops at the market rates of the Inner Sea rather than the inflated rates they were worth in the north nearer to the crusader state.

 

[Imperator Pax]

1st​ Desnus 4713AR

This was a step forward. The beginning of an important institutional tradition.

He accepted the bound booklet and likewise appreciated the temporary transition from draconic script to common. The latter was what the almanac had been printed in, and it to represented a part of the efforts to improve the realm. In particular the almanac introduced the changes in pig farming, particularly piglet care, that had only entered earth in the early 1900s, but it also emphasized the basics of hybridzing plants, and the use of seed corn and wheat varieties. Not that he expected the latter to really be used... for that matter he suspected that these early editions of the farmer's almanac would only really be used by 'professional farm laborers' serving the realm on the now royal farms.

The default beast of burden at erastalian farms was quite likely to remain the draft oxen forcing fields to remain in long strips as much as by the process of turning the bovine as by the longstanding tradition of communal farming and plowing. Still the almanac was the perhaps foremost publication of royal interest... besides of course using the printing press to promulgate written copies of the law in both taldane and draconic.

He idly thumbed through the first few pages, and the illustrations, particularly of jean clad workmen with farming implements produced by the baronial farming service. The jeans were the sort of the early 20th​ century on earth, and the tools were similarly largely of 19th​ and early 20th​ century farming patterns before the advent of serious mechanization in farming in the united states... but still utilizing late 19th​ century metalworking and tool design.


The almanac met with his satisfaction, and the volume next year would include more tables detailing the average rainfall of the realm, and updates next year, as royal records kept stock of changes and shifts over time. More importantly the almanac referenced the new standards and measurements being implemented.

Eire appreciated at least in their practical terms the feudal levee, and the construction services that, particularly, the stone giant were able to provide to the realm, especially under the direction of careful stone work and dressing allowing certain building projects to be brought forward. As part however of feudal labor supply it did represent a service rather than a cash payment, and while the orderly stone giants and rock trolls did accept payment in coinage and purchased goods in trade it was in addition often to barter. Still there was no denying its usefulness.

Without the giants it would have taken longer, among the substitutions for their labor was the use of standardized brick sizes to be produced by baronial, now royal, tunnel kilns that used a mechanical extrusion process to replace by hand manufacture. He still needed a source of coal, and mines, but there were good iron deposits south of silverstep, and he looked forward to the prospect of cheap nails, standard pitch screws, and the like. The reduction of cost of materials would be good, more than good.

He sat aside the book with a contented sigh... even as his thoughts drifted towards the matter of the letters from the church of Iomedae, the circulars making their way around. It was another demonstration, in its own way a reminder of of Kanerah's need for additional personnel to handle the growing bureaucratic management of a central kingdom and the population growth. Involving oneself, and the realm in the crusade meant acting external to the kingdom's borders, and not in the adventurous sort of way of simply riding over the horizon to the neighboring kingdom.

They had two and a half months, so really two months to prepare for the crusade's beginning, and determine how they could support efforts in Mendev. The 16th​ of Arodus would mark the beginning of Armasse this year.

Linzi exploded through the door holding up a freshly printed book of her own. "Its done." In cursive taldan script was written the title 'The Forgotten History of Iobaria,' then in block subscript Volume 1.

It was Maestro Penrod's book. It was another thing to be pleased with.

The scholar had comprised an entry level primer in the first part of the book detailing Cyclopean lore of Casmarron... particularly the language nuances that had caused the ranger Willas Gunderson to mistranslate the warnings regarding Vordakai's tomb. It also included the specifications of ancient cyclopean jewelry and other details of life, such art styles and not to confuse bracelets for rings.

Eire browsed the book though his was his first look at the production. What really caught his notion was that Iobarian as a modern ethnicity were themselves supposedly the descendants of the Ulfen who had migrated from the west, with 'some' intermingling with the existing natives, but that the Ulfen had been invited to come over and rule Iobaria some thousands of years earlier.... but that connection overland and by water had been cut with the winter war that had seen the establishment of the kingdom of Irrisen fourteen hundred years prior.

... but of course that only went towards his curiosity, his existing curiosity over Golarion's population. The Arodenite Calendar reckoning from the founding Absalom, the city at the center of the world, dated the Earthfall cataclysm some ten thousand years before present, which had in turn created its own miniature ice age, that Eire recognized was an occurrence of the ash kicked into the atmosphere causing temperatures to plummet and the extension of the ice caps as a result as glaciation took hold. That coupled with the expansion of those glaciers had caused the collapse of Classical Human, Cyclops, and Elven civilizations on Golarion, though it had not force life all the way south to a narrow habitable band around the equator... whether that was a quirk of geology or the whim of gods he couldn't say... but regardless the population of golarion had plummeted from its pre Earthfall numbers, and he doubted that ten thousand years was enough to fully recover to whatever it had stood at during the Thassilonian, and Azlanti height where magic and centralized leadership from complex urban centers, according to Vordakai, had allowed sprawling metropolis to exist... all devastated and abandoned due to the Earthfall.

Which still raised other questions. The Azlanti and the mainland Kellids ... and for that matter the other mainland populations including 'Keleshite', and Mwangi populations were distinct from one another... and not just distinct ethnically they had been distinct technologically. On a time scale that didn't make sense, and while Eire was considering just chalking that up to gods, and magic the Azlanti disappearance and Kellid survival post earth fall raised questions that gave him a headache, especially since they were attempting to chronologically order the histories of the lizard folk as well.

At least with the lizard folk they could record directly from draconic and just have the printing press record it. It would hopefully keep linguistic drift concerns down. It was still only one part of a nascent literature, and history record keeping tradition for the realm.. to attempt to preserve information that would likely otherwise disappear as lifestyles changed.

That way history would not be forgotten.
--
Paper production was not to the point of sustaining a paper currency. Checks, promissory notes, well that was doable... but that kind of capital wasn't necessary at this stage... the economic structure wasn't complicated enough.
Paper money was going to have to wait, and organized promissory notes while feasible with administration likewise could wait until the establishment of a national bank... and they needed a larger population base than existed at present... and so he peered over the rolls of immigrants, and the communications of sponsors of churches, and other previous immigrants... and indeed of persons he suspected were bellflower tillers or other agents among other groups that were not necessarily religious.

Some of the colonists were not really refugees but others were. The Church of Iomedae's initial wave of colonists the few thousand who had migrated in the initial year of barony... and in part due to the promise of constructing a large church to the inheritor had almost certainly been those who could afford to migrate but not so well off that they didn't have a reason to really stay where they were. There had afterwards, after the stag lord had been defeated, and as that cathedral took shape in that first year... well the Church within the Inner Sea had begun to consider other factors... and to contend with other streams of migration.

"Thank you Jaethal." He closed the binder, and pushed it to one side... and the truth was he agreed with her... this was something to keep on top of. He didn't object to the Bellflower network's opposition to slavery, but he did need to remain ostensibly neutral to insure the flow of 'legal immigrants' from Cheliax... that was especially true given the infernal kingdom's support for the Mendevian Crusades. He suspected it was only a matter of time before Cheliax either noticed what was going on, or decided it could not turn a blind eye to it... and that would be a headache. For now though there were benefits to not having formal diplomatic relations, the lack of an embassy and everything being conducted through religious intermediaries well... things could be danced around for a longer.

There was a pause. "There is another matter." She declared. "One we should deal with before more impetuous persons make problems of."

There was a frown from his chancellor to his right, and he looked at the inquisitor. "Speak then, what happened?"

"Out of an abundance of caution," Or paranoia, "I reexamined both the Technic league's original belongings as well as the area where they had been skulking," Something they had the man power for now. "My initial expectation was that the technic league were looking for the lost dwarven fortress, given their notes on reported automatons. That does not appear to be the case." Located near the, to the south, the temple of the elk was part of the dwarven shield road. Pointedly it was a fortress that had been set up to mine adamantine, which well to say that was valuable was an understatement, the entire shield road was valuable just as a road, never mind bringing the ancient mines back into use.

Jaethal was clearly holding back something perhaps in exasperation of what it might entail, but while she was concerned how Regongar and Octavia would respond to Technic league activity that was only part of her reservation of the situation. So they reached for a map of the Narlmarches in particular and settled down to address the matter.

It clearly showed the old technic league camp, and the temple of the elk where of course search parties had begun working out from. She had been cooperating with both the church of Erastil and with Akiros further to the east.

They had stumbled upon the technic league's activities as the league's agents had themselves run afoul of their own investigation... apparently dealing with some kind of dangerous fungus and combination of monstrous frogs, which frankly didn't seem all that strange for this particular region of the Narlmarches at all... which was probably why no one had noticed. Only several years of protracted heavy spring rains running into the usual summer ones, and the shifts those downpours in the rivers, deepening the arterial rivers that dominated the Narlmarch had really made it possible.


The narlmarches were broken up by an abundance of steep hills that shaped the river network. A recent landslide had uncovered a strange metal section, that had yielded more of the strange constructs that had apparently initially drawn the the technic league originally. The metal was what people called numerian steel.

"And the two automatons?"

"Destroyed unfortunately. Akiros and his kellids made quick work of them." She shrugged, "it wasn't hard to retread the path the league's minions followed." Apparently the frogs could be reasoned with, domesticated even by druids, but the fungus was for whatever reason aggressively hostile... it might have been something of the green mother's carnivorous plants or who knew what else, but they'd had to take fire to all the spores, and thoroughly cleanse the area.

... still Jaethal wasn't wrong if the landslide had revealed what it looked to have revealed then the technic league would be back.

"In any event, its a flying ship of sorts."

He nodded, but denied having any answers about it. "I appreciate all of your hard work." The question would be to find time to investigate it... though they could task Regongar and Octavia to look into it, perhaps with support from Brigh's church. "We'll have to investigate, but as I said... Numeria's technology is as much a mystery to me as it is to you."

 

[Imperator Pax]

Desnus 4713
Two weeks had passed, and the days were becoming noticeably longer as the summer solstice approached. Jaethal crossed her arms and looked at the mass of steel and crystalline lenses. The sullen elf tapped her foot as she squinted into the sunlight. "Explain."

"The simple description is that its a greenhouse, those are condensers," He paused, and then deciding to elaborate continued, "to pull water out of the air." He supposed that a different sort of wizard would have tired to just conjure water from the elemental plane, but while that had occurred to him it had seemed a needless complication when we he was already dealing with a lot of planar magic. It was a magic greenhouse

"Ah yes a green house." The undead inquisitor snarked, then looking at the apparatus again, "Its to sustain mana plants." She determined after a moment.

"Yes." He replied deciding to explain, at least in basic terms the process, because truthfully the first world flora was the heart of the entire system. "The flowers will receive concentrated solar energy, water and in turn directly power both the ship's primary lift capacity and defensive bank of wards." It would be the center piece of the ship, but the skeleton of the vessel would be a long metal skeleton of alchemically treated alloys. That in itself would be a significant undertaking, as would the building of the supporting frame work to support the floors and weight to allow cargo space, and for passengers. They didn't have the metal production capacity to make a metal hull... and any future ships that might be might have to made in two separate halves mated together, but that was in the future.

It was also why he had no plans to mount centrally powered magical siege weapons the craft... nor plans to mount ballistae or blackpowder cannons. Such were the principle weapons of Alkenstar's flying galleys. Given that it needed to be able to carry them and supplies promised grain to Mendev in three months fixed weapon mounts were hardly a priority not on that kind of timeframe.

Valerie said nothing, but the elf gave a long exasperated sigh. "Sooner or later, and at this rate it will almost certainly be sooner we are going to have to contend with issues with my former homeland."

Kyonin was famous for the Aiudara. The elf gates. The return of the Kyonin elves had been sufficient in number for the kingdom to expel Taldor from the region when Taldor had been much stronger than the modern declining empire of the present day...

Thankfully Kyonin was more isolationist than interested in reclaiming past elven glories... but it also had not escaped Eire that he had more elven subject, pure blood elves, than he had dwarves. Halfbloods, half elves, easily outnumbered all pureblood elves by a ratio of two, approaching three, to one.

It would certainly not hurt therefor in the interest of trade as well as domestic politics to remain on cordial terms with the kingdom of the elves to their south. Kyonin was after all basically the southern most of the river kingdoms, which was not a particularly politic description, though geographically accurate given its position relative to the Sellen network. "We're no closer to finishing our research on the elf gates than we were at the start of the year." Though admittedly that was because it was not a priority... the mistuned gate of Zzmas the spider did need to be kept underguard but they still weren't sure on how to fix it.

On the other hand besides Kyonin's interest in first world affairs, and particular apparently flora fauna, denizens the eldest and so forth they were very interested in the aiudara beyond Kyonin's borders... and if it came out that a nominally speaking human kingdom had figured out to fix an elf gates there was very likely going to be a diplomatic incident of some stripe.

He leaned back, "I understand he replied, and stepled his fingers. "As I said the mana plants generate the motive power for the ship. While its not intended for war, it should allow us to fly across Numeria to Mendev's seat at Nerosyan." The problem was self evident looking at a map for while Nerosyan had been sensibly constructed where the Egelsee river flowed into the West Sellen , and thus the city was a part of the great Sellen River Network Mendev was far in the west, and thus travel to there would have ordinarily meant toll passage from Numerian, a financial burden which while guaranteeing a rather safe passage did create a hurdle in the long history of the crusade. That was without considering travel time.

Planning he trip and the time was one of the major factors impacting the entire project of a flying ship... it had really nothing to do with Numeria.

"Nor is it related to recent discoveries, but we should accept that while that may be true it may not appear such to outsiders, and thus we may also face problems diplomatically from the technic league."

Valerie paused, not immediately responding to Jaethal's summary, and then after that moment to compose herself looked at the elf, "What are you suggesting?"

"I am suggesting that if the Kellid horde under Armag does make a bid for the Numerian Tyrant's throne we should weigh who we support. If this Armag Twice Born was to become Tyrant he might be in a position to eliminate the Technic League entirely." There could be no denying a new Black Tyrant in Numeria would certainly shake up the political order... and such a consideration was something Jaethal had considered.


--
Regongar started to volunteer to investigate technic league activity, but Garess and Maegar both stated they already had their respective guards handling things... and Jaethal had her own, investigators make sure that they weren't acting against the interests of the realm. The problem was that the Technic League didn't always dress in obvious costume... though occasionally they were so blatantly arrogant not just to dress in such a manner they outright advertised their affiliation to any who asked.

As the brevic law code made clear, regarding unrepentant banditry was execution by sword or rope. Slavers found practicing their trade by force, guile, or coin were hosti humanis generis, and to face the same fate. So far though the numerian organization had not been found either holding slaves or attempting to take them, which was good enough for Regongar.

Regongar looked to Eire immediately to protest his uninvolvement all the same. "I am sorry Regongar, I will permit you to investigate the league's activities in the realm... but there is actually another matter regarding their involvement." He needed him to investigate the uneartehd ship, "And I also need you to be aware that beyond the technic league it would seem that the Tiger Lords are exploring ruins on their own. So I need you to be aware of that as well."

Amiri had only passing familiarity with the giant pantheon... in fact she largely had assumed that the giants more or less worshipped the same gods as everyone else. Maybe by different names, and that even if that weren't the case it didn't really matter. Nilak called Tristian's goddess Sister Cinder so it made sense that Giants would call the elkfather something else.

It might have made sense for them to call Gorrum by some other name. Erstig wasn't that different from Erastil after all, and with the way hill giants tended to mumble their words it probably sounded about the same.

More than that though Gorrum had no universal texts... that was the meaning, but the word Eire had used was ecumenical. There was not a 'canon' unlike in his own church to the Chelish war goddess , and presumably Aroden of Humanity before her had in the lands of the Inner Sea

"Armag's claim does not win him universal or unflinching support. It has been many many generations since the Tiger Lords could claim by name and lineage alone untamed aid from the other clans." the former werewolf remarked.

"IF he could sway giants to his cause it would greatly aid his standing." Nilak observed. "Surely he would need treasure for that?"

There were looks exchanged. "Reciprocal gift giving would potentially win him allies." Eire acknowledged, "And I admit that could be what he's looking for but for the hill giants he will need to likely demonstrate some degree of martial prowess."

Amiri's hand tightened on her giantish sword ready to face any challenger. Regongar considered and wracking his brain for what he knew of Numeria's strange metal ruins beneath the surface.

--
He had reports from Garess to read through, and he expected that Regongar and Amiri would be busy in the western reaches of the realm well into summer. They had already departed taking with them small parties of their own just as Garess planned to make sure that the road north to Olegton was equally alert for potential technic league interlopers.

Eire knew that as time passed, as more migrants immigrated into the kingdom, especially as a kingdom his ability to implement things would change. There were somethings, some facets that needed to be implemented early, and some that could only be implemented later as there were more people, more towns.

Truly standard weights and measurements were one of the hardest things to implement beyond basic common units. It was necessary for standardized parts, and that was necessary for what he needed... not just for the airship but for the manufacture of common commercial goods. A simple water driven hammer could produce a general pattern of sword, and its fittings in general measure or other steel tools in what was mass production, and that was for martial weapons sufficient to arm and equip a medieval army. There would be hand fitting involved but that was acceptable even for non magical weapons intended for common footsoldiers, and guardsmen. The problem lay in more complex and ultimately more mundane things.

Standard pitch screws came to mind. It was a requirement best implemented before there were many large towns with commiserate numbers of individual craftsmen. Nuts, bolts, screws, and even nails needed to be produced to specific tolerances and sizes. It was also why there was a standard brick size produced by baronial, now royal kilns. The motive power largely, though not exclusively made possible by the flowing of the Shrike river though magic steam engines using fire magic to heat and strengthen fire to higher temperatures certainly helped... but that required a standard unit of temperature, and a way to measure it.

This was his realm. The process of construction standards earlier would save him trouble... and the mass production of durable spares of clothing at a pittance meant people free from inefficient construction of work clothes at home or on communal looms, letting them work ideally in monetized professions which would give them the money to buy goods to to justify expanded production for export and trade.

The Crusade presented an opportunity for export of commercial goods that weren't food. Healing magic or not there were never enough bandages, and that could be added to the list of goods in the future... but the crusade was certainly an unplanned economic factor... and one more complicated than say something like needing to import cotton, or needing ready access to coal reserves. The cotton was easily addressed by trade with Osirion, to which he could reexport the finished product too in theory if the market was of interest, so far it was a novelty and time would tell. The latter, coal reserves was a more complicated matter beyond just a good source. It would be labor intensive, and most likely he would need steam engines in the mines themselves to run pumps to make them viable as well as safe.

Coal was a complex factor, one beyond Narland's productive means to industrially exploit at this stage. Right now they were largely using surface harvested peat, and that was fine, because it was what the villages used, because of the prevalence of rivers and bogs and swamps... but that was not the same thing as hard coal.

In much the same fashion canals could be readily constructed due to the labor requirement it took to excavate and the construction of the locks needed to manage them. It was easier, though still labor intensive, to build good roads given the distances involved. That might not always be the case, but in terms of the kingdom's current situation Eire recognized the limits of the labor pool, and of course that how that labor could be called up and for how long in particular a feudal corvee labor could be expected. In short there were limitations to what he could do constrained they were with logistics and demographic boundaries.

The church of Brigh was a small faith, and he was grateful that Arsinoe had introduced them to the realm, but the minor goddess had few followers, and wasn't an evangelical faith either. Jubilost was currently engaged in an animated discussion with a taldan cleric of the whisper in bronze that currently looked like it was getting out of hand as the matter of Numeria and the Technic league had once again been brought up.

Brigh was herself a neutral goddess, but well her followers were some of the patrons of the illicit trade of Numerian artifacts evading the Technic league's efforts to contain the spread of such goods. It was a booming smuggling that seemed to run through the markets of New Stetven... but then from what Jubilost was saying New Steven's markets were involved in significant smuggling of antiquities from all over the inner sea and golarion beyond... which was something of a surprise. Given its relative isolation and population size, in its corner of north eastern avistan Eire would not have considered the young nation of Brevoy to have that kind of market... perhaps something to do with House Rogavaria... but the conversation needed to be headed off they had other matters to deal with.

Jaethal ghosted up to him and regarded his sketches for a moment, then to the gnome's conversation, "Are you still planning to visit Silverstep?"

"I am." He replied, "Why?"

"Amvarean has sent word that she has an interloper."

"More goblins?" He questioned. Jaethal replied with a statement in draconic and he raised an eyebrow, "I see." Eire replied in the same language.
--
Notes: there are some scraps of additional content of the party members and royal court but they're presently sitting in a side document as we move into summer. Its not that those events won't happen its just they're not making progress so Eire is off to make a circuit of his eastern territories. And some of this will have other factors i.e. Amiri's internal description of Aroden, and Iomedae, and that will reflect somewhat when Eire introduces an equivalent to midwinter dedicated to Iomedae later in the year for Narland's local practices.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Desnus 4713
The homes of the eastern Kamelands, those along Lake Silverstep reminded him of berghausen from Germany. They were largely timber shaped homes in a similar building manner to those at Shrikewall but still distinct enough from those at the royal capital. They were lovely two and three story farmhouses and chalets looking over the lakeshore. The town of Silverstep, already a population of about seven hundred, much like Hereford was not intended to be a recreation of Shrikewall... though if Amvarean wanted to build chalets at Hereford in this style he certainly wasn't going to object. They were quite attractive to look at; picturesque and nostalgic for a long time ago.

Unlike Hereford, Silverstep did not have a stone keep... but admittedly Hereford had the advantage of having had a stone keep due to it being of elven construction that predated Hereford's founding. Silverstep had the advantage of having a dragon as feudal overlord. In that though the three settlements shared the facet of having Churches to Iomedae as their central religious structure of the township.

"I am sorry Amvarean, please repeat that if you don't mind." He stated after Linzi's ear splitting squeal of excitement. He had already known about the iron mines in the western foothills of the tor, and the were to be especially important... and he wasn't terribly surprised to find other mineral wealth in the tors... from the sound of it the whole great western range that divided Avistan from Iobaria on most maps... and was probably the result of the plates pushing up on each other acting as a font of mineral wealth. North of Shrikewall were old Taldan silver, and gold mines. There was Sorrowflow even further north of here. Then of course there were the road of shields and the mines in that chain that the dwarves had built.

The dragon in half elf guise nodded, and pushed a braided lock of hair over her ear, "Recent efforts in the lands remitted to me south of the little seen have been productive, but I believe that they have contributed to attention from the east in Casmaron."

Amvarean had been flying the week before, as spring had thaw been building, temperatures warming and noticed the presence of other dragons, and some investigation of her newly established exploration of the whispering grotto had shown the poking around of a juvenile gem dragon. A crystal dragon native to the elemental plane of earth. Most likely the juvenile had entered the material plane through a natural portal between the realms in the vicinity of of the tors, and had then heard about the the source of precious gemstones.

The brass dragons likely though came from as she had said casmarron who may or may not have originally migrated to the arid steppe as a consequence of the ascendancy of House Thrune to the Chelish throne in 4640, but had migrated into a region of Casmaron with an existing population of blue dragons who likely took exception.

It was that particular issue that had brought them to the eastern side of his kameland domains, and entailed bringing word to Maegar as well... but then they'd been side tracked by precious gems and shiny dragons. Distracting them from the prospect of needing to add blues to the chromatic spectrum of ... black dragon, and potential red problems, or greens.

He'd actually been expecting a white problem from the Casmarron steppe, but in hindsight blue pressures made sense given the broader historical picture. "So we are looking both potentially a push pull factor in migration. Pressure from the blue dragons of the steppe and a pull factor in the broader diverse communities raising in the kamelands, plus potential treasure."

"That is an astute description." The silver dragon agreed.

"Ooh are those pits," Some of the outliers in size were several hundred feet deep, "We found are they from gold dragons?"

"It is possible they were dug by questing golds." Amvarean replied. As it was it seemed as if the region of the Kamelands were not to the dragon's taste and they moved on... given the sprawling expanse of grasslands to the south it was possible they had migrated in that direction.

Of course changing the matters to gold turned the subject of conversation to Copper dragons and the matter of Galt's revolution, which of course was a dispute that Silvers tended to oppose. Though most of the coppers in Avistan resided in Andoran which had become the point of congregation for their like after the failed attempt at overthrowing House Thrune. That brought them through the rest of the metallics, ending with bronze.

"Do you think some would come and live in Shrikewall?" Linzi questioned quill at the ready

"Probably not. Memphis," The settlement on the eastern shore of the lakes, "as it grows larger perhaps." Grew large enough to support libraries, and places of study. Of course he was speculating, unlike Taldor he no intention of exempting private banks, even draconic ones, from taxes. He couldn't honestly say with certainty he knew. "We will have to speak with Maegar." There weren't sufficient people in the Dunsward to reasonably have forewarning, he pinched his nose and weighed the situation with regards to dragons... he had no idea how Brevic citizens thought about dragons.

"What is it?"

"There is also the matter of the bulettes." He shook his head. They lived basically in between Varnhold and the nomen grounds, which was itself a potential headache. The nomen were nomadic so they migrated and knew how to avoid the land sharks apparently but it would be another thing to contend with in relation to the Dunsward territories

That closeness to two of his vassals, coupled with bulette's digging ability... well something had to be done... and that was the monarch's responsibility to deal with. There were a few solutions. There was a burgeoning druid community, Kobolds and dwarves were known to tame bulettes... but that most likely required raising the creatures from eggs.

Bulettes were not a natural creature. Some idiot wizard's idea of a guardian modelled on a shark but travelling through the earth had been hit by the good idea fairy... and now they were found all over golarion... and that was why the alternate contingency was to simply hunt down the bulettes in the region and kill them all... an alternative he'd prefer to wait on acting on because Amiri was otherwise occupied, and it was precisely the sort of expedition she was likely to favor being party too.

Maegar's barony lacked a large druid population, and there were even fewer Kobolds. The druids similarly would have to come from Silverstep. Alternate options involved asking for Vordakai or the stone giant's assistance. It was something of a nuclear option in Eire's accounting, since in terms of valuable labor the giantish labor was the most valuable given their expertise.

... and speaking of the baron, Amvarean's enfeefment was complicated. Not so much her territorial demesne, or her being a dragon, as it fell within the original narlmarch charter geographically. Rather that Maegar's status of a third son seemed to put perhaps some pressure regarding his reaching out in the first place, after a successful mercenary career Maegar had assumed that as a noble scion he knew enough, and had enough resources, with Restov's support, to establish Varnhold.

He accepted that no one could have reasonably expected an ancient casmarron menace like Vordakai to be woken from his torpor... but Maegar had also hoped that his knowledge of Brevoy, brevic traditions of rule might allow him to distinguish himself. Instead of the one helping, he was the one needing help.

"It would probably be wise to consider asking Maegar how he would like this handled... and we could question the centaur what they know since they are also near by."
--
Kankerata was the name the centaurs had dubbed the cantankerous old bulette. It had unusually lived in the area for decades, which stood out among other details on reflection. Its long presence had created a myriad of furrows and sinkholes across the landscape... but an area, that was for a mature bulette too small. 'The world eater' should have been patrolling a larger area, especially given the lack of obvious forage for the landshark to feed on in the dunsward.... indeed the fact that Kankerata hadn't abandoned the area for another hunting area was itself the first indicator.

That it was a lone specimen wasn't particularly unusual, but they would need to exercise caution, given the compromised nature of the terrain... one look at the terrain though suggested it was more than that.

"The terrain breaks are too even." He noted. "Summon Vordakai, I want to know if his people might have built something here." Might being the operative word, It was the best guess he had if wizards had made bulettes why wouldn't the iobarian cyclop have used them to protect a now ruined place. They were too far east to suggest it was potentially Azlanti... the terrain was wrong to be dwarven... and not to type cast but it seemed doubtful that that this far out into the grassland it would be elven either.

It was a guess, but cyclops was the best they could go on if htere were buried ruins. "Eire?" The silver dragon questioned.

"Also summon elder Hulthrak, I want Kankerata taken alive." The mammoth wrangling giant primeval elk riding stone giant druid would be their best option for that. It was ultimately a bit of extra, unnecessary excitement. While old certainly, the site was Taldan, it post dated the 5th​ army of exploration, which had reached the lake of mists and veils and begun the process of taldan rule in the early 21st​ century of the Arodenite calendar.

It almost certainly predated the return of the Kyoni elves to Golarion, which put the time frame of the ruins in a half millennium ballpark. It had definitely collapsed and been buried... probably as a result of Taldan expansion and back and forth conflicts of the Dunsward that had pushed the centaurs further south, and east... but the dunsward would have still been a dangerous place... and Eire still wasn't conclusively sure exactly how Sorrowflow mines to the west had been destroyed. They'd originally been operating on the assumption that the most direct pathway would have been pursued... but at least this settlement had been destroyed at a time when Qadira had been at peace with Taldor. They weren't sure about the sorrowflow dates but it was probably later... but the damage looked similar.

Someone had intentionally attempted to use bound elementals here.... so at least on that account there was something that Vordakai could investigate... but it was unlikely to yield them any answers quickly... but excavating the settlement could be relevant to Iobarian history during the late Taldan golden age, as well as provide a sight in the east for the realm and a place for future expansion... even if it wasn't cyclopean in origin. It did leave Eire wondering exactly how quickly the Taldan frontier in Iobaria and in the far north east of Avistan had started to roll back even before the elves had returned... presumably it had started even before Kyonin had returned in 2632, but that had probably accelerated weakening of Taldan central authority by exasperating the divide between an eastern and western focus. They were relatively sure that Sorrowflow had been destroyed between two thousand years ago and twenty five hundred, and that would put the destruction, in the more recent scale, contemporaneous to the elven return to golarion.

That very well could have been a coincidence. Still it would bear investigating both sites, and developing both to support the realm.


--
Notes: Necessary lore dump, but this also leads into among other things why Narland had certain mounted military units that it does, though they're often small units in the case of bulletes, or wyverns in the future.

Also because there aren't Paladin military formations in Narland, in contrast to Lastwall or Mendev because despite the cathedral to Iomedae (and this is in the future) Narland does not have a lot of Iomedaen paladins compared to other professions, which is unusual since Iomedae is the paladin cliche, where as Narland's military is principally centered on heavy infantry, not to the exclusion of knights or mounted units, but we will get there. The primary reason though is population diversity, most of Narland's cavalry are 'ethnic iobarians'.

Anyway the next three segments cover Densus 4713 in the east of the realm dealing witht the management of Varnhold's charter areas.

I do wish to state that I'm not current on second edition lore and changes, supposedly there are developments in 2E's timeline but I haven't read any 2E original AP yet and so I'm not sure if I'll incorporate lore from second edition yet, we will see.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Desnus 4713
The trip they had planned was one to work their way eastward across the domain. A few days here a few days there, but slowly moving to the edge of the charter boundary. The mountains to the north east were too far away, Silverstep was still the dominant northern feature, but their presence lay in the east. In a few days they would cross into the Varnhold since Vordakai was meeting them here. The withered lich was approaching slowly, measured strides more out of consideration for the heavy trunk he carried and no doubt its contents.

Eire watched as heavy steel plows and horse teams worked across the Royal farms. The dozens of fields, literally hundreds of horse were tending several different rotations of various crops. The steel plows were of a 19th​ century design but there were limitations that prevented him from implementing certain 19th​ century agriculture techniques, and certainly uniformly. The implementation of the three field system, and mold board style plows, and here more colonial, or early American agriculture four field systems and steel plows based off of John Deere's designs of the early 19th​ century provided the food which filled the royal granaries. The horses were largely from native herds that ranged the southern kamelands.

Together they allowed a small specialized, wage based royal workforce to provide food for the realm, and population growth, and control food prices. They generated an excess that was designed to support growth. The population of the realm to expand.

The giants, and their veneration of Erastil were not an issue. At least not to his farming methods... not within the giants iteration of the faith. It was the Brevic church of Erastil which, his new farming methods considered too new, and too different. It kept farmers working on royal institutions all year round really, and for wages rather than for their own crops. He had concerns that some of the brevic church bordered on Luddism... even though that term didn't exist he knew the royal system was not a typical feudal manorial system.

As monarch he was the largest landholder in the realm, which was itself an anomaly. He didn't have competition from the various churches. Not real competition. In theory Varnhold was the largest separate feudal domain spreading into the dunsward, but in royal recognition Maegar's domain really ended running south from Brevoy's official border, roughly anchored near Restov. That was still by feudal terms a large area over a thousand square miles a still truly voluminous patrimony for Maegar to rule over, but not the absurd grandiose dispensation of the brevic charter.

They produced other things as well. Potatoes particularly those at Candlemere, as Kaessi had noted, weren't just grown for food, they produced starch that went into paper manufacturing that paper then went into the printing presses.

Vordakai made no comment on the farms. "I have compiled a map from what survives of my records, and worked with Maestro Pendrod over other sources. While as we have confirmed the ruins in question are clearly Taldan, the the centaurs have verified there is at least one remnant of the old empire." He meant Koloran. "Given its size, and its location within the dunsward it is easily reachable, and should be investigated."

Eire turned. "Does it have a name?"

"The horses," The centaurs, "call it the city of hollow eyes. It would seem no one has managed to open the main entrance, but they speak of undead cyclops."

Hence hollow eyes... that made sense. "Does it have a Koloran name?" He asked but the withered lich merely shrugged.

"I am sure it did, but it would have been a small frontier settlement little better than a town at the time of the civil war breaking out. It is in the open grasslands of the Dunsward. It is to the north east of my tomb, therefore it lay south of Maegar's domain according to the map."

The artificial lines drawn on the map. That didn't really reflect significant territorial features. In the west were the tors which gradually descending into the wide open grasslands, and in ancient days would have been dotted by watch towers of ancient Cyclops and elves. "Do you think that any Cyclops still dwell among the ruins." Was there another Vordakai, a liche or some ancient other survivor.

"I do not." The atrophied lich replied, "The horses tell me that they would seasonally travel to trade with iobarian tribes both horses and human barbarians among the ruins. The 'city' as they call it lacks any of the associations with the valley of the dead among their people." the nomen centaurs, and probably their thundering hooves forbearers had suffered significant loss of historical culture at taldan hands after all. "I would doubt any of the degenerate descendants of my kind would stomach such neighbors, unless of course actually brought up in a human tribal band. Then perhaps, but the horses mentioned nothing of the sort."

They were going to need to reconstruct the ancient network of watchtowers, build fortified... burhs for lack of a better term, along the frontier and roads to shape trade that came in from off the steppe. The idea was both security and economy. Routing trade along a specific route would insure that it passed up through Varnhold to Restov, and also didn't intrude into the lands of the centaurs, the horses as Vordakai tended to call them.

Though clearly the Cyclops was merely looking at political frameworks of an iobarian model. It would be very easy to brevic sensibilities to be traditional feudal gamesmanship. Though it would take time for the old taldan ruins, the blood furrows, in the dunsward to be cleared and explored, and to settle new people it still represented a royal investment into Varnhold's domain. Vordakai acting towards a move in his own borderlands would have looked much the same.

He decided to go ahead and address that, and, "Further that means settlement, and in practical terms," With a lack of civilized giants, "That means humans."

"of course."

Iobaria had giantish populations, but hill giants and frost giants were unlikely to be found along the steppe. He doubted the trolls would be found. Eire didn't know enough to comment on the habits of ogres, and thus really the predominant human ethnicity to the south east of them was like to be the horse lords and their mounted pastoral nomadism along the low valleys, and high plains along the caravan trade

... and that Eire would need a survey to help plan, but it did remind him of how odd Golarion was in ecological diversity... the ancient azlanti and their contemporaries made things so strange to plan for in terms of agriculture.

Vordakai asked if there was a problem. "No merely considering the scales." The time frames of Golarions history, the distances involved. It was a lot to deal with.
--
They absolutely weren't going to call it 'the city of hollow eyes'. That just wouldn't fly. It wasn't really a city either... it might have been the remains of one, from the ruins certainly it appeared to have had centralized palace lead administrative centers, thus distinguishing it from a town... but the modern locale was more ruins, and gathering place rather than long term permanent town It was a place to trade seasonally, and little more.

In a similar fashion to Shrikewall's castle, the footprint and height of the buildings was somewhat misleading. The ancient cyclops had had to build their floors with tall ceilings, large arches, and supports to support them and thus while exterior's were tall there weren't many individual floors... and this had been constructed late in the empire's existence with only limited structures having magical supports integrated into the construction. Most of the town had succumbed to time, the elements, being broken into probably starting with marauders during the cyclopean civil war looking for supplies but certainly as others had moved in in the age of darkness, and through the age of enthronement. Maestro Pendrod was certainly going to want to visit, but that would have to wait until they had secured a foothold in the region... but that was in itself relatively easy. They had the centaurs to levy a claim over overlordship, and enforce a standing guard until permanent connections overland could be managed.

Officially Eire had marked the Hills of Nomen, the southern half of the Icerime peaks that formed the eastern official border of Brevoy's real territorial extent should be their practical border. It was a nice solid territorial claim. It was from the Hills of Nomen that the Shrike flowed down that further justified using its geography as the hallmark of the realm. The Castrovin sea similarly an official territorial claim... even though in practical terms Eire didn't expect them to reach the sea for many years to come.

In equally official terms he had enfeefed Maegar's assimilated Varnhold into an area of a thousand square miles, a large duchy, and similar areas for the Nomen and also nominally an area in the south Vordakai was to administer, which was where the 'city of hollow eyes' lay.

Xamanthe cantered up, skittering to a stop to the opposite side the cyclopes stood, but more than anything looking concerned, beyond simply unnerved by her former undead captor. Eire's eyes set into a narrowed scowl of quicksilver slits, "I take it there is a problem."

Amvarean and Shaoyu had not joined them for this outing. He had allowed Shaoyu to remain at Silverstep to observe Amvarean's efforts... especially given developments in demographics so to speak regarding the area he had enfeefed the silver dragon. "there is a dragon." At his no doubt rather 'of course there was look', and the more pressing detail was what kind, the young centaur warrior continued, "Its huge," That wasn't helpful, "blue," Xamanthe was at an obvious loss of words, "With scales the color of open sky. I happened to overhear the human tribes speaking of seeing it come down,"

Further questions followed, apparently there were a mix of Kellids from Numeria they had set up a camp, but they didn't seem here tor trade, instead investigating, 'looking to loot', the unopened great chamber of the cyclopes in the center of the city. Xamanthe said they were Tiger Lords, but that there were also other tribes around some from the Kara people of the south east. "Show me."

For Xamanthe Huge was something of an underwhelming context. Certainly the long serpentine form of the blue was large, but in truth the wounded dragon was not much larger than Vordakai was, and smaller than elder Hulthrak, who had wrestled the bulette Kankerata into a magical steel pen to contain the creature. More to the point though the blue dragon's wing had been raked by a potent acid... and given the pattern... from a larger dragon, a black.

The injured male arched his neck, "Ah guests," The motion reveal the ragged acid burns continued across the side, "Please come closer, don't fear we can help each other." The words were spoken with painful effort and with a cautious look thrown to the side. The blue dragon regarded Vordakai the longest whether because he was in such a mixed company of centaurs and humans or because the cyclops was a liche or ... because both.

"It is generous of you to speak Taldane, but unnecessary." Eire replied in Draconic, "What brings you within my hold?"

The blue's head raised slight and he inhaled cautiously, and then attempting to straighten and fold his his wings back... not easy to do given the torn ligaments and damage to his side, then looking down to the earth. He sighed, "Only my determination carried me this far. Damned Ilthuliak ..."

"Ah I see. I am afraid I have questions then, as the witch has attacked one of my retainers previously." He replied.

The dragon blinked, and gestured to his wounded side, "Yes, her acid still burns me, I cannot travel further on this wing, I cannot dance in the sky any longer."

"Then I would be a poor host." Eire replied the healing magic filling the remains of the ruined cyclop's home. The blue dragon sagged in relief as the burning ceased. "Still I have questions, as well I should say will Amvarean, and Eranex."

Vordakai seemed to be barely concealing laughing at the polite adult blue dragon's growing borderline alarm at the situation that it found itself in. His eyes had widened at the names of the two silver dragons and glanced at them in turn.

 

[PeaceMaker03]

Baby Blue dragon: …….. Wait, you consider two adult Silver dragons to be retainers?
……..What did I get myself into?

Just wait until Baby Blue finds out he is fostering a Red Dragon.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Baby Blue dragon: …….. Wait, you consider two adult Silver dragons to be retainers?
……..What did I get myself into?

Just wait until Baby Blue finds out he is fostering a Red Dragon.

Click to shrink...

That's pretty spot on for Mitharius

 

[Imperator Pax]

Desnus 4713
"Oh my goddess, I can't believe I missed meeting another dragon." Linzi declared her outburst rattling the table and the cups of tea. The new settlement whenever it could actually be called a settlement would need a temple to Desna It was something of a compromise position, a consideration for the centaurs... and truthfully letting them preside over it or not Desna was likely to be popular with many of the humans likely to settle here.

Here would still need a name, but that wasn't the immediate priority. Unlike the realm at large whatever this settlement took, it did not have ready proximity to a body of water that directly connected to the broader Sellen network. It was surrounded by grassland, which was also true of the Taldan site to the north but it was close enough to Varnhold, a couple dozen miles, that a wide enough highway could be constructed to address that issue.

Eire shook his head, "You have not missed meeting another dragon." The blue, Mitharius, was currently in discussion with Amvarean and her half sister... which rather certainly assured that it was unlikely to attempt an admittedly already unlikely double cross.

"I missed you healing an injured dragon." Linzi remarked still very put out, even as she stole a look in the direction of the three, really four, human form dragons.

"Yes, well I find first aid is best rendered as soon as feasible." He replied... and of course any details the blue could yield about the black dragon who had at least temporarily killed Amvarean in her own lair none the less was important. Ilthuliak would need to be killed, and killing a black dragon of wyrm age would require preparation. Regardless of what powers he could call upon...

Not the least of which would be finding where the black dragon made her nest, you couldn't kill something you couldn't find... well theoretically with enough magic you probably could, but finding Ilthuliak's lair would be better.

He just hoped Ilthuliak wasn't in the Hooktongue slough.... but he knew for certainly the black wasn't in the Narlmarches proper ... which suggested that... maybe she was responsible for the blockage of trade going up the East Sellen River.

Linzi didn't seem to realize the potential danger of that being the case, and he wasn't going to draw attention to it. There were some details they'd just have to wait and see what panned out, and if she was more focused on the heal injured dragon then that was fine. They still needed to investigate the cyclops ruins, which as it happened seemed to be also what the Tiger Lords had come here for as well.

Vordakai cleared his throat to signal he was going to speak, "I have investigated the site in question... the door remains intact as a result of surviving wards... but while I suspect some lesser, and most likely ravenous undead remain I sense no signs of a guiding intelligence." There was a pause, "Maestro Pendrod will be joining us shortly, I hazard that his excitement has exceeded prudence... but the site is very likely intact inside."

Deciding he wanted to make sure "You are certain there isn't another cyclops inside?"

"I do not believe so." Vordakai repeated, then with pointed consideration, "Given that the wards, and sanctuary within are intact it is possible, but improbable." What Vordakai meant, was that this was not like his mausoleum in the valley of the dead, while there were probably more dread zombies here, and traps besides there were no indications that a necromancer, and not a lich had used this town as his base back in the final days of the cyclopes's empire. "Whoever was entombed here is likely dead, and if undead, one of the ravenous unthinking brutes."

The Tiger Lords warily watched them... the blue dragon had taken on a human appearance of a blonde ulfen or possibly northern iobarian man. Aecora knew there were living Cyclops in the area, but in one of the few agreements she had with Vordakai had concurred with his dismissal that they were barbarians... in the sense that they either didn't practice magic, or couldn't Eire wasn't entirely certainly which of the two Vordakai found more offensive to his ancient sensibilities.

The condition of Iobaria's remaining Cyclopes population was unfortunately a potential security concern. If it wasn't one thing it was another, since of course it wasn't just Cyclopes, it would be hill giants. It would be potentially more spriggans, a rival centaur tribe was also in the realm of possibility. This was the frontier with Iobaria... regardless of where the actual border was it was more of a porous frontier than fixed standards of an industrial, or even the borders between territorial monarchies. Brevoy had been the nearest thing in this neck of the woods, though technically farther south was Galt that had the history having been a province of Cheliax, and then Taldor before that.

Vordakai glowered a milky white, monocular, glare at the carved stone door, and spoke the word of opening. There was some scratching, and then the grinding of gears as it slowly forced itself opened after thousands of years sealed shut.

Shaoyu hissed drawing her longsword as the first of the zombies came out of the now open doorway. The creatures fingers were broken, and barely attached, and it looked like it had literally been gnawing on rocks or something hard for what little broken nubs remained...

...or had remained prior to a wave of flame burning away its skull.

Still Shaoyu had the right idea, and Eranex followed suit cracking another dread zombie's skull quickly with her fey touched mace even as more shuffled into daylight. Silver longsword blades formed whirling barriers of blades five feet from the entrance that tore through limbs, and giantish torsos as several more dread zombies rushed forward.

By that point the Tiger Lords had decided to join in brandishing greatswords to assist in dismembering the eight plus foot slavering undead.

"I take it this must happen often?" The erudite polite voice questioned.

"Yep," Linzi replied to the blue dragon's question, "Pretty much all the time, isn't it exciting?" The halfling squeaked. That was probably not the solution the blue dragon masquerading as a wizard was looking for, but accepted it with some reserve. It was interesting that Mitharius was an elven name, but he took the form of an Iobarian... or skaldic human.

He actually suspected that this was as close to a strong face in adversity that the blue dragon could muster and was probably a little worried about what he had found himself in, trading near death for a complete lack of grounding as he wandered into the unknown.
--
Maestro Pendrod arrived from Varnhold as part of a train of guardsmen and craftsmen atop swift ponies. The brevic horses supported small wagons with only limited beds and goods, but it was enough to stake some eight foot poles into the ground, and with the centaurs' assistance furnish a very basic protected pavillion... not that it was really necessary Desnus's weather was quite mild, and while it was warm in the day the breeze and dryness of the steppe heat was quite pleasant.

Pendrod was almost depressed seeming at having missed the opening of the structure, though Linzi was quick to fill him in on all the sword swinging, swashbuckling against the zombies after. More than that though Pendrod intended to write to his home institution in Oppara about this most latest, and most intact Iobarian find. As part of the professor's agreement with Vordakai, he had agreed to only ascribe work to 'members of the local aristocracy of the kingdom' going quite far to avoid stating that Vordakai was a Cyclops never mind a withered lich, never mind that he was from the ancient and now deceased empire originally.

Instead the Taldane academic community just probably assumed that Narland was a collection of strange weird people with absurdly esoteric hobbies... or something like that. For the most part none of Taldor's nobility seemed interested in in travelling beyond the gilded city and most of the immigrants of Taldor were from 'the unbearded' or were minor nobility or aristocracy affiliated with the religious classes, which admittedly did include a part of the church of Shelyn from Taldor's domain... but that was a potential headache that he would have to deal with later in the year ... when they inveitably brought up the condition of the shrine of the Golden Grove.

"This is amazing." Pendrod declared spinning around, "So many artifacts you could have an entire museum and still be able to support exhibits to other institutions." And Pendrod was really only talking about common goods. The everyday knicknacks of daily life that had filled the main spaces, which were unique perhaps only because of their artwork, and the scale, being meant for giantish folk's hands.

Speaking to Vordakai, and not loud enough that he'd be overheard, "He something of a point, a museum is not the worst idea, and truthfully we will need institutions of higher learning of our own."

The cyclops paused considering, rather than rejecting the idea out right, "I would have expected Hereford, or Silverstep to be the more likely sites beyond the capital." And he wasn't wrong, but there was already a growing disparity between frankly in population terms Candlemere was more populous than Varnhold, as was Olegton. Varnhold Pass was roughly comparable to tatzlwyrm.

"Its a matter of settlement, as well as economics." They needed to be able to create a route through Varnhold that could ultimately route north and allow the caravans to pass to Restov. Eire paused, letting his mind catch up, "Something to plan for next year I think, there is," There always was, "so much to do." Armasse this year would require him to be out of the country. That was going to be the telling thing.


--
Notes: this is one of the divergence points: In the AP Ilthuliak has relocated to the Brantheld mountains, which ecologically for Black Dragons doesn't make sense, before she relocates to Nyrissa's domain in the First World.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Desnus 4713
[Spring Conclusion]
Among the more pleasant surprises of the Bronzeshield fortresses, though in hindsight one that shouldn't have surprised him at all, was the fact that the dwarves had long ago developed a track system for carts for use in moving supplies. Better than that was that the dwarves had already used steel rails rather than iron, or wood. Obviously, in hindsight, the latter would have required importing trees from the surface, but the iron option would have been more brittle than steel, and required replacement more frequently, as well. It among other things gave him an example by which to show people what he meant when he talked about railroads.

The dwarves had never applied their rails to overland movement, never mind the transport of goods overland across significant distances instead relying on traditional middlemen arrangements to caravan such goods to market, or simply selling their wares at dwarven markets locally. Given what little Eire had gleaned, from his limited exposure, to the dwarves of Golarion, or at least Avistan, he could still understand why those changes hadn't been made.

Tracks in a mining, rails in a mining operation made sense even with manual power, before you introduced horse power. It facilitated significantly less resistance, allowing much greater loads, which had additional benefits in organization of the mines, and processing. The dwarves had simply never taken it to the next step... at least they hadn't by all indication but that might have been just Brevoy, or possibly Avistan more broadly.

Maegar dressed in a coat decorated by a circle of four hatchets, the symbol of the Issian house of Varn coughed slightly, "Maybe we should go back to the blue dragon." and the fact that the blue had decided to leave south east of the realm departing into the Iobarian Steppe.

Shaoyu scowled and crossed her arms, "He all but fled over the border, it was embarrassing to call him a dragon." She snapped.

Maegar blinked... with a suffering sigh shook his head, "That wasn't exactly what I meant little miss."

Amvarean hoped, though Eire was himself skeptical exactly how successful it would prove, that the blue dragon would be as good as his word and that he would invite a mediated settlement to prevent fighting between metallics, and chromatics, at least further, fighting, in the eastern lands beyond the border.

Eire put his tea cup down, "When Cheliax fell to the infernal house of Thrune," and a part of him was glad that Thrune had taken that as their official title for the sake of it sounded offensive otherwise, "there was an exodus, a migration which has the likelihood of creating a problem on our eastern frontier," I.e. The former lands of Varnhold's charter. Without the annexation following the vanishing all Maegar would have had warning of would be little more helpful than the advice to be polite to dragons, and that they were a potential concern but without real details. "Amvarean is correct it is in our best interest to provide a peaceful sanctuary to cordial dragons, it is," was even more, "undesirable to have a dragon war on our eastern steppe especially in light of encouraging the caravan trade to come through your lands and to Restov."

"... well when you put it like that..." Maegar took a sip from his stein of beer, "What about- the flying ship?"

"I have to return to the Kamelands to oversee the fitting out, and I will be in Mendev for the opening of the Fifth crusade." He remarked, "While I certainly support the war against the abyss, it will provide the realm the opportunity to export excess grain, and animal fodder and eventually other goods, and it will likely facilitate the necessary connections to encourage further migration," Human capital to provide the labor force necessary to operate standardized works, "And that it why roads need to be built in the Dunsward, and to these new settlement sites before then, and to standard dimensions.

He didn't have time to build steam engines... and frankly even with the diagrams and understanding of chemistry the earliest ones would likely still be used to run pumps not motive engines.

There was a lull, and then he nodded, "How are the Osirion Pharasmins settling, in I know that their doctrines are ... a little different than Brevoy?" and the practices of the Brevic church.

Maegar shrugged, "I mean they drink beer so I don't have any complaints. I admit they're different than what I was expecting, but having a church of Pharasma reassures the peasants, and they really needed it after what happened."

"That is good to hear, truthfully if this caravan," city was the wrong term, "business is to succeed, then we need to take steps to prepare for it. Desna, as well Abadar I think... I will speak to Arsinoe when I return to Shrikewall." Maegar interjected with a question, "Yes she is an Aasimar, though I feel its something of an exaggeration to say she follows me everywhere in the capital." He steered the conversation back and pulled the drafting documents over, "These rails need to be run at the labelled angels along the slope from the mines, you can pull them from horses, and these, also use horse drawn power but the winch is what pulls the carts themselves."
--
Eire looked over the eastern skyline... his eastern skyline. The prospect of kingship was different, and though it was less pronounced than in Shrikewall, the Varnhold ... the dunsward exhibited similar signs of contact with the first world. The overlap...

... among the contents recovered from the 'city of hollow eyes' sealed vault had been a map... border gore was an accurate description of the divide between Cyclopes and elven outposts in ancient times... it explained the various ruins though. Why there were elven ruins so close to Vordakai's tomb, but that there were also cyclopes tombs, and towers, and other remnants north west of Shrikewall in what were today ancestral forests.


It was important to remember that Koloran had been founded by those escaping Ghol Kan, they had been immigrants... and an immigrant expansionist empire flowing out of the iobarian steppes. It raised more questions than they had answers to. The only possible survivor of ancient cyclops culture seemed to be deep in iobarian as well, the island of Iblyos, but such investigations would have to wait.

"I didn't bring the matter up with Maegar yet, but it occurs to me Drelev and Mivon both claim the slough remains blocked. Drelev claims more giants than we know fought under Harrgulka banner ... and, there is the possibility Ilthuliak is in the swamp."

"It is the natural dwelling, and it would not be remiss for one of the Vutha to subjugate malicious creatures to disrupt trade." The swamps to their west had all manner of potential lackeys for a black dragon to lord over... not just trolls, marsh giants, and boggards came to mind and the list went on. Amvarean recounted a lengthy list all the same.

"If that is the case, I would suspect its only a matter of time until it becomes something we have to deal with. For now all we can do is face one task at a time." That meant the crusade, and what was to be his first real foreign trip abroad as a ruler... visiting Restov really didn't count since ... and visiting Mendev would be his first trip as monarch in his own right. "As I mentioned to Maegar before we turned to the possibility of the dragons displayed from further west by the Thrune ascension, we will need to take the examples from the Bronzeshield fortress and have our metalworkers emulate them."

It would be impractical to use the same mana plant driven engines as the airship. No they would need simpler steam engines. Wood fired ones would work, as would coal. They could make 19th​ century American engines run off soft coal while they continued to search for anthracite... and of course the other option the more long term comprehensive magical option was electrification of some sort, or just out and magical steam power.

It wasn't that he expected an immediate result. The goal was to relink the Road of Shields on their western flank. Ideally they would be able to link that to the capital for the transport of goods, but the river network of the Sellen largely meant they just needed the goods of the Road of Shields line of fortresses to transport to the Murque River terminal at Hereford. That would be sufficient.
--
Notes: This is somewhat abridged, and I may actually take a week, because we start summer 4713 in the next part and I need to focus on the material of the two adventure packs that take place in 4713. Snows in Summer is loosely touched on next update, and of course the beginning of the Fifth Mendevian Crusade (and the events of WotR) begins on Armasse.

One thing I will need to touch on further though is the work on the Road of Shields and their constituent fortresses over the course of the second half of 4713 and into 4714, which is where we will also explore some of the perks and other things.

 

[Trek]

Looking forward to more exploration of the perks.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Looking forward to more exploration of the perks.

Click to shrink...

I do to especially once we get in 4714 fter the 5th mendevian crusade starts
Working from a version of this
https://forum.questionablequesting....athfinder-kingmaker.16402/page-5#post-6757362

I will be dropping using Fall from Heaven as a series in part because of just what all CK3 can be used to give the kingdom, but I will also be putting up the Dragons jump build hopefully soon, but Ck3's perks are going to be a big thing in terms of building up the realm.

Somewhat more close to the present in terms of really making an impact is the cleric tree from Generic Pathfinder

Among the other things is it allows Eire to case all of his domain spells as if they were divine cantrips, his solar aura which will show up, and his ability to spam conjured silver longswords ala alexander anderson's bayonets and thats all from Holy Man, even the one hundred perk is particularly important to the realm because ear of the divine makes gods pay attention (and other things).

But yeah CK3 stuff and dragons stuff soon.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Alright for the moment the CK3 material is largely a direct port from the previous version, but the dragons content is below

Varnhold Vanishing / the Kingdom foundation: Crusader Kings III
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18wMlZxqhvBclgnrHhGsADGCq6-_0oWFtkCBVdUlDYjc/edit

Crusader Kings 3 is very long...

Spoiler: Organization

You gain +1000 CP stipend to spend solely on this section.
This is the part where you're going to be building your own realm and giving them perks. Upon finishing this section, you will receive 500,000 refugees and many more people to help jumpstart a new realm anywhere in the setting.

The following discounts are given to you:
Six 50 CP perks
Four 100 CP perks
Two 200 CP perks
One 400 CP perk
Discounted perks are 50% off.
Discounted 50 CP perks are free.

Wetlanders [50] Your people are masters of living around water. They are comfortable with any amount of humidity, can swim as fast as sprinting on land, do not expend stamina nor get fatigued from swimming in water. Your people cannot be slowed down when walking or running through water nor can water push them down.
Melting Pot [50] Foreign or minority cultures within your organization are much more receptive to assimilating to your main culture, social values, and religion. You can choose one culture that people should assimilate to, and freely choose if this is a full-on assimilation, produces unique divergent or hybrid cultures, a mere acceptance and coexistence with the other culture, and et cetera. Full-on assimilation takes a few years to finalize.
Bureaucratic [50] Your people value consistent record-keeping as of great importance, and take great pains in logging down information for every situation imaginable. As such, it is impossible to permanently scrub any and all records logged down by your people, for such efforts will always be insufficient and result in the information being once again found somewhere else. Additionally, whoever logged down the record will always be able to find it in no less than a minute of effort. If they want this record to remain eternally accessible, they can also grant a similar level of accessibility to the organization at large, thus allowing anyone within the organization to find a copy of it just by looking around in their surroundings for a minute. The copy will then disappear once it is used.
Eastern Roman Legacy [50] Military personnel and mercenaries only need to be paid a fourth of the usual rate, thanks to their keen sense of frugality and loyalty of service. Additionally, it is impossible for such soldiers to grow bored during duty and they can be absolutely trusted not to fool around or cause unrest with the civilian population. They're mindful enough not to cause any trouble even if they're occupying enemy territory as well. As such, subjugated peoples are receptive to your army as long as your military doesn't threaten their lives.
Chernozem [50] Every soil is as fertile and bountiful as black soil when sown and harvested by your people. Their crops also grow as efficiently as if they're in the best suited environment, regardless of actual weather or environmental conditions. Sowing the same crop in the same land no longer negatively affects the soil's nutrition cycle either.
Crusader Skylines [50] Your organization is the absolute best at interior designing, city planning, and the optimization of all available spaces. All living space shall be created and managed to their utmost efficiency. Your cities could easily accommodate for unprecedented growth and modern developments in technology.

Horse Lords [100] Your people are born into the saddle. Starting from the age of four, your people can learn how to ride the saddle on any mount (and learn how to drive any vehicle) and master it on their own over the course of a month. If they receive help, this can be narrowed down to a couple of weeks or shorter. It won't be long before your people's children know how to outcompete adult riders from other realms.
Communal Festivals [100] Social events hosted by your people are an amazing experience. Festivities are far more boisterous, foodstuffs and goods on sale appear in greater quantities than even a participating merchant would expect, and all negative habits effectively cease to exist for the duration of the event. "Negative" meaning anything that may incur harm upon another person without their consent. Mutual duels could still occur if that is the nature of your people's society. Absolutely nothing can ruin the potential fun of these events without willful participation on your part.
Bourgeoisie [100] The elite of your society may sit high in their ivory towers, but they will never grow complacent or ignorant of what is happening below them. In fact, the elite of your organization are keenly aware of everything that is generally going on in lower society, even in incredibly distant regions. As a side effect, your elite never make out-of-touch comments or policies that could rouse the proles against them, or at least know how to enact such statements or policies in a way that is overlooked by the proles. This makes it much, much harder for your lower society to compete or rebel against their betters.
.Look After Yourselves [100] Your military always keeps perfect maintenance on their equipment, thus rendering attrition impossible among the ranks. They look after their equipment so well, there will never be a case where someone ends up losing something due to neglect or circumstance. Even thievery simply never happens. It may not sound like much, but having a poorly disciplined army that does nothing to maintain their equipment is a horrific rot that can destroy any military from inside out. With this perk, your military will not be left for want of a nail

Industrious [200] Your people are ridiculously industrious. They do not get bored nor burned out from doing the same thing over and over again, although they cannot get harmfully addicted to repetition.


Shock Troopers [200] Your people have a natural talent to make for fearsome warriors at close combat, particularly shock troopers and other heavy infantry that are meant for intense combat. It'd only take a couple months of training to churn decade-hardened veterans for any specialization of heavy infantry that are as impressive as the Druzhina, Huscarls, Sarawits and Varangians of old. This also affects modern counterparts of heavy infantry that are otherwise considered as specialized troopers or special forces of any military, e.g. mountaineers, marines, etc.

On An Open Field! [200] Your people have a natural talent to make for swiftsure light cavalry. It'd only take a week for them to be completely attuned with any mount or vehicle, and a couple of months of training to churn out decade-hardened veterans for any specialization of light cavalry that are as impressive as the Mongols, Konnis, and Mulathunums of old. This also affects modern counterparts, such as any cavalry role that relies on light combat vehicles to perform adequately.z

Hell Chargers [200] Your people have a natural talent to make for daring heavy cavalry. It'd only take a week for them to be completely attuned with any mount or vehicle, and a couple of months of training to churn out decade-hardened veterans for any specialization of heavy cavalry, whether they're charging forwards with warhorses or leading armored spearheads in the modern era. They'll demonstrate as much impressive prowess as the cataphracts and gendarmes of old. This also affects modern counterparts, such as tanks, assault mechs, and any heavy frames that require an operator to pilot.

Unyielding [400] Your military is no longer affected by issues of morale because they're always at peak morale. They'll rationalize every terrible situation as something that could be overcome, no matter how staggering the odds. If they were the type to be constantly depressed or otherwise doubt themselves, they'll mentally compartmentalize and treat their job as if they were passionate about it. An army that knows no fear would completely nullify the psychological effect of certain weapons and tactics. With unbreakable morale, your soldiers would never break formation against cavalry charges, and soldiers wouldn't freeze at incoming projectiles either. Your soldiers would never retreat on their own accord unless they are ordered to retreat or their military doctrine indicates they should. Their unbeatable warrior spirit also grants immunity to anything that may mentally influence them against their will, such as fear, possession, charms, suggestion, illusions, and torture.

Spoiler: Religion

The following discounts are granted: Six 50 CP perks for free Four 100 CP perks Two 200 CP perks One 400 CP perk You gain +1000 CP stipend to spend solely on this section. Companions do not receive stipends or discounts for this section.
Adorcism [50] All spirits and supernatural entities view your adherents as people of interest, and never in a bad way. To these entities, your adherents are peculiar, harmless, and worthy of doting attention. Good-natured and indifferent spirits go out their way to help your adherents over matters of small convenience. Malicious spirits generally avoid your adherents wholesale, unless your adherent desire an encounter with one, in which case the malicious spirit will only have a neutral attitude at worst. Even devils, demons, and undead have neutral feelings to your adherents, whether or not they're capable of feeling in the first place. Whoever the spirits are, your adherents can make efforts to befriend them and form a friendship that is no less interesting than a friendship between normal living people. This perk is subverted for each adherent if the adherent intentionally acts offensively or harmfully to the entity somehow.
Adaptive [50] Your adherents won't ever convert to an entirely different faith, nor will they betray their virtues. They also know effective measures to practice their faith in secret, which can be useful if they're facing persecution. In such cases, their religious practices cannot be discovered by any investigative effort, and their faith won't ever deteriorate or die out across generations.
Armed Pilgrimages [50] All adherents do not have any difficulty expressing their language and intentions to each other and their allies. Additionally, cooperation between your adherents and their allies are always genuine, and all adherents actually invest themselves to supporting their faith. You can trust your adherents to never jeopardize a situation due to infighting.
Esotericism [50] Your adherents consider being knowledgeable as a virtue, and always go out their way to understand topics given to them. They need only a few seconds to formulate a well-thought judgment, and they can see through any logical errors in arguments or decision-making, whether it's from themselves or someone else. If you want, this won't ever go against the development of your faith.
Legalism [50] Your faithful adherents are intuitively knowledgeable about how the law should work. They are aware that precedents must be established and maintained, and that there is an order of things in regards to justice. As such, you may either have your adherents abide by legal codes strictly as written, or flexibly by interpreting the spiritual meaning of the text while accounting for their own personal morals and religious virtues.
Sacred Childbirth [50] Your adherents are familiar with modern practices pertaining to childbirth. Additionally, all pregnant adherents are intuitively aware of every stage of conception, pregnancy isn't physically apparent on the adherent (this is optional, you may also set conditions), pregnancy does not hinder their mobility, there are absolutely no complications from pregnancy and birth, childbirth is always painless, and the infant's birth takes only a few minutes. Each mother could easily go through the entire process by herself.

Alexandrian Catechism [100] Your adherents always think critically and objectively about any topic they're thinking of. As a result, they can instantly receive the full context and nuance of any conversation they're involved in, identify logical errors in arguments, and identify all efforts intended to mislead or control other people. This gives them the ability to see through all lies and forms of illusions. As a toggleable feature, this perk may not work against your faith or your organization.

Aniconism [100] Nothing can tamper, dilute, or otherwise nullify the magical capabilities of your faithful adherents, if they have any. This prevents adherents from losing the ability to cast any sort of magic and their spells won't ever get nullified by anti-magic sources, although it doesn't stop things like magical ice walls being melted down by fireballs.

Unrelenting Faith [100] Your adherents learn all martial-related things 2x faster and similar boosts can stack multiplicatively. This applies to learning things about combat, tactics, and strategy. You may restrict which aspects of these don't apply. Physical training is also 2x more efficient, their results cannot be lost due to time or disuse, and physical improvement never results in deteriorating health conditions, i.e. a bulked body won't increase the risks of heart failure but you can still tear your muscles from exercising the wrong way.
Warrior Priests [100] All your faith officials and leaders, such as priests, cardinals, imams and rabbis, learn martial abilities and hone their physical bodies 10x faster and similar boosts can stack multiplicatively. Their martial and physical capabilities cannot be lost due to time or disuse. They cannot injure themselves from over-exercising.

By the Sword [200] All your faith adherents are capable of physically interacting with ethereal or otherwise intangible entities just as effectively as normal people could to other normal people. Enchantments and magical abilities are not required. Spirits wounded this way may still regenerate from their wounds like normal people can, though spirits don't really have many options to perform healing other than magical or spiritual means. They normally bleed ectoplasm which acts as their lifeblood, and upon "death", the spirit disintegrates into the immaterial realm.
Ecclesiarchy [200] Your adherents are immune to all unconsented effects regarding spiritual and mental phenomena. Their souls cannot be tampered with in any way whatsoever, and their memories cannot be interfered with or read. You and your organization can still mess with their spirit and mind, even if they wouldn't consent. Additionally, deceased adherents that were once governed by your organization or have served within your organization can be resurrected by you if you have the power to do so. If people within your organization also have a similar power to resurrect them, they can do it too.
Reincarnation [400] All your adherents are capable of reincarnating after death. At default, they reincarnate as newborn human infants within the same culture, society, and organization. You may freely change or loosen conditions for where they reincarnate, thus allowing them to reincarnate in different places or perhaps outside of your organization. You may also change how they can reincarnate as, i.e. can be born in different cultural families, only born through a specific sapient race, reborn as an animal, or as other living organisms. The person's genealogy always fits the parents. Reincarnation isn't always immediate; it can take a while for a person to reincarnate, perhaps even longer depending on how strict the reincarnation criterias are and how often people are born. There's a queue for each reincarnating person, after all. Whether they retain full knowledge of their previous lives are up to you.
Saved from Damnation [400] Religious events hosted by your adherents have the profound effect of cleansing the souls of all participants by removing any ailments to the soul, restoring said souls to perfect condition, and granting them immunity to any malicious phenomena that could tamper or mess with their souls & minds without their consent. You and your organization alone have the power to tamper or mess with their souls and minds even without their consent. If the ailment was possession, the spirit is forcibly expunged. How the spirit is disposed of is up to you, and you may set conditions for which spirits are given different treatments. Total irreversible destruction of affected spirits is optional.

I will be adding some additional notes from the CK3 jump, but lets move on


The Dragons
Version?
1000
Mithral (-250): Technically native to the Astral Sea, Mithral dragons are the greatest of all Metallics, and are frequently employed by the gods as agents upon the material planes, though unfortunately their distance from the dealings of mortals leaves few records or much information available about them. They have an inherent, but random, ability to see divine visions of the future or the wills of the gods, which only grows more common as they age and gain more control over it. They are more than capable of teleporting short distances atwill and happily abuse this in combat. Their breath weapon is a blast of blindingly bright radiant energies. They are also immortal; no Mithral dragon will ever enter the Twilight.

Six Hundred Perk (Discount)

Arch-Dragon (-600): You ventured to one of the Planes or perhaps received a blessing from a deity aligned with one of the cosmic laws of morality or ethics. The exact nature of this blessing depends upon which blessing you have received. You may only take this once and must think about this carefully, as for the duration of the jump going against your chosen alignment in a significant manner will lose you everything here, and in addition to that restriction, you will also not be able to cast magic tied to the opposite alignment either (Law vs Chaos, Good vs Evil). All blessings have some details in common; you are immune to fear, polymorphing and disease, you can see through all illusions and invisibility, you may communicate telepathically with any creature within a hundred feet of you, and you become significantly more agile on the wing, approximately one and a half times as much as you previously were.

Law: Embracing the blessing of Law causes your scales to turn smoother and almost steely. Your breath weapon will be imbued with antimagic energies that cause anything your breath weapon touches to be shrouded in a lingering antimagic field for a while after it strikes – this is perfect for stripping magical blessings off dangerous opponents. You can also surround yourself in a blessing of pure Law that fills your enemies with a sense of terrible doom and snuffs out energy-based attacks.


Origin: Protector

Spoiler: Proctector Tree

Carpe Diem (-100): With such a great lifespan, it is extremely common for dragons to adopt a view on time that confuses and irritates other races. After all, to a dragon, vanishing for a few decades is barely any time at all, yet for a human it is a very significant chunk of their lifespan. Worse, when the friends of dragons are threatened, it is a common reaction to sit back and totally analyse the situation, which can take months or years, during which time a dragon's friends and allies can be lost. Not you. Your likely long association with mortals has ensured their attitudes towards time has rubbed off on you. You can be assured that no matter how long you live, you can retain a human attitude towards timeframes if you wish to.
No Parental Issues (-200): Most dragons recognise that raising the young to healthy adulthood is important for the continued existence of dragonkind. Even the most wicked dragon is intelligent enough to recognise that raising a functioning family helps cement their legacy and can ensure they have more of their kind to call upon during emergencies. You can raise your young just right and ensure they will retain fond memories of their time with you. This also applies to any young you might wish to adopt too.
The Land Rejoices (-400): It is known that many dragons are capable of laying dreadfully potent curses upon entire regions of the earth, scouring it of life and driving nations within it to ruin. It is lesser known that dragons who set themselves up as the protectors of regions can bless it in their own ways. What you protect will boom as long as you bother to focus on actually protecting it from danger. As if by magic, trade will flourish, harvest will be thick and heavy, and (internal) peace will reign. Just be wary that such wealth and prosperity may attract external attention.

Lair+600 Lair Points

Spoiler: Lair

Palatial Estate (-100): A favourite of the Lung dragons and Steel dragons, this makes your lair into a dragon-sized palace, with optional antechambers capable of fitting your vast size as well as large councils of nobles, ministers, or other dragons who seek to come to you for tribute. This is a palace fit for an emperor, as you no doubt are.
Flying (-200): By some mysterious means your lair floats above the earth and flies around at your will. This makes it much more difficult for terrestrial creatures to invade, though as most dragons can fly this will not offer any significant barrier to you. Optionally, you may choose to have your lair sitting atop a cloud, and this is a favourite of Silver dragons.
Egg Incubators (-100/-200): Dragon eggs are not particularly easy to incubate; a dragon that wishes to ensure their eggs will hatch must visit them regularly to breathe their breath weapon over to ensure the environment is comfortable for the wyrmlings, otherwise the eggs may never hatch at all. A single hour without ideal incubation conditions can be enough to kill the wyrmling within. Fortunately, eggs stored within this chamber will remain under ideal circumstances and result in the dragon hatching alive.
 For an extra 100 DP, you have a clutch of dragon eggs of your species to go with it. Initially you receive five eggs. After they hatch, the eggs will be replaced with a random number (from 2-5 eggs) that will again be replaced upon next hatching and so on, though you may indefinitely delay the new egg batch. Alternatively, you may choose to replace hatched eggs with dragon eggs of a species not inherently stronger than yours, if you want some variety in your hatchings. Be warned that attempting to raise dragons of famously opposed species (such as Red and Gold dragons) will require even more skill to avoid ending in tragedy.



Cult of the Dragon (-100): Dragons are some of the ultimate expressions of power and majesty. Many people come to venerate them as aspects of the divine, or even as living gods. Dragons, for their part, often find such fanatical dupes highly useful to their plans. Unlike other purchases here, your cult may have a headquarters in your lair, but is more specifically a subversive force capable of penetrating a whole kingdom at once. Your cult contains those who are capable of channeling divine magic, potentially in spite of your lacking divinity.

Dragon Guards (-150): Up to seven gold dragons of your age who prefer to shapeshift into canaries right up until their dragon nature is needed. They are loyal to you and will prefer to hang around you disguised as birds but ready to return to their original form and shit fury on anything that might dare to try to harm you.

A couple things, the Mithril Dragon is something of a variant state this will be relevant later but this is the Radiant fire breathing version not the mithril metal shard storm version. The Lair will not show up until after Ilthuliak is dead, so 4714

 

[Trek]

Pretty weak dragon compared to the good ones in the doc, though to actually buy the good ones it costs a lot of cp. No matter with mcs uncapper he can crush even time and stellar dragons as long as he does not waste his potential.

The theme of the dragon does fit the mc though.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Pretty weak dragon compared to the good ones in the doc, though to actually buy the good ones it costs a lot of cp. No matter with mcs uncapper he can crush even time and stellar dragons as long as he does not waste his potential.

The theme of the dragon does fit the mc though.

Click to shrink...

The theme is why mithril got picked, and frankly looking at the already written scenes Eire's dragon form is a metallic red when we get to Mendev at Armasse this will show up.

From a purely optimized standpoint yes Time would be great but I've made a point of not taking drawbacks.

Also imagining all the mistaken impressions potentially generated amuses me to no end. Thats not to say Mithril is necessarily bad but its somewhat unoptimized compared to potentially options

 

[Trek]

The theme is why mithril got picked, and frankly looking at the already written scenes Eire's dragon form is a metallic red when we get to Mendev at Armasse this will show up.

From a purely optimized standpoint yes Time would be great but I've made a point of not taking drawbacks.

Also imagining all the mistaken impressions potentially generated amuses me to no end. Thats not to say Mithril is necessarily bad but its somewhat unoptimized compared to potentially options

Click to shrink...

Maybe you should make a clean info post with all of mcs current and future perks clearly laid out. Right now its spread in what if info posts over multiple postings. Like his drow cyoa benefits, pathfinder kingmaker perks, CK3 perks, dragons perks, etc.

There are also a bunch of free dragon perks you are missing from the dragon doc.

Edit: does mc get the negatives of Arch-Dragon(no reverse spells, go against your 'moral' and loose all the power etc) or is it considered post jump as perk and thus does not have those negatives anymore?

Based on mcs religion perks alone his god would instantly sponsor mcs godhood if he knew about mc or actually was the source of mcs power, those benefits are massive. This will help a lot if mc becomes a faith based god. Though it may still be helpful even if mc becomes strong enough to rival gods with his uncapper as if there is a religion made about him the followers will get all those perk benefits anyway.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Yes, I will post a power set thing, and on that front one of things I'm doing is that not all of the powers come into effect all at once, see most recently the lair comment, but in the mean time I come to share maps

Not by me. Yeah the Campaign Carographer besides just not having the time is still taking some effort to work with, but

Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uKH9IAYM8ER6_jo2YtwQ9527OoRjRWwc This goes to the stolen lands over all

Zimmonius has done some really cool maps: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/yd3yiz/kingmaker_2e_mapproject/

 

[Imperator Pax]

27 Sarenith 4713AR
The Summer Solstice was the longest day of the year and one celebrated by numerous churches and faiths. That meant the disturbance had been noticed quickly. People of course took note of the odd development of snows in summer.


The 'disturbance' being the sudden formation of portals of cold and ice, and with winter fey abounding through them... well Eire had initially just assumed that this was some First World catastrophe and was to be dealt with like every other mess the first world tried to inflict on his realm.

... having human prisoners to interrogate who weren't cultists or druids or such... forced a reevaluation of that initial assumption. He wasn't sure if that made things simpler, or more complicated that this crisis did not involve the first world. It also forced him to reconsider any efforts to hunt down and destroy the black wyrm Ilthuliak in the face of a much more immediate threat.

The call had already been issued to alert the garrisons of the other towns, but not to summon the army... or to attempt to assemble a general levy. They didn't have enough information yet... and from the look at the way the snows were limitted really to just the immediate vicinity of the portal, and was largely not sticking to the ground he suspected that this attack, this invasion had not contended with the realms closeness to the first world. The summer months and the summer sun held winter at bay... so perhaps they were lucky that this incursion came at midsummer.

Still they would need to be on guard against any further portals. Thus they stood here with the Irrisseni invaders bound in cold iron manacles in front of the portal in soggy grassy from melted snow.

He wondered if they couldn't do something ridiculous like reverse the polarity and force summer's fire through to this realm of eternal winter but one thing at a time. "Kean?" He asked the fey touched frost giant.

"It will be much colder on the other side." The giant nodded his head sagaciously. Amiri scoffed at this word of caution, but it was a valid point for those who had not been born in the far north such as the land of the mammoth lords, but Irrisen was a land unlike the Mammoth lords it was a land abounding with winter fey and in the grip of supernatural cold.

... from Eire had been told he was almost jealous of the degree of magic Baba Yaga had wrought to transform her kingdom ... from the ulfen kingdom before, but regardless of how impressed he was by the magic there was war to wage against Baba Yaga's daughter for this intrusion into his realm. The thoughts were punctuated by the drumming of his fingers along the stonework of the taldan fortification of the woods. "We can hold this side, and we will move from there." The Taldan explorers of probably of the fifth army of exploration given the bones and equipment of the dead buried here originally had had a small fortified camp here one more watch tower and small settlement abandoned and left fallow after Taldor's decline. It was functionally identical to Garry's patch of Taldoran stone work with little apparent care for the flow of magic and leylines... or maybe they'd all been built for that purpose... no notes nor records survived to explain the Taldan reasoning for their actions.

He supposed that would be one more thing to do... when there wasn't a threat of invasion hanging over them. Eire eyed the pulsing barrier of cold and then looked at the huntsmen. The fey nodded and lept across the border.

They'd follow soon, there were a few things to do first. Once they were across they would secure the other side using magic like create stone, and fabricate spells. The other side of hte portal lead into the so called hoarwood forest ... or at least on the fringes of the greet sea of trees that was Irrisen's largest forest. Indeed that was likely to put them within reach of the Irrisen border with the land of the Mammoth lords as well.
--
Kean's warning was well made. Eire was glad he'd put on the merino wool baselayers he'd brought from Earth to keep him warm... and it suggested to him a need to focus on raising sheep with such fine fibers for the realm once all of this was handled.

Smoldering eyes burned within the helm. The lord of the hunt rested a hand on his longsword. The wild hunt monarch was different than the usual sort. His features more draconic. Instead of green eyes or birdlike wings with leaves instead of feathers they showed wreathed scales and red full pupils. They had emerged near Tiressia's grove at New Colton soon after the Irrisen portal, and had ridden down the winter fey who had come from the land of eternal winter.

He didn't intend to depend on them. They had agreed to fight Irrisen's winter fey, and if attacked by Irrisen's other forces to retaliate but Eire was operating under the assumption that the specification of winter fey would leave them fighting the humans, and presumably most of whatever monstrous allies Irrisen's witch nobility had at their command. Cold iron flaming longswords waited for that battle, whether giants, or trolls, or winter wolves.

He looked over at the snowbanks as summer heat blew through the portal, and then through the pine needles and the hunters were away. Staring through magically augmented sight Eire felt a degree of change in his opinion... Baba Yaga's work was impressive, yes. That part of his opinion hadn't changed, but this was a land that fundamentally a magically dominated tyranny. For some inscrutable reason, or simply because, he couldn't be sure.

The nearest place of governance was about thirty miles to the north sitting on this side of the river. It was time to go find the local leadership, and express most strenuously their objections their Queen of Irrisen's intrusion into his lands. They left the stone carvers the handful of dwarven spellcasters to work their magic, leaving the tree line behind they began the advance to Kizobran to the north east.

Unlike Brevoy, or Narland it was hard to adequately describe Irrisen's settlement patterns. The lack of proper seasons effecting cultivation, traditional agriculture represented something well beyond what he'd thought... so Kizobran sitting along the river made sense... but that it was smaller than he'd expected. "Tradesmen?" He questioned.

"So it seems." Jaethal agreed.

"Try to keep them alive." He replied eyed the traffic along the banks of the Gullik river. He wondered if the Irrisen had known to follow the river when they had marched to launch their attempted attack on New Colton, they seemed at least to be well acquainted with riverine trade if not agriculture.

Jaethal nodded and directed his attention to the local church of Pharasma. He was actually surprised to see a temple to the Lady of Graves, but then supposed he shouldn't have been. He exhaled a breath, that was almost flame in heat. Snow turned to steam. She ignored it and gestured to another building

The construction looked new-ish, and in comparison to other buildings expensive, or at least less slapdash and dilapidated. The gingerbread style housing, as he thought of them, that was the norm of structures here in Irrisen were a sharp contrast. All the homes had gates around their enclosures. A pattern of decoration that followed from larger high status homes down to the small peasant dwellings in the worst condition.

Brevoy had a degree of distinction in architecture. Predominance of timber construction aside, Brevoy's houses varied with social status it was a feudal culture with multiple classes of people, but it was not serfdom. Irrisen was a nation of serfs.

He curled his hand and recited the poem in draconic. Flashes of red and white erupted in the pale gray skies as orbs of flame heralded the appearance of elder fire elementals... and in doing so, in expanding if temporarily his own forces, even putting aside the logistics of how they had gotten here, through a magic portal, was another demonstration of how Golarion, How Northern Avistan was not a copy of medieval Europe.

... at least not identical to Earth it wasn't. Eire recognized that he was a medieval potentate in many of the ways that mattered, but also that he was closer to being an absolute monarch those the majority of those kings of western europe and not because he happened to be the most powerful magic user in the realm.

His eyes narrowed in on the local place of concentrated political, aristocratic power... it was time to pay the local baroness a visit, and express his distaste at her liege's behavior. Once the local situation had been secured... then he would have to figure out what they were going to do from here.
--
Notes: I swear I'm missing a section, but I can't find it, but this takes us into the events of the snows of summer where Elvanna of Irrisen decides in addition to being smacked by the good idea fairy of betraying her mother (which is suicidal but understandable) to simultaneously provoke a fight with all the other realms of Avistan and presumably those of Casmarron, Tian Xia and the Garund (plus the other continents but yeah).

 

[Wargamer08]

Seriously what was her plan? Just portal around to a bunch of different kingdoms and home none of them have someone that can track me down and kick my ass? What does she even gain for the raids?

 

[Imperator Pax]

Seriously what was her plan? Just portal around to a bunch of different kingdoms and home none of them have someone that can track me down and kick my ass? What does she even gain for the raids?

Click to shrink...

Oh it wasn't just intended to be raids she was going for full on WORLD DOMINATION!1

Supposedly in canon she was going to engulf golarion into the same magical winter as irrisen

as if that wouldn't among other things result oh I don't know, a crusade (and she canonically planned to target mendev last so she knew she wasn't all powerful and wanted to leave the demon fighting army there), a draconic conclave of probably frankly reds and golds (we know in canon that there are reasonable red dragon elders) setting irrisen on fire, Taldan Cheliax, and their other rivals either independently going through the portals bypassing all of irrisen's defenses or having them show up with extraplanar support to kick irrisen in.

Like thats why I figure as an Adventure Pack Reign of Winter , while cool probably chronologically only lasts about a season where Wrath of the righteous takes place over the course of several years (culminating in the world wound closing in 4718).

and I like some ofreign of winter's expanded lore but Elvanna's plan is 'i'm going to fight everybody' and we'll see why thats a bad idea during this brief excursion.

 

[Wargamer08]

Oh it wasn't just intended to be raids she was going for full on WORLD DOMINATION!1

Supposedly in canon she was going to engulf golarion into the same magical winter as irrisen

as if that wouldn't among other things result oh I don't know, a crusade (and she canonically planned to target mendev last so she knew she wasn't all powerful and wanted to leave the demon fighting army there), a draconic conclave of probably frankly reds and golds (we know in canon that there are reasonable red dragon elders) setting irrisen on fire, Taldan Cheliax, and their other rivals either independently going through the portals bypassing all of irrisen's defenses or having them show up with extraplanar support to kick irrisen in.

Like thats why I figure as an Adventure Pack Reign of Winter , while cool probably chronologically only lasts about a season where Wrath of the righteous takes place over the course of several years (culminating in the world wound closing in 4718).

and I like some ofreign of winter's expanded lore but Elvanna's plan is 'i'm going to fight everybody' and we'll see why thats a bad idea during this brief excursion.

Click to shrink...

So the plan really was declare war on the whole planet, something, something, eternal winter. Well fuck around, find out I guess.

 

[Imperator Pax]

The Mythkeeper has released a new video, that I have not at this time had time to watch, covering Northeast Avistan - Mendev, Brevoy & Iobaria, which I will admit is sort of emblematic of the problem from my perspective. Mendev by itself is the site of not just a major adventure path but many separate smaller self contained adventures beyond just wrath of the righteous, Iobaria is basically flat out early medieval Russia in scope in many respects, and well, Brevoy really needs its own source book.

His video is thusly reposted here:

 

[Imperator Pax]

28 Sarenith 4713AR
The peasants of Kizobran had not dealt with an invasion in living memory. It had not been since the reign of the previous baron and baroness that their homes had been seriously threatened by hostile armies from beyond Irrisen's borders... and for good reason Irrisen's first line of border defenses were magical huts and and enchanted dolls, which the unwary might have scoffed at. The only potential danger were those coming overland and penetrating their security by luck and in small bands or being predated upon by the natural predators of Irrisen itself.

Predators that were keeping their heads low, and their presence shy under the angry burning sky above them.

By opening magical portals in the hoarwood forest the reigning Queen of Irrisen had sacrificed those prepared defenses allowing a foreign host, the first of what were to be several, never mind the many adventuring parties besides, to pour into the province bypassing the traditional defenses and along not just Kizobran but Waldsby, Ludovny and Dammartorp, Veshtak and Sosulka to all be threatened for the first time in ages. Never mind the prospect of them all being threatened simultaneously by separate forces.

Kizobran was typical of Irrisen settlements. It was only perhaps seven hundred, if that, souls. A dozen giants, seventy odd priests and armingers, and a collection of supporting forces were enough to shatter the defenders in a head on confrontation once the fire elementals had streamed down from the sky without winter fey to contend with.

They had taken a hillside near the river overlooking the town. Eire saw no more of the wild hunt fey, but he saw no trace of the winter fey other than their cold iron sundered corpses. Shaoyu exhaled a burst of black flecked flames in challenge. A challenge that was unmet. Resistance had ceased.

Brother Vaclav bowed, "Your majesty, Lady Mouri has wheeled to contend with a hag, she should only be momentarily delayed."

Hags were an unnatural phenomenon. They were twisted warpings of changelings. They were created by the ritualistic mutilation of changeling daughters by foul magic. It perhaps there for unfair, or presumptive, but hags were too often an irredeemable evil. Given the nature of irrisen he was not going to question the knight of trident's actions without reason.

If this had been within his own domain, or even within his neighbors perhaps Eire would have considered wanting an accounting... but not at the moment... and more than likely if Mouri was dispatching a hag in the field... it was because the creature had clear and damning evidence in its lair of malignant actions. At least he hoped that was the case.

"The barrier is weakening."

He nodded, even as the wall of force waned. A magical item most likely, not a true artifact, but some sort of temporary protection. Nor was it some specific feature built into the construction. It was a desperate attempt to hold out in expectation that some kind of aid was forthcoming... aid that clearly wasn't

The local jadwiga, the prisoners taken of the officers of rank had never had to contend with a serious foreign invasion. The almost universally silver blonde malfoy look as he thought of them had been surprised , shocked astonished even at the prospect of taking a frontal assault by heavy infantry a largely alien experience to the proud, arrogant lordlings.

"I doubt the baroness was expecting this."

"They will kneel or kneel in pieces." Shaoyu declared raising her nose in the air and crossing her arms over her chest. It might have worked better if her human form was taller.

He regarded the milling captives, and then turned to his ward. The young dragoness was right, though and speaking of Dragoness. Wings glittered in sunlight as Eranex swept down from the wide circle of flight she'd made over the river dancing through the sky into the land of the mammoth lords where they had pitched a secondary camp encircling the city temporarily. The silver dragon resumed half elf form.

The fey touched dragon looked at the failing wards. If the baroness had been intending to outlast them it wasn't working out that way. "There is no sign of Irrisen reinforcements forthcoming." That was good news that the settlement had no obvious sign of aid forthcoming.
--
Eire stared up at the sky, and not down to his muddy boots. He felt the pull of the first world. The nearness of it as it tugged at his very presence. Whatever magic that kept Irrisen in its eternal winter was it seemed to him tied to the first world... and if guessed correctly...

... then it was possible to roll back the winter by defeating the winter witches... something he expected the current queen either hadn't known... or hadn't really contemplated as being a reality... but as it was the hoarwood was experiencing... or at least this part of it was experiencing its first summer in literal centuries... and the summer sun was melting frost, and taiga... and though the woods were too wet and soaked by moisture to burn...

... the same was not true of seems of methane gas as wildfires ripped through the soil, and tore through the landscape. The chemical fueled firestorm was summer vengeance after fourteen hundred years of absence. The result was not just the wildfires, it was also an oppressive humidity that had replaced the cold. It was even in his opinion unpleasant, but was malevolent hell to anyone who had never known summer.

The Irriseni peasants, and especially their jadwiga overlords languished under the heat... any surviving winter fey were probably even worse off as summer made itself known too all around. To that extent though it was here in the open air beneath the great expanse of the sky and in this heat that Eire found himself holding court over the defeated population.

He turned a half step, looked over the horrible flooding that the gullik river was undergoing and sighed. Brother Vaclav had attempted to assemble something approaching appropriate to hold open air court... but that had largely fallen to the wayside. Most people here spoke either skald or less commonly Hallit... not that he was particularly prepared to address anyone in sylvan or giant even if there was a population to address.

They had a more pressing problem anyway than the crowd's inability to converse he intended to fix that with magic, though he'd be giving the speach in Draconic, but the truth was... they could not leave these peasants here in Irrisen. They had already been petitioned by a hidden priest of Milani to carry the population away... that the White Witches of Irrisen and Queen Elvanna would likely exterminate them rather than have it get out that foreign invaders had swept aside the border land and broken winter's hold...especially given what Elvanna was attempting to do to the rest of Golarion.

Other petitioners wanted them to push forward invade and drive a blade of summer's heat, regardless of how much the Irriseni peasants suffered under its sudden onset, into the cold bleak heart of Irrisen as a kingdom.

Eire was not prepared to march on the ducal seat, nor the Royal Palace at White throne to the north west. He didn't have those kinds of resources, he didn't have that kind of army, but given this sort of threat being mounted... he was already considering the prospect of having to revise his plans for a permanent standing army... but not today.

He looked over the several hundred Irriseni ranging from the peasants to the militia to the changeling witch who was their ruler, and in a corona of solar fire, and draconic malice he made his introduction. "We are Eire of Shrikewall, sovereign of Narhold." Pine trees cracked and burst into flame as their sap combusted as he outlined precisely how pissed off he was at having his domain invaded and this foolhardy attempt to turn summer into winter.

That speechifying though was posturing. It was a statement of discontent as much for his own vassals as it was if the Irresseni noble carried word to her duchess, or to her queen or to anyone really. They could not remain here indefinitely So as the long span of the sun through the sky approached its end, and night approached they continued to prepare.

Since they were going to abscond with more or less the sum of the population they were taking everything that more or less wasn't nailed down. That was something of an exaggeration, but if it had writing on it, if it was a book, a chart, a ledger, a map they'd take it with them. If there were goods they would take those too. He wanted to know more about Irrisen but he was also leery of what to do, and about the necessity of returning to the River kingdoms through the portal.

They would maintain a foothold in Irrisen for the time being, but... but he was still weighing what to do from here. In the mean time for the first time in fourteen hundred years, the summer sun beat down on the necks of the Irrisenni populace bathing the land in a humid heat.
--
Notes: The events of Snows of Summer is relatively short and we mostly will be focusing on its knock on effects rather than the fairly limitted military threat that Irrisen poses .... because Elvanna's plan is more or less attack all the major kingdoms of the inner sea and a bunch of minor realms at the same time and equally so Eire can't just march on Irrisen's capital of Whitethrone, and certainly not within a few days of the portals appearing.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Erastus 4713AR
He had had no shortage of petitioners even before leaving for to invade Irrisen. It was simply part of rulership. The line had only grown as a result of his brief absence. That applied to both domestic petitioners and foreign complaints. He'd actually been a little surprised that there hadn't been Irriseni petitioners on taking Kizobran, but some discussion on that subjected had revealed... well the reality of how the Jadwiga ruled, which was ... not benevolently to put it mildly.

The 'new culture' that ruled pitax, that of Castruccio Iorvetti, hadn't introduced olive oil cooking. It had always existed because it was originally a taldan cuisine choice. Modern Pitax, before Iorvetti, had not placed the same ... snootiness on the Taldan throwback's importance. Pitax had the current climate to support either form of cooking; butter or oil. It was on the far western fringe of the Rostlandic plain and was warm enough to support olive cultivation, but olives were vulnerable to cold. Pitax rarely saw snow within its southern lands and major communities... so the sudden Irrissen incursion was very likely a problem for haute coture food production.

He might have cared a bit more about the complaints of the merchants and travelers if there weren't more pressing concerns. That the olive trees might die was unfortunate, but he had other matters to contend with so he sent the men away. Probably for the best as the next petitioners were the ones that sparked a change from derision and skepticism to over the border hostility.

The supernatural heat from the young dragoness warmed the hall, despite the high ceilings that would ordinarily have abated summer's heat. "That's enough Shaoyu," He chided standing. "Welcome to Narland." He was careful not to take his eyes off the winter witch, but they were holding this conversation in common.

There was a curtsey, and an introduction. The newcomer introduced herself as the countess Bozena, of a domain called Bosorka. The winter witch sighed straightened and looked, tired, as she attempted to explain the situation in broad strokes. "My mother has taken leave of her senses. She has rebelled against my grandmother, even now has demonstrated this foolishness by chaining her travelling home, and impaling the bodies of her retainers," She actually used a Russian word, boyar, which caused Eire to pause at its loan into Taldan, and presumably Skald. "and those loyal to Baba Yaga. Even discounting that this is suicide with extra steps, she has also declared war on all other relams of Avistan. A war that Irrisen cannot and never could feasibly win."

For fourteen hundred years Irrisen had managed a foreign policy of trade, but guarded borders facilitated by feudal armies and magical sentries. Simply put Irrisen could fight the linnorm kings and perhaps overland armies from the Inner Sea...

"But by opening these portals Irrisen can no longer trade land for time, and allow winter to have its way on the unwary." Eire wasn't ignorant that fighting Irrisen directly would have required him to take the field. He had already done so intermittently ... but he didn't need to point out that if he could secure a portal, and anchor it to the other side.. then Cheliax and Qadira could certainly could, and they had the manpower to launch an invasion through the portals and march on Whitethrone. Either one of them could... and Elvanna had declared war on all of the great powers of Golarion from the sound of it.

What the Countess Bozena of Bosorka did not want was to be put in between her mother or grandmother, or for that matter a war her mother had instigated. To the point of leading an exodus to the portal near Kizobran with seemingly her entire domain on a ship down the river having apparently lied to those she passed that the fall of Kizobran was the reason for the movement of people... given the apparent crisis in the capital of white throne no one had questioned her. Baroness Wilimina of Coldwater had allowed them to pass unmolested on the way down the river. He was a little surprised that Irrisen did not have internal passport controls, but perhaps they were too simple a feudal society to develop such an idea... or perhaps questioning one of the queen's daughters , even one in nominal disgrace, was deemed foolish.

Whatever the case for fourteen hundred years Irrisen had seen a succession of rulers every century, and Baba Yaga had replaced each daughter in turn and taken with their mother her first generation. All things considered Bozena's fears seemed rather merited even without truly concrete ... her unwillingness to involve herself in a rebellion that seemed unlikely to succeed in the first place was clearly self preservation
On the other hand he was quite intrigued that Bozena had been allowed to bring her people down the river. Elvanna was it seemed too busy to respond to either their incursion but word had spread... streaks of the hoarwood forest were ablaze where foreign invaders had thrust through portals the queen had opened.

Soldiers from forest portals in Cheliax, and indeed the other kingdoms of note in the Inner Sea had come through across the duchy bypassing natural, and witch wrought defenses at the kingdom's borders and attacked the winter realm. Where Winter Witches, or the authority of Elvanna was defeated and put aside by invaders Summer broke through as it had when they had done as much. The Jadwiga Elvanna, and the rest of Irrissen's ruling class did not know how to react to the development.

So no one had seen fit to stop here. The portal was a gateway to freedom far from her mother, or her grandmother. What she could not offer was a way to close the portal.

"I speculate only defeating my mother might yield a way to do so, at least to defeat her entire scheme."

Which would presumably entail marching all the way to the Irriseni capital and putting it to the sword... something he did not have the resources for... no. He would have to hold what they held already and once other responsibilities were taken care of pool his resources with the other attacked nations to consider what needed to be done to resolve this.

Besides, as things stood Amiri seemed to be quite enjoying the prospect of managing the garrison on the Irriseni side of the border with a small rotating party of guards and fighters from across the realm.
--
Once the offer of bread and salt, and drinks as well were exchanged Elvanna's daughter was shown away and Eire returned his attention to the matter of the Pitaxian food shortage... or possible food shortages. It was not news that he particularly liked to hear.

If it proved only to be a problem for their olive trees then so much the better, but if it struck their wheat harvests for later in the year... then there would be a much bigger problem. He wouldn't be surprised if given tensions with Pitax any grain merchants attempted to take advantage of the situation from the brevic side of the border... but maybe Pitax could afford that.

If there was one thing Iorvetti did seem competent at it was maintaining bread and circuses for the masses... his people probably wouldn't starve. So assured of that much at least he could turn towards other matters. For the past several months there had been a pointed guard for and investigations of the technic league's activities and that would probably need to be maintained.

Brother Petros bowed, the chelish cleric was filling in for Brother Vaclav today who was at Hereford supervising the church faithful's efforts to redouble the defenses of the originally elven settlement. "A true implement befitting imperial power your majesty." The muscular war priest remarked as they walked the length of the drydock.

If you didn't know what you were looking at it would have been a ridiculous statement to make... but Petros wasn't brown nosing. The opposite the chelish cleric of Iomedae very much meant what he said, and had a conviction of steel...

... and in hindsight with good reason. When he'd started this project, leaving aside well magic he hadn't stopped to consider that most of Golarion, outside of the anachronistic windjammers... indeed with her gold writing on her prow Enterprise more resembled the later than the manowars of the chelish navy.

That she had over a dozen meters in length on a notable chelish manowar was another reason for Petros's favorable impression. That was because the manowars of the inner sea the great warships for the most topped out at sixty meters Enterprise at a fixed measure of ship eighty five... of course that came at a trade off.

Enterprise had been a learning experience for craftsmen. The alchemically treated wood and metal gave her hull and frame strength, but she was a mix of the two, built around a large and complex magical arcanotech engine, and supported by a complex crew.

She had no fixed weapons either... magical siege weapons could be carried but they were likely to be awkward as hell to actually use ... he hadn't seriously contemplated the idea of firing down on a target especially given the idea of doing so accurately.

The space taken by the need of the greenhouse holding the mana plant, and the motive force that gave the ship flight meant she actually had less space for people and cargo than a smaller chelish manowar... but she could fly.

He excused himself to go see what Jaethal wanted. The undead elf inquisitor had a responsibility towards well as he would have thought of it as internal security in the sense of counter espionage but as secretary in the classical sense of the medieval and early modern period Jaethal's role as a member of the council involved the inherent position of legitimacy of the government.

That included a lot of things ranging from public opinion management, surveying of what was going on in the countryside, but there were also internal economic components. Mostly because merchants were also basically spies often enough. Jaethal was also responsible for inspectors to make investigate other potential, maybe not criminal offenses but at least things that might be internally disruptive, and keep tabs on such thing.

This combination of both sorts of activities and other responsibilities meant, required something that was not adhoc, though they were not quite to uniform civil service tables yet either. The realities of the narlmarch meant that in addition to various eldritch tinkerers and scoundrels Jaethal required archaeologists and archivists , which wasnt new information but with the disturbance from Irrisen it did prompt her to contend with other issues.

There could be no questioning that the Tiger Lords had been becoming more active, that was evidenced by them operating as far afield in small travelling bands as the Dunsward, but more than that Eire had only been monarch for under a year. That was to say the actual pronouncement of kingship rather than lesser recognition as a sovereign if minor power. Eire did not like the river freedoms per se, the sixth river freedom was in practice much too close in his opinion to justifying brigandage and he didn't like not being able to levy tolls and taxes... he not fully dismissed them, but if the growth of the realm continued he intended to reiterate the dragon law's supremacy in written form to any traditions crafted further south that he had not been party too.

He nodded, "I suppose some degree of criminality is to be expected," Some of the bandits were probably just desperate but that was not excusable. He might have liked to spare Amvarean, but, "I will ask the clergy to provide labor for patrols in the west where possible, but thank you for bringing it to my attention."

"The Narlmarches aren't the center of royal agriculture. They could be just bandits, but it could be our neighbors or their agents."

"Either way you're correct that you'll need more manpower." He replied. He was glad, he doubted Amiri, or Ocatvia, or Regongar would have considered asking for more manpower... and there were days he worried Garess might not think he needed more manpower to tackle a problem.
--
Notes: Well I hit up my local game store and picked up the print edition of Book of the Dead it looks interesting... buying physical media for gaming is painful (then again buying physical media for academic purposes is painful).

 

[Imperator Pax]

Erastus 4713
He had to write a memorandum. It was part and parcel of rule to explain things to the community at large. He didn't necessarily have to do it personally but there needed to be an official government accounting for why something had happened. It was just in this case he was doing more than affixing the royal seal on such matters.

The freak weather, no more a more accurate description the magical attack by Irrisen's ruling Queen was a problem. It seemed that as long as they maintained a foothold on the other side winter was kept in abeyance. That so long as they were occupying Irrisen's side of the portal Winter let go, retreating to a more natural passage of the seasons. That had probably hadn't been the ruling queen's intention, but it required them to hold a position lest they have to contend with summer snows.

There were other reasons. Irrisen was as much touched by the first world as his own lands. He could not permit the malevolent winter fey leave to cross the border. The portal though was inviting fey attention though from the denizens of the Narlmarches, and presumably from the first world. It was a headache that he had tasked Jubilost to keep track of, as possible. To be fair though Tiressia and Melianase would be assisting in that committee but there was the whole usual normal summer matters of the realm that needed to be handled.

The processing of erecting a kingdom was toil. In the medieval calendar and for that matter in the frontiersman calendar the summer was arguably the most active portion of construction. Most of the flooding associated with spring thaws had abated, and thus for the majority of human history in the northern third ish of the world this was the predominant construction season following into fall interrupted really only by the necessary agricultural duties.

There were immigrants who migrated north on the promise of being homesteaders. Much as settlers of the New World had in the early 19th​ century had to settle on the promise of the midwest. There was no travel across the ocean, and unlike the 19th​ century fledgling republic he didn't have that benefit of such a large pond. Eire would have liked that. There were other migrants though. The rule of House Thrune was only part of the motivation for religious migration.

On earth the Qing dynasty had instituted internal passports, and relied on language to isolate their possessions to a degree from influence. It wasn't a perfect solution but by restricting foreigners to entreports, and discouraging the learning of the Chinese language and generally created a system of bureaucracy designed to frustrate foreign relations the Qing had been able to buttress their rule over China. There was nothing like that on Golarion that he'd been able to determine from what Eire understood of Tian Xia as a continental landmass they had splintered into some kind of internal civil war or into disparate kingdoms... there were immigrants from Tian Xia but significantly less than those from the Inner Sea.

Whatever t he case there were plenty of places with plenty of reasons where immigration was possible so long as there was somewhere that could exercise a 'pull' factor. The River Kingdoms even without the river freedoms would have had a hard time enforcing border controls outside of very narrow geographic confines at least in a continuous manner.

Eire had the advantage that riverine traffic directed up the Sellen Network and to Candlemere and Shrikewall. Anyone wanting to immigrate into the kingdom from afar had no reason to avoid coming to the kingdom's center of governance, especially the religious followers of lawful deities. It wasn't perfect, and it formed the second intersection of the population administration.

Simply put not everyone migrating were pioneer types looking to carve out their own family homestead on the frontier. Those people who were needed to be settled in new farming communities, but there were other people who were migrating for other reasons and preferred living in towns.

That was useful, more useful than farmstead homes and settlers really, because Eire had structured the baronial farms with the intention of producing on an 18th​ and even early 19th​ century protocol of agriculture in terms of crops. The multiple fields system was ingrained at the original baronial conception steel moldboard plows as well. That meant being able to better support the townships that were growing east west laterally around the kingdom.

There in was the dominant focus of his summer court. He didn't have to worry about individual peasants needing to be directed to gather or harvest things... that would have been patently unmanageable. Indeed he had to rely on Oleg, Roy, and Amvarean, and so on to manage smaller fiefdoms. It was just a division of labor matter. Much as how the council was a division of labor. The Twins, and Valerie, and Amiri and Jaethal had different responsibilities.

Eranex shifted, she was in a humanoid form of her own, the same one she had confronted the ghostly fae frost giant that her patron goddess had exiled from her own realm. "My sister is verily pleased with the progress of goddly knights, the stewardship of the land." The half fae silver dragon remarked, and he was pleased to hear it.

Besides Candlemere Amvarean's domain upon the Lake was perhaps the most directly accessible portions of the realm from Shrikewall. It was also suitable as a location to cultivate the mana plants native to the first world, and given Amvarean's nature well Kyonin's elves were unlikely to do more than grumble. Amvarean knew her share of elves after all. It might not be enough in the long run Jaethal admitted that Kyonin was often slow to make decisions, but if they did... well they'd deal with any pressure from the elves when it came.

"And not to dissuade from that but I feel it would be best to contend with the Road of Shields, and its restoration."

"We do not have the labor to spare for it."

They didn't. There were too many other things going on this summer. Even with just the crusade, but if what they understood was correct, and Harrim was convinced, "There should be, the adamantine shield fortress, near the temple o the elk somewhere in the North Narlmarches." The Silver Shield fortress was in the Dire Narlmarches, further to the west, and the bronzeshield fortress had been Hargulka's temporary residence in the south. There were an unknown number of watchtowers dotting the landscape. There were references to a Gold Shield, and an Iron Shield fortress though the general consensus was that given the dwarven maps of the Shield wall the fortresses all built on their side of the border not Drelev's. That was probably simple natural geography the slough was not suitable to the dwarven deep underground mining.

Or, for that matter their halls.
--
Valerie walked the open boulevards of the capital's high district. If Maestro Penrod's theory was right the plateau had probably been settled by the ancient cyclops but well have had even earlier settlers, and when they were gone ... when the earth fall had happened eventually the Taldan had reused the sight. Only parts survived from those ancient epochs.

The Stolen Lands remained wild and untamed, but the connection of cities was slowly welding the realm into an actual kingdom. Not necessarily in the ways she would have expected it. Valerie had expected... well not necessarily an idealized frontier life but one where she might have been a bit more hands on in contesting goblin hordes, driving off orcish raiders.

Regardless of the charter laid out, recognized by the sword lords she had been realistic enough to know that the barony would have to carve out somewhere in the wilderness. A place with ready access to timber and farmlands, erect a hall, as they had done, and perhaps raise a motte and bailley castle once they had time. Seizing the Stag Lord's fort which had been built on ancient ruins had saved them time yes, but there were other factors. She would have made little consideration of the ancient ruins. Maegar's Varnhold was really what she had expected.

Instead she was here, standing in a city that could have been mistaken for having always been here. The Fortress Shrikewall had been built by giantish labor. That was true even of the interior where a dozen slag giants had made a steel interior frame of beams to support the structure, and plastered around the beams supporting the roof with high arches. It had a sort of timelessness to it that awed her former coreligionists.

Those same Sheylnites took the same myriad of forms as filled the kingdom. They ranged from non Iomedae worshipping halflings like Linzi, to Tian people who had brought tea and mulberry trees, there were others, like the storm giants who worshipped her as Syriss, and there were the Sthenos that Sheylyn herself seemed to have directed to migrate to the kingdom.

Her former mentor had claimed his majesty had the ear of the divine. Even now as Irreseni escaped through their side of the portal to freedom they spoke of Summer in mythical hushed terms, and the chains of winter being forced to give. That was she supposed miraculous. Jubilost made, however obnoxious the gnome was, an equally compelling point that it might well have been a facet of the ties monarchs had symbolically with the first world.

She wondered if monarchs were tied to the other planes if that was what had befallen the Rogavaria if that was how the House of the Dragon had disappeared so suddenly, and so completely. She was not however a wizard, or a scholar of the arcane, and her religious upbringing had never entailed contemplating such things.

Maestro Pendrod had no explanation either, but he had said that from the historical record of Iobaria that Choral had only been one of many great Iobarian war leaders and kings with dragon allies. Though not nearly as academic in his reply Kundal had agreed that great kings, in the Kellid Numeria sense, reckoned their warriors to include dragons and giants. At least with the latter Amiri agreed such was the case for the distant kellids of the lands of the Mammorth Lords.

She heard an argument and spied one of the, frankly annoying, street preachers who was embroiled in most likely one of Pendrod's colleagues from Taldor over apparently how something translated from draconic. The blonde, ulfen, wizard seemed very annoyed by the mistranslation of whatever it was, and Valerie felt the need to intervene before the street preacher potential made this more of a scene.

She strode forward and interrupted the two arguing men.

The ulfen wizard straightened and regarded the disheveled street preacher from the side of his eyes, "This one apologizes for such disturbance, I am Mitharius and am returning from a mission for your sovereign." The wizard replied in draconic.