Update - January 1, Year 1
Orders
Dominic
- Hire Staff
- Train Flesh Sorcery (new applications)
- Research Corzu
Bialas
- Raise Troops (Spearmen)
Jaroslaw
- Explore Corzu
Traian
- Study Account Books
Footmen
- Split Squad (half accompany Jaroslaw, half garrison Corzu Keep)
Minor Actions
- Send letters to neighbors to inform them of your presence and begin arranging to ride the borders this spring.
Decisions:
[X] Hard work for good pay. (Carrot and stick)
[X] Hire only the most qualified candidates you can find for each position. Staff is vital.
[X] Stock the cellar with enough food to last for a couple of weeks. (Cost: 6 SP)
[X] Get four private bedrooms refurbished for you and your named retainers. (Cost: 20 SP)
[X] Clean and refurbish the barracks rooms, so your men don't have to camp in the hall. (Cost: 10 SP)
[X] Archers (Cost: 40 SP)
Project Results
Hire Staff
Your decision to carefully screen your new staff led you to spend quite a bit of time and effort on the hiring process, including several day trips to Tamasi to interview groups of candidates there. Procuring good-quality work clothes for them was also a bit of a trial, especially when you decided they should have shoes. The local cobbler was happy to have the work, but it took him a couple of weeks to deliver them all.
But your hard work paid off when the staff began arriving, because all of them immediately threw themselves into their tasks with a will. All of your staff are now working long hours to fix the many, many problems the keep suffers from.
Research Corzu
Your research into local lore has revealed several adventure leads (The Dark Moon Well, Three Bells Tower, The Black Beast of the Wood, The Foreign Sorceress) and a number of the fief's problems (The Witch of Tamasi, Smugglers on the Sava). You've also uncovered some interesting tidbits about the local political situation.
According to the locals, the Baronies of Rogatica, Pischia and Kiscun have quite a bit of mutual animosity. Recent disputes and their causes include:
- About a decade ago Baron Pavel led a campaign against the previous Baron of Rogatica that ended with the seizure of Pest (a prosperous village with a nearby castle) and a large stretch of neighboring woods. Rogatica has been looking for payback ever since.
- Pischia and Kiscun have a longstanding dispute over the disposition of Gorjani, a bannerette's fief on the border between the two. Currently Pischia controls the fief, but there's a family in Kiscun with a good claim to being the rightful owners.
- The Lim river tends to change its course periodically, so there's considerable room for dispute about where the border between Rogatica and Kiscun should be. This is a significant issue because there's a prosperous village called Gataia right on the border, and the two baronies have fought three wars over it in the last twenty years.
- Corzu's border with Rogatica could be subject to similar disputes, but luckily there's nothing especially valuable along that stretch of river to argue over.
You get a general impression that Rogatica is a fairly prosperous fief with growing military power, Kiscun is a poor territory but has a population with unusual loyalty to their lord, and Pischia is a once-great barony that's been slowly declining for a long time.
Train Flesh Sorcery
You spend quite a bit of time this month trying to find a way to do something useful with your talent for flesh sorcery. Some of your ideas proved impractical (hard to train poison detection without poisoning yourself) and others were beyond your current skill (healing requires level 2). But with some experimentation you were able to figure out how to channel your magic into a momentary burst of superhuman strength, which seems like a useful starting point. You've now practiced this move enough that you can use it in combat, and you can call on it several times in the space of an hour.
Bialis - Recruit Archers
Your trusty knight was able to find a few dozen locals with some skill in archery, and he recruited ten likely-looking lads for your military. All of them are competent with a bow, and after a month of training they now seem reasonably capable of standing watch and obeying orders. Bialis reports that the recruits seem hopeful that your arrival will mean the start of a better era for Corzu - apparently Pavel's men haven't been paying much attention to the place, and there have been growing problems with bandits, beastmen and gouging tax collectors for years now.
Jaroslaw - Explore Corzu
Your crusty old ranger reports that Corzu is a dangerous place to travel, and it's a good thing he took a squad of experienced troops with him or he probably wouldn't have made it back. Numerous problems have been added to Corzu's status based on his reports (Beastmen on the Lim, Pirates on the Sava, Bandits in the East Woods, Poachers, Poor Roads).
He's also discovered three hamlets that aren't mentioned in your records. One of them has a landed knight in residence, an older man named Ditrik who seemed a surprised by your arrival. That probably explains why the hamlet isn't listed in your accounting, since the farmers would pay taxes to their local knight instead of to the lord of Corzu, but someone must have been pretty lax in their record-keeping to not even mention his land grant.
The other two hamlets seem newer, and may well have been founded in an effort to evade taxes. There aren't any roads leading to them, but the inhabitants seem more prosperous than most of your other settlements despite the presumed lack of trade.
Jaroslaw also produces a rough map of Corzu marking his discoveries (see Status post).
Traian - Study Account Books
Your accountant reports that the early portion of Corzu's account book was kept by your grandfather, and is meticulously detailed. The same is true of the early years of Pavel's administration, but the quality of the records slowly declines over the years. After reviewing the whole document Traian is convinced that Nikolai, the retainer Pavel left in charge of Pischia while he's off crusading, is almost certainly cheating on his tax accounting. Here's what he's found:
- Household Tax - Every household in Corzu is supposed to pay a 1 SP tax on April 15th, and craftsmen pay an additional tax on their shops. But the number of new households added has been much lower in the last 5 years than in the preceding decades, and there are at least two shops in Tamasi that aren't listed. Last year Nikolai's men reported 917 SP in taxes, but you obviously need to do a fresh survey of all your settlements to make sure all households are accounted for.
- River Tarrifs - Apparently there's a considerable amount of river trade along the Sava, and Corzu is supposed to be getting a 30% cut of the tarrifs on the stretch between Eztergrom and the Igal. But the actual tax collection is done through some complicated scheme involving boating licences sold by the harbormaster in Eztergrom, and you don't have any accounting on how it works. Last year Corzu's share was reported at 1,402 SP, but with no oversight you have no idea how honest that number is.
- Harvest Taxes - All of your peasants pay a set amount of the harvest from each field they work, which normally amounts to 25-40% of their crop depending on how good the harvest it. This is your major source of income, but since grain in Corzu isn't much use to a duke on the other side of the kingdom the practice in recent years has been to ship it all downriver and sell it to the grain factors in Eztergrom. Last year this raised 3,076 SP in cash, and you could probably keep doing the same thing. But Nikolai has been organizing the whole effort, taking out a substantial cut to cover transport expenses, and the grain factors pay low bulk prices. If you keep the grain in Corzu and barter it back to locals to buy things it would be worth at least 10,000 SP, but then you'd need local infrastructure like wagons and a granary.
- Labor Tax - In theory every household in the fief owes you 60 days per year of service at whatever sort of labor you desire, which is usually how lords take care of projects like keeping their castle grounds clear and maintaining roads. With no lord in residence this hasn't been enforced in years, so there will probably be grumbling when you start it up again.
Corzu Staff
Your new staff has been working hard to impress you, and you pressed our garrison troops into service to help out with the renovation of their own barracks. As a result, the following projects have been completed:
[X] Stock the cellar with enough food to last for a couple of weeks. (Cost: 6 SP)
[X] Get four private bedrooms refurbished for you and your named retainers. (Cost: 20 SP)
[X] Clean and refurbish the barracks rooms, so your men don't have to camp in the hall. (Cost: 10 SP)
You can expect your dedicated, competent staff to complete 3-4 projects per turn in the future.
Other Events
The weather continues to worsen as the month passes, and by the new year there's enough snow on the ground to be a serious impediment to travel. The road to Tamasi is still more or less passable, but routine travel anywhere else is no longer practical. You could still lead a party out to go adventuring, but travel will be slow and unpleasant.
By late December your manor house is becoming reasonably comfortable, and you're settling in to consider how best to spend the cold, quiet months of January and February.
