Thomasfoolery said:
Also pity it seems the demon wasn't killed, I was optimistic after the previous post on the subject. Does that mean the chosen don't have holy fists after all?
No, it just means that it's very difficult to permanently kill supernatural creatures like demons.
staplesdex2 said:
And the thougnt I wanted to spout out is how to conquer the whole continent in 3-4 years and become it's absolute ruler giving us leeway to marry anyone we want, or gain a harem at the end of it.
Sadly, there's no way that you going to expand that fast. The best you might reasonably hope for is to steadily upgrade Corzu, inherit a barony within a few years, and then maybe carve some pieces off your neighbors in the few years after that. If you want to expand faster than that, you're going to have to find some way to completely break the medieval paradigm of how things work.
Graig said:
What opinion do Dominic think that his father would have of him leaving for the crusade? Would he consider leaving Corzu to be irresponsible? Dominic is supposed to demonstrate his abilities by governing Corzu. On the other hand he will have solved most of the major problems once the beastmen are gone.
It mostly depends on what results you get. If you leave Corzu in a stable condition and return with a boatload of gold and a rep as a hero that will tend to impress them. However, if Corzu falls apart while you're gone and you don't accomplish much of anything then they'll think that you're just of boy running off to adventure and wasting your time.
Graig said:
Edit: what languages does Dominic know?
Dominic does not currently speak any foreign languages. However, being a heroic type I'm going to assume that he's pretty good at picking them up. You'll need a translator at first, however if you spend several months surrounded by people who all speak a foreign language you'll tend to pick it up automatically.
fitzgerald said:
Questions for the Dwarves
1) Corzu currently lacks places to take refugees. What would it cost to gain Dwarven assistance in creating new towns, roads, and other artifacts
That would be far more expensive than just paying locals to build these things. The dwarves to exceptional work, but they expect to be paid in gold, and paid well.
fitzgerald said:
2) Armies require weapons, armor and other fine forged goods. Would they be willing to sell said goods?
Yes, and again their goods would be of exceptional quality. However, they would also cost 3 to 4 times as much as buying the same items from human craftsman.
fitzgerald said:
3) Corzu would very much welcome a trading outpost with very favorable terms for Dwarf Merchants, is there anything in particular they'd be interested in?
At the moment Corzu does not really produce anything except food, which the dwarves can easily buy much closer to their homelands. The dwarven kingdom is under the Alps, which is a long way from Borjeria.
fitzgerald said:
Question for Aunt
1) Do any of these marriage prospects bring with them a Barony?
No. They would establish useful political alliances for the family, and have various other benefits, but neither of them would inherit any lands. That's one of the major reasons why she'll be impressed by the possibilities of a match with Ezti.
fitzgerald said:
2) Can she help us prepare Chesna to debut in the Capital?
Yes, shall be happy to do that. She was actually under the impression that Lala didn't want to go, and was just making excuses. She'll be happy to help you double-team Nikolai, which will pretty will steamroller his efforts at resistance.
fitzgerald said:
3) Given the situation surrounding the upcoming Regency, is there any politics to keep in mind?
That's probably several years away, so the details are hard to predict. However, you do know that your family is unpopular with the more rural baronies up beyond Rogatica and Timis. Getting the Czenes to either ally with you or stay neutral will also be a crucial issue, both because of their overall power and because of the position of their duchy.
– – – – –
As far as the refugees are concerned, to Dominic this seems like a huge opportunity but also a huge project. Corzu is mostly unsettled wilderness, and could easily support 10 times its current population. That would give you the income of a barony in a very compact territory, and you would then have the ability to build yourself up into a significant military power.
However, getting from here to there would be a tremendous amount of work.
The refugees are not going to be Egyptians. They're a race called the Faresa, who have been bred as slaves by the vampires for thousands of years. They have their own language and customs, which Kat knows only a little about. She has seen a few of them in the slave markets of Egypt from time to time, and describes them as a tall people with brown skin and dark hair, generally attractive and reasonably intelligent, but very mild-natured.
So your first problem will be the fact that you have no way to communicate with them. Also, the Pharaoh is going to ship them off with basically nothing but the clothes on their back and whatever small possessions they can carry with them. So they'll need to be fed, housed, and provided with all the tools and implements needed to begin farming. Considering how distant their homeland is, they're probably also used to farming different plants in a very different climate, and may well need a lot of instruction about local conditions to become productive in Borjeria. Clearing new land so they can farm it will also consume large amounts of labor, and of course constructing new peasant villages is expensive.
Overall, you're looking at at least 10 SP per person and a lot of personal projects solving general problems in order to get them to a minimum level of productivity. If you want to provide them with livestock and something better than ramshackle huts to live in it's probably going to cost two or three times that much.
However, there are some other possibilities that might be worth exploring. The Faresa aren't all peasant farmers. It sounds like they also have a lot of skilled craftsmen, as they maintain elaborate palaces for their vampire overlords. Many of the vampires practice human breeding as a hobby, so there are also all sorts of strange traits (some of them magical) to be found among the refugees. The dwarves are actually a bit concerned about finding someone willing to take in the more unusual refugees, since most Lords will be too suspicious of magic to take in people who can talk to animals, or animate their hair, or project their voices through stone walls, or other such odd tricks.
As for Ezti's response, your reading of her personality is that she'd welcome the opportunity to proselytize to the refugees. She would, however, insist on actually converting them to the true faith. She'd probably also want to teach them to speak Borjerian and adopt your local customs. Basically, she'd want to enlighten the poor ignorant barbarians and teach them to behave like proper civilized people.
Katiana points out slyly that there is one interesting advantage of ruling people who are used to being slaves to ruthless vampire overlords. No matter how you treat them they're going to think you're the best ruler imaginable, since after all you don't eat them or make a habit of torturing people death for amusement. So they would probably be a very loyal population.
