All right, I think I actually have all the status posts updated. Let me know if any of you spot something I missed. Note that the adventure lead and project lists have been significantly modified. In particular, the poachers are no longer a problem (Jaroslaw is pretty sure you've hired most of them).
As the size of your operation grows, I've decided to introduce a new game mechanic in order to simplify orders posts and better reflect all the routine work that isn't important enough to be worth specifically mentioning. So starting this turn you have several positions that you can assign NPCs to in order to have them automatically take care of overseeing a particular area of activity. Current positions are:
Captain – Holds overall command of up to 300 men. Keeps units recruited to full strength, assigns routine tasks like garrison duty and road patrols, and organizes training. If you appoint a captain you won't need to note these details in your orders anymore. Just give him some general guidelines about what to prioritize (training, equipment upgrades, patrols) and he'll take care of the details.
Seneschal – Overseas your staff, keeps Corzu keep running, and takes care of associated tasks like keeping the grounds clear and the siege stores stocked. Presumably Dragos will be doing this since it's what you hired him for, so all you need to do is decide which of the various improvement projects you're going to authorize funds for and he'll make sure they get done.
Treasurer – Does your accounting, issues pay to your retainers and troops, collects taxes (including the harvest tax, which requires a lot of organization), and manages the granary inventory. An important post, because without someone supervising all these activities people are bound to find ways to get more money from the treasury than they're supposed to.
Note that if you assign an NPC to one of these positions they'll need to spend most of their time running it. You can still assign them a specific project once in a while, but if you do it more often than once every 3 to 4 months it will interfere with their ability to do their main job.
Walkir said:
Edit: Just to be sure, which skill do we need at 5 for Perfect Harem Benediction?
Flesh sorcery. Although since you have to research all of your spells anyway, I expect that you would actually develop a variant that the players would be comfortable with actually using. You could actually do some simple temporary effects now (like a physical arousal spell), but you need level 3 to start getting permanent effects.
Seventeen said:
How much work does Kat's partial action allow her to do? Would she be able to complete, say, the repairs to the Unstable Cellars -- a two-week job?
The only thing you can assign to Katiana for her partial action is a short adventure.
Seventeen said:
Is Dita providing taint removal services small enough to count as a minor action?
Cleansing taint is such a trivial action for Dita that it doesn't even need to be noted on the order sheet. If she's in the same location as someone who's doing magic she'll do cleansing on them automatically.
BFldyq said:
*drums fingers* Okay, question: if the paperwork to designate Dita the heir to the was finished, and she then had a bastard son with Dominic, would that son be part of the Petran family? I mean, it would be the scandal of the century, but if the child is part of the Petrans, that means the family won't loose the barony to their rivals/enemies.
Yes, in theory that could work. It would destroy her reputation, and wouldn't do yours any favors, but it would keep the barony in the family.
BFldyq said:
On a semi-related topic, would it be possible for Dominic, with his Flesh sorcery, to create a spell that ensures any resulting children of a specific copulation is of a specific sex?
Yes. But you'd probably need level 2 for that, and it would likely take more than one research action.
Arkeus said:
Inovia is a Elven goddess. While Feudal elves don't seem to be TMU elves (not nearly dickish enough for that), Dita being gay (or at least on the gay side of Bi) might just be her being Elf-straight. It would be interesting to ask Dita about marriage and Inovia, because it wouldn't surprise me if she considered it a silly human custom that has no links to the 'real world'.
They definitely aren't TMU elves.
The Inovian church position is basically "do whatever you want as long as you aren't hurting anyone". They do marriages, but they don't particularly care how many people of what gender are involved and they don't necessarily expect it to be a lifetime commitment.
Dita personally is indeed 'on the gay side of Bi' rather than completely lesbian – she'll mention that when they were together she and Tavi were gleefully making plans to search Europe for some epic hero they could share (although since they were 12 at the time their personal relationship never got past cuddling and some experimental kisses). She's never been with a man, but she's kind of curious what it would be like. She implies that she has been with girls before, which kind of makes Dominic wonder when she had the opportunity.
Arkeus said:
As for Ezti disliking Rogatica, it might appear strange until you remember how many of her family members just had 'accidents' to pave the way to Rogatica's taking the barony. Also, it might also have to do with her family and his having been rivals for a long time (not sure about that one).
Yes, her family has been feuding with Rogatica for ages and there's a lot of bad blood between them. Repeated border wars and multiple deaths in the family on both sides will do that. Really, it's unusual that Rogatica is so interested in Ezti. But then again, five minutes in her presence makes the explanation obvious – she'd be the perfect wife for him if she didn't hate his guts.
Arkeus said:
Right-oh, here is something important I feel: Dominic should lay off learning more Flesh sorcery for now beyond the very urgent things. Not to say we can't use it anymore at all, but we are good enough right now that taint might become a problem soon.
If you were working alone this would be a serious concern, but as long as you have Dita around taint seems to be a nonissue. If she leaves, well, the critical factor is going to be what you do with your sorcery, not how many levels of if you have. Studying monsters to see how they work will get you a lot of taint, but buffing yourself is pretty safe.
Arkeus said:
@ShaperV: We have recovered beastmen corpses right?
Yes, you have several bodies you can study.
Seventeen said:
[x] Send letter to Gavrilla. Inform her that the Balzar girl is your preference for wife, but that she should hold off for the moment on attempting to arrange a marriage.
That's an odd request, so you'll need to give her reason. If you do decide that you're ready to make a decision you'll want to inform your parents also.
Seventeen said:
[X] Train Holy Sorcery//Remove Taint: Dominic
[X] Train Holy Sorcery//Remove Taint: Katiana
Dita isn't sure it's a good idea for her to increase her sorcery level anymore until Katiana has a chance to come up with some kind of permanent concealment magic for her. She doesn't want to accidentally attract a demon on some day when neither the Chosen is around. She'd rather work on weaponizing her holy magic properly, or maybe improving her woodscraft (she had fun with the beastman hunt).
Seventeen said:
@ShaperV: Will this month's action provide enough space for Dragos, or will the Keep's available space not increase until the repairs are entirely completed?
The keep won't have any useable space until a couple of months into the project, but since you're only one room short you can shuffle less important people around to give him a room until then.
Walkir said:
That list with Arkeus' input looks good, yeah. I'd specify that he Keep will be built for us and other higher status people (not for maximum capacity) and includes the tower loft, but other than that...
Do you think we would be allowed to look into Kat's grimoire and make use of it while studying magic (for wizardry 1)?
Katiana sees sharing her grimoire as significantly more intimate than having sex. That will have to wait until you have a more permanent arrangement with her.
Arkeus said:
Air? Shouldn't it be fire? Can you confirm that please ShaperV?
Yes, that should have said fire.
Arkeus said:
@ShaperV:
-Can we have a small explanation on what the intrigue skill apply to? Is it for social stuff, or for 'political strategy', or what? Does it use Charm or Mind? How does it differ from diplomacy? Also, i don't think we ever got an explanation of what Discipline was for our men.
Intrigue is like tactics, but applied to political maneuvering. It would be used to manipulate public opinion, devise plots to weaken rivals or promote yourself, and counter an opponent's plots.
Seventeen said:
Any chance we can get this value as a tonnage? Measuring it by the value of the grain is a little silly considering we've already started thinking about plans to manipulate the price of it.
No, that would invite all sorts of argument about the realism of my figures. Your treasury will track nominal SP of grain, which can be used for barter within Corzu at full value. If you want to spend it anywhere else you'll have to actually ship the grain there, and possibly sell it to get cash first, which will significantly reduce the value.
Seventeen said:
It depends a lot on Borjerian beliefs about conception and birth, of course. They're not going to know that a sperm and an egg make a baby, or that identical twins are the result of a zygote splitting, or anything related to genetics. For all we know, Borjerian belief is that a part of the father's soul invades and conquers a part of the mother's, and the baby forms as a male or female depending on which half one. That's actually pretty close, as far as folk beliefs about conception go.
On that note, it'd start to be stretching my suspension of disbelief if Dominic was able to heal blood vessels -- the function of which wasn't known until the Renaissance, and even then it was debated. Medical knowledge is something a medieval lord simply wouldn't have, so keep that in mind when you're suggesting these kinds of things.
Yes, Borjerian ideas about biology are hilariously wrong. The sensory aspect of Dominic's's sorcery gives him the ability to learn how things actually work by direct observation, but you're generally going to be better off just describing the result you want to achieve instead of worrying about how the biology works.
Walkir said:
Is that the Keep as in the castle as a whole or the Keep as in the castle's main tower?
The main tower.
BFldyq said:
*shrugs* True enough, but like I said: if we can't find a way to speed up a pregnancy, I will be very surprised.
Anything is possible, but that sounds like the sort of thing that would be difficult to research without turning into a complete monster. How would you test an experimental version of such a spell? Use it on pregnant women, and see what goes horribly wrong?
