Feudal Quest

[Arkeus]

Priorities? Look at how many possible units we have to send out, then look at possible leaders, there's already three people on the shortlist ahead of her to be tapped, you're really reaching here I feel.

Click to shrink...

There is only one person ahead of her, and that Dominic. Sir Bialis is currently much more capable than her, but he has less overall potential. with Tactics I she would only be slightly less able than him when it comes to leading groups (while he would have leadership II and Tactic II to her Is, her being part of our family instantly gives more weigth to obeying her, even if she is a woman), and she is a potential hero (can get Soul 5 by the time she is 18).

She is already better than Jaroslow when it comes to leading groups of rangers, and getting Tactics I would mean she is less likely to make horrenduous mistakes.

Also, keep in mind we are going to clear haunts soon, and that Dita is uniquely gifted for this. She must be shown to be capable there, as that will make it much easier for her in the future to have a strong, capable first showing.

 

[Thomasfoolery]

There is only one person ahead of her, and that Dominic. Sir Bialis is currently much more capable than her, but he has less overall potential. with Tactics I she would only be slightly less able than him when it comes to leading groups (while he would have leadership II and Tactic II to her Is, her being part of our family instantly gives more weigth to obeying her, even if she is a woman), and she is a potential hero (can get Soul 5 by the time she is 18).

She is already better than Jaroslow when it comes to leading groups of rangers, and getting Tactics I would mean she is less likely to make horrenduous mistakes.

Also, keep in mind we are going to clear haunts soon, and that Dita is uniquely gifted for this. She must be shown to be capable there, as that will make it much easier for her in the future to have a strong, capable first showing.

Click to shrink...

What does future potential have to do with leading troops now? Nothing at all, Bialis has better stats, he's better at the job, he might not be better in the future but so what, in the near term he's the guy we would pick for the task. She might be better at tracking than Jaroslaw (unclear how much a boost her gifts give her), but again, she's not better at leading the rangers, again you keep acting as if needsto be issuing orders or a disaster is afoot, when that's simply not the case, it's perfectly viable for her to act as an attached specialist to a unit.

Also if we're going to be clearing haunts soon, that seems to make it all the more important that she'll have finished off her swordsmanship level two, rather than having spent her time training to be able to act as a poorer copy of the actual leader of the force.

 

[Arkeus]

What does potential have to do with leading troops? Nothing at all, Bialis has better stats, he's better at the job, he might not be better in the future but so what, in the near term he's the guy we would pick for the task.

Click to shrink...

Yes, with her as a second in command. Or when Dominic is in command of his troop, her as his second, and Sir Bialis having his won troop.

She might be better at tracking than Jaroslaw (unclear how much a boost her gifts give her), but again, she's not better at leading the rangers, again you keep acting as if needs to be issuing orders or a disaster is afoot, when that's simply not the case, it's perfectly viable for her to act as an attached specialist to a unit.

Click to shrink...

She is already better as a leader than Jaroslaw, and getting Tactics I will mean she is also as good as him as a tactician for what the orders are.

Also if we're going to be clearing haunts soon, that seems to make it all the more important that she'll have finished off her swordsmanship level two, rather than having spent her time training to be able to act as a poorer copy of the actual leader of the force.

Click to shrink...

No, it's actually more important that she gets a better sense in what to do than her getting a second level in swordmanship- her main skill in clearing haunts would be as our right hand and purification. Swordmanship will be tertiary at best.

 

[Thomasfoolery]

Yes, with her as a second in command. Or when Dominic is in command of his troop, her as his second, and Sir Bialis having his won troop.

She is already better as a leader than Jaroslaw, and getting Tactics I will mean she is also as good as him as a tactician for what the orders are.
No, it's actually more important that she gets a better sense in what to do than her getting a second level in swordmanship- her main skill in clearing haunts would be as our right hand and purification. Swordmanship will be tertiary at best.

Click to shrink...

You seem intent on forcing her into an archetype it's really unnecessary to force her into all this talk about her being his right hand, that said I did mis-rememebr Jaro's stats so she is better in that regard. In the near future however the times when we'll be launching to simultaneous operations are pretty much nonexistent, and our unit sizes are small enough that the role you envision for her if not particularly relevant either, as Bialis will almost certainly be with us in any engagements large enough for it to come into play. I also think you should take into account her stated preferences, which had nothing to do with stepping into a leadership role, and quite a bit with "tertiary" priority you've assigned her.

 

[Graig]

Our staff is now too large to function properly without a Castellan, so we do need to recruit one, added with the fact that he'll be very useful for many types of actions we have on our plate right now and in the future that are not efficient for our current retainers to do, and that it dovetails nicely with escorting Traian back, I think now is an excellent time to get one.

Also we wouldn't have Diplomacy leveled anyway, mini-turn events are done with what we have at the start of the turn, not the end, as we saw during the latest adventure.

Finally I do not believe Dita is capable of self study in this, as it was specifically mentioned earlier she needed someone to instruct her.

Click to shrink...

The only significant recent addition to our staf are used to clear the grounds around the keep. Efficent management of them is not a very high priority. Also we want someone we can trust and who is competent as a Castellan. Just recruting someone like this from a place where we don't know anyone is unlikely to give good results.

As far as I can tell we have been doing actions in the listed order. We would have to ask ShaperV to be sure.

Are you refering to this?

She thinks she'll be ready to do some serious training in February if anyone is available to teach her.

Click to shrink...

She has already been doing sword training by herself. It might just be that she would get slightly better results from having a teacher. That is probably not worth one of our actions.

Yes, with her as a second in command. Or when Dominic is in command of his troop, her as his second, and Sir Bialis having his won troop.

Click to shrink...

Why would she be our second in command when Sir Bialis is better at both tactics and leadership (they also have the same Mind and Charm stat). It is much better for Dita to focus on her magic. She should eventually get tactics 1 but we can easily wait with that until after we have cleared most of the Haunts.

 

[Thomasfoolery]

The only significant recent addition to our staf are used to clear the grounds around the keep. Efficent management of them is not a very high priority. Also we want someone we can trust and who is competent as a Castellan. Just recruting someone like this from a place where we don't know anyone is unlikely to give good results.

As far as I can tell we have been doing actions in the listed order. We would have to ask ShaperV to be sure.

Are you refering to this?She has already been doing sword training by herself. It might just be that she would get slightly better results from having a teacher. That is probably not worth one of our actions.

Why would she be our second in command when Sir Bialis is better at both tactics and leadership (they also have the same Mind and Charm stat). It is much better for Dita to focus on her magic. She should eventually get tactics 1 but we can easily wait with that until after we have cleared most of the Haunts.

Click to shrink...

We spend an action to get a staff member, unless you want to spend months traveling we'll get the best results we can get. Also the sooner we get one the sooner he can start producing actions for us, so the earlier the better. As there are a lot of actions we have right now that could use him, and more are sure to become apparent in the future.

That is what I was referring to, that said i checked and she did do some sword drills so perhaps you're right. Though I imagine we would probably get an improvement tick as well, so it's not as if it would just be teaching Dita. If it is unnecessary I wouldn't mind switching that action out with a Diplomacy training one.

I'm pretty sure the order is irrelevant but might as well ask regardless.

 

[Arkeus]

Why would she be our second in command when Sir Bialis is better at both tactics and leadership (they also have the same Mind and Charm stat). It is much better for Dita to focus on her magic. She should eventually get tactics 1 but we can easily wait with that until after we have cleared most of the Haunts.

Click to shrink...

Because Sir Bialis is the only one who can do things like train new recruits (we need a lot more new recruits), command groups patrolling the fief, etc. Unless you want to waste Dominic on those things.

Dita getting Sword2/3 is needed later on, but it's the kind of thing that will just maker her average (better than a man-at-arm, worse than a knight), not something she would be especially good at. Leading troops and Magic are things she might be especially good at: at least as good as a knight for leading troops, and probably more as she is the heir to a barony and as such has "i am a noble" power, and she is flat out Potential Epic Hero when it comes to magic.

Oh, and of course she is very good at everything Ranger-y, which means that if she gets Tactic I she might already be good enough to second us if we go poacher hunting- or lead the group if we don't.

 

[Walkir]

She's a noble, and as such people will defer to her if no one else is around. So she better has at least a basic idea what to do then.

 

[Graig]

We spend an action to get a staff member, unless you want to spend months traveling we'll get the best results we can get. Also the sooner we get one the sooner he can start producing actions for us, so the earlier the better.

Click to shrink...

We have other options than just recruiting one like that. We could have one of Eztis trusted retainers after we marry her.

As there are a lot of actions we have right now that could use him

Click to shrink...

What actions are you thinking of? reparing the keep is the work of someone with Engineering skill.

 

[Thomasfoolery]

We have other options than just recruiting one like that. We could have one of Eztis trusted retainers after we marry her.
What actions are you thinking of? reparing the keep is the work of someone with Engineering skill.

Click to shrink...

So again, you want to put it off for many months then? (It's not even certain we'll be marrying Ezti) We're also a pretty good judge of character, so I'm not sure why you think it's going to go badly.

As for actions, off the top of my head, overseeing the ground clearings, recruiting craftsmen, recruiting additional retainers, organizing staff.

 

[Graig]

So again, you want to put it off for many months then? (It's not even certain we'll be marrying Ezti) We're also a pretty good judge of character, so I'm not sure why you think it's going to go badly.

Click to shrink...

I don't really see any good candidate except Ezti. Also we would be a better judge of character once we get Diplomacy 2.

As for actions, off the top of my head, overseeing the ground clearings, recruiting craftsmen, recruiting additional retainers, organizing staff.

Click to shrink...

Overseeing the ground clearings is not a very important action. We can just spend a few minor actions to make sure that they actually do a significant amount of work. There is currently no large need of organizing staff.

We might need to recruit a few craftsmen but we should probably not spend to much money on that anytime soon in case we need to fight a war against Rogatica (a better equipped army might also help discurage such a war).

 

[Walkir]

I don't really see any good candidate except Ezti. Also we would be a better judge of character once we get Diplomacy 2.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, this. There's a few character traits I prefer on Chesna, but even if we ignore that she's a cousin, Ezti has more to offer on the political level, seems to have a good head on her shoulders as well, Dominic liking her seems to be answered in kind and Dominic thinks she's hot.
And she's doing everything she can to make clear she wants him without actually proposing. Rejecting that might just gain us a neighbor feeling insulted.... for no perceivable reason.

Edit: wording/typo

 

[Arkeus]

Yeah, this. There's a few character traits I prefer on Chesna, but even if we ignore that she's a cousin, Ezti has more to offer on the political level, seems to have a good head on her shoulders as well, the Dominic liking her seems to be answered in kind and Dominic thinks she's hot.
An d she's doing everything she can to make clear she wants him without actually proposing. Rejecting that might just gain us a neighbor feeling insulted.... for no perceivable reason.

Click to shrink...

Ezti is currently our strongest marriage prospect. At the very least she is good enough that our Aunt will go "i approve" and not pressure us anymore, even if we haven't married her yet and are still hesitating/etc.

However, i was disappointed by her stats. Unless she also has untapped potential (which we don't know of) AND her True Faith is 'divine spellcasting that works of charisma', her potential is pretty much a couple of order of magnitude weaker than Dominic or even Dita.

Now, i know, stats shouldn't be the reason we marry for, but i really want Dominic to have a wife that is a epic hero in her own right. Not only would it greatly improve our chance of making a more interesting legal code/etc, but it would also greatly improve our dynasty's reputation. Playing with eugenics will also be somewhat harder . Oh, and i like kickass women.

Even beyond 'stats', it seems like Ezti might in fact only have one action per turn, and that is another crippling factor.

 

[Walkir]

Just to recollect the relevant parts about her... did I miss anything?

[...]

Ezti arrives just when she said she would. Her party is all mounted, and consists of a pair of knights leading a half-dozen men at arms and three squires. Their gear is all well-maintained but worn, and the general poverty of their barony shows in the fact that even the knights wear only chain hauberks instead of plate armor. But their horses are of good quality, and the whole group is well-disciplined and quite serious about protecting their charge.

It takes the dilapidated ferry three trips to get the whole party across the Sava, so you have plenty of time to notice them and make your way over to the docks before Ezti arrives on the second trip. Your first impression of her is, well:



Is it something in the water out here? While not as exotic as Kat or as top-heavy as Chesna she's quite an attractive young lady. She also moves with a confidence you're not used to seeing in women, and holds that polearm of hers like she knows how to use it. Interesting.

[...]

Click to shrink...

[...]


In the course of this you do, however, note that Ezti isn't just her father's presumptive heir. She's actually undergone the rituals to claim her position as future ruler of Kiscun, and has a firm grip on the regency magic of her land. This is a bit surprising, especially since it turns out that she's a devout Khersian.

[...]

Meanwhile, Ezti seems to be sizing you up all through the first day. She asks a lot of questions about you, Corzu, your plans and so on, and by the end of the day she's apparently decided she likes what she sees. When Chesna goes back to flirting with you over dinner Ezti joins in, although she's a bit more reserved about it.

You're really missing Mira and Aldona by this point.

Naturally you'll be evaluating Ezti as well, and most of what you see is positive. She seems to be an intelligent, level-headed girl with a knack for leadership - her father's men actually treat her as their commander rather than their charge, which is incredibly rare. She'll find an excuse to spar with you at some point early in the trip, which reveals that she has Body 2 (extremely impressive for a woman of her build) and Polearm 3 - but she seems quite pleased when you beat her. She also has enough skill in diplomacy to delicately make sure you're aware of her situation without making it sound like a proposition, which is fairly impressive. The girl is definitely shopping for a husband, but she's trying to be classy about it.

However, she's a devout Khersian. As in, devout enough that her prayers sometimes get answered. That would play well with the populace, and she does seem oddly tolerant of things most priests would eagerly condemn as sinful (for instance, she playfully teases Chesna about having practiced kissing with Dita instead of condemning her for it). But being involved with her would definitely require staying on good terms with the Church and avoiding black magic, which might cramp your style.

Chesna on the other hand is more of a party girl. She's hot, and playful, and definitely has a wild side - if you want a wife who enjoys kinky bedroom games and doesn't object to having mistresses around she's the best bet you've found so far. She also doesn't seem especially devout, and is fascinated by magic. But she doesn't seem to have much in the way of practical skills, and sees no need to change that.

[...]

Click to shrink...

[...]

At this point you're quite sure Ezti wants you to propose a marriage alliance (it would be terribly improper for her to propose it herself, of course). She's talked a good bit about what fierce fighters the people of Kiscun are and how loyal they are to her family. According to her the main reason for their poor equipment is the high tarrifs your family charges on river traffic, since they have to buy all their iron at prices that are double what would be normal in the more central parts of the kingdom. She also points out that Rogatica would have to think twice about acting against you, since he'd be facing the combined resources of Kiscun, Corzu and Pischia plus the potential for your father or grandfather to intervene.

[...]

Click to shrink...

We could also give her fief a nice economic boom (or at least a vastly improved military) by giving them family rebates on the tariffs, making that alliance way stronger. Their poor roads... well, that meshes with our poor ones, make that a joint development program.

Seems we'd buy a better deterrent with her on our side, and I'd really like to focus on Corzu longer - give the people some modest wealth, repair the streets, kick that abusive knight out, deal with the lawlessness*, that kind of thing. All without having to fear an invasion from Rogatica. She's also beloved by her vassals and good with people of the faith, gaining extra political capital.

* except the poachers, with the description we got for the fief I expect that to be poaching to avoid starvation. Best way to fight that is giving them other options. Besides, we have enough other things to do that clearing out a few poachers is damn low on the priority list.

So... while she might not be the best possible bride on a character sheet level, she's great politically. And the two even like each other, which is one hell of an added bonus.
I'd prefer Chesna for her willingness to deal with mistresses (but even that is accepted by Ezti, seing how moderate she is - also necessary for keeping Kat employed) and her demure side/that 'men's business' thing, but that's no reason to drop the great match that is Ezti for.


This isn't about solely marrying a woman after all, this is a dynastic marriage, a political tool. And frankly, Ezti is a critical success in that regard - it will be good politically, gain tons of options for both and is even likely to develop into a happy marriage.
That's a lot more than most nobles can ever expect.

 

[staplesdex2]

On between choosing the two for marriage, I'd rather choose both. I'm seeing this on the long term where Dominic would eventually conquer the whole continent and become king.

 

[Walkir]

Well, yes. True. I'd prefer to keep Ezti, Dita and Chesna as well.

But polygamy seems to be out, and running to Egypt or elsewhere where it is allowed... Yeah, no. Definitely not. The fief is more important than a girl - especially to get a power base for the plan to become king and rule the continent.
And keeping them as mistresses really isn't a good option neither... maybe if we had the harem benediction thing, but not as it stands.

So yeah, it would be the best case, but I see no way to do it with everyone's reputation staying intact and without causing tons of unnecessary problems.

 

[staplesdex2]

We have Charm at 4 and gained a Seduction Skill so we might be able to get them as mistresses at least.

 

[Walkir]

Forgot Kat on the list.

And I doubt Ezti would agree to the benediction thing anyway... something I'd only use on girls that greed to it in the full understanding that saying no is an option that won't get them any disadvantages besides possibly becoming less attractive in comparison.


We might be able to convince them to become our mistresses, but, cousin or not, noble mistresses are a real problem as confirmed by GM. I think the best we could hope for is charming them to stay with us without forming a formal harem until we managed to change the laws in that regard. Assuming we ever manage that (and not aged 60) - something I frankly doubt.

 

[staplesdex2]

I might as well try reaching that far.

 

[ShaperV]

Behold, the chain whip.

A more modern version

For the truly stylish Wushu practitioners

The Chain whip is a weapon used in real world martial arts, particularly Chinese martial arts styles both Modern and Traditional.
The weapon consists of several metal rods, which are joined end-to-end by rings to form a flexible chain which is swung like a whip to impale or slash targets a moderate distance away.

Click to shrink...

Oh, is that what you're talking about? Sorry, I was picturing one of those absurd fantasy weapons.

I've always seen those referred to as a weighted chain or flail, depending on how long it is. A military flail would only have 2-4 segments, because the longer versions aren't normally practical on a battlefield. A long one would take a lot of room to use and be rather slow to recover from an attack, which makes it more useful for one-on-one fights than mass combat.

But I can see some interesting potential for using force magic to turn it into a handier and much more lethal weapon. A few tricks to give you more control over how it moves could remove most of the usual limitations, and it would certainly catch most opponents off guard.

Finally I do not believe Dita is capable of self study in this, as it was specifically mentioned earlier she needed someone to instruct her.

Click to shrink...

Actually Dita might be capable enough to learn just by joining the regular sparring sessions that you and some of your more skilled retainers have to keep your skills sharp. But spending an action teaching her would ensure she gets the full training benefit, count as training for Dominic, and provide some good social bonding you could use to get her open up a bit more.

I included a need for a majordomo in my list of orders. I chose the word because of personal taste but still has the same meaning.

Click to shrink...

There's actually a subtle difference there which might end up mattering:

A majordomo or seneschal would be a non-combatant skilled in managing your staff and domestic affairs, who could take care of details like hiring new staff or running your household. He'll be skilled at dealing with social niceties, taking care of guests, organizing parties and that sort of thing.

A castellan is generally an experienced fighting man who's good at leadership and administration, and can be trusted to maintian a castle and its garrison in a state fit for war. He'll be able to handle most of the same mundane administrative tasks as a seneschal, but he'll be less skilled at the delicate social/political stuff. However, if you ever need him to he'll be competent to command the castle garrison during a siege.

Oh, and a question for ShaperV: Apparently we lose training if we don't follow it up in the next few following months right? does this mean we have to hurry and continue everything our adventure gave us, or is the timeline for losing training amounts forgivable?

Click to shrink...

You get a long grace period for skills that are lower than the relevant attribute, or that you actually use on a day-to-day basis. So as long as you continue running the fief and have an adventure now and then it won't be a an issue for most of those skills.

But you could lose the Swordsmanship progress if you don't train it or have another real battle in the next few months.

For the orders, I propose the following cvhanges:

Kat
(1 week due to Dita's influence) repair the cellars
(3 weeks) Plan Granary, begin construction

Click to shrink...

Kat's time estimates already assume she'll be getting the x2 speed increase for Dita's help.

Traian
1) Purchase the wagons and boats necessary for the harvest scheme
Also get that lockbox
If possible in the same turn as he's already at the harbor, get better equipment for our troops.

Click to shrink...

Traian doesn't know anything about weapons and doesn't have Merchant either, so you probably don't want him buying equipment for your troops.

@ShaperV, how much would it cost to upgrade our units to equipment two, and is that the sort of thing we could do in house once we recruit an expanded retinue of craftsmen?

Click to shrink...

Now that you actually have some money to spend I'm going to sit down and work out more detailed pricing on equipment options for your troops. Is anyone interested in getting down into the nuts and bolts of detailed military organization, or should I just price out some generic equipment levels?

The only significant recent addition to our staf are used to clear the grounds around the keep. Efficent management of them is not a very high priority. Also we want someone we can trust and who is competent as a Castellan. Just recruting someone like this from a place where we don't know anyone is unlikely to give good results.

Click to shrink...

Trust is always going to be a problem, yes. You could probably find someone competent in Eztergrom, but they'd be a Pischian with a past you don't know much about.

The benefit would be that they'll take care of all the little problems that come up in running your household for you, so you'd no longer need to spend actions on things like hiring new staff or solving personnel issues. Without someone to handle that for you such things are going to start popping up on a regular basis now that you have a large group of people working for you.

As far as I can tell we have been doing actions in the listed order. We would have to ask ShaperV to be sure.

Click to shrink...

I'll assume you do things in whatever order makes the most sense, so you don't have to worry about it. The only time it might matter is if you get interrupted in the middle of a turn, and you were doing actions that could happen in any order. In that case I'd probably assume you were going down the list in order, so the last action would be the one to get preempted.

She wants to learn physical combat skills, and if she wants any practical use out them soon they need focused investment, plus she's unlikely to be leading a squad in the near future, so tactics can wait in my opinion.

Click to shrink...

There is only one person ahead of her, and that Dominic. Sir Bialis is currently much more capable than her, but he has less overall potential. with Tactics I she would only be slightly less able than him when it comes to leading groups (while he would have leadership II and Tactic II to her Is, her being part of our family instantly gives more weigth to obeying her, even if she is a woman), and she is a potential hero (can get Soul 5 by the time she is 18).

Click to shrink...

She's a noble, and as such people will defer to her if no one else is around. So she better has at least a basic idea what to do then.

Click to shrink...

This is an interesting argument.

On the one hand Arkeus is right about Dita's potential. Depending on where she puts her attribute points and training time in the next few years Dita could easily surpass Ezti as a heroic female leadership type, and become quite an asset to the family. If she went that route she could be an interesting marriage prospect, a reliable second in command, or a key ally if she someday returns to Verzi.

But right now she seems intent on turning herself into an epic level ranger so she can sneak into darkest India to rescue her friend, either solo or maybe with the help of a Chosen if she's lucky. Considering what she thinks your grandfather is plotting she probably expects to be a fugitive soon, and certainly has no hope of living the life of a noble lady much longer. So she's not terribly interested in studying the skills a leader would need, because she doesn't expect to ever lead anything.

So if you want her to go the first route, you're going to have to invest some time in getting her to trust you and convincing her that her future isn't as bleak as she thinks it is - which may well require some social adventures to change your grandfather's mind, because it's entirely possible that she's right about his plans. You'll have to decide whether that's worth it.

On between choosing the two for marriage, I'd rather choose both. I'm seeing this on the long term where Dominic would eventually conquer the whole continent and become king.

Click to shrink...

This isn't about solely marrying a woman after all, this is a dynastic marriage, a political tool. And frankly, Ezti is a critical success in that regard - it will be good politically, gain tons of options for both and is even likely to develop into a happy marriage.
That's a lot more than most nobles can ever expect.

Click to shrink...

Ezti is currently our strongest marriage prospect. At the very least she is good enough that our Aunt will go "i approve" and not pressure us anymore, even if we haven't married her yet and are still hesitating/etc.

However, i was disappointed by her stats. Unless she also has untapped potential (which we don't know of) AND her True Faith is 'divine spellcasting that works of charisma', her potential is pretty much a couple of order of magnitude weaker than Dominic or even Dita.

Click to shrink...

Well, yes. True. I'd prefer to keep Ezti, Dita and Chesna as well.

But polygamy seems to be out, and running to Egypt or elsewhere where it is allowed... Yeah, no.

Click to shrink...

This is probably a good place for me to comment a bit on my GMing style.

I like games where the PCs accomplish amazing things, but I also feel like they should earn it and I don't like to railroad things. So I generally put in more opportunities than you can possibly make time to exploit, so you can pick the ones you're most interested in. Naturally this means that decididng which cool thing you arent't going to do will frequently be impotant, because if you try to do everything you'll end up overlaoding yourself and fail.

Your choices in the short run with then determine what your long-term options look like. In this case I've tried to set things up so that each girl has different pros and cons that lend themselves to different choices about Dominic's long-term plans. For instance, Ezti is the clear winner for the 'conventional noble' path, but if you want to be a mage lord or a traveling adventurer Kat or Dita might fit a lot better.

There are also several ways you could pick more than one girl, but that requires sharp social skills and even then some permutations are a lot more workable than others. This kind of strategy will tend to hurt your standing in conventional noble politics unless you manage some amazing successes in how you arrange it, but it could net you two or three highly capable permanent supporters on top of a nice fief. This might be a good trade if Dominic is going to be highly ambitious, but it means you're going to be working against the rules of your society instead of with them.

 

[Graig]

But while this is all well and good, Dita is getting anxious for some physical training. She's determined to spend the next month working on combat skills of some kind, although she'll listen to your advice about what to study.

Click to shrink...

Does this mean that it have to be a physical combat skill or would studying a combat application of her light magic also be acceptable?

 

[staplesdex2]

With the GM's comments, getting that harem might be hard but possible. We just have to something successful that it breaks all conventions and no one could possibly do anything about it. I'd say we start long-term plans for the eventual conquest of the continent.

 

[Walkir]

Now that you actually have some money to spend I'm going to sit down and work out more detailed pricing on equipment options for your troops. Is anyone interested in getting down into the nuts and bolts of detailed military organization, or should I just price out some generic equipment levels?

Click to shrink...

I prefer the latter.

On the one hand Arkeus is right about Dita's potential. Depending on where she puts her attribute points and training time in the next few years Dita could easily surpass Ezti as a heroic female leadership type, and become quite an asset to the family. If she went that route she could be an interesting marriage prospect, a reliable second in command, or a key ally if she someday returns to Verzi.

But right now she seems intent on turning herself into an epic level ranger so she can sneak into darkest India to rescue her friend, either solo or maybe with the help of a Chosen if she's lucky. Considering what she thinks your grandfather is plotting she probably expects to be a fugitive soon, and certainly has no hope of living the life of a noble lady much longer. So she's not terribly interested in studying the skills a leader would need, because she doesn't expect to ever lead anything.

So if you want her to go the first route, you're going to have to invest some time in getting her to trust you and convincing her that her future isn't as bleak as she thinks it is - which may well require some social adventures to change your grandfather's mind, because it's entirely possible that she's right about his plans. You'll have to decide whether that's worth it.

Click to shrink...

Can't say tactics 1 would hurt either option, but that'S interesting to know about her...

This is probably a good place for me to comment a bit on my GMing style.

I like games where the PCs accomplish amazing things, but I also feel like they should earn it and I don't like to railroad things. So I generally put in more opportunities than you can possibly make time to exploit, so you can pick the ones you're most interested in. Naturally this means that decididng which cool thing you arent't going to do will frequently be impotant, because if you try to do everything you'll end up overlaoding yourself and fail.

Your choices in the short run with then determine what your long-term options look like. In this case I've tried to set things up so that each girl has different pros and cons that lend themselves to different choices about Dominic's long-term plans. For instance, Ezti is the clear winner for the 'conventional noble' path, but if you want to be a mage lord or a traveling adventurer Kat or Dita might fit a lot better.

There are also several ways you could pick more than one girl, but that requires sharp social skills and even then some permutations are a lot more workable than others. This kind of strategy will tend to hurt your standing in conventional noble politics unless you manage some amazing successes in how you arrange it, but it could net you two or three highly capable permanent supporters on top of a nice fief. This might be a good trade if Dominic is going to be highly ambitious, but it means you're going to be working against the rules of your society instead of with them.

Click to shrink...

Okay, that sounds way better than what I understood last time that came up - I guess we can get around skillwise (Diplomacy needs more and has potential, but charm is good already), I just don't trust me to always pick the right option on the way.

Then again... Makes succeeding only more fun, and I guess we can fail in a fun way as well.
As long as we can improve the live of Corzu's (and Kiscun and Pischia, perhaps) people, I'm fine with failing as well.

 

[staplesdex2]

@ShaperV:

Is it possible for Force Sorcery to do this:

 

[Adyen]

With the GM's comments, getting that harem might be hard but possible. We just have to something successful that it breaks all conventions and no one could possibly do anything about it. I'd say we start long-term plans for the eventual conquest of the continent.

Click to shrink...

Haven't really posted in the thread, but I think you'll only need to take over a third of the county to do that.

 

[Silenteight]

Given the GM's explanation, it seems like a majordomo or seneschal might be more useful then a castellan, given that we already have men who could take command during a siege.

It's obvious that Dita isn't going to want to train tactics any time soon, so training up her sword skill would be more useful, especially since it would help Dominic train as well, and make her more likely to take his advice in the future.

 

[ShaperV]

Anyway I also had a question I wanted to ask while they were here but forgot, I don't think we should ask for Ezti's help but I do think we should ask if they have any information about the haunts, especially the one involving the monster, I'm pretty worried about that one.

Click to shrink...

Ezti doesn't know anything about the well or the tower, but she's heard stories about the Black Beast. In th elast hundred years Rogatica, Kiscun and Pischia have all made attempts to slay the beast and claim its woods, but these expeditions have all ended in disaster.

The Black Beast is supposed to be a strange, unnatural hybrid of bear and serpent that's faster than a horse, stealthier than a beastman and stronger than an ox. It never leaves its woods, and within its own domain the creature seems able to appear and vanish almost at will. It likes to do hit-and-run tacitcs - it charges into the party, kills a few men and horses, runs off leaving an obvious trail so it can pick off anyone dumb enough to follow, and then vanishes and circles around to do it again.

It seems we either want to cripple our neighbors or someone made a poor decision on the tariffs as far as elasticity of demand is concerned...

The Schwarzwald,why am I not surpirised. ,)

Click to shrink...

Well, it's not like anyone in Borjeria knows enough about economics to manage these things with any great skill.

"South Of Corzu" means out of Corzu so we don't need to kill it before activating our regency magic, or is it simply a forest situated in the south of Corzu, and we do need to kill it?

Looks like it might be the 'Black wood'.

Click to shrink...

Correct. The woods where the Black Beast lives are not curently claimed by anyone.

Regardless, given there is no indication that Chesna/Ezti are gone, i would like to try to go back to scheming with them, this time on more specfic details:

To Chesna:

"What are your thoughts on Nikolai? I'd be honest and say my initial impressions are not good, but maybe it's just first impressions. How he is generally acting around your mother, yourself or your barony?"

Click to shrink...

Chesna rolls her eyes. "Ugh! That man is a snake! I don't know what father sees in him. Well, I guess he did save his life once when they were on campaign, but I wouldn't be surprised if Nikolai arranged that somehow."

"Seriously, all he thinks about is money. How to squeeze more of it out of everything in sight, and then keep anyone from spending any of it. Supposedly it's all to pay for father's crusading in Anatolia, but I don't believe that. I've seen the shipments we send, and unless there are chests of gold hidden in them a lot of the money is going somewhere else."

"But mother is too timid to complain, and he's too sneaky to get caught anyway. He's always got an explanation for anything I ask about, and then mother complains to me that I'm being unladylike and I should stop meddling with 'men's business'. At this rate by the time I inherit there's goign to be nothing left of Pischia but a bunch of empty villages and starving townspeople."

"Your debut should be soon. Do you have any reason for me not to try and help your mother arrange it? If not, how soon do you wish to have it?"

Click to shrink...

"Oh! It would be wonderful if we could actually make the party season in the capitol this year. I know the family has a villa there, but I haven't even seen the place since I was... oh, six, maybe? I barely remember it. The season starts in late May and runs through early September, but mother says a lot of people don't stay the whole time."

"I suppose aunty will want me to make an alliance for the good of the family, but maybe that won't be so bad. There might be a handsome young baron in my future," she says teasingly.

To Both:
"Baron Timis recently lost his son. Do you think he remains approachable, or is he likely to shut down any negociation for the items that belonged to the one likely to have murdered his son?"

Click to shrink...

They've both met Baron Timis, and they agree there's no way he's going to cooperate with you on that. Apparently he's known as a fundamentalist Khersian zealot, which actually makes you wonder what he was doing hiring an earth mage in the first place.

Losing his heir was also quite a blow to him, since his other son is only ten. If he hears that Kat is working for you now he's likely going to look for some way to get revenge.

To Ezti:
"I have a few haunts i have to clear up before finally taking control of the regency of the Fief. Do you want to help? Have you had any experience with them?"

Click to shrink...

She boggles for a moment. Then her surprise melts away, replaced with a shy grin. "You want me to come and fight supernatural evil with you? Father would have kittens."

She pauses. "I'd love to. Not many girls can say they've killed a haunt on their first date."

She does, however, suggest that you see if there are any tales of previous encounters with the creatures. Figuring out how to kill a haunt can be tricky - usualy they have some exotic vulnerability, or a focus object you have to destroy, or something along those lines. You might be able to kill one temprarily with brute force, but they'll just reform if you don't figure out their weakness.

 

[Thomasfoolery]

So based on what ShaperV said about both keeping swordsmanship progress, and the necessity to get Dita's trust before proposing alternative lines of development, I think even those who want tactics should be alright doing some bonding over swordsmanship first to get her to open up to the possibility?

Anyway someone mentioned they'd rather have a Seneschal rather than a Castellan, anyone else feel strongly either way? I'm pretty ambivalent about the matter so if no one speaks up either way I'll probably change it to recruiting a seneschal.

Edit: Oh, yeah, I'd also prefer a more abstracted take on equipment and such things personally.

 

[DarkLight140]

Long post ahead; skip to the budget at the end if you don't care about my thoughts and musings.
Edit: And several posts were made while I was writing this, so a few of the points appear to have been made slightly less relevant.

I believe it was said before that now would be the appropriate time to go through any final conversations that we want to have with Ezti and Chesna. While we've established them as allies, we've ultimately failed thus far to make any significant plans to follow through on our friendship with Ezti, and all we've arranged with Chesna is a vague note to her mother that we'll help her with her debut. I had proposed earlier that we try to come up with ways to work to mutual benefit, but while we nominally did that in-character it was an informed conversation- we made no actual plans, we got no solid answers on what the girls would or would not be willing to do and what their actual needs are, aside from Ezti chasing marriage as aggressively as she politely can and Chesna wanting some excitement in her life, and also in our pants.

That's basically failure, except in the context of making them more amicable to future proposals. I had previously given a list of potential suggestions as to favors we could do each other, reposted in slightly updated form here for reference:

-Assist Ezti by building up our forces and militarily allying with her against Rogatica.
-Assist Ezti by establishing friendly relations with Rogatica and feeding her information as to his assets and plans.
-Assist Ezti by arranging the assassination of Rogatica (do not mention this one, but think it and find out about his heirs, etc.).
-Assist Chesna by arranging for a confrontation with Nikolai in which he loses face and/or social standing, potentially including his position, or otherwise is forced into doing something she wants.
-Assist Chesna by helping her mother find her a suitable match, and attempting to push for someone who suits her preferences (and also ours) while doing so.
-Assist Chesna by convincing her mother of virtually anything that she wants her mother convinced of but is having trouble with, and a charming young lord she has at least some trust for might be listened to about.
-Either of them helps us by having some of their troops or retainers come aid us in clearing out haunts or beastmen.
-Either of them assists us by arranging to purchase or otherwise acquire certain grimoires from Baron Timis.
-Either of them assists us by helping us to find a suitable wife (if we conclude that they themselves are off the table).

Click to shrink...

What I want to know is, are the ladies interested or strongly interested in any of these? Substantially opposed to any? Which ones? Do they have things of their own that they want to bring up, goals they'd like to accomplish? We need specific information so that we can take action, or our general good intent toward one another has gains roughly as solid as our words in the wind. Getting this information could make a large difference as to our actions in this and the coming turns- for example, if Ezti is willing to loan us thirty or forty troops, there's no way that we shouldn't be marching against the beastmen right now. If Chesna wants Nikolai removed, we need to be thinking of all our interactions with Pischia in that light; if she wants him to stick around, we need to be planning to work with him in the long term, instead of telling our family what a corrupt guy he is.

Ezti wants us to propose, but there are at least a couple significant barriers to doing so- at the very least, we need to walk the borders with Rogatica and get a sense of the man before we effectively declare him our enemy. Ideally we'd also have secured Corzu for our own magically, which means eliminating all haunts. I think the fastest we could possibly manage both is two months from now, and probably more, depending upon how bad the haunts turn out to actually be- I'm hoping that with Dita and to a lesser extent Katiana on our side, we'll be able to scrub them without issue, but that could be optimistic.

It does seem like we've got a position to lay some groundwork for marrying her, though- writing our family about plans to potentially marry her could already set wheels in motion with regards to easing off on tariffs or shipping weaponry out here at a somewhat lower cost, not to mention making arrangements to have support in case Rogatica tries something. It's not ideal to not be able to fend him off on our own- but I seriously doubt that our family is inclined to turn down any course of action on our part which nets the bloodline another barony. They'll support us on any attempt to bring one into the fold so easily as this.


Atalaya. It seems clear that she is a serious problem, but I don't think she's an urgent one. Securing our fief comes first; she's not going to oppose us in that, so she can wait. She's had years of near-total freedom to do whatever she wants, and I don't think another few months is going to see her breaking her current relatively low-key patterns of activity just because we're around. My recommendation would be to have Dita make her prayer for backup, we inspect Mira to see if there's any evidence of hostile magic/how that happened, and then we put the Atalaya issue on ice until we have more time and resources to deal with her.

Frankly, as long as we don't have the ability to confidently deal with her in the short term, I am extremely tempted to make use of her abilities. It would be extremely convenient for us if misfortune struck Baron Rogatica and/or his barony, preventing him from taking action while we move forward with plans to marry Ezti. It'd be even better if he suddenly caught the flux and passed on. The only thing that stops me from actually going ahead with that is the fact that I'm not sure how traceable it would be. If it's not easily detected or followed back to its source, or if we have reliable information that Rogatica doesn't keep enough magical experts around to catch on to what's happening... well, I don't know about the rest of you, but it's practicalities rather than scruples that stand in my way.


Katiana. She's fairly useful, but also problematic. Her willingness to take initiative and recruit assistance for the job we assigned to her is laudable, but it also means that there's no chance in hell word won't be getting out that she's working for us; the people she recruited and the people who saw her out demanding labor taxes are virtually certain to talk. That means we're on a clock before Timis comes calling, and it might have already smeared our relationship with Rogatica since he's one of Timis' allies.

Her social actions are likewise two-edged; it's good that she's being friendly but I don't trust the fact that she's influencing Dita and both our mistresses; I suspect that in short order she'll have all our holdings convinced that she's the woman in charge around here, and it will be true in practice if not theory. We're also willingly letting her ensorcel our mistresses- while we told her to do the birth control thing and she says that's what it is, we don't have the magical background to actually confirm it- and we know for a fact that she uses seduction magic. I don't actually think she's malign, but a viper doesn't need ill intent to bite you; it does so naturally. We need to keep a very close eye on her and ensure that everyone involved remains clear that we're in charge.

The best way to potentially get Katiana's books and materials back remains working through Chesna, I think. Timis will have heard that she's working for us soon, if he hasn't already, and there's no way that he'll be giving them up to us directly. Chesna, however, has both fairly significant social skills and a known desire for adventure and magic in her life. It wouldn't be unbelievable at all for her to want wizardry-related stuff for her own reasons, though it might make for a minor scandal. Once she has them, Chesna can pass them to us- or use them to pressure Katiana to teach her some magic, whatever. This doesn't have to happen- we don't really need Katiana's stuff at all- but it's an idea I'd like second opinions on at least.


I don't think the whole castellan/majordomo/seneschal business is actually important at the moment. It can wait a few months. Yes, efficiency will suffer in the meantime, but while our staff has grown significantly, almost half of it is random unskilled peasant schlubs that we can just order to do some of the long-term manual labor jobs like clearing the grounds for now. It's not complex, it requires little oversight, and frankly if they only work at two-thirds efficiency I don't actually care. It'll cost us a tiny, tiny amount of SP.

My reasoning here is this: Going to the nearest city and picking up someone for the job is a terrible way to find a highly competent, trustworthy person to manage your home, and we simply don't have time for a more thorough vetting process. Writing our father with a note that we're increasingly need of a trustworthy administrator would be a better way to go about it; he'll almost certainly know of a fourth son second cousin somewhere that has the attributes we need, and depending upon family connections will bring trustworthiness that we can't get hiring on our own. We'd have to find someone who personally owes us for some reason to match it. Alternately, if we do marry Ezti her barony might well have someone with the requisite talents who we'd be able to hire, and loyalty to our wife would be almost as good as loyalty to us.


Our magical development is something we should come up with a coherent long-term plan for if we can. I would very much like to develop a Force ability to deflect incoming arrows, if only because getting shot in the face is extremely unpleasant- this last encounter was concerning on that score. I'm not sure how far away from being able to do that we are; our existing abilities seem minor, and it might take Force 2 and several actions worth of refinement before we can reliably deflect ranged fire heading toward us and our companions in a combat situation.

We should finish developing birth control magic on our own. Not necessarily urgently, but I got the sense that it wouldn't take too much longer and leaving Katiana in charge of ensuring that our lovers don't get pregnant is just a bad idea in the long term. More than that, magical skills build on existing ones, and messing with fertility in one way means, as I understand it, that we'll have an easier time messing with fertility in other ways should we wish it. The applications of that would be extremely useful to us- ensuring that we have healthy heirs, ensuring that they are male or female at our option, possibly we could mess around with animal husbandry later to breed super-beasts, and if that works out well use some of the learned skills to ensure that our children are as capable as possible.

I'm not actually that inclined to actually keep using birth control, by the way. Having some bastard children isn't a bad thing, and Dominic is frankly more awesome than any NPC that we've encountered. That means his children will also probably be awesome, and if they inherit at least one of his sorceries they'll grow up with potent magic to boot. As long as we keep on top of things, that could be a good way to get ourselves some loyal and capable retainers, fifteen or twenty years down the line.


Immediate concerns: Walking the border, dealing with the beastmen, and dealing with the haunts are the big ones. To that end, I'm proposing the following action set, which aims for a problem-oriented approach which should solve some of our issues and give us a good assessment of the others. We recruit no less than three units of spearmen, which should be enough to crush those beastmen, and locate them so that we can do said crushing next turn. We also research haunts so that we'll likewise be able to crush them ASAP. Credit to Thomasfoolery for posting a budget first, from which some numbers and ideas are taken.

Note that I have several characters focusing on learning skills at level 1. In general, this is because I want near-immediate results. Dita needs Horsemanship because she can't ride a horse, which is both a terrible thing for a noble and a terrible thing for anyone planning to travel many hundreds of miles. She also needs Tactics because she can't make a decent combat plan, which is both a terrible thing for anyone leading troops and a terrible thing for anyone likely to encounter foes who outnumber them. Both of these skills are thus essential whether she's hanging out with us being noble-ish or haring off into the wilderness on her own. Traian should learn Engineering 1 because with even one point he'll immediately become a better engineer than Katiana is due to his high Mind score, so we'll be able to use him for those actions when there's no bookkeeping to be done. I'd hope that he'll be able to find an instructor in the city and get any applicable books and such for self-study, then return before the month's end. There may be minor practical issues with that, depending upon how finicky we're getting with the details here. I'm not sure if he could learn from Katiana without an actual action on her part.


Dominic
Major Actions
[X] Walk the Rogatica border with the Baron
[X] Research Corzu - Haunts
[X] Recruit Troops - Spearmen

Minor Actions
[X] Send a letter to our father detailing our experience in Pisch, he can pass it up the chain if necessary.
[X] Monitor Mira to see if you pick up any further changes. See if Kat knows what kind of methods could have been responsible for the change we noticed
[X] Send a letter to Gavrilla to get an idea about when she's planning to stop by and any preliminary thoughts she might have, mention she may want to keep her eye open for male prospects as well, as Chesna will likely be heading down soon.
[X] Ask Dita to try to call for a Chosen.
[X] Ask Katiana for any professional assessment she can give of the Dark Moon Well, Three Bells Tower, and Black Beast of the Wood, based upon her greater knowledge of magical phenomena and the rumors we've heard, before we leave to investigate them.

Dita
[X] Train - Tactics 1
[X] Train - Horsemanship 1

Sir Bialis
[X] Recruit Troops - Spearmen

Jaroslaw
[X] Recruit Troops - Spearmen

Katiana Nevyana
[X] Begin granary project

Traian
[X] Train Engineering 1

Men at arms
[X] 6 accompany Dominic, rest escort Traian home

Archers
[X] 6 accompany Dominic, 4 escort Traian, Rest Garrison

Rangers
[X] Hunt threat: Beastmen

 

[staplesdex2]

About Kat what you said sounds cautionary with a hint of paranoia but you have a point. Still I'd thought that we already had a measure of trust with Kat and any Seduction magic she has was thought to be sexy dances. It does sound kind of a dick move on our part plotting against her.

About what you said not keeping birth control, some problems on that, namely being that of a political nature and one we cannot afford yet.