Been playing a lot of CK2 lately, but glad to see interest exists in this. Not abandoned but rather put off.
Ok, I have a tiny update for you. I restarted in Reyvadin with noble parent, rest same.
....
I decided to wander around a bit while I recruited veteran troops to help out that merchant. While exploring Rivacheg, I found a mysterious chest, and a strange set of armor inside, along with a strange sword.
I immediately donned the armor, but put the sword in inventory, as my tempered sword was better.
Travelling back to Reyvadin with my newly-recruited veteran vaegir troops, I saw a pack of vaegir horseman deserters following me! In default Mount & Blade, I might as well turn around and charge them, as there is no escape for a mostly-unmounted force such as mine. Thankfully, this isn't default Mount & Blade, so I rushed my men away from the dastardly horsemen to the safety of Curaw.
See, this mod isn't all pain-and-anguish!
I returned to Reyvadin's tavern to continue the merchant quest when I suddenly became swarmed with companions, and two of which were free! Yay!
In due time, I would send them to talk good about me to the world, but for now I needed their help. Plus, I had to remember the correct order to send them out. I know if I send Bunduk out before Deshavi, then Deshavi will never go out and tell others how great we are because Bunduk's idea is too soft for Deshavi.
Anyways, I decided to upgrade Jeremus's equipment a bit:
My strange short sword has a new home! And 23 gold for a "shield" is well worth it!
So we kill some robbers, and the game helpfully reminds me to put points into prisoner management.
It wouldn't have been worth much anyways.
Now that we have the location of the kidnapper's HQ, we attack in force!
Even though my shield got damaged, I learn that leading the charge has its advantages:
After the battle, we find loads of junk that I have no use for and that doesn't even sell for very much. Yay.
So we return to Reyvadin, collect our reward, bash the thieves in town, and finish up with the merchant.
Ok, we're now free to do what we like. I mentioned setting up an outpost earlier. Unfortunately, neither Dhirim nor Curaw have a smith's guild, but thankfully Reyvadin does, and it is half the way between both locations. We also don't have enough of an army yet for an outpost to be necessary.
We are now a noble, so we can start thinking about whom we would like to serve. We don't quite have enough renown yet, but we will soon.
We could also explore the Sarranid's domain. They have iron (somewhere, I can never pinpoint it), and their castles are easy to conquer (once we start doing that sort of thing).
And what weapons should our new companions get? I posted earlier what we could forge. I'll probably forge at least two shields, as shields rock, especially these shields.
Might also train at the Reyvadin smith's guild. I'll be a lot happier when we can start crafting armor.
One other decision we need to make: Whether we should send Jeremus or Deshavi out to spread our good name?