Year 1, OctoberA crisp air blows throughout your lands, as the harvest season rolls around. While your changes to the communal farm last month are too late to have much of an effect on the harvest this year, you feel confident that next year will be much more plentiful. As it is, the harvest is rather mediocre.
As you work on overseeing the harvest, a tax collector arrives from the Count. He is a sneering man, and he eyes your stores lustily. He loads up two carts worth of goods, probably about 25% of your stores. Your steward was out surveying for minerals when the collector arrived, so you were unsure whether this was an appropriate amount. By the time your steward returned that evening, the collector was already gone.
Upon asking Dent, he seems a bit miffed. "Perhaps that was a bit too large a tax, but I am sure the collector was instructed to push us around a bit. I doubt the Count looks kindly upon us." On the plus side, Dent excitedly explains that he has found what he believes to be a promising outcropping of rocks on your land, north of the river, that may hold valuable minerals.
This new lifts your spirits as you ride towards Carshire, seeking out unemployed archers to serve as trainers for your militia. You search for a week, and are mostly fruitless until your final day. You step into an inn and flop down on a stool, and are about to order an ale when a sinewy older man sits down next to you. You begin talking, and learn that he is a former bowman in the King's army, but currently working as a fletcher.
Hearing this, you propose that he come work as a trainer for your militia, in return for a plot of land and a home. He seems agreeable, and offers to bring several men in similar situations with him as well. You agree to this, and he states that he will show up next month after getting his affairs in order.
Age: 19
Illiterate
Untrained Swordswman
Untrained Rider
Militia-grade Short Sword
Old Brown Mare
Worn-down Farmhouse
8 Citizens
Modest Inn with kitchen
Bare bones Market
Modest Communal Kiln
Rickety dock
River Parlon (fertile banks on both sides, light forest to the north)
Mediocre parcel farms south of the river
Crude Roads
Small Warehouse (poor supply of food)
Mediocre Communal Farm
Poorly populated
Skilled Potters
Rocky outcropping north of the river
Market Town of Carshire - One day's ride on main road
Folesden - Land of Count Foles - Downstream
* Curbiston - County Seat of Folesden
Land of Sir Denton - Upstream
Hemswood Abbey - Far Upstream - Known for dark beer
King Edward Geronos IV, Lord of the Falls, Keeper of the Flame, Seer of the Dawn - Vaguely remembered
Count Aaron Foles - Your Liege Lord - An angry drunkard - Suspicious
Sir Blake Denton - Unknown
Ian Wood - Foreman - Pleasant
William Dent - Steward - Companionable
Ian Hermage - Personal Cook - Happy
Marge Kannity - Daughter of a brewer - Impatient