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[neblime]

Diary of Neblime Inkydance, Council Interim Secretary, 7th Galena, 126
This is a momentous occasion!  Our wise expedition leader has approved of my proposed form of government!
I have drafted a proclamation putting forth more detail which I shall copy into my diary;

"
                   -PROCLAMATION OF GOVERNANCE REDRESS OF THE SLICK MURK OF THE LUSTROUS TRADES-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This document and all contained information has been drafted under the authority and with permission of our mighty
and benevolent king, Tosid Cloisterbrushed the 1st, in the 34th year of his reign. 
The settlement known as "The Slick Murk" shall henceforth be subject to all governmental rules and requirements
stated in this document, with exception to amendments or annulments voted by 6/7 council majority*** or the will of
the current king,* from the time of the signing of this document up to the completion of our mission of establishing a
city to rival those of the other surface dwelling races combinedand beyond, forevermore.

All business matters in relation to the royal mission entrusted to us shall be decided by a council of seven noblemen.
These noblemen shall be the heads of the families of the seven settlers who first struck the earth and raised a roof
at this place.**  Every council member shall have an equal vote, however council members may choose to abstain from
voting on any movement. 

Once voted on by the council, laws and acts apply to all citizens of the Slick Murk, and breaches of said
laws and acts, in addition to council voted production orders will result in penalties and punishments stipulated within
said laws and acts, or if the council so votes, specific punishment decided by the council.  Once voted on by the
council reversal of a proposition may only occur upon the council voting so, with exception to the will of the king*
 No Citizen of the Slick Murk may withhold property which the council has deemed required for a purpose pertaining to
our royal mission, nor may a citizen refuse a labour or order given him, however a citizen is allowed to make an appeal
before the council (requiring a revote), or to the current king.*
  Council members may only be replaced or dismissed by a vote of 6/7ths majority,*** in which case the council must
immediately vote upon a replacement family, the  head of which shall become the new council member.  In addition to
council membership several appointments will be afforded council members and non members respectively, requiring a
majority vote by the council to be appointed.

Appointments allowed ONLY non council members:
Mayor; Responsible for overseeing the general continuation of the mission.

Captain of the Guard; Responsible for preserving the king's law and the council's order.

Hammerer; Responsible for delivering justice as required by the council for continuation of the mission.

Manager; Responsible for the supervision of production of all goods required for the mission.

Chief Medical Officer; Responsible for the supervision of all medical matters.

Broker; Responsible for any financial assessments or duties required for the mission.

Bookkeeper; Responsible for keeping track of stocks of all items in possession of the settlement.

Appointments allowed ONLY council members;
Council Secretary; Responsible for recording all propositions put to the council, and active laws and orders.

War Leader;  Responsible for any council required actions in wartime which require too much haste to vote upon^✢

Royal Liason;  Responsible for discussing any matters related from the mountainhomes to the mayor (or other) or directly to
the Royal liason and giving orders acting upon them without vote if necessary and in the will of the king.*  The Royal Liason may not be removed from the council
without direct orders from the king, however replacements may be voted upon by the council if the king acquiesces.

Citizen Liason; Responsible for discussing the general citizenry's concerns and putting them forth to the council for discussion or
action.

*Including representatives
**Head of family being eldest living member drawing the most direct line to the original council member.
***Out of voting members, hence greater than 85% of votes are required.
✢ Separate to, and not superceding (except in cases of the will of the king*) militia commanders.

The initial council;
Teledwarf Towntunnel, Royal Liason
Kerod Picknotch
Neblime Inkydance
FireCrazy Purewalled
Derpislava Patternedlance
cyberTripping Trussmine
Dwarf4explosive Brassdelights

Note - Teledwarf Towntunnel was assumed the role of Royal liason as he has already been given the king's authority to oversee this mission.
"

I also addressed the initial council.

"Friends, let us not be carried away by the excitement of this new organisation, our undertaking will be long and hard, and I have no doubt that it will take most of, if not more than our whole lives to complete.  We have important matters to decide upon;
I move that I myself am appointed as temporary Council secretary until one is appointed, having drafted our proclamation I believe i will be most familiar and apt with council proceedings, and hence the obvious candinate to keep track of such things.
We must vote on council Appointments:
I nominate and vote for myself for Council secretary.
We await a nominee for War Leader and Citizen liason, if any of you have the ability for such roles please volunteer yourself.

We must also decide upon our next task in this undertaking once our main hall is complete;
a - build a 2nd story with restrooms, and move to turn longhall into a tavern?
b - build additional facilities around to house industries (barn, slaughterhouse, fisherman's hut, farm...), and move to turn this little trading post into a bustling village.
c - dig for stone, possibly freezing out any aquifier. Stone and metals will greatly increase our chances of survival.
d - build a wooden fort by the river, building our dream with what we already have (wood, bone)
e - council members may put forth other suggestions if they deem no alternative desirable.

I vote to dig for precious stone and ores!
Please submit unto me your votes and nominations as soon as possible fellow council members!"

[kero42]

Looking good thus far,  . So Kerod is officially the "Landmark Commissioner", eh? I can just imagine him walking around, gazing into the distance, planning things in his head, unable to do much but sigh "someday..." before picking up the boulder in front of him to store in the stockpile (or whatever his job is around here), XD.

[neblime]

<OOC>
wheew ok sorry guys, but I got carried away in the detail >.<
I must note a few things.  The whole idea of the royal liason is so that if you don't like a council decision for any meta reason you can just say the king would (or does) disapprove teledwarf, as you are assumed to be the kings representative, and the same reason you can't be voted out. (but if you feel like less control you can say the king made you resign or whatever!) so whenever I say the king's will read; teledwarf's (the RL forum user, not the dorf's) will
I also deliberately didn't mention the class system you planned out (Teledwarf) in the proclamation because I assume you don't want the council to affect that (at least not the framework of it, it's ok if we affect movements within it yes?)
The War Leader isn't really supposed to make any decisions at all, he can just be assumed to be the one who gave the order for all the soldiers to go eat when the goblins showed up etc.
The secretary I was thinking should keep everything the council decides upon in an unformatted (intentionally hard to read) notepad file, and give it to anyone else who gets voted secretary to try and puzzle through if past laws need to be referenced.
only time I'll meta I promise, but I think it would be best if I stay secretary for at least a little while because i can pretty much gaurantee RL beast won't get me for at least a few months
The normal nobles are non council so that hopefully non council players can get more excitement, either in or striving to be voted into those positions.

also, as for voting, I was thinking 24 RL hours after each issue is put forward anyone who did not vote is considered to have abstained, i'm open to change on that one though! Please get voting, anyone who is actually a dorf!

[kero42]

So now we are at a choice. what should we do once we finish roofing the longhall?
a - build a 2-nd story with restrooms, and move to turn longhall into a tavern?
b - build additional facilities around to house industries (barn, slaughterhouse, fisherman's hut, farm...), and move to turn this little trading post into a bustling village.
c - dig for stone, possibly freezing out any aquifier. Stone and metals will greatly increase our chances of survival.
d - build a wooden fort by the river, building our dream with what we already have (wood, bone)
e - your variant.

I guess it is suitable choice for a council of nobles, the larvae of our future senate.

I wouldn't know which to pick, they all have their own merits:

A: Sounds nice, would give the migrants/nobles somewhere to sleep until the houses (and segregation of the upper and lower class dwarf) are ready.
B:We could do with them, and the idea of setting up the basics of our city sounds nice.
C:The resources we find could be useful for both general survival and building our homes.
D:It would be quick, somewhat easy, and would make sense, even if it looks a tad poor.

I would recommend that  no matter which we pick, C should be done anyway, if we have the spare men/picks.

Though I'd like to raise a few (irrelevant points to be considered in the future plans once we are properly set up) questions (written from a vaguely IC perspective):

If we build a wall separating the manor from the peasants , how high should it be? On one hand, I might like the workers to see our manor and us the little village we rule, but I wouldn't want to see the poorer parts of town. I suppose our little village will be aesthetic-ly pleasing enough that we wouldn't mind having to, and we could always build the manor far enough away from the poor peasants that we wouldn't have to see them. This may all be a moot point though, as we might not even have windows (or balconies, for that matter).

And does anyone have any preference for manor building materials? I would be fine with nearly anything (although I would perhaps find solid gold exterior walls a bit gaudy, maybe for the manor main room  floors, but the outside walls would be such a waste of gold XD), I would like a general idea of what others think on the matter. In the construction of personal rooms, should favourite materials be taken into account, or should we aim for something more standardised (I would opt for standardised worth in Kerods room, as he has to keep in mind his family will be using it in times to come,  but if a more self centred noble wants to doom his descendants to microline walls and floors (until they request to tear it down for something they like more), then he/she should be able to.)

Gosh, I swear when I started this post it was going to be quick and concise  . I really do think about these things too much, XD.


Edit: having read the proclamation above I have the following to note, starting from most important to least important:

"No Citizen of the Slick Murk may withhold property which the council has deemed required for a purpose pertaining to
our royal mission." So If Urist makes an artefact cabinet, we could confiscate it in put it in Kerods room?

Citizens Liaison should be someone 'with the common touch' as the media puts it, someone popular with the workers and with highish empathy (the mayor sounds like good choice, to be honest), one of the dwarfed migrant would be a good choice too, they came with the others and should understand their needs.

I in no way contest Tele's right to veto council decisions on authority of the king, only seems fair with him playing and all that.

And lastly, Kerod, not Terod.

[neblime]

"No Citizen of the Slick Murk may withhold property which the council has deemed required for a purpose pertaining to
our royal mission." So If Urist makes an artefact cabinet, we could confiscate it in put it in Kerods room?

"absolutely as long as the king or his representative have no issue with that. (on that note any part of the proclamation is potentially pending royal revisement if it's deemed unsuitable)"

Citizens Liaison should be someone 'with the common touch' as the media puts it, someone popular with the workers and with highish empathy (the mayor sounds like good choice, to be honest), one of the dwarfed migrant would be a good choice too, they came with the others and should understand their needs.

"As you may recall from the proclamation, no council member is also allowed to be mayor, this was in consideration of making sure no one council member can hold too much absolute power or blackmail other members, as well as give the citizens additional decision making power below the council.  If you disagree with this you can move to have the proclamation amended.  The appointment of a citizen's liason isn't urgent anyhow, until the population grows.  Do you have a nomination for War Leader?  Also not that urgent, I suppose that appointment can wait... however if you wish to nominate yourself now there may not be much opposition!"

I in no way contest Tele's right to veto council decisions on authority of the king, only seems fair with him playing and all that.
And lastly, Kerod, not Terod.

OOC
Thought it was the smoothest way for him to be able to interfere.
and oops, sorry.
also, I'm going to assume your actual vote is a reluctant C, if not let me know.

[kero42]

Citizens Liaison should be someone 'with the common touch' as the media puts it, someone popular with the workers and with highish empathy (the mayor sounds like good choice, to be honest), one of the dwarfed migrant would be a good choice too, they came with the others and should understand their needs.

"As you may recall from the proclamation, no council member is also allowed to be mayor, this was in consideration of making sure no one council member can hold too much absolute power or blackmail other members, as well as give the citizens additional decision making power below the council.  If you disagree with this you can move to have the proclamation amended.  The appointment of a citizen's liason isn't urgent anyhow, until the population grows.  Do you have a nomination for War Leader?  Also not that urgent, I suppose that appointment can wait... however if you wish to nominate yourself now there may not be much opposition!"

I in no way contest Tele's right to veto council decisions on authority of the king, only seems fair with him playing and all that.
And lastly, Kerod, not Terod.

OOC
Thought it was the smoothest way for him to be able to interfere.
and oops, sorry.
also, I'm going to assume your actual vote is a reluctant C, if not let me know.

Well my vote was really a non-vote, 'all options seem good' type thing, but with the recommendation that we follow through with C regardless of our choice, as it could be done anyway if we have the people to spare.

Lol, I suppose what I was trying to say was that a person who has the qualities to be appointed mayor would be the kind of person who would act as a citizens liaison, and would perhaps consult their opinion for reference (as the mayor would be the one actually having meetings with the dwarves, I imagine he would report these meetings and concerns to the Citizen liaison, who then decides if it is important enough to bother the Council about, "Who have much graver concerns than your lack of beds!!"). Reflecting on it, this would actually allow the citizen liaison to do something whilst still allowing him/her to be a callous bastard with no regard for others, so I suppose high empathy or being liked would be unnecessary.

[TeleDwarf]

a few IC notes:
our "beloved" king and his crone of a daughter are widely considered "an insane lunatic" and "an ugly rattlesnake" among his subjects(those are exact quotes from the outpost liaison Iden Kogankod, who came to visit us last autumn. He was deeply shocked to  see heirs of noble bloodlines crawling in mud trying to build a wooden hut in the middle of nowhere. His shock resulted in no migrants in the spring. Maybe few outcasts will join us in the summer? If will manage to force them to....)

After all they decided to send only 7 unskilled dwarves with inadequate supplies to  build what can be considered a social megaproject.

Also I would recommend to postpone the appointment rules, as we do not have nearly enough dwarves to adeuately fill public positions without council members. Maybe we can decide upon the minimum adult population before those laws kick in?

War leader would have plenty to decide upon: What kind of equipment to use(type, material). Prioritize quality or quantity(quickly churn many low-quality items with several unskilled craftsdwarves or levelup one craftsdwarf to eventually create masterwork items). What items to buy from traders and what to trophies from fallen enemies to use(bows? longswords? scourges?). Group veterans into one squad, or distribute them to train rookies. when to conscript another squad.

We can also institute many other roles:
Public Works Commissioner - in charge of all large, but relatively unskilled projects (excavate, build a wall, build a road, smooth some walls, etc...)
Rural Development Commissioner - how should rural area be developed?
Urban Development Commissioner - how should city be planned?
High Engineer - in charge for engineering projects (minecart routes, aqueducts, baths, etc...)
Fortification Commissioner - decides where and how to fortify our position. walls, portcullises, towers...
High Architect - creates designs for all buildings.
Mining Commissioner - decides what to mine and when.
and so on...

OOC: DF if full of decisions, and we can share those decisions. In a game where we have to decide for ourselves what a fisherman's  hut is, designing such a hut can be a major undertaking. Or should it be a fishing village with 3-5 huts? How many of those do we need? Where to place them and how to deliver goods to and from them?

I can even upload saves from time to time if there is anyone interested in looking at the landscape on-site .

[TeleDwarf]

Well my vote was really a non-vote, 'all options seem good' type thing, but with the recommendation that we follow through with C regardless of our choice, as it could be done anyway if we have the people to spare.

The question is more of priority,then of whether to do it at all or not. We currently have 6 Proficient to Adept carpenters making wooden blocks, 2 Adequate to Competent growers growing food, 8 lumberjacks cutting trees in the direction of the map edge (making wagon access), and one migrant child helping with the crops.

Go figure if we have people to spare

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

I'd like to dorfed as a noble please.

[Cain12]

Well if Dorf requests are still being accepted, preferably male carpenter, but will take anything that is free.

[TeleDwarf]

I'd like to dorfed as a noble please.

Fair lady Iden "Urist Mc Dwarf" Akumrith:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well if Dorf requests are still being accepted, preferably male carpenter, but will take anything that is free.

we are a bit short on male carpenters right now. How about male migrant mason instead?
Migrant of 2nd wave, Ast "Cain" Olinasteb, mason-lumberjack

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And a little update on our current situation: it is now autumn of the second year. We have just received a note (tied to the foot of a semi-intelligent ravenwoman from mountainhome) that we will not get any migrants. We got similar notes on spring and summer too. So the second year will not bring us any new workers. I am worried that something may be wrong back home. We might as well never get any migrants ever. Plans should be drafted for such an unfortunate chain of events.

[Cain12]

Sure a mason would be great, like I said, will take anything, can I ask the name be changed to just "Cain"? The 12 sort of looks wrong.

[kero42]

I'd like to dorfed as a noble please.

Fair lady Iden "Urist Mc Dwarf" Akumrith:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

YAY!! Kerod is romantically involved! And with a Sheriff! lol, lady urist also has low willpower.

[cyberTripping]

something tells me this will get way too hectic the second something goes wrong.

[TeleDwarf]

YAY!! Kerod is romantically involved! And with a Sheriff! lol, lady urist also has low willpower.

Oh, did not notice that

Urist Mc Dwarf, do you want another lass? or being romantically involved with Kerod is fine? This might add additional RP or it can severely mess with ones ambitions and/or political system and/or inheritance.

Sure a mason would be great, like I said, will take anything, can I ask the name be changed to just "Cain"? The 12 sort of looks wrong.

ok, will update previous post.

something tells me this will get way too hectic the second something goes wrong.

It is going wrong already. The project was intended for hundreds dwarves, but migrants just wont come . I wish we had some semi-nomadic hill dwarves we could forcefully enlist...