The Journal of Deus Asmoth, Lord of Cactusson, Defender of the Realm, Vizier Supreme and All-Round Nice Guy
1st of Granite, 104
It's nice to see that the people of Murderflood (or Murderflood, the Fiery Enchanted Hell-Dike of Terror to give it its full name) have gotten over their suspicions that I was somehow responsible for my wife's death. I loved her with all my heart! Or at least, she had a role to play in my plans and it didn't benefit me to kill her once she'd fulfilled that role. And that's basically the same thing, right? In any case, she left me with five living children of royal blood, so with some luck I'll be able to ensure that one of my daughters inherits the kingdom rather than just this bloody (literally) hole in the ground. Since Urist, our eldest, left us to pursue her own interests some years ago, I'll concentrate my efforts on Thob. She comes of age this year, and second children tend to have more resentment to draw on in any case.
On to the matter at hand, though. Murderflood seems reasonably well stocked for the moment. We do need more seeds, which I will be sure to bring up with any merchants that happen on us. I intend to expand our militia with some conscription, which should be easy enough considering all the children that are coming of age in the next couple of years (note to self: may require better recruitment drive than pointing out that the children don't do anything else useful). To supplement this, we'll have to start smelting more ores. The miners claim that they found a blue ore of near magical quality deep underground, but for some reason none of our leaders have done any work with it yet. I intend to remedy this, but cautiously in order to reassure the dolts who claim I'll 'end the world' or 'unleash the Dark Ones'. Fools. It's not like I'll be going down there myself in any case, so what does it matter if a few peasants have to die?
10th of Granite:
It turns out on further examination of the census, that most of our peasants aren't newly graduated children at all! One of them has gotten to the age of seventy six without doing a hand's turn in their life! Well, I'm putting a stop to this sloth right this instant!
15th of Granite:
It turns out that my daughter Thob is actually the only child coming of age this year. I've explained to her that she'll be learning the art of war anyway, since she'll sometimes have to take a more direct approach in removing one of her political rivals. Perhaps I could get one of the others into a church for a two pronged assault at the head of the realm...
In any case, a caravan of elven merchants has arrived. I'll get back to my thoughts once I've dealt with them.