3821, the third month of the year, and the first month of spring.
Governor Adeeb Wasirri
20 years old
Health and Physical Abilities
Fit
Healthy
Social Skills
Practiced in Court Manners
Rogueish Charm
Practical Skills
Competent Swordsman
Competent Tumbler
Mediocre Rider
Novice Sneak
Agents and Councillors
Aldagor (Barrister): Unoccupied
Balpher (Garrison Commander): Training the Garrison
Desan (steward): Assessing Keep Improvement Costs
Elerik (Junior Garrison Commander): Training the Garrison
Eduard (Courtier):
Allies
-Vest (Friend, Duelist, former smuggler)
Vassals
Mayor Veera: Unknown relationship
Sir Madagor: Unknown relationship
Assets
-A well bred riding horse.
-An ageing riding horse.
-Eight Light Riding Horses.
-A Duelling Saber
-Several sets of fine gentleman's clothing.
-Twenty Wasirri Gaurdsmen
-Four rickety wooden carts.
Wealth:
-A heavy bag of gold crowns.
-A chest of somewhat questionable silver crowns.
Bonewatch
Infrastructure
-Tiny Stone Keep on a hilltop.
-Stables
-Barracks with crowded quarters.
-Somewhat stocked and poorly armoury.
-Rickety wooden outer palisade.
-patchy overgrown "dirt" roads.
-Mostly Unmanned rickety wooden watchtowers.
-a handful of wooden homes within the walls.
-A well with plenty of fresh water.
Supplies
-Five months worth of poor quality grain (oats, wheat, barley).
-Nearly Empty Keep Larder
Population
-Undisciplined, poorly equipped, poorly trained garrison of fifty-three men.
-A half dozen personal servants.
-Various farmers and their families in the surrounding area.
Bleakhaven
Infrastructure
-Your personal manor of fine quality
-Overgrown Patchy "Dirt" Roads
-Various Poorly organized and scattered homes
-The Wretched Mutt A seedy Tavern
-A Well-Maintained Windmill
Population
-Suspicious Peasantry. Led by various heads of landowning families.
-A community managed local watch.
Setting up the lumber operations would initially be a vulnerable time for the enterprise, and it's possible that they could face attack. As such they request a score of your men for protection, until such a time as the area becomes safe, to discourage attack. It's also possible that the carts transporting lumber could be raided, and so they may require some protection, though the aforementioned guards may prove sufficient in protecting the lumber carts if you choose not to recall them once the the enterprise is established. It is suggested that it may be simpler to provoke a skirmish or two with bandit patrols in the area, to communicate to them that you are prepared to fight them if they interfere with your affairs, and that you are claiming the area around the planned lumber camp. They would be willing to offer some support in such light skirmishes, though there is little support they could offer if you chose to seek out and assault their strongholds.
Though you offer to extend a loan in case planting seed is sparse it is stated that there is sufficient planting seed for this spring's crop of wheat, oats, barley and hops. If you wish the local farmers to grow anything else however, you will have to either provide money or seed for that.
You encourage the landowners to come to you with any problems or requests, though with the disclaimer that you will be very busy in the coming spring.You agree to allow Eduard to enter your service, and quite happily he quickly darts off to make his goodbye's and gather his things. With those last closing issues dealt with you and Vest mount your horses and leave, everyone more or less glad that the talks are over with for now.
...
You return to Bonewatch, and begin to attend to the basic matters of state. Aldagor continues to draft and make copies of the documents you asked him to make. He advises you to have copies sent to the crown recordkeepers, and each of your vassals at the least, else the legal change might not even be officially recorded or made clear. You ask Desan to begin making estimates on the potential cost of replacing or improving various pieces of castle infrastructure, and he agrees, over the coming days he spends a roughly equal time shut away and calculating figures or looking over the keep and it's holdings, while often speaking to locals about various pieces of minutia. Though Balpher had wanted to spend time canvassing the locals for recruits you instead have him focus on ensuring the basic competence and discipline of his men, to ensure that this matter is handled with at least some competence underneath him you assign the most experienced member of your personal gaurd, as his junior garrison commander. The man's name is Elerik, and if truth be told he's probably a better swordsman than you are, and well respected by his fellows for his cool and collected nature under pressure.
Vest takes water and porridge down to the prisoner in order to get information out of him, and finds that his health is holding for now, though imprisonment and sparse meals leave him growing weaker as time passes. The prisoner is hopeful that he will live, and lets slip that there was someone Walder was working closely with, someone who had been selling him information, though he claims not to know exactly who it might have been. You send your friend out with a quarter of your gaurds to gather information in The Boneyard, Sir Madagor's township.
You yourself spend time reading through Walders records. Some of the notes are obscured in a rather primitive code, with certain names and places being unclear, though it is clear he kept careful figures when it came to his transactions. You believe that he was selling grain back to those he taxed it from, though at fair seeming prices, and that he was selling military gear to someone, though you can't be sure exactly to who. He was also paying what seems to be a few dozen people regularly for "services rendered", which could mean anything. Judging from the chest full partially of clipped silver coins that he left stashed away he was either being cheated or cheating someone, you cannot be sure which.
It's mind-numbing work, and you are glad for the distraction afforded by Eduard. He strikes you as quite clever and likable, even if his commonborn manners leave something to be desired. He does at least, learn quickly, and in the coming month he becomes passable enough in basic etiquette that you might trust him to speak with his betters in casual conversation, if not dine or dance among them. He knows only a little of local trade, having never accompanied traders who operate within the province, but he expresses that travelling merchants from other outer provinces generally manage the trade in Dhum-Blud, with few local merchants having the capital to hire the mercenaries they would need to protect caravans and still ensure the investment is worth it. Trade routes with the bordering provinces are moderately dangerous, driving up the price of most goods. He doesn't know precisely what trade opportunities might be available, but he states it might prove profitable to better maintain the local roads, patrol them regularly, and then set up tolls.
...
A little less than a month passes, all in all, and at last you are beginning to settle in. The nights can be a little cold, and the servants arn't always able to keep your fire well stocked. The food is already plain, and even so the castle larder dwindles, with the supply of dried meat and vegetables shrinking to nothing, and the supply of salt close to follow. Without stocking your larder soon you, and your court will likely be eating the same plain porridge, and bread that your troops complain of. The weather at least, begins to warm, what snow there is beginning to melt. It had been warm for a winter, but spring is welcome all the same.
Carts arrive from bleakhaven carrying weapons, armour and rich fabric bearing the kings colours of gold and purple, both on banners and tabards, the carts drawn by your horses and being led by a handful of your deserters. Six of those come willingly, and three more come hogtied together in the back of a wagon.
While your garrison troops havn't done much combat drilling, you are beginning to notice an improvement in their discipline. They've begun a watch on the towers regularly, are working on keeping their gear in better condition and can now open the gate promptly. Desan mentions that as long as you have sufficient labor and lumber, it won't neccecarilly cost much beyond the cost of food to tear down and replace the outer palisade and watchtowers. In fact, if you gather enough lumber it should not be too difficult to create proper walls that the guards could patrol and watch from. Improvements to the keep itself would be extremely expensive, requiring not only engineers, but a great deal of quarried stone and skilled labor, and it's not a task currently in your price-range, though establishing quarries might make it a great deal cheaper. An iron gate installed in the outer palisade or wall is within your price-range, with price varying depending on the quality of metal and craftsmanship you might prefer.
Vest returns to the castle with little trouble, guards in tow. The party had posed as a group of mercanaries in order to better explain why six well armed men were travelling through the lands. They were met with a certain amount of suspicion by the local populace, who recognized the difference between a mercenary and a highwayman; circumstance. Under this guise however, Vest was able to meet with one of Sir Madagor's lieutenants, a former mercenary captain. They gained what information they could about the township's military through observation and well-placed questions, and found it to be a well-oiled machine, small, but well trained. They've crossbowmen, shieldbearers, and light cavalry, and Sir Madagor had been until recently recruiting to form light skirmishing bands of mercenaries and conscripts. Boneyard itself is not very large, though it has large wooden walls protecting it's core, and the township economy seems to come largely from a local iron mine.
Towards the end of the month various local commoners petition to work in your service. A half-dozen petitioners are unskilled commoners looking to become servants, and another is an apprentice smith claiming that his master has been taking advantage of him. You also receive a letter delivered by rider, sent from your vassal, Mayor Veera, administrator of the town of Stokeswood. The letter expresses regret about the unfortunate incident that led to the maiming of a prominent nobleman's son, before building up to a request to receive the mayor within your castle soon for a formal audience.
GM NOTE
So this update is... long. Let me know if this will be a problem in the future, or if you actually prefer a lot of detail, it should rarely be this long anyway, but let me know what you want and i can take that into account. I'm going to try to clean up the spoilered information by the next update as well.
Author
Topic: Delegation: A fief management suggestion Game (Read 25414 times)