Anyway, the only other thing I have an opinion on right now: we need to sit down and have a calm talk with Phillip, explaining that we don't believe that the Druids are responsible for screwing up Alan, and we vaguely suspect the Orcs might be doing it; state honestly that the Imperial clerics might be a little racist, and acknowledge that we can't actually rule out the druids as the responsible party so we'll have a talk with them about it.
Then get an audience with Tamar and try to find out whether he is actually involved. I assume that'll be a separate scene so I won't go into detail until we do that.
Skill = 3
Roll = 6
Specializes in Dealing with Royalty: -1
King dealing with Subject: -1
Final Result: 4
You sit Phillip down and spend several hours explaining that you suspect the Orcs, rather than the druids, are responsible for messing with Alan. Even though you cannot rule out the Druids, you argue that it is more likely that the Imperial Clergy is racially targeting your subjects than it is that Archdruid Tamar is ordering the destruction of Prince Alan, his own distant blood relative.
Your nephew and step-father listens to you politely, thanks you for your input, but answers in so many words that he trusts the take of several trained clerics over one monarch.
Grant Anne's request. In addition to the talk with Phillip above, explain that Anne's talents and connections are an important matter to the kingdom as a whole. Put more bluntly, she is almost certainly going to be someone of importance and prestige.
Skill = 3
Roll = 3
Specializes in Dealing with Royalty: -1
King dealing with Subject: -1
Final Result: 1
You shift the discussion from Prince Alan to Princess Anne. Telling him bluntly that she should be able to visit Archdruid Tamar at the grand temple. "I admire her intelligence and talent. She will become somebody of importance in this Kingdom, and thus she needs to develop important connections."
"But what if the Druids mean her harm, like they do her brother?" Phillip asks.
"Then she would be suffering with him as we speak. Even if the druids are responsible for what ails my brother, they clearly don't need him to be in the temple to inflict their damage." You answer.
Phillip nods. "Fair enough."
You take a deep breath, glad that you were able to solve at least part the issue without having to pull rank on your own Step-Father.
---
Chase the Dog = 4
Don't Chase the Dog = 3
This vote was crazy. A clear yes when I started writing this afternoon, which turned to a tie, which turned back yes thanks to Shadowclaw just as I was finishing up. I usually ignore ninja votes after I start typing, but the matter of Arawn's virginity felt important enough that I would have broke that rule and delayed the turn/deleted the following scene if nessescary.
Inspired by the promised prize and intrigued by Halia's wit, you chase after the hound with renewed vigor, but the canine remains illusive and ever just out of your reach. The routes she lead you on become more daring, and at one point you find yourself and Vera jumping between rooftops, dodging chimneys and praying you don't fall through a weak ceiling into some commoner's living room.
Eventually the pursuit returns to ground level, and the hound once again takes to ducking under carts and other small obsticals to open up a lead over you. Again, she takes a sharp turn and vanishes into an alleyway, this time one ajacent to the Grand Temple. When you catch up, you find in the alleyway a single open door leading to a downward flight of stairs. Light radiates from the bottom. You hitch up Vera and head in, closing the door behind you.
You find your way into some kind of storage basement for the grand temple. Surrounded by dusty idols to specific spirits for use in specific rites and celebrations, a pile of thick furs and blankets have been laid out on the floor. On the blankets lounges a naked woman. Halia's features are fairly plain, but something about the combination of the torchlight, incense, and the positioning of her body makes the scene excessively attractive. You stare awkwardly for several seconds before the druid suggests that you disrobe and join her to receive your prize.
After doing the deed, Halia keeps you on the blanket to deliver a relaxing massage. As she works, she tells you about herself. The spirits tell her she is, in a way, blessed and cursed with an inability to rest on her laurels. No matter what she might acquire or accomplish, she will always crave more. As such, she feels it will be to her benefit to align with a King. Glancing up at the idols surrounding you, Halia swears to whatever spirits might be watching that as long as you provide her a platform to prove herself and improve her position, she will serve your interests above all others.
With your interests in mind, then, she advises you not to marry her. At least, not right away. Having a better understanding of the situation than she did several months back when she begged Tamar to match her with you, Halia thinks you should marry one of the Imperial brides.
"I say put the crusader scumbags at ease for now," she muses, "if you wish to marry a druid, I suggest picking whichever of the imperial options you are
least attracted to. Wed her. Bed her. Get a few children out of her. Put up with her for a few years. When you are finished, perhaps you might take her for a walk along the river. The Crocodiles eat about a dozen hapless Imperials every year here in Bride Price. A grieving king falling in love and eloping with the druid who consoled him and offered spiritual guidance after the death of his first wife? That is the kind of love story that minstrels write songs about."
If feel you must marry a druid right away, Halia suggests the older Noelani. "If the message you want to send is that you are more Mahallo than you are Imperial, you might as well make the Mahallo happy by uniting the offices of Monarch and Archdruid. Noelani is more in synch with the spirits than anybody I know, and possesses both a good head for secular affairs and a love for the Mahallo people. If you think of the Queen as a vocation rather than a lover or a political concession, there is nobody more qualified for the job."
Halia pauses for a bit, before continuing the massage by thrusting her palm deep between your shoulder blades, relieving pressure and stress you didn't even know was there. "You could even work her... inclinations toward the fairer sex.. to your advantage. I'm sure that she'd allow, or even propose, that you both share the marriage bed with other women. Perhaps that could even include cunning shapeshifters."
Something about that statement stirs something in you, and your attention drifts away from politics. The rest of your long discussion with Halia is little more than sweet romantic nothings.
---
Attend party.
-Family: Anders and Andre (yes, this is an order, Anders), Anne the Younger (and Phillip if he wishes to accompany her)
-Friends: Keanu, Kane, and Kaylee.
-Prospects: Luanda, Halia. Maria and Simone if the De'Villes aren't just inviting their entire list.
You assemble your party to attend the ball, which consists of three carriages and a guard consisting of 15 Raiders from the closest compound.
You ride with your siblings in the first carriage. Anders was reluctant to leave your pregnant mother, but you didn't have to go so far as to order him to come. Phillip has agreed to stay back and keep an eye on the Queen Mother, and one of those troublesome clerics in your step-father's head has agreed to break protocol and use magic to heal his wife should the need arise. Anders himself has been looking for an opportunity to sit down and review
Rites and Rituals of the 19 Demons, the book you acquired for him from Texulchimum's library, without worrying about nosey Imperials discovering his heritical reading material. A week-long carriage ride with his brothers and sister would be the perfect opportunity.
The next carriage back is owned by Keanu, who is accompanied by his wife and brother-in-law. All the big game near the road has long since been hunted away, but it is nice to ride around the wilderness with your friends once more when the carriages stop for the night.
Luanda and Halia ride the carriage in the back, along with a tutor the former hired to give the druids a crash course on the protocol of Imperial Balls so that they do not look like a fool.
You had been expecting Luanda to be an introverted hermit of some sort, but find her to be anything but. She indeed lives on her own in the wilds of the Inner Savanah, but a good amount of her time is allotted to helping impoverished Mahallo fleeing the city establish and run their small homesteads. She also visits town several times a year to sell exotic cheeses made from the milk of various frontier beasts; This nets her a respectable income, but as Luanda enjoys the simple life, most of it is donated to either the Grand Temple or her homesteading neighbors.
There are too many people in the carriage train for Halia to catch you alone, and in public you both pretend your first meeting in the basement of the grand temple never happened. She introduces herself to you like you as a Druid who specializes in shape shifting and the mundane arts of politics and intrigue.
The journey down the 'The Frontier River Highway' is somewhat more comfortable than you remember from your last prolonged trip on the road when you were four. Civilization is a bit less sparse; There is now an inn to rest at every night. Most of these establishments are new, run by Burt's men or other stranded crusaders. You find the crusaders you meet to be decent folk; Most of them are curious enough about an Imperial too young to have fought in their war that they buy you drinks
before finding out you are their King and the man whose claims they were obstensively fighting for.
---
Business: Survey Burt's lands to evaluate the Mahallo suspicion that the first serious orc raid will wipe out St. Arawn. Some of our guests should have additional insight into this.
Burt and a few of his men give you a tour of St. Arawn upon your arrival, and at first glance it indeed looks vulnerable. The walls are all made out of flammable wood or climbable dirt mounds. The town's buildings are spaced out wider than they are in Bride Price. According to Burt this will give the city room to grow once permanent walls are constructed, but Andre notes that a lack of narrow alleyways and streets means that there are few good places for defenders to make a stand once the walls are breached.
St. Arawn's greatest defense is that it sits on the western bank of a particularly fierce and deep stretch of river. Raiders from the Bloodstone Fortress would come from the east, and thus would have to cross. Unless potential raiders maintain the element of surprise by bypassing all other potential targets enroute to St. Arawn, and get lucky enough not to be spotted, the citizens of the city can easily buy themselves a few days to evacuate or await reinforcements by burning the only two nearby bridges. You make a mental note that this would afford them no protection against a Mahallo raid, which would come by canoe and not need to worry about a crossing.
Burt claims that at least sixty percent of the city's population consists of former crusaders, all of whom are trained in combat and most of whom still own weapons. Although taking such a risk would be a true last resort, Lord De'Ville is fairly confident that his civilians could repel a smaller raid without the benefit of an organized army if the orc-kin don't fully commit a huge party like they did a few years back.
As the tour wraps up, Andre pulls you aside and concludes that although St. Arawn is better defended than he had suspected, they would still be obliterated or forced to abandon their homes if the Bloodstone Raiders were to show up with their full strength. Although you are no military expert, you can't help but think that they would be even more screwed if the Mahallo were to hit them with a surprise attack.
---
The temple dedication is a fairly straightforward affair. Everybody gathers in a large wooden building atop an even larger stone foundation, and several clerics give brief speeches. Most of these are short sermons, or historical anecdotes about St. Arawn that you are already familiar with. There are a lot of speeches. Almost two dozen Imperial Bishops, holders of the Church's highest office, have either negotiated their way past the blockade or navigated a route skirting the desert to attend this event.
The number of important dignitaries is explained by Burt's ambition in this project. The various speeches hint at the grand scale of the temple; When complete the temple at St. Arawn will be the largest Imperial House of Worship anywhere on the southern frontier. At one yard shorter in each dimension than the four temples Agusta herself commissioned in anticipation of her ascent to godhood, the finished building will be as large as it can possibly be without committing the sin of imitating the God-empress' accomplishments.
After the speeches, the relics are produced. First presented are bits of wood and metal believed to have once been part of one of Saint Arawn's iconic lances. Next is the femur of Saint Campbell, another son of Agusta who was slain by your namesake in an epic episode of mounted single combat. Lastly a transparent glass urn, filled with what appears to be dried straw, is brought out producing amused and annoyed looks from some of the more traditionalist clergy present. You are told that this is the remains of the grass skirt worn by your great grandmother Queen La'akea at the feast celebrating her husband King Geralt's final victory against the Orcs to claim a portion of the frontier for the Mahallo.
The final relic is controversial, as La'akea is not yet officially recognized as a saint, but Imperials interested in converting the Mahallo have been advocating for her inclusion among the ranks of the blessed, more because it would make convenient propaganda for their efforts than on account any particular deed or virtue of your ancestor, since the day of her death.
Once presented, each relic is passed around. The clerics present say prescribed prayers over each artifact, and the important lay people such as yourself get to briefly hold and examine them. You note some clerics, including to your mild surprise Anders, refuse to handle La'akea's skirt. After the relics are handled, they are gathered up and removed from the room; Artisans will eventually entomb them inside pulpits, altars, and other temple furniture.
After the sacred part of the ceromony is over, Burt De'Ville is permitted to give a speech as a layperson. The lord and patron of the City of St. Arawn gives an impassioned plea for support in his quest to convert and civilize the savage Mahallo people. He notes that he is typically a firm believer in the Imperial doctrine of tolerance toward other human faiths, but that he feels strongly that the challenges that face New Mahallo are far too great to overcome unless the realm is truly united. Between the Orc-kin, elves, and your heretical brothers, the realm just has too much on its plate to deal with internal stress conflicts brought about by religious and cultural differences.
As Lord De'Ville steps down from the makeshift wooden pulpit, the audience begins to get up and leave. The ceremony, as planned, is over and everyone is ready to head to the ball,
but as King you would be within your rights to give a speech of your own. If you wish to do so, what notes do you want to hit? You could also delay your speech until the end of the ball, to ensure that you don't hurt your chances with the marriage prospects if it doesn't go over well. Although if you disagree with Lord De'Ville's message, allowing his words to nest in the ears of the audience unchallenged by waiting until later may not be wise.---
The weather is nice, so the ball takes place outdoors on the naked foundation of the temple. Tables of food are brought out, a good portion of space is reserved for dancing, and minstrels set up shop on the roof of the wooden structure in which the dedication ceremony took place. Commoners, held back by a line of guards, gather just off the foundation to watch the festivities and gawk at the lords and high priests of this and other realms.
One of Burt's underlings approaches you to point out your four potential Imperial matches: Gisele, Simone, Juliette, and Marion, that latter of whom you would have needed no help identifying on account of her albinism. He also tries to point out Juliette's daughters on the section of the foundation reserved for the children, but everyone over there is involved in a fast paced game of tag, and you have no clue which of the girls the lowborn is actually trying to point to.
The four women must all know why they are here. As would the host and most of the other guests. You are quite sure each of the four Imperial Candidates will either approach you, or be introduced via a third party, by the time the night is through.
Of course, you could always try to make an impression by coming up with strategies to approach some or all of the girls and introduce yourself.In addition to the guests you brought and Lord De'Ville, you recognize King Penteram, his legitimate sons Louie and Roderick, and every member of your council aside from your pregnant mother who didn't make the trip.
Do you have anything to talk about with any of the other guests? 
Author
Topic: (SG) Petty Kingdom of New Mahallo: Reign of King Arawn (Read 20737 times)