Nothing wrong with trying again...
Action- Slice an opening in my arm and let the blood flow. Use blood to summon water spirit to put out flames. Thank and return to spirit plane after flames put out.
[3+1] You slit open your arm and let the blood flow, calling to the spirits in your native tongue. The spirits take a good measure of your blood before they respond, leaving you lightheaded and drowsy by the time you bind the wound shut, but they heed your call. You will take a -1 penalty to tasks involving physical labour until you recover from the blood loss (which will take about a day).
Up above, the sky grows perceptibly dimmer as a thin layer of cloud develops over the town. There is a faint rumble of thunder and a fine rain descends upon Sheepstead, growing in intensity until virtually everything is drenched in water. After about fifteen minutes, the rain peters out and the clouds slowly dissipate over the rest of the afternoon.
Put the fire out, however we can!
[2+1] Your men try kicking sand at the inferno, even pissing at it in a desperate attempt to calm the flames. All seems lost when a freak shower of rain pours from the sky, dampening the fire. With the help of the regiments present and some helpful sledge hammers from the nearby foundry, you enact the drastic measure of breaking down rooms of the palace in a desperate attempt to create a fire break. It ultimately succeeds, creating a patch where the fire cannot spread to, and over the course of the afternoon you are able to beat back the fire until it diminishes to the smouldering pile of wreckage that was formerly the entire east wing.
The fire has been dealt with, but about half the palace has been burned down. The King now has appointments to see all those involved.((LITTLE?! damn, I never seen that coming. God this game is fun.))
Kain stood on the balcony grinning at this morning's revelation. Who would have thought, Lady Drua was the spy. Seemed like a loyal Elberethian. Kain shrugs at the air and calls that messenger boy back into his room.
Amaryllis, capture a guard named Banquo and arrest him, bring him to my city. The palace's jail cells are like tissue paper.Also warn the king that the palace guard may have some traitors in its midst and to tread careful...
He handed the piece of parchment to the boy and told him to run the horse as fast as he could.
((Not related))
Send a messenger to Stonewood.
The messenger calling for Banquo's arrest reaches Sheepstead just after the bulk of the army has departed for Preston. [3] He is able to deliver the message safely to Amaryllis, [4] who alerts the palace guard. Together they move to arrest Sgt Banquo [5] and successfully bring him into Amaryllis' custody with only minimal resistance. [4-1] Captain Leif agrees with your assessment that the palace dungeons are too weak to hold him securely, especially after the fire, but insists that he be brought before the King for questioning first.
The messenger arrives in Stonewood without problems. Unless the problem was that he had no message. What
was the messenger's message, exactly?
((I don't have any gunpowder and I'm in a tower that's only connected to the castle by a sky bridge, not sure I'm in much trouble))
You explain to Banquo that you have no gunpowder left. He seems slightly annoyed by this but does not raise an issue. A few weeks later you hear of his arrest on charges of espionage and breathe a sigh of relief.
[1] When you hear about it you do check on the location of the pair of prototype ballistae, though. Both of them are missing, and have not been signed out of the guardhouse where they were kept.
Jormund is startled by the Honds request to fight, but after thinking about it he realized he should have expected something like it from these type of people. Since this is his best bet he's willing to take the risk but not happily.
Jormund accepts the challenge from Johnston
((This should hopefully be interesting. I really dislike leaving my fate to a rng though. O well))
Eager to see how their new Hond performs, the soldiers form a ring around the two fighters as they strip to the waist for the bare-knuckle fight.
Johnston: 3/3hp
Jormund: 3/3hp
[2 vs 3] Johnston, not himself a soldier by trade, opens up with a few wild and unpractised blows which Jormundr is easily able to dodge. He counters with a single, well-placed blow to Johnston's temple, stunning the doctor. (Johnston 2/3hp)
[6 vs 2] Johnston yells and just starts beating incoherently with his fists. Crude as the technique is, the sheer unpredictability ofit is sufficient to give him the advantage and Jormundr takes several heavy bruises for his efforts. (Jormundr 2/3hp)
[2 vs 4] Jormundr finally blocks the barrage of blows and knees Johnston in the groin, dealing him another blow to the head as he sinks to the ground. (Johnston 1/3hp)
[2 vs 6] Jormundr presses his clear advantage, pummelling and kicking the doctor into a bloody mess until at last Johnston raises his hand to yield. Several of the soldiers cheer and clap Jormundr's back, whilst one helps the doctor back up again.
The veteran who promised to train you is impressed with your fight, afterward taking you to the side and going over your technique and how your initiative and pressing the advantage can be as important in commanding a battle as one-on-one. [3+1] With the extra dedication he puts into this lesson, you feel you can take away a lot from the tuition. (+20 pts to Tactics training!)
Rebalancing Trade Potential
The base TP for any province is now its Urban Potential / 2. The bonus to TP from access to a resource has been nerfed to 0.5/resource.
Resource Manufacture
Establishing the manufacture of a new resource now follows the same rules as for discovering a resource in a region; the base difficulty is equal to 2n, where n is the number of resources already in the region.
Rebalacing Businesses
Businesses are now divided into three types; Goods, Service & Trade. Businesses make money according to their profit ratio: the ratio of ducats invested to return per year. Goods and Trade businesses have a ratio of 3:1, Service businesses have a ratio of 4:1. Expanding a business once founded is simply a case of investing more money - it automatically succeeds until the businesses in the region reach the business potential limit, whereupon competition takes place.
The total size of all businesses in a given sector (in terms of annual returns) is limited by the sector's business potential.
Industry Potential is equal to 6r, where a is the number of resources produced in the region.
Market Potential is equal to 4t, where t is the trade potential of the region.
Service Potential is equal to 2u, where u[/u] is the urban potential of the region.
When the business limit has been reached in a region, businesses must compete to expand their businesses at the expense of competitors. During competition, a business owner pays the minimum investment in Ducats (3 for Goods/Trade, 4 for Service) - whereupon he and every competitor must roll a d6. If he does not roll the lowest score (or tie with the lowest score), the business owner gains 1 Ducat/year in profit and the competitor that rolled lowest loses 1 Ducat/year in profit.
Monopolies can be awarded to individual business owners by the major authority in a province (or indeed, by any authority as long as it is not contested by a superior one). Monopolies grant a downright impressive +3 to competition rolls, but greatly reduce the overall efficiency of production. A Trade monopoly reduces the Trade Potential of the region by 2, a Service monopoly reduces the Urban Potential of a region by 2 and a Goods monopoly reduces both Urban and Trade Potential in the region by 2.
Rebalancing Urban & Market Growth
As a base rule, the difficulty to improve a town is equal to the current town size x2. The difficulty to improve a market is equal to the current market size. Establishing new towns has a difficulty of 2, establishing new ports or markets has a difficulty of 1.
At the end of every year all towns in regions that have not reached their Urban Potential make an RtD roll, taking into account any modifiers to urban development checks. On a success, they gain 1 Ducat/year in tax value. On a failure or overshoot, nothing happens. On a critical failure, they lose 1 Ducat/year in tax value. Urban growth checks can be forced as normal and will follow the same RtD rules, except that on a roll of 1 or lower (even if not a natural 1) the town will decrease in tax value.
The same event as above applies to markets that have not reached Market Potential.
Goods and Service businesses in a region will now give a bonus to urban growth checks. Every 3 Ducats/year generated by Goods and Service businesses (as a total of all such businesses in the region) will provide a +1 to the urban growth check.
Trade and Service businesses in a region now give a bonus to market growth checks. Every 3 Ducats/year generated by Goods and Service businesses (as a total of all such businesses in a region) will provide a +1 to the urban growth check.
Most of these rules won't even come into play until later, but I figured I'd draft them whilst they were on my mind. The important thing is that the cost for establishing a business has gone down to 3 Ducats for Goods/Trade businesses (down to 4 for Service businesses that don't produce or trade goods), making it cheaper and more profitable for non-landlords to get money out of running a business.