Find a store selling these tapestries. See how much one of them costs.
Write up first chapter of the book, "Cities and States of the Storm Coast". It will be entitled "The Aching and Groaning of a Republic". Write in a serious and neutral format. Describe Aching and write about its economy, religion, etc.
[1] You end up going to the shop selling the most expensive tapestries in town. You unwittingly make a harsh comment about the cost of the tapestries and they physically boot you out of the shop with instructions not to return to the district, [1] dropping your hood in the process. You are able to get back to your inn before the mob catches you, but it may not be safe to go out into town until you are ready to leave.
[5] On the bright side, you get plenty of work done trapped in your room! You reckon you have your first chapter fully fleshed out, and are able to call several local scholars to visit you with the promise of free meals (covered by Lady Drua's expense account), who give you a great deal of information about local history.
Guidebook Progress: 3/20countinue trying to wiggle my way out
[2] The chief refuses to let you go, but instead brings you to the moot so that you may watch him duel the Jarl. [4] With the business of the coming duel occupying everyone's attention, you are able to move relatively freely within the camp. On the second night you overhear a conversation between one of McKinley's men and a cook from the other side. [2] Unfortunately, all you overhear is that the cook was bribed to add something to Manskinner's food, but not what.
Use two of the standard regiments to try and build a city on Jormund's walled parcel of land.
[3-1+1] By sheet coincidence, the moot for the duel between Jarl and Chief is happening not far from your prospective wall. You are able to attract many of the hangers-on and refugees from recent fighting across the realm to stay in the shacks and hovels your men hastily erect.
Jormundville is established, with a population of 1 taxman. It is presently a cluster of hovels and crude shacks sheltered within the wall and clustered around a longhouse constructed for the steward, a temporary town mostly to service the ongoing moot, but it will retain some population after the event passes.
Sell flax in Suul (2.5)
-request meeting with Archbishop
--Purpose of meeting: To discuss the joys of his holy order of pirates and his views on the SCTG, possibility of his funding an opposing trade guild and/or inserting someone into their ranks (IE me, given my slowly growing reputation for making the gods weep at my abuse of trade)
-Also would like to get a proper marque, in my own name...plus extra copies for other ships
--Explain the happenings of the previous captain who held the marque i posess
[4] You have to wait a few days for the meeting, during which time you sell your flax on the market. You were originally slated to meet with one of the Archbishop's functionaries, but were shifted at the last minute into a meeting with Archbishop Thring himself. Apparently news of your exploits is spreading.
[5] The archbishop explains that the privateer Order of St John serves a similar function to a guild in Suul, one sponsored directly by the state - of which the state receives a significant cut. Nevertheless, Thring seems to respect your courage and is interested in your plans to oppose the SCTG through less direct means. He will visit this again at the end of the meeting.
[4] The archbishop will grant you six copies of his letters of marque for a fee of 2 ducats/year, extended to that many ships. He requests you register the ships to avoid confusion.
[6] The archbishop is amused by your story, though frowns at its conclusion. The captain in question was a respected former member of the Order of St John and, whilst he is not going to raise much of an issue about it, does require [6] 3 ducats from you as a 'voluntary contribution' towards a mass held in the captain's honour.
The Archbishop reiterates his interest in a competitor to the Guild, but warns you that most of the business in Suul is actually nationalised and subject to hefty 40% tax rates. Nevertheless, he could see his way towards contributing [3]
9 ducats towards your endeavour, contingent on a [2] rather usurious rate of 20% interest per year - to be repaid in total within 5 years. Interest is flat, based off the principal, not compound.
The Archbishop will also want some sort of security on the bond - most likely the deeds to whatever premises you establish for your Guild headquarters.
Status:
17.77d total (after flax sale)
+1 pigs
Runner: 4 move
Cargo Ship: 0 move in Vasir, holding pigs
Go home.
You return home, where [4] Lilith is waiting for you with a cooked meal. She isn't entirely responding to your romantic advanced, having repressed any memory of her outburst in Suul, but at least she's gotten into the habit of cooking for you.
Romantic Mini-Game Progress: 40 Zemblax!spread the rumour That the Manskinner has gotten the Bloody Flux.
seperate the Cupbearer from the rest of the camp.
stay hidden from all but my most trusty commanders. This means. McMurray and...well just them. Let all food be tasted by the cooks from now on. In front of the Manskinner
[6] Your rumour spreads a little too well. Many of your kinsmen take up their tents and move well away from your tent, leaving a dangerous lack of protection against midnight assassins. Pretending to be sick, you are unable to get out there and discipline them personally.
[4] The cupbearer is removed to a tent on the other side of the hill, kept safely away from everyone else. His chances of recovery do not look great.
[2] The cooks enter and taste the food in front of you. It seems they have no further intent of murdering you, as they all submit to the test as required; you cannot identify the culprit through this means.
It is the night before the fight. This is your last chance to conceal any weapons or make any other preparations before you begin.
Kill them all!
Taric: +1 Corpse, +1 Armour 3/3hp
Guards: +1 Weapon, +1 Armour, -2 Unprepared, 4/4hp
[3+2 vs 4, 4+2 vs 6, 2+2 vs 1, 3+2 vs 6] You launch into a berserker rage, spinning the corpse in your hands around in a whirlwind and using it to crush the unprepared members of the guard beneath the massive slab of meat. You are only vaguely aware of the swordstroke slashing across your side until the last remaining guard slices the corpse you are carrying in half with his sword. He is now fully armed and prepared to face you, but alone and afraid. You half a torso still in your hands.
Taric: 1hp, Guard: 1hp
[5+2 vs 1+2] You beat the sword out of his hand with your half-corpse and then pummel him to death with the desecrated body of his fellow guardsman, again and again until he is nothing but a bloody mess on the floor.
[5] You're pretty wounded, but you hear a cry from the throne room. No doubt about it, it's Trubaldsome's womanly shriek. On the other hand, with the guards all focused on Trubaldsome you've probably got a clean break to the exits. Vengeance or freedom; your choice.
Trubaldsome & Lightningblade: [2+1] It's pretty hard not to hear the screams of a melee being conducted by a madman wielding a corpse. Sounds like it's coming from the guard barracks, close to the exit. Will you pursue the sounds, or evade them?
Sell the cloth and buy clams. Sail one sea zone south and go to the nearest town.
You sell off the cloth for 2d and buy a shipment of clams for 0.4d.
Sailing south of Suul, you [4] are untroubled by weather, but find no clear sign of habitation on the coast for some distance. It is only after several leagues that you spot what appears to be a walled city by the coast. [6] Your lookout spots the rocks in the water before it is too late and you are able to skillfully navigate through the dangerous shallows without damaging your ship. Unfortunately you pay too much attention to the rocks and fail to account for the terrain - too late you realise the coast turns into fen and the ship becomes bogged in plant matter and mud. Your men will take a few days to dig it out, so you take the longboat to find out why the inhabitants of the city did not bother to clear a path for ships to reach the docks.
The reason is that it is not a city. Cities need people. This is the shell of a city, broken by time and tide. As your longboat approaches the settlement you can see the echoes of what glories it might have once enjoyed. The docks were built of stone, topped with wooden planks for the most part rotted save for the rusted lumps that were the pegs that anchored them. Ancient bronze mooring rings still sit in some of the mooring posts, sealed shut by verdigris and tarnish against time, tide and looters. The docks have overgrown into a messy swamp, but you and your crew are able to moor your boat and proceed into the city on foot.
Like the docks, the city proper speaks of decayed glory. Cobbled roads are flush with vegetation and in many places sunk into the ground and swollen with water. Here and there stone buildings stand intact or ruined, the doorways bare and doors long since rotted, though occasionally the bog has spared a fragment of signpost, a cartwheel, a shovel almost perfectly preserved both handle and blade. The wooden houses that made up most of the city are long gone, but their basements remain, mostly flooded by swampwater now. There are the occasional marks on the stone buildings, pieces of broken stone and dark marks within those intact houses where rain never washed them away - signs of long gone fire. In places, brass or tin still bear witness to where the heat melted them until they sealed themselves into parts of the ground and were too much trouble to dig out.
Whatever valuables might have been left in this place were looted decades ago. The city is abandoned, and looking out on the landscape beyond you can see why. Vast stretches are barren, covered only with the barest of grass and the occasional shrub or bush, whilst the rest seems to have eroded away into marshland. Precious little would grow here, could grow here at all.
On the way back to the ship, you pass through the very centre of the city and the remains of an ancient palace, destroyed in some forgotten war. The gates are made of heavy bronze and whilst broken, felled and crusted over with verdigris the lettering blazoned across both doors can still be made out.
Opposite them, a statue has been erected in granite. Time has weathered some of the features of the noble, saintly figure stood upon the pedestal, his hand raised in a perpetual blessing, but the legend on the base remains:
THE PROPHET SUUL: "LET NO MAN, NO KING, STAND AGAINST THE WILL OF GOD."
2.0d
10d guild credit (0d expended)
-4d in debts
Light Ship "Fronen" - Empty - Suul - 4 moves
Author
Topic: You are King! (Spring 315a) (Read 188611 times)