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Lands of Sand and Magi (First Crusade Fantasy CK2 Quest)

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[X] Take Alexios up on his offer.

I sense a trait comeing
 
Voting is closed. Tally will be edited in here.

[X] Go with Peter to help the Pilgrims set up camp: l l l l l l l l

[X] Take Alexios up on his offer: l l l

Going with Peter won overwhelmingly. Will make a results post now, but I'm really beat, so I'll make the Command Tent post tomorrow.
 
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Chapter 4.0 Cologne to Constantinople (Results)
​
[X] Go with Peter to help the Pilgrims set up camp

You bow before the Emperor of the Romans with Peter, before the lot of you exit his court and leave his palace. The armed contingent of Varangians that had escorted to here were taking you back to the location of the camp. The city was so alive. It's like what you've heard of Paris, but overwhelmingly more. The City of the World's Desire. The most beautiful place you'd ever been.

Peter walked beside you. You two had finally gotten another chance to talk since Cologne. "How are you settling in, Anselme?"

"Good, Venerable Peter.", You replied.

"You may call me Peter, my child.", he smiled, patting you on your back as you walked. The man dwarfed you by at least a foot.

"Peter if I may.", you started. His nod of approval encouraged you to continue. "Earlier, when you said I was blessed. Back in Cologne. What did you mean?"

"The Lord himself has marked you." Peter began his explanation in earnest. "It means that you are destined for a specific, great purpose. That purpose may or may not be a pious act, but you are destined for it.

You nodded, but had no idea what he could be talking about. "Best not to dwell on it too much. Focus on your present responsibilities." He confided.

You arrived at the first of the Theodosian Walls. The massive portcullis was open, and you could see the huge gathering of men that was the Crusader Army. It didn't take long before you reached your camp, yet one of the Varangians who escorted you all back was stationed with a partner nearby your command tent. Alexios clearly did not trust you at all. Maybe you could change that. For now, it was time to make preparations.​

Sorry for a purely expositional post, I just felt bad for not giving you guys a response asap. I will work on the Command Tent post tomorrow morning when I'm a little bit for lucid.
​
 
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Chapter 4.1
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 4.1 Temporary Situation
    ​
    It took a few hours, but you'd finally finished setting up camp. What little supplies you had brought with you from Wien, generously given by the Archduke, were running low, and by the the start of the next week you would have nothing. This was a priority. On top of that, you were in a new city, a foreign land, with no allies and no contacts. Finally, your men were still essentially a bunch of peasants, poorly armed, poorly equipped, and never trained. If you wanted your men to be a ready fighting force, you'd need to start making changes now. Two weeks were left in month of April, and the foundation of your stay here would be based open these opening decisions.

    News would come from Walter the Penniless' force by word of a messenger from Peter. A confrontation between the Pilgrim's Army and the inhabitants of Buda went awry.

    They rolled 32. Success.

    The Pilgrims were able to defeat the Hungarian force of 5000 soldiers, but were now technically marching through enemy territory after leaving Buda. Reports are that they are heading down the Danube towards the Trident. From there, they will most likely head down the River Sava to Belgrade. However, you had more pressing matters to attend to.​

    The War Tent: Two weeks left in the Month of April.

    (You can take five actions, because you have five advisors. Certain actions are only available to specific advisors due to their talents.)

    Intrigue: (Gaucher-only Actions)
    [ ] Steal from camps of the other Wings. You are in dire need of supplies and weapons, and may have to resort to desperate measures.
    [ ] Steal from the rich of Constantinople. The Company of Generous Fellows can get back to work while you are in Constantinople, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. The Poor here being the Pilgrims. (This action may lead to a chain.)
    [ ] Steal from the City-Guard. The Varangian Guard are the best equipped standing force in Europe. Surely they wouldn't mind if you 'borrowed' some of their supplies for such a pious cause.
    [ ] Recruit from the criminal underworld for your Wing. Gaucher and the Fellows can go into the underworld of Constantinople and see if they can bring others over to your side. (This action may lead to a chain.)

    High Stewardship: (Abraham-only Actions)
    [ ] Utilize Jewish connections in Constantinople. Abraham can see if the Jewish community in Constantinople will be of any assistance.
    [ ] Borrow from Jewish Moneylenders. Abraham can take out a loan for you from one of the Jewish moneylenders in Constantinople. This will not be like the loan in Cologne. Due to your time here, and your status as a Crusader, you will be responsible for paying the loan back. Or, you could just not pay them. They're heathens anyways. There will be consequences.
    [ ] Try to recruit more "Repentant Jews" to join your Wing. Abraham can try to sell his already somewhat successful plan to members of the Jewish community of Constantinople.
    [ ] Learn Greek from Abraham. What it says on your tin. Since you've gotten 1/3 of the way done with Latin, it is possible to begin learning Greek. The higher your learning stat, the quicker your progress may complete.

    Holy Actions: (Hospitalier Order-only Actions)
    [ ] Commune with some of the Other Brothers of the Order. Many, if not all, of the Pilgrim's Wings stationed in Constantinople are led by Brothers of the Order of Saint John. It may be wise to send one of your own to see what kind of connections they can make within the army.
    [ ] Learn to Read the Bible. You have learned enough Latin to attempt to read the Bible. This will lock out another one of your actions for one of the Brothers.
    [ ] Pray. Pray.

    Personal Actions: (PC-only Actions)
    [ ] Try to recruit Pilgrims on your own. Diplomacy and Piety checks. This may be difficult considering you don't speak Greek.
    [ ] Go to the Imperial Court. Attempt to see Emperor Alexios as a messenger of Peter.
    [ ] Explore the City. When are you going to get the opportunity to do this again?
    [ ] Train under an Advisor. Using an advisor with higher stats than you in a specific stat, train under them to boost your own by +1.
    [X] Find someone to teach you how to read. There are already some people in your Entourage who can do this. If you pick one of your advisors, the both of you will be locked out of taking actions for two camps worth of time. Its up to you to determine how much you need this. You will gain Learning from this process. This Action is Locked in with Brother Friedrich for two more turns.
    ​
    General Actions: (Can be taken by Anyone)
    [ ] Go to the Market. Buying, selling, trading in general will all count under one task for simplicity. Try to be specific with what you want to do with your money. Say you want to buy weapons, armor, or food in percentages, and I will tell you exactly how much of it you get.
    [ ] Try to recruit Pilgrims. Diplomacy and Piety checks.
    [ ] Beg for alms. ???

    Correspondence Actions: (PC-only Actions that may be taken every turn, but are of lower quality result because two of these can be taken every turn outside of the five action cap. Specific requests/additions will increase the quality of their results)
    [ ] Talk to the members of your Entourage. You will learn more about them and develop your relationship with them. You may or may not gain from this.
    [ ] Try to talk to Vindicator Gunther. You have no idea what this guy's deal is. Maybe it's time to find out.
    [ ] Talk to the leader of another Wing. If you're going to be fighting with 40,000 other men, and you have a position of authority within this host, you may as well try to get to know some of the other commanders. There are two Wings encamped closest to you. One to the North on a hill, and one to the East along the main road.
    [ ] Talk to the Varangian guarding your Wing. Alexios has left a pair of Varangian Guards to watch over your Wing. You are inclined to investigate.


    [ ] Write-in. You may write something in, and for the benefit of the doubt, they will all be considered General Actions unless they are obviously stipulated to be performed by someone with a specific skill set.

    I suggest that you guys make joint Plans, to make the voting and tallying easier for everyone. And for me.
    ​
    Anselme de Gaillac
    Age: 20
    Diplomacy: 6 (You're getting better at talking your way out of problems, but you're no silver-tongued devil yet.)
    Martial: 3 (You can defend yourself. No one ever said you were any good at it, though.)
    Stewardship: 3 (You don't do well with money. It's why you're poor.)
    Intrigue: 10 (Living the life of a pauper, you have become very crafty, and thus know how to get yourself into and out of trouble very well, much to your own benefit.)
    Learning: 1 (You are Illiterate.)
    Piety: 34 [You rolled a critical success here, and that will be noted] (You are one of the most pious of the Pilgrims. Surely this will be noticed by those higher up the echelon.)

    Money: 150 fl

    Traits:
    Blessed by God: ???.
    Pious: Your piety and strength of faith is noticed by others who share the same inclination, +5 Relations to Same Trait.
    Blessing of the Bishop of Worms: +5 to Diplomacy on Speech Rolls if you beat your opponent on a Piety Roll
    Blessing of Athanasius: +4 to Learning (You can now understand German, and may attempt to learn to read. If you find someone to teach you.)
    Invested: You have official authority over the Pilgrims within your assigned Wing.

    Items and Statuses:
    Peter's Stone: ???




    Entourage:
    Gaucer de Gaillac
    Age: 21
    Diplomacy: 6
    Martial: 4
    Stewardship: 1
    Intrigue: 7
    Learning: 1
    Piety: 8
    Abraham of Worms
    Age: 45
    Diplomacy: 7
    Martial: 1
    Stewardship: 10
    Intrigue: 2
    Learning: 7
    Piety: 10

    Status of the all the Pilgrims in the Crusade:

    40,000 Strong.

    Morale is High.

    Status of your Wing:

    195 Pilgrims
    250 "Repentant Jews"

    Poor Armor for 50 men.
    Poor Arms for 75.

    Morale is High.

    Relationship with Brother Jacob (Order of St. John): 7/10
    Relationship with Brother Thomas (Order of St. John): 7/10
    Relationship with Brother Friedrich (Order of St. John): 1/10
    Relationship with Vindicator Gunther: 1/10
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Intrigue: (Gaucher-only Actions)
    [X] Steal from the rich of Constantinople. The Company of Generous Fellows can get back to work while you are in Constantinople, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. The Poor here being the Pilgrims. (This action may lead to a chain.)

    High Stewardship: (Abraham-only Actions)
    [X] Learn Greek from Abraham. What it says on your tin. Since you've gotten 1/3 of the way done with Latin, it is possible to begin learning Greek. The higher your learning stat, the quicker your progress may complete.

    Holy Actions: (Hospitalier Order-only Actions)
    [X] Learn to Read the Bible. You have learned enough Latin to attempt to read the Bible. This will lock out another one of your actions for one of the Brothers.

    Personal Actions: (PC-only Actions)
    [X] Find someone to teach you how to read. There are already some people in your Entourage who can do this. If you pick one of your advisors, the both of you will be locked out of taking actions for two camps worth of time. Its up to you to determine how much you need this. You will gain Learning from this process. This Action is Locked in with Brother Friedrich for two more turns.

    General Actions: (Can be taken by Anyone)
    [X] Beg for alms. ???

    Correspondence Actions:     (PC-only Actions that may be taken every turn, but are of lower quality result because two of these can be taken every turn outside of the five action cap. Specific requests/additions will increase the quality of their results)
    [X] Try to talk to Vindicator Gunther. You have no idea what this guy's deal is. Maybe it's time to find out.
    [X] Talk to the Varangian guarding your Wing. Alexios has left a pair of Varangian Guards to watch over your Wing. You are inclined to investigate.

    We're out of money. This is a bad thing. It will only cost more money to supply our wing as we acquire more pilgrims, so all recruiting actions are cross-outs until we can get some reserve cash to support them all.

    That said, I'd really like to take advantage of these extra learning options (learn to read the bible! Very important for piety!) to take advantage of where we are. Free time to read the bible for piety, and Greek to schmooze funds from the high society, are very necessary skills since we'll be here for a few months.
     
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    Are we going to feed the wing automatically or do I still have to set a Market action for it? We don't have the excess cash to supply more than one turn at a time...
     
    Powerofmind said:
    Are we going to feed the wing automatically or do I still have to set a Market action for it? We don't have the excess cash to supply more than one turn at a time...
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    You have enough food for one more week, so its not dire yet. It's still important. There are solutions for feeding them indefinitely for your stay that may be discovered. I have at least three that you can access right now.
     
    Arlos said:
    Hummm no action to train ourselves?
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    When you say train yourself. What exactly do you mean?

    I can take it as three things:

    Make the men drill/practice. I don't see this resulting well without anyone with experience to train them.

    Train a single stat under someone with higher levels of it. You could use Abraham, and I'd be more than happy to have you increase your stats like this, but it will take a personal action away from the person used to train you. I will add these in.

    Train yourself by yourself. This doesn't even make sense and I don't know why I even typed this out.
     
    kızıl sultan said:
    When you say train yourself. What exactly do you mean?

    I can take it as three things:

    Make the men drill/practice. I don't see this resulting well without anyone with experience to train them.

    Train a single stat under someone with higher levels of it. You could use Abraham, and I'd be more than happy to have you increase your stats like this, but it will take a personal action away from the person used to train you. I will add these in.

    Train yourself by yourself. This doesn't even make sense and I don't know why I even typed this out.
    Click to expand...
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    I'm pretty sure we could get the basic of swordmanship by training on our own


    We need to do something about our money problem otherwise we will have our to use our intrigue action each time and take tremondous risk.
    We should keep an action to try an recruit specific pilgrims, like blacksmiths or Artisan.
     
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    Arlos said:
    I'm pretty sure we could get the basic of swordmanship by training on our own


    We need to do something about our money problem otherwise we will have our to use our intrigue action each time and take tremondous risk.
    We should keep an action to try an recruit specific pilgrims, like blacksmiths or Artisan.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    You can write that in if you want, I don't want to be too specific because otherwise I'd be giving away solutions. I greatly encourage write-ins and reward them for creativity.
     
    I've got a bunch of ideas for more events after this first week in Constantinople, which should give you guys more options after you learn how to read. Voting will close tomorrow morning when I will give you the results.
     
    [X] Plan: Not Begging But Exploring!
    [x] Recruit from the criminal underworld for your Wing. Gaucher and the Fellows can go into the underworld of Constantinople and see if they can bring others over to your side. (This action may lead to a chain.)

    [X] Learn Greek from Abraham.     What it says on your tin. Since you've gotten 1/3 of the way done with Latin, it is possible to begin learning Greek. The higher your learning stat, the quicker your progress may complete.

    [X] Learn to Read the Bible. You have learned enough Latin to attempt to read the Bible. This will lock out another one of your actions for one of the Brothers.

    [X] Explore the City. When are you going to get the opportunity to do this again?
    [X] Find someone to teach you how to read. There are already some people in your Entourage who can do this. If you pick one of your advisors, the both of you will be locked out of taking actions for two camps worth of time. Its up to you to determine how much you need this. You will gain Learning from this process. This Action is Locked in with Brother Friedrich for two more turns.

    [X] Try to talk to Vindicator Gunther. You have no idea what this guy's deal is. Maybe it's time to find out.
    [X] Talk to the Varangian guarding your Wing. Alexios has left a pair of Varangian Guards to watch over your Wing. You are inclined to investigate.
    @kızıl sultan is this plan set-up correct?
     
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    butchock said:
    [X] Plan: Not Begging But Exploring!
    [x] Recruit from the criminal underworld for your Wing. Gaucher and the Fellows can go into the underworld of Constantinople and see if they can bring others over to your side. (This action may lead to a chain.)

    [X] Learn Greek from Abraham.     What it says on your tin. Since you've gotten 1/3 of the way done with Latin, it is possible to begin learning Greek. The higher your learning stat, the quicker your progress may complete.

    [X] Learn to Read the Bible. You have learned enough Latin to attempt to read the Bible. This will lock out another one of your actions for one of the Brothers.

    [X] Explore the City. When are you going to get the opportunity to do this again?
    [X] Find someone to teach you how to read. There are already some people in your Entourage who can do this. If you pick one of your advisors, the both of you will be locked out of taking actions for two camps worth of time. Its up to you to determine how much you need this. You will gain Learning from this process. This Action is Locked in with Brother Friedrich for two more turns.

    [X] Try to talk to Vindicator Gunther. You have no idea what this guy's deal is. Maybe it's time to find out.
    [X] Talk to the Varangian guarding your Wing. Alexios has left a pair of Varangian Guards to watch over your Wing. You are inclined to investigate.
    @kızıl sultan is this plan set-up correct?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Yes it is. I'll be closing voting shortly so I can work on results.
     
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