And then someone had to go and open their mouth about the half-exiles and it had all started spiraling out of control. Details had come out to the public that had made many mad. While some saw opportunities to satiate greed, others saw the greed already happening, and as accusations started flying back and forth many who were not part of the puritanical faction started to make calls for reform of how the half-exiles were treated.
You know, I bet the puritans were pretty confused at this point.
And also losing some of their distinct identity
While there were many half-exiles who were despised, there were always a few members of that community within local communities who had their supporters. People who were generally agreed to have done their time and it was weird that they weren't being cleared for re-entrance into normal society.
And this would be the Urban Poor at work I think. They put a lot of eyes everywhere.
Combined with the fact that there were a number of major families and local guilds that were benefiting from not having to pay for labour that was in the grey area between having to be done by and could be done by the half-exiles, thus giving incentive to get the half-exiles to do it rather than fairly paying people, and there was major backlash there.
We've seen some of this. Ash handling for instance. It was dirty, but it's not one of the classic impure organic materials. Was this half exile or apprentice work?
Then there's alchemy, where did handling vitriol essences fall? Should you pay alchemical apprentices a lot to handle them or let half exiles handle dangerous liquids?
Slaughterhouses, snail processing, fish processing. Where did the line between Animal Handling, Killing, Meat and Shit lie? Theres a lot of stuff where you could put the half exiles...and it's a good thing we intercepted that here because it would also mean that the most disease afflicted garbagemen were potentially being tasked to handle raw foodstuffs under the grey areas.
After all, sausages were pretty gross during the in between steps.
Thus it sorted out that the king declared that all labour had to be fairly compensated, either through pay or the deferment of taxes, even if someone was a half-exile. The intent was to remove the incentive to hold onto those who had already done their penance for longer than usual, while still doing the purifying work upon those who actually needed it.
There was a minor riot as the clerks watched their carefully constructed budgets explode. Had the People not already been safe, secure, and prosperous the kingdom would have likely been ripped apart by the various regional conflicts that bubbled forth from the changes made.
Junior Clerk: "Why you do this O King?"
Senior Clerk: "Back in the time of the gods it was known that such is always the way of things. Bless the spirits for poppy and wine."
While there was a mixture of compassionate, pious, and fearful reasoning behind wanting the half-exiles to be treated better, there were also many who were upset by the half-exiles being given 'increased benefits'. The whole affair rapidly became a nasty, ugly, festering mess that the king knew would haunt his successors for generations to come.
And here is the primitive instinct for Justice element speaking up. Eye for an Eye. Protective Justice. Greater Justice. All of these focus on punishment, limiting harm.
All of them think: "Why the hell are you rewarding criminals?" rather than "How do you remove their reason to be a criminal?"
And of course the fanatics among the Highlanders had to do the sensible thing and work to consolidate their hold on the newly conquered lowland territories before striking out against the Harmurri. While most people who could run had run from the conquered villages between the People and the Harmurri, there were now rumours coming back of the Highlanders forcibly stamping out the local religious beliefs even as they began the construction of forts in key areas and the reformation of local agriculture. While the People had little idea what exactly they were doing, it seemed that they were enforcing organized irrigation and field surveys both as a way to improve yields and a way to improve the defensiveness of the terrain, even as they 'pacified' the population to ensure they would not cause trouble in the foothold the Highlanders had secured.
So looks like there's a Shapers variant involved here. They're working on their terrain defense bonuses.
Convenient timing for us at any rate.
Astrological Prediction: As a source of greed and outside influence the traders should be suppressed (4)
We've had a streak of pretty poor astrology rolls huh?
Too deep a layer can be actively harmful to plants as the lowest points will still accumulate organic mass if the roots get that deep, which leads to anaerobic decomposition. Which in turn releases gases toxic to plants.
Another big issue is that the water storage can become actively harmful. This usually means the roots rot/drown or in some soil types it resembles a moor and you get stuck in it like quicksand* after very heavy rainfalls. You need very good drainage at that point.
Broadly speaking, for most crops you want something like 30 cm as you can actually work that with a plough or otherwise get air down there. I expect the Ymaryn to notice at some point that adding more Black Soil doesn't really help and that they can just use manure directly, lowering the mass needing to be transported (as only the manure has the high amounts of nitrogen).
*Walking over a seemingly dry patch and suddenly be stuck up to your knees is not fun, believe me. At least the Ymaryn don't have any mechanization yet. Then it would be real fun.
We have actually have had this during the climate disaster. The heavy rain + the thick black soil caused some sections to liquify because it held too much water. Heh.
Somewhat. More that the independent religious action has its own pool of resources, and they currently don't have enough to build a temple. They will probably plant textiles or something like that to raise funds to study stars next turn to build up the Mysticism they need to fund a temple or library.
Hmm, interesting, so they basically are a subordinate?
If the Patricians want them, they can hijack them. If they don't, it can wait a turn. Our everything is messed up enough that I'm not especially eager to rush handing over power to our factions.
My thought on the Grand Hall as well.
Plus you know, it buys us 1 turn's grace on the Patricians spite quest coming out. 1 more turn to deal with that shit.