- Location
- St. Petersburg
It probably doesn't matter at this point as the number is supposed to represent a "don't bother" attitude, but it still needs to be consistent.
Gold and Treachery - A Trade Magnate Quest
- Thread starter Azel
- Start date
- Original
- Location
- Germany
It made more sense to be grouped with the other property related actions. You also got a full overview of your household from looking at the books, so that part of the action is no longer relevant.
Relations and reputations are capped at -10 to +10. The -20 just gives you a scale how much effort it will take to change the Deucallian peoples opinion of you.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Get super rich and when they go into some crisis come in like a Hero and just flood them with cash. Saving the Empire will def get rid of the -20 Ender of the Golden Age malus
.
[X] Get another loan.
[X] Look at the books yourself.
[X] Sell Tenements.
[X] Cut the households budget.
-[X] Stop maintenance of the library.
-[X] Stop maintenance of the wine cellar.
[X] Sell some of your possessions.
-[X] Downgrade Accommodations
[X] Organize a simple banquet.
[X] Spend time with your wife
If possible:
[X] Pay off a loan.
-[X] Sillaniu Qaypanu (8 Wealth)
Have you selected an ancient aristocratic family to save money on banquets?
What Nonsense!
Marriage happens only once in a lifetime and we MUST celebrate it anyway.
+ At the banquet it will be easier to convince the moneylenders to give us a loan.
[X] Look at the books yourself.
[X] Sell Tenements.
[X] Cut the households budget.
-[X] Stop maintenance of the library.
-[X] Stop maintenance of the wine cellar.
[X] Sell some of your possessions.
-[X] Downgrade Accommodations
[X] Organize a simple banquet.
[X] Spend time with your wife
If possible:
[X] Pay off a loan.
-[X] Sillaniu Qaypanu (8 Wealth)
Have you selected an ancient aristocratic family to save money on banquets?
What Nonsense!
Marriage happens only once in a lifetime and we MUST celebrate it anyway.
+ At the banquet it will be easier to convince the moneylenders to give us a loan.
Why save the empire if you can finish it off ???🤔Get super rich and when they go into some crisis come in like a Hero and just flood them with cash. Saving the Empire will def get rid of the -20 Ender of the Golden Age malus
- Location
- Brazil
The investigation is a waste of time in my opinion, my guess is that it had a 3 or 4 DC last turn which must have gone up by one after the trail going cold.
How much wealth would we've needed to take up that deal?
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- Location
- Germany
1. No. As far as most of the world believes, the last time a Lipern worked for a Basileus, the former had the latter murdered.
2. Yes. Expanding that route would require you to put 22 Wealth "into the bank" so to say.
Around 20 to 21. And a free ship of course. I didn't roll that precisely, since it was entirely irrelevant how much of a discount you would have gotten.
As it stands though, finding some good business opportunities in the Madrasa can generate a bit of extra wealth from your trade route to Damerisu.
- Location
- Brazil
Do we still need a lot of wealth to take those opportunities?
- Location
- Germany
No. You would just snatch up a few good deals and thus make more money from the trade voyages you are already doing. The necessary capital for that is already available through the funds bound to keep that trade route running.
- Location
- Brazil
[X] Plan Cold Trail is Cold
-[X] Get another loan. (1 AP, DC 2 Negotiation check)
--[X] Ideally, our new loan should be enough to pay off our loan to Sillaniu Qaypanu. Do it if it doesn't take us to red at end of turn
-[X] Look at the books yourself. (1 AP, DC ??? Administration)
-[X] Seek Opportunities: Visit the Madrasa (1 AP)
-[X] Spend time with your wife (1 AP)
-[X] Spend time at the Kassarium (1 AP)
-[X] Learn at Home (1 AP)
--[X] Subterfuge
-[X] Get another loan. (1 AP, DC 2 Negotiation check)
--[X] Ideally, our new loan should be enough to pay off our loan to Sillaniu Qaypanu. Do it if it doesn't take us to red at end of turn
-[X] Look at the books yourself. (1 AP, DC ??? Administration)
-[X] Seek Opportunities: Visit the Madrasa (1 AP)
-[X] Spend time with your wife (1 AP)
-[X] Spend time at the Kassarium (1 AP)
-[X] Learn at Home (1 AP)
--[X] Subterfuge
Rolen von Keng
Sleeping Green Bear
- Location
- The Wilderness
[X] Plan Mysteries and Loan
Vote closed
- Location
- Explosion!
Yep, figured I turned my plan in way too late.
Welp, here's hoping that y'all are right and we manage to find better loan rates!
Welp, here's hoping that y'all are right and we manage to find better loan rates!
- Location
- UTC+0
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They
Well, us going to the Madrasa might afford us a good opportunity. If the Ealim are the not!Muslims of this setting, there is a good chance that their system of financing is very rigid, but pretty fair as well. We might get a decent deal there.
- Location
- Explosion!
I'll be happy if we succeed, but since the 10 Wealth for 1 Interest was considered payback for some huge favor, I've got some slight worries.
But hey, just in case, Imma go and pay tribute to Lady Luck for the best outcome!
Turn 2 – Results
- Location
- Germany
Turn 2 – Results
[] Spend time with your wife (1 AP)
It has been only a few days that you know Menodora and while your relationship is amicable, there is little more then that. Spend some time with her to get to know each other and to lay the foundation of a good marriage. It might not have been a star crossed romance as in the plays and stories, but you can make it work none the less.
It took a few days for you to get comfortable with Menodoras presence in your house. It was odd how used you had gotten to mostly being alone in the huge mansion. Sure, there were the servants, but they were supposed to be neither heard nor seen, and Sarrut as not a true member of the household either, dining and working alone in his rooms and often not glimpsed for days or even weeks. With the only company you had in these walls having been books, it was uncomfortable to suddenly have a stranger sitting at the table with you during meals.
She seemed to agree with that, and the meals were mostly silent and awkward. After her arrival, Menodora had first taken a guest room, as it would have been improper to share a bed with you until the ceremony had been held. A bit of decorum you both were rather grateful for. When the first week had passed though, you took that as a point to start and vowed to at the least treat your wife as you would a honoured guest.
So, you showed her a bit of the city. The Azure District with its mansions and the shops of the rich artisans, the Persums palace towering over everything else. The Wet Bazaar on the quays of the Great Harbor, where the spices from the east were sold and haggled about. There, Menodora seemed much more comfortable. With her plain looking clothes, she easily blended in with the crowds and soon it was she leading you around, exploring the bazaar itself and many of the shops and taverns around it.
Through it all through, you noticed how stiff she acted. Every now and then, she would hesitate before asking a question, or pointedly march past a given shop, usually the most disreputable looking ones, despite clearly wanting to have a look at their wares too. Had she the same impression of you? It was hard to say at first, until you both visited the Madrasa the first time. Here, unlike in the streets, people knew full well that you were bound to marry very soon, and you often caught yourself glancing at Menodora before saying something, as if asking for permission, just to turn around and to speak for her a few moments laters.
Whenever you interact, it was strange and stilted, and it remained so until shortly before the ceremony.
The pile of notes on your desk did not lessen, no matter how many days you had already poured into it. Whenever one of your ships returned to the harbour it would drop off another box full of parchments. And when it was not the captains, then it was dock workers, warehouses and traders. Every day, Sarrut would come and drop something on top of the piles already existing.
Thus, when the door to your study opened, you were dreading to see the face of the old Sakellarius and the stack of parchment he would undoubtedly bring. Instead you saw, Menodora, her hair hidden under a plain green headscarf and wearing a simple travelling tunic. She gazed at your desk for a moment, clearly mulling over what to say. "Please excuse the interruption," she finally spoke with a slight bow and moved to leave again.
"It's fine. It's fine. Come in," you called instead, waving her in urgently. A moment of distraction was just what you needed. You had spent most of the morning trying to figure out in which sequence one of your ships had bought supplies by comparing the names of small harbours with a map, but either your map was wrong or your ship had gone back and forth. And when you got a different map, it had a different order of harbours along the coast, which did not match the notes either. "You wanted to go to one of the bazaars?" It was easy to guess from her attire and while you really should not have, it was rather tempting to go with her and to leave the ledgers for another day.
Menodora was only half listening though, instead looking intently over the mess on your desk, frowning while she seemed to try and make sense of the documents. "I have not that much experience with the bookkeeping yet and Sarrut is too busy keeping things working to make it less of a mess," you quietly muttered. Given how clean and simple the first report from the Khiar Albahr had been, you were feeling rather self-conscious about the state of your books.
"This makes no sense," she finally stated, and you could wholeheartedly agree. Her next words surprised you though. "Who has written those? One of the rowers after drinking all night?" Before you could get a word in, she had already grabbed one of the parchments. "You can barely decipher that these are supposed to be letters at all. And here.", her finger stabbed at a line that probably was talking about water rations having been bought. "'About ten barrels or so?' If that was my ship…"
And there it was again. That moment when she froze and glanced at you as if she had just crossed some boundary. Which was a pity, given that it was the first time you had seen her this animated about any topic. "Please, go on. I have been trying to make sense of this mess for a year without much success, but you seem to know these things."
For another moment, she was quiet, but then she drew some of the parchments to her, starting to stack them into piles. "If this was my ship, I would have given the people writing this dross a knife and told them go after the barnacles instead of wasting my time. Most of this sloppily done and worthless. No captain I have ever met could not keep a proper ledger. Even pirates keep clean tallies of everything they bought or stole. You said Sarrut has been doing these?"
You watched her intently as she worked, trying to figure out by what measure she was sorting the parchments, though you could not discern any pattern. "Yes. He has kept the books for my cousin and for my grandfather before him. Nearly thirty years by now, I think." She made a brief humming noise in acknowledgement but kept on sorting. After watching her a while longer, you finally had enough. "Would you help me with this?"
She paused briefly, glancing at you with a measuring gaze. "Gladly," she spoke while her eyes were still waiting for something. Maybe trying to find something in you.
It was then that it finally made sense to you. The weird pauses when you were talking. How passive she would become in the presence of others. "I am not quite what you expected when you learned that you would marry a Deucallian noble." She had renounced her own flesh and blood to be free of the courts of Panike and what they expected from her, and here you were and wondered why she was so shy.
"Not quiet," she replied while standing up straight again before she begun to pace slowly. "I know my mother well enough that she would not have sold me to some oaf who expects me to do nothing but look pretty and press out children for him, but still. It is one thing to know this and another to see it being true." Here she paused yet again, though for once it seemed more thoughtful then apprehensive. "You are not what I expected in many ways."
That she glanced at the table as she spoke felt like a slight barb, yet that was only because it was true. "And I had not been expecting to become the Patriarch of House Lipern. I should, at most, have been the fourth in line, before the misfortunes started. My grandfather always supported me, but I cannot say that he prepared me for this role at all. There is much I have yet to learn to do my legacy justice."
"You might be on a good path in that regard. My mother must have seen something in you, or she would not have proposed this marriage." She stopped her pacing, instead coming back to your desk and beginning to pick up the stacks of parchment she had made. "Let us see where things lead. If she thinks this marriage will work, then it will. The old viper is rather good in these things."
You were not quite sure what to say to that, quietly wondering yet again what kind of family you had tied yourself to. But as Menodora left, he arms full of notes and ledgers, she seemed to be relaxed for the first time since you had seen her on the docks and in turn, that took a great weight from your own shoulders.
The days after were quite different from before. You finally had stared talking in earnest during the meals and were slowly learning more about each other. Small things, like that your wife loved dried figs, but could not stand to eat fresh ones, or that she enjoyed the smell of salt on the sea breeze. Graver topics too, such as that she had fled her home to see the world when she was young, even though she barely knew anything about life outside a manors walls. She was also becoming much more assertive once she no longer feared to be reprimanded for it, which was far more fitting for her temperament.
Soon the ceremony came and with it the rumours. Since you had no inclination towards one creed or another, but House Hasna was well known Ealim nobility, the marriage was formalized in the Madrasa. Simple oaths, sworn before the public and sealed with the exchange of golden necklaces. There were some voices among the houses of Alumahi that saw it as unbecoming that you had not given a banquet for the occasion, but while there was much speculation about your reasons, nothing bad came of it. After a few weeks, the gossip had run its course.
Both of you were rather grateful that the public eye had quickly wandered on from your union, leaving you more time to get used to the thought of marriage. Even while other events began to run their course, taking up more and more of your time, you always made sure to spend at least one day a week together and as the year went on, it seemed you were finally coming closer to each other.
[] Seek Opportunities: Visit the Madrasa (1 AP)
While you could not capitalize on the opportunities you found in the Madrasa in the past, maybe you could do so now. At the very least you would have a chance to keep contacts fresh and maybe to make some new ones. Having a marriage alliance with House Hasna will certainly help with that.
Again, you've spent a lot of time this year in the Madrasa, keeping in contact with friends made there and looking for opportunities to make a profit here and there. That you were now tied to House Hasna was a decent boon in that regard, making many traders even more eager to talk with you, yet nothing useful came of it. Deals that sounded great a year ago were now barely worth considering and often, you noticed that the merchants expected you to not really know the prices for spices in the east.
With you own ship travelling to Dameriso though, you were now perfectly aware that you could get better deals if you just bought there on the open market. While you were hesitant to call the time spend at the Madrase a waste, what with how much you had enjoyed it and how it gave you a chance to bond with Menodora, it certainly had not paid off in the monetary sense.
Negotiation Check (+1 from Hasna Alliance): 4 + (0 +0 -1 -1) = 2
No deals made.
[] Investigate Minuwrios Death (2 AP, DC ??? Espionage check)
A year has passed since the death of your cousin and it still leaves many open questions. He was young and reasonably healthy, and his body was buried surprisingly quickly. Then there are those fines that you have never heard about before and for which you have no explanation, just the written order of the court that your house has to pay them. While you fear that the trace has already grown cold, you still need to know what has led to the demise of your last kin.
With all your time occupied with ensuring that House Lipern stayed afloat, there was simply nothing you could have done to find out more about what happened in the mere three years that Minuwrios had been the Patriarch. Your easiest source of information were the servants and Sarrut, though the latter had been so busy keeping the coffers filled that he barely had time to interact with your cousin at all. He too had not spent much thought to the fleet, but unlike Andros before him, he also seemed to have spent the funds of House Lipern quite fast.
The servants talked about small feasts being held for a few close friends of his almost every month. It were not great affairs though, mostly the ever same people sitting in the small hall, eating and drinking away their time while talking about their dreams and ambitions, though they never seemed to have followed up on any of it. Apparently Minuwrios wanted to restore House Lipern's station, was talking about becoming one of the Sibu even, though no one seemed to know how precisely he wanted to achieve that.
You also talked with his friends, all sons and daughters of minor houses who had mostly spent time with him due to his station. A few of them you remembered from the time when you still lived in the mansion and they had not changed much. Once Minowrios was dead, they all had moved on, seeking to ingratiate themselves with other heirs and patriarchs of houses with higher station. Briefly you wondered if one of them could have been involved in his death, but that would have made little sense. To them, he had been the most useful alive and there was no sign that he had any designs to cut one of them out of his circle.
Coming up empty handed from this, you turned your attention to another thread that you could pull. The court fines had puzzled you when you first heard about them as there had been no scandal or other indication that House Lipern had legal woes. Luckily, the Magistrate was meticulous in its recordkeeping and as the new Patriarch, you could look into the archives concerning your house. It quickly became clear why there had been no gossip about this.
There were plenty of complaints filed against the trade practices of House Lipern. Claims that spices of abysmal quality had been sold to some merchants, prompting them to travel all the way from Gepitia just to lodge a complaint. Impure copper had been delivered to some merchant in the city, prompting another complaint. Taxes had not been paid in full, causing the Magistrate to file charges in the name of the city.
In all this, Minowrios had been represented by an ever changing array of Abbutis. Sadly, your cousin had not left behind any personal writings, so you could only guess, but it seemed that he was not happy with the outcomes of these cases and thus kept hiring different Abbuti whenever the old one failed to live up to his expectations. None the less though, they all did decent enough. The cases were all quietly resolved behind closed doors, House Lipern paying fines and reparations, coupled with what were effectively bribes to keep these allegations from the public eye.
You had to wonder how much longer this could have worked out. Probably not much longer, as the coffers were nearly empty when Minowrios died. Just one or two more years of poor income and costly complaints and House Lipern truly would have been bankrupt. It suddenly made a lot of sense that he felt forced to take such a ruinous loan from that toad Qaypanu. Sadly though, there was nothing so much as hinting at a person with a motive to see him dead and you were almost resigned to never knowing the truth, had not other revelations come.
DC ??? Espionage Check: 3 + (0 +0 +-1 +0) = 2
Investigation hits dead ends.
Court fines paid off.
[] Get another loan. (1 AP, DC 2 Negotiation check)
With your coffers entirely empty, you lack the funds to invest into anything, and it might help your situation if you could pay off some of the loans with preposterously high interest rates. Now that your good name has been restored, this should no longer be an issue.
With all other things going on, the search for new lenders was almost an afterthought. None the less, you gave it your best, quietly contacting decent and upstanding lenders in the city to get enough money together to get rid of the loan from he usurer Qaypanu. Luckily, between your new spice trade with the Ealim given you an excuse for needing funds and lavish banquet of last year making you rather well likes among the minor houses, you managed to get some rather good offers.
It took a bit of shuffling money around and briefly you considered to cut the households budget a bit, just to make it happen, but that step proved unnecessary in the end. By taking out a few small loans form some minor families, you managed to get enough money together to pay off Qaypanu before you would have accrued even more interest with him. Once again, your coffers were completely empty and your debt had nominally not shrunken by much, though with the much better interest rates you now had, things began to look much better.
Negotiation Check: 3 + (0 +1 +1 +1) = 6
Gained loan for 6 Wealth with 1 Wealth interest per turn.
Loan from Sillaniu Qaypanu paid off.
[] Look at the books yourself. (1 AP, DC ??? Administration, overspending: 1 AP, 1 Wealth)
You have already spent many nights trying to understand what exactly is going on with your ships on the Iotian routes. So far, without success and Sarrut is not that helpful either, even if he tries his best. Invest some more time and see if you can finally make sense of it all.
Having your wife helping to dig through the piles of parchment was an entirely different task then when you did it alone. Not only because you had a second pair of eyes and hands, but also because she could offer so much context to the things you were reading. Running a ship seemed no longer quite so complicated after she had regaled you with some tales of her own times as a captain, but it starkly contrasted with what your captains were sending you. They seemed pretty disorganized and after a while, you became suspicious that there was more to it.
Menodora had started to tally up the supplies that your ships were allegedly using up on their journeys. Food, water, wine and beer. According to her, the sums were tracked rather sloppily and even if you assumed frequent spoilage, they were definitely buying more than they should have needed. Even the kindest interpretation that you could muster was that they were cheating you, most likely making these hard to decipher and imprecise notes to cover money that they embezzled.
There were other strange issues. Spoilage had indeed been a major problem, with nearly every journey of a ship bringing another account of rats, mildew or dampness that damaged the cargo or supplies. That too struck your wife as odd, as even a badly run ship should not have these problems nearly as frequently. It was fitting the picture painted by the documents you found at the Magistrate a least. But then you found a discrepancy that could not be explained in any form.
With how every tiny thing was its own note and nothing properly put together, it was hard to track when something in particular happened, but with Menodoras help, you had finally managed to sort out a rough timeline of events. And then came the note that during their last journey, one of your ships had made less profit then expected due to mildew damaging the cargo. They had forgotten to report that the last time they had come into port. They apparently also had forgotten that their cargo on the trip in question had been steel ingots from Auri.
Once you had found the first incident, it was not hard to find more of it. Gepitian glass that had allegedly been eaten by rats. Bales of linen cloth that had been spilled when their barrels broke. Copper ingots that had been eaten by the crew when the ship ran out of supplies due to a storm blowing them off course. And all of it the same pattern. The ship would come and go without the captain mentioning any such unlikely events, then drop off a note that they forgot to say so when they returned from their next voyage. It was not had to guess what had truly happened, even though the idea sickened you.
You had always liked the affable old man, but the evidence that Sarrut was cheating you was right there and Menodoras insistence to confront him at once was sensible. However, it was already too late. When you told one of the servants to fetch him, you were told that he had left the mansion and would not return until the evening. The "Issur Tanty", one of your galleys, had arrived in port the day before and Sarrut had excused himself to address some matters there, having the servants take a few coffers with him. The ship was supposed to leave again on that day and it was clear that the old man was planning to disappear.
DC ??? Administration Check: 4 + (1 +-1 +-1 +1) = 4
Menodora Assistance: 4 + (1 +1 +-1 +0) = 5
Evidence of fraud found.
Opposed Subterfuge Roll: 2 + (1 +0 +-1 +1) = 3
Counter Roll: 5 + (-1 +1 +0 +-1 +-1) = 3
Tie
Opposed Subterfuge Roll: 2 + (1 +-1 +0 +-1) = 1
Counter Roll: 5 + (0 +0 +0 +1 +-1) = 5
Sarrut on the run, but still in the city.
What do you want to do in regards to your traitorous Sakellarius Sarrut and the Small Trade Galley he wants to flee with?
[] Alert the city watch to have him apprehended. (Very likely to apprehend him and the ship. Will very likely cause a scandal.)
[] Let him flee, but inform the Magistrate to have him and the ship known as pirates. (Low chance to apprehend him and the ship. May cause a scandal.)
[] Let him flee and keep things quiet, hoping that he will not cause any future troubles. (Sarrut and the ship flee. Unknown effects.)
[] Let him flee and ask Ghaliya bint Nur bint Hasna for help. (???)
[] Write-In
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- Location
- United States
Thirty years this guy has been stealing from the family. I bet he's pulling a Baelish and hiding all the wealth in small businesses.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
[X] Alert the city watch to have him apprehended. (Very likely to apprehend him and the ship. Will very likely cause a scandal.)
I rather have him with a rep loss, than chance anything else. And i DO NOT WANT DEBT WITH Ghaliya. We don't want to be at her complete mercy.
I rather have him with a rep loss, than chance anything else. And i DO NOT WANT DEBT WITH Ghaliya. We don't want to be at her complete mercy.
[X] Alert the city watch to have him apprehended. (Very likely to apprehend him and the ship. Will very likely cause a scandal.)
Screw the scandal, we need this guy made an example of. We can weather the scandal better now that we are not quite on the ragged edge of bankruptcy.
Screw the scandal, we need this guy made an example of. We can weather the scandal better now that we are not quite on the ragged edge of bankruptcy.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Plus if we catch him we have a stronger case and ability to recover some of that wealth.
At the very least we get that ship I think.
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
[X] Alert the city watch to have him apprehended. (Very likely to apprehend him and the ship. Will very likely cause a scandal.)
Rep for not standing this sort of thing regardless of scandals is actually good rep.
Knowing that we won't allow oursleves to get fucked with means (potentially) less people risking fucking with us.
The loan is pretty great, and that the wife and us found some understanding is even better.
Rep for not standing this sort of thing regardless of scandals is actually good rep.
Knowing that we won't allow oursleves to get fucked with means (potentially) less people risking fucking with us.
The loan is pretty great, and that the wife and us found some understanding is even better.