CASE: GRAINY RESOLUTION MONTH 4
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Martial:
Out Afield:
DC: 15. Roll: 17 + 1 + 1 + 6.6 = 25.6
Diplomacy
Uprooting Society II:
DC: 22. Roll: 17 + 3 + 3.4 = 23.4
Allied Intrigue Action:
Staying Honest:
DC: 15. Roll: 19 + 3.4
Stewardship:
Organizing Distribution:
DC: 25. Roll: 22 + 4.7 = 26.7
Taking Root
You decide, given the situation, to take a back line role in this upcoming month. Cormag will be out front as your eyes, ears, and voice on the ground, while you organize the distribution and payment of your volunteer organization even as you draft a script for Cormag and the people he's instructing to rattle off. You coordinate closely with the Countess during the process, tipping the argument between her and her Head Maid about the advisability of sending her remaining agents afield.
Buoyed by the good news coming out from the farmers near the manor, the money and the potatoes spread at the speed of rumor, the mobs that formed in the past month giving way to the sheer promise of good harvests coming every season rather than every third. You're glad that the Head Maid and her helpers have largely been keeping the new organization honest; establishing and maintaining a strong institutional culture of honesty can only be a good thing, in your eyes. That doesn't mean you tell Cormag to stop organizing the peasants, however - you weren't foolish enough to believe that handing nobility more power wouldn't inevitably lead to them screwing it all up in your line of work.
So it goes. The money goes out. The agents go out. The potatoes go out.
And the shoots begin to rise, even as many farmers who had lost their first batch of potatoes to the mad crowds of farmers now racing for potatoes angrily sharpen their pitchforks and ready themselves for...something. Whatever it is, the agents on the ground don't know, and you really don't like the sound of it.
Intrigue
Screw Wahner
DC: 20. Roll: 22 + 7.5 = 29.5
The first thing the Wahners try to do in the beginning of the month is bribe the judges. The first thing you do is to steal that money right off the judge's nose, and leave the Wahners looking all the world like they just tried to stiff the judges. The second thing...well, you don't so much allow the second thing to happen, as you watch the fights unfolding and decide to...help them along, here and there. The fact that you get to help yourself to their treasury while they do it is just the thing to chase down a satisfying operation like that.
Gain: 6 Budget.
Learning:
The Root of the Issue IV
DC: 15. Roll: 20 + 8.7 = 28.7
Tekla continues his studies of the potato crops and its effect on the remaining soil. He doesn't note anything extraordinary, simply continuing his daily observation of the plants. He makes a small note that potatoes seem somewhat more vulnerable to cold weather, and that sufficiently cold weather might be able to kill the leaves without actually killing the root that's the real source of the potato's early growth.
You really wish you had paid more attention to that little factoid.
Piety
Local Politics II:
DC: 26. Base Stat: 22 + 2 + 5.9 = 29.9
Random Event Roll: 19
So it's as you start racking up all these successes in the wider implementation of potatoes that the weather turns against you. An unseasonable - or as unseasonable as it got with the unknown madness of the Aurora - cold snap suddenly hit the province, breath fogging and water freezing overnight. Instantly, vast swathes of the recently planted potatoes were frozen and killed, the farmers uprooting them the obviously killed plants. Your science was getting better - if nothing else Tekla was able to find that despite the plant dying the potato still lived - but your distribution networks were unable to get the news out, at least not in time to prevent a mass furor against the Countess' deception. The mobs howled that the traditional fallow-land crop would be able to survive the cold snap, and what did that foreign noble from Alanyiva know about Oskaria anyway?
The mood was worsened because of the split between the farmers close to the Countess, who had profited greatly in selling off their crops of potatoes for others to plant and the farmers who had accepted their potatoes at a high cost. These farmers had adopted the potato earlier - clearly on the Countess' prompting, who was also cavorting with monsters in the night - and had gladly profited from the sales of the cursed, poisonous crop. As far as the local spirits were concerned, this was all to the good: the potato was clearly a dead end if a cold snap like this could kill so many of them off, and to some degree any ruler had to rule by consent of the spirits, which the Countess evidently had not earned.
The tension builds and builds, angry muttering turning into angry marches turning into daily standoffs between groups of furious mobs trying to protect whatever gains they had staring down mobs of farmers who were convinced the lawlessness of the first group had led them to lose everything facing off against ... who knows. Regardless, the streets were tense, angry, and the moment someone throws a stone the land will drink deeply of the whole province's blood.
So of course, the neighboring Count Schmitt decides it's a great time to make everything worse by declaring war on the Countess, drawing upon the mutual defense pact that his family had with the Wahner family. Somewhat fortunately for you, the sheer hunger that even the Schmitt's small number of forces exhibit as they march into the territory seizing food and the fact that they imported their own spirits as they went about tearing up the old spiritual relationships makes the original local spirits much more amenable to potatoes - both to ensure the peasants they protected would have something to eat as well as a general ethos of "screw those invaders who aren't giving us anything".
Unfortunately, Baron Kaufmann chose either the worst or best time to stay conspicuously neutral, or at least drag his feet on the mobilization of the Countess' retinue-under-arms. The Countess was furious that she could only mobilize her limited forces loyal to her only - and dwindling by the day - but still the Baron dragged his feet. The mobs of angry farmers draw back to the respective armies, choosing to side with, or at least not oppose, whoever looks like they might protect or "protect" them - with the understanding that should the backing army leave that a bloody mob will follow shortly on its heels.
Other Income: 8 Budget.
Administrative Expense: 1 Budget.
Salaries and Wages Expense: 11 Budget.
Spiritual Expense: 3 Budget.
Net Loss: 7 Budget.
Remaining Budget: 67 Budget.
Well, there's a small army of about 20 cavalry and 40 support soldiers approaching the Countess' manor, who can only maybe call up five men-at-arms and twenty soldiers at best - the vast majority of the forces under her nominal control are actually answering to the Baron Kaufmann, who controls the real force of 100 cavalry and 400 soldiers in this province. Add to that a cold snap badly damaging crops and a populace one step short of starting mass pogroms and counter-pogroms, and the situation is on the brink of total disaster.
With 67 Budget remaining and an army at your doorstep, you are free to spend up to 30 Budget this turn.
You have one [Free] Action that you may spend on an action in any category.
You can cooperate with your teammates to add +3 base stat to an action that you are cooperating on. It is represented by using your [Free] Action on one of your already-selected Actions.
Martial (Choose 1) {Kerrie Action}
[] [Martial] First Strike - Countess
You and the Countess will join forces to hit the Schmitt forces hard with only what forces you can call up and the element of surprise. Hopefully it works. Hopefully. DC: 23. Cost: 0 Budget.
[] [Martial] First Strike - Schmitt
...The King cares not who the tax comes from, only that it does. Given the low number of allied troops, you could just backstab the Countess... DC: 18. Cost: 0 Budget. ???
[] [Martial] Mobilizing the Baron
The Baron's either been bribed or chose to stay neutral for whatever reason. Hopefully a nice big gob of money will convince him otherwise. DC: 21. Cost: 10 Budget.
Diplomacy (Choose 1) {Cormag Action}
[] [Diplomacy] Get With The Program
You need to defuse the situation, and that means toning the calls for blood in the streets and corpses in the fields way the fuck down holy shit. DC: 27. Cost: 4 Budget.
[] [Diplomacy] Uprooting Society III
The root cause of this issue is the death of the potato crops. Tekla has confirmed for you that the potatoes can actually regrow despite exposure to the cold snap, so if you can get the word out that the harvest isn't yet ruined you might yet be able to calm these groups down. DC: 25. Cost: 4 Budget.
Intrigue (Choose 1) {Agueda Action}
[] [Intrigue] Screw Wahner
With recent events forthcoming, the Wahner family has jumped way down your priority queue - but you still probably need to keep them on their toes and at each other's throats. DC: 18. Cost: 0 Budget.
[] [Intrigue] Capture Schmitt
So...it'd be fairly risky, but you might be able to simply end the war before it starts by launching a night-time attack. Given the limited quality and trustworthiness of the Countess' forces, it'd practically be just your team, but... DC: 28. Cost: 0 Budget.
[] [Intrigue] Judicial Honesty
For a small province like this there are only a handful of judges - a handful which you can immediately bribe, and hopefully set in motion to get the Wahners at least out of your hair. Your manufactured embarrassment of the Wahner family can only help you here. DC: 15. Cost: 4 Budget.
[] [Intrigue] Staying Honest
You need to watch over the fledgling network that you and the Countess are setting up, and keep them from punishing theft or dishonesty. DC: 15. Cost: 0 Budget.
Learning (Choose 1) {Tekla Action}
[] [Learning] The Root of the Issue V
The cold snap has raised an urgent question: how well does the potato crop grow after losing it's plant stem? Can the harvest even be recovered at this point? Dispatch Tekla to actively find out. DC: 15. Cost: 0 Budget.
[] [Learning] Magical Mapping
The need for mapping out the local spiritual map comes with a new urgency, since the Count Schmitt's forces are actively going about tearing up the old networks. Help out the local spirits regain their footing, while also conveniently pinpointing the enemy forces' location DC: 23. Cost: 0 Budget.
Stewardship (Choose 1) {Agueda Action}
[] [Stewardship] Bringing A Case
You no longer have time for "precisely tight legal arguments" - you mostly need the Wahner family to sit down and shut up, and you're willing to bring some charges which may not be completely watertight in order to do it. DC: 24. Cost: 2 Budget.
[] [Stewardship] Organizing Distribution II
Well, there's been a second round of uprootings and threatened violence, which means that you need to start using your fledgling network to go put the potatoes back into the ground and money into people's hands. Hopefully that calms the situation down. DC: 27. Cost: 6 Budget.
Piety (Choose 1) {Agueda Action}
[] [Piety] Local Politics III
Good news! The local spirits have decided to back your attempts. Bad news: it only took an army invading to cause it. You might be able to leverage this into a boon for your forces, and at this point you'd be foolish to refuse. DC: 25. Cost: 0 Budget.
Out Afield:
DC: 15. Roll: 17 + 1 + 1 + 6.6 = 25.6
Diplomacy
Uprooting Society II:
DC: 22. Roll: 17 + 3 + 3.4 = 23.4
Allied Intrigue Action:
Staying Honest:
DC: 15. Roll: 19 + 3.4
Stewardship:
Organizing Distribution:
DC: 25. Roll: 22 + 4.7 = 26.7
Taking Root
You decide, given the situation, to take a back line role in this upcoming month. Cormag will be out front as your eyes, ears, and voice on the ground, while you organize the distribution and payment of your volunteer organization even as you draft a script for Cormag and the people he's instructing to rattle off. You coordinate closely with the Countess during the process, tipping the argument between her and her Head Maid about the advisability of sending her remaining agents afield.
Buoyed by the good news coming out from the farmers near the manor, the money and the potatoes spread at the speed of rumor, the mobs that formed in the past month giving way to the sheer promise of good harvests coming every season rather than every third. You're glad that the Head Maid and her helpers have largely been keeping the new organization honest; establishing and maintaining a strong institutional culture of honesty can only be a good thing, in your eyes. That doesn't mean you tell Cormag to stop organizing the peasants, however - you weren't foolish enough to believe that handing nobility more power wouldn't inevitably lead to them screwing it all up in your line of work.
So it goes. The money goes out. The agents go out. The potatoes go out.
And the shoots begin to rise, even as many farmers who had lost their first batch of potatoes to the mad crowds of farmers now racing for potatoes angrily sharpen their pitchforks and ready themselves for...something. Whatever it is, the agents on the ground don't know, and you really don't like the sound of it.
Intrigue
Screw Wahner
DC: 20. Roll: 22 + 7.5 = 29.5
The first thing the Wahners try to do in the beginning of the month is bribe the judges. The first thing you do is to steal that money right off the judge's nose, and leave the Wahners looking all the world like they just tried to stiff the judges. The second thing...well, you don't so much allow the second thing to happen, as you watch the fights unfolding and decide to...help them along, here and there. The fact that you get to help yourself to their treasury while they do it is just the thing to chase down a satisfying operation like that.
Gain: 6 Budget.
Learning:
The Root of the Issue IV
DC: 15. Roll: 20 + 8.7 = 28.7
Tekla continues his studies of the potato crops and its effect on the remaining soil. He doesn't note anything extraordinary, simply continuing his daily observation of the plants. He makes a small note that potatoes seem somewhat more vulnerable to cold weather, and that sufficiently cold weather might be able to kill the leaves without actually killing the root that's the real source of the potato's early growth.
You really wish you had paid more attention to that little factoid.
Piety
Local Politics II:
DC: 26. Base Stat: 22 + 2 + 5.9 = 29.9
Random Event Roll: 19
So it's as you start racking up all these successes in the wider implementation of potatoes that the weather turns against you. An unseasonable - or as unseasonable as it got with the unknown madness of the Aurora - cold snap suddenly hit the province, breath fogging and water freezing overnight. Instantly, vast swathes of the recently planted potatoes were frozen and killed, the farmers uprooting them the obviously killed plants. Your science was getting better - if nothing else Tekla was able to find that despite the plant dying the potato still lived - but your distribution networks were unable to get the news out, at least not in time to prevent a mass furor against the Countess' deception. The mobs howled that the traditional fallow-land crop would be able to survive the cold snap, and what did that foreign noble from Alanyiva know about Oskaria anyway?
The mood was worsened because of the split between the farmers close to the Countess, who had profited greatly in selling off their crops of potatoes for others to plant and the farmers who had accepted their potatoes at a high cost. These farmers had adopted the potato earlier - clearly on the Countess' prompting, who was also cavorting with monsters in the night - and had gladly profited from the sales of the cursed, poisonous crop. As far as the local spirits were concerned, this was all to the good: the potato was clearly a dead end if a cold snap like this could kill so many of them off, and to some degree any ruler had to rule by consent of the spirits, which the Countess evidently had not earned.
The tension builds and builds, angry muttering turning into angry marches turning into daily standoffs between groups of furious mobs trying to protect whatever gains they had staring down mobs of farmers who were convinced the lawlessness of the first group had led them to lose everything facing off against ... who knows. Regardless, the streets were tense, angry, and the moment someone throws a stone the land will drink deeply of the whole province's blood.
So of course, the neighboring Count Schmitt decides it's a great time to make everything worse by declaring war on the Countess, drawing upon the mutual defense pact that his family had with the Wahner family. Somewhat fortunately for you, the sheer hunger that even the Schmitt's small number of forces exhibit as they march into the territory seizing food and the fact that they imported their own spirits as they went about tearing up the old spiritual relationships makes the original local spirits much more amenable to potatoes - both to ensure the peasants they protected would have something to eat as well as a general ethos of "screw those invaders who aren't giving us anything".
Unfortunately, Baron Kaufmann chose either the worst or best time to stay conspicuously neutral, or at least drag his feet on the mobilization of the Countess' retinue-under-arms. The Countess was furious that she could only mobilize her limited forces loyal to her only - and dwindling by the day - but still the Baron dragged his feet. The mobs of angry farmers draw back to the respective armies, choosing to side with, or at least not oppose, whoever looks like they might protect or "protect" them - with the understanding that should the backing army leave that a bloody mob will follow shortly on its heels.
Other Income: 8 Budget.
Administrative Expense: 1 Budget.
Salaries and Wages Expense: 11 Budget.
Spiritual Expense: 3 Budget.
Net Loss: 7 Budget.
Remaining Budget: 67 Budget.
Well, there's a small army of about 20 cavalry and 40 support soldiers approaching the Countess' manor, who can only maybe call up five men-at-arms and twenty soldiers at best - the vast majority of the forces under her nominal control are actually answering to the Baron Kaufmann, who controls the real force of 100 cavalry and 400 soldiers in this province. Add to that a cold snap badly damaging crops and a populace one step short of starting mass pogroms and counter-pogroms, and the situation is on the brink of total disaster.
With 67 Budget remaining and an army at your doorstep, you are free to spend up to 30 Budget this turn.
You have one [Free] Action that you may spend on an action in any category.
You can cooperate with your teammates to add +3 base stat to an action that you are cooperating on. It is represented by using your [Free] Action on one of your already-selected Actions.
Martial (Choose 1) {Kerrie Action}
[] [Martial] First Strike - Countess
You and the Countess will join forces to hit the Schmitt forces hard with only what forces you can call up and the element of surprise. Hopefully it works. Hopefully. DC: 23. Cost: 0 Budget.
[] [Martial] First Strike - Schmitt
...The King cares not who the tax comes from, only that it does. Given the low number of allied troops, you could just backstab the Countess... DC: 18. Cost: 0 Budget. ???
[] [Martial] Mobilizing the Baron
The Baron's either been bribed or chose to stay neutral for whatever reason. Hopefully a nice big gob of money will convince him otherwise. DC: 21. Cost: 10 Budget.
Diplomacy (Choose 1) {Cormag Action}
[] [Diplomacy] Get With The Program
You need to defuse the situation, and that means toning the calls for blood in the streets and corpses in the fields way the fuck down holy shit. DC: 27. Cost: 4 Budget.
[] [Diplomacy] Uprooting Society III
The root cause of this issue is the death of the potato crops. Tekla has confirmed for you that the potatoes can actually regrow despite exposure to the cold snap, so if you can get the word out that the harvest isn't yet ruined you might yet be able to calm these groups down. DC: 25. Cost: 4 Budget.
Intrigue (Choose 1) {Agueda Action}
[] [Intrigue] Screw Wahner
With recent events forthcoming, the Wahner family has jumped way down your priority queue - but you still probably need to keep them on their toes and at each other's throats. DC: 18. Cost: 0 Budget.
[] [Intrigue] Capture Schmitt
So...it'd be fairly risky, but you might be able to simply end the war before it starts by launching a night-time attack. Given the limited quality and trustworthiness of the Countess' forces, it'd practically be just your team, but... DC: 28. Cost: 0 Budget.
[] [Intrigue] Judicial Honesty
For a small province like this there are only a handful of judges - a handful which you can immediately bribe, and hopefully set in motion to get the Wahners at least out of your hair. Your manufactured embarrassment of the Wahner family can only help you here. DC: 15. Cost: 4 Budget.
[] [Intrigue] Staying Honest
You need to watch over the fledgling network that you and the Countess are setting up, and keep them from punishing theft or dishonesty. DC: 15. Cost: 0 Budget.
Learning (Choose 1) {Tekla Action}
[] [Learning] The Root of the Issue V
The cold snap has raised an urgent question: how well does the potato crop grow after losing it's plant stem? Can the harvest even be recovered at this point? Dispatch Tekla to actively find out. DC: 15. Cost: 0 Budget.
[] [Learning] Magical Mapping
The need for mapping out the local spiritual map comes with a new urgency, since the Count Schmitt's forces are actively going about tearing up the old networks. Help out the local spirits regain their footing, while also conveniently pinpointing the enemy forces' location DC: 23. Cost: 0 Budget.
Stewardship (Choose 1) {Agueda Action}
[] [Stewardship] Bringing A Case
You no longer have time for "precisely tight legal arguments" - you mostly need the Wahner family to sit down and shut up, and you're willing to bring some charges which may not be completely watertight in order to do it. DC: 24. Cost: 2 Budget.
[] [Stewardship] Organizing Distribution II
Well, there's been a second round of uprootings and threatened violence, which means that you need to start using your fledgling network to go put the potatoes back into the ground and money into people's hands. Hopefully that calms the situation down. DC: 27. Cost: 6 Budget.
Piety (Choose 1) {Agueda Action}
[] [Piety] Local Politics III
Good news! The local spirits have decided to back your attempts. Bad news: it only took an army invading to cause it. You might be able to leverage this into a boon for your forces, and at this point you'd be foolish to refuse. DC: 25. Cost: 0 Budget.