Industrialization Quest

The best time to build roads is probably when we start getting indications that there's real trade traffic in Neiswald. There will be people who won't want to make the trek, but there will also be people willing to take the time for an unusual product or local specialty. If there's any regional demand for something in Neiswald, chances are there's more regional demand that just can't afford or risk the trip that roads would help with.
We actually did get an indication of trade traffic the last time we did Forgework. Apparently, people from other parts of the region are coming to Nesiwald for cheap iron tools. I just don't think that's quite enough for building roads, but I'm wondering if the watermill will be.
I would happily vote to build a canal system by ourselves even if the return period from the tolls on that was a lot longer than our other investments (~25 years or more, say), which would also get more merchants coming here and it seems like that could be potentially viable in the future (maybe if we get more political clout depending on how far away the waterfall section is, if it's outside the Nesiwald jurisdiction region) based on this action:
You can suggest those to the GM if you like. I'm just discussing the option currently available. Convincing others to invest in roads might be a Diplomacy option in the future. Even if we don't get help from others, roads should be worth the investment at some point so that our Profits from the iron mine, watermill, forges, etc. don't start decreasing from saturating the local market.
 
Given that we went with the Codex being more pliable with regards to agriculture at the beginning of this quest I fell as though we're somewhat putting off doing basic things like crop rotation that are really fundamental and allow for much greater growth further down the line.
 
I think you lot are putting the cart before the horse her. building a road doesn't mean merchants will come to the town and it especially doesn't mean enough of them will come to pay for the road. The merchants need are reason to come to the town first, which includes both a product and them knowing about the town in the first place, then a road makes sense because its acting as a bottle neck. With how much roads cost thats they only way i can see it being justified.

Then again there might be an alternative, the American Highway system and other historical roads were not made for trade in the first place. they were made to made moving the army around easier and faster. depending on how we play our cards and how bad the zombie issue is we might be able to get the governor to build the roads for us.
 
I think you lot are putting the cart before the horse her. building a road doesn't mean merchants will come to the town and it especially doesn't mean enough of them will come to pay for the road. The merchants need are reason to come to the town first, which includes both a product and them knowing about the town in the first place, then a road makes sense because its acting as a bottle neck. With how much roads cost thats they only way i can see it being justified.

Then again there might be an alternative, the American Highway system and other historical roads were not made for trade in the first place. they were made to made moving the army around easier and faster. depending on how we play our cards and how bad the zombie issue is we might be able to get the governor to build the roads for us.

If we can show the way we build roads faster/cheaper/better than how they would traditionally be done we might convince the governor to finance their construction though.

I mean, once we start to visually improve the region's economy we should get his attention, and he'd likely want to support us. A richer region makes him look good after all.

Maybe Genevieve could drop a few words about "that ingenious former noble. He might be bad with a blade, but he has a surprising amount of clever ideas. I wonder what he could do if he had the means to realize some of them. Did you hear about the new mill for example?"

The only annoying thing is that right now we are a nobody, and while that means we have very little money and support it also means we're mostly free to do what we want.

Once we become more famous and important we'll have to play politics though.
 
If we can show the way we build roads faster/cheaper/better than how they would traditionally be done we might convince the governor to finance their construction though.

I mean, once we start to visually improve the region's economy we should get his attention, and he'd likely want to support us. A richer region makes him look good after all.

Maybe Genevieve could drop a few words about "that ingenious former noble. He might be bad with a blade, but he has a surprising amount of clever ideas. I wonder what he could do if he had the means to realize some of them. Did you hear about the new mill for example?"

The only annoying thing is that right now we are a nobody, and while that means we have very little money and support it also means we're mostly free to do what we want.

Once we become more famous and important we'll have to play politics though.

There really is not such thing as a cheap road, only a less expensive one. the fact that they require regular maintenance just makes it worse. The fact is that outside of a situation where we get returns in a reasonable time frame on it are guaranteed roads are a burden on our economy not an asset. right now as you said we are a nobody and have a terrible stain on our reputation. the best thing we can do right now is to keep improving the productivity of the town by increasing iron and food production. we might be able to reach out to other local towns and split the cost of the road but that is a long term thing, heck depending on how big the demand is we might be able to split the costs with the merchants themselves if they are willing to play ball. we might be able to sell the road tech, but we definitely shouldn't do examples of it at cost, its just to expensive. Maybe we could work with our family on this and have roads built there at some point? either way its to early and our margin is to narrow to invest in something so expensive and without guaranteed returns or something to mitigate the risk/cost and thats only going to happen after the town starts making it big.
 
Last edited:
There really is not such thing as a cheap road, only a less expensive one. the fact that they require regular maintenance just makes it worse. The fact is that outside of a situation where we get returns in a reasonable time frame on it are guaranteed roads are a burden on our economy not an asset. right now as you said we are a nobody and have a terrible stain on our reputation. the best thing we can do right now is to keep improving the productivity of the town by increasing iron and food production. we might be able to reach out to other local towns and split the cost of the road but that is a long term thing, heck depending on how big the demand is we might be able to split the costs with the merchants themselves if they are willing to play ball. we might be able to sell the road tech, but we definitely shouldn't do examples of it at cost, its just to expensive. Maybe we could work with our family on this and have roads built there at some point? either way its to early and our margin is to narrow to invest in something so expensive and without guaranteed returns or something to mitigate the risk/cost and thats only going to happen after the town starts making it big.

just to be clear, I agree that roads are not something we should work on right now. The value of a road rises with basically the value of all our other projects (and the general condition of the village/region, and we need the money too much to burn it on roads NOW.

I think, though, that once we actually have the cash to burn AND the attention of the governor (or someone decently important in general, Genevieve and the general might be of help) we could make the road both to improve Nesiwald AND to offer the example of our "better and cheaper way".

Still, even in a VERY optimistic view, this would have to wait at least a year, and more likely two so that we have payed off our debt. I think the governor might be interested in us if we manage to pay a debt that, for a normal person, would be pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to pay out.

I mean, we get 4+2+1= 7 profits from the government per year. we need to pay 10-15-20 each year. EVEN counting the 10 we started with we would have needed to earn... 45-10-7*3=14 profits in 3 years somehow, and that's nearly impossible without our advantages. Maybe a not-codex wielding Harold could have managed by basically doing forgework every turn, but the governor couldn't have known he was good enough to make the money that way.

We were, in the governor's view, doomed to fail. And we didn't fail.

This WILL make him interested in us and what we're doing, no matter what his intentions are.
 
I don't think we should build roads until at least the windmill is complete, but I also think that we'll be at a detriment if we wait too long to build roads. We've sold a lot of horse collars, the smith is selling a lot of iron tools, and Timothy will be selling a lot of iron plows. At some point, our quarterly Profits will likely decrease because nearly everyone around already has what we've been selling. Our mine produces more than the smith can use right now. Setting up a smithy for Timothy will reduce the surplus, but we're also planning to expand the mine, which should increase iron production again.

That said, it will take time to make and sell enough iron plows to saturate the local market, though we might have reached that point with the horse collars. I'm going to try to keep an eye out for a good time financially to invest in the roads and/or the monster manual. The quest should be progressing a lot quicker now that the updates are quaterly.
 
Turn 9 Results
You are Harold Bismarck, and you can't help but suppress a grin. While several of your plans over the last few months ended up a little rocky and one of them failed entirely, the really important ones are going smoothly. And as for your money troubles... Not gone, by any means, but much alleviated. You feel a rush of triumph and support run through you as you remember. There is a spring in your step and a grin on your face. The one who ended up making such a generous offer surprised you, to say the least. But you'll take it! Who know that all you really had to do was ask?

There is one more spot of bother other than the thing with the merchants. Mr. Smith brought up the point that once your new mill is complete... Won't you be spending a lot of your time there? Ensuring that all is well at the mine and managing the man's smithy for him both take time, effort, and attention out of your days. When your construction of Greens's forge is done, you'll probably want to help him out - and the same thing with the mill. If you keep adding more things to manage and oversee you'll need to either drop some others, cut back on time dedicated to longer-term projects, or delegate.

"I know you're bound for bigger things, lad. Running sales for me is a nice way to keep yourself busy When you're no longer able to help manage my smithy yourself, I'll want to go back to doin' it on my own. Don't bother trying to find someone else as a middleman and keep skimming off my money. You've learned to keep your mouth shut and take care of things without bothering me. Anybody else would be a pain."

Something to think about, even if it's not relevant yet...

You're also found by old Ludwig one evening. It's somewhat rare that he seeks you out, but this seems important.

"I'm getting the feeling you're not going to give back any of the crop money?"

"...Give back?"

"Aye. When I handled it, the worst-off families or those who'd suffered some misfortune would get most of the royal coin from the harvest and the little silver they gift us for the new year, with the rest saved for emergencies. You're not doing that."

"It's mostly going into the mill. And... To pay back the Lord Governor for my mistakes, to be honest. Though, I brought a lot of my own money here too and I've been using that."

Ludwig eyes your relatively nice clothes bought from Ganz, then deliberately glances at the under-construction smithy.

"Hmmmmmm. Well, the mill's real exciting. Just remember that folk are used to getting some of the money from the Crown back at the end of the year. Now, buying the mine put coin in everyone's pockets earlier in the year and your big mill thing is exciting, but most of that money is going to your own purposes, paying back your mistakes and making you more powerful. Some folk won't like that. Just something to keep in mind, lad."

Potentially troubling, but you can't really say it's unfair for them to expect hard coin every year, if that's how Ludwig used the Crown's payments in the past. Yet another thing clawing at your funds! So many immediate demands for money, when long-term investments are really the way to go! Bah. You can tell them it's all going towards the mill, which will benefit everyone... You'll have to see if anyone actually complains.



Martial: Zombie scouting. You're no tactician or leader, and the village's real militia who actively train to fight together are all off fighting for king and country, but there are still hunters, homesteaders, and woodsmen. You could try to get them to scout the north where there are supposedly more and more zombies. They even have an interest in knowing if trouble is coming or not. Plus, maybe you can convince Cornet Renns to help? Undead are a threat to the roads and trade, after all.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 40. Convince hunters and woodsmen to go scout the north for undead.
[38 + 7 = 45, Bare Success.]

It took quite a lot of cajoling and - not pleading, what's a good word? Beseeching. Yes, that works. Anyway, it turns out that few people actually want to go into the spooky woods that might or might not contain an undead menace.

Cornet Renns couldn't join them, unfortunately. "I do understand your concern, I really do. It's just that... Well, it's a bad idea."

"But why? Surely scouting is a good thing, you gain more information."

He shakes his head. "Horsemen, in thickly wooded mountains? No no no. It's just not going to happen. That adventure with the good Captain was an exception, and we were mostly on foot for it anyway. And besides, I have a schedule and a training regimen! I am sorry. I shouldn't fault you for silly requests, of course, so I won't hold it against you either."

Ah, there's the condescension again. It stings, but you're pretty sure he doesn't mean anything ill by it. You bow. "Of course. Horsemen, in the mountains - green ones besides... Ah, wery well. Thank you for taking the time to answer me anyway, and for explaining."

Despite Renns's refusal, a few of the braver woodsmen oblige you by heading north. Their reports are slightly dubious and their notion of distance quite variable, so despite your efforts the map you come up with is very, very rough. They do give you some information, though... There are indeed more zombies than there should be. The hunters encountered perhaps a hundred of the things in total, generally in ones or twos, and slew fourteen. About half of the zombies were human, and the rest various animals - mostly wolves and bobcats, large predators being more suceptible to zombification for some reason. Though, there was also one zombie bear, which is a dangerous menace. Of the human zombies, none had a face that any of the hunters recognized. This piece of information is particularly troubling because those people had to come from somewhere.

You discuss all this with Bertram Cooper. He seems to know more than he really ought to about the undead... He sees two possible explanations. The first is that some large group of people - perhaps a caravan, wildcat mining camp, or bandit gang - all ended up isolated in the wild hinterland and died due to some catastrophe. If things were bad enough, the first few unburied bodies turning into zombies could have led to the deaths of everyone else, and apparently there is a tendency for concentrations of undead energies to encourage more undead to form, thus the profusion of zombified animals to accompany the undead bodies of dozens of strangers that none of the locals can recognize.

And the other option... Is that there is a Necromancer responsible for this. And they would be practicing their "art", getting better. You don't know enough to say for sure which it is... The latter is a terrifying prospect. A necromancer with time to prepare is the kind of thing that takes an entire division of Veschwar's army to properly deal with. And the army is currently fighting a large scale war, which means they're rather busy.

Information gained.



Stewardship: The Watermill, Part 1. You've decided on an ambitious course of action, inspired by a quirk of geography that makes for a perfect water-drop, the ideal location for a waterwheel, to turn the power of nature into man's use. You have to lay a foundation and prepare the ground by building up and cutting away part of the hill, then start on the building's frame. This is going to be a big project, but it's not very complex or difficult, just a lot of work.
Cost: 8 Profit Burned. Difficulty: 25 - 15 (Census Bonus). First stage of Large Watermill construction.
[51 + 17 = 68, Great Success.]

Preparing ground for the watermill is a heady thing. When the first shovel cuts into the soil, you feel an energy come over you. It's finally happening - the first true water-engine, the first link in a chain that will bend cruel nature to the good of humankind! Even as the harvest moves in full swing around you, the cottars of Nesiwald dig the great channel your plan calls for and the best carpenters in town begin to cut and join timbers to sizes and shapes that you personally mark out, checking, double-checking, and triple-checking so that it will all fit together nicely in the end.

Coin flows out from your money-pouch, buying off parcels of fields from a few families and enriching more than a hundred folk doing everything from digging the channel to laying a foundation to mixing mortar and laying the stones that will form the first two feet of the mill. Expensive, that, but you know stone-base walls ward off rot and it's much cheaper to do the first two feet than all of it. Meanwhile, the big waterwheel starts taking shape, a skeleton lying on its side near the frame that is starting to go up.

With this much money flowing around Nesiwald, a few of the skilled carpenters who you monopolize having more money than they've ever had in their life, there's almost a festival atmosphere in the air. They sing songs while working on your mill, work-songs about fortresses and bulwarks and such. And you're present throughout it all, managing and commanding as men and women hurry to work to your specifications.

...Is this what true nobility feels like? You were always overshadowed by your parents back home, never able to compete in the ways they thought important. But here and now, you are the boss, the man with the plan, the first and last authority, at least on this one narrow domain. It's a heady feeling. A good one, but... It makes you feel a bit nervous, to be honest. Do you really deserve to feel like this? Perhaps not.

As the weather grows colder and the new year approaches, you realize that you are under budget. You've been paying per day, and the general enthusiasm for the watermill to take away the burden of grinding grain has led to everyone working a bit harder and longer than they might otherwise have, their families bringing snacks or meals to the work site to marvel at the great change taking place and feel like they're participating.

First stage of Watermill construction completes on time! Only Burned 7 Profit.



Stewardship: Smithy Construction. Timothy Greens is ready to graduate to journeyman, according to the grumpy Master Smith. He just needs a smithy. If you help fund the construction, he will pay you back for the trouble out of what he earns after establishing himself. It will be a bit of a delay but there's a lot of reasons to want this - not least of which is so that you can organize the production of a lot of cast iron plows for sale!
Cost: 4 Profit Invested for 1 year. Difficulty: 40 - 15 (Census Bonus). Timothy Greens becomes a Journeyman Smith!
[40 + 17 = 57, Success.]

You also organize a new, somewhat modest smithy for Timothy Greens. Building two structures in a few months is not too strenuous for a village that should rightly be called a town, one holding over a thousand souls. While it does mean some other projects people were planning like new fences or barns are delayed, your construction jobs go smoothly.

The sticking point for Greens was getting a proper set of tools and enough stone to make a mostly-not-flammable structure. The former was accomplished by a letter containing a pouch of coins sent to the Metalworkers' Guildmaster in Ganz and the latter by buying someone's half-collapsed stone boundary wall. Hmm... You're going to need to actually import stone to build many more things, like that road you want, at this rate. You'll have to look into that later.

Regardless, the smithy goes up and Greens moves in. There's a touching ceremony where his Master officially releases him to Journeyman status. He hugs you, which you find a bit awkward. Do you hug back or what? Thankfully, he lets go after a few moments... And he turns right around and proposes to the same girl you'd set him up with a few months ago! It seems a little fast to you... But seventeen is a fairly typical age of marriage for this place. You haven't been paying too much attention to the lad, but they're grinning deliriously at each other and there's a great big party, so good for him! By December he's already industriously making horseshoes and hinges and axe-heads, doing his best to provide short turn-around on orders, hoping to run a good trade off the people who find the resident Master too slow or too abrasive.

Smithy established. Greens becomes a Journeyman smith, gets engaged!



Learning: Learn more about the Codex Crystal. You don't understand the Codex. You found it in a bunch of out-of-fashion jewelry in your parents' storeroom, but that doesn't go very far to explaining why such an obviously powerful magical artifact was waiting there for you to discover it. Or why nobody else can see the light it shines for you. The Codex is a lot more cooperative and calm now, for some reason. And you could swear you heard it whisper to you once... You might make good progress this time.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 60. Gain information.
[51 + 16 = 67, Bare Success.]

Asking the Codex Crystal about itself feels futile and fruitless, but it may be your single most important project. Sure, money is your limiting factor now, but the ability to pry insight and understanding out of the Codex Crystal will probably be more important in the long run.

It is with that in mind that you settle into the mind-bending project of trying to ask a mind-affecting magical artifact that shows you random visions of things more about itself. It goes about as well as one might expect such a strange idea to. You take notes as you try things, trying to pick out changes which make it more or less useful at any given hour. The Codex either can't or won't explain things more clearly than in shifting fragments of images. Why would that be? A limitation of whatever magic powers the thing? Hmm...

Does the Codex Crystal have a mind? Is it an animal, or a person? Surely it must be choosing things to show you somehow. (This line of thought gets you a mess of confused visions of numbers and symbols of light swimming through the air. There's some kind of structure there, but you can't really make heads or tails of it.) You briefly experiment with trying to think in metaphor and poetry, but every new word in a stanza shifts the Codex to something else until it sullenly drifts around on its own, almost as if sulking. You're not sure if not understanding poetry makes it seem less person-like, or that it seems to have moods makes it moreso.

You switch tacks. You feel like it almost whispered to you once. Right after you returned from Ganz. You're still not entirely sure whether you hallucinated that... So you conclude that it wasn't a hallucination, it really did whisper to you. You repeat that to yourself over and over, trying not to think about how you're fooling yourself and isn't it funny how human minds can be totally convinced of things that are obviously wrong. You spend long minutes in as close to total silence as possible, breathing slowly and deeply, silently urging the Codex Crystal to speak to you.

And... It works. You have to move yourself into a strange mental state, almost half-asleep, empty of thoughts and worries and unaware of the world around you. It's truly quite hard to push yourself into that state. While it feels very distinct, the thrill of realizing you've done it shakes you right back out of it! But when you do manage to maintain that strange emptiness, the Codex Crystal fills the void with much greater clarity - and the occasional whisper in an extremely faint toneless voice. You don't attain an instant, intuitive understanding of everything it shows. Nothing so obviously magical as that. But it's still much easier to remember things it has shown you when it does so in that strange altered state.

You remember vague rumors that certain foreign medicines can induce such mental states... You try it with your tea, but if anything the invigoration tea gives keeps you from 'falling asleep' like that at all. Hmm. At the end of the year you pore over all your notes again, thinking. You glean two things from your accumulated observations - it responds better when you're genuinely fascinated by whatever it's showing you, and it responds better to longer sessions with more time in between, and it responds better when you can be at such peace and calm as to fall into that 'not-sleep'.

It's good, but you still have quite a lot of questions and haven't learned anything new about the Codex's origins. These lessons came a bit too late to make use of them this quarter, but starting in the next one your ability to peel back the veil will be a little bit better...

Understanding of how to use the Codex Crystal improved! Starting next quarter, reroll up to two Codex Outline rolls below 30 per turn and add a flat +5 to Codex Outline rolls (does not expand die explosion range).



Learning: All Mine, part 1. The book on mining you purchased in Ganz describes ways to follow an ore vein as it abandons the surface and dips back into the ground. Tunneling is tricky and occasionally deadly business, but it seems that most mines worth the name have to use it. There's only so much iron right on the surface. Organize a dig of a short experimental shaft with these support structures and follow the iron into the hills.
Cost: 2 Profit invested for 3 months. Difficulty: 50. Unlock All Mine, part 2 (Stewardship).
[60 + 16 = 76, Success.]

Digging a tunnel into the hillside and bracing it with timbers, all according to the pattern the book you purchased lays out, is a third construction project in a season full of them for you. Luckily, your usual miners are perfectly happy to dig a tunnel instead of a pit if they're still being paid, and as you build the tunnel-braces nothing goes wrong. You're able to follow the snaking path of a particularly dense vein of iron into the hillside, the extra ore neatly making up for your investment.

On a piece of advice from the Codex that you don't really understand the reasoning of - but trust to probably be a good idea anyway - you tour the mine with a lit candle and make sure everyone knows that if their candle flame flares up or dies they should leave quickly. The Codex Crystal is more willing to show you more about mining after that, and when you compare the Codex's offerings to your book you note that they share some of the principles, though the Codex's look much more refined. What are those strange small side-shafts for anyway...?

Exploratory mine tunnel complete with no issues. Money recovered. Codex Outline unlocked: Mine Architecture.



Diplomacy: Can I borrow a gilder? You need money to do things. The more money you have access to, the faster you'll be able to do things. And you still have that severe penalty payment looming over your head... Maybe spending so much back in Ganz was a bit unwise? Well, you can ask both the people of Nesiwald and some creditors from the south for loans. You think the cast-iron plow is a pretty good piece of evidence that you'll be able to pay them back so you should get some decent offers!
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 20. Get loan offers from both locals and distant creditors/merchants.
[Natural 100 + 15 = 115. Die explodes. 15 + 115 = 130. Natural Critical Success.]

Well, you got a few offers, but one of them is clearly a much better deal than the others...

A traveling merchant lays out some frankly almost extortionate terms and would require you to sign a contract saying they can collect from your family's estates if you can't pay it back - it would be a legal quagmire if he actually tried to do it, and Father will be furious if he finds out. But it would be money in your pocket right now, useful to get up to speed, and money fixes all offenses. The other offer is from a coalition of carpenters and workers, who agree to work on the Watermill for free in exchange for the lion's share of what you earn from it in the first four working seasons - so only in the summer of the year after next would it finally be all yours.

That last offer, though...

When you ask Cornet Renns (not expecting him to agree), "So, you need money now, to make your mill and other things, and it will turn into quite the profit later? Capital!" And makes his offer, you nearly fall over in shock at just how generous it is. THAT much coin, repaid over HOW long, with WHAT interest rate? You're flabbergasted.

As he looks down upon you from his horse, the image of a stoic knight somewhat ruined by his round face and tendency to smile all the time, you have to ask, "What's the catch?"

"It's really just sitting in a vault right now. Not doing anyone much good like that, is it? Ah, I can only get you perhaps a third of that now. The rest would have to wait for next year."

"I suppose. It's just... It's a very good deal for me."

"Weren't you going on about different walks of life seeing different opportunities earlier? You and me don't think too much of spending a single gilder, but to a peasant that's months of labor. This will do my family good. Mother won't like it, but she doesn't like anything, it seems like some days. Besides, you're a clever sort. You're on the outs with Burke now-" (You wince at the casual mention of the Lord Governer) "-But you're going to be back in, I can feel it. The Bismarcks' star will rise in a decade, and I can help you along and try to tie my house's fortunes to yours by being an ally. It just makes sense, really."

...He's more of a politician than you had him pegged for. Your impression of the man until now was a competent horseman and petty knight without any real ambition. Well, you can't say you disapprove! If this works out it's going to be good for both your houses.

He starts turning to rejoin his horsemen but pauses with a thoughtful spark in his eyes. "Oh, one more thing. I want to meet Dame Sofia."

There's a moment of silence. Your eyes boggle again. Your mother? Why- Oh, of course. She's a war hero, a famous knight. The kind of person most young nobleman would dearly like to meet and question about her campaigns. You feel awkward and a little embarrassed, but mutter an agreement and listen politely as he waxes poetic about how brave your family must be. He doesn't mean any ill by it, you remind yourself. And he's going to loan you quite a lot of money at generous rate! It would be awful to feel hurt despite that.

Yet you are hurt none the less.

It's almost certain you'll want to take Cornet Renns's deal, but perhaps you have a reason to decline?
[ ][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 6 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[ ][Renns] Perhaps not.

Do you want to take one of the first two offers?
[ ][Loan] Merchant loan - Get 10 Profit now. Pay back 16 Profit this time next year. Sign a contract with the Bismarck name.
[ ][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for four working seasons as the money goes to workers.
[ ][Loan] No.

After the current turn ends and before taking any loans or gaining revenue from the business you own, you have 9 Profit, and 4 Profit invested for 9 months.



Intrigue: Pricing Knowledge. Having a good idea of what is cheap and what is expensive, when movements in the markets of the country are happening, and the general state of the economy will surely be useful. The movement of money and flow of goods is something you are keenly interested in, and liable to kick over or at least somewhat disrupt eventually if things go well. You can ask Maisah about economic rumors and even send probing questions to other merchant outfits to try and assemble such a picture.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 40. Unlock Economy rumor mill.
[4 + 11 = 15, Failure.]

Your attempts to bait a series of merchants into quietly feeding you information go decently for two months, then dry up entirely.

One letter that particularly hits the nail on the head reads, To the Steward of Nesiwald, to my regret I have limited time and effort available to discuss offers with men who plainly have no intention of ever actually buying anything. While we are happy to work with customers to find them the most appropriate deal, we cannot justify spending more time and effort finding offerings for you at the moment. If your economic situation improves and you wish to partake of the Faircut Group's excellent prices in the future, please place an official order through the Merchant's Guild at Ganz.

When you write to Maisah about this and asking her for information as well, she replies to the effect of, I'm not surprised. Information is wealth to a merchant. From the tone of that message I think they realized what you were trying to do, too. I can't really justify taking the time to write reports for you without some kind of compensation, either. But if you do try to buy information with money, you run the risk of folk taking your coin and feeding you whatever drivel comes from their asses. Such is life, I am afraid.

Action failed. At least you didn't spend any money on it.




Piety: Anti-Undead Education. If there are truly more and more undead in the mountains to the north, it might be a good idea to educate people on ways of warding them off. Sincere faith, salt or ash lines and a few strange chants, and solemnly intoning burial rites. These things can stop a zombie in its tracks, sometimes, according to Bertram. Make sure as many people in Nesiwald as possible know these things and don't have wrong ideas about this subject.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 30. Educate locals on how to deal with the undead.
[56 + 11 = 67, Success.]

It feels strange to be a leader, giving lectures on a topic you yourself barely understand. You recruit Sasha and Abram Waller to round up whole families at once, and make a speech you barely really remember about the undead menace and how preparation can be the difference between life and death. You walk them through a few prayers and chants, Sasha and Waller talk about how one ought to fight a zombie (the former with boisterous tales about the one you pinned and smashed, the latter with the slightly bored tone of a professional soldier), and then you all three answer questions. Repeat for what seems like forever.

The villagers follow your lessons and take to practicing the prayers and chants almost, well, religiously. A lot of them take to carrying around salt everywhere, just in case, and everyone seems relieved to have something they can do to feel safe. While you feel somewhat out of your depth at this strange parody of being a preacher or a teacher, it does seem to have worked.

No zombies come stumbling into the village to test your teachings, which is obviously a good thing but means you don't know if everyone remembers the lessons correctly.



Personal: State of the Realm. You should write a series of letters to Heileen. She's the oldest child of your family, and might be feeling lonely. Your father said she was helping manage the accounts - at age thirteen no less! You can ask after the state of your family's lands and manor, and perhaps serve as a sounding board and give advice to her. It would be nice to be able to help your family in some way. While Captain Varn lightly warned you not to associate with your family, but can he really enforce that or use it against you? It's not like you disobeyed orders, you were just an awful commander. You think you have enough leeway for this, at least.

Heileen is very glad to hear from you. Her first letter back is seven pages long of tightly-spaced elegant cursive handwriting. She pours out all her worries and fears and much of the news you've missed from your lands in an incredibly long ramble. Damn! Sir Cable is dead? That old knight was your guard as a child, and then guarded your younger siblings once you were a bit more mature. He seemed like the strongest person you could imagine. His heart failed him in his sleep, it seems. Probably one of the better ways to go. Aside from that, she shares your fears about your parents both going off to war, and worries about your exile.

You send news that your mother is fine in the first letter back, while she's probably sent a similar message to Heileen maybe yours will get there first. And you assure her that you are safe, if not living as finely as before, but perhaps a little humility will do you good. (You also send her one of the wood-carvings from your aborted pewter casting attempt, the one with the tall and beautiful folklore heroine.)

To hear her tell it, in the playdates and parties she attended over the summer, it seems like the sphere of nobility has somewhat forgotten about you and refocused on her as a representative of the Bismarck family. It infuriates her that you are so easily lambasted and then forgotten entirely. She's also gotten a marriage proposal from the Haupt family, who you don't know much about other than their reputation for dourness. Your parents haven't committed either way on that, yet.

Past that, she also sends you quite a lot of information on the state of your family's lands, manor, and treasury. It's all very well organized. Father has indeed left her there - with authority to make some financial decisions, even. (Another thing to worry about in her mind - what if she makes a mistake?) In fact, it looks like she's following the exact same system you used when you did the same thing before. Going over the ledgers and writing advice back is strangely nostalgic. You remember helping her out with diction and spelling lessons just a couple of years ago, the two of you dressed nicely and sitting in a warm study and crackling fire, with a view of the castle garden and a plate of pastries...

Ahh. There's that pang of loss, of missing the simple luxury you had before you had to worry about joining the army and everything that happened after that. She seems to be almost clinging to you as a source of advice and a friend. Heileen's interest in trade and stewardship might even make her closer to you than your martially inclined parents. Hmm. Well, as to the state of your family, your siblings are all healthy and no disasters have befouled the Bismarck lands - though the treasury is nearly empty due to your father drawing on it and marching to war, the yearly harvest has come in just fine and your family's wealth is stable.



Codex Outlines:
[Vodka Brewing 274/300] -- Roll 1: 65 + 16 ==> [355/300]. Completes with minor bonus. Unlock action "A Tube(er)y Brew".

It doesn't take much more effort to get the plans for alcohol boilers nicely organized and finished up, all according to the Codex Crystal's suggestions and ready to try it out for real. Getting the pots and tubing just right is going to be a finicky business, though.

With that finished, you move on to a subject that has been bugging you for a while. Namely, every smith and woodcutter and tailor in the land has different measures for things! The source of many frustrations when dealing with merchants through letters, one person's pound is much different than another's. A bushel is often measured by finding a rock that's about the right size and lifting it to get a feel for the weight, for gods' sakes! It really won't do if the Codex inventions are to spread further than Nesiwald itself. They're all too precise and finicky.

The Merchant's Guild has the closest thing to what you want - expensive sets of scales and yardsticks all carefully balanced against each other and certified to be in alignment. For now, you let the Codex Crystal show you glimpses of all the ways people standardize these measures and ensure they stay standardized, not trying to design a system yet but rather getting a proper feel for the problem and what a solution might look like. It's a hard problem, and all the ideas you come up with at first turn out to have glaring flaws if you think about them for a while.

Standard Weights and Measures [17/??600-1000??] -- Roll 2: 50 + 16 ==> 83. Roll 3: 19 + 16 ==> [118/??600-1000??]
 
Last edited:
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 8 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[X][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for two seasons as the money goes to workers.

A traveling merchant lays out some frankly almost extortionate terms and would require you to sign a contract saying they can collect from your family's estates if you can't pay it back - it would be a legal quagmire if he actuall tried to do it, and Father will be furious if he finds out

Yeah, no.

Local loan:
We now generate an average of 5.5 for the two seasons compared to 12, so a 6.5 loss. So it is actually a negative interest loan (on average), literally (well, kind of) free money unless I messed up (I am very tired right no, so a good possibility).

Did you mean four working seasons instead of two? Second stage costs 10 right?
 
Last edited:
Did you mean four working seasons instead of two? Second stage costs 10 right?
Yeah. Wait...

2d4 + 1 /season is ~6/season. Half of that rounded down is ~2.5ish? So ~3.5/season cost.

Yeah, I had calculated 'two working seasons' based on the full price. It's actually four.

Fixed in thread.
 
Last edited:
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 6 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.

[X][Loan] No.

So the Renns deal is amazing and we should take it, It helps that our mother is coming to visit relatively soon as well and with this loan we wont have to worry about the other loans.
 
Last edited:
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 8 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[X][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for two seasons as the money goes to workers.
 
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 6 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.

[X][Loan] No.
 
[x][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 6 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[x][Loan] No.
 
2d4 + 1 /season is ~6/season. Half of that rounded down is ~2.5ish? So ~3.5/season cost.

It's 2.75 average income per season, compared to 6 average per season so a 3.25 per season cost.

It's still an amazing deal since we get 10 now and pay, on average, ~13 at the end of 18 months (since construction will take one turn. Actually since the first turn's roll might fail it is an even longer term on average). That isn't too far from the personal loans banks are offering individuals in 2020, with record low interest rate benchmarks compared to a medieval economy.

I strongly urge everyone to consider what kind of better offer you're expecting if you reject this for not being good enough.
 
Last edited:
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 8 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[X][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for two seasons as the money goes to workers.
 
Last edited:
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 8 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[X][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for two seasons as the money goes to workers.



Money now is more valuable than money later. We have plenty of things to invest in, too.
 
I'd also like to see some discussion of the rest of the turn's events FYI, it's a good feeling when people like my writing enough to speculate and enthuse~
 
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 8 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[X][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for two seasons as the money goes to workers.
 
[X][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for four working seasons as the money goes to workers.

[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 8 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
 
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 8 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[X][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for two seasons as the money goes to workers.

The local loan is especially good. You WANT the workers to feel involved, even if it cuts into profit, they'd go the extra mile to promote and brag about the watermill like its a barn raising.
 
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 8 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[X][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for two seasons as the money goes to workers.
 
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 8 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[X][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for two seasons as the money goes to workers.

We're probably going to have to spend some money on the farmers, although we can point out the mill as what most of it is going towards.
 
[X][Renns] Definitely a deal! Get a loan of 18 Profit, gaining 8 now and the rest to come at the end of Spring. You are to pay back 25 Profit within four years... And introduce Cornet Renns to your mother.
[X][Loan] Local loan - second stage of Watermill is free, but it generates half profit (rounded down) for two seasons as the money goes to workers.
 
Back
Top