Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, finding tax evasion means our income goes up, so...
-
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Industrialization Quest
- Thread starter Rockeye
- Start date
- Original
I mean, finding tax evasion means our income goes up, so...
Nesiwald Surroundings
Rockeye
Plausible Engineer
- Location
- Midwestern U.S.
Rough Map Of Nesiwald And Surrounding Villages (Not An Accurate Geographical Reference).
The terrain is generally hilly and cliffy all over, not just where hills are shown on the map. The Rusty Valley to the northwest is named for the distinctly unhealthy-seeming reddish color of its soil. Not much grows there.
There are occasional forestry and hunting camps or individual homesteads dotted throughout.
The terrain is generally hilly and cliffy all over, not just where hills are shown on the map. The Rusty Valley to the northwest is named for the distinctly unhealthy-seeming reddish color of its soil. Not much grows there.
There are occasional forestry and hunting camps or individual homesteads dotted throughout.
Hm... quick google-search tells me that red soil's an important resource in Greece/India, though not really much on why or what it's used for.
Kolar
Is Not A Robot
Good cotton land there.
- Location
- Pennslyvania
- Pronouns
- She/They
It honestly sounds like there is a lot of ore near the surface, probably enough that plants don't do well. The red make me think iron or maybe cinnabar, the principal ore of mercury. Probably not useful now, but when we get closer to industrial it will likely be invaluable.
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Is this Chekhov's geography?
Or, a source of red clay. But my money is on "Here be Dragons" or something like that
- Location
- Vault 111
- Pronouns
- He/him
Red soil either means high iron content in it or a source of good clay for pottery. Could use either one.
Rockeye
Plausible Engineer
- Location
- Midwestern U.S.
Inkarnate.com
Legion0047
Retired Shadowrunner.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- God Emperor
WHY DO YOU WRITE IN THE WEBSITE.
Rockeye
Plausible Engineer
- Location
- Midwestern U.S.
Because it screws with formatting if I try to copy it in from elsewhere dangit!
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
I think there are extensions which can help you resolve these issues.
- Location
- Vault 111
- Pronouns
- He/him
What I do is write in Notepad then copy it over, then format. 
- Location
- USA
This is why I refuse to work in this website and do my work on pages instead. After all I feel its better to have to do some minor formatting stuff than risk your entire work.
- Location
- Italy
You were lucky, it could be a lot worse. Writing here is risky, better to write somewhere else and then copy.
Formatting it again is annoying, but then you see what's the risk otherwise.
- Location
- USA
When I tried running quests I would PM myself on SB. That way formatting would work on a copy and I would not risk losing it.
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
This mostly works but occasionally runs into issues.
Formatting is easy if you know what you want. Creating is harder. I actually Google docs my quest and then format on site.
Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Xon updated the editor to fix some issues between GDocs and SV. This thread has some solutions:
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Formatting errors when pasting from word processors Awaiting Feedback
This is an ongoing issue that I probably should have posted about when it first came up, but didn't due to a friend being able to write a fix. This didn't start the moment the XF2 transition occurred, as far as I can remember, but it took effect very shortly afterwards and I know multiple people...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Turn 4 Results
Rockeye
Plausible Engineer
- Location
- Midwestern U.S.
You are Harold Bismarck and you are starting to get used to life in the small village of Nesiwald. You still miss the fine meats in delicious spiced sauces, the lovely soft clothes and well-lit library of your home, but not nearly so much, anymore. You'll have to work to get all that back again... And by that point will you even want it anymore?
You haven't seen Varn or Renns hardly at all this month. While Varn being busy is probably a good thing you cannot help but be a bit anxious about what it implies... For all that Veschwar is generally a fairly safe place with good internal security, you are all too aware lately that it's not perfectly safe.
Exercise with Sasha! The prospect of putting your body to work and strengthening yourself is a little bit less daunting now that Sasha has volunteered to 'make you stronger with pain'. She's just fun to be around, once you get used to the taunting, pranks, and occasional vulgarity. You're going to have to get back at her for making you suffer one day, though... Perhaps by teaching her accounting?
[Rolled 55+4=59. Success.]
Wall jacks. Overhead lifts. Hammer swinging. Somersaults and vaults. Ladder climbing. Spear thrusts using one of the militia's practice spears, a pole with a small round weight on the end to simulate the heavy tip. And the simple but brutal work of carrying or pulling something heavy. All of this and more is inflicted on you each and every morning when Sasha volunteers to let you follow along with her own exercises.
You collapse onto your back. "I don't see - how you can - possibly - huff - keep this up. Surely you are - hah - blessed by Ordnil. Superhuman strength and endurance."
"I'm afraid not Mister Steward. Maybe a bit of luck gives me a strong constitution, but mostly it's continuous hard work and enough meat."
"I just - hoh - don't know if I can keep doing this. An hour in the morning, every morning."
"Maybe try breaking it up a bit? Just before lunch, lift a big sack of flour above your head five times. Whenever you finish writing a - whatever you write - swing a sledgehammer back and forth ten times."
"Ten- That might be a bit beyond me." Poke. "Ow!"
"Then just do it until your arms start to burn. Or do somersaults or something."
"No. Don't think that'd. Help. I have to-"
"What, you want to beat me? Well, if your faith is that strong... Anything that gives you motivation to try no matter how hopeless it is, right?"
"Ffffff-" You push yourself up once again, somehow, the banter allowing you to catch your breath slightly.
"Look on the bright side. If you had armor, I'd suggest you do all this while wearing it." You shudder at the thought. "Now, ten more wall jacks and I figure you're done. And don't forget to stretch after that!"
Hopefully this will shape you up...
Your actual job. The position of Steward's official job description is to oversee planting and harvests, counting what gets produced and sown and ensuring the health and stability of Veschwar's food supply by organizing wagon trains to carry a sizable tithe to royal granaries. Tally up the harvests and seed, record everyone's contributions, count the herds and slaughters and eggs, and ensure all is well.
[Rolled 88+17+15=112. Critical Success.]
See end of post for results.
Forgework. You have a deal with Mr. Smith to manage his money and shop in exchange for some of the extra coin he makes. So far it hasn't been terribly profitable, but you've not been trying very hard, merely spending an hour or two a day there at most. Try harder. Organize his tools, adjust prices a bit, help the apprentices, tally up demand for nails and horseshoes, round up men to fetch more ore, pitch the idea of new tools to folk, and so on.
[Rolled 30+17+15=62. Great Success.]
Mister Smith's forge is barely recognizable compared to what it was like three months ago. Another new apprentice has been foisted on the smith, this one a boy barely age ten. His father saw opportunity in your improvements to the iron ore mine and your obvious interest in working metal - correctly so, you'll give him that. That lad will have an excellent future in your employ sooner or later if fate plays out as you hope.
Their training seems to be going excellently. There is plenty of demand for their work to provide examples to learn from, and you try to take care of things so the metalworkers can keep working metal. There is only not a fifth apprentice because Mr. Smith refused her.
"No, I won't teach you. I'm afraid smithin' is man's work, lass. Heavy work, swinging hammers and lifting metal all day long in the heat. I think ye should be looking for a husband, anyhow, not getting into a trade it takes years to learn proper good."
The girl clenches her hands and grimaces, but nods sharply and turns away. Such attitudes aren't uncommon. For low villagers, women relatively rarely learn a real trade and spend a good portion of their lives on it. Oh, women as carpenters, smiths, clothiers, candlemakers, fletchers, hunters and herbalists, even soldiers and knights, none of that is unheard of. Just unusual. You would guess perhaps one in five women do something with their lives other than becoming wives, having children, and helping with the farm between caring for them and household chores.
Even in noble spheres you have seen this trend - women manage the household and raise the children, for the most part. It's not that they can't do anything else, it's just that such is the default, and anything that deviates from the default is harder and more unpleasant than it otherwise might be. Some even think they must stay to the house, that they are always incapable of matching men in craft and soldiery. You have seen the lie of that, between your own mother and Sasha.
And yet it cannot be denied that there are physical differences between men and women, and perhaps most women are better off like this, if not all? You aren't entirely sure how you feel about all that. On the one hand, the Codex Crystal's future still shows men and women living somewhat different lives, so perhaps it's natural? On the other hand, to see opportunities denied to anyone who wants to try their hand, like Miss Danova Greenwood just now, discomfits you. And your own mother shows you that women can do mighty things.
+1 Profit. Apprentices training proceeding well. +30 to Cast Iron Plow outline.
Cast Iron Plow outline. It seems like a heavy plow made of cast iron can bite into the soil more effectively than the wooden ones in common use currently. The Codex promises that a single animal can prepare far more land than before with a cast iron tip to a plow. Blacksmithing is more complicated than you first thought, and it looks like an unusual method is required here. You'll figure it out.
[Rolled 32+16+30=78].
The construction of a cast iron plow is going to require sturdier lumber handles and frame, with solid attachment points to let the iron part bite into the soil. That part is straightforward enough. The real difficulty is the plowshare - the largest portion and the heart of the improved plow you hope to make. Since it has an unusual shape it has to be cast, but it's a very large piece of metal compared to the castings you've seen your local blacksmith perform.
In the meantime, you try your best to take down detailed notes on the shapes of plows the Codex shows you, and how they're put together. You sketch a dozen different plowheads with slightly different curves and shapes, trying to study the soil they're being used on and determine their relative advantages.
But how do you actually make the thing? You're familiar with the process of casting metal in a broad sense, from explosure to and experience with the smithy and your apprentice friend. But to make such a large casting, the Codex shows you what looks like... Sand?
"That doesn't sound right," Timothy Greens tells you when you ask. "Hard clay's the way to go for castings. And the anvil's easiest for most shapes. Casting is a royal pain. Only stuff you can't make any other way ought to be cast. And you have to break the mold to get it out. But sand? Sand would just fall apart if you tried to make a casting of it, wouldn't it?"
Hmm. You're missing something. You need to spend some more time studying this. Maybe there's something special about the sand? Is not all sand the same, like not all rocks are?
Total Progress: 108/??200-300??
Note: Progress overflow on outlining stage makes the prototyping stage easier.
Nearby villages. There are other villages in these hinterlands, despite what the hilly forests looming above you and making the world seem far too small might make you think. Make a point to travel along the trails to any neighboring villages and learn more about the surrounding area, even if you're only the Steward of Nesiwald itself.
[Rolled 67+14=81. Great success.]
Nesiwald itself lies somewhere near the border between a particularly large village and a very small town, but decidedly on the former side. There are no shops where craftsmen devote their entire time to their trade and don't have a farm of their own, even if the mine and smithy have driven more folk to live and work here than before. Perhaps it will grow in time, under your ministrations, and transition to being fed by the outlying villages.
Camphol, Yemmis, Hochwald, Unvale, and Drenn. These are all the significant villages you can reach in a day's ride on a horse or two days' hiking, discounting places like forestry camps, herbalists' huts, and where three families built homesteads next to each other that might turn into villages in a few decades if more folk move there.
Nesiwald has some two hundred and fifty families, and upwards of one thousand residents due to the large size of each family, but these little villages all have less than seventy-five families each. The largest is Hochwald, taking advantage of a fairly large chunk of relatively flat land just like Nesiwald does. For all that it's an isolated and tiny place in the middle of nowhere, it seems that Nesiwald is the most important settlement in the local area.
You take time to visit these other places and introduce yourself. You even bring your last improved horse collar and some of the things Mr. Smith is making, to try and make a good impression. These folk are even more suspicious of you than the Nesiwalders are, by and large, though you do manage to sell a set of horseshoes. The rumor 'Nesiwald has a disgraced noble git who can't even hold a sword straight' is what they've heard of you. You act as polite as can be but they just don't trust you yet. Fair enough. They know who you are now, and you know who they are.
And what they are - another place you can try to spread your improvements once things are well established in Nesiwald. Possible sources of more grain, to mill into more flour, though transporting grain over much distance might be difficult. A source of possible workforce and talent where nobody important is paying particular attention, hopefully.
You even hear interesting rumors of the Rusty Valley, with unusual red soil that grows things poorly. Something about it excites the Codex, something you have gotten a feel for judging with how it flickers between visions...
Contact established. Information gained. New actions.
Send an apology. You think you can get a letter delivered to your family if you are appropriately circumspect and pay the right person. It would be bad form to openly send them a letter, but you can send a secret one. Traveling merchants do this sort of thing for 'little considerations' all the time. Apologizing profusely for the whole mess won't put you back in their good graces immediately, but it would show your family that you mean to make up for it. It's been a few months now, so you're not sure how sincere you will come across as.
[Rolled 61+11=72. Great success.]
Maybe it's actually good that you waited a bit. Time and distance muffles the immediacy of the shame and regret you feel when you try to make yourself do this.
Your mother is a knight, who could hardly make herself stay home long enough to have you, your little brother, and your sister. She's won medals and is an indomitable, unbeatable figure in your mind. The first and second battles of Volans, the slaying of a Mudlurk... You can scarcely imagine such feats, what she must think or feel about your total inability to match them. Your father is no famous war hero but he trains and captains your family's retinue of men-at-arms, forty soldiers who aren't in the royal armies but are like a more advanced militia, to be called up if necessary. They look up to him as a capable fighting man and he understands battle and tactics.
You feel as if your parents' lives are utterly dominated by fighting and war. That's surely not true, they took on intrigue, diplomacy, and stewardship of their lands the same as you, but you feel that way.
"I hope that Grover and Heileen are taking to their lessons well... Ah, should I leave that bit out? Too rambly? No, well-wishes for my siblings are natural. And neutral. 'Most sincere regrets in my heart for my deplorable failure'... What am I, a poet? Hmm. No, no, simple is definitely better. 'I hope to serve Veschwar and the Bismarcks in other ways and will endeavor to improve the lands I now find myself in...?' Works. Ugh. Aaaah! Forget it. I can ramble on a bit. It's supposed to be sincere."
You judge the sixth iteration of your letter adequate and resist the urge to crumple it and start again.
Finding a merchant who can be bribed to head to the village of Bismarck, the core of the lands that your family rules, and then get a response to you, if there is one, is straightforward. Finding one who won't open the letter - and sealing the letter in a way that you know will be obvious if unsealed by cunningly folding it in a particular way - is slightly trickier. But it's done. The letter is sent, and you try not to be too excited by every newly arrived merchant, checking if it's the same one you sent with your message.
Letter sent. The response, if any, will come next month.
Faith of the Shield. Ordnil is the patron god of Veschwar. Whether or not he steadied your hand when you killed that zombie, you think a little bit of endurance and surety can't go amiss for you. You should take some time aside to pray to Ordnil. Maybe set up a small shrine by carving the tower shield symbol into one of your walls.
[Rolled ??+11 = ??. Result ???.]
You try to have faith, despite the doubts swimming through your mind. Prayer is a curious thing, something you regarded as a pointless chore and almost an insult. You grew out of that petulance after being punished with quite a few spankings for being a bit too rude to the priest of Ordnil who led services for the village by your family's estate, after collecting stories and concluding that the gods really do help people, not just demand adulation and praise for existing and being powerful...
"Let me not falter in my watch. Let me not tire in my duty. Make me part of the shield, the shield of all. I shield my fellow man and he shields me. I ask you for strength, Ordnil, for I am weak. I ask you for courage, Ordnil, for I am fearful..."
Besides being a crystallized example of longing, of effort, of hopes and dreams, and being an honest plea to the divine beings who might smile back upon you, a good prayer is... Centering and motivating. And prayers to Ordnil, whose domains are defense and endurance, will be even less obvious than Shallya's blessings - which you are fairly sure now that you received, given your continued good health despite everything.
You thank him for blessing the men and women who protect the kingdom. For steadying your hands when you had to deal with that zombie. Whether that was Ordnil or just the idea of Ordnil, the result is the same. You ask for the endurance to keep to your course despite the difficulties, and the resolve to aim ever higher.
Have faith.
Learn to cook. You should face facts: You're going to be cooking a lot of your own food for a while, until you can justify hiring servants again. With the amount of money and work you need to spend to build useful things that's just not possible, and your neighbors can't cook for you every day.
"Potatoes are great, Mister Bismarck. They grow easier than almost anything else, they'll grow in the worst soil on your whole stead without caring, and fill you right up. You can do all sorts of delicious things with potatoes. Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Serve 'em with meat and veggies or by themselves. Even cook a whole potato right in its skin and keep it in a pocket for lunch while you work a field. Potatoes are great, yessir. As for bread - the essential ingredient is a bit of barm mixed into the batch. Beer foam! Makes it puff up just like a good ale, and makes it that much better to eat. Heaven knows why."
"Think anyone would drink potato beer?"
Mrs. Gerram snorts. "If it gets you drunk just the same, sure. You know how to make potato beer?"
"No. Just a thought."
You learn plenty of things besides the virtues of potatoes from your neighbors. Everything from the right way to cut up vegetables to how to tend a stove fire properly to the correct way to make a basic loaf of bread. It's slightly absurd how delicious that flat, dense, slightly gooey loaf of bread was... Butter, milk, water, lots of flour (rye flour - wheat keeps the best but most of it goes to the Crown's granaries, and rye is much cheaper), and a little bit of honey - precious and expensive stuff extracted from bees' nests by particularly brave and pain-tolerant individuals.
"Keep the crumbs, they're good in sauces and soups. Or for cows and hogs, like potato skins go to, either way. Now, here's how you go about making a good stew..."
You won't be reduced to eating stale bread and boiled vegetables when you don't have a dinner invitation or Abram to cook for you anymore! Huzzah! The Codex Crystal seems interested in bees for some reason?
Your actual job. The position of Steward's official job description is to oversee planting and harvests, counting what gets produced and sown and ensuring the health and stability of Veschwar's food supply by organizing wagon trains to carry a sizable tithe to royal granaries. Tally up the harvests and seed, record everyone's contributions, count the herds and slaughters and eggs, and ensure all is well.
[Rolled 88+17+15=112. Critical Success.]
Everything seems to be going well. You have your census, you have older reports from old Ludwig, and you even have figured out who you will be arranging the wagon-trains and inspections of product sent to the Crown with. Hundreds and hundreds of men and women are hard at work, steady if not exactly cheery, and by all accounts the winter harvest has been perfectly fine and plowing and planting for summer is proceeding apace. The numbers add up, the food is stored away, and everything seems to be coming together. But then you notice a plow-pulling bull who seems to be acting a little strange...
Four days later. The smell of rot hangs heavy in the air. There is a sickly cow in the field, whose skin looks oddly discolored and sagging here and there. A herd dog whines piteously at the poor thing, which is clearly in great pain.
It is suffering some kind if disease that you've never heard of and none of the villagers have, either. You nearabout fly into a panic, remembering tales from your mother about blights and poxes that caused grave economic disruption in her family's lands, before she married your father. If anything can be done to blunt this blow, you have to do so!
Drawing on Shallyan knowledge that cattle diseases often spread to whole herds if the animals aren't separated, over the next two weeks the village elders carefully observe all the cows and separate sick animals into several isolated barns, while tending to the sick beasts who only seem to grow weaker and weaker. You personally track which animals are most likely to be infected and harangue folk to isolate them. The trickle of new infections slows rapidly, and you tromp about investigating how this could have happened - while also brokering plow-shares and borrowing of animals to ensure every field can finish being planted. You take special care to ensure that everyone can finish plowing their fields, because late planting means a hungry year.
The debate on what to do about this is low and heated. Between a little respect for everything you've done so far, the position of Steward, and a little bit of natural command from your relative health and noble demeanor, you are one of the leading voices in the debate, which is trending to three paths. Your word is not the final one for all that royal law technically puts the Steward in charge of crises that affect the productivity of Nesiwald... But it should heavily influence what the informal ring of village headmen decide to do regardless.
Most of the headmen are in favor of killing and burning all the infected animals, in the hope that this will be the end of it, and simply being grateful it was caught early. Others advise sending for someone who knows cows better than the locals and seeing if they can treat the poor things... And there are whispers of fear. There are many zombies in the forest to the north, which Cornet Renns and Captain Varn are putting to the sword even now. Might this be the fault of a necromancer? It might be a good idea to send money to summon a learned priest or cleric to investigate them, just in case something particularly foul is skulking about and caused this...
Adequate tallying and arrangements for the Spring tithe are done, but you could perhaps do more. Critical success discovered this pox early and entirely eliminated the effect it would have had on the planting! Out of about two hundred fifty homesteads, twenty two have infected cattle. There are just over eighty infected animals in total.
[ ] Just kill and burn all the infected animals and be done with it. The families who lost animals will be badly off, but there's always the mine. These things happen and life goes on.
[ ] Send for a wise woman, herbalist, or doctor who might know more about this disease. However it spreads, it might keep spreading, though.
[ ] Send for a priest or cleric to investigate the possibility of this being a necromantic curse! Costs you 1 Profit if a cleric shows up. They might not come.
You haven't seen Varn or Renns hardly at all this month. While Varn being busy is probably a good thing you cannot help but be a bit anxious about what it implies... For all that Veschwar is generally a fairly safe place with good internal security, you are all too aware lately that it's not perfectly safe.
Exercise with Sasha! The prospect of putting your body to work and strengthening yourself is a little bit less daunting now that Sasha has volunteered to 'make you stronger with pain'. She's just fun to be around, once you get used to the taunting, pranks, and occasional vulgarity. You're going to have to get back at her for making you suffer one day, though... Perhaps by teaching her accounting?
[Rolled 55+4=59. Success.]
Wall jacks. Overhead lifts. Hammer swinging. Somersaults and vaults. Ladder climbing. Spear thrusts using one of the militia's practice spears, a pole with a small round weight on the end to simulate the heavy tip. And the simple but brutal work of carrying or pulling something heavy. All of this and more is inflicted on you each and every morning when Sasha volunteers to let you follow along with her own exercises.
You collapse onto your back. "I don't see - how you can - possibly - huff - keep this up. Surely you are - hah - blessed by Ordnil. Superhuman strength and endurance."
"I'm afraid not Mister Steward. Maybe a bit of luck gives me a strong constitution, but mostly it's continuous hard work and enough meat."
"I just - hoh - don't know if I can keep doing this. An hour in the morning, every morning."
"Maybe try breaking it up a bit? Just before lunch, lift a big sack of flour above your head five times. Whenever you finish writing a - whatever you write - swing a sledgehammer back and forth ten times."
"Ten- That might be a bit beyond me." Poke. "Ow!"
"Then just do it until your arms start to burn. Or do somersaults or something."
"No. Don't think that'd. Help. I have to-"
"What, you want to beat me? Well, if your faith is that strong... Anything that gives you motivation to try no matter how hopeless it is, right?"
"Ffffff-" You push yourself up once again, somehow, the banter allowing you to catch your breath slightly.
"Look on the bright side. If you had armor, I'd suggest you do all this while wearing it." You shudder at the thought. "Now, ten more wall jacks and I figure you're done. And don't forget to stretch after that!"
Hopefully this will shape you up...
Your actual job. The position of Steward's official job description is to oversee planting and harvests, counting what gets produced and sown and ensuring the health and stability of Veschwar's food supply by organizing wagon trains to carry a sizable tithe to royal granaries. Tally up the harvests and seed, record everyone's contributions, count the herds and slaughters and eggs, and ensure all is well.
[Rolled 88+17+15=112. Critical Success.]
See end of post for results.
Forgework. You have a deal with Mr. Smith to manage his money and shop in exchange for some of the extra coin he makes. So far it hasn't been terribly profitable, but you've not been trying very hard, merely spending an hour or two a day there at most. Try harder. Organize his tools, adjust prices a bit, help the apprentices, tally up demand for nails and horseshoes, round up men to fetch more ore, pitch the idea of new tools to folk, and so on.
[Rolled 30+17+15=62. Great Success.]
Mister Smith's forge is barely recognizable compared to what it was like three months ago. Another new apprentice has been foisted on the smith, this one a boy barely age ten. His father saw opportunity in your improvements to the iron ore mine and your obvious interest in working metal - correctly so, you'll give him that. That lad will have an excellent future in your employ sooner or later if fate plays out as you hope.
Their training seems to be going excellently. There is plenty of demand for their work to provide examples to learn from, and you try to take care of things so the metalworkers can keep working metal. There is only not a fifth apprentice because Mr. Smith refused her.
"No, I won't teach you. I'm afraid smithin' is man's work, lass. Heavy work, swinging hammers and lifting metal all day long in the heat. I think ye should be looking for a husband, anyhow, not getting into a trade it takes years to learn proper good."
The girl clenches her hands and grimaces, but nods sharply and turns away. Such attitudes aren't uncommon. For low villagers, women relatively rarely learn a real trade and spend a good portion of their lives on it. Oh, women as carpenters, smiths, clothiers, candlemakers, fletchers, hunters and herbalists, even soldiers and knights, none of that is unheard of. Just unusual. You would guess perhaps one in five women do something with their lives other than becoming wives, having children, and helping with the farm between caring for them and household chores.
Even in noble spheres you have seen this trend - women manage the household and raise the children, for the most part. It's not that they can't do anything else, it's just that such is the default, and anything that deviates from the default is harder and more unpleasant than it otherwise might be. Some even think they must stay to the house, that they are always incapable of matching men in craft and soldiery. You have seen the lie of that, between your own mother and Sasha.
And yet it cannot be denied that there are physical differences between men and women, and perhaps most women are better off like this, if not all? You aren't entirely sure how you feel about all that. On the one hand, the Codex Crystal's future still shows men and women living somewhat different lives, so perhaps it's natural? On the other hand, to see opportunities denied to anyone who wants to try their hand, like Miss Danova Greenwood just now, discomfits you. And your own mother shows you that women can do mighty things.
+1 Profit. Apprentices training proceeding well. +30 to Cast Iron Plow outline.
Cast Iron Plow outline. It seems like a heavy plow made of cast iron can bite into the soil more effectively than the wooden ones in common use currently. The Codex promises that a single animal can prepare far more land than before with a cast iron tip to a plow. Blacksmithing is more complicated than you first thought, and it looks like an unusual method is required here. You'll figure it out.
[Rolled 32+16+30=78].
The construction of a cast iron plow is going to require sturdier lumber handles and frame, with solid attachment points to let the iron part bite into the soil. That part is straightforward enough. The real difficulty is the plowshare - the largest portion and the heart of the improved plow you hope to make. Since it has an unusual shape it has to be cast, but it's a very large piece of metal compared to the castings you've seen your local blacksmith perform.
In the meantime, you try your best to take down detailed notes on the shapes of plows the Codex shows you, and how they're put together. You sketch a dozen different plowheads with slightly different curves and shapes, trying to study the soil they're being used on and determine their relative advantages.
But how do you actually make the thing? You're familiar with the process of casting metal in a broad sense, from explosure to and experience with the smithy and your apprentice friend. But to make such a large casting, the Codex shows you what looks like... Sand?
"That doesn't sound right," Timothy Greens tells you when you ask. "Hard clay's the way to go for castings. And the anvil's easiest for most shapes. Casting is a royal pain. Only stuff you can't make any other way ought to be cast. And you have to break the mold to get it out. But sand? Sand would just fall apart if you tried to make a casting of it, wouldn't it?"
Hmm. You're missing something. You need to spend some more time studying this. Maybe there's something special about the sand? Is not all sand the same, like not all rocks are?
Total Progress: 108/??200-300??
Note: Progress overflow on outlining stage makes the prototyping stage easier.
Nearby villages. There are other villages in these hinterlands, despite what the hilly forests looming above you and making the world seem far too small might make you think. Make a point to travel along the trails to any neighboring villages and learn more about the surrounding area, even if you're only the Steward of Nesiwald itself.
[Rolled 67+14=81. Great success.]
Nesiwald itself lies somewhere near the border between a particularly large village and a very small town, but decidedly on the former side. There are no shops where craftsmen devote their entire time to their trade and don't have a farm of their own, even if the mine and smithy have driven more folk to live and work here than before. Perhaps it will grow in time, under your ministrations, and transition to being fed by the outlying villages.
Camphol, Yemmis, Hochwald, Unvale, and Drenn. These are all the significant villages you can reach in a day's ride on a horse or two days' hiking, discounting places like forestry camps, herbalists' huts, and where three families built homesteads next to each other that might turn into villages in a few decades if more folk move there.
Nesiwald has some two hundred and fifty families, and upwards of one thousand residents due to the large size of each family, but these little villages all have less than seventy-five families each. The largest is Hochwald, taking advantage of a fairly large chunk of relatively flat land just like Nesiwald does. For all that it's an isolated and tiny place in the middle of nowhere, it seems that Nesiwald is the most important settlement in the local area.
You take time to visit these other places and introduce yourself. You even bring your last improved horse collar and some of the things Mr. Smith is making, to try and make a good impression. These folk are even more suspicious of you than the Nesiwalders are, by and large, though you do manage to sell a set of horseshoes. The rumor 'Nesiwald has a disgraced noble git who can't even hold a sword straight' is what they've heard of you. You act as polite as can be but they just don't trust you yet. Fair enough. They know who you are now, and you know who they are.
And what they are - another place you can try to spread your improvements once things are well established in Nesiwald. Possible sources of more grain, to mill into more flour, though transporting grain over much distance might be difficult. A source of possible workforce and talent where nobody important is paying particular attention, hopefully.
You even hear interesting rumors of the Rusty Valley, with unusual red soil that grows things poorly. Something about it excites the Codex, something you have gotten a feel for judging with how it flickers between visions...
Contact established. Information gained. New actions.
Send an apology. You think you can get a letter delivered to your family if you are appropriately circumspect and pay the right person. It would be bad form to openly send them a letter, but you can send a secret one. Traveling merchants do this sort of thing for 'little considerations' all the time. Apologizing profusely for the whole mess won't put you back in their good graces immediately, but it would show your family that you mean to make up for it. It's been a few months now, so you're not sure how sincere you will come across as.
[Rolled 61+11=72. Great success.]
Maybe it's actually good that you waited a bit. Time and distance muffles the immediacy of the shame and regret you feel when you try to make yourself do this.
Your mother is a knight, who could hardly make herself stay home long enough to have you, your little brother, and your sister. She's won medals and is an indomitable, unbeatable figure in your mind. The first and second battles of Volans, the slaying of a Mudlurk... You can scarcely imagine such feats, what she must think or feel about your total inability to match them. Your father is no famous war hero but he trains and captains your family's retinue of men-at-arms, forty soldiers who aren't in the royal armies but are like a more advanced militia, to be called up if necessary. They look up to him as a capable fighting man and he understands battle and tactics.
You feel as if your parents' lives are utterly dominated by fighting and war. That's surely not true, they took on intrigue, diplomacy, and stewardship of their lands the same as you, but you feel that way.
"I hope that Grover and Heileen are taking to their lessons well... Ah, should I leave that bit out? Too rambly? No, well-wishes for my siblings are natural. And neutral. 'Most sincere regrets in my heart for my deplorable failure'... What am I, a poet? Hmm. No, no, simple is definitely better. 'I hope to serve Veschwar and the Bismarcks in other ways and will endeavor to improve the lands I now find myself in...?' Works. Ugh. Aaaah! Forget it. I can ramble on a bit. It's supposed to be sincere."
You judge the sixth iteration of your letter adequate and resist the urge to crumple it and start again.
Finding a merchant who can be bribed to head to the village of Bismarck, the core of the lands that your family rules, and then get a response to you, if there is one, is straightforward. Finding one who won't open the letter - and sealing the letter in a way that you know will be obvious if unsealed by cunningly folding it in a particular way - is slightly trickier. But it's done. The letter is sent, and you try not to be too excited by every newly arrived merchant, checking if it's the same one you sent with your message.
Letter sent. The response, if any, will come next month.
Faith of the Shield. Ordnil is the patron god of Veschwar. Whether or not he steadied your hand when you killed that zombie, you think a little bit of endurance and surety can't go amiss for you. You should take some time aside to pray to Ordnil. Maybe set up a small shrine by carving the tower shield symbol into one of your walls.
[Rolled ??+11 = ??. Result ???.]
You try to have faith, despite the doubts swimming through your mind. Prayer is a curious thing, something you regarded as a pointless chore and almost an insult. You grew out of that petulance after being punished with quite a few spankings for being a bit too rude to the priest of Ordnil who led services for the village by your family's estate, after collecting stories and concluding that the gods really do help people, not just demand adulation and praise for existing and being powerful...
"Let me not falter in my watch. Let me not tire in my duty. Make me part of the shield, the shield of all. I shield my fellow man and he shields me. I ask you for strength, Ordnil, for I am weak. I ask you for courage, Ordnil, for I am fearful..."
Besides being a crystallized example of longing, of effort, of hopes and dreams, and being an honest plea to the divine beings who might smile back upon you, a good prayer is... Centering and motivating. And prayers to Ordnil, whose domains are defense and endurance, will be even less obvious than Shallya's blessings - which you are fairly sure now that you received, given your continued good health despite everything.
You thank him for blessing the men and women who protect the kingdom. For steadying your hands when you had to deal with that zombie. Whether that was Ordnil or just the idea of Ordnil, the result is the same. You ask for the endurance to keep to your course despite the difficulties, and the resolve to aim ever higher.
Have faith.
Learn to cook. You should face facts: You're going to be cooking a lot of your own food for a while, until you can justify hiring servants again. With the amount of money and work you need to spend to build useful things that's just not possible, and your neighbors can't cook for you every day.
"Potatoes are great, Mister Bismarck. They grow easier than almost anything else, they'll grow in the worst soil on your whole stead without caring, and fill you right up. You can do all sorts of delicious things with potatoes. Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Serve 'em with meat and veggies or by themselves. Even cook a whole potato right in its skin and keep it in a pocket for lunch while you work a field. Potatoes are great, yessir. As for bread - the essential ingredient is a bit of barm mixed into the batch. Beer foam! Makes it puff up just like a good ale, and makes it that much better to eat. Heaven knows why."
"Think anyone would drink potato beer?"
Mrs. Gerram snorts. "If it gets you drunk just the same, sure. You know how to make potato beer?"
"No. Just a thought."
You learn plenty of things besides the virtues of potatoes from your neighbors. Everything from the right way to cut up vegetables to how to tend a stove fire properly to the correct way to make a basic loaf of bread. It's slightly absurd how delicious that flat, dense, slightly gooey loaf of bread was... Butter, milk, water, lots of flour (rye flour - wheat keeps the best but most of it goes to the Crown's granaries, and rye is much cheaper), and a little bit of honey - precious and expensive stuff extracted from bees' nests by particularly brave and pain-tolerant individuals.
"Keep the crumbs, they're good in sauces and soups. Or for cows and hogs, like potato skins go to, either way. Now, here's how you go about making a good stew..."
You won't be reduced to eating stale bread and boiled vegetables when you don't have a dinner invitation or Abram to cook for you anymore! Huzzah! The Codex Crystal seems interested in bees for some reason?
Your actual job. The position of Steward's official job description is to oversee planting and harvests, counting what gets produced and sown and ensuring the health and stability of Veschwar's food supply by organizing wagon trains to carry a sizable tithe to royal granaries. Tally up the harvests and seed, record everyone's contributions, count the herds and slaughters and eggs, and ensure all is well.
[Rolled 88+17+15=112. Critical Success.]
Everything seems to be going well. You have your census, you have older reports from old Ludwig, and you even have figured out who you will be arranging the wagon-trains and inspections of product sent to the Crown with. Hundreds and hundreds of men and women are hard at work, steady if not exactly cheery, and by all accounts the winter harvest has been perfectly fine and plowing and planting for summer is proceeding apace. The numbers add up, the food is stored away, and everything seems to be coming together. But then you notice a plow-pulling bull who seems to be acting a little strange...
Four days later. The smell of rot hangs heavy in the air. There is a sickly cow in the field, whose skin looks oddly discolored and sagging here and there. A herd dog whines piteously at the poor thing, which is clearly in great pain.
It is suffering some kind if disease that you've never heard of and none of the villagers have, either. You nearabout fly into a panic, remembering tales from your mother about blights and poxes that caused grave economic disruption in her family's lands, before she married your father. If anything can be done to blunt this blow, you have to do so!
Drawing on Shallyan knowledge that cattle diseases often spread to whole herds if the animals aren't separated, over the next two weeks the village elders carefully observe all the cows and separate sick animals into several isolated barns, while tending to the sick beasts who only seem to grow weaker and weaker. You personally track which animals are most likely to be infected and harangue folk to isolate them. The trickle of new infections slows rapidly, and you tromp about investigating how this could have happened - while also brokering plow-shares and borrowing of animals to ensure every field can finish being planted. You take special care to ensure that everyone can finish plowing their fields, because late planting means a hungry year.
The debate on what to do about this is low and heated. Between a little respect for everything you've done so far, the position of Steward, and a little bit of natural command from your relative health and noble demeanor, you are one of the leading voices in the debate, which is trending to three paths. Your word is not the final one for all that royal law technically puts the Steward in charge of crises that affect the productivity of Nesiwald... But it should heavily influence what the informal ring of village headmen decide to do regardless.
Most of the headmen are in favor of killing and burning all the infected animals, in the hope that this will be the end of it, and simply being grateful it was caught early. Others advise sending for someone who knows cows better than the locals and seeing if they can treat the poor things... And there are whispers of fear. There are many zombies in the forest to the north, which Cornet Renns and Captain Varn are putting to the sword even now. Might this be the fault of a necromancer? It might be a good idea to send money to summon a learned priest or cleric to investigate them, just in case something particularly foul is skulking about and caused this...
Adequate tallying and arrangements for the Spring tithe are done, but you could perhaps do more. Critical success discovered this pox early and entirely eliminated the effect it would have had on the planting! Out of about two hundred fifty homesteads, twenty two have infected cattle. There are just over eighty infected animals in total.
[ ] Just kill and burn all the infected animals and be done with it. The families who lost animals will be badly off, but there's always the mine. These things happen and life goes on.
[ ] Send for a wise woman, herbalist, or doctor who might know more about this disease. However it spreads, it might keep spreading, though.
[ ] Send for a priest or cleric to investigate the possibility of this being a necromantic curse! Costs you 1 Profit if a cleric shows up. They might not come.
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- Location
- UK
@Rockeye I'm not quite sure why these options are all mutually exclusive. Is there any reason why we can't send for a wise woman, herbalist, or doctor as well as a priest or cleric? And aside from possibly preserving some corpses for study, it would probably make sense to burn the dead bodies of the diseased animals regardless.