Industrialization Quest
- Thread starter Rockeye
- Start date
- Original
Kanata.EXE
Programmer
- Location
- Indonesia
Which one?
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
The need to post it in advance implies it was either a roll we see as crucial, or a roll we see as utterly pointless. The follow up makes me think it's a huge impact option or an option that's otherwise 'fun'. This could be piety, the prototype mill, or trying casting some more.
I put my money on casting, if only because that would be the most upsettingly ironic check to get a nat 100 on right now.
- Location
- USA
It's called being a QM
- Location
- USA
I don't remember him doing the same in his other quests.
The other possibility is the audit prep, since we needed a really good roll to make that one, and it would be huge if we discovered any cheating without tipping our hand.
Kanata.EXE
Programmer
- Location
- Indonesia
... bad roll?
Turn 7 Results
Rockeye
Plausible Engineer
- Location
- Midwestern U.S.
Martial: Exercise with Sasha! You're beginning to noticeably toughen up, and your endurance is better. Even if Sasha complains you got soft in the city. Keeping up this regimen is not quite as challenging as it was before, though Sasha still delights in being better than you at this. You're going to have to get back at her for making you suffer one day, though... Perhaps by teaching her accounting?
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 25. [2/3] Successes = Increase base Martial and Combat Prowess by 1.
[100+5 = 105. Natural crit, die explodes. 80 + 5 + 105 = 190.] More than 150 over DC. Natural Super Critical Success.
Each morning, you wake up and fight the urge to simply lie in bed. Rarely grabbing a snack before you begin doing all the usual exercises, you push your body hard. Abram Waller, retired soldier that he is, starts joining you - apparently inspired by the news of many militiamen being turned away as too weak. That rankles - he has no intention of joining the militia unless absolutely necessary, but being weak is unacceptable.
It hurts - you push harder. Shame and stubbornness drives you forward through the pain. You only stop when Sasha and Waller decide you're hurting yourself instead of benefiting further, overstraining. You pay close attention to what you eat and pay out a bit more to get lots of meat on Ludwig Nesiwald's advice, protein to build yourself with. And then, despite being sore all day and falling dead asleep when you hit your bed most nights, you keep doing little exercises throughout the day.
...Your mind keeps going back to chess with the retired General. Chess is nominally a game about war and strategic thinking, even if it didn't seem very warlike to you. But if you see a shield-wall as a Pawn, capable only of charging straight ahead and stopping when it meets something in the way... That's not really how soldiers behave at all. It's simplified. Streamlined. The rules of Chess bear only the faintest resemblance to the rules of battle, but there are rules of sorts to battle. It's just that they're more like... A particularly bloody negotiation, almost. A lunge forward is a question, batting the blade to the side response.
You go over past lectures on military matters, things you never properly absorbed, that seemed over-complicated and fraught with exceptions and what-ifs before. Nobody gave you any tactical training - it was all weapon forms, stupid team sparring matches, and sports involving manhandling heavy objects. The lessons those things are intended to teach - an instinct for wielding your blade, an intuition for reading your foe and commanding your allies - you never absorbed, because you just don't learn that way. You learn best when you can sit down and puzzle things out, maybe take notes.
Is that how you should think about military matters? Frame them in another context, one that you can make sense of?
After securing a crude chess set from Cooper the woodcarver, you play chess matches against yourself, trying to think like an officer. We want to kill the enemy king, the enemy king's men, and not have our own die... Or is that really true? Getting them to stop fighting is the point of a war. Maybe that means hitting the opponent before they hit you. Maybe that means making friends. Your father had a vicious shouting match with House DeWallis over a toll road, once - it wasn't hurting your family, but if he did more of the same it could have. So, force had to be shown.
Biting your tongue at the fear and anxiety that it brings up, you suffer through your fragmented memories of military action. When were times you failed - when were times you did the right thing, if only by accident? ...The soldiers you commanded didn't trust you, you suddenly realize with a gut-punch. They feared you. You were hoping to be stern and strong, like the higher officers expected. So your men didn't ever make suggestions or tell you of things you might not know.
And thinking about that one fateful day from an outside perspective - of course it was a trap! You see the shape of the field in your mind. The Murkhids chose a place to fight that stacked all the natural advantages in their favor - them on high ground, yourself on unstable ground. There was no other way you could easily approach, forest and stream on either side. And you marched straight into it. What should you have done instead...?
"I want to fight someone," you blurt out suddenly.
"Yeah, let's do it!" Sasha cheers. "...Wait, I thought you never wanted to touch a weapon again?"
Embarrassed, you mutter, "Not very realistic, that. Ahem! Besides, I think it'll help."
"I won't go easy on you," Sasha laughs.
"Please, try it anyway. I'll lose but maybe I'll learn something."
You fetch spear shafts with bundles of clothes tied around the tips shields treated the same way. Two seconds after the start of the first match, you're face down in the dirt. But you were paying attention. You think for a moment as you spit out dirt. A fake attack towards your shoulder so you raise the shield, and then a fast sweep at your feet that knocked you clean over... Move identified. Next round, you bat aside the first sweep at your legs with your own fake thrust, only for Sasha to step sharply forward, leaving your arm extended and your spear nowhere useful. Before you can draw it back, the wad of padding hits you hard, knocking out your breath. Oof. But you were paying attention again. That's another move, watch for overextension and step past it.
...You don't win even once by the end of the month. You're not sure you're even improving, you just don't think or react fast enough. You hesitate too often. But when you carefully think about a match afterwards, you start to piece together the rules that the game of fighting consists of...
You are now in shape, likely to keep the habit, and generally know how the body moves. +1 Martial. +1 Personal Combat.
Insight gained from natural crit! Trait 'Military Disgrace' becomes 'Martial Thought'. Your past failures show that you're unsuited to the life of a soldier, but if you think carefully and try to see the 'rules', you can fit yourself into that headspace. -1 to all groups' opinions, +0 Martial, potential to evolve further.
Effectively +2 Martial, +1 Personal Combat.
Stewardship: Forgework. You have a deal with Mr. Smith to manage his money and shop in exchange for some of the extra coin he makes. When you really put the effort in, you can speed his own efforts and his apprentice-teaching along. Keep at it. 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.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 15. Gain 1 Profit from excellent management and support of the blacksmith. Natural roll > 80 = 2 Profit.
[66 + 17 + 15 = 98.] Great Success.
There is not really too much to say about this. You left him without your help for a month, which he barely acknowledges (refusing to complain about handling the business side of things himself again out of pride, you suspect), but he does seem slightly annoyed by it.
You put in your best effort, reorganizing the mess the shop has become and figuring out who was still waiting for the distractable man to finish something, figuring out who needs repairs now and who can wait. The smith has settled into teaching his many apprentices, and seems more impressed by Greens every day, and has settled on declaring him a Journeyman 'soon'. He's just not sure if that will be this year or next yet. There's rather a large stack of iron ore in barrels sitting out behind the smithy, which worries you a bit, but he reassures you.
"Bloomeries can only be run so fast. Hardly anybody's going to be mining in winter, and summer's the biggest for the mine anyway. I'll catch up... Though, I might think about building more if the mine keeps up this pace."
The hammers clang. The coin comes. +1 Profit.
Stewardship: More Horse Collars. The first ones sold out pretty well eventually, and nobody has bothered to copy you and take your hands off the idea, so you can have carpenters make a lot more improved horse collars, and sell them all over the Rostwald region. Easy profit, and a benefit to the farmers. Win-win!
Cost: 5 Profit Invested for 3 months. Earn 2-4 Profit after that. Difficulty: 30.
[97 + 17 = 114.] Great Success.
"How's it going? Any problems?
"Got four more sized for horses, two for oxen. Did the thing to make it adjustable like you said. At this rate I'd almost want to forget the farm and do carpentry full-time. We're just about big enough for it..."
Scritch-scritch-scritch.
"But the thing is, nobody wants to be the first one to do that. 'Cept mister Smith, blacksmiths are different."
"How so? A good carpenter's just as important as a good smith. Fix up the walls and fences, making furniture..."
"Maybe, maybe. I guess it'd feel like leaving something behind, if not everyone works the fields. But maybe that'd be a good thing."
"You could help someone else out at harvest and planting and do carpentry the whole time otherwise, not bother having fields of your own."
"Could do that, sure." He hums thoughtfully as he chops at a branch. "Maybe go in together with Mrs. Crowley and her brood, and Charlie. Build 'em houses on my plot and use the rest of the land for a drying lot and workshops."
"That's the big step that turns Nesiwald from a village to a town, isn't it? Close-together houses and people dedicated to a particular craft."
"Is it? We don't exactly have schools around here. I'll take your word for it. Anyhow, I'll have more of these collars for you soon enough."
You take your leave and begin selling the horse collars along with Mr. Smith's services. Now, people have heard about them from the few who used one before. A few people seem to have made their own slightly crude versions, but you sell them at good rates, and it's a nice feeling to see animals hooked up in more comfortable, more fitting collars. Over the next few months you'll go to the other villages and tour around visiting homesteaders trying to sell more of these, and you can already tell you'll end up with a tidy profit, and quicker than you anticipated.
Great result accelerates payback. 5 Profit Invested for 2 months. 4 Profit invested for 3 months.
Learning: Call for Casting. Timothy Greens isn't ready for his own smithy yet and he has been refused the chance to try sand casting with iron so far, but if you weigh in on the great possibilities of the method, Mr. Smith trusts you enough that he'll let Greens have the forge in the evening if you pick up the slack on some of his other work. If you can figure out how to make cast iron plows, that will be wonderful for the ease of farming around here.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 40/100. Try to make cast iron plows.
[21 + 16 = 37. Bare Failure.]
"It feels like we're cursed. It should work. My... Secret, everything it has on this method indicates that it should work. But it's not."
"We did learn something. The hard coal is important after all, but maybe only for iron. The batch that didn't have any scaled a lot, but the one with hard coal came out fine. And I think I'm starting to get a feel for casting molds. It's tricky stuff!"
"True... It's just so frustrating! At least it's not so expensive to try out here - you can get the forge in the evenings if we clean up after ourselves."
Greens yawns. "True, but even with the latitude an apprenticeship gives me, Master Smith won't like us taking his forge for iron castings again and again and again. If it looks like a dead-end maybe he'll tell me to drop it. When I'm a Journeyman I can try again, but I'm still his apprentice for now..."
"No, keep trying." You both jump at the sudden voice behind you. "I don't get it, and I bloody hate casting, but you can try four molds in two days? That's worth applying a young mind to. Thing like this, it's almost never fast and easy. Greens does seem to have the skill for it."
You smile at your friend, who rubs his head bashfully.
"That said, you two had better make this place spotless! and be up early tomorrow morning at the usual time, Tim!"
"Yes, Master!"
"Just because you're almost ready is no excuse to slack off! Tomorrow you're going to make an ingot, I'll want perfectly flat sides and don't let it case harden this time!"
"Yes, Master!"
You clean up together, already talking about the slightly different variation you'll try next time...
Failure. Can try again with reduced DCs.
Outlines: Vodka Brewing outline. There are plenty of potatoes being grown in the local fields. They're an easy crop that grows in almost any kind of soil. The Codex is showing you methods to turn potatoes into a new kind of alcohol using fermenting and strange boiling processes. The new drink would probably be fairly cheap to make and could be a good source of income. Potatoes are cheap.
Cost: 0. Progress: 0/[??300-500??]
The Codex Crystal no longer leaps wildly from image to image, topic to topic. In a lot of ways this is a good thing, for all that it reminds you worryingly of how little you understand about the damn thing. Who made it, what exactly did it do to you, how do you best use it? Bah. You want a drink.
What better topic than potato beer, then? Your conversation with one of your neighbors ages ago spring to mind - if it gets you drunk, folk will drink it. The Codex obligingly lingers on particular steps in the process for you. The actual brewing process is uninteresting for now. You can get a brewer's help with that, honestly. The real key to this particular brand of alcohol seems to be distillation, dewing - contraptions of tubes and bowls that boil off booze and let it drip down elsewhere.
Eventually you let the Codex nudge you on seemingly unrelated visions of other boiling processes. Boiling and leaving behind powders or crystals, boiling and a thick brown liquid is left while what condenses elsewhere is clear... Eventually you understand a key point: The components of liquid mixtures boil at different rates and temperatures. By boiling something but just slightly, you can get more of one thing than the other, separating them. Aha! Next, you'll need to understand the actual construction of the redewing mechanisms. And you should probably at least know a little bit about brewing. Boiling something inside of a sealed container would usually just explode or crack from the pressure, but exploding your equipment is surely undesirable... Eh, something for later.
Codex Crystal stability effect revealed: Outlines will now use 2d60 + Learning, an artifact of its more consistent behavior leading to more consistent and on average better results. A natural 58-60 on either d60 explodes.
[(13, 27) + 16 = 56 ==> 56.] New progress: 56/[??300-500??].
Diplomacy: Mill prototype demo. You can make a small version of the watermill you plan to build fairly cheaply by paying some carpenters to put a model together. By demonstrating how it works with little gears and a bucket poured down a small trough, you'll have something you can show to the folk who will be working on making it. You can get them excited about this new innovation taking away the work of milling and leaving time for other things! If they don't take it as a flight of fancy that will never work, that is.
Cost: 2 Profit Burned. Difficulty: 40. Get Mill Demonstration. Nesiwald peasants understand the idea of a water mill, might get excited about it.
[50 + 15 = 65.] Success.
At last, the final gear and chunk is in place. The whole assembly turned out fairly large in the end. You didn't bother making a grindstone for the model, instead stretching some fabric between cross-braced twigs as a kind of very crude fan, thinking that people could marvel at the motion of water being turned into the motion of air. Beyond that, it's just a simple trough and paddle wheel with flat panels, not the angled ones that will go on the final version, on a shaft greased with lard.
"By the gods, you feel that breeze?"
"I mean, 's just a breeze, so what?"
"This little one is just a breeze," you say, "Water in a trough is nothing compared to the might of a stream! I have plans for a large version on the south-east fields - a small channel would cut the river closer to itself, and turn a great grindstone to make flour. Isn't grist one of the worst, most exhausting chores? Imagine getting the river to do it!"
"...Can that actually work?"
Slosh, as you refill the upper basin once again. The improvised fan's anemic turning speeds up.
"You're seein' it, right in front of you!"
"Bit of a difference between a breeze and grinding grain."
"Worth a shot, isn't it? Our Steward's already fixed up the mine and given everyone coin for it besides, and he helped save the cows. He knows stuff."
"Hah! I'm already looking forward to not doin' my own grinding. More time to do everything else if a river does the grinding, and no more being sore for a month. Maybe I'll fix up the fence instead."
Anywhere else in the Wald, and you might have encountered grumbles of suspicion and hesitancy just for the fact that it's weird and new. But you've already noticed a fact that you're very glad for - by some quirk, the usual parochial mistrust of anything new is largely absent from Nesiwald. Whether that's due to batty old Ludwig or something left over from the long-dead founding lord or what, you're quite glad for it.
You end up spending the whole day explaining your idea for the mill, showing off your drawings to an interested stream of peasants as they gather around, watching the water push the panels, lifting the bucket to fill the top basin themselves, grabbing the wheel and feeling its resistance, and otherwise playing with the model. You field questions ranging from the gearwork that will turn a horizontal grindstone to the exact location you want to put it and how long it will take to build. If you work through the winter...
The thought of raising a building all through autumn and winter is a daunting one that sets off some grumbling. But the excitement of not needing to grind your own flour is contagious. You end up with promises for folk to make time to work on your idea no matter the hectic pace of autumn, since the thing with the mine turned out well. There's some grumbling at this and a lot of folk are of the opinion that nothing should take away from the busy season, but the children and even grown men excitedly playing with your model tell you you'll have workers if you need them.
Timothy Greens is looking at the rotating fan blades with a gleam in his eye. "Moving air with water... Harold, d'you think you could hook that up to a bellows somehow?"
Huh. What an interesting idea...
Synergy with Character Creation option: Curious Locals, and previous actions to improve local reputation! DC for Watermill actions lowered and will not be affected by [Busy Season]. [Snowy Winter] will still increase the DC.
Diplomacy: Correspondence. You made friends in Ganz! Friends who you can send letters to - and openly sent letters aren't nearly as expensive as discreet and secret ones, thankfully. Writing to them keeps you in their mind and lets you draw on them for advice and interesting news. They'll be useful, all three... Less cynically, they're your friends, and you'll enjoy hearing from them.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 20. Get in the habit of writing to Maisah Touati, General Greis, and Genevieve Casinet.
[46 + 15 = 61.] Success.
Your letters to Genevieve are mostly short, a page or two long, and somewhat rambly. Everyday stories and funny events, jokes, and a (non-romantic) poem you wrote while bored. That sort of thing. You pry out more of the story of the tax conspiracy, and continue urging her to write a proper book about it, though she's hesitant so far. Well, if she really doesn't want to, so be it. She doesn't mention her family and keeps things casual and light in the messages.
The good General favors short notes with scrawled rambles and confusing diagrams sketched on them, which require a little bit of alcohol to make total sense. There's nuggets of genius in his writing. You really suspect he's a lot more bored than he lets on, even if he refuses to work for the army properly anymore. You hear about his family, and work out a passable chess-by-mail system in the third message - though you're only two moves into the match when the month ends. Mail takes a while to move from place to place, after all.
You don't hear from Maisah at all until right at the end of the month when you receive a small bundle wrapped up and marked with the Merchants' Guild seal. She mostly talks about her customers and fellow merchants, seeming to learn everything about them and their troubles over the course of a business transaction and then gossiping about it. It sort of makes you wonder what she's telling people about you. One memorable letter says, It seems you truly do wish to be friends. With a connection from the past and a friendship in the present, what holds the future? Do not expect to hear from me very often, but keep sending me details of your progress on various projects. They are interesting.
You don't get into particularly deep and meaningful conversations by letter, or receive any shocking revelations, like plays always seem to depict. But it's nice, and keeping what your friends are doing relevant in your mind means you'll be able to help them if something comes up. And they feel like asking for help, you suppose. Making such correspondence a proper, ingrained habit will pay off in the long run. You begin to look forward to finding time to write.
Intrigue: Audit Preparation, sneaky. It didn't work the first time but maybe by lingering in the right places and asking the right questions you can figure out people are cheating on their tithes, and how egregious it is if so. If they're only cheating a bit, that's probably fine. If they're cheating a lot, you'll surely have to deal with it...
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 70. Information.
[44 + 11 = 55.] Failure.
Between the incredible soreness you were dealing with the whole month from your frantic exercising, late nights helping Greens at the forge, the excitement and hubbub of your model, and everything else you're doing, you perhaps weren't putting your best foot forward on this. You still have no idea if anyone is really cheating on their tithes or not... Genevieve didn't have any complaints at the first spring harvest, so surely it's not too severe, at least?
Your chat with Ludwig one evening about your uncertainty and he looks at you strangely. "Boy, you think I know everything that goes on here? There's a thousand people in Nesiwald, even if I were the most gossip-mongering mongrel in the world I couldn't tell ya that every one of them's clean. If folk are keeping back some of their tithe, it's not blatant enough. The tithe is stupid anyway. Who wants to pay based on how much they grow? It's just needlessly complicated and encourages cheating. Make everyone tithe so much per acre and be done with it."
"Won't that hurt people who have marginal land?"
"Marginal? You mean, bad soil? Pfff. Maybe. Why, when I was your age..."
Oh, great. This again. You don't want to be rude, so you listen to the story of young Ludwig's life of hard work, pulling himself up by his bootstraps to be a pillar of the community, and escape at the first chance.
Maybe he was wrong about anyone cheating on their tithes at all? He's quite old and a little self-absorbed. You're really not sure at this point. It looks like they're not, but you can't say with confidence that they're not without an incredibly thorough tour of over two hundred families' fields this harvest season, which you really don't have time for. Ludwig's right about one thing - it'd be easier to check folks' obligations if it were a flat tax instead of a tithe. There's no arguing with 'two bushels of potatoes'... At least when you have a standard meaning for 'bushel'. Hmmmm.
At this point, you can't tell for sure if people are cheating without being both blatant and thorough, though it sort of seems like they aren't.
Piety: ...Dreselin, are you there? You were touched by divinity in Ganz, and poor luck, poor judgement, or lack of skill ruined every attempt at pewter casting you made, so the brush of the divine left you, tinged with disappointment. How do you apologize to a god except by praying?
Cost: 0. Difficulty: ??. Pray to the goddess of crafts.
[??? +/- ??? + 11 = ???.] Result: Severe Failure?
Your occasional prayers to the goddess who looked over your shoulder, and then stopped, leave you feeling distinctly uncomfortable and unworthy. No matter what you say in the privacy of prayer, even when you sacrifice the best improved horse collar of the lot to a fire in Her name and set up a small shrine, this niggling feeling never properly goes away. It's subtle enough that you're not quite sure if it's a message from the goddess, or your own mind playing tricks, so you keep at it.
Over weeks the subtle tension and pressure builds and builds until you feel vaguely queasy and unworthy when you even think about Dreselin. That's what cements it for you - you reject the unworthy feelings. You tried your best! You really did! What's this goddess think she's doing, scorning you for it like so?
Oh, that gets a response. A flash of cold anger from somewhere 'above' that's not quite a direction that makes you feel very small, and a message.
You are not worthy. You rush about and flail wildly as you try to imitate your betters. Craftsmanship is carefulness and perfection, and you would pervert it like this? Your method of casting is unworthy of a true craftsman, for it produces inferior goods marred by haste. Its only purpose is speed, producing a flawed product at a rapid pace. Such is an offense to true craft everywhere. That you did not understand this and cease is a mark against you. Repent, o faithful, and destroy your cursed, imperfect works!
"Oh, that...!" You stop yourself. You really shouldn't say unkind things about deities out loud. But you can think them. And you do. But a long stream of invective in your own head isn't nearly as cathartic as if you say it out loud, unfortuantely.
Dreselin is mad at you and renounces sand casting!
Personal: Cast the die of friendship. Timothy Greens is a somewhat unconfident young man, but you've become friends - you think. He seems more comfortable talking to you lately, perhaps you can try to think of some way to help him believe in himself? It's worth a try.
Cost: 0. Progress friendship with Greens.
Your observations of Greens lead you to a surprising conclusion. You think he might be most comfortable and most... Himself, when he's being directed and told what to do. Or at least when he has a clear idea of what he should be doing. He thrives on the schedule of work his apprenticeship gives him and the evenings of casting attempts, but always seems confused and hesitant at other times.
It gets much worse when Gabrielle Hess starts flirting with him.
"I don't know how to talk to women!" He hisses at you. "It's- I'm gonna say something wrong and make her mad, or sound like a stupid. Or sound stupid. Gods, I'm doing it even now."
"It sounds like you like her."
"What? No, no, I just can't think right when she's talking to me. I feel all nervous and warm and excited for no good reason, because she's just so pretty and funny!"
You raise your eyebrows at him.
"...Ahhhh. How do I know if she likes me back?"
You glance over at Gabrielle, who waves brightly at the two of you. You wave back. Greens hides his face. "...I think it's fairly obvious she does."
He flushes harder. "So that's what my parents meant when they say I should talk to her more, that she has a good family so she could probably make a good family..."
"Probably, yes. A word of advice, though... Do you like her because she's pretty? Or do you like her? My parents warned me not to expect love or beauty to last forever, and to pick someone I could work with. Stories of true love are usually just stories, they told me. It does happen, and it might be easier if you're not a noble, but..."
"I'm not going to marry her now. I just... I dunno, I have to think about this."
You walk in silence for a while. At some point you ask, "Do you enjoy talking with her?"
"Yeah."
"Would you still enjoy it if you were blindfolded?"
"...Yes?"
"Or if there were other people there too?"
"Maybe."
"Well, if you like talking to her, I'd say go talk to her! Nothing wrong with going for things you want sometimes, and it's just talking."
"......Mmm. Maybe."
You keep walking. When you're almost to the forge, you try a slightly risky gambit to get him thinking in the right direction and inspire him to motion.
"Do you want kids someday? With Gabriella?"
"Ye- Okay this conversation is over now."
You chuckle as he runs off. Later that afternoon, you see him carrying baskets of something with Gabriella, smiling and laughing. You suppress a grin of your own. It's surprisingly cute, and you think they'll be good for each other, even if you don't know Gabriella particularly well.
Hopefully a bit of romance drives him forward instead of distracting him too much.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 25. [2/3] Successes = Increase base Martial and Combat Prowess by 1.
[100+5 = 105. Natural crit, die explodes. 80 + 5 + 105 = 190.] More than 150 over DC. Natural Super Critical Success.
Each morning, you wake up and fight the urge to simply lie in bed. Rarely grabbing a snack before you begin doing all the usual exercises, you push your body hard. Abram Waller, retired soldier that he is, starts joining you - apparently inspired by the news of many militiamen being turned away as too weak. That rankles - he has no intention of joining the militia unless absolutely necessary, but being weak is unacceptable.
It hurts - you push harder. Shame and stubbornness drives you forward through the pain. You only stop when Sasha and Waller decide you're hurting yourself instead of benefiting further, overstraining. You pay close attention to what you eat and pay out a bit more to get lots of meat on Ludwig Nesiwald's advice, protein to build yourself with. And then, despite being sore all day and falling dead asleep when you hit your bed most nights, you keep doing little exercises throughout the day.
...Your mind keeps going back to chess with the retired General. Chess is nominally a game about war and strategic thinking, even if it didn't seem very warlike to you. But if you see a shield-wall as a Pawn, capable only of charging straight ahead and stopping when it meets something in the way... That's not really how soldiers behave at all. It's simplified. Streamlined. The rules of Chess bear only the faintest resemblance to the rules of battle, but there are rules of sorts to battle. It's just that they're more like... A particularly bloody negotiation, almost. A lunge forward is a question, batting the blade to the side response.
You go over past lectures on military matters, things you never properly absorbed, that seemed over-complicated and fraught with exceptions and what-ifs before. Nobody gave you any tactical training - it was all weapon forms, stupid team sparring matches, and sports involving manhandling heavy objects. The lessons those things are intended to teach - an instinct for wielding your blade, an intuition for reading your foe and commanding your allies - you never absorbed, because you just don't learn that way. You learn best when you can sit down and puzzle things out, maybe take notes.
Is that how you should think about military matters? Frame them in another context, one that you can make sense of?
After securing a crude chess set from Cooper the woodcarver, you play chess matches against yourself, trying to think like an officer. We want to kill the enemy king, the enemy king's men, and not have our own die... Or is that really true? Getting them to stop fighting is the point of a war. Maybe that means hitting the opponent before they hit you. Maybe that means making friends. Your father had a vicious shouting match with House DeWallis over a toll road, once - it wasn't hurting your family, but if he did more of the same it could have. So, force had to be shown.
Biting your tongue at the fear and anxiety that it brings up, you suffer through your fragmented memories of military action. When were times you failed - when were times you did the right thing, if only by accident? ...The soldiers you commanded didn't trust you, you suddenly realize with a gut-punch. They feared you. You were hoping to be stern and strong, like the higher officers expected. So your men didn't ever make suggestions or tell you of things you might not know.
And thinking about that one fateful day from an outside perspective - of course it was a trap! You see the shape of the field in your mind. The Murkhids chose a place to fight that stacked all the natural advantages in their favor - them on high ground, yourself on unstable ground. There was no other way you could easily approach, forest and stream on either side. And you marched straight into it. What should you have done instead...?
"I want to fight someone," you blurt out suddenly.
"Yeah, let's do it!" Sasha cheers. "...Wait, I thought you never wanted to touch a weapon again?"
Embarrassed, you mutter, "Not very realistic, that. Ahem! Besides, I think it'll help."
"I won't go easy on you," Sasha laughs.
"Please, try it anyway. I'll lose but maybe I'll learn something."
You fetch spear shafts with bundles of clothes tied around the tips shields treated the same way. Two seconds after the start of the first match, you're face down in the dirt. But you were paying attention. You think for a moment as you spit out dirt. A fake attack towards your shoulder so you raise the shield, and then a fast sweep at your feet that knocked you clean over... Move identified. Next round, you bat aside the first sweep at your legs with your own fake thrust, only for Sasha to step sharply forward, leaving your arm extended and your spear nowhere useful. Before you can draw it back, the wad of padding hits you hard, knocking out your breath. Oof. But you were paying attention again. That's another move, watch for overextension and step past it.
...You don't win even once by the end of the month. You're not sure you're even improving, you just don't think or react fast enough. You hesitate too often. But when you carefully think about a match afterwards, you start to piece together the rules that the game of fighting consists of...
You are now in shape, likely to keep the habit, and generally know how the body moves. +1 Martial. +1 Personal Combat.
Insight gained from natural crit! Trait 'Military Disgrace' becomes 'Martial Thought'. Your past failures show that you're unsuited to the life of a soldier, but if you think carefully and try to see the 'rules', you can fit yourself into that headspace. -1 to all groups' opinions, +0 Martial, potential to evolve further.
Effectively +2 Martial, +1 Personal Combat.
Stewardship: Forgework. You have a deal with Mr. Smith to manage his money and shop in exchange for some of the extra coin he makes. When you really put the effort in, you can speed his own efforts and his apprentice-teaching along. Keep at it. 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.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 15. Gain 1 Profit from excellent management and support of the blacksmith. Natural roll > 80 = 2 Profit.
[66 + 17 + 15 = 98.] Great Success.
There is not really too much to say about this. You left him without your help for a month, which he barely acknowledges (refusing to complain about handling the business side of things himself again out of pride, you suspect), but he does seem slightly annoyed by it.
You put in your best effort, reorganizing the mess the shop has become and figuring out who was still waiting for the distractable man to finish something, figuring out who needs repairs now and who can wait. The smith has settled into teaching his many apprentices, and seems more impressed by Greens every day, and has settled on declaring him a Journeyman 'soon'. He's just not sure if that will be this year or next yet. There's rather a large stack of iron ore in barrels sitting out behind the smithy, which worries you a bit, but he reassures you.
"Bloomeries can only be run so fast. Hardly anybody's going to be mining in winter, and summer's the biggest for the mine anyway. I'll catch up... Though, I might think about building more if the mine keeps up this pace."
The hammers clang. The coin comes. +1 Profit.
Stewardship: More Horse Collars. The first ones sold out pretty well eventually, and nobody has bothered to copy you and take your hands off the idea, so you can have carpenters make a lot more improved horse collars, and sell them all over the Rostwald region. Easy profit, and a benefit to the farmers. Win-win!
Cost: 5 Profit Invested for 3 months. Earn 2-4 Profit after that. Difficulty: 30.
[97 + 17 = 114.] Great Success.
"How's it going? Any problems?
"Got four more sized for horses, two for oxen. Did the thing to make it adjustable like you said. At this rate I'd almost want to forget the farm and do carpentry full-time. We're just about big enough for it..."
Scritch-scritch-scritch.
"But the thing is, nobody wants to be the first one to do that. 'Cept mister Smith, blacksmiths are different."
"How so? A good carpenter's just as important as a good smith. Fix up the walls and fences, making furniture..."
"Maybe, maybe. I guess it'd feel like leaving something behind, if not everyone works the fields. But maybe that'd be a good thing."
"You could help someone else out at harvest and planting and do carpentry the whole time otherwise, not bother having fields of your own."
"Could do that, sure." He hums thoughtfully as he chops at a branch. "Maybe go in together with Mrs. Crowley and her brood, and Charlie. Build 'em houses on my plot and use the rest of the land for a drying lot and workshops."
"That's the big step that turns Nesiwald from a village to a town, isn't it? Close-together houses and people dedicated to a particular craft."
"Is it? We don't exactly have schools around here. I'll take your word for it. Anyhow, I'll have more of these collars for you soon enough."
You take your leave and begin selling the horse collars along with Mr. Smith's services. Now, people have heard about them from the few who used one before. A few people seem to have made their own slightly crude versions, but you sell them at good rates, and it's a nice feeling to see animals hooked up in more comfortable, more fitting collars. Over the next few months you'll go to the other villages and tour around visiting homesteaders trying to sell more of these, and you can already tell you'll end up with a tidy profit, and quicker than you anticipated.
Great result accelerates payback. 5 Profit Invested for 2 months. 4 Profit invested for 3 months.
Learning: Call for Casting. Timothy Greens isn't ready for his own smithy yet and he has been refused the chance to try sand casting with iron so far, but if you weigh in on the great possibilities of the method, Mr. Smith trusts you enough that he'll let Greens have the forge in the evening if you pick up the slack on some of his other work. If you can figure out how to make cast iron plows, that will be wonderful for the ease of farming around here.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 40/100. Try to make cast iron plows.
[21 + 16 = 37. Bare Failure.]
"It feels like we're cursed. It should work. My... Secret, everything it has on this method indicates that it should work. But it's not."
"We did learn something. The hard coal is important after all, but maybe only for iron. The batch that didn't have any scaled a lot, but the one with hard coal came out fine. And I think I'm starting to get a feel for casting molds. It's tricky stuff!"
"True... It's just so frustrating! At least it's not so expensive to try out here - you can get the forge in the evenings if we clean up after ourselves."
Greens yawns. "True, but even with the latitude an apprenticeship gives me, Master Smith won't like us taking his forge for iron castings again and again and again. If it looks like a dead-end maybe he'll tell me to drop it. When I'm a Journeyman I can try again, but I'm still his apprentice for now..."
"No, keep trying." You both jump at the sudden voice behind you. "I don't get it, and I bloody hate casting, but you can try four molds in two days? That's worth applying a young mind to. Thing like this, it's almost never fast and easy. Greens does seem to have the skill for it."
You smile at your friend, who rubs his head bashfully.
"That said, you two had better make this place spotless! and be up early tomorrow morning at the usual time, Tim!"
"Yes, Master!"
"Just because you're almost ready is no excuse to slack off! Tomorrow you're going to make an ingot, I'll want perfectly flat sides and don't let it case harden this time!"
"Yes, Master!"
You clean up together, already talking about the slightly different variation you'll try next time...
Failure. Can try again with reduced DCs.
Outlines: Vodka Brewing outline. There are plenty of potatoes being grown in the local fields. They're an easy crop that grows in almost any kind of soil. The Codex is showing you methods to turn potatoes into a new kind of alcohol using fermenting and strange boiling processes. The new drink would probably be fairly cheap to make and could be a good source of income. Potatoes are cheap.
Cost: 0. Progress: 0/[??300-500??]
The Codex Crystal no longer leaps wildly from image to image, topic to topic. In a lot of ways this is a good thing, for all that it reminds you worryingly of how little you understand about the damn thing. Who made it, what exactly did it do to you, how do you best use it? Bah. You want a drink.
What better topic than potato beer, then? Your conversation with one of your neighbors ages ago spring to mind - if it gets you drunk, folk will drink it. The Codex obligingly lingers on particular steps in the process for you. The actual brewing process is uninteresting for now. You can get a brewer's help with that, honestly. The real key to this particular brand of alcohol seems to be distillation, dewing - contraptions of tubes and bowls that boil off booze and let it drip down elsewhere.
Eventually you let the Codex nudge you on seemingly unrelated visions of other boiling processes. Boiling and leaving behind powders or crystals, boiling and a thick brown liquid is left while what condenses elsewhere is clear... Eventually you understand a key point: The components of liquid mixtures boil at different rates and temperatures. By boiling something but just slightly, you can get more of one thing than the other, separating them. Aha! Next, you'll need to understand the actual construction of the redewing mechanisms. And you should probably at least know a little bit about brewing. Boiling something inside of a sealed container would usually just explode or crack from the pressure, but exploding your equipment is surely undesirable... Eh, something for later.
Codex Crystal stability effect revealed: Outlines will now use 2d60 + Learning, an artifact of its more consistent behavior leading to more consistent and on average better results. A natural 58-60 on either d60 explodes.
[(13, 27) + 16 = 56 ==> 56.] New progress: 56/[??300-500??].
Diplomacy: Mill prototype demo. You can make a small version of the watermill you plan to build fairly cheaply by paying some carpenters to put a model together. By demonstrating how it works with little gears and a bucket poured down a small trough, you'll have something you can show to the folk who will be working on making it. You can get them excited about this new innovation taking away the work of milling and leaving time for other things! If they don't take it as a flight of fancy that will never work, that is.
Cost: 2 Profit Burned. Difficulty: 40. Get Mill Demonstration. Nesiwald peasants understand the idea of a water mill, might get excited about it.
[50 + 15 = 65.] Success.
At last, the final gear and chunk is in place. The whole assembly turned out fairly large in the end. You didn't bother making a grindstone for the model, instead stretching some fabric between cross-braced twigs as a kind of very crude fan, thinking that people could marvel at the motion of water being turned into the motion of air. Beyond that, it's just a simple trough and paddle wheel with flat panels, not the angled ones that will go on the final version, on a shaft greased with lard.
"By the gods, you feel that breeze?"
"I mean, 's just a breeze, so what?"
"This little one is just a breeze," you say, "Water in a trough is nothing compared to the might of a stream! I have plans for a large version on the south-east fields - a small channel would cut the river closer to itself, and turn a great grindstone to make flour. Isn't grist one of the worst, most exhausting chores? Imagine getting the river to do it!"
"...Can that actually work?"
Slosh, as you refill the upper basin once again. The improvised fan's anemic turning speeds up.
"You're seein' it, right in front of you!"
"Bit of a difference between a breeze and grinding grain."
"Worth a shot, isn't it? Our Steward's already fixed up the mine and given everyone coin for it besides, and he helped save the cows. He knows stuff."
"Hah! I'm already looking forward to not doin' my own grinding. More time to do everything else if a river does the grinding, and no more being sore for a month. Maybe I'll fix up the fence instead."
Anywhere else in the Wald, and you might have encountered grumbles of suspicion and hesitancy just for the fact that it's weird and new. But you've already noticed a fact that you're very glad for - by some quirk, the usual parochial mistrust of anything new is largely absent from Nesiwald. Whether that's due to batty old Ludwig or something left over from the long-dead founding lord or what, you're quite glad for it.
You end up spending the whole day explaining your idea for the mill, showing off your drawings to an interested stream of peasants as they gather around, watching the water push the panels, lifting the bucket to fill the top basin themselves, grabbing the wheel and feeling its resistance, and otherwise playing with the model. You field questions ranging from the gearwork that will turn a horizontal grindstone to the exact location you want to put it and how long it will take to build. If you work through the winter...
The thought of raising a building all through autumn and winter is a daunting one that sets off some grumbling. But the excitement of not needing to grind your own flour is contagious. You end up with promises for folk to make time to work on your idea no matter the hectic pace of autumn, since the thing with the mine turned out well. There's some grumbling at this and a lot of folk are of the opinion that nothing should take away from the busy season, but the children and even grown men excitedly playing with your model tell you you'll have workers if you need them.
Timothy Greens is looking at the rotating fan blades with a gleam in his eye. "Moving air with water... Harold, d'you think you could hook that up to a bellows somehow?"
Huh. What an interesting idea...
Synergy with Character Creation option: Curious Locals, and previous actions to improve local reputation! DC for Watermill actions lowered and will not be affected by [Busy Season]. [Snowy Winter] will still increase the DC.
Diplomacy: Correspondence. You made friends in Ganz! Friends who you can send letters to - and openly sent letters aren't nearly as expensive as discreet and secret ones, thankfully. Writing to them keeps you in their mind and lets you draw on them for advice and interesting news. They'll be useful, all three... Less cynically, they're your friends, and you'll enjoy hearing from them.
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 20. Get in the habit of writing to Maisah Touati, General Greis, and Genevieve Casinet.
[46 + 15 = 61.] Success.
Your letters to Genevieve are mostly short, a page or two long, and somewhat rambly. Everyday stories and funny events, jokes, and a (non-romantic) poem you wrote while bored. That sort of thing. You pry out more of the story of the tax conspiracy, and continue urging her to write a proper book about it, though she's hesitant so far. Well, if she really doesn't want to, so be it. She doesn't mention her family and keeps things casual and light in the messages.
The good General favors short notes with scrawled rambles and confusing diagrams sketched on them, which require a little bit of alcohol to make total sense. There's nuggets of genius in his writing. You really suspect he's a lot more bored than he lets on, even if he refuses to work for the army properly anymore. You hear about his family, and work out a passable chess-by-mail system in the third message - though you're only two moves into the match when the month ends. Mail takes a while to move from place to place, after all.
You don't hear from Maisah at all until right at the end of the month when you receive a small bundle wrapped up and marked with the Merchants' Guild seal. She mostly talks about her customers and fellow merchants, seeming to learn everything about them and their troubles over the course of a business transaction and then gossiping about it. It sort of makes you wonder what she's telling people about you. One memorable letter says, It seems you truly do wish to be friends. With a connection from the past and a friendship in the present, what holds the future? Do not expect to hear from me very often, but keep sending me details of your progress on various projects. They are interesting.
You don't get into particularly deep and meaningful conversations by letter, or receive any shocking revelations, like plays always seem to depict. But it's nice, and keeping what your friends are doing relevant in your mind means you'll be able to help them if something comes up. And they feel like asking for help, you suppose. Making such correspondence a proper, ingrained habit will pay off in the long run. You begin to look forward to finding time to write.
Intrigue: Audit Preparation, sneaky. It didn't work the first time but maybe by lingering in the right places and asking the right questions you can figure out people are cheating on their tithes, and how egregious it is if so. If they're only cheating a bit, that's probably fine. If they're cheating a lot, you'll surely have to deal with it...
Cost: 0. Difficulty: 70. Information.
[44 + 11 = 55.] Failure.
Between the incredible soreness you were dealing with the whole month from your frantic exercising, late nights helping Greens at the forge, the excitement and hubbub of your model, and everything else you're doing, you perhaps weren't putting your best foot forward on this. You still have no idea if anyone is really cheating on their tithes or not... Genevieve didn't have any complaints at the first spring harvest, so surely it's not too severe, at least?
Your chat with Ludwig one evening about your uncertainty and he looks at you strangely. "Boy, you think I know everything that goes on here? There's a thousand people in Nesiwald, even if I were the most gossip-mongering mongrel in the world I couldn't tell ya that every one of them's clean. If folk are keeping back some of their tithe, it's not blatant enough. The tithe is stupid anyway. Who wants to pay based on how much they grow? It's just needlessly complicated and encourages cheating. Make everyone tithe so much per acre and be done with it."
"Won't that hurt people who have marginal land?"
"Marginal? You mean, bad soil? Pfff. Maybe. Why, when I was your age..."
Oh, great. This again. You don't want to be rude, so you listen to the story of young Ludwig's life of hard work, pulling himself up by his bootstraps to be a pillar of the community, and escape at the first chance.
Maybe he was wrong about anyone cheating on their tithes at all? He's quite old and a little self-absorbed. You're really not sure at this point. It looks like they're not, but you can't say with confidence that they're not without an incredibly thorough tour of over two hundred families' fields this harvest season, which you really don't have time for. Ludwig's right about one thing - it'd be easier to check folks' obligations if it were a flat tax instead of a tithe. There's no arguing with 'two bushels of potatoes'... At least when you have a standard meaning for 'bushel'. Hmmmm.
At this point, you can't tell for sure if people are cheating without being both blatant and thorough, though it sort of seems like they aren't.
Piety: ...Dreselin, are you there? You were touched by divinity in Ganz, and poor luck, poor judgement, or lack of skill ruined every attempt at pewter casting you made, so the brush of the divine left you, tinged with disappointment. How do you apologize to a god except by praying?
Cost: 0. Difficulty: ??. Pray to the goddess of crafts.
[??? +/- ??? + 11 = ???.] Result: Severe Failure?
Your occasional prayers to the goddess who looked over your shoulder, and then stopped, leave you feeling distinctly uncomfortable and unworthy. No matter what you say in the privacy of prayer, even when you sacrifice the best improved horse collar of the lot to a fire in Her name and set up a small shrine, this niggling feeling never properly goes away. It's subtle enough that you're not quite sure if it's a message from the goddess, or your own mind playing tricks, so you keep at it.
Over weeks the subtle tension and pressure builds and builds until you feel vaguely queasy and unworthy when you even think about Dreselin. That's what cements it for you - you reject the unworthy feelings. You tried your best! You really did! What's this goddess think she's doing, scorning you for it like so?
Oh, that gets a response. A flash of cold anger from somewhere 'above' that's not quite a direction that makes you feel very small, and a message.
You are not worthy. You rush about and flail wildly as you try to imitate your betters. Craftsmanship is carefulness and perfection, and you would pervert it like this? Your method of casting is unworthy of a true craftsman, for it produces inferior goods marred by haste. Its only purpose is speed, producing a flawed product at a rapid pace. Such is an offense to true craft everywhere. That you did not understand this and cease is a mark against you. Repent, o faithful, and destroy your cursed, imperfect works!
"Oh, that...!" You stop yourself. You really shouldn't say unkind things about deities out loud. But you can think them. And you do. But a long stream of invective in your own head isn't nearly as cathartic as if you say it out loud, unfortuantely.
Dreselin is mad at you and renounces sand casting!
Personal: Cast the die of friendship. Timothy Greens is a somewhat unconfident young man, but you've become friends - you think. He seems more comfortable talking to you lately, perhaps you can try to think of some way to help him believe in himself? It's worth a try.
Cost: 0. Progress friendship with Greens.
Your observations of Greens lead you to a surprising conclusion. You think he might be most comfortable and most... Himself, when he's being directed and told what to do. Or at least when he has a clear idea of what he should be doing. He thrives on the schedule of work his apprenticeship gives him and the evenings of casting attempts, but always seems confused and hesitant at other times.
It gets much worse when Gabrielle Hess starts flirting with him.
"I don't know how to talk to women!" He hisses at you. "It's- I'm gonna say something wrong and make her mad, or sound like a stupid. Or sound stupid. Gods, I'm doing it even now."
"It sounds like you like her."
"What? No, no, I just can't think right when she's talking to me. I feel all nervous and warm and excited for no good reason, because she's just so pretty and funny!"
You raise your eyebrows at him.
"...Ahhhh. How do I know if she likes me back?"
You glance over at Gabrielle, who waves brightly at the two of you. You wave back. Greens hides his face. "...I think it's fairly obvious she does."
He flushes harder. "So that's what my parents meant when they say I should talk to her more, that she has a good family so she could probably make a good family..."
"Probably, yes. A word of advice, though... Do you like her because she's pretty? Or do you like her? My parents warned me not to expect love or beauty to last forever, and to pick someone I could work with. Stories of true love are usually just stories, they told me. It does happen, and it might be easier if you're not a noble, but..."
"I'm not going to marry her now. I just... I dunno, I have to think about this."
You walk in silence for a while. At some point you ask, "Do you enjoy talking with her?"
"Yeah."
"Would you still enjoy it if you were blindfolded?"
"...Yes?"
"Or if there were other people there too?"
"Maybe."
"Well, if you like talking to her, I'd say go talk to her! Nothing wrong with going for things you want sometimes, and it's just talking."
"......Mmm. Maybe."
You keep walking. When you're almost to the forge, you try a slightly risky gambit to get him thinking in the right direction and inspire him to motion.
"Do you want kids someday? With Gabriella?"
"Ye- Okay this conversation is over now."
You chuckle as he runs off. Later that afternoon, you see him carrying baskets of something with Gabriella, smiling and laughing. You suppress a grin of your own. It's surprisingly cute, and you think they'll be good for each other, even if you don't know Gabriella particularly well.
Hopefully a bit of romance drives him forward instead of distracting him too much.
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Kanata.EXE
Programmer
- Location
- Indonesia
Cut off.
Solarstream
It's all in the cards
- Location
- Zombie World
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Cool, so casting is now officially cursed!
- Location
- Australia
Okay, let's find a new god, huh?
Kanata.EXE
Programmer
- Location
- Indonesia
We can try again. For industrialization.
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
Yikes an angry god is never a good thing I say leave the sand casting alone for a while before we go back to it.
Let's pray to Shallya for a while.
A problem is that we now have 7 Profit in pocket, and we can no longer afford to actually do the mill...
J.I.M.S
BookWyrm
- Location
- Latveria
Fuck Dreselin. We'll make amazing things out of sandcasting and none will be for Dreselin at the very least I'll push for us to make nada for her. NADA! 
Other than that the rolls were good. Yoked, smithing stonks, making mini models and being buds!
Other than that the rolls were good. Yoked, smithing stonks, making mini models and being buds!
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I am sure she will be furious that the things she considers unworthy and directly against her method of worship aren't being made for her.Fuck Dreselin. We'll make amazing things out of sandcasting and none will be for Dreselin at the very least I'll push for us to make nada for her. NADA!
- Location
- USA
Ouch. Think this line works for any real-life government? "I don't think I'm cheating on my tax returns--it sort of seems like I'm not." We definitely need to find out more, even if we have to be obvious about it.
J.I.M.S
BookWyrm
- Location
- Latveria
Lol
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I got very heated with the unworthy shtick that the roll got us.
- Location
- USA
Might just be tired, but it seems a bit off phrasing wise.
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
... When I saw that crit on martial, I just had to see what was going to go wrong in exchange.
I guess having the god of pre-industrial craftsmanship being personally mad at you and your invention(s) is fitting counterbalance.
I guess having the god of pre-industrial craftsmanship being personally mad at you and your invention(s) is fitting counterbalance.