TURN 3, RESULTS
Autumn, 4723 AR
(1d6 = 6, encounter)
(1d100 = 82, trivial)
Leaf litter crunches underfoot as you walk into the woods, following in the exact trail - if not the steps - of the ranger in front of you. He's a human youth, red-haired and nervous, and a real gangly one even by longshanks standards, all joints without the meat to really fill them out.
As you walk, the normal sounds of the forest gradually thin out, and are replaced instead by shouting voices and enraged bellowing. There's an audible silence from the boy, obviously trying to decide whether to say anything.
Finally, he points at a thinning in the trees. "Right through there, ma'am," the lad half-shouts over the din. You nod, give him an encouraging (and sharp) grin, and pat his elbow on your way past. He's gone when you glance back, probably back to border patrol.
The space you enter barely counts as a clearing, and feels downright crowded. Four rangers stand around, weapons drawn as they warily eye a grizzly bear in the centre, pinned and struggling under a net and several ropes anchored into the surrounding earth or tied off to sturdier-looking trees. Two other druids - a pair of halfling twins, Nikolas and Nakita, two of your few battle-trained druids - stand silent but ready, eyes fixed on the animal
You approach one of the rangers, a grim-looking aiuvarin you recognize as one of the more senior members of the contingent. "What's the situation!?" you shout.
"Damned if I know," they reply. "Never seen anything quite like it!"
The bear collapses, wheezing heavily into the dirt. The animal's jaws are frothy with pink-tinged saliva. A grizzly this time of year should be fattening up, but this one is verging on gaunt, with fur coming away in patches. One of the back legs is limp and dragging, evidenced by the ground not having been torn apart by claws beneath it.
"We thought he might be rabid, at first," the ranger continues at a more reasonable volume. "He's acting wrong, but not the right kind of wrong. We noticed him about a quarter-mile in from the outer perimeter, and decided to stalk him.
"Damn thing skipped around a half-dozen traps before we found a good spot for an ambush! Once or twice is a lucky fluke, but…" they shake their head. "And he was heading for town, straight as an arrow otherwise. It's been like this since we caught him and sent a runner back; we've got maybe five minutes until he gets his wind back."
"Faster and stronger than he should have been?" The lad told you as much, but confirmation is important.
"Yeah, too much even if it was rabid. He broke that leg trying to tear loose the first time."
With a murmured incantation and a gesture, you send up grasping vines to cinch around the bear's head and jaws, pinning the beast in place, and crouch down. You scrape up some of the foam in a little jar - wearing gloves just in case - and then reach up to gently pull the lidded eye wider. And then you freeze.
The bear's eye is the expected brown, but bloodshot and further threaded with tendrils of lurid green, and the pupil glows from within with emerald luminescence. And there's something else…
You scoot back, and release the vines. He snaps at the empty air, rumbles in obvious frustration, and his green eye remains fixed on you. The glow flares and dims rhythmically, like a heartbeat. You cast another spell, touching your throat and then one ear.
"Can you understand me?" you ask.
"Kill… kill them… kill you…"
"Why do you want to kill?"
"Kill them… hurts… invader… territory."
"Are we on your territory?"
"Long… way… hurts… hungry… invader… hurts."
That doesn't sound like a 'yes' - but why is this grizzly so intent on hunting you at such a detriment? You make a decision.
"Hurts… kill… kill…"
"I know it hurts, and I'm sorry," you say, softly. You move around, staying out of reach of those mighty jaws, even as the bear trembles and begins trying to gather his strength again.
Your knife is not terribly large, but you keep it sharp as a razor, and it cuts quickly and cleanly - and you hope, painlessly. His blood is red and hot.
You remember (distantly) sending the others away. You stay there for a long time.
—
MARTIAL: You don't have much of a fighting force at the moment, just a collection of half-drilled militia and a small cadre of rangers who are happier scouting on the fringes than fighting in formation. You can harass bandits, perhaps even distract them, but you're not sure of your ability to defend against a concerted raid.
-[ ] Hunting
As a druid, you have a responsibility to protect the green places of the world from reckless exploitation; as a leader, you have a responsibility to make sure the people that follow you are cared for. You'll have to be careful not to strip the area bare of wildlife to feed all the hungry mouths you need to, but carefully managed hunting parties led by rangers or druids should be able to maintain the balance between morals and necessity. Meat will fill your people's bellies, bone can be used for tools, and skins can be fashioned into clothing and armour or prepared for trade.
It's fortunate that your hunters haven't gone out until now, since it means that the local deer are, essentially, free game. By this time, the fawns born this past spring are grown enough for independence, so adult does can be taken without worry that orphans cannot hope to survive. It's a grim sort of comfort, but better than nothing. The hunters go out, and the hunters come back, laden with deer, rabbits, fowl, fish, and more. From there, a fair portion of your people descend on the bounty of the forest - many of them being homesteaders and woodsfolk, of course - and begin efficiently rendering everything usable. The animals are butchered efficiently, meat and fat and sinew all sectioned apart for various uses. Skins are divided into those to maintain as furs and those to render into leather, and worked accordingly. The bones are whittled into all manner of useful objects - from spoons to needles to arrowheads - while the scraps and any other unusable bits left over when all is said and done are taken by the druids to use for nourishing their tree nurseries.
By the time the first snows fall, your larders are bolstered with salted and smoked meats and pemmican; your people are warmed with coats and cloaks, boots and mittens; and you're able to breathe a sigh of relief.
[Reward: Reduced the Upkeep cost from [Unestablished] by 10.]
DIPLOMACY - Almandine seems to be settling in well - by which she's terrorizing your trade caravan and the latest group of druids returned from Brevoy for news and other information. She strongly suggests spreading your efforts out for the moment or finding another 'revenue stream.'
-[ ] We're Hiring!
With contact made among smaller farming communities and your druids regularly cycling through, you could, perhaps… make some offers. Every settlement will have at least a handful of youngsters hoping for better prospects, and the Stolen Lands might just be exciting enough to tempt people to come join you. You absolutely could use more hands for… everything, really.
The same detachment of druids has cycled through the same section of Rostland for half a year by now, encouraging growth, warding away pestilence, and monitoring the crops that the Brevic peasantry rely so heavily on for survival as well as their limited livelihood, as well as lending assistance (both in magic and in expert knowledge). Which is to say, they've grown quite familiar with the people they've been helping, and any one of them can name young people who feel dissatisfied or adrift in those communities, and families who exchange worried looks when the topic of winter comes up. Almandine speaks with the druids and traders and furnishes them with writs of invitation - and some little amount of speech coaching, for the eventuality that some of the people they'll be making offers to are illiterate - and the impression that they ought to make offers to come to Greenhold to anyone they think will be interested.
The last planned expedition goes out, and then weeks later - just ahead of the snows - they come home, numbers swollen several-fold. Young farmers, a handful of apprentice tradespeople, and a number of full families who were willing to take the risk. Your traders and druids vouch for all of them, and you welcome them with open arms. It'll be a snug fit to get everyone situated for the winter, but you had that in mind ahead of time and made certain that Almandine's offers were clear about the conditions to expect.
[Reward: +50 adult population; Agricultural income +10; training options unlocked]
INTRIGUE - Sneakery, skulduggery, ne'er-do-well-ism. There are many ways to win a fight, as the rangers say. While if the bandits come calling in force you cannot hope to do more than contain the damage, you can perhaps… lead them astray.
-[ ] A Spymaster
You do your best, but you're not really a creature of the shadows. You need someone with twisty thoughts and a nastier sort of creativity to help pick up the slack.
In the end, the fairly obvious choice for a spymaster is First Ranger Karth, being that your only real 'agents' at the moment are the rangers themselves, and Karth - through their seniority and personal charisma - has been the reason why such an infamously solitary and prickly collection of people has remained together (much less with your people). Karth accepts solemnly when you ask, though only with the assurance that they may choose to resign at any time - an expected possibility and one you were prepared for.
Karth is someone you deeply respect as a colleague, both then and now, but you can also admit that their demeanor can be difficult to acclimatize to. Most people tend to recognize the predatory calculation in their eyes after all, even if only subconsciously.
[Intrigue advisor appointed: Karth. Character sheet has been added to the front page.]
STEWARDSHIP - Everyone's busy right now with the myriad processes of establishing a new settlement. Even just managing what gets placed where, you've got your work cut out for you.
-[ ] Forestry
The fact is, your people need more permanent homes, and the simplest way to do that is with timber. Druids do not care for the reckless clearcutting of healthy forest, nor carelessly tearing the skin of the earth for enormous quarries - but you must care for your people first, and of the two options timber is both easier to source, and easier to manage.
Logging continues, for the days are already getting colder and winter is not known for a subtle arrival. The fact that your druids can directly transmute logs into usable lumber without waste is the only saving grace that will perhaps let you have all of your people under solid roofs by the time the first snows come. Your lumberjacks go to work with a will, carving deeper into the forest, and this time, the cleared ground is not left barren. While your people continue to mostly take trees root and stem and waste nothing, some patches are left with clusters of younger stumps and druids encouraging them to regrow for coppicing.
Every scrap of timber you can safely fell goes toward construction or is stored for firewood. The trees are converted to a second forest of posts and beams; skeletal frames are erected as quickly as your workers can manage, and just as quickly fleshed with wattle and daub, thatch, and magically-sculpted boards. Just basic communal longhouses for the moment, and focusing on function over form - you might all want to kill one another by spring, but by the gods and the Green you'll at least not let anyone freeze.
Yet more druids cycle through in the wake of your more intensive logging efforts, bringing young trees from the nursery to replant and rejuvenate the area. The forest will continue, if a touch less truly 'wild' than before.
[Reward: Upkeep cost from [Unestablished] reduced by 15; +25 Agriculture income]
LEARNING - Oh, for a proper library. Or at least a nice quiet space free of immediate distractions. No matter, the pursuit of knowledge must continue!
-[ ] A Chancellor
Smart as you are, you only have so many hours in the day, and you newly have a gaggle of untrained wizards to wrangle. Some assistance wouldn't go amiss.
'Ashmaker' Tybalt is perhaps not what you might have expected of a wizard and your head of research, from his looks. Tall by catfolk standards (you think - judging longshanks' height has never really been a concern when they're always taller than you) but stooped, grey and scarred, he dresses in simple peasant's garb - the one empty sleeve of his tunic pinned up neatly - rather than a robe, and he leans on an unadorned cane rather than a fanciful staff. However, he's prodigiously skilled as a war-mage - from his claims, he's sold his magical skill in conflicts across half of Avistan, and Almandine is able to confirm more than one of those stories. His repertoire - demonstrated, carefully, at your request - is impressive, and he's the only actual trained wizard amongst the gaggle of hedge-mages you've uncovered. He nods when you ask him to take the younger wizards under his wing, though he cracks that it's lucky he still has one to work with.
[Reward: Learning advisor appointed: Tybalt. Character sheet has been added to the front page.]
SPIRITUALITY - The earth hums at your touch, as does the air, the water. This is a place of power. The veil between the planes is thin, and things slip through. You do not think your presence has gone unnoticed.
-[ ] A Shepherd
With everything demanding your attention, you've been unable to devote your full attention to advising your circle on non-practical matters, as well as attending the needs of your flock - the larger contingent of people who are initiated into druidic rites and customs but who for one reason or another do not share in the boons of the Green Pact. For those matters you've been leaning on the assistance of your Second, who has thankfully risen to the occasion. It would probably be best to formalize that arrangement so people stop bothering you with things you literally cannot spare the time for.
Rakka has been largely managing your druids' day-to-day concerns for the better part of the last year, so announcing that you intend her to be your official delegate merits little more than an amused snort and a joke: "Well, if you insist."
The older ysoki woman is frankly better suited to handling people - and in particular the druids of the Circle - than you ever have been, and it's a sobering reminder that your position is owed as much to her contentment and lack of ambition as your own ability. Rakka trusts your judgement enough to back you up almost always, and you're thankful that she does so even when you otherwise butt heads. The two of you make a good team.
[Spirituality advisor appointed: Rakka. Character sheet has been added to the front page.]
