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- He
[X] [LOCH] Call me Donald Trump, because that wall's going to be yuge! (-1,000 Crown)
Let's Play: Cataphrak's Dragoon Saga
- Thread starter Rogue Attican
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IamtooSleepy
I came here to be an ant
[X] [LOCH] Call me Donald Trump, because that wall's going to be yuge! (-1,000 Crown)
Also, we are now an open royalist while our land is in a Wulfamite stronghold, it's going to be very fun when factionalism go bad and our neighbours decide to take action on their nearest political enemy (ie. us).
...What's not fun is the amount of money we are spending
Also, we are now an open royalist while our land is in a Wulfamite stronghold, it's going to be very fun when factionalism go bad and our neighbours decide to take action on their nearest political enemy (ie. us).
...What's not fun is the amount of money we are spending
[X] [LOCH] Call me Donald Trump, because that wall's going to be yuge! (-1,000 Crown)
Also, we are now an open royalist while our land is in a Wulfamite stronghold, it's going to be very fun when factionalism go bad and our neighbours decide to take action on their nearest political enemy (ie. us).
...What's not fun is the amount of money we are spending
Well, that's why we're putting up a wall. It's probably more useful to us than to my usual character, who lives right by the capital.
The money drain is pretty bad, but at least we picked the right club to make some back.
Lords 3.12
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[X] [LOCH] Call me Donald Trump, because that wall's going to be yuge! (-1,000 Crown)
You draw up the appropriate papers authorising your estate manager to draw on your funds, then send them off. Now, you can only wait for the appropriate acknowledgements.
And hope that your estate manager uses the funds you've given him access to wisely.
The days begin to grow shorter as the heat of summer starts to fade at last. The city's streets seem to grow darker too, as those unfortunates still without homes cluster in the shadows, watching and waiting for the killing winter which they know to be just a few months away.
You're looking through the daily trading reports at the Shipowners' Club one afternoon not long after the first of the autumn rains when you hear the sound of a bell tolling in the distance.
You carefully set your cup of coffee down on the side table as you glance towards Mortimer Blanco, sitting next to you. "Has the floor closed already?"
"No, my lord," he replies, the silver pin of a fully fledged broker still newly pinned on his breast. "That is not the closing bell. I believe it to be one of the shipping bells, rung in a particular pattern to alert the floor of any special arrivals."
"Special arrivals?" you ask. "Surely we weren't expecting any this late in the season. I don't suppose you could tell me what it is, could you?"
"Certainly, my lord," Blanco replies before narrowing his eyes in concentration. "It is…" His eyes go wide, the colour draining from his face. "Saints above!"
"Blanco? Are you quite all right?"
"The sea windows, my lord," he manages to reply as he springs from his armchair. "I think you will want to see this."
It seems that your broker isn't the only one suddenly made distraught by the sound of bells. Half the club seems to be gravitating towards the windows facing the harbour, brokers and investors alike. A few of them are already pointing something out as you squeeze your way to the front. You follow their outstretched arms, past the dark shape of the city and the squat outline of the shore batteries, out onto the grey waters beyond.
When you see it, you almost don't believe your eyes.
Your first thought is that what you're seeing must be some kind of trick.
Even from such a distance away, your eyes can tell that the floating edifice sweeping into Aetoria's inner harbour must be more than a hundred and twenty paces long, its blocky, gently curving hull at least as wide as a small merchantman is long. You simply cannot credit it. No ship so huge could possibly be real.
And yet she is, making its stately progress under the great segmented sails of its nine towering masts, her gunports arranged in four full rows of bright red across her immense broadside, iron plate gleaming from her massive upperworks as her wake tosses aside harbour craft and even the occasional passing ship like toys in a bathtub. You've seen her like before, but only in engravings and storybooks. You certainly never imagined that you would ever see one in person.
A Kian Fortress-Ship. An expression of pure imperial might from one of the greatest powers of the Infinite Sea.
You're still wondering as to her purpose here when you're answered by the sight of a gold-and-crimson banner fluttering from her foremost mast: the flag of the Court of Sun and Heavens. That can only mean one thing.
An ambassador of the Kian Emperor has come to Aetoria.
You draw up the appropriate papers authorising your estate manager to draw on your funds, then send them off. Now, you can only wait for the appropriate acknowledgements.
And hope that your estate manager uses the funds you've given him access to wisely.
-
The days begin to grow shorter as the heat of summer starts to fade at last. The city's streets seem to grow darker too, as those unfortunates still without homes cluster in the shadows, watching and waiting for the killing winter which they know to be just a few months away.
You're looking through the daily trading reports at the Shipowners' Club one afternoon not long after the first of the autumn rains when you hear the sound of a bell tolling in the distance.
You carefully set your cup of coffee down on the side table as you glance towards Mortimer Blanco, sitting next to you. "Has the floor closed already?"
"No, my lord," he replies, the silver pin of a fully fledged broker still newly pinned on his breast. "That is not the closing bell. I believe it to be one of the shipping bells, rung in a particular pattern to alert the floor of any special arrivals."
"Special arrivals?" you ask. "Surely we weren't expecting any this late in the season. I don't suppose you could tell me what it is, could you?"
"Certainly, my lord," Blanco replies before narrowing his eyes in concentration. "It is…" His eyes go wide, the colour draining from his face. "Saints above!"
"Blanco? Are you quite all right?"
"The sea windows, my lord," he manages to reply as he springs from his armchair. "I think you will want to see this."
It seems that your broker isn't the only one suddenly made distraught by the sound of bells. Half the club seems to be gravitating towards the windows facing the harbour, brokers and investors alike. A few of them are already pointing something out as you squeeze your way to the front. You follow their outstretched arms, past the dark shape of the city and the squat outline of the shore batteries, out onto the grey waters beyond.
When you see it, you almost don't believe your eyes.
Your first thought is that what you're seeing must be some kind of trick.
Even from such a distance away, your eyes can tell that the floating edifice sweeping into Aetoria's inner harbour must be more than a hundred and twenty paces long, its blocky, gently curving hull at least as wide as a small merchantman is long. You simply cannot credit it. No ship so huge could possibly be real.
And yet she is, making its stately progress under the great segmented sails of its nine towering masts, her gunports arranged in four full rows of bright red across her immense broadside, iron plate gleaming from her massive upperworks as her wake tosses aside harbour craft and even the occasional passing ship like toys in a bathtub. You've seen her like before, but only in engravings and storybooks. You certainly never imagined that you would ever see one in person.
A Kian Fortress-Ship. An expression of pure imperial might from one of the greatest powers of the Infinite Sea.
You're still wondering as to her purpose here when you're answered by the sight of a gold-and-crimson banner fluttering from her foremost mast: the flag of the Court of Sun and Heavens. That can only mean one thing.
An ambassador of the Kian Emperor has come to Aetoria.
Lords 4.01
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CHAPTER IV
Wherein the LORD OF THE CORTES strives to carve out a POSITION of ADVANTAGE in the city of AETORIA.
Wherein the LORD OF THE CORTES strives to carve out a POSITION of ADVANTAGE in the city of AETORIA.
You get a chance to see the new Kian ambassador in the flesh later that week, at a reception held in his honour, a function to which every Lord of the Cortes currently in the city seems to be invited.
It is a sumptuous affair, one which fills the whole grand ballroom of what is soon to become the Kian Embassy. Your best suit seems shabby and threadbare compared to the brilliant gowns and carefully cut jackets which fill the floor. Those in possession of far more wealth than you have clearly made every effort to show themselves to the best possible advantage that their resources allow them.
And why shouldn't they? The Kian'Zi rarely send envoys to a place so beneath their notice as Aetoria, and only then to deliver a message or submit a demand. They've never sent a full ambassador, not even a temporary one. A generation ago, the very thought that either Takara or Kian would deign to maintain a permanent ambassador in Tierra, of all places, would have been met with incredulous derision. Now, both great powers have embassies in the shadow of the Northern Keep. A more glorious testament to your country's rise in the international order could not possibly be imagined. It seems only natural that those at its head would welcome it with all the pomp and largesse it can muster.
As for the ambassador himself, he's everything you might have expected: a slim, graceful figure with the long, bound hair, flowing brocaded robes, and unageing face of a Kian aristocrat. Your eyes follow him as he glides from one group to the next, exchanging words and gestures as if they were the steps of a well-practised dance. He drifts his way almost at random through the room, never staying for long. There seems no reason to his movements, at least not one you can pick out. At times, he moves close, only a dozen or so paces away, only to suddenly dart off to some new interaction halfway across the hall. Yet it's clear that he's on a mission to greet everyone attending this reception. It's only a matter of time before he finds his way…
…to you.
"Do I have the pleasure of addressing the Baron Reddingfield?" he asks in perfect Tierran, only slightly marked by the slight inflections of a Kian accent, and with a sureness which makes absolutely clear that he already knows the answer to his question. He bows to you at a precise, careful angle, that of a superior greeting an inferior. "I have the honour to be the Count of Leannejouwe, ambassador of the Court of Sun and Heavens to the Unified Kingdom," he says in an almost poetic cadence. "And I am doubly honoured to find myself being received by a party which includes so valiant a soldier."
"I thank you for the compliment, Your Excellency."
The Kian ambassador replies with a pleasant smile. "There is no profit in overlooking the achievements of another, and there is nothing to be lost in acknowledging them. If our two countries are to cooperate, then we ought to acknowledge each other's strengths."
He fixes you with a look of the most serene, implacable conviction, a regard of perfect sincerity. "Kian is an old nation, and Tierra a very new one, but you respect action as we do. The presence of men such as yourself serve as proof of that. We have our many differences, but I believe that our hearts are no different than the colour of our blood or the shapes of our ears." He offers you a warm, beneficent tilt of his head, like a father acknowledging the achievements of a favoured son. "If our two peoples might be contrived to work together, to acknowledge our similarities with the same approbation as we do our differences, I believe we will find ourselves in receipt of mutual benefit."
He does not speak quickly, the Kian ambassador, yet even so, it seems almost as if you're barely able to keep up with the words he's saying. And no sooner does he finish does he suddenly glance away for a moment, only to look back with an expression of abject contrition.
"I fear I must keep moving," he tells you in a tone that wouldn't have been out of place if the two of you were dear old friends. "I very much hope we shall have a chance to speak again sometime. Good evening, my lord."
And a moment later, he's gone, almost as if he was never before you at all. The bright brocade of his diplomatic robes are already halfway across the hall, headed for some other introduction. You let out the breath you didn't quite know you'd been holding.
Well then, how about that?
[ ] [KIAN] I'm not quite sure I understood any of that.
[ ] [KIAN] He speaks graciously, I suppose that is cause for optimism.
[ ] [KIAN] I mistrust him already.
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[X] [KIAN] He speaks graciously, I suppose that is cause for optimism.
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[X] [KIAN] He speaks graciously, I suppose that is cause for optimism.
IamtooSleepy
I came here to be an ant
A not so subtle reminder of Kian historical animosity against their great enemy.
[X] [KIAN] He speaks graciously, I suppose that is cause for optimism.
Also, I thought our relation with Kat should be high enough to met her here? A bit disappointed.
This guy reminds me of a guy from one of the early Foundation stories by Azimov.
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@IamtooSleepy Not taking up Kat's invitation to go on the secret mission to attack Khorobirit's wife and daughter at Januskovil caused our relationship to take a huge blow.
Lords 4.02
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[X] He speaks graciously, I suppose that is cause for optimism.
It remains far too early to make a definitive judgement on the Kian ambassador or his intentions, but you cannot help but think that he's made an excellent impression.
Certainly, you cannot imagine that his kind words are nothing more than the flourishes of diplomacy, a matter of mere civility at best and empty flattery at worst, but the fact remains that given the difference in power betwixt your two countries, even such a minor concession to the feelings of a country so inferior in population, wealth, and military power as your own is a show of good intentions by itself. That the envoy of a great power should even think to go to the trouble of condescending in a manner which takes into account Tierran feeling cannot help but seem like a sign that his masters mean to at least accord your country some measure of respect.
As to the ambassador's precise intentions, you have no real inkling, even if you do believe them to be good. You suppose the King and the Privy Council will know soon enough, and you suppose those with connections to the Foreign Office will be informed soon thereafter. As for yourself, blessed with influence in neither body, you suppose you can only wait.
The rest of the evening passes without much incident. In truth, now that you've made introductions and exchanged your handful of words with the Kian ambassador, your purpose for even being present is now entirely fulfilled. Only the custom of not leaving a reception before the guest of honour keeps you present in the embassy hall, as you wait for the ambassador to finish greeting those members of the peerage from baronial houses less prominent or newer than your own.
You are, perhaps, both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised to find out just how many of them there are. Even with much of the Cortes nobility away from the capital on their estates and the social season mostly over, the Count of Leannejouwe spends the better part of the evening meeting everyone which propriety dictates he must, and that is despite the evident despatch with which he goes about the whole task. Had the Kian sent a less alacritous envoy, you suppose the process would have taken even longer.
But, thankfully, they have not. So you only spend two hours instead of four or six under the hot lights in the crowded hall, refreshing yourself at the expense of what you must imagine to be the Foreign Office budget, and waiting for that blessed moment when it might at last be considered acceptable to leave. When that happy hour at last arrives, you quickly find yourself joining a stream of others now headed for the exits. Like most formal receptions, this one has long since overstayed its welcome.
The night air hits you like a slap across the face as you step out of the warm foyer and into the darkened courtyard. It's chilly tonight, chillier than it has any right to be, even at this late hour. You can see your breath issue forth in gouts of vapour as you wait for your coach to be pulled up, and even when you're safely inside, you cannot help but regret leaving your greatcoat behind.
You spend the long ride back to your townhouse thinking upon the words of the Kian ambassador, the purpose he must have in coming to your country and the intentions he must possess.
The Kian have certainly sent their envoys in times past, and there hasn't been a time in the Unified Kingdom's history when trade betwixt your two countries wasn't a robust and profitable enterprise for the merchant houses of Havenport and Aemelliana. Yet never in the century since the Wars of Unification have they sent a full ambassador, especially not one willing to take up residence in a permanent embassy. It seems clear to you that they must have some grand design in mind, that the days of Tierra existing as a minor item on the periphery of the Kian Emperor's foreign policy are over.
The attitude of their ambassador is also a sign for encouragement. While the Kian have never been truly discourteous in their previous interactions with the Unified Kingdom, their dealings have always carried with them a level of condescension which seemed to indicate that it was a great mark of favour even to be dealt with at all. You saw very little of that tonight. However indirect the ambassador's actual speech, it seemed clear to you that he fully intended to envision your two governments as partners.
It is, in truth, a warming thought. After all, the Kian are a people possessed of fabulous wealth and prodigious capacity for industry. Whilst many of the disorders and ills which currently face the Unified Kingdom may prove quite beyond the resources of His Majesty's Government to resolve alone, the Kian Emperor would have more than enough resources to offer substantive aid, if not dispel those troubles altogether. If the Kian truly mean to help, then the Unified Kingdom may be well on its way out of its current distress.
And that is a possibility which cannot help but hearten you. The next morning brings with it a thunderstorm of tremendous fury. You wake to the sound of rain beating furiously against your windows and slashing into the cobbles like the angry strokes of ten thousand whips. You look out over the city to find the sky dark and grey and angry, a mottled swirl of cloud and fog, lit only by constant flashes of distant lightning.
Some of your servants say that they've never once seen a storm of such scale and intensity in all their years. Even the oldest of your household claim that they've only seen such weather once before, over a generation ago. As for your plans for the day, it only takes one look outside at the howling wind and the half-flooded streets to tell you that whatever you meant to do, you shall very certainly not be going outside. In fact, given the conditions present, you doubt anyone in their right minds would be caught out of doors.
Ultimately, it doesn't take you all that long to come to the obvious conclusion, that the weather has only left you one real option: to stay in your townhouse, remind yourself that it is the sound of thunder and not distant artillery that you're hearing, and wait for the weather to improve.
It doesn't.
The weather does not let up. Through the whole of the morning, the afternoon, and into the evening, it does not relent. Not the rain, not the wind, not the lightning. That night, you go to bed to the distant rumble of thunder, and the next morning, you wake to the same, and you find yourself facing the same prospect over the next day, and the next, and the next.
Outside, Aetoria seems almost deserted. The weather is far too harsh for travel, and the rain-lashed streets would seem almost empty if it weren't for the huddled forms of those who have nowhere else to go, bundled up in their threadbare cloaks and worn blankets and whatever other meagre defence they might possess against the cold and wet, their breath leaking out in vaporous puffs, their limbs shifting every so often, as if only to remind the rest of creation that they're still alive.
Only on the fourth day does the rain slacken and wind fall away enough for some life to return to the city. For the first time in half a week, the streets rumble with the sound of cartwheels as the merchants and grocers make their long-overdue deliveries. For a while, it almost seems as if the storm is receding and the worst is past, but your majordomo doesn't allow himself to fall prey to such optimism. He orders that your townhouse take on extra supplies. When you ask him to explain his actions, he tells you with a dire look in his eye that it is an eminently sensible measure, for he doesn't know if he shall have the chance to restock again anytime soon.
The precaution proves a wise one. The rain and the wind and the thunder return with a renewed fury the next day, and the next, and the next. For a full week, the storm continues, worse than before. Through it all, the days grow colder and colder. Even the extra stock of firewood your household has laid on seems inadequate for the task as you find yourself once again growing accustomed to the sensation of waking to the sight of your own breath. The rain turns to sleet, and then to snow. The city beyond your windows disappears behind a blinding, whirling mass of white. The entire house seems to rattle as the wind howls with a fury which you remember all too well from your winters in Antar.
And when the storm at last dies, you find the whole world beyond your townhouse entombed in ice and snow.
You spend the next few days coming to terms with the fact that you are, for all intents and purposes, trapped within your townhouse.
There's absolutely no possibility of getting anywhere in your coach, not with the roads so utterly clogged with snow. There's no chance of hiring a palanquin either, if any are even available in such horrid conditions. Riding or walking would be risky propositions, as well. Even the slightest covering of ice upon cobblestone imposes upon it an effect no less than than a film of grease, and you don't mean to risk injury to yourself or any of your horses in traversing such a treacherous surface, except under the most dire need.
So, you spend your first weeks of winter cooped up inside. Even as spacious as they are, your rooms offer diversion perhaps for a fortnight at most. Without the society of your peers or the attractions of the city outside at your disposal, you quickly bore of them. The books you brought with you have all been read. The practise of rising, dressing, washing, and eating becomes a tiresome ritual. With only servants for company, you sometimes wonder if there's any point to it at all. As the days grow colder still and your confinement is made even more secure by fresh heapings of snow, you begin to find yourself losing the energy even to maintain standards. All in all, it is quite a wretched experience.
But that's nothing compared to what those outside must face. You at least still have a warm hearth and plenty to eat, thanks to your majordomo's forethought. Some of those on the street possess no such luxuries. You see them sometimes, shivering bundles of rag and bone shuffling upon the icy streets, gaunt faces and wasted limbs shivering with cold. At least once a day, you see one such poor figure misjudge a step and fall to the freezing cobbles in a bone-crunching heap.
Not all of them get up again.
It is the plight of these unfortunates who at last bring a visitor to your door.
From the first glance, it's clear that she herself suffers none of the ravages of hunger or cold. Though she approaches your door with a shabby, threadbare cloak around her shoulders, those shoulders are proud and square, carrying the worn cloth less like the meagre protection of a desperate vagabond with naught else, but a much-distinguished badge of office. As for the four men who accompany her, they don't even bear that much of a disguise. Their coats are thick, clean, and lined with fur. Though they carry no swords or pistols, the stout cudgels in their hands make it quite clear that they are guards as much as servants.
As to the one who they're guarding, you can divine her purpose well enough, even before your butler comes to you with the news that Dame-Commander Lucretia d'al Cardones of the Order of Saint Octavia is here to see you.
The worthy in question proves to be a tall woman in her late middle age, her grey hair bound in the severest fashion possible.
"Do you know why I am here, my lord?" she asks as she steps into your parlour, cutting straight through any pretence or preamble.
The Order of Saint Octavia is an Order-Succorant. Its knights (and dames, for ladies of the blood also become members of such orders) are pledged to defend the weak and the dispossessed, just as knights of an Order-Militant are pledged to die on the field of battle. In that pursuit, they swear oaths of poverty and chastity, forsaking all claim to their previous lives. In most times, such orders subsist subsist quite comfortably on the bequeathed wealth of their supporters, but these are not normal times. Why a senior member of an Order of the Blue is presenting herself before you whilst the poor and the unfortunate are freezing and starving to death in one of the worst winters the city has ever faced is no mystery at all. You nod.
"Then I shall not mince words with you, sir," Dame Lucretia continues. You note with some detachment that the lady may have forsworn her fortune and her previous title, but she still acts and speaks like a lady of the blood, a member of a great noble house besides, with all the unspoken authority that carries with it. "The current situation has left many thousands in the direst of straits, and the Order is hard-pressed to offer them the aid they require. As a result, the Order is running a subscription, for the continued operation of our services to the dispossessed and vulnerable of this city. We have much need of aid, if you're willing to provide it. Even fifteen or twenty Crown may be enough to secure food and shelter for hundreds."
[X] "Are things out there really as dire as that?"
"It is worse," Dame Lucretia answers grimly, her expression taut. "The situation may not seem so unbearable here, in the wealthier parts of the city, but in the docks and the slums beyond the land walls, they have reached scales of death and suffering which is beyond imagining."
"I was a soldier in Antar for eleven years, madam," you reply, your expression equally grim. "I can imagine a great deal."
The Knight of the Blue gestures to one of the men standing behind her, a burly man with one sleeve of his coat hanging limp at his side. "Seeker Gottrick was a soldier too, before he lost his arm." She looks at him and gives him a slight nod. "Tell his lordship what it is like, in your own words."
The man steps forward, his expression haunted. "Beggin' your pardon, milord, but were you at Kharangia, after the sack?"
Kharangia after the sack. It is a phrase which conjures up images of streets clogged with dead, of gutters choked with blood, of the ever-present smell of burning flesh and rotting corpses. Kharangia had fought hard, and it had died hard, when the men of the Duke of Havenport's division revenged themselves upon the city's defenders and inhabitants for the six hundred dead it had cost to take the breach.
You nod, your eyes suddenly focusing on a point very far away from your warm parlour. "I was."
"That's what it's like down there," Gottrick replies, voice raw with the things he's seen. "Only it ain't musket balls or bayonets what kills them, but the cold and the hunger, so the bodies ain't so much corpses as skeletons wrapped in skin and rag."
Dame Lucretia nods again. "Thank you, Seeker," she says quietly, with a sad sort of pity, then she turns back to you, her expression fierce. "That is the situation in the parts of the city where the majority of its population live, and it will only get worse. Winter is not yet a third past, and many more will die before it is over." She fixes you with a steady, iron look. "I cannot promise that we might save them all, even if we are given every last coin in creation, but I can at least guarantee that if you donate, there will be men, women, and children in this city who will owe their lives to you come spring."
[X] "If I were to donate, how would my money be used?"
"We have shelters in the poorer districts, and kitchens where the poor may be fed without cost," Dame Lucretia replies. "Most have been established in the city for quite some time, and have done much to alleviate the suffering of the lower orders in past winters. However, such services require a constant income to maintain, and as our own order is forbidden from owning property, we must rely upon the kindness of benefactors to keep those facilities open."
The Knight of the Blue hesitates for a moment, as if debating whether to continue. "There…" She lets out a sigh. "There is also another consideration."
"Yes?"
She glances out the window. The snow has begun again, not with the ferocity of just a few weeks ago, but it descends all the same. "The…severity of this winter is greater than any we have seen in thirty years. Coupled with the troubles which our country has seen in recent years, such conditions have created a greater and more pressing need for our ministrations than ever before, and we are hard-pressed to muster the resources to meet such a challenge. The Order of Saint Octavia would be grateful to any who aid us at such a time, and we are fully prepared to ensure that our gratitude is made publick."
She doesn't quite say it in as many words, but you catch her meaning all the same. The Order, it seems, is willing to offer reward for contributions, not in terms of property or formal honours, but in reputation. Perhaps the Order means to publish the names of those who have donated, or offer some similar recognition. If that's the case, then the benefit would be obvious: to be named a friend to the city and to the poor at a time when Aetoria is facing such a crisis would only serve to add lustre to your name, not only among the city's poor, but among your own peers, who will certainly laud your philanthropy, even if they cannot be moved to emulate it.
[ ] [DONATE] "Very well, I shall make a donation."
-[ ] 2,000 crown.
-[ ] 1,000 crown.
-[ ] 400 crown.
-[ ] 150 crown.
-[ ] 50 crown.
-[ ] 10 crown.
-[ ] 5 crown.
[ ] [DONATE] "I fear I must decline, Dame Lucretia."
It remains far too early to make a definitive judgement on the Kian ambassador or his intentions, but you cannot help but think that he's made an excellent impression.
Certainly, you cannot imagine that his kind words are nothing more than the flourishes of diplomacy, a matter of mere civility at best and empty flattery at worst, but the fact remains that given the difference in power betwixt your two countries, even such a minor concession to the feelings of a country so inferior in population, wealth, and military power as your own is a show of good intentions by itself. That the envoy of a great power should even think to go to the trouble of condescending in a manner which takes into account Tierran feeling cannot help but seem like a sign that his masters mean to at least accord your country some measure of respect.
As to the ambassador's precise intentions, you have no real inkling, even if you do believe them to be good. You suppose the King and the Privy Council will know soon enough, and you suppose those with connections to the Foreign Office will be informed soon thereafter. As for yourself, blessed with influence in neither body, you suppose you can only wait.
The rest of the evening passes without much incident. In truth, now that you've made introductions and exchanged your handful of words with the Kian ambassador, your purpose for even being present is now entirely fulfilled. Only the custom of not leaving a reception before the guest of honour keeps you present in the embassy hall, as you wait for the ambassador to finish greeting those members of the peerage from baronial houses less prominent or newer than your own.
You are, perhaps, both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised to find out just how many of them there are. Even with much of the Cortes nobility away from the capital on their estates and the social season mostly over, the Count of Leannejouwe spends the better part of the evening meeting everyone which propriety dictates he must, and that is despite the evident despatch with which he goes about the whole task. Had the Kian sent a less alacritous envoy, you suppose the process would have taken even longer.
But, thankfully, they have not. So you only spend two hours instead of four or six under the hot lights in the crowded hall, refreshing yourself at the expense of what you must imagine to be the Foreign Office budget, and waiting for that blessed moment when it might at last be considered acceptable to leave. When that happy hour at last arrives, you quickly find yourself joining a stream of others now headed for the exits. Like most formal receptions, this one has long since overstayed its welcome.
The night air hits you like a slap across the face as you step out of the warm foyer and into the darkened courtyard. It's chilly tonight, chillier than it has any right to be, even at this late hour. You can see your breath issue forth in gouts of vapour as you wait for your coach to be pulled up, and even when you're safely inside, you cannot help but regret leaving your greatcoat behind.
You spend the long ride back to your townhouse thinking upon the words of the Kian ambassador, the purpose he must have in coming to your country and the intentions he must possess.
The Kian have certainly sent their envoys in times past, and there hasn't been a time in the Unified Kingdom's history when trade betwixt your two countries wasn't a robust and profitable enterprise for the merchant houses of Havenport and Aemelliana. Yet never in the century since the Wars of Unification have they sent a full ambassador, especially not one willing to take up residence in a permanent embassy. It seems clear to you that they must have some grand design in mind, that the days of Tierra existing as a minor item on the periphery of the Kian Emperor's foreign policy are over.
The attitude of their ambassador is also a sign for encouragement. While the Kian have never been truly discourteous in their previous interactions with the Unified Kingdom, their dealings have always carried with them a level of condescension which seemed to indicate that it was a great mark of favour even to be dealt with at all. You saw very little of that tonight. However indirect the ambassador's actual speech, it seemed clear to you that he fully intended to envision your two governments as partners.
It is, in truth, a warming thought. After all, the Kian are a people possessed of fabulous wealth and prodigious capacity for industry. Whilst many of the disorders and ills which currently face the Unified Kingdom may prove quite beyond the resources of His Majesty's Government to resolve alone, the Kian Emperor would have more than enough resources to offer substantive aid, if not dispel those troubles altogether. If the Kian truly mean to help, then the Unified Kingdom may be well on its way out of its current distress.
And that is a possibility which cannot help but hearten you. The next morning brings with it a thunderstorm of tremendous fury. You wake to the sound of rain beating furiously against your windows and slashing into the cobbles like the angry strokes of ten thousand whips. You look out over the city to find the sky dark and grey and angry, a mottled swirl of cloud and fog, lit only by constant flashes of distant lightning.
Some of your servants say that they've never once seen a storm of such scale and intensity in all their years. Even the oldest of your household claim that they've only seen such weather once before, over a generation ago. As for your plans for the day, it only takes one look outside at the howling wind and the half-flooded streets to tell you that whatever you meant to do, you shall very certainly not be going outside. In fact, given the conditions present, you doubt anyone in their right minds would be caught out of doors.
Ultimately, it doesn't take you all that long to come to the obvious conclusion, that the weather has only left you one real option: to stay in your townhouse, remind yourself that it is the sound of thunder and not distant artillery that you're hearing, and wait for the weather to improve.
It doesn't.
The weather does not let up. Through the whole of the morning, the afternoon, and into the evening, it does not relent. Not the rain, not the wind, not the lightning. That night, you go to bed to the distant rumble of thunder, and the next morning, you wake to the same, and you find yourself facing the same prospect over the next day, and the next, and the next.
Outside, Aetoria seems almost deserted. The weather is far too harsh for travel, and the rain-lashed streets would seem almost empty if it weren't for the huddled forms of those who have nowhere else to go, bundled up in their threadbare cloaks and worn blankets and whatever other meagre defence they might possess against the cold and wet, their breath leaking out in vaporous puffs, their limbs shifting every so often, as if only to remind the rest of creation that they're still alive.
Only on the fourth day does the rain slacken and wind fall away enough for some life to return to the city. For the first time in half a week, the streets rumble with the sound of cartwheels as the merchants and grocers make their long-overdue deliveries. For a while, it almost seems as if the storm is receding and the worst is past, but your majordomo doesn't allow himself to fall prey to such optimism. He orders that your townhouse take on extra supplies. When you ask him to explain his actions, he tells you with a dire look in his eye that it is an eminently sensible measure, for he doesn't know if he shall have the chance to restock again anytime soon.
The precaution proves a wise one. The rain and the wind and the thunder return with a renewed fury the next day, and the next, and the next. For a full week, the storm continues, worse than before. Through it all, the days grow colder and colder. Even the extra stock of firewood your household has laid on seems inadequate for the task as you find yourself once again growing accustomed to the sensation of waking to the sight of your own breath. The rain turns to sleet, and then to snow. The city beyond your windows disappears behind a blinding, whirling mass of white. The entire house seems to rattle as the wind howls with a fury which you remember all too well from your winters in Antar.
And when the storm at last dies, you find the whole world beyond your townhouse entombed in ice and snow.
You spend the next few days coming to terms with the fact that you are, for all intents and purposes, trapped within your townhouse.
There's absolutely no possibility of getting anywhere in your coach, not with the roads so utterly clogged with snow. There's no chance of hiring a palanquin either, if any are even available in such horrid conditions. Riding or walking would be risky propositions, as well. Even the slightest covering of ice upon cobblestone imposes upon it an effect no less than than a film of grease, and you don't mean to risk injury to yourself or any of your horses in traversing such a treacherous surface, except under the most dire need.
So, you spend your first weeks of winter cooped up inside. Even as spacious as they are, your rooms offer diversion perhaps for a fortnight at most. Without the society of your peers or the attractions of the city outside at your disposal, you quickly bore of them. The books you brought with you have all been read. The practise of rising, dressing, washing, and eating becomes a tiresome ritual. With only servants for company, you sometimes wonder if there's any point to it at all. As the days grow colder still and your confinement is made even more secure by fresh heapings of snow, you begin to find yourself losing the energy even to maintain standards. All in all, it is quite a wretched experience.
But that's nothing compared to what those outside must face. You at least still have a warm hearth and plenty to eat, thanks to your majordomo's forethought. Some of those on the street possess no such luxuries. You see them sometimes, shivering bundles of rag and bone shuffling upon the icy streets, gaunt faces and wasted limbs shivering with cold. At least once a day, you see one such poor figure misjudge a step and fall to the freezing cobbles in a bone-crunching heap.
Not all of them get up again.
It is the plight of these unfortunates who at last bring a visitor to your door.
From the first glance, it's clear that she herself suffers none of the ravages of hunger or cold. Though she approaches your door with a shabby, threadbare cloak around her shoulders, those shoulders are proud and square, carrying the worn cloth less like the meagre protection of a desperate vagabond with naught else, but a much-distinguished badge of office. As for the four men who accompany her, they don't even bear that much of a disguise. Their coats are thick, clean, and lined with fur. Though they carry no swords or pistols, the stout cudgels in their hands make it quite clear that they are guards as much as servants.
As to the one who they're guarding, you can divine her purpose well enough, even before your butler comes to you with the news that Dame-Commander Lucretia d'al Cardones of the Order of Saint Octavia is here to see you.
The worthy in question proves to be a tall woman in her late middle age, her grey hair bound in the severest fashion possible.
"Do you know why I am here, my lord?" she asks as she steps into your parlour, cutting straight through any pretence or preamble.
The Order of Saint Octavia is an Order-Succorant. Its knights (and dames, for ladies of the blood also become members of such orders) are pledged to defend the weak and the dispossessed, just as knights of an Order-Militant are pledged to die on the field of battle. In that pursuit, they swear oaths of poverty and chastity, forsaking all claim to their previous lives. In most times, such orders subsist subsist quite comfortably on the bequeathed wealth of their supporters, but these are not normal times. Why a senior member of an Order of the Blue is presenting herself before you whilst the poor and the unfortunate are freezing and starving to death in one of the worst winters the city has ever faced is no mystery at all. You nod.
"Then I shall not mince words with you, sir," Dame Lucretia continues. You note with some detachment that the lady may have forsworn her fortune and her previous title, but she still acts and speaks like a lady of the blood, a member of a great noble house besides, with all the unspoken authority that carries with it. "The current situation has left many thousands in the direst of straits, and the Order is hard-pressed to offer them the aid they require. As a result, the Order is running a subscription, for the continued operation of our services to the dispossessed and vulnerable of this city. We have much need of aid, if you're willing to provide it. Even fifteen or twenty Crown may be enough to secure food and shelter for hundreds."
[X] "Are things out there really as dire as that?"
"It is worse," Dame Lucretia answers grimly, her expression taut. "The situation may not seem so unbearable here, in the wealthier parts of the city, but in the docks and the slums beyond the land walls, they have reached scales of death and suffering which is beyond imagining."
"I was a soldier in Antar for eleven years, madam," you reply, your expression equally grim. "I can imagine a great deal."
The Knight of the Blue gestures to one of the men standing behind her, a burly man with one sleeve of his coat hanging limp at his side. "Seeker Gottrick was a soldier too, before he lost his arm." She looks at him and gives him a slight nod. "Tell his lordship what it is like, in your own words."
The man steps forward, his expression haunted. "Beggin' your pardon, milord, but were you at Kharangia, after the sack?"
Kharangia after the sack. It is a phrase which conjures up images of streets clogged with dead, of gutters choked with blood, of the ever-present smell of burning flesh and rotting corpses. Kharangia had fought hard, and it had died hard, when the men of the Duke of Havenport's division revenged themselves upon the city's defenders and inhabitants for the six hundred dead it had cost to take the breach.
You nod, your eyes suddenly focusing on a point very far away from your warm parlour. "I was."
"That's what it's like down there," Gottrick replies, voice raw with the things he's seen. "Only it ain't musket balls or bayonets what kills them, but the cold and the hunger, so the bodies ain't so much corpses as skeletons wrapped in skin and rag."
Dame Lucretia nods again. "Thank you, Seeker," she says quietly, with a sad sort of pity, then she turns back to you, her expression fierce. "That is the situation in the parts of the city where the majority of its population live, and it will only get worse. Winter is not yet a third past, and many more will die before it is over." She fixes you with a steady, iron look. "I cannot promise that we might save them all, even if we are given every last coin in creation, but I can at least guarantee that if you donate, there will be men, women, and children in this city who will owe their lives to you come spring."
[X] "If I were to donate, how would my money be used?"
"We have shelters in the poorer districts, and kitchens where the poor may be fed without cost," Dame Lucretia replies. "Most have been established in the city for quite some time, and have done much to alleviate the suffering of the lower orders in past winters. However, such services require a constant income to maintain, and as our own order is forbidden from owning property, we must rely upon the kindness of benefactors to keep those facilities open."
The Knight of the Blue hesitates for a moment, as if debating whether to continue. "There…" She lets out a sigh. "There is also another consideration."
"Yes?"
She glances out the window. The snow has begun again, not with the ferocity of just a few weeks ago, but it descends all the same. "The…severity of this winter is greater than any we have seen in thirty years. Coupled with the troubles which our country has seen in recent years, such conditions have created a greater and more pressing need for our ministrations than ever before, and we are hard-pressed to muster the resources to meet such a challenge. The Order of Saint Octavia would be grateful to any who aid us at such a time, and we are fully prepared to ensure that our gratitude is made publick."
She doesn't quite say it in as many words, but you catch her meaning all the same. The Order, it seems, is willing to offer reward for contributions, not in terms of property or formal honours, but in reputation. Perhaps the Order means to publish the names of those who have donated, or offer some similar recognition. If that's the case, then the benefit would be obvious: to be named a friend to the city and to the poor at a time when Aetoria is facing such a crisis would only serve to add lustre to your name, not only among the city's poor, but among your own peers, who will certainly laud your philanthropy, even if they cannot be moved to emulate it.
[ ] [DONATE] "Very well, I shall make a donation."
-[ ] 2,000 crown.
-[ ] 1,000 crown.
-[ ] 400 crown.
-[ ] 150 crown.
-[ ] 50 crown.
-[ ] 10 crown.
-[ ] 5 crown.
[ ] [DONATE] "I fear I must decline, Dame Lucretia."
- Pronouns
- They/Them
-[ ] 400 crown.
-[ ] 150 crown.
One of these. Even 150 Crowns isn't actually a small donation either for our budget or in terms of what it can buy if spent well...
-[ ] 150 crown.
One of these. Even 150 Crowns isn't actually a small donation either for our budget or in terms of what it can buy if spent well...
- Pronouns
- He
[X] [DONATE] "Very well, I shall make a donation."
-[X] 150 crown.
-[X] 150 crown.
Lords 4.03
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] "Very well, I shall make a donation."
Dame Lucretia nods, her cold expression warmed with the slightest hint of genuine thanks.
"You have my gratitude, my lord," she says as she gestures to one of the men behind her. "Seeker Moreno will make the appropriate arrangements."
The man in question steps forward, pulling out a folder stuffed with papers from inside his coat. He peels off one small piece of paper, a bill of exchange in rich vellum, its borders decorated in embossed flourishes. The Order of Saint Octavia may require a vow of poverty, but it seems that such restrictions do not apply to the stationary with which they do their charitable work.
A quick glance seems to show everything in order, all that's missing is your signature and the amount you wish to donate.
You currently have 2,677 crown available.
[X] 150 crown.
Dame Lucretia looks over the bill of exchange as you hand it to her, signed and stamped. Her eyes widen for the slightest moment, then settle again. As to the reason for her reaction, you detect no sign. Perhaps you donated more than she expected. Perhaps you have given less.
She certainly doesn't offer you any clues. With a pleasant but rather chilly expression, she hands off the bill to one of her seekers and inclines her head in gratitude. "The Order of Saint Octavia thanks you for your contribution, my lord. I am sure those who will be fed, clothed, or sheltered by your donation will appreciate what you have done for them. Saints go with you."
You watch the Knight of the Blue set back off into the snow, her seekers following after her, likely off to the next house on their list of potential donors. You suppose it will be some time before you hear any word of what good your contribution might have done for the city's poor and homeless, and even then, you're not sure how easily any difference might be measured. It is one thing to count bodies; it is quite another to look at a living man and determine whether he's only alive because of the exertions of some other party.
But you suppose that's beside the point. The fact of the matter is that you made a contribution, that someone out there will have a full belly, or a bed, or a new cloak to ward off the chill because of the money you gave today. As far as you're concerned, that's all you need to know.
Weeks pass, and the weather outside seems to get even worse. The wind howls, the snow falls, and there's nothing you have left to you but to sit in your string of cloud-darkened rooms and wait it out.
There are times when you idly wonder if this is more than merely a particularly severe winter, if the constant snow and declining temperatures are the harbingers of some even more terrible season. Perhaps the time of warmth and sun is over for good. Perhaps the summer previous will truly be the last one, and the months to come will be nothing more than a slow dying off, as the whole of creation is encased under a tomb of ice and snow.
Perhaps creation is ending.
But no, it is only an idle fantasy. One day, the temperature begins to rise. At first, it is only the thermometer which seems to offer any real indication of improvement, but soon enough, you can see the evidence for yourself. The sun begins to peek out of the clouds. The snow abates, the wind even seems to let up a little. When you see the first trickle of snowmelt on the streets, it comes almost as a shock.
Slowly, hesitantly, the city begins to emerge from its hibernation. There's movement on the streets again, but not for the purposes of travel or commerce—the ice-slick roads are still too treacherous for that. No, they're only here to clean up the human wreckage that winter's retreat has left behind. Beyond your frost-rimed windows, the sky is filled with dark, oily columns of smoke rising into the grey clouds: pyres for the dead that the snow and ice have at last given up. Aetoria's priorities are those of a city just recently besieged: first, burn the dead; then ensure that the enemy is truly gone.
Only after that, after a week without fresh snow, after the roads are finally cleared of ice, does the process of revival at last begin.
Aetoria returns to life tentatively, and then all at once, like the feeling of an over-constricted limb. Within days, the city's arteries are full of people, and as the skies finally clear and the sun begins to whisk away the last vestiges of winter, the mail coaches and ships arrive in the capital once more, bringing with them the first of the vast thousands who make up Aetoria's seasonal population. With them are many of your fellow Lords of the Cortes and their families, bringing with them servants, furnishings, and a thousand other possessions, brought from their country estates in a painstaking, time-consuming process which might take weeks to prepare.
For someone who has spent much of his life ready to shift billets on an hour's notice, the idea of wasting so much time and effort for such a purpose on a regular basis almost boggles the mind; and yet, when winter threatens, they will pack up into their coaches and their ships and decamp once more for country seats or winter homes and repeat the process all over again.
But until then, they bring with them the additions to the city's social and political life who had been absent and much-missed during the long winter months.
There are other arrivals, too. Intendancy couriers riding into the countryside, mail packets gliding into port. With the roads clear and the last of the spring storms fading, fresh word arrives from all over the Unified Kingdom.
Including from your estate.
Loch sends you both good news and ill.
The good news is that your estate manager's efforts to integrate the Antari refugees into your fief appear to have paid off handsomely. In less than a year, they've made themselves part of the community, not only enriching it with their labour and their custom, but becoming so well-founded in your lands that they're already volunteering to pay the same rents your other tenants must—something which Loch seems confident will do much to combat the perception that the Antari are merely taking advantage of your estate manager's sentimentality for his homeland.
Indeed, so salient has been the success of Loch's resettlement programme that even those outside of your fief are taking note. If Loch is to be believed, then other estates are also taking up the idea of settling their own communities of Antari war refugees. If that truly is the case, then it certainly reflects well upon your estate manager—not to mention you, for selecting him.
Unfortunately, Loch also writes you regarding more troubling developments.
Your estate manager writes of a new threat: roadsmen, like those who accosted you on the road last year. Only these new brigands seem to be in no mood for talking. Already, they have killed two of your tenants, and there is fear that they may bedevil your lands for the whole of the spring and summer.
Faced with such a threat, your estate manager promises that he will do everything possible to see the danger confronted and driven off. You can only hope that such confidence is warranted. Loch is a superb soldier, you've seen that for yourself, and he has led half-trained farmers into battle before. Yet to your tenants, he is still a foreigner, and you have some reason to worry that he doesn't yet understand the Tierran freeman well enough to lead them through such a crisis.
Part of you wishes you could be there, to take control of the situation yourself. But it is in Aetoria that you're needed. All you can do is wait for further word and look through the season's reports in the hope that you'll find some way to offer aid…
Your estate manager, Karol of Loch, reports that 6 new rent-paying households moved into your fief in the past few months. He also reports that 3 households have been driven away from your fief by their dissatisfaction with the way things are being run, and 4 households have left your fief in search of better opportunities elsewhere.
Your estate manager also reports that your fief's relatively low rents allow your tenants some measure of surplus coin, which invariably offers some small increase to prosperity and contentment. He also reports that he has ordered the reinforcement of the wall around your manor, to further improve its security. In addition, you receive a letter from your bank regarding the confirmation of the special loan which you arranged some months ago—along with assurances that your interest rates have not increased as a result.
In addition, your agent reports that there's been a particularly violent brawl in the public house of your village. Though you cannot speak as to the exact cause, you suspect that it might have something to do with the general air of insolence and discontent amongst your tenants as of late. After all, when they're made sullen or angry by factors beyond their influence, the baneless quite naturally turn to violence, and lacking any other outlet, they would just as naturally turn upon each other.
Whatever the reason, the result has been several grievous injuries, including one which may well prove fatal. The interior of the public house was so damaged that the establishment must close to effect repairs—a substantial blow to the commercial life of the village. Worse yet, news of the brawl has spread throughout the region, something which is sure to give your barony a reputation as a violent, lawless place.
Needless to say, it is not welcome news.
With the latest reports taken into account, your current financial situation is as follows:
Bi-Annual Revenues
Rents: 597 Crown
Personal Income: 180 Crown
Bi-Annual Expenditures
Estate Wages: 175 Crown
Food and Necessities: 75 Crown
Luxuries and Allowances: 150 Crown
Groundskeeping and Maintenance: 50 Crown
Townhouse Rent: 135 Crown
Townhouse Wages: 60 Crown
Interest Payments: 174 Crown
Special Expenses: 0 Crown
Total Net Income (Next Six Months): -42 Crown
New Loans: 0 Crown
Current Wealth: 2,515 Crown
Projected Wealth Next Half-Year: 2,473
What do you wish to do?
[ ] [REPAY] I wish to pay off some of my family's debts. (Write in)
[ ] [REPAY] I wish to turn my attention to other matters.
[ ] [DEBT] I must try to renegotiate the interest on my loans.
[ ] [DEBT] I wish to turn my attention to other matters.
[ ] [DEBT] I mean to ask for a modest loan; 1000 crown, perhaps?
[ ] [DEBT] I am in need of a sizeable loan, 2500 crown or so.
[ ] [DEBT] I shall require a great deal of money; 5000 crown, at least.
[ ] [DEBT] I'll draw upon my connections to arrange a new loan on more favourable terms.
- [ ] I will see what friends in the capital are willing to assist me.
- [ ] Perhaps the Shipowners can offer me some assistance here.
[X] I should send some money home, to help improve my fief.
Were you physically present at your estate, you would be able to order the construction of new additions and improvements directly. However, as you're in Aetoria, you shall have to rely upon the judgement and good offices of your estate manager to order what construction he sees fit.
Of course, your estate manager cannot order any construction at all unless he has the money to afford it, and as your manager has no substantial independent wealth of his own, the burden of payment falls upon you, as lord of the estate. Should you wish your estate improved in any way, you shall have to send him enough money to pay for it.
At the moment, you have 2,515 crown available to send to your estate manager. So far, you've sent a total of 1,500 crown to your estate in total. Judging by his current reports, your manager should have something like 0 crown currently available to him.
According to his report, your estate manager is currently planning on repairing your fief's roads. To do this, he'll require an additional 500 crown.
How much will you send?
[ ] [LOCH] Let's fill up those potholes! (-500 Crown)
[ ] [LOCH] I can't afford to fix the roads right now.
[ ] [LOCH] I'll write in a different amount.
[X] I would like to manage my investments.
You currently have 0 crown in investments.
You can afford to invest 2515 crown. Do not forget that larger investments may boost overall confidence in the Exchange as a whole—and improve the opinion of other Shipowners' Club members.
How much do you intend to invest?
[ ] [INVEST] I would like to invest 1000 crown.
[ ] [INVEST] I mean to invest 2500 crown.
[ ] [INVEST] I am investing 5000 crown. (Requires a loan of at least 2,500 crown)
[ ] [INVEST] I must think upon the matter more.
Dame Lucretia nods, her cold expression warmed with the slightest hint of genuine thanks.
"You have my gratitude, my lord," she says as she gestures to one of the men behind her. "Seeker Moreno will make the appropriate arrangements."
The man in question steps forward, pulling out a folder stuffed with papers from inside his coat. He peels off one small piece of paper, a bill of exchange in rich vellum, its borders decorated in embossed flourishes. The Order of Saint Octavia may require a vow of poverty, but it seems that such restrictions do not apply to the stationary with which they do their charitable work.
A quick glance seems to show everything in order, all that's missing is your signature and the amount you wish to donate.
You currently have 2,677 crown available.
[X] 150 crown.
Dame Lucretia looks over the bill of exchange as you hand it to her, signed and stamped. Her eyes widen for the slightest moment, then settle again. As to the reason for her reaction, you detect no sign. Perhaps you donated more than she expected. Perhaps you have given less.
She certainly doesn't offer you any clues. With a pleasant but rather chilly expression, she hands off the bill to one of her seekers and inclines her head in gratitude. "The Order of Saint Octavia thanks you for your contribution, my lord. I am sure those who will be fed, clothed, or sheltered by your donation will appreciate what you have done for them. Saints go with you."
You watch the Knight of the Blue set back off into the snow, her seekers following after her, likely off to the next house on their list of potential donors. You suppose it will be some time before you hear any word of what good your contribution might have done for the city's poor and homeless, and even then, you're not sure how easily any difference might be measured. It is one thing to count bodies; it is quite another to look at a living man and determine whether he's only alive because of the exertions of some other party.
But you suppose that's beside the point. The fact of the matter is that you made a contribution, that someone out there will have a full belly, or a bed, or a new cloak to ward off the chill because of the money you gave today. As far as you're concerned, that's all you need to know.
-
Weeks pass, and the weather outside seems to get even worse. The wind howls, the snow falls, and there's nothing you have left to you but to sit in your string of cloud-darkened rooms and wait it out.
There are times when you idly wonder if this is more than merely a particularly severe winter, if the constant snow and declining temperatures are the harbingers of some even more terrible season. Perhaps the time of warmth and sun is over for good. Perhaps the summer previous will truly be the last one, and the months to come will be nothing more than a slow dying off, as the whole of creation is encased under a tomb of ice and snow.
Perhaps creation is ending.
But no, it is only an idle fantasy. One day, the temperature begins to rise. At first, it is only the thermometer which seems to offer any real indication of improvement, but soon enough, you can see the evidence for yourself. The sun begins to peek out of the clouds. The snow abates, the wind even seems to let up a little. When you see the first trickle of snowmelt on the streets, it comes almost as a shock.
Slowly, hesitantly, the city begins to emerge from its hibernation. There's movement on the streets again, but not for the purposes of travel or commerce—the ice-slick roads are still too treacherous for that. No, they're only here to clean up the human wreckage that winter's retreat has left behind. Beyond your frost-rimed windows, the sky is filled with dark, oily columns of smoke rising into the grey clouds: pyres for the dead that the snow and ice have at last given up. Aetoria's priorities are those of a city just recently besieged: first, burn the dead; then ensure that the enemy is truly gone.
Only after that, after a week without fresh snow, after the roads are finally cleared of ice, does the process of revival at last begin.
Aetoria returns to life tentatively, and then all at once, like the feeling of an over-constricted limb. Within days, the city's arteries are full of people, and as the skies finally clear and the sun begins to whisk away the last vestiges of winter, the mail coaches and ships arrive in the capital once more, bringing with them the first of the vast thousands who make up Aetoria's seasonal population. With them are many of your fellow Lords of the Cortes and their families, bringing with them servants, furnishings, and a thousand other possessions, brought from their country estates in a painstaking, time-consuming process which might take weeks to prepare.
For someone who has spent much of his life ready to shift billets on an hour's notice, the idea of wasting so much time and effort for such a purpose on a regular basis almost boggles the mind; and yet, when winter threatens, they will pack up into their coaches and their ships and decamp once more for country seats or winter homes and repeat the process all over again.
But until then, they bring with them the additions to the city's social and political life who had been absent and much-missed during the long winter months.
There are other arrivals, too. Intendancy couriers riding into the countryside, mail packets gliding into port. With the roads clear and the last of the spring storms fading, fresh word arrives from all over the Unified Kingdom.
Including from your estate.
The good news is that your estate manager's efforts to integrate the Antari refugees into your fief appear to have paid off handsomely. In less than a year, they've made themselves part of the community, not only enriching it with their labour and their custom, but becoming so well-founded in your lands that they're already volunteering to pay the same rents your other tenants must—something which Loch seems confident will do much to combat the perception that the Antari are merely taking advantage of your estate manager's sentimentality for his homeland.
Indeed, so salient has been the success of Loch's resettlement programme that even those outside of your fief are taking note. If Loch is to be believed, then other estates are also taking up the idea of settling their own communities of Antari war refugees. If that truly is the case, then it certainly reflects well upon your estate manager—not to mention you, for selecting him.
Unfortunately, Loch also writes you regarding more troubling developments.
Your estate manager writes of a new threat: roadsmen, like those who accosted you on the road last year. Only these new brigands seem to be in no mood for talking. Already, they have killed two of your tenants, and there is fear that they may bedevil your lands for the whole of the spring and summer.
Faced with such a threat, your estate manager promises that he will do everything possible to see the danger confronted and driven off. You can only hope that such confidence is warranted. Loch is a superb soldier, you've seen that for yourself, and he has led half-trained farmers into battle before. Yet to your tenants, he is still a foreigner, and you have some reason to worry that he doesn't yet understand the Tierran freeman well enough to lead them through such a crisis.
Part of you wishes you could be there, to take control of the situation yourself. But it is in Aetoria that you're needed. All you can do is wait for further word and look through the season's reports in the hope that you'll find some way to offer aid…
Your estate manager, Karol of Loch, reports that 6 new rent-paying households moved into your fief in the past few months. He also reports that 3 households have been driven away from your fief by their dissatisfaction with the way things are being run, and 4 households have left your fief in search of better opportunities elsewhere.
Your estate manager also reports that your fief's relatively low rents allow your tenants some measure of surplus coin, which invariably offers some small increase to prosperity and contentment. He also reports that he has ordered the reinforcement of the wall around your manor, to further improve its security. In addition, you receive a letter from your bank regarding the confirmation of the special loan which you arranged some months ago—along with assurances that your interest rates have not increased as a result.
In addition, your agent reports that there's been a particularly violent brawl in the public house of your village. Though you cannot speak as to the exact cause, you suspect that it might have something to do with the general air of insolence and discontent amongst your tenants as of late. After all, when they're made sullen or angry by factors beyond their influence, the baneless quite naturally turn to violence, and lacking any other outlet, they would just as naturally turn upon each other.
Whatever the reason, the result has been several grievous injuries, including one which may well prove fatal. The interior of the public house was so damaged that the establishment must close to effect repairs—a substantial blow to the commercial life of the village. Worse yet, news of the brawl has spread throughout the region, something which is sure to give your barony a reputation as a violent, lawless place.
Needless to say, it is not welcome news.
-
With the latest reports taken into account, your current financial situation is as follows:
Bi-Annual Revenues
Rents: 597 Crown
Personal Income: 180 Crown
Bi-Annual Expenditures
Estate Wages: 175 Crown
Food and Necessities: 75 Crown
Luxuries and Allowances: 150 Crown
Groundskeeping and Maintenance: 50 Crown
Townhouse Rent: 135 Crown
Townhouse Wages: 60 Crown
Interest Payments: 174 Crown
Special Expenses: 0 Crown
Total Net Income (Next Six Months): -42 Crown
New Loans: 0 Crown
Current Wealth: 2,515 Crown
Projected Wealth Next Half-Year: 2,473
What do you wish to do?
-
[ ] [REPAY] I wish to pay off some of my family's debts. (Write in)
[ ] [REPAY] I wish to turn my attention to other matters.
[ ] [DEBT] I wish to turn my attention to other matters.
[ ] [DEBT] I mean to ask for a modest loan; 1000 crown, perhaps?
[ ] [DEBT] I am in need of a sizeable loan, 2500 crown or so.
[ ] [DEBT] I shall require a great deal of money; 5000 crown, at least.
[ ] [DEBT] I'll draw upon my connections to arrange a new loan on more favourable terms.
- [ ] I will see what friends in the capital are willing to assist me.
- [ ] Perhaps the Shipowners can offer me some assistance here.
-
[X] I should send some money home, to help improve my fief.
Were you physically present at your estate, you would be able to order the construction of new additions and improvements directly. However, as you're in Aetoria, you shall have to rely upon the judgement and good offices of your estate manager to order what construction he sees fit.
Of course, your estate manager cannot order any construction at all unless he has the money to afford it, and as your manager has no substantial independent wealth of his own, the burden of payment falls upon you, as lord of the estate. Should you wish your estate improved in any way, you shall have to send him enough money to pay for it.
At the moment, you have 2,515 crown available to send to your estate manager. So far, you've sent a total of 1,500 crown to your estate in total. Judging by his current reports, your manager should have something like 0 crown currently available to him.
According to his report, your estate manager is currently planning on repairing your fief's roads. To do this, he'll require an additional 500 crown.
How much will you send?
[ ] [LOCH] Let's fill up those potholes! (-500 Crown)
[ ] [LOCH] I can't afford to fix the roads right now.
[ ] [LOCH] I'll write in a different amount.
-
[X] I would like to manage my investments.
You currently have 0 crown in investments.
You can afford to invest 2515 crown. Do not forget that larger investments may boost overall confidence in the Exchange as a whole—and improve the opinion of other Shipowners' Club members.
How much do you intend to invest?
[ ] [INVEST] I would like to invest 1000 crown.
[ ] [INVEST] I mean to invest 2500 crown.
[ ] [INVEST] I am investing 5000 crown. (Requires a loan of at least 2,500 crown)
[ ] [INVEST] I must think upon the matter more.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] [LOCH] Let's fill up those potholes! (-500 Crown)
[X] [INVEST] I must think upon the matter more.
[X] [INVEST] I must think upon the matter more.
Lords 4.04
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] [LOCH] Let's fill up those potholes! (-500 Crown)
You draw up the appropriate papers authorising your estate manager to draw on your funds, then send them off. Now, you can only wait for the appropriate acknowledgements.
And hope that your estate manager uses the funds you've given him access to wisely.
There's other news too, from within the city, made known to you as the broadsheets resume their business after the long, harsh winter: when the King opens Cortes for the year, the Duke of Wulfram once again seeks to bring forth his bill to freeze the Crown's spending and end the war taxes. With the city still reeling from the effects of the winter and some streets still strewn with the bodies of those who didn't survive it, there's no small chance that publick sentiment may be enough to give the motion a majority in the chamber, though there's no doubt that the King's party will do its utmost to prevent such an outcome.
It is a situation of the most precarious nature, when even the slightest impetus might be enough to shift the balance of power in the Cortes—an impetus even you might now possess enough influence to provide.
When the Duke of Wulfram first presented his bill the year previous, you were just lately established in the Capital. Your allegiances and alignments were as of yet not set in stone. That first year had been most instructive, both in the workings of Aetoria's society and in the dynamics of the Cortes Chamber itself. Now, you've learned all the lessons and acquired all the skills you'll need to exert your own force upon the politickal sphere, and perhaps even the course of the Unified Kingdom itself…if you should wish to.
There are other options available to you. Aetoria during the social season is nothing if not without diversions. With the Shipowners Club's doors once again open, you have the opportunity to commit yourself wholly to its social life, and to increase your own influence within its ranks. After all, if you were to possess the ability to mobilise the whole or even a significant fraction of your club's membership and commit them into an enterprise of your choosing, you would have command over a potent force, indeed.
And your club isn't your only avenue for increasing your influence and reputation in the city. In Aetoria, every connection and every possession can be turned into a means of furthering advancement, and your townhouse is no exception. One could do a great deal of good for one's stature by entertaining prominent neighbours and local notables. If you could suitably impress such folk with your generosity as a host, you may find yourself winning allies who would have otherwise been out of your reach.
And speaking of allies…
It seems that the Dowager Viscountess Wolfswood has not been idle: she has brought the effort to raise her heroic son to sainthood to the very capital. Indeed, there is to be a series of meetings of such supporters throughout the season—and you've been sent a standing invitation. Perhaps you ought to attend?
Of course, any effort to honour the dead cannot neglect the living. There are still your friends and acquaintances within the city to think about, as well. Ever since you came to Aetoria, you've had little time or opportunity to seek out their company. Perhaps it's time to make a long-overdue call?
Whatever your intentions, you've little need for particular haste. With spring not yet over and summer still weeks away, you have plenty of time to fulfil them.
[X] I would like to make some calls upon my friends and acquaintances.
The process of acquiring permission for a social call amongst Aetoria's baneblooded classes is a complicated one, an intricate ritual of call and response. First, you must have made for you a set of visiting cards: small cards cut from the thickest and richest stock available, embossed with your name, titles, and any other embellishments which might be considered sufficiently tasteful for your given station and influence. Then, you must send your butler round to the addresses of every single one of your friends or acquaintances within the city and request permission for you to visit in person by depositing one of your visiting cards in the ornate bowl set in the front room of each townhouse specifically for the purpose.
If one of the individuals thus approached sees fit to accept your request, you can in turn expect a visiting card of their own, deposited in the card bowl of your own townhouse. Only upon receipt of such a response would you have leave to visit yourself. To ignore or otherwise miscarry any of these steps would be considered the height of rudeness, fit to do such damage to your reputation that intentionally doing so would be considered a form of social suicide.
So, you dance the steps as you're directed. Your butler goes out with your cards, and over the next few days, you await replies.
Your first response comes two days later. It is of a sort which seems rather different from the regular variety of visiting card, and it is almost with a direct shock that you realise it is of the same make as those used by the royal family. Yet a look at the decorative embroidery around the margins makes it clear that the sender is no royal. There are none of the traditional symbols of the House of Rendower, no towers, no gryphons among the embellishments. It is only when you turn the card over and see Eleanora, Countess Welles stamped in bold, black letters at its centre that you realise the identity of its sender.
Two days later, you get another reply, and you're not quite sure what to make of it.
It has the form of a visiting card, that is to be sure. The embossing is tasteful if unfamiliar, and the lettering is legible and entirely clear. But there are half a dozen things off about it. The shape is slightly too narrow, the size just a little too large, and the stock it is cut from isn't the familiar bone or cream you'd expect, but a white bleached so blindingly that you might as well be staring directly into the sun. It's almost as if whoever set the specifications for the card in question didn't quite understand its purpose and meaning. When you notice Lord Cassius vam Holt's name written quite clearly in both Tierran and Takaran calligraphy on the card's face, you're less than surprised.
You get one last reply a few days later. It comes in the form of a card which is almost awesome in its understated elegance. At first glance, it seems as if there could be nothing more mundane, a card fit for a particularly prosperous grocer or a poor baronet. The unadorned surface lacks even the slightest hint of embossing.
And yet the more you examine it, the more its details unveil themselves before your eyes, like a painting with a fresh allusion to notice with each new viewing. You spend what almost seems like half a day admiring it as you hold it up against the light, marvelling at the tasteful thickness of it, the subtle off-white colouring. Saints above, it even has a watermark.
You know who the card belongs to before you even read the letters, yet you know you must see it, if only to disprove the voice at the back of your head which tells you that your conclusion is quite impossible. You flip the card over and see the evidence for yourself, in lettering which seems if nothing else like a master's calligraphy reduced to its simplest essence: Emile d'al Harris, Duke of Warburton.
You look at the cards sitting in the bowl in the entry hall of your townhouse, considering your options… You return to the bowl still sitting in the entry hall of your townhouse. There are still cards there, standing invitations from those of your friends and acquaintances who might welcome a visit.
Perhaps you should call upon one of them?
[X] I mean to see about enhancing my reputation and influence.
When you were a King's officer, the ability to shape your own reputation and the dimensions of your influence were generally outside of your direct control. You had to take opportunities where you found them: the potential for an act of valour on the field of battle, a chance meeting in a garrison town. The exigencies of war decided where you went, whom you met, and how you were to meet them. Military discipline determined the options for social advancement available to you.
But now, you're a soldier no longer. Free from the dictates of strategic imperatives, supply lines, and the orders of your superior officers, you have every liberty to seize whatever chance you might find. As a member of a respectable club and resident in the city with a household of your own, you find yourself within reach of a great many chances, indeed.
Your club offers the chiefest opportunity, of course. In no other setting might you find yourself included amongst so many gentlemen of the blood possessed of the wealth and reputation to do your own stature good. To be a member in good standing is to be a part of the whole, to be able to count on the support and friendship of all others who may call your club their own. To achieve and maintain such a position will magnify your powers many-fold, allowing you to exert a level of influence far in disproportion to your relatively humble rank and fortune—something which is sure to prove helpful in the pursuit of your social and political ambitions.
But that doesn't mean there aren't other options to garner influence outside your club. Many of your neighbours are also men of affairs, or barring that, at least men of high fashion. You might do well to cultivate them instead. If you were to play the part of the gracious host and set a sufficiently grand table to make that reputation stick, then your neighbours too could become your allies.
You lay out your options before you, considering them carefully…
[X] The Cortes cannot be ignored, and I mean to devote some time to its affairs.
It would be fair to say that the Cortes has never been so divided at any time in living memory.
You see it for yourself when you attend the opening session. The harshness of the winter past has added a sense of urgency and hostility to the proceedings. Royalists and Wulframites quarrel openly over the aisle, with one faction voting for a motion simply because the other has voted against it. There's no room to chart a middle course, either. Neither faction hesitates for an instant to round upon anyone who tries to present a compromise. Whatever common ground there might have been seems to have frozen to death over the winter.
The chamber has ceased to be a house of governance. It is a fighting-ring now, pure and simple, with two teams grappling each other with every opportunity, seeking to gain advantage over their now-implacable foes for the final clash they know is to come.
And the subject of that ultimate encounter is known to all: the Cortes cannot be dismissed without passing a budget, but whether that budget is to be the King's or the Duke of Wulfram's lies at the root of all discord. Every dispute, it seems, comes back to the budget, no matter its original content. Even as it tears itself to pieces, the whole of the chamber waits with swear-slick brow and bated breath for the day when one faction presents its budget for a vote, so that it might be countered with the other.
Yet even in such a situation, there is profit to be made. Mercenaries are most in demand when a kingdom is at war, and one who is willing to sell his vote to the highest bidder may make no small profit indeed—if one is willing to accept the risk of making oneself out as a man without loyalties.
You resolve to position yourself carefully through your words and deeds, so that you'll be ready to act appropriately when that day finally comes.
[ ] I will pay a call on Countess Welles.
[ ] It has been some time since I've spoken to Lord Cassius…
[ ] Perhaps it is time to pay a visit to the Duke of Warburton…
[ ] I should host a few dinners, invite my neighbours, and gain their friendship.
[ ] I should work towards increasing my stature within the Shipowners Club.
[ ] I work towards swaying my fellow club members towards the King's faction.
[ ] I'll try to convince my fellow club members to back the Duke of Wulfram.
[ ] I endeavour to support the King and his faction.
[ ] The Duke of Wulfram and his faction will have my support.
[ ] My vote will be directed not by faction, but by my conscience.
[ ] No matter how difficult, I must try to avoid committing to either faction.
[ ] I mean to be mercenary and sell my vote to the highest bidder.
[ ] I should do what I can to support the cause of raising Hunter of Wolfswood to Sainthood.
[ ] I must turn my attention to the Army Reform Commission.
You draw up the appropriate papers authorising your estate manager to draw on your funds, then send them off. Now, you can only wait for the appropriate acknowledgements.
And hope that your estate manager uses the funds you've given him access to wisely.
-
There's other news too, from within the city, made known to you as the broadsheets resume their business after the long, harsh winter: when the King opens Cortes for the year, the Duke of Wulfram once again seeks to bring forth his bill to freeze the Crown's spending and end the war taxes. With the city still reeling from the effects of the winter and some streets still strewn with the bodies of those who didn't survive it, there's no small chance that publick sentiment may be enough to give the motion a majority in the chamber, though there's no doubt that the King's party will do its utmost to prevent such an outcome.
It is a situation of the most precarious nature, when even the slightest impetus might be enough to shift the balance of power in the Cortes—an impetus even you might now possess enough influence to provide.
When the Duke of Wulfram first presented his bill the year previous, you were just lately established in the Capital. Your allegiances and alignments were as of yet not set in stone. That first year had been most instructive, both in the workings of Aetoria's society and in the dynamics of the Cortes Chamber itself. Now, you've learned all the lessons and acquired all the skills you'll need to exert your own force upon the politickal sphere, and perhaps even the course of the Unified Kingdom itself…if you should wish to.
There are other options available to you. Aetoria during the social season is nothing if not without diversions. With the Shipowners Club's doors once again open, you have the opportunity to commit yourself wholly to its social life, and to increase your own influence within its ranks. After all, if you were to possess the ability to mobilise the whole or even a significant fraction of your club's membership and commit them into an enterprise of your choosing, you would have command over a potent force, indeed.
And your club isn't your only avenue for increasing your influence and reputation in the city. In Aetoria, every connection and every possession can be turned into a means of furthering advancement, and your townhouse is no exception. One could do a great deal of good for one's stature by entertaining prominent neighbours and local notables. If you could suitably impress such folk with your generosity as a host, you may find yourself winning allies who would have otherwise been out of your reach.
And speaking of allies…
It seems that the Dowager Viscountess Wolfswood has not been idle: she has brought the effort to raise her heroic son to sainthood to the very capital. Indeed, there is to be a series of meetings of such supporters throughout the season—and you've been sent a standing invitation. Perhaps you ought to attend?
Of course, any effort to honour the dead cannot neglect the living. There are still your friends and acquaintances within the city to think about, as well. Ever since you came to Aetoria, you've had little time or opportunity to seek out their company. Perhaps it's time to make a long-overdue call?
Whatever your intentions, you've little need for particular haste. With spring not yet over and summer still weeks away, you have plenty of time to fulfil them.
-
[X] I would like to make some calls upon my friends and acquaintances.
The process of acquiring permission for a social call amongst Aetoria's baneblooded classes is a complicated one, an intricate ritual of call and response. First, you must have made for you a set of visiting cards: small cards cut from the thickest and richest stock available, embossed with your name, titles, and any other embellishments which might be considered sufficiently tasteful for your given station and influence. Then, you must send your butler round to the addresses of every single one of your friends or acquaintances within the city and request permission for you to visit in person by depositing one of your visiting cards in the ornate bowl set in the front room of each townhouse specifically for the purpose.
If one of the individuals thus approached sees fit to accept your request, you can in turn expect a visiting card of their own, deposited in the card bowl of your own townhouse. Only upon receipt of such a response would you have leave to visit yourself. To ignore or otherwise miscarry any of these steps would be considered the height of rudeness, fit to do such damage to your reputation that intentionally doing so would be considered a form of social suicide.
So, you dance the steps as you're directed. Your butler goes out with your cards, and over the next few days, you await replies.
Your first response comes two days later. It is of a sort which seems rather different from the regular variety of visiting card, and it is almost with a direct shock that you realise it is of the same make as those used by the royal family. Yet a look at the decorative embroidery around the margins makes it clear that the sender is no royal. There are none of the traditional symbols of the House of Rendower, no towers, no gryphons among the embellishments. It is only when you turn the card over and see Eleanora, Countess Welles stamped in bold, black letters at its centre that you realise the identity of its sender.
Two days later, you get another reply, and you're not quite sure what to make of it.
It has the form of a visiting card, that is to be sure. The embossing is tasteful if unfamiliar, and the lettering is legible and entirely clear. But there are half a dozen things off about it. The shape is slightly too narrow, the size just a little too large, and the stock it is cut from isn't the familiar bone or cream you'd expect, but a white bleached so blindingly that you might as well be staring directly into the sun. It's almost as if whoever set the specifications for the card in question didn't quite understand its purpose and meaning. When you notice Lord Cassius vam Holt's name written quite clearly in both Tierran and Takaran calligraphy on the card's face, you're less than surprised.
You get one last reply a few days later. It comes in the form of a card which is almost awesome in its understated elegance. At first glance, it seems as if there could be nothing more mundane, a card fit for a particularly prosperous grocer or a poor baronet. The unadorned surface lacks even the slightest hint of embossing.
And yet the more you examine it, the more its details unveil themselves before your eyes, like a painting with a fresh allusion to notice with each new viewing. You spend what almost seems like half a day admiring it as you hold it up against the light, marvelling at the tasteful thickness of it, the subtle off-white colouring. Saints above, it even has a watermark.
You know who the card belongs to before you even read the letters, yet you know you must see it, if only to disprove the voice at the back of your head which tells you that your conclusion is quite impossible. You flip the card over and see the evidence for yourself, in lettering which seems if nothing else like a master's calligraphy reduced to its simplest essence: Emile d'al Harris, Duke of Warburton.
You look at the cards sitting in the bowl in the entry hall of your townhouse, considering your options… You return to the bowl still sitting in the entry hall of your townhouse. There are still cards there, standing invitations from those of your friends and acquaintances who might welcome a visit.
Perhaps you should call upon one of them?
-
[X] I mean to see about enhancing my reputation and influence.
When you were a King's officer, the ability to shape your own reputation and the dimensions of your influence were generally outside of your direct control. You had to take opportunities where you found them: the potential for an act of valour on the field of battle, a chance meeting in a garrison town. The exigencies of war decided where you went, whom you met, and how you were to meet them. Military discipline determined the options for social advancement available to you.
But now, you're a soldier no longer. Free from the dictates of strategic imperatives, supply lines, and the orders of your superior officers, you have every liberty to seize whatever chance you might find. As a member of a respectable club and resident in the city with a household of your own, you find yourself within reach of a great many chances, indeed.
Your club offers the chiefest opportunity, of course. In no other setting might you find yourself included amongst so many gentlemen of the blood possessed of the wealth and reputation to do your own stature good. To be a member in good standing is to be a part of the whole, to be able to count on the support and friendship of all others who may call your club their own. To achieve and maintain such a position will magnify your powers many-fold, allowing you to exert a level of influence far in disproportion to your relatively humble rank and fortune—something which is sure to prove helpful in the pursuit of your social and political ambitions.
But that doesn't mean there aren't other options to garner influence outside your club. Many of your neighbours are also men of affairs, or barring that, at least men of high fashion. You might do well to cultivate them instead. If you were to play the part of the gracious host and set a sufficiently grand table to make that reputation stick, then your neighbours too could become your allies.
You lay out your options before you, considering them carefully…
-
[X] The Cortes cannot be ignored, and I mean to devote some time to its affairs.
It would be fair to say that the Cortes has never been so divided at any time in living memory.
You see it for yourself when you attend the opening session. The harshness of the winter past has added a sense of urgency and hostility to the proceedings. Royalists and Wulframites quarrel openly over the aisle, with one faction voting for a motion simply because the other has voted against it. There's no room to chart a middle course, either. Neither faction hesitates for an instant to round upon anyone who tries to present a compromise. Whatever common ground there might have been seems to have frozen to death over the winter.
The chamber has ceased to be a house of governance. It is a fighting-ring now, pure and simple, with two teams grappling each other with every opportunity, seeking to gain advantage over their now-implacable foes for the final clash they know is to come.
And the subject of that ultimate encounter is known to all: the Cortes cannot be dismissed without passing a budget, but whether that budget is to be the King's or the Duke of Wulfram's lies at the root of all discord. Every dispute, it seems, comes back to the budget, no matter its original content. Even as it tears itself to pieces, the whole of the chamber waits with swear-slick brow and bated breath for the day when one faction presents its budget for a vote, so that it might be countered with the other.
Yet even in such a situation, there is profit to be made. Mercenaries are most in demand when a kingdom is at war, and one who is willing to sell his vote to the highest bidder may make no small profit indeed—if one is willing to accept the risk of making oneself out as a man without loyalties.
You resolve to position yourself carefully through your words and deeds, so that you'll be ready to act appropriately when that day finally comes.
-
[ ] I will pay a call on Countess Welles.
[ ] It has been some time since I've spoken to Lord Cassius…
[ ] Perhaps it is time to pay a visit to the Duke of Warburton…
[ ] I should host a few dinners, invite my neighbours, and gain their friendship.
[ ] I should work towards increasing my stature within the Shipowners Club.
[ ] I work towards swaying my fellow club members towards the King's faction.
[ ] I'll try to convince my fellow club members to back the Duke of Wulfram.
[ ] I endeavour to support the King and his faction.
[ ] The Duke of Wulfram and his faction will have my support.
[ ] My vote will be directed not by faction, but by my conscience.
[ ] No matter how difficult, I must try to avoid committing to either faction.
[ ] I mean to be mercenary and sell my vote to the highest bidder.
[ ] I should do what I can to support the cause of raising Hunter of Wolfswood to Sainthood.
[ ] I must turn my attention to the Army Reform Commission.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] I must turn my attention to the Army Reform Commission.
This is definitely one of them, because it's an area we might actually have some competency...
This is definitely one of them, because it's an area we might actually have some competency...
- Pronouns
- He
[x] I must turn my attention to the Army Reform Commission.
[X] I should do what I can to support the cause of raising Hunter of Wolfswood to Sainthood.
[X] I will pay a call on Countess Welles.
[X] I should host a few dinners, invite my neighbours, and gain their friendship.
[X] I should do what I can to support the cause of raising Hunter of Wolfswood to Sainthood.
[X] I will pay a call on Countess Welles.
[X] I should host a few dinners, invite my neighbours, and gain their friendship.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@The Laurent @Polgas
Is that all you wish to do with your votes, you guys? You can select three more options.
Is that all you wish to do with your votes, you guys? You can select three more options.
[X] I should work towards increasing my stature within the Shipowners Club.
[X] I must turn my attention to the Army Reform Commission.
[X] I work towards swaying my fellow club members towards the King's faction.
[X] I should do what I can to support the cause of raising Hunter of Wolfswood to Sainthood.
I'm open to changing the fourth one.
[X] I must turn my attention to the Army Reform Commission.
[X] I work towards swaying my fellow club members towards the King's faction.
[X] I should do what I can to support the cause of raising Hunter of Wolfswood to Sainthood.
I'm open to changing the fourth one.
IamtooSleepy
I came here to be an ant
[X] I should work towards increasing my stature within the Shipowners Club.
[X] I must turn my attention to the Army Reform Commission.
[X] It has been some time since I've spoken to Lord Cassius…
[X] I work towards swaying my fellow club members towards the King's faction.
Also, we all need to be graceful to Loch since his policy of Antari integration result in massive amount of new tenants farmers. Almost enough to stop our budget from being in deficit. They won't be here for long consider the terrible state of our barony, but for a while, we would have less to fear from bankruptcy.
[X] I must turn my attention to the Army Reform Commission.
[X] It has been some time since I've spoken to Lord Cassius…
[X] I work towards swaying my fellow club members towards the King's faction.
Also, we all need to be graceful to Loch since his policy of Antari integration result in massive amount of new tenants farmers. Almost enough to stop our budget from being in deficit. They won't be here for long consider the terrible state of our barony, but for a while, we would have less to fear from bankruptcy.
We shouldn't have that much outflow, really.
I think the highwaymen event mean no one leaves until they're driven away or is that some other event?
[X] Perhaps it is time to pay a visit to the Duke of Warburton…
[X] I will pay a call on Countess Welles.
[X] I should work towards increasing my stature within the Shipowners Club.
[X] Perhaps it is time to pay a visit to the Duke of Warburton…
[X] I will pay a call on Countess Welles.
[X] I should work towards increasing my stature within the Shipowners Club.