Lord of the Gallows - A Prison Colony Builder
- Thread starter Azel
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
- Location
- Argentina
[X] Plan Too Much To Do
With the hanging, we will not have a margin to prevent the auxiliaries from doing something stupid, and thus will need the prisoner quarters now so that in spring they don't murder each other.
I hate it though, but the next mandatory thing will be fixing the path. We can't continue with logistics in that condition.
With the hanging, we will not have a margin to prevent the auxiliaries from doing something stupid, and thus will need the prisoner quarters now so that in spring they don't murder each other.
I hate it though, but the next mandatory thing will be fixing the path. We can't continue with logistics in that condition.
- Location
- United States
I wish we could double our engineers. There's so much that needs to be done and not enough time to do it.
- Location
- UTC+0
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They
[X] Plan Winter is Coming
-[X] Judgement
--[X] Have him hanged for murder.
-[X] Auxiliaries
--[X] Prepare a camp on the old hillfort.
-[X] Engineers
--[X] Build prisoner quarters in the city.
-[X] General Lothar Vanrich
--[X] Talk with the provost of the Four Temples.
We should put them in the city, so that when we figure out where mining will take place we'll be able to reuse the quarters (we should build it near the mines and the forest is full of monsters right now).
-[X] Judgement
--[X] Have him hanged for murder.
-[X] Auxiliaries
--[X] Prepare a camp on the old hillfort.
-[X] Engineers
--[X] Build prisoner quarters in the city.
-[X] General Lothar Vanrich
--[X] Talk with the provost of the Four Temples.
We should put them in the city, so that when we figure out where mining will take place we'll be able to reuse the quarters (we should build it near the mines and the forest is full of monsters right now).
That likely won't make many friends...
- Location
- United States
While the quarters in the city could be reused, the unfortunate reality of the situation is that this scenario is exactly what every local in the know was afraid of. They desperately do no want condemned criminals in their city, for good reason. These are the worst of the worst -- thieves, rapists, murderers. Not only do we risk prisoners escaping, which would be a disaster of its own, we are guaranteed to have public outrage over the decision to quarter them in the city.
It wont make friends but it may be better than keeping them in tents in the forest. We do not need the prisoners' getting sick or unruly on day one. With the efforts we spent building goodwill they can hopefully handle one season with them in the city.
[X] Plan Winter is Coming
- Location
- UTC+0
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They
My intent was not to make the locals pleased. You'll note in the option description that we could reuse those quarters in the future, we should house them for a season there, and then move them where they'll be doing the work (since we don't know where that is). Making the housing in the forest might lead to deaths as well, which I'd like to avoid before work begins. Doing this will save us an action in the future for whenever we want to do building in the city. The locals will deal with it, we are already appeasing them at the expense of our troops.
- Location
- Moscow
- Pronouns
- He
What about winter chores for engineers? Even if they do not build anything, they will have a sea of labor in the building for sale or everyday life. Furniture, basket weaving, building parts, carts and stirrup elements. Probably, if there are specialists on the island, work on the preparation of arrow shafts. It is strange that we, as such a specialist, did not find jobs for engineers.
Finally, it seems to me important that we somehow have quite a few troops to actually fight the escapes of prisoners, local animals and goblins.
This should be occupied by light mounted scouts or forest rangers. Finally, it is important for a siege to have a lot of shooters. I don't see anything from this list. Maybe at least let the engineers create large shields and long peaks in the winter to simplify the future defense of the camp?
Finally, it seems to me important that we somehow have quite a few troops to actually fight the escapes of prisoners, local animals and goblins.
This should be occupied by light mounted scouts or forest rangers. Finally, it is important for a siege to have a lot of shooters. I don't see anything from this list. Maybe at least let the engineers create large shields and long peaks in the winter to simplify the future defense of the camp?
- Location
- Denton, Texas
[X] Plan Too Much To Do
GildedSergeant
Tarnished Gold and Rattling Bones
- Location
- Over There
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Plan Too Much To Do
While I would prefer the whipping, this plan has pretty much everything else I wanted and lets us get some much needed infrastructure done.
While I would prefer the whipping, this plan has pretty much everything else I wanted and lets us get some much needed infrastructure done.
An extremely "far-sighted" decision to worsen relations with our subordinates when we do not know how to increase it.
It's easy with the peasants - use the engineers and they won't care that in the village of Drozdy, someone was rumored to be killed there. What does it matter to me if these kind people built me a well?
+ Do not forget that it will not be peasants, merchants, or burgomaster with the emperor who will protect us from thugs from all over the empire. And our Auxilia, with whom we are now spoiling our relationship.
It would be better to choose a spanking - dumb ones (
It's easy with the peasants - use the engineers and they won't care that in the village of Drozdy, someone was rumored to be killed there. What does it matter to me if these kind people built me a well?
+ Do not forget that it will not be peasants, merchants, or burgomaster with the emperor who will protect us from thugs from all over the empire. And our Auxilia, with whom we are now spoiling our relationship.
It would be better to choose a spanking - dumb ones (
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Vote closed
- Location
- Germany
[X] Plan Too Much To Do
They are soldiers. Maybe not Legionaires, but still soldiers.
How can one trust them to defend the Empire and its laws, if they don't keep to those laws?
It is vital for them to be subject to the law to its full extend, otherwise the whole idea is worthless and they are hardly more than thugs with training.
They are soldiers. Maybe not Legionaires, but still soldiers.
How can one trust them to defend the Empire and its laws, if they don't keep to those laws?
It is vital for them to be subject to the law to its full extend, otherwise the whole idea is worthless and they are hardly more than thugs with training.
Turn 3 - Autumn of 2164 Anno Imperialis - Results
- Location
- Germany
Turn 3 - Autumn of 2164 Anno Imperialis - Results
What do you do with the Auxiliary that murdered one of the local famers?
- Have him hanged for murder.
To pass judgement on your own men is one of the grimmest duties a commander has to perform, but this is far from the first time you had to do so. For a while you mulled over the ramifications, for this time, you were not in command of a Legion which would accept the judgement without resentment. None the less, you resolved to apply the law in its full harshness. How would you run a prison colony if even the guards themselves spat upon the empire's laws? How could you expect the men under your command to treat one of their own like any other prisoner? It had to be a hanging, for nothing else would suffice and even a small mercy now would like have come to haunt you later.
So, on a bright and sunny day you gathered the townsfolk and those peasants not too busy with their harvest to have the trial in public. It was a show as much for them as it was for the Auxiliaries, who were represented by a few carefully selected officers that you hoped would pass on the word of the trial. It was not a long affair. The accused declined from even speaking, leaving the accusations of the murdered farmers son to stand alone. The peasants were unsurprisingly angry about one of their own being slain, shouting unasked for testimonies about the good character of the deceased, and the townsfolk was not far behind, eager to see a hanging and caring little for the trial itself.
Perhaps the soldier thought to the last that you would be lenient, for the verdict seemed to surprise him and he briefly struggled against his guards before breaking down into sobs. The crowd was ecstatic though, cheering as they saw his distress, while you quietly cursed. For all that the officers seemed to accept the judgement coming from you, they certainly hated the people's bloodthirst coming forth. By then it was too late though, and all that was left to carry out the sentence. It would take time to see how the Auxiliaries would take these events.
Murderer punished. Townsfolk and peasants happy. Auxiliaries reaction still unknown.
Legion Auxiliaries
- Prepare a camp on the old hillfort.
Part of the reason that you had trouble judging your soldier's reaction to one of their own being hanged was that you hardly saw more than a handful of them for most of the fall, as most of them were hard at work on the plateau. Work there was proceeding largely as planned, but the forest was indeed every bit as perilous as expected. Trolls had been heard stomping through the trees at night and there were reports of lights shining near the camps at night, vanishing whenever someone came near them. Thankfully, the goblins seemed not to want to risk attacking the camp and kept to circling it at odd hours, though attempts to find their tracks were fruitless. Trackers your people certainly were not.
Even a wyvern had made an appearance above the camp, circling for a while before flying off. According to the captain in charge of the camp, the beast seemed to have decided that the little things waving spears at it were not worth the trouble when it could have a harmless deer instead. Whatever the things thoughts on the matter, it had not attacked and neither had it shown itself again afterwards, leaving the soldiers to their work. By the end of the season the palisade encircling the foot of the hill had been nearly finished, an early bit of snow cutting the work short just shy of the last few logs being put into place, and there was plenty of lumber piled on top of the hill for spring. Things were as ready as they could be.
Palisade nearly finished. Building materials produced. Will gain free prisoner quarters when building the basic camp.
Engineers
- Build prisoner quarters in the forest camp.
Efforts in the forest were far less successful in comparison. You also were fairly sure that master Becker had begun to rant and complain about having to build with green wood in his sleep, because there was nary an hour without him yelling about the matter. There was nothing to be done though. The funds wouldn't have covered to build sufficient quarters for the prisoners from good and well-seasoned lumber, so the engineers had to cut their planks from what was available, namely freshly felled elms and birch. You had never done a bit of carpentry in your life and did not consider it that bad, but apparently it was. Or maybe it was the pride of the engineers finally showing itself.
Whatever it was, the work went slowly, not helped at all by wolves stalking the workers now and then and requiring the few available Auxiliaries to escort them. When the weather turned, only the palisade expansion was finished, leading to ever more vitriol from master Becker and his men as they worked through the torrential and cold rains to get the barracks for the prisoners up. By the time that the first snow fell, you had about half as many barracks as planned and master Becker told you in no uncertain terms that they would likely fall apart within the year due to the wood warping.
With that you could have lived, since you mainly needed this camp as a temporary solution in the first place, but the wood already cut on the plateau would not dry while buried under snow and you had the suspicion that the engineers would not take your orders to build from fresh timber a second time. The last thing you needed was the guild to withdraw their support from this expedition and while it was pretty evident that master Becker had been quietly exiled just as much as you had, the guilds council was well known for its pride. They might just recall him, if he could convince them that the guild had been slighted in some fashion.
Prisoners quarters finished in forest camp, but they are cramped and will quickly deteriorate. Engineers angered.
General Lothar Vanrich
- Talk with the provost of the Four Temples.
Talking with the local provost was an odd idea to you, no matter how sensible and practical it seemed when you had made the plan. Your father was not the most pious man and neither had you become one. Sure, you had learned all your prayers and gone to the temples at least once a month, but there was never a feeling of belonging that others spoke of. Farmers prayed to Cura of the earth for fertile land and miner prayed that the tunnel would not collapse on them. Sailors prayed to Hora of the water for gentle currents and Dis of the air for steady winds. And in water, all bowed before the altars of Sors so that the hearth would be warm. To whom prayed a soldier though? None of the four was fond of those who made killing their trade. For most, that question never came up as they kept praying to the gods like their parents before them, but to you, it always was a barrier to interacting with the gods and their priests. Now though, you would have been grateful for a small miracle.
The temple of Vollug was small and just a single building, unlike the more extravagant affairs in the imperial heartlands that paid homage to the fact that the faith still proclaimed itself the union of four and not a single whole. You could not recall having seen any temple built quite like this at all and you idly wondered if it had even been one in the first place. The building was definitely among the oldest in the city, but the way that the shrines of the four gods had been arranged at the end of the great hall that made up most of the structure made one think that it had originally be meant for something else entirely.
In contrast, the provost was largely fitting the expectations. An elderly priest, a soft-spoken one at that, who seemed to have gotten the position in part due to his seniority. He would have fit right in with any other congregation you had seen in your years, though his beliefs less so. The idea of a prison colony seemed not to bother him at all and instead he talked about it in terms of providing guidance to those who had lost their path. You did not prod him further on the matter. The idea of having men work under your command until the day they died was something you still kept carefully at arm's length, especially when your mind treacherously added that said day would come much faster when you had them dig mineshafts into the wild mountains.
Part of you had quietly hoped for the priest to condemn your mission, just to give a voice to your doubts that was not your own. It was not that you had chosen this task after all. As far as the imperial court was concerned, you would be here until death claimed you just as all the prisoners. Instead, the provost offered the aid of the temples in your task, as much as his limited power would allow. Priests he could send to preach to prisoners and guards, to aid guiding the poor lost souls as he said, and silver he offered to see them properly housed and fed, if you had a need for it. More he could not do, though he said he was open to make inquiries with congregations on the mainland, if they could help instead. For now, you took your leave, telling him you would gladly take his aid.
Gained two favours with the local Four Temples.
AN: New turn vote will be up tomorrow. Favours basically work as free actions and can be called on whenever you want during turn votes to gain whatever benefits the group can offer.
- Location
- United States
Not ideal, but still workable. We just need them in the camp for the one year until we get the actual base camp up and running in the hill fort.
This we'll probably be using to placate the auxiliaries who are angry about the judgement. I'm interested to see the extent of the help that can be offered over the next turn vote.
- Location
- Germany
Talking with them will not really change anything about the issues that came up here. Nothing short of a divine command would get them to lower the standards they set for their own work, as their entire guild and self-image is built around being excellent at their craft and thus delivering excellent results.
You will have to somehow cram proper building materials into the budget when they build stuff for you.
- Location
- Argentina
So it is a matter of spending money then. Allright.
- Location
- United States
I imagine we'll have to make that deal with the merchants then.