Winning Vote
[X]Numer: 2.
[X]Apprentice: Dolgi Embermane
[X]Apprentice: Fjolla Stokkisdottir
You let out a small sigh of contentment, lowering your fifth mug of ale as you patiently wait for your apprentices to arrive with their own drinks.
The nature of dwarf drinking etiquette is a clear affair. Most commonly, the bartender follows the order of arrival, should a group arrive the bartender serves according to age but depending on the bar either of these rules is interchangeable in importance. The only constant, the only certainty across every bar in the Karaz Ankor was thus;
Apprentices last.
You internally grimace, remembering how, in your youth, there would be times you would have to wait for hours to get a single tankard of brew.
It created an odd culture of apprentices coming to drink during the quieter hours of the day, which conveniently meant the bartenders had steady business throughout the day, and ample opportunity to train their own apprentices.
Classic Dwarf ingenuity at play.
Hearing a quiet thump across your table, you raise an eye to look at your two young wards who had finally gotten their drinks.
Dolgi and his signature mane of ruby red hair sit in stark contrast to your grandniece and her pale blond tresses. In his hand, a foaming mug of ale, while Fjolla was nursing a tankard of cider.
No ale til she was a good solid thirty, you remember her mother quietly asking you.
Waiting for the both of them to finish quaffing down their drinks, but not before they could settle down to relax, you stand up suddenly and bark out a quick order.
"Well, I hope you enjoyed the break beardlings because it's time to
train!"
You clamp down on the desire to chortle at their dismayed faces. Dolgi wiping a bit of foam that had landed on his brow from when he dropped his tankard in surprise.
"Yes Master." they say loud enough to be respectful but quiet enough to not distract the other patrons.
Good, they were learning from last time.
...
"Hurry up beardlings!" you shout to the two huffing dwarfs behind you.
"Yes master!" the both of them shout in unison.
While you were wearing your normal outfit, both of your apprentices were trailing behind you in padded suits of leather and wool with a good ten kilos of gravel on their back for good measure. You'd let them get used to the weight before raising it. Two days ought to do it.
They should be thankful really, better than watching out for Master Yorri's patented Pocket Troll Tongue for 5 years straight.
POCKET TONGUE BEARDLING.
You internally shudder at the memory of that eternally slimy slab of meat suddenly smacking you across the face at the oddest moments.
You huff quietly to yourself, it'd probably be best to slow down a tad, wouldn't want the Garazi too tuckered out to not appreciate what you were about to show them.
But if they were walking slowly, they could think all the faster.
"Fjolla!" you shout back at them, "recite the Rule of Pride for me, up to it!"
"No more than one item may carry the same combination of runes?" she shouts back in confusion.
"Was that a question beardling? Don't know the rules of the career you're entering, do you? Why, old Hroki would be rolling in his grave if he were here to witness this!" You shout back.
Despite their best efforts, you can hear them whispering to each other despite being a good 7 meters ahead of them.
"Oh? Cavorting with your fellow apprentice? Well Dolgi, spit it out then!"
"Master, the Rune of Pride says for each creation to be unique, bu-but we saw you engrave the same three runes on five different axes."
You slow down and turn to look at them both, eyes narrowed.
Best to let them stew and think they did something foolish, never seen anything funnier than a beardling try and backtrack. But alas, the moment can't last forever.
"Why now, was that a question that was a quarter of the way to halfway decent coming from one of you? My, my, maybe the both of you will make your first rune in this century if you keep it up! Well, I will grace you both with the answer...
after you recite all of the rules of the runes to me, in unison! Up to it!"
They begin shouting the second you finish turning your head back around. Already you can hear Dolgi stutter and force the two of them to restart.
More than enough time to get to where you were going, and more importantly to come up with an answer that would make sense to them.
…
"- Nor do they copy other Runesmith's work except as an apprentice!" they finish together just as the both of them reach the bottom of the hill where you were waiting.
"Bah! I could've done that chant a good 5 minutes faster than the both of you! Let that be a lesson, coordination is key when working with more than just yourself, don't go in with the ingredients for a rune of warding when your partner was chiselling a rune of preservation, you understand?"
"Yes master!" they shout back.
"Bah! Now, you're question. Sit down and listen good beardlings, because this is important," you say seriously while directing them to a bare rock.
"The rule of pride is tricky and takes a fair bit of know-how to understand and navigate. For example, did you count the number of Runes of Light in your hold? Probably not, but you can be damn sure that there were far more light runes than there were runesmiths. Does that mean whoever chiselled all those runes broke the Third Rule? Yes and no. In the literal sense yes they did, but unless you're a puritan, most other runesmiths have as well. On the other hand, using up every combination of the light rune is a waste of ingredients and ironically ends up with you getting closer and closer to breaking the Third Rule with little to show for it. Imagine wasting a rune to light a latrine,
just so you could say you didn't break the Third Rule. And only ever making one Rune of Light is about as useful as a babe in the mine. Utter nonsense. Now, before you ask, yes, the apprentice technically can go past that one use rule, but no dwarf in their right mind is gonna pay for an apprentice to do something. So do you see the issue?" you say, waiting for one of them to reply.
"It's a question of doing what's practical and what was told to us?" Fjolla replies, brows scrunched up in confusion.
Heh, there's the bit of Hroki she inherited. Not the brow thanks the Ancestors, Hroki could bludgeon a dwarf with that, no she had the same crinkle whenever she got confused.
"Not horrendous, but still worse than terrible," you praise her, "It's a question of what's good for the hold and what's good for honouring the ancestors. You do good by aiding the hold, all those Runes of Light pay off in the long run, less fuel wasted on torches, less dirt to clean, more consistency, things like that. But following the tenets of our guild honours the ancestors, and some would argue
that is more important. Personally, I'm of the mind that helping the hold prosper also honours the ancestors, and a hold that lasts longer and grows more prosperous also honours the ancestors. So me redoing a Rune of Light dozens of times ends up honouring the ancestors in its own way. Now, not every runesmith believes that, and you'll learn over time that there are some smiths you can share that opinion with, and others its best to keep your trap shut to keep the peace. Understand?"
"Yes master!" they shout.
Feh.
"Now!" you say loudly, "that doesn't mean we can't find a way to follow the tenet in another way. The Rule of Pride as some runesmiths reckon is meant to remind us that our work is an art form, a divine gift used to aid our people passed down from Thungni and Grungni. Whose gift we can partake in by virtue of our blood relation. So, these smiths will strive to make true works of runic excellence, something neither of you will get to do for a century or three just yet, as a tribute to Thungni. In their eyes, this thereby lets them follow the tenets of the Rule of Pride, for they've now made a work of art they can be proud of. What does this mean?"
"There-There are multiple ways dwarfs see things?" Dolgi says, cheeks as bright as his fiery mane of hair.
"Bah! And a good many dwarf will argue their way is the only way. Thungni knows when this whole debacle will get settled. Either way, even if the puritans end up being right, I'm going into the Underearth head held high no matter what they say. Because no matter what, I can say with clean conscience that I helped our people, maybe not in the way they want it to be done, but it's not like I was throwing around Master Runes to beardlings. Now, onto a lighter topic. Look over there garazi, what do you see?"
"A Col master!"
"Not just
any Col beardlings, that Col," you pause, standing up for effect, "will be the site of my future workshop, and where
you will learn the sacred art passed down from Master to Apprentice all the way back from Thungni." you finish, spreading your arms wide in the direction of the picturesque scene before you.
With a gesture, the three of you begin walking down the path.
And it is
quite a sight. A naturally formed path in the rock, three dwarfs wide, leads straight to an octagonal divot fifty feet across from end to end, surrounded by solid granite on all sides. Safe from wind, with a natural choke point and close to the hold. It's the perfect place to tunnel into and fortify the living Ancestors out of.
It will be a fine home.
And as if called by those very same Ancestors, the piercing cry of an eagle fills the air.
Then, with little warning, a rumble beneath your feet grows audible, becoming strong enough to shake the walls around you.
"Master?" Fjolla says, looking at you wide-eyed.
"It's a damn rock slide!" you curse, turning quickly to your wards, "Both of you ge-" you start to say before the roar grows deafening.
Thinking quickly, you leap atop the two of them, shielding their bodies with yours. By Grungni you'd make sure these two would live, even if it killed you. The next five minutes are spent in silent terror for you and audible terror for your two diminutive charges huddled under you. You make no sound as rocks the size of a fist impact against your body, keeping up a facade of stoicism for the two young ones to cling to as you ride out the worst of it.
When at last it ends, you raise your head and glare at the mountains, one part to watch for further activity and the other in anger.
Scare
your apprentices will you mountain? Well, you'd show this place what for soon enough.
Speaking of charges, you glance down at the two huddled dwarfs, clinging to each other for dear life.
"Up now beardlings," you say softly, "the danger's passed, let's get out of-" you stop, looking up to sniff the air.
"Master?" Dolgi says quietly.
"Hush now beardling, I think I sniff...no. No, it can't be," you look back at the both of them, "both of you stand atop the hill and wait for my return, I'll be back in five minutes, I swear on my beard."
Satisfied by the seriousness of your oath, the two of them scramble back and do as they're told.
You meanwhile, push aside the rock and debris with the strength only age, a bit of anger and a hardy dwarfen diet can give until you reach the source of the smell.
Crouching low, you pick up a rock and sniff it, then take an even bigger sniff, then you give it a truly mighty whiff.
Yes, you're no miner but you're certain.
Gromril.
You're very difficult to hate now
Mountain, but not even Gromril can make me like
you.
Shoving aside more rocks, you see that the rockslide tore open a hole into a naturally formed cavern, and inside you see something that makes your eyes bug out and your mouth damn near hangs open.
That's a lot of Gromril.
Lifting a steel rod out of your pocket, you quietly activate the light rune at its tip, exposing more of the cavern and making sure you're not hallucinating.
It leaves you breathless.
A large, roughly octagonal, cavern some 100 feet across stared back at you. Bubbling quietly, a subterranean stream cuts across the whole area diagonally, glowing fungi growing along the banks, seams of silvery
Gromril as thick as a dwarf was tall cover the walls, while giant brilliant geodes lie cracked open from the rockslide, their turquoise crystals reflecting the light of your rune torch in all directions. The natural beauty amazes even your exacting standards, what's more, your stupefied and potentially concussed mind notes how the silvery tint of the Gromril glints even more brilliantly with the blue light, looking as if energy is suffusing its entire being. It may be a trick of the light, but sometimes, in the very corner of your eyes, you see the metal glow brilliant silver and other times mayhaps even purest white.
Well.
Maybe your apprentices deserve a bit of stonebread, and you the hardest drink you can find.
...
Due to an exploding crit, it was discovered that the former site of your future workshop was home to an extensive source of Gromril! Good thing you technically own the land! Kraka Drakk is likely to see a lot more traffic due to the newly christened, "Dragon's Hoard" drawing miners like...well miners to Gromril, not much compares to it really. Consequently, the dwarfs who followed you up north because of your deed feel a very strong sense of vindication.
Gain:
- Epiphany, The Rune Metal: It wasn't a concussion damn it, well it wasn't
just a concussion, you know what you saw damn it!
- A Shiny Geode: Doesn't make up for the bruises, or the lost workshop space, or the frightened beardlings, but some days a miner digs up nothing but dirt.
- Epic Deed: The Dragon's Hoard.
They say Old Snorri's nose was so sensitive that he sniffed out a great seam of Gromril through 20 feet of granite just to help his hold.
- +2 to sniffing?
...
You have (5 - 1) = 4 actions this turn:
General:
[ ] Find a new Workshop: Now that you're original site is the scene of a rather large Gromril find, you'll have to find a new place to set up shop. At least the funds you'll be receiving from the future Gromril mine helps ease the pain.
[Cost: 1 action]
[ ] Odd Places 1/10: Look on Master Yorri's map and try and discover one of his marked locations. The locations will certainly be odd, but whether they'll be useful remains to be seen.
[Cost: 1 action] Roll for usefulness.
[X] Teach your apprentices.
[Cost: 1 Action] Locked in for 12 turns.
Requests:
[ ] [Simple]Rush Job: The discovery of a large seam of Gromril has left you with a surplus of requests to equip the miners of the hold with the proper gear to get at that motherlode as quickly as possible.
[Cost: 2 actions] Productivity Like No Other will proc.
[ ] [Simple]Rune. Those. Halls!: A goodly amount of the future main hall has been excavated and are in desperate need of a good runic...eh be-rune-ing? It needs runes alright?
[Cost: 4 actions] Productivity Like No Other will proc.
Research: Your career and your honour demand you hone your craft, and it's usually done through poking at runes and seeing what works.
[ ] The Secrets of Light?: That moment with the shield and sunray, the light of your torch glinting off the crystal, both sparked something in your mind. An ember that refused to be burned out. You've done permutations to the standard Rune of Light and a few on Master Yorri's Rune of Reflection, but maybe there could be more?
[Cost: (8-2)=6 Actions] Student of the Odd will proc
[ ] The Movement of things: The Rune of Waking or Animation as some would call it is a rare rune. How Master Yorri knows both the regular and Master Rune could be explained by either a harrowing adventure full of terror, beasties and treasure or by something as mundane as asking a friend, you could never be sure with the man. Still, this was a rune that, to your frustration, you haven't had much chance to tinker with. Maybe just a peak?
[Cost: 8 actions] Student of the Odd will proc.
[-] The Rune Metal: The miners say all the Gromril's as pure as anything they've ever seen, purer even, but no word of brilliant silver or pure white streaks. Coming back to the cave days later to see for yourself and you can't say they're lying either. But yet… but yet you can't, almost refuse to get the image out of your head. Maybe it's nothing, but maybe it may not be.
[Cost: ???-1 Actions] Student of the Odd will proc. Locked due to lack of a proper workshop.
[-] Understand a Master Rune: The same idea as studying any rune in theory, in practice it takes a lot longer and there's often a large chance of explosions. [Cost: 16 actions] Locked due to lack of a proper workshop.
PLEASE VOTE BY PLAN:
How Turns Work
I've added it to the "Mechanics" Threadmark under Informational, but for the sake of convenience, I'll post it here too.
Turns:
- A turn is 10 years long. Snorri's actions are limited, as, by Dwarf reckoning, nothing worth doing is done quickly. A turn consists of 5 actions you can take from a list with write-ins pending QM approval.
- Actions:
Actions are the lifeblood of a turn, each turn you'll have 5 actions to use and must spend them accordingly. The action cost of something is exactly that, how many actions it will take to complete. So you can choose to take a turn or two to do something that takes 4 actions or do it in one turn.
- Action Bonuses: As you've seen. You can rack up bonuses to certain types of action. Productivity Like No Other for instance, means you get 3 actions worth of progress for every 2 you input to a request. Thereby saving you a theoretical action. Now, if you use one action in one turn and an action the turn after on a request, Productivity Like No Other will not proc mostly to symbolize you putting in the effort and because I don't wanna keep track of action inputs across turns.
Overflow: In requests overflow simply improves your end product unless its part of a chain of actions with overflow at the end improving the whole chain. In research, overflow is more tricky. Depending on what you're doing it may carry over to future research actions or it may end up doing nothing at all.
- Requests:
Requests fall into two categories. Simple and Difficult. Both are done the same way, it's just that Simple requests for runed items where I won't let you pick which runes go on which item. Like, a simple request would be to fill an order of 100 runed pickaxes, I'm sure you don't want to pick a list of three runes for every last one yeah?
Difficult requests are, more often than not, the singular custom pieces or sets of pieces. There's a bit of choice here. You can make the decision over which runes to use, you can choose not to and let me decide, or give a theme you want me to follow. These are often for individuals and characters, but not always.
- Research(As an action):
- Rune Research:
As a runelord of the Dwarfen Golden Age. You have a rune for almost any situation. That axe not cutting good enough? Rune. Is the armour not strong enough? Rune. Runes upon runes upon even more runes are at your disposal. For the sake of all our sanities and to minimize bookkeeping, it's all but assured you will have a rune for most mundane situations. Researching and creating new runes then will be more limited by virtue of you having most everything already than it is your ability to think of new things. This, of course, doesn't apply to Master Runes. Further, there are runic "tech trees" if you will that I have been cooking up for some time, and depending on how things go you may be able to progress down those paths as well.
In short, unless it's a research option, you're likely to have a common rune for that problem already, and if you don't, you need to unlock the problem first before you can get to solve it.
- Other Research:
As a Runelord, you will always be looking for inspiration to devise new runes and sometimes solve problems in more mundane, less fun, ways than with runes. Any oddity or idea you may have will appear on here.
Epiphanies:
Epiphanies are moments in the quest where you realize something important about something. Some will simply be boosts to research, others will unlock entirely new tech trees. Epiphanies are triggered by certain actions you do and by rolls that I'm keeping track of in my master sheet.
AN: Welp here we go, @CuttleFish2.0 's d3 was to decide which roll your +5 was added to, which ended up being your nat 100, thereby making an exploding crit, which then rolled 90. I'm not salty. Not at all. :^( C&C as always, jesus my plans are not dead, but definitely borked.
