So you get to work writing up a new document. It takes you days to get used to the jargon of legal documents, but you copy sentences from here and there and piece them together like a puzzle. And since you're already making a document, you decide, you may as well go all in and remould the foundation document of the Wurtbad Watch to your purposes. Weeks more pass in a manic haze of editing and revisions, as you craft a document that takes the existing loose gang of thief-takers, bellringers and busy-bodies and turns them into what could very well be described as your personal army.
Or, at least, the founding company of it.
When you present the document to Van Hal, he reads it three times before he signs it. When you take the signed document to the Watch's headquarters, 'Lefty' Ragnier resigns on the spot after reading it. But that doesn't even slow you down, and you plump the rolls of the Watch with veterans willing to swear loyalty to you personally as well as adding a number of existing members to your informant network. All in all, a good result for a few months' work. Now you just have to rebuild it in your image.
[Finding the document: Req 40, Stewardship, 67+10=77.]
[How restrictive is it? Roll, 26. Technically excludes you; new document required.]
[Writing a new document: Breakpoints 40/70, Stewardship, 97+10=107.]
Well...looks like Ranald saw fit to help us with the writing of taking over law enforcement!
And we're a knight now so they can even be our legally mandated retinue?
And it just keeps on happening, because to the snake there is no solid surface in the box. The parts of it in reality are subject to gravity, but can never stop falling because the closest thing to a bottom is a portal into the warp. It is suspended in an eternal free-fall, forever unable to either heal or die. And in that state it constantly drains magical energies into reality.
That realization sends a shudder through you. If the demon that pursued you was any other warp-entity, the energies leaking out would... well, you'd be lucky if they were only Dhar. But this is the All-Knowing Serpent, Wisdom's Asp, and apparently the ever-shifting hue of it's scales is mirrored by the pure combination of magical energies that it is formed from. Instead of liquid corruption pouring forth, this is pure, untainted, liquid magic.
Well, thats one trap we won't be repurposing.
[What's in the box? Learning, Req 50, 34+16+20(Ranald's Blessing)=70.]
Funny thing: If not for the blessing, Whats in the box would give another Threshold 50, rolled 50.
Schrodinger's Box!
And then as you enter the Great Hall, you see someone among the chatting crowd that completely derails your train of thought - your Master, shamelessly looting a plate of entrees from a plate held by a hapless servant.
"What are you doing here?" you ask as you sidle up to him, half enthused and half suspicious.
"When a pawn reaches the end of the board," he says through a mouthful of cold meats, "it turns into a different piece. The question to ask is, what piece shall it become?" He smiles that infuriatingly smile of his, the one you spent years practising until you could project mysterious smugness as well as him. You also learned the counter to it: deliberate obtuseness.
"I can clear that up for you," you say brightly. "I'm being made a knight."
Well, she could potentially become a Queen...or a Bishop for the matter.
"Ah," you say. Grey Order business? No, he'd send that business encrypted, standard procedure and besides, all the better to show off his encryption with. Sent either by post if it was business as usual, or pinned to your nightgown when you woke in the morning if you'd done something to irk the Order. For him to deliver it in person... "The other business."
Without seeming to move or speak, he shapes Ulgu around the two of you. An illusion wrapped in ignorability, the show-off. "Afraid so. There's whispers of a campaign into Sylvania in the air, and it seems to have drawn the attention of our mutual acquaintance." He produces an envelope from his robes. "I took the liberty of reading it - I've got a different cipher glued to my eyelids than you do, but I haven't met a cipher yet I couldn't crack."
Oh yeah. That's going to be a thing.
Have means in place to gather information re: undead types and density in Sylvania if and when Stirland forces sally across the border. When information is acquired, send via your Master. If possible, collection of live samples will be rewarded; send news of any you secure via same and we will arrange collection.
Okay so...I'm thinking:
-Gather info on undead types - We can do this. Hell, we can even get Van Hal to HELP. He'd love dissecting undead with a wizard to explain to him the bits mortal eyes can't see.
-Live capture of undead - I'm going to just skip the reward because it's optional and no freaking way I'm delivering live undead to anyone we can't identify.
"One I will prove myself worthy of," you reply, just a touch of defensiveness in your tone. Then you wince at yourself. "Kasmir, I wanted to apologize. That business with the infiltrators, what I said-"
But Kasmir has looked up from his papers, and shakes his head firmly. "You were right to make my failure known. One cannot serve Sigmar at the expense of Sigmar's Empire, and Sigmar is not the only God of Sigmar's Empire. I had forgotten that." He runs a finger along the spine of the Deus Sigmar strapped to his belt. "Had but one of them claimed to hold Sigmar as their patron God, I would have uncovered them in moments. But Morrites? Shallyans?" He sighs. "You succeeded where I failed." He seems to struggle with himself for a moment, then offers, "will you pray with me, Dame Mathilde?"
That's as close to an apology from him as you're likely to get.
Ah, looks like we incidentally sparked RESOLVE in him. And he will do his duty.
When you arrive deep in the hills around Sonningwiese, you find an estate consisting of hill and rock and scrub. The local peasants are a scattered and hardy lot, so different to the lowland peasants of your youth. Instead of spending lifetimes working the same plot of land season after season, they drive herds of sheep over land too steep and rocky for crops and flocks of goats over land too steep for sheep. In times of war they muster with slings, and though it certainly doesn't sound like much, a chunk of rock the size of a man's fist delivered at speed to the skull deters a great many of the enemies of the Empire. It is, you ponder, a tough land; not a rich land, never a rich land, but never a poor land either. Not a threat in the Empire will ever choose to climb up the rocky foothills to chase sheep, not when there's leagues of farmland and town all around, and the hardy hill sheep ignore droughts that would leave farmers ruined. It is a land that you could be ignored for a century and still be much the same as you left it.
Perfect land for us. Sounds like potentially mining land actually, but god knows. We aren't the right kind of wizard for it.
We probably should look into hiring someone to improve the land. A surveyor and watchtower or two would go far.
The closest thing the locals have to a leader (apart from yourself, of course) is a man with a slightly larger herd and a slightly larger hut, and representatives from the hill clans gather there to give you their oaths. The reception they give you is muted but not hostile; the general consensus seems to be that yes, you're a witch, and therefore probably a dangerously insane meddler in powers man was not meant to meddle in - but at least you're not a merchant. You ride a horse of shadow, but at least you can ride, and that sword on your back sends a clear message; you're an odd sort of knight, but you're infinitely more a knight than those of the Stirlandian League that 'owned' the land previously, so you'll do, seems to be the general consensus.
Better a witch than a bloodsucker huh?
Your position as lesser evil secured and your right to taxation acknowledged, you bid your subjects farewell and head back to civilization, where you're greeted with something you didn't expect: you've received mail. You've gotten letters from your Master before, and from whoever it is that's pulling your strings, but there's more in front of you now than you've received in all the years you've served as Spymaster. You sort through the envelopes, noting the ornate seals on them. You recognize one as belonging to Anton's family, and a second from your little romp through Leicheberg. Each of them, you discover, contains congratulations from the ruling classes of Stirland, welcoming you to their ranks, all stock phrases and rote best wishes. You frown, your well-honed cynicism doubting their sincerity.
Okay, you grant, maybe not all of them. Anton's father is probably being sincere, or at least Anton writing on his father's behalf - you're pretty sure you recognize the handwriting. Okay, and maybe the Stirlandian League business might have won over Franzen and Wolfsbach, and considering you've got his daughter on your payroll, maybe the Grand Mayor of Flensburg is sincere too.
And Knighthood already pays dividends, as the nobility can now officially notice you without shame.
Wilhelmina has tabulated a list of the ongoing contracts inherited from the Stirlandian League, sorted first by profitability and second by their likelihood to survive a newly reopened market; a quarter are to be dissolved by mutual agreement, a further third will be renegotiated with less profit per weight but a much higher throughput, and half of what's left are being auctioned off to the other traders of Stirland, who are eager for part of the North-South trade now that the way is clear. This leaves... a fraction, possibly, that the EIC will inherit unchanged, and the first order of business is filling them. To do this, the EIC is buying the transport infrastructure of the Stirlandian League off of Stirland; 'buying' is apparently the correct term for it even though no money is moving. The loan you took out, Wilhelmina explains, is remaining in the Stirland treasury because the funds are being used to purchase said infrastructure, so Stirland's 'loan' to you is actually in the form of what you worked so hard to have confiscated off the Stirlandian League.
Are you being conned? This feels like a con. But it can't be, right? Wilhelmina's heard your reports to Van Hal. She wouldn't dare.
Days pass in an ocean of numbers and terminology and jargon. As far as you can tell, things are moving back and forth, and being sold and bought, and money is changing hands, and everything's going well. The first contract is completed, and payment arrives in Wurtbad, and there's wine for the three of you and you get your first dividends, except you don't, what you get is a piece of paper saying that your dividends were used to repay your loan to Stirland, except the 'loan' never left Stirland's treasury, it's still there, and so are your dividends. What? And then Wilhelmina explains that the client in Talabheim didn't actually send money from Talabheim to Wurtbad. They sent a piece of paper to a bank in Wurtbad, and the bank has given the EIC money, except it's actually the client's money because the bank, which holds all the client's money, now owns some of that money it was holding anyway?
You are so confused.
[Contributing to the EIC: Stewardship, Roll, 9+10=19.]
It sounds like we sort of got conned. I'm not sure...
You finally escape from the EIC offices after what feels like the eternitieth time you tried to figure out what the hell is going on. After all that, you need a break. You'll go shopping. Finally buy that enchantment gear you wanted, surely fashion has moved on, right?
[Mathilde vs Wizard Chic: Req 40, Stewardship, 10+10=20.]
It hasn't. It's gotten worse.
And you are to blame.
Stirland's newest knight has inflamed the imagination of the feckless youths of Wurtbad, and somehow the availability of magical equipment has fallen from it's previous level of zero. Everywhere you look, some twit is using something that would be very useful for your magical experiments as a necklace. And the worst part is you can't even be mad at them because whenever you go to yell at them, they notice you and start squealing in excitement and ask for you to sign their wizard hats! How can you be mad at someone that's idolizing you so thoroughly?
Ranald must be laughing himself
sick.
Among a pair of new spells you finally pick up Magic Alarm again, and try to develop the habit of setting it on the entrance to your Buried Palace, which is instantly stymied because every single time you cast the spell, a cat wanders over and sits directly in it. The world is conspiring to drive you insane, you're sure of it.
Ranald: "U Mad?"
Kasmir's looking serene; you actually heard word from your friends in the Thieves Guild that he's been asking around for a Priest of Ranald, putting word out that there's a chaplaincy open for one. You doubt it would ever be filled, but it's more evidence of his newfound openness to non-Sigmarite faiths.
Seriously. His sides must be in orbit by now.
Schultz is missing an ear, but actually doesn't seem that put out about it - he's recently taken to hauling around what looks like a genuine Hochland long rifle and is animatedly engaged in conversation with Gustav about the interplay between height and range.
And huh, looks like Schultz lost his Coward trait?
So option assessment next:
[ ] Underground: Absorbing the Sewer Jacks and rat-catchers into the Watch will allow you to make the underways of the city as safe as the streets above.
We can look into this, but the Watch is usually not well suited to sewer patrols. Not a major element to enshrine into law.
On the other hand a lot of the time crime gets away because the Watch stops when they hit the sewers. Worth considering due to that
[ ] Road Network: Bringing the Road Wardens under the Watch's banner will allow them to project force along the roads connecting the towns, not just within the towns themselves.
This is quite useful, but trods on Gustav's toes a bit. This would help cut down on banditry, but while Gustav is here, his outriders should outperform the Watch.
[ ] Riverwardens: With the addition of a fleet of very small warships, the Watch extend their reach onto the waterways of Stirland, fighting piracy and smuggling in the rivers that are the Empire's lifeblood.
The riverways are unwatched. We know this from the very first turn. If the Ledgers were stolen via the river route we'd be able to do a total of jack and shit.
[ ] Self-Sustaining: If the Watch took on officially sanctioned side jobs protecting caravans and merchant ships between cities, they could basically fund themselves instead of being a constant drain on Stirland's coffers, effectively fueling their own growth.
This on the other hand, is a risky precedent. An army that gets paid by merchants, will owe their loyalty to merchants. It's better for Van Hal to raise taxes and then raise the budget.
Rome learned the lesson: Never let your armies self-finance.
[ ] Sally Force: Small unit tactics and woodsman training makes the Watch able to sally forth in strength to combat hotspots of corruption, crime and restless dead in the woods and hills of the countryside on top of their city duties.
This harkens back to the OLD purpose of the City Watch, to root out bandits and gribblies in the countryside.
But its a poor fit. Urban fighting trained watchmen are ill suited to tromping through the wilderness. We'd need to cross train.
[ ] Siege Training: Training with ranged weapons and the basics of siege engineering will turn the Watch into a ferocious force multiplier if their city comes under siege.
...I think if the Watch has to take care of a siege we probably have bigger problems.
[ ] Militia: Focusing on military training will allow the Watch, in times of war, to join battlefields and give a showing equal to that of any full-time military unit.
Same as the above. We're focusing on law enforcement.
[ ] There's definitely evil afoot in Drakenhof. Perhaps there's a way to survive investigating this.
[ ] The disappearance of your predecessor is very concerning, but according to the Stirlandian League he's pulled out of the game with all his ill-gotten gains. If you're not willing to let that go, maybe you could track him down anyway.
We can stop bugging Van Hal about these. He clearly considers them to be low priorities.
[ ] If we've got vampire troubles, maybe you should spend some time investigating how to counter vampiric infiltration.
Might be useful for doing the undead research on the clock?
[ ] Wilhelmina said a lot of really complicated words at you. Maybe she's up to something. Or maybe you just don't know a goddamn thing about large-scale inter-provincial trade. Either way, something to look into.
Maybe she's scamming us(looking at our relationship level, probably not). Maybe we'd raise Stewardship.
But from my knowledge of economics, this kind of legal shuffle happens all the time.
[ ] Your intelligence infrastructure is becoming worthy of the title; perhaps you could dedicate some time to expanding it. And, ideally, Stirland could pay for it directly instead of it eating your discretionary income.
[ ] The Wurtbadian Watch is now your pet. Given more time, you can make it your attack dog.
We probably need these.
[ ] For no particular reason, it'd be a good idea to see about informants within the military.
This is a maybe. We actually already have SOME.
[ ] Also for no particular reason, how about I see about building a unit in the army dedicated to catching terrible necromantic gribblies?
But this I think could do. Van Hal actually might be really interested!
Now to crank out a plan before bed, assuming nobody else beat me to my ideal
