That's like saying it's ridiculous to invest in reading when we've only got the one book. There's just a smithy there now, but then it'll turn into a smithy and a cheese guy, and then a smithy and a cheese guy and a cloth guy...
My point is that its benefit is modular; it doesn't protect a smithy, it protects everything that needs protecting of ours, which at this moment is a smithy, the difference being that the latter is a list which can and will be expanded upon.
Exactly. And the security a stone bailey represents is one of the unstated requirements for independent craftsmen and minor merchants to want to settle here.
Remember, this is Stirland. Even in the nice quiet places it's not unknown to have the odd skeleton wander past, and there's likewise anywhere in the Empire, goblins and the odd abandoned baby beastmen wandering around, nevermind the regular wolves and hogs.
Which in turn means that often enough, having a perimeter wall is in itself justification for a village to spring up. Nobody raids our fief because theres nothing to loot. Not anymore.
I think you two are talking past one another. I agree with TNE that the stone wall is massive overkill in terms of amount of defense bought relative to money, but I also see veekie's point that the stone wall buys reputation and popular opinion.
I think you two are talking past one another. I agree with TNE that the stone wall is massive overkill in terms of amount of defense bought relative to money, but I also see veekie's point that the stone wall buys reputation and popular opinion.
Stone walls are expensive, true. But it is the single most obvious thing one can use the gold on. Means that the Grey College is appeased somewhat, the people of the fief have a tangible benefit seen from their absentee landlord, and it is lasting amd (hopefully) sturdy. Id say 400 is a cheap price to pay for that.
And again you miss the point. We arent DEVELOPING the land. Just spending gold fast to justify its purpose whule skirting the Vow of Poverty we took as a Grey Wizard.
[*] Plan Unseen Sword
-[*][Personal] Internalized Lessons: If you've been using a particular trait a fair bit in the last year, you can spend some time on it to internalize what you've learned and increase the trait (choose which trait; can be taken multiple times; will be more effective the more you've used the trait lately).
--[*] Intrigue
-[*][Personal] Attempt to imbue an item with a Relatively Simple spell. Imbue an item with a petty or lesser magic. (specify item and spell) (NEW)
--[*] Robes with Aethyric Armour.
-[*][Personal] Erect a shrine to Ranald in honour of his victory over Stromfels, and of Wolf's sacrifice that made it possible. (NEW)
-[*][Personal] Go to Altdorf and submit yourself to the Magisterial examination. (takes three actions, will take place after other actions in the turn)
--[*] Ranald's Blessing
-[*][Free] Use your newly-acquired blacksmithing gear to lure in a skilled but poor blacksmith to begin servicing the area. (no action required) (NEW)
-[*][Free] Build a well (50 gc).
--[*] No action needed +25 gc
-[*][Free] Build a communal granary to store food for lean times (50 gc).
--[*] No action needed +25 gc
-[*][Social] Free Time: Now well-established in Wurtbad, you can spend some time in your scant off hours getting to know someone better. Pick one character. (does not take an action)
--[*] Anton
Normally, clothes would be a difficult choice for enchantment. Most Wizards would favour good solid metal for holding their enchantment, not just for the solidity of form but also because one piece of metal is one piece of metal but one item of clothing is technically numerous strands woven together and fixed in place by knot and stitch. But Ulgu, you theorize, is entirely at home with flexibility and ephemerality, so you set out to weave your oft-used spell of Aethyric Armour into your robes of office. You do have to make some preparations beforehand, so a few copper coins are exchanged for a set of needles and thread and you try your amateur best to sew sigils and runes into the lining, and you quickly develop a grudging admiration for those that practice the seamstress' art. It's a lot harder than it looks.
You're quickly proven wrong in your hypothesis, as a few days later you find that even with the sewn sigils to anchor the enchantment, the slightest wrinkle shatters the partially-formed enchantment and releases the magic to earth on the strips of iron that adorn your workbench for exactly that purpose. You frown as you examine the robes for any trace of magic left within them. Theoretically the enchantment fully-formed would be more stable, but that would require you to finish the long process of enchantment before the robes move even slightly. You consider various ways of trying to hold the robes immobile while still giving you access to the entire thing, before you shelve the idea and decide to try another approach.
An outlay of a few silver coins gets you a good leather skin, which you slice into a series of squares. Being originally part of an animal, it would theoretically retain magical energies better than most, and would retain the connection between the squares as they were once part of the same animal. Using reflected and concentrated sunlight, you slowly and carefully burn the appropriate sigils into each piece, doing your best to ignore the smell.
You need to put the pieces aside and work out on paper the correct way to divide the spell up so it can be split between different squares and still combine back together, which takes days of work as you convert the spell to thaumaturgic equations and then try to find the best way to split it, and then convert the divided fragments back into pieces of incomplete spellcraft which then have to be made into enchantment, but you're unable to find a way to make an enchantment both self-contained and fragmented, so you have to go back to the beginning and convert the process of enchantment into thaumaturgic equations so you can derive that into fragments. By the time it's complete you're wondering whether the holding-the-robes-immobile thing would have been easier, but you press on.
Each of the squares of leather, when enchanted, is magically useless; it's only in combination with the 15 other leather squares and the 15 other fragments of the enchantment that they combine to form a working piece of magic. Or so the theory goes, and you've no way to check whether it works until all sixteen pieces are enchanted, and each square is a full day's work in itself. A week passes, then another, and finally you've got the end result ready for testing. You impatiently sew each of the squares into place in the lining of your robes and then wear them, feeling the unfamiliar weight they add to your usually so familiar robes. Then you press down on the square of leather on your left hip, and the familiar grey sinks into inky black as shadow rises from the weave of the fabric and spreads over your exposed skin. An experimental knife-cut on a sleeve fails to penetrate it, and then another on your palm similarly fails to cut, and you smile.
---
The worn and well-maintained Old Dwarf Road between Averland and Talabecland turns into the much less so tributary that leads to Sonningwiese, which after a brief stop-off in the small village gives way to the rocky dirt road to your estate as you climb higher into the hills. The only constant sign of human habitation is that the grasses and shrubs you pass have been grazed low by herds instead of left to grow wild. Once or twice you see some of your subjects, always accompanied by a herd of goat or sheep, who watch placidly as you pass.
The site of your future manor is atop the highest rise in your lands, which is also the only relatively flat area to be found. Soon enough, two carts will arrive in Sonningwiese, one full of lumber and another full of tools and also an eager young journeyman blacksmith from Tarshof, and from there the itinerant workers you recruited will help both carts make their way up the treacherous road to here. They'll have to construct some makeshift shelter up here, but you'll be staying in a tavern down in Sonningwiese since your Shadowsteed doesn't care about distance or road conditions.
You visit the closest thing to a headsman the area has, the man who owns the largest herd and is well-respected for it, and ask him to spread word that any who wish to pay taxes in work rather than in a share of their produce should present themselves to the hilltop, as well as telling him that there'll be a well sunk and a granary built there for the common use, and a blacksmith will be setting up there to offer his services. He takes all this news in characteristic phlegmatic fashion, but you see interest in his eyes. Perhaps he's excited to have the only real gossip this area has seen in half a decade, but perhaps he's genuinely interested in the improvement you'll be making in the lot of the locals. Either way, word will spread.
The next morning, the carts are partway up the road and the most impatient of workers have gathered armloads of tools and walked the rest of the way, and the seemingly empty landscape has disgorged a band of fit young men willing to work to spare their family their tax burden for the year. Shovels are distributed and used for about two minutes before the thin topsoil is removed, then picks and sledgehammers are introduced to get through the white rock underneath. When the carts finally arrive, the lumber is unloaded and split into four shares: one for the blacksmith, one for the granary, one for the shrine, and one for the temporary shelter all these men will be living out of for the next few months. You listen to the carters moan about the condition of the roads, then you send them mercilessly back down. There's more lumber to be moved yet.
The blacksmith leads the men constructing his future shop, a carpenter from among the itinerant workers directs them in constructing the granary, democracy and arguments directs the construction of the shelter. Your focus is the Shrine, which you're a little concerned about and as such gather the men one evening to reveal to them the recast idol and gauge their reactions. The idol was supposed to be shaped like a sitting cat, but through what the blacksmith back in Wurtbad said was an accident (but you're quite sure was anything but) is halfway to looking like a very small wolf. You see greed in some eyes at the silver, but it fades quickly as you explain that the idol is sacred to Ranald and will be the centerpiece of a shrine to him. Both itinerant workers and herdsmen alike are vulnerable to capricious fortune, and neither fancy provoking the God that rules over it.
Over weeks, the Shrine goes up, built so that the wood of the arched roof forms the innocent-looking crosses sacred to Ranald. The altar is built with a hollow that the idol can be concealed within so that, if necessary, the shrine can be said to be a particularly modest shrine to just about any god; you don't think it will be necessary, but the possibility of subterfuge is pleasing to Ranald, nonetheless. And when the building is finished, rather than any formal ceremony to sanctify it, you gather the workers and herdsmen together and supervise a night of Liar's Dice, helped with a barrel of mediocre ale from the tavern you've been calling home. As the night drags on there's accusations of cheating and fists fly and blood is spilled, but by morning the events of the previous night are hazy and only the bloodstain on the altar remains.
---
It was a shame to bid farewell to the growing structures on the hilltop near Sonningwiese, but duty calls and the road to Altdorf is long. Traffic is bustling along the Old Dwarf Road and you smile to see how many of the carts you pass fly the pennant of the EIC, though that fades as you turn off onto the Nuln Road. You pass through the Barony of Purgg and recall events in the Stirhugel; the 'unknown creatures' picking off sheep and cows that turned out to be mere bandits who were hanged for their troubles. Next you ride through the Free Town of Flensburg which is now only the Free Town of Flensburg, and smile as you recall Anton's series of deals that cut through the snarled geopolitical mess it was. Then, suitably enough, you find yourself in the Barony of Blutdorf, and decide to pay him a visit and see how life outside the council is treating him.
The Barony of Blutdorf is dedicated to agriculture, drawing in crops from the rich lowlands between the Nattern Forest and the River Aver and propelling them east to Wurtbad and west to Nuln. This makes it at least equal in wealth to most of the larger Counties who possess mainly woodlands and hills with only small tributaries for rivers, with only Franzen and the rich lowlands of Southern Stirland rivalling it for agricultural output, and it puts that wealth to use by providing the crossbow regiment of the 2nd Division. A worthy fief for your former co-councillor to inherit, you think to yourself, and that's reinforced by the glimpse of the town of Blutdorf you get riding through its streets - mostly rows of small, neat houses, but a building surrounded by enormous barrels must be a winery and another has a number of alert-looking guards with the sigil of the Guild of Engineers over the doors, and you guess it to be a crossbow factory.
You arrive at the modest keep that is the home of the Baron of Blutdorf and introduce yourself to the guard, who takes one look at you and waves you in to join the rest of the crowd. The courtyard is much neater than the one in Eagle Castle, apparently used for occasions like this instead of for the troops to practice their combat drills. You wriggle your way through the crowd of townsfolk and peasants towards the center of attention, and finally break through to see Anton listening intently as some kind of land dispute is laboriously explained and argued over by two peasants.
"You signed it," Anton says, cutting into what was being said. "Yes, you were drunk, but you got yourself drunk and he was drunk too, and the price is fair and you both signed the agreement so it's binding. Have your herds off it by next Festag or they'll be considered stray." One of the peasants look mutinous, but the crossbow-armed guards lining the inner wall of the keep start taking an interest in him so he keeps his dissatisfaction to himself and leaves. "Okay, who's up next? Let's see..." he consults a slate. "Fifty-three! Who's number fifty-three?"
Grinning, you step forward. "I've a complaint about the conditions of the roads," you say.
Anton sighs. "For one, the roads are the responsibility of the Elector Count, you'll have to take it up in Wurtbad, for two there's a number system, unless you're number fifty-three-" he stops as he finally notices you. "Mathilde! Oh gosh, it's you!" He practically leaps from the throne to hug you and you return it with a laugh. He turns from you to yell up at the guards, "send someone to bring snacks from the kitchens, court is adjourning."
The people around you grumble a bit, but the promise of snacks keeps them happy as Anton leads you into the keep proper, which is vastly more modestly-scaled than the castle you're used to, and into a comfortable little sunroom where he stokes the fire to life and offers you a drink from the sideboard.
"Look at you!" you say, delighted. "Holding court and everything!"
He smiles bashfully. "My father's idea - he says the people should get to know me for when I take over. He's talking of stepping down to enjoy his twilight years while he's still fit enough to hunt."
"So you'll be Baron," you say wonderingly. You were always aware of him being the heir to the province, but didn't realize it could come so soon, and he seems similarly shocked.
"I've had my whole life to get used to it and it still seems strange. I suppose it can't be harder than being Chancellor for all of Stirland, though."
That sobers you somewhat. "Listen, Anton, I wanted to... well, apologize and thank you at the same time? You didn't have to give up your job for me-"
"I did," he says, simply. "You're my friend and you were ill-treated, so I had no choice."
You smile at him. Anton's view of the world was simple, but it definitely had its charms. "Thank you."
"Of course. So, what brings you?"
"Passing through on the way to Altdorf," you say. "Magister's exams."
"Not before time," he says. "It always came as a surprise that you were still a Journeywoman, with some of the things you managed. Gosh, the stories I've heard! Fang Island, the Sieges of the Drakenhofs, the whole business with Petr von Stolpe, and the Stirlandian League, and now the EIC!"
"Says the man that was sent to hire mercenaries and came back with a dragon."
"Says the woman who wrote his memoirs. It took me a month to find a second-hand copy, it was sold out before I'd even heard it was available."
The two of you laugh, and continue to discuss past events and the future until long after the sun has set.
---
The next morning finds you on the road once more as you follow the road around the Nattern forest running parallel to the Reik. In the distance, the spires of Altdorf rise to meet you as your enchanted steed effortlessly gallops past a mile marker every two minutes. When you finally reach the city, it is with a sense of anticipation.
You'd come to Altdorf quite often in the past eight years, on business of one sort or another, but you haven't returned to the Grey College. There is only a single circumstance that can bring a journeying wizard back to their Alma Mater: their journeying coming to an end. You dismiss your horse and stride with confidence through the streets until you come to one of the poorest and most violent districts Altdorf has, and without a moment's hesitation you continue, passing dingy taverns and faded advertisements dimly illuminated with tinted-red lights. In Altdorf, it is the rarest of muggers that would take their chances with a wizard, but in this district especially none would dare to interrupt the grey robes of a Shadowmancer. In the center of all of these shabby buildings filled with poverty and desperation lies a plain stone building, ancient and crumbling, with a single tower extending over it in such disrepair that all that would call it home is a family of pure-white owls. To most, it would be a ruin. To its neighbours, it is too terrible to acknowledge.
To you, it was home.
You push through the door and into the hallways revealed, lined with gargoyles and dust. You ignore doorways into empty rooms and duck under cobwebs as you walk with purpose but without direction, following the turns of the hallway as it appears to go on for far longer than the outside building would allow for, as unseen watchers train their gaze on you and decide whether to admit you to the inner sanctum, and finally you turn a corner and come face to face with a final set of doors that would not have been there if your admittance was not allowed. You push them open, and stand in the entrance hall of the Grey College, the center of a spiderweb of a hundred passages leading to a hundred hidden entrances throughout Altdorf.
You take a seat in a faded but well-maintained armchair and wait, and before long you hear footsteps coming from deeper within the building as your Master approaches. Any other time, he would mask his coming and simply appear in the seat opposite you, but this is a matter of ritual as old as the Colleges. You smile as he approaches, and he returns it as he lowers himself into the chair across from you.
"Have you journeyed?" he asks.
"I have journeyed across the length of Stirland and into the depths of Sylvania."
"Have you discovered?"
"I have discovered the spellcraft known as Mathilde's Mystical Matrix."
"Have you achieved?"
"I, in the command of the Army of Stirland and the Throngs of Zhufbar and Karak Kadrin, achieved the total destruction of Castle Drakenhof."
"Then I welcome you back to the Grey College, Mathilde Weber. May you call this campus home for the rest of your days." With the ritual complete, he leans forwards and claps you on the shoulder. "Well done, my girl."
---
There will be a period of study with your Master before you begin the Magisterial Exam. Choose which of the below you wish to focus on during your time here, as well as how many you wish to focus on before beginning your Magisterial examination. Each will take a month, during which you cannot leave the campus; the minimum amount is two, plus the Intrigue lesson already selected. It will be possible to study these at the College at a later date, but then you would have to earn your entrance either by deed or by coin, whereas now your Master is paying for your lessons. On the other hand, the less time you spend in study, the more impressive your graduation will be.
[ ] How many months? (write in; the minimum and default is 3)
Practical
[*] Intrigue and Tradecraft. (locked in)
[ ] The Use and Creation of Poison
[ ] Spells of Grey Magic
[ ] Swords and Swordplay
[ ] Ritual Magic
[ ] Psychology
[ ] Imperial Law
[ ] Practical Diplomacy
Theory
[ ] The Nature of Ulgu
[ ] The Nature of Magic
[ ] The Enemies of Man
[ ] The Allies of Man
[ ] Religion and the Empire
[ ] The Empire and its Provinces
[ ] Human Nations of the Old World
[ ] Chaos and Chaos Gods
Extracurricular
[ ] Enchantment
[ ] Potions and Alchemy
[ ] Power Stones and their Creation
[ ] Runes and Runecraft
[ ] Wyrdstone Containment
[ ] On the Education of Apprentices
[ ] Searching for and Identifying Animal Familiars
[ ] The Creation of Artificial Familiars
- I've folded the Intrigue learning into this for story reasons - it hasn't 'cost' you an option.
- Ranald's Blessing will apply to the examination itself.
- If there's another subject you think the Grey College should offer, let me know.
- Example of correct vote (replace the *s with x's).
The problem with wooden fortifications is, obviously, fire. The estate isn't so close to Sylvania that they'd have to worry about more than the occasional lost skeleton, but greenskins and beastmen are both found throughout the Empire and both are fond of setting things on fire.
You've also got to consider your financial windfall. The Grey Order is yet to comment, but their gears grind slow but fine and this is too much for them to ignore. They'll soon ask pointed questions as to which of the cavernous loopholes in the Grey Order's Vow of Poverty you'll be shoving the funds through.
[*] Plan Dame Weber
-[*] Improve your land near Sonningwiesse.
--[*] Rebuild the local manor house, complete with fortifications to shelter the locals should danger threaten.
--[*] Closely investigate the area for any mineral wealth.
--[*] Build farms and import farmers to compliment the herdsmen.
You sketch out your plans for investing the money in the lands of House Weber, building a protective keep and investigating the mining and farming possibilities that the treacherous land may yield, and because this is officially official business instead of the playful parry and thrust of your relationship with your Master, you seal it with your coat of arms and send it to the Grey College by post. You receive no response from the Bursar; or to put it another way, their lack of response is, itself, a response. You've no doubt they'll be checking up on you to make sure you follow through on your plans for the wealth. It's something of a reassurance to bring your lands to the attention of the Grey Order and to receive no censure for it, glad that your separation of Journeyman Weber from Dame Weber was accepted. The Vow of Poverty is easily sidestepped with a hundred possible excuses, but that just means they come down all the harder when someone flouts it.
- The plan for the funds doesn't need to begin immediately, but should you choose one then the funds will be earmarked for that and you should probably show some progress towards it in a timely fashion.
Emphasis added; it's only been a year since the plan was submitted, and we've voted to invest in the fief in the two turns since. So long as we keep on spending the earmarked gold, we should be okay.
And when the building is finished, rather than any formal ceremony to sanctify it, you gather the workers and herdsmen together and supervise a night of Liar's Dice, helped with a barrel of mediocre ale from the tavern you've been calling home. As the night drags on there's accusations of cheating and fists fly and blood is spilled, but by morning the events of the previous night are hazy and only the bloodstain on the altar remain.
You ignore doorways into empty rooms and duck under cobwebs as you walk with purpose but without direction, following the turns of the hallway as it appears to go on for far longer than the outside building would allow for, as unseen watchers train their gaze on you and decide whether to admit you to the inner sanctum, and finally you turn a corner and come face to face with a final set of doors that would not have been there if your admittance was not allowed.
I'm uncertain how we are supposed to structure votes for this. Is it a main vote by number of months and an approval vote for which things to do during those months, or a plan like [*] three months -[*]thing1 -[*]thing2 -[*]thing3 , or what?
Looking like a lot of interesting options, either way, so I'm drawn towards more than three...
[X] Plan: Knock Off Socks
-[X] Three Months
-[X] Spells of Grey Magic
-[X] The Nature of Magic
We've got a hilarious amount of experience at this point in conventional skills and knowledge, well above what an ordinary Magister should be capable of. Let's take advantage of this opening to try and push our magical skills to a point where we can comfortably pass the tests.
Plus, Nature of Magic will probably be real fucking handy with handling our arcane goods.
Alternately, we can skip Spells of Grey Magic and focus on Power Stones or Alchemy instead, just optimize towards handling the magic juice. On the other hand though, more adventures are always nice.
[X]Four Months
[X] Spells of Grey Magic
[X] The Nature of Ulgu
[X] Enchantment
The first is chosen because, for all her other accomplishments Mathilde has a rather low spell count all things considered. Nature of Ulgu is to deal with this line on our char-sheet
Your grasp of the fundamentals of magic would challenge that of most Magisters; now you just need to bring your grasp of Ulgu specifically to the same level.
Can our robes be a product of both enchanent and rune craft? Seems like it would be. Anyway. I dont much have a preference to any of the lot. Most anything aside from poison is ok to me.
[X]Four Months
[X] Spells of Grey Magic
[X] The Nature of Ulgu
[X] Enchantment
[X] Seven Months
[X] Intrigue and Tradecraft. (locked in)
[X] The Nature of Magic
[X] Ritual Magic
[X] Enchantment
[X] Potions and Alchemy
[X] Power Stones and their Creation
[X] Runes and Runecraft
We've got Ulgu, swordplay, and general education down. I can't see why we'd care too much about making an impression by graduating early. We're already independently wealthy, and have a fief to experiment in. We don't have plans to leave at the moment, do we?
Lets become a crafting expert, and save making an impression for when we produce works of wonder with the Shysh juice as a base.
Can our robes be a product of both enchanent and rune craft? Seems like it would be. Anyway. I dont much have a preference to any of the lot. Most anything aside from poison is ok to me.
It's a use of the most basic of runecraft to make something better able to hold an enchantment, and as such is much more a product of enchantment than runecraft.
