Turn 23
1446
Your grandson rests upon your knee giggling. "And then Grandpa walked up to the abomination, raised fiery blade, and set the lord of death ablaze!" Bertrand giggles, little tyke happy to talk to his grandpa. "Excuse me for a moment, sir, but I do believe your siblings and I have matters to discuss."
You put him down in the chair and set out to round up the rest of the pack.
Merovée and Abraham are easy enough to find— they are both listening intently to their grandmother, who is weaving a story about an incident of hers in Naggaroth— incidentally where she got that Druchii wine you still haven't tried yet. Good way to rest while recovering, certainly.
Ysolt is sitting in the chapel, praying to the Lady with Rose. That one...well, there are eyes on her. Honorable eyes. Gauvain is nearby, watching as his mother pummels a pair of wooden dummies to splinters in the courtyard.
There's a scream from a serving maid near where you left Bertrand; and without hesitation you race towards the sitting room.
In moments you've devoured the space and shattered the oaken door. Inside Bertrand is sleeping. He's also being propped up by a snake, a water-cobra easily long as your arm.
Godfrey is there, too, sword drawn and racing towards the serpent— but with a jerking motion you stop him, slamming your hand into his chest. He winces even through the plate-armor.
"What? Why?"
"Look." Your voice is calm and quiet, to keep from disturbing creature. "The snake is not harming him."
Indeed the serpent is coiled around the child and sleeping soundly too.
Oh boy.
Martial: Sir Lancelot is, without a doubt, the finest Knight you know, capable of turning aside blade after blade and assault after assault on his person, and being a peerless strategist as well. He is perfectly suited to advise you in matters of war. His strategies are bold, precise, experimental— perfect for facing these resurgent greenskin filth. You clasped him in arms the day you met him, and you clasp him again now, as your brother and friend. He hopes to leave for the Quest, soon.
Shamans To The Sword: Never have the orcs been so vulnerable in Montfort— lacking wyverns, lacking reinforcement from the Massif, and utterly ravaged by the Wild Hunt. You will not let this go to waste. You will break them, you will remove them of your lands, and you will start by putting their shamans to the sword, breaking their foul magics utterly and entirely. Your men, and you, will hunt them as relentlessly as you can.
Needed:50 Rolled:53+20=73
- You don't let up on the Orcs, cutting your way through their numbers like an arrow through the air— their own thirst for violence carries them towards you, and again and again you leave their shattered remnants on the ground before you. You take, as a trophy, one of their staffs, having it stripped of magic then placed in a rapidly filling weapon's case in your Courtroom.
I Want My Shit Back: The Greenskins stole and looted much in their assaults upon your lands. Maidens and men alike were sold into slavery, tools were stolen, supplies taken. Now that your armies are fatted with men once more, and the greenskins on the back-foot, it would be a good time to reclaim what was lost and also kill some filthy Orcs.
Needed:50 Rolled: 60+5 (Siege Wagons)=65
- While you are busy killing shamans, your men and nobles take up arms too. Leading surgical strikes deep into the mountain, your knights herd hundreds of Orcs into the waiting spears and arrows of soldiers, killing them; the pyres they light could be seen for miles. Hos, seeds, stone, and other supplies alike are retaken.
On top of this, your nephew leads a strike team deep into the mountains; and together rescues a thousand men from the deep pits where the Orcs had them working raw stone into weapons; among them was the daughter of the Earl Edmond. He has his barony back, at least.
Reward: +600 Gold in Economic Recovery
Diplomacy: The damage the Orcs have done to your people is… astounding. It will take years to fully recover, in terms of gold alone. But, and this is fortunate, you don't have to do it alone; you have help— help Sir Uter will see delivered.
High-Elf Party: Finubar the Phoenix King will be hosting a grand party to celebrate his marriage, and has given invitations to the Leaders of all the forces that slew the Druchii in the Borderlands. Godfrey will go, this is not truly in question; but it might be wise to go yourself, and show that you are not just a recluse. Even if it might upset some of your people.
Needed:20 Rolled:27
- You are in relatively clear position for anyone to make too much of a riot about you going to a party.
Reward: Attend High Elven Party
Blood-Gold and Gromril: The Dwarfs have caught wind of your discovery of veins of both Gromril and Bloodgold in close proximity to each other. As you might expect, Dwarf Ambassadors for various nobles have appeared, each trying to gain rights to the Metals— and to the Warpstone, oft-used in the construction of more potent runes as a replacement for dragon fire.
These are, of course, Dwarfs, and thus they are patient; but it would still be wise to settle the matter relatively swiftly.
- The Dwarf's swiftly send an offer you would be mad to refuse, and three months later a Dwarf Prince arrives with a small retinue.
Darag Ironpick is the second son of King Ironpick. Where he walks the scent of apple-scented ales follow, and always clad in luxurious furs he is surprisingly personable; at least, for a dwarf. Soon enough adventurers, traders, and others looking for Dwarfen Gear travel through your lands seeking the far easier to access hold that swiftly strikes up, funded by the blood-gold and gromril; and in their wake they spend hefty hunks of golds buying supplies and food and all the other things one needs for travelling.
Reward: Warpstone dealt with, Dwarf Hold established in Montfort, +500 Economic Recovery
Stewardship: Yvain's office is a whirlwind of activity, a flurry of parchment and paper and meetings and a thousand other things. Two barons dead, 20,000+ men slain on the field of battle, farmland destroyed… the Goblins have earned his bureaucratic ire.
Strengthen The Walls: The Walls of Montfort are already thick, mighty things, crafted of the mountainside, built by ancient, ancient hands, before even the reign of Giles and the Unification. Mighty things, it was from there that the forces of Montfort retook the Dukedom from Sigismund the Bastard, and reclaimed Bretonni land for Bretonni men. There is, however, one thing the original builders did not have that you do: the Heraldry. It will be time-consuming, tedious work; but Rose feels that, with class and their practice, they can mark the walls with the magic of the Court Invulnerable, making them stronger than the mountain stone.
- The walls of Montfort were already mighty things, grand in their strength; capped by five mighty towers and built on a foundation crafted by dwarfs, even the mighty Karaks could not hope to enter if the men of Montfort did not will it.
But with the heraldry, there is a new dimension of protection offered: Magical. The Enemy will find it difficult to work their foul magics in the city, denied their power, while the Damsels should find it if anything easier to do their work; as was well proven when no men died and stayed dead in the tournaments your Vassals performed to celebrate the return of their men.
More Mines: You need your people working, producing, crafting and otherwise building. Find men to lead expeditions into the mountains, as far as they can according to your treaty with the Court Invulnerable, and start mining. Expansive mines, at that— tin and iron and potash and whatever can be found, for as long as you can.
- A new town, Augustville (Very nice shot for your ego, really) deeper in the Gray Mountains than knights have ever dared go before, has been founded over the course of the year; and its main source of income is a tin mine, feeding the furnaces of the new Dwarf Hold springing up nearby.
Piety: You stand the grave of Sir Aldric for hours on end. It was he who took you in when you so dishonored yourself at Orleans; he who took your recklessness birthed of grief ungodly and made it purposeful bravery; he who gave you your faith in the Lady. He deserved better than this...ungoodly end.
You will see the Court of Shadows broken for this, on your honor.
She Can Teach You: Rose is, as of right now, the only person in Bretonnia who knows how to use Heraldry— how to beseech the ancient spirits of the land to bequeath unto men some fraction of their power. This is very risky, and you'd rather that it were not the case over long, and Rose agrees— indeed, she has asked your help in hosting and protecting damsels as she attempts to teach them her new found knowledge. Fortunately, you already have a training area prepared— the Chapel of Waters Rejuvenating— which should help cut down time.
- The Damses of Bretonnia now know how leave the mark of the Fay upon their works, and infuse it upon things such as stone and steel, leaving them either ice-cold to the touch or stronger than anything you've seen, short of fay-steel.
Reward: Can begin long term production of many Enheralded Items
Wealth of Affairiche: The Lord of Good Trade and just dealings, the priests of Affairiche tend to be wealthy, as might be expected of the followers of the king of business. However, there are very few of them, again as might be expected of the Lord of Trade in Bretonnia.
The Priests of Affairiche have come to you with an offer— in return for noble backing on various minor projects, they will begin spreading their churches further afield. To make a very long story short, this will allow more of your people to begin working as experts in various professional fields, by loaning and interest and…
Well it all really rather went over your head, but Yvain agreed with their assessment, and he generally knows what he's talking about. Certainly he does so far as money goes.
- A small number of new businesses— blacksmiths, leather-tanners, coach-drivers, and others— come into being even as new temples of Affairiche are erected by his gold-masked followers.
Learning: Nimue has been busy while you were out with a variety projects; and now that there are no hobgoblins beating at your door, she'd like to begin even more projects; though first she must finish with the construction of the Bath-House.
Bath Houses: In the time of Giles, when Knights were Knights, Damsels were Damsels, and Peasants were peasants, hygiene was maintained not by using rivers, or simply not caring, but by bath houses: stone buildings, squat and low to the ground, where waters are heated using a complex array of of mirrors channeling the sun into a central holding area, where water is heated to relax and cleanse.
After her visit to the Grand Library, and no longer plagued by wolf-howls in the night, Nimue would like to build one of these bath houses within Montfort, to help fight off some of the terrible stench that (apparently) permeates.
- The marble-sculpted face of the bath house is beginning to come together, great images of Martrud slaying the the followers of Nurgle decorating it; a bit blunt, but you rather think it gets the point across well enough.
Sunstones: The halls of the Court Invulnerable are fonts of life as much as any other, filled to the brim with flowers and trees and all other colorful, blooming things. The Light for these is supplied by the sunstones— great jewels of immense power. You are, of course, in favor of beautiful things in general; but you are even more in favor of things that would allow your people to turn even the mountains hollows into fecund farms.
Needed:35 Rolled: 30+5 (Nimue Bonus)=35
- Nimue almost kills herself examining one of the crystals, looking at it with keen eye; only the quick acts of a spirit of stone (heh) keep it from crushing her. Nimue does, however, believe she might know how it works. She needs to test, of course, but she thinks she might know.
Intrigue: It is in the brewing shadows that the fell things will gather. The foul things, birthed of darkness, they will not slow, nor yield, nor rest until your family lies broken. Fortunately, Morgyan seems to have taken that as a Challenge.
Sabotage The Orcs: Morgyan has done some preliminary scouting out of the Orcish positions within Montfort— not all, but enough that she could make their day horrible, with just a bit of luck and some men. Attacks on weak convoys, burning their camps, destroying the boar pens they keep their foul mounts in— it would be an apocalypse of steel.
It would also be both more effective and easier with more men.
Needed:50 Rolled: 86+20=106
- Morgyan returns with a vengeance to her duties. Planted caches of Fae-Fyre, triggered avalanches in the dead of night, and riled up crowds of pissed-off peasants swarming Bosses in the hundreds are just a few of the things she unleashes in her red wrath.
While she's out, she happens to stumble upon a small shrine to Rhya, with a silverine brooch laid on it. Ancient magics flowing through it, Morgyan gives it to Annick; and the champion of the mother-goddess seems to share some of her new-found blessings with you.
(Loot: Brooch of the Mother Goddess, 1 Reroll per turn)
The Children of Khypris: The Dark-Elves kidnapped a thousand noble children from the Borderlands, the king's own son included. Why? For what purpose?
Your daughter-in-law can, hopefully, go to Arnheim and try and figure it out.
Needed: 65 Rolled:30+20=50 Reroll: 67+20=87
- The Druchii have lain a trap for you, a dark thing; for the thousand children of Khypris are held at sea, as the information they leak to you suggests.
Annick is not satisfied by just that information though, and so on a lark decides to follow this chain of informants she has rooted out even further, by the age old tactic of "smacking people about until one of them tells her what she wants to know", and after a small army of people lie beaten at her hands, she eventually finds the information she'd like.
It seems that they think you will run off, half-cocked, to save kids— they aren't wrong— and so plotted to, once you were there, blow the sight up by heavy bombardment, killing you; and in case you are wrong, they are also...training… the kids to battle, to form an army that will lead fellow janissaries in assailing the old.
While it does not, of course, remove the threat, knowing that the Druchii are specifically looking to kill you and how does rather allow you to reduce the threat.
Reward: Intel
Personal: Your dreams are unwholesome, as of late. Half of the time, they are of titanic, earth-shattering figures striding the earth, walking the mountains, and casting down Ogres both weak and grand; other times, it is of a spirit of the earth waiting for you in a small cave in the mountains. You have several questions.
Needed:1 Rolled: 9+15=24
- Among the many, many, many thousands of orcs dead this year, you yourself kill Eyepop Ashbreath, the last Orcish Wyvern Rider in Montfort. A bit of a runt, for an orc, but his mount was a different matter, golden and venom spitting.
You have the creature's broken axe put upon your mantle.
Reward: +100 Prestige, new trophy
The Dream Warriors: Well, let it never be said that you do not deal with problems as they rise up. Head for the cave, meet with the spirit, and see what is about.
- You walk to the cave, unarmed. The spirit waits for you, clothed in silks. "Duke Folcard. I speak for the titans; for we have common foe between us— and now there is common foe between we and you."
-Continued in snippet
Prestige Actions: Slayer of Orcs, bane of Dark Elves, ruiner of Vampires. The foes that have fallen to your fists, and your wrath, and your sword are many; your deeds, valorous. It seems that enough has come that you might truly attempt some change.
The Great Monument: Let the names of all those lost fighting the Druchii— every knight, every peasant, every lord and lady, every damsel— be remembered, eternally. Let it be carved into the mountains, beneath the gaze of your Lady, ever marked: "These men died, that we might live."
- The stony eyes are starting to take shape.
Ballista Bashing: Technically, bolt throwers are not against the laws of chivalry. "And no person shall wield in the lands of the Kingdom profane devices with which they shall be capable of easily, through mechanical means, and from shadows like a coward, killing a knight." Ballista fail on that last count. They would also have been very useful for your barons in killing the giants that attacked their lands, and that killed your sister.
You don't like it, and they probably won't either, but you could, in fact, use Ballistas in your army.
Needed:20 Rolled:7
- There's an incident with a goat, 200 pounds of manure, and the ballista prototype crafted; and Lady Candide's expensive, jewel encrusted dress ends up...needing washing.
Suffice to say, it's a bit of egg on your face, enough that on your monthly strolls through the streets of Montfort you hear...things.
The project's going ahead— no-one cares that much— but it is a somewhat embarrassing matter.
(+10 Infamy, Can be worked off)
Special Events:
Rhya Smiles On You: As the year passed, Justine and Leliana grow pregnant after the trip to Ulthuan, giving birth late in the year, Justine's last son coming into the world as the midnight hour struck that ushered in Gilles' Tide, somewhat inauspiciously for the poor lad.
Justine: Hiltraud, Parzival, and Lohengrin
Leliana: Gisela
