I'm going to bed, I shall close the vote when I wake up around 10 EST tmrw
Will try to get the stuff done on Friday but I cannot promise as I must also work on papers
Loving the engagement, I'm doing my best to present interesting scenarios and it seems like I'm pulling it off.
As always thanks to each and every person who has chosen to participate it means a lot
Note QM before you call the vote we have a problem. Namely, I left the original version of my plan up, and someone edited in their vote for it a day after I and multiple other people voted for the finished version of my plan as seen here.
[X] Plan The Kitchen Sink
- [X] Attract a wizard from the Empire
- [X] Try and hire a spy/assassin
- [X] Drill your new troops with what remains of your old
This has resulted in the tally reflecting this edited post as the winning version of my plan when from what I can tell the majority of votes were cast before it was edited into this guy's post above my own. So, I just wanted to let you know that the version of the plan that most votes were cast under is the one that drills troops not the one that investigates other princes.
okay I'm closing the vault
this auto tally and versions of the same plan thing seems hopelessly tangled to me but it does seem like more people voted for the revised version of the plan so that is what I'm going to count
hopefully we can avoid this issue in the future
Scheduled vote count started by JuliusNepos on Nov 10, 2021 at 10:43 PM, finished with 81 posts and 17 votes.
[X] Plan The Kitchen Sink
- [X] Attract a wizard from the Empire
- [X] Try and hire a spy/assassin
- [X] Drill your new troops with what remains of your old
[X] Plan Prepare to prove our might
-[X] Investigating the nearby Princes
- [X] Drill your new troops with what remains of your old
-[X] Collect donations from the pilgrims
Iancu's suggestion of hiring a spy or assassin of some sort seems like a good plan. After all a prince is really only as powerful as his ability to find out who his enemies are and have them killed. Of course neither such professionals tend to publicly advertise their services even in such a lawless land. However when you mention such difficulties to your brother he just smiles, taps the side of his nose conspiratorially and assures you he'll "take care of it". This does a remarkably poor job of reassuring you. Of course given the current situation you have so many things to worry about and decide on that before long you've allowed your brother's self appointed quest to slip from your mind. It is then something of a surprise to you when your brother tells you to meet him behind the temple of Sigmar in the evening. It is even more of a surprise when you suddenly out of nowhere find yourself with a knife to your throat by an unknown assailant. Fortunately, your imminent demise is prevented by our brother yelling "Tethur NO!" in a panicked voice. Spun around and released you find yourself facing a very embarrassed looking Iancu and a tall, lithe, figure in black robes and a bone mask. "No Tethur, this isn't the target, it's the boss." Without a word 'Tethur' sheaths his knives and returns to a passive stance, nodding at you once. Iancu shrugs, and then turns to you with a smile. "I told you I'd take care of it didn't I? Meet Tethur Voidgrip, the best damn assassin in the Border Princes, if not the Old World. I told you I'd take care of it and I did. Oh and don't worry about payment, I took care of that too." Iancu once again taps the side of his nose, and refuses to elaborate when pressed for explanation.
Attempts to find a wizard to serve as a retainer solve themselves as an orange haired and bearded gentleman arrives at the gates of your keep and introduces himself as Magister Gismondo Faehrmann, of the Bright Order. You begin to express confusion at a wizard arriving before you'd even sent a letter to the colleges of magics. Faerhrmann cuts you off, he did not come at your request, he does not know what's going on and he most assuredly does not work for you, being a loyal subject of Emperor Magnus. He was merely in the general area, sensed a massive amount of Aqshy being channeled and came to investigate. After providing the explanation he demands Faerhmann grunts and informs you he will stick around to help resolve the situation, as "rogue Norscan fire sorcerers on the borders of the Empire will not do". But after that he will depart to continue to fulfill his duties.
Attempts to have your seasoned veteran mercenaries drill your freshly recruited levies, while a reasonable course of action, go poorly. The Mercenaries resent being effectively told to train their replacements and the lack of experience that they are forced to deal with. The levies for their part resent the Merchants higher rates of pay, poor attitudes and general disdain. While the antipathy never boils over into outright disorder, neither does it go particularly well. At the very least all your men are fully proficient in Tilean curses and many now know how to say "My rate has gone up" in multiple languages.
You resolve to take on the approaching wight yourself, not trusting any other's reliability when facing blades wielded by the walking dead. You spend many hours sparring and training, and while you've never been a great swordsman you're by no means incomptent either. Against a wight blade armor will be of little use so you choose not to waste time learning how to move in heavy army, trusting instead the familiarity of your old adventuring leathers. It's hard to say if it worked before the moment of truth, but you feel confident that you go into battle, that you're as proficient with a blade as you've ever been and that you won't rout at the sight of the dead.
The Wight arrives at your gates as dusk is falling, and waving away your guards you go outside to meet him. "So the cowardly thief comes to face retribution at last?" utters the wight in the gravely whisper of a long dead throat. "A thief perhaps, but never a coward. You quarrel with me, not my subjects". With this you draw yourself up into a duelist's pose. The Wight gives a cruel approximation of a laugh. "A kingly utterance. So the brave thief learns the burden of rule? It is the chieftains lot to be the first blade of his people. You have grown wise, but not wise enough to choose not to befoul the tomb of King Kruger of the Taleutens. But enough talk, have at thee, prove that there is worth to your life" With this the undying king draws forth his ancient dwarfwork blade and strikes. Your attempt to parry is too slow and his sword cuts deep into your chest. You have some satisfaction to see the flicker of surprise in the burning eye sockets of King Kruger when you stay on your feet and even strike back. A dead man feels no pain, so you cannot truly tell how truly your blow was struck, but from the crunch of bone it was no glancing hit. This time you manage to parry the Kruger's blow, but so too is your blow parried. "Not bad Fennone, I had hardly expected you to last this long." says the wight, his undying frame feeling no fatigue, as you are too busy catching your breath to engage in mid battle taunts. His next blow you move to parry only to find it a feint, and the last thing you see is a gromril pommel approaching your face at great speed before the world goes black.
When you come too, you find yourself in the temple of Shallya, your brother looking extremely worried over your bedside. Seeing you stir brings obvious relief to his face. "Rad you're okay, when I saw that wight sheath his blade and depart I feared the worst. I'm so glad you're alive." When you ask how badly you were wounded, Iancu looks uncomfortable and avoids giving a direct answer. "Well the sisters said you're lucky to be alive, and well uh, eyepatches look really handsome on you."
Assassin, crit success
Wizard, major success
Drill, mixed success
Training, great success
Duel: Defeat
You have little time to meet with your advisors as you recover from your wounds. Iancu has appointed himself guardian of who is important enough to meet with you and is often sparring with your time as you "need to rest and heal". Periodically he briefs you on the state of your princedom. You have enough reserves to sustain your current rate of expenditure for a while yet, despite your defeat your territory has shown no sign of disloyalty and the norscans so far have only probed and have shown no sign of launching a definitive offensive to follow up their victory. Late one evening he visits you accompanied by a knight armored in full plate you have never seen before. His coat of arms is Sable with a dragon holding a Fleur de Lys, both colored Or. With a bow he introduces himself as Roland d'Clary, knight of Bretonnia. As you turn to Iancu, he sees the obvious confusion on your face and explains. "Krorod Goldmight died last night, which means we need a new Marshall. Sir d'Clary was visiting and had heard about your duel with the Wight and offered his services. We don't really have anyone better so I figured we take him up on it." d"Clary raises his visor's viewplate and offers you a smile. "Yes this is so. I am sworn to face perilous foes and danger, and the only such things in Bretonnia as of late are the armies of Magnus, and cannons and gunpowder are hardly worthy foes for a chivalrous man. Here seems to hold much better opportunities for worthy foes of my blade, a wight, an evil sorcerer who knows what else. If I'm staying I may as well offer my advice on how to fight a war. Maybe I can teach you a thing or two about swordsmanship as well, you clearly do not lack courage but….." he gestures at your now crippled left eye….. "Your execution could use some work." He laughs. "It seems to me that you have two natural courses of action. One could attempt to discover more about your fellow princes and craft some sort of coalition. After all, a norscan sorcerer is hardly a threat to just you. However this does not establish your strength, and in a coalition you can never be sure who wins the spoils. The other option is to attack. Cowering behind your castle walls cedes the initiative, you can be sure that if your enemy was ready to inflict a finishing blow he would have done so by now. Do not wait to allow him to get ready to finish you off. Take advantage of whatever is distracting him and strike first, regain the initiative and show your strength. I recommend first taking the village he has stolen from your fief and forcing him to respond. Make him come to you, and choose the site of the battlefield. Invincibility lies in the offensive, the possibility of defeat lies in the defense. "
Actions: (Pick Three)
[] A census of Akendorf
[] Raise taxes
[] A tollgate at blackfire pass
[] The hunt for Schulman's tomb
[] Print coins with your face on them
[] Ride around on a very fancy horse
[] Attracting Culture
[] Hunting down the treasury
[] Acquire a copy of "The Border Prince"
[] Centralize the Law code under your purview
[] Localize the Law Code
[] Use your assassin to get info on the other princes
[] Use your assassin as an assassin
[] Repairing Morr's garden
[] Consecrating the Waterfall
[] A house for the pilgrims
[] In search of the monastery
[] Counterattack the occupied village
[] just hang out with your brother for a bit
[] Hire more mercenaries
[] Create local militias
[] Sell Lead to Averland
[] Collect donations from the pilgrims
[] Find Crargig Facegouga
[] Train Swordsmanship with Roland
[] Try and find what what happened with the Wight
Plans to deal with Norscans (Pick one)
[] Mount an offensive and hope to force a field battle of your choosing
[] Attempt to create a coalition of princes to crush the sorcerer
[] Dig in and prepare for a siege, your walls are strong
Community: 2
Loyalty: 3
Military: 3
Economy: 1
Relations: 1
Divine: 2
Arcane: 1
Culture: 0
Espionage: 2
Stat Scale
1 barely present
2 present
3 noticeable
4 token
5 barely adequate
6 adequate
7 notable
8 "princely"
9 princely
10 stately
Community, The well being of your subjects and their number
Loyalty, The investment of your subjects in your reign and their confidence it will last
Military, The size, strength and quality of your forces
Economy, The amount of wealth produced and your ability to extract it
Relations, Your knowledge of foreign realms and ability to interact with them
Divine, Knowledge of the gods and organization of faith
Arcane, Presence of magic and attitudes towards it
Culture, State of the arts, and perception of your realm
Espionage, Ability to find information and solve "problems"
Thank you everyone for your patience.
The last two weeks for me were a period with a lot of academic obligations in the lead up to Thanksgiving. I'm really enjoying working on this quest and intend to keep going but it is at the end of the day something I do for fun and real life but come first.
I intend to update more regularly going forward but I am also approaching finals season so cannot truly promise that indefinitely.
Once again please vote in a plan format and there will be a brief moratorium
[] Plan Reclamation Campaign
- [] Use your assassin as an assassin
- [] Train Swordsmanship with Roland
- [] Hire more mercenaries
- [] Mount an offensive and hope to force a field battle of your choosing
This is what I'm thinking for the plan. The idea is to hopefully get rid of that sorcerer, and crush the norscans in a field battle which we'll need to prepare for.
well, our training did not go great, but our hero recruitment went amazingly. Sir d'Clary is right, we can not cede the initiate here, chaos sorcers given time to put down roots and build up means demons or worse. I'd favor speed over power here, taking time to build a coalition means we'd have more guys, but against a more established chaos sorcerer, so about as dangerous for less payout. Between the assassins and the magister I think we can at least keep him from being able to swing things in an army fight, and if he dies then we'd have magical supremacy.
The only concern would be the fact he'd have fortifications, but I don't think norsicans are going to be particularly good at defensive sieges, it's just not how they wage war, which mitigates that advantage somewhat. So on the balance, I favor striking now.
[X] Plan Reclamation Campaign
- [X] Use your assassin as an assassin
- [X] Counterattack the occupied village
- [X] Hire more mercenaries
- [X] Mount an offensive and hope to force a field battle of your choosing
What mercs don't die we can dismiss next turn post-battle to save on cash.
[X] Plan Beloved Iancu Genius of the Badlands and Righteous Offensive
- [X] just hang out with your brother for a bit
- [X] Try and find what what happened with the Wight
- [X] Counteraid the occupied village
- [X] Mount an offensive and hope to force a field battle of your choosing
Let none badmouth our brother again ! We need to spend time with him so he can impart on us some of his renowned intellect.
Also , probably should get interested in what's up with the Wight , considering it left us half-dead and half-blind
[X] Plan Reclamation Campaign
- [X] Use your assassin as an assassin
- [X] Train Swordsmanship with Roland
- [X] Hire more mercenaries
- [X] Mount an offensive and hope to force a field battle of your choosing
What mercs don't die we can dismiss next turn post-battle to save on cash.
Uh, I'd point out we currently don't really have any they all died we only have the remnants of our former merc army. And, since then we've trained up a levy of our own meaning compared to previous turns prior to our army getting nuked the percentage of our army that is actually mercs will still be lower.
[X] Plan Beloved Iancu Genius of the Badlands and Righteous Offensive
- [X] just hang out with your brother for a bit
- [X] Try and find what what happened with the Wight
- [X] Counteraid the occupied village
- [X] Mount an offensive and hope to force a field battle of your choosing
Let none badmouth our brother again ! We need to spend time with him so he can impart on us some of his renowned intellect.
Also , probably should get interested in what's up with the Wight , considering it left us half-dead and half-blind
[X] Plan Beloved Iancu Genius of the Badlands and Righteous Offensive
- [X] just hang out with your brother for a bit
- [X] Try and find what what happened with the Wight
- [X] Counteraid the occupied village
- [X] Mount an offensive and hope to force a field battle of your choosing
Yeah, this tells me al I need to know about this fellow. Trust him to execute, but not to lead. If he must lead, he will only lead in an attacks and even then, I expect suicidal stupidity.
[X] Plan Fortune and Glory
[X] Plan Beloved Iancu Genius of the Badlands and Righteous Offensive
[X] Plan Beloved Iancu Genius of the Badlands and Righteous Offensive
- [X] just hang out with your brother for a bit
- [X] Try and find what what happened with the Wight
- [X] Counteraid the occupied village
- [X] Mount an offensive and hope to force a field battle of your choosing
[X] Plan Beloved Iancu Genius of the Badlands and Righteous Offensive
- [X] just hang out with your brother for a bit
- [X] Try and find what what happened with the Wight
- [X] Counteraid the occupied village
- [X] Mount an offensive and hope to force a field battle of your choosing
I'm not saying that Iancu forced the healers of Shallyah to divert all their treatments from the ogre to you at swordpoint
but I'm not not saying it either
