In Progress [LP] Lord Captain, you've served your time in Hell! Codex plays Lords of Infinity, a text RPG of Politics and Warfare

[Kipeci]

PRAY.

I-0)
II-1)
III-3f)

Eeeesh. Kodexians, we got no more income whatsoever from the roads. We’re making less now since those five households that left took with them 2 crown per half-year, for each one of them. Now making -142 instead of -132.

Before we can justify patching the leaks in either our or our serf’s houses I think we need to staunch the bleeding. I think the best end to that is going to be the market hall. It’s the single biggest gun available in a range that’s still affordable, it should synergize with the roads we’ve already built since it mentions the merchants (now that they can get here, let’s give them somewhere to sit…). The only thing is that if we do build it while we can technically afford it out of our own coffers unless it outright turns us to positive income we wouldn’t be able to afford anything next turn. So, I would also propose that we take out a small loan. We’d still have some turns to float and do more improvements in that case and we’ll have gotten the most expensive reasonably achievable sure income booster out of the way. If we wait we’re going to likely have to take multiple or massive loans to do that and be cockblocked by time while we’re waiting without the biggest of the improvements working for us.

Therefore, I vote as follows:
I-0)
II-2)
III-3e)

 

[Optimist]

Guys, let me appeal to you inner Jews.

Things are going to get worse before they get better. If we want to see our fief's fortunes change, we need to invest in it - and we need to invest good and hard up in this bitch.

Also, since we will likely want to avoid "dead" turns (times when we can't afford any upgrades), we will need to apply for additional loans in term previous to the one we'd end up with no cash.

Hence, my votes would be:

I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.
II-2) (edited)
III-3e) A new market hall might bring in new business.

 

[Storyfag]

I-0)
II-2)
III-3e)

This.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I'm not seeing the direct benefit to a marketplace unless we get a cut of the transactions done therein. What am I missing, other than the intellect required?

 

[Optimist]

I'm not seeing the direct benefit to a marketplace unless we get a cut of the transactions done therein. What am I missing, other than the intellect required?

We mostly want to encourage tenant families to stop leaving, and start settling - unless something is done we'll continue hemmoraging them on a monthly basis. No harm in starting with the pricier stuff, to quickly turn things around.

I do think the market does provide you with some additional taxation, but I'm not certain about that - my smartchad Casanova hero left for the capital ASAP, leaving the domain in capable hands of his Antari bro.

I'd be willing to flip my vote for some other option (school?), but we need to start building the village up quickly, to secure a source of funding.

 

[Kipeci]

Guys, let me appeal to you inner Jews.

Things are going to get worse before they get better. If we want to see our fief's fortunes change, we need to invest in it - and we need to invest good and hard up in this bitch.

Also, since we will likely want to avoid "dead" turns (times when we can't afford any upgrades), we will need to apply for additional loans in term previous to the one we'd end up with no cash.

Hence, my votes would be:

I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.
II-3) I am in need of a sizeable loan, 2500 crown or so.
III-3e) A new market hall might bring in new business.

The reason I went with modest instead of sizable loan was that they said it’s better for maintaining low interest rates to request multiple smaller loans as needed rather than a single larger one.

Currently we have 1735 wealth and lose 142 a turn. The market hall is 1250, so next turn if we get it we will be down to 343 before the loan comes in (assuming that happens next turn then 1000 brings us back to 1343.) A 1000 loan would also bring us 20 in interest costs and assuming the same rate of household loss (hopefully that is reduced but I don’t know by how much) it’d be another -10. So 1343 looking to lose -172 ignoring any market benefits. That gives us a couple turns to buy a 500 and a 250 improvement before we’d need to request another small loan (edit: to be perfectly clear, we’d need to request that loan alongside the second improvement provided my idea of loan timeline is correct.)

So long as a small loan can sustain us I rather that we take those instead of a bigger one so that we don’t get a big whammy from the usury sapping us.

 

[Optimist]

Guys, let me appeal to you inner Jews.

Things are going to get worse before they get better. If we want to see our fief's fortunes change, we need to invest in it - and we need to invest good and hard up in this bitch.

Also, since we will likely want to avoid "dead" turns (times when we can't afford any upgrades), we will need to apply for additional loans in term previous to the one we'd end up with no cash.

Hence, my votes would be:

I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.
II-3) I am in need of a sizeable loan, 2500 crown or so.
III-3e) A new market hall might bring in new business.

The reason I went with modest instead of sizable loan was that they said it’s better for maintaining low interest rates to request multiple smaller loans as needed rather than a single larger one.

Currently we have 1735 wealth and lose 142 a turn. The market hall is 1250, so next turn if we get it we will be down to 343 before the loan comes in (assuming that happens next turn then 1000 brings us back to 1343.) A 1000 loan would also bring us 20 in interest costs and assuming the same rate of household loss (hopefully that is reduced but I don’t know by how much) it’d be another -10. So 1343 looking to lose -172 ignoring any market benefits. That gives us a couple turns to buy a 500 and a 250 improvement before we’d need to request another small loan (edit: to be perfectly clear, we’d need to request that loan alongside the second improvement provided my idea of loan timeline is correct.)

So long as a small loan can sustain us I rather that we take those instead of a bigger one so that we don’t get a big whammy from the usury sapping us.

OK, fair - let me flip my III-3 to III-2, then. Once the interest rates jump up, we should have enough to renegotiate the tems before taking out another loan.

 

[Kipeci]

BTW what happens if you run out of money? Debtor’s prison? Loansharks break your knees? Auction the estate or parts of it?

 

[Endemic]

BTW what happens if you run out of money? Debtor’s prison? Loansharks break your knees? Auction the estate or parts of it?

Game over, as far as I know.

 

[Kipeci]

Game over?? We better get saved… let us PRAY.

I-0)
II-1)
III-3f)

 

[normie]

if only some people hadn't rentcucked

 

[Orbit]

I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.

II-1) No changes.

III-3c) I'll not have my tenants living in such dilapidated cottages.

Gentrify Ezinbrooke and let the shekels flow.

 

[Grimgravy]

I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.

II-1) No changes.

III-2a) The house must be repaired, extensively.

 

[Lithium Flower]

~Interlude I: Apropos of the Melting Snow

I could call upon Lady Alisanne, get to know her better—weather permitting.

There are days when the snow doesn't fall so heavily and the roads are clear enough to allow a coach to make the journey to the Touravon estate. It is on those days that you wrap yourself in an overcoat and call upon Lady Alisanne at her father's house.

You've never considered yourself a particularly brilliant conversationalist, and while you have certainly been the recipient of a comprehensive Baneblooded education, that doesn't mean you have any serious pretensions to intellectualism. At first, it's almost intimidating to converse with Lady Alisanne next to the roaring fire in her father's parlour. True, there are subjects in which you are her superior, and you possess a certain level of worldly experience which she lacks, but such things quickly prove incapable of sustaining a conversation on their own.

Indeed, your first few visits are often interrupted by long, somewhat awkward pauses where you don't know what to say, and she, bound by her natural diffidence, waits in vain for you to make the first move. It is only after she begins to come out from behind her reticence that your conversations begin to take on a more familiar, animated air.

As your visits continue, the two of you slowly grow closer and closer, and you leave each time feeling more and more invigorated.

Yet there is more silence to overcome.

Even though the air of early spring ought to bring relief, each inhale fills you with unease. You can practically feel the chaperone's eyes digging at your back - yet each time you turn your head to glance at the footman trailing you at some distance, he appears to be observing nothing beyond the state of his dirtied footwear.

In hindsight, inviting the Lady for a walk was premature. Your intention was to find slightly more privacy and distance from your embarrassing reunion in the parlor, so that both of you may speak with greater ease. Yet the well-trodden roads and fields of Cunaris are all too moistened by dirty snow, and - in spite of the warm sunshine - the chill air is enough to render you both phlegmatic in every sense of the word; Alisanne had endured the sniffles for as long as she could, but now she keeps turning away from you on the regular to dab at her face with a handkerchief. It strikes you that it may solely be your mutual familiarity with rural life that allows this meeting to persist. A prim and urban lady would have called it off by now, in order to retreat within the warm walls of a salon or somesuch.

"...I am still not used to calling on our servants, in truth," she picks up the conversation that her latest handkerchief ritual had interrupted. "Father is adept at giving orders to the staff, particularly to the footmen. Yet I - well, with the maid, for instance - I've trouble finding the right tone, some balance that avoids being either too demanding or too...soft, I suppose."

She turns to look at you, which you reciprocate - direct eye contact that occurs yet seldom between the two of you - her mouth half-pursed and eyebrows raised, whether out of genuine curiosity or a polite pretense at such, "might you know of the right way, my lord?"

Your breath is caught, if only for a moment. It is hardly the first time that she asks for your opinion - likely because there would not be much conversation otherwise - yet for the first time the matter seems much more personal than general trivia or mundane particulars of country life. Even though the question is poised to be a request for neither aid nor advice, the implication remains clear even to your oblivious self: she cares enough for your opinion to consider it, or is at least trying to gauge just how much experience you have in these matters.

Now is that chance to say just the right thing, to prove yourself competent and worldly, if not learned-

"Commanding others, my lady, is..."

...a fearful absurdity, when some are twice your age yet serve you still;

...an anxiety that feels at times unbearable, when one must commit to an action that will meddle with the lives of men just like yourself, baneblood or naught...

...is a shameful evil when you are not fit for command, when your mouth is open and an order comes out as a stutter - or worse, does not come out at all, - when you must observe the men who were killed by your own words;

...not the sort of burden you ever truly wanted;

"...a d-difficult sort of thing," you stammer after an enormity of time had passed - and that is that.

The young woman waits a moment, then bats her eyes, and smiles apologetically, and clears her throat, and murmurs "oh, I see," and looks away, and produces her handerkchief - however vast her arsenal for recovering lost conversation, she had just used all of it to zero effect.

But it is hardly the first time that your crude self can think of nothing but scenes of brutality in response to even the most mundane of the Lady's questions; previously, when she merely inquired of your taste in literature, you struggled to dismiss the memory of when you found Hernandes' body, his journal ruined by thick Antari mud, and of the way the shattered glass and bent frame of his spectacles had been driven into his face, into his bleeding eyes...

Indeed, those moments revealed that you have just barely enough competency and worldliness to spare her the absurd horror of your thoughts - and no more, certainly not enough to come up with anything more civil, let alone wise.

Yet this moment is the worst one yet. Such a relevant subject, such an opportunity to build rapport - and you took it to nowhere but your mutual embarrassment.

Now it is her own turn to figure out what else to bloody say.

“Is something the matter, my lord?” she finally utters, in a tone just barely tinged with equal parts concern and irritation, “do you want us to speak of something else?”

You tense up, as if expecting that the woman might try dig out the anxieties gnawing through your head only to throw them back in your face.

“Not at all, my lady,” you lie through a forced smile, “the pleasure of your company is enough to, ah...occupy my attention.”

She shakes her head before she can stop herself, seemingly dazed by your ill-attempted compliment.

By the saints, this is simply awful...

“Then it is I who is doing something wrong. Would my lord not tell me-”

“Oh no, not at all, my lady is a splendid conversationalist,” you try to parry with barely concealed desperation.

Frowning, she counterattacks, “no, this scarcely resembles a conversation...”

Her words catch you by surprise – you can only assume that it is due to cold weather that the normally-demure Lady is irritated enough to confront you so openly. She tries to compose herself with a sigh “Ah, but I am only frustrated at myself – not at you, my lord – as in so many of our meetings I seem to fail to engage you. You were so much more animated upon our reunion-”

“My lady did not seem pleased with the way I conducted myself then,” you reply with more bitterness than you expected.

“And yet it did lead to some sort of exchange, at least. Perhaps I discouraged my lord with my own conduct – I beg pardon, for I am not a terribly practiced interlocutor myself. And I am thankful that unlike... some, you let me speak my mind. Yet I must ask, what was it that allowed you to speak livelier then? Was it...”

Was it her father's presence?

“Was it my father's presence?"

Does he remind you of your own Father - or of the way you used to play just at the edge of His sight, or babble just barely within His earshot, all so that you could finally gain his positive regard...or any regard at all?

Does Alisanne remind you of your Mother – or of the way you used to reel from Her speech, of how every phrase She uttered seemed to carry a hidden and poisoned meaning, as She seemed to scrutinized your every word and silence?

Does-

“Does-”

“Enough already,” you exhale through teeth clenched by a sudden headache, coming to a halt – as does the Lady - and now it is you who shakes your head and turns away...

You look back at the field you had crossed, at the landscape that in this moment seems not genuine but merely painted on, dream-like, and at the roof of the Touravon manor faintly visible beyond a treeline. All you must do is take that first step back and this farce will be over.

Yet you stay rooted in place, your breathing heavy... and strangely fearful. Are you suddenly afraid to be alone, to disappear into this strange world that so abruptly lost its definition, where the past and present mix in such an anxious manner?

Alisanne's expression is complex enough as to be largely unreadable to you; there are so many lines crossing her face now, and her delicate lips had been replaced by yet one more such line. Still, there is little doubt in your mind that this strange woman, who may as well be a nag in human flesh, is merely regrouping – before long she will surely deliver a statement perfectly crafted to scorn, reject, and ridicule you, all in a manner that leaves her guarded against any rebuke, while thoroughly exposing your every awkward weakness...

“I'm sorry, Alaric,” instead she utters gently, as you finally realize that it is worry that wrinkles her mousy countenance. “I simply wish to know more of you – for the future seems to me so...uncertain, otherwise. But I spoke out of turn. Perhaps I am speaking out of turn even now.”

You blink, hard. The world is sharper now, more real, and you greet it with the same gratitude as that of a man emerging from a nightmare. This relief must be showing on your face, for some of Alisanne's usual tenderness returns to smooth over her own expression.

Yet that momentary comfort seems all but gone as you realize that now you have no choice but to answer her in earnest.

“The trouble is, my lady, if you must know...” you finally say, as a sudden pang in your chest causes you to wince...
Why is it so painful to speak of these things? Why is it all the more painful to admit them to a woman?
“...I fear that I've forgotten how to conduct civil conversation. No matter the subject, it seems that my mind, by the vaguest of associations, is drawn to back to Antar, to my dead comrades, some of whom needn't have died-”

“Oh,” Alisanne breathes out, so aghast that she renders you unable to continue.

Oh, she says, trembling – this craven, sheltered child... of course, she does not want to know the whole bloody truth of yours, she merely meant that she wants to know you as some knight-romantic, perhaps as one preoccupied by the wordless beauty of the evening horizon and the glory of the Saints, perhaps expecting you to still be that same boy she met a dozen years ago...

Again the handkerchief is out, and she looks away, unable to face you. You tremble – out of nerve or anger or weakness, you know not – as some vile, spiteful part of you wants nothing more than to afflict her with every bit of your own madness, to tell her of Kharangia and of Blogia and of a myriad screaming men, to reduce her to the whimpering little girl she pretends not to be, to punish her for her half-concealed impudence... you barely resist doing so, and instead open your mouth to speak from the top of your mind, as if to override your bile with your babble.

She likely notices some part of your inner tumult and tries to say something to calm it, but it is too late, “my lord, I did not mean to-”

“Regardless, as for my authority over father's... rather, over my own servants, no, this station does not come easily to me - for they, like many of the soldiers under my former command, once knew me as little more than their boy master, yet now their lives depend on my own, and in part my life still depends on theirs, and that is... I must admit that these circumstances put a strain on me, and one that I was once eager to find respite from, back here in Tierra, but now it seems that there is to be none.”

Yes, let her know the whole of your immaturity and wretched impotence... let her be the one to storm off in bemused disappointment. And you ought to return to those Aetorian slums and take your place among your kind, the destitute and desperate men broken by Antar – as any hope for normalcy, family, is yet again proven to be your most foolish notion. For you, a peaceful life among sane, unbloodied men and women is impossible; you do not deserve a thing from anyone, and even if you did, no one could bear such a burden. They-

“Thank you,” says someone, a woman, Lady Alisanne – and you are all the more stunned to see that her eyes are wide and wet with warm, genuine gratitude, “thank you for telling me so. I... your words bear insight into own situation, which is similar, if less... severe than your own. Most of my house servants had taken care of me since I was little, whether through my tantrums or moments of childish weakness...”

“Yes,” you do not mean to say, nor do you mean to nod in affirmation – and yet you do.

“But now I must act as their mistress. It is a strange notion, and yet everyone, even the servants, expect me to accept it without question, as if it was the most ordinary thing. It is all so very...peculiar. And difficult, indeed, just as my lord first said.”

“Yes,” you reply in one thoughtless breath, “it is so, my lady.”

Her eyes become even gentler as her lips purse slightly into a small, sad smile. A moment ago, you would have thought this to be a look of pity - now it seems to be an expression of a quiet, empathetic understanding. One born of kinship, however strange and distant.

Did you not also know each other as children, at a time when you felt even more powerless than you do now, and thus see yourselves as those same children still? Or perhaps each of you independently feels before the other as a child before an adult – or before a parent – with all the anxieties and expectations of such a relation?

The thought ought to disturb you greatly, or else cause you to withdraw into labor or distractions as you so often do. Yet the realization that Alisanne may be feeling nearly the exact same way is strangely soothing.

You take a long breath of that fresh yet suddenly warm spring air, then breathe out..and are surprised to feel so much of your tension leave you with that exhale.

Emancipated from the bulk of your own worry, you find it much easier to consider that of Alisanne. Could it be that she was first to seize upon this anxious notion and tried to see whether you could share it, and whether the two of you could find some way to diffuse it?

For once it almost feels pleasant, and certainly rewarding, to concern yourself with her needs and desires, when before they seemed to you so mercurial and contradictory.

“I think I ought to ask you something now, my lady,” you offer, letting your improved humour show on your face by way of a slight smile, “that is how conversations are meant to go, is it not?”

She opens her eyes wide before narrowing them, not merely in amusement, but clearly pleased, if taken aback, by this long-awaited initiative of yours. Yet to recover her poise, she laughs quite girlishly, “ah, I suppose so, yes, though I am not exactly an authority on the subject... but certainly, yes – and thank you, my lord...”

“Then pray tell - why did you ask me in the first place? I mean that question in particular, my lady, on the matter of command.”

Her laughter-narrowed eyes suddenly seem flustered – her smile, sheepish – as she mumbles, “oh, it was only because... you see, my lord, I thought that perhaps our temperament could reflect how we might raise our... well, you seem so experienced, and... oh, I beg pardon for but a moment-”

Rendered nasally by the unfortunate combination of chill and chortling, the lady turns away to attend to her runny nose for what feels like a hundredth time – and while it is evident to you that this instance is not some underhanded attempt at deflection, you nevertheless feel quite irritated, in large part because you also feel some pressure to know more of Alisanne.

Perhaps it is also pressure that renders you shameless enough (as it has many times throughout your life,) to crane your neck and look impatiently at the young woman's labor. With even greater irritation, you see that the Lady is only barely applying the handkerchief to herself, with dainty little dabs that barely do the job – perhaps she is prim enough to conduct this would-be private act as subtly as possible, though fortunately not prim enough to have abandoned the walk altogether out of embarrassment.

Even so, you feel an almost comic level of outrage at Alisanne's sheer inefficiency...

Which is probably – for only the Saints know why you would do something so gormless and brazen – why you extend your hand and say, in the same tone as you would use to reprimand a soldier for cleaning his carbine too slowly, “that's quite enough. Give me the handkerchief.”

Her eyes do not look at you and instead swell with embarrassed horror;
“Beg your pardon?!” Statement, question, exclamation – her phrase is all three and more besides.

“Give it to me, I said,” you repeat the order, this time in a tone best reserved for Thunderer.

She does not relinquish the small square of linen to you as much as she simply lets you take it from her trembling hands. Thoughtlessly, you bunch the cloth up around the base of her dainty snub nose and, as if attending to a child, you subject it to a vigorous, precise wiping-

Alisanne snatches the soiled thing from your hands, reeling back like a cat tapped on the nose by its owner, appearing too saintsdamned shocked and embarrassed to get properly outraged...

“Wh-why did y-you... I... what-” she stutters, with shame of indescribable magnitude apparent on her face.

Yet you feel none of that shame – not for the moment anyway – and neither do you stutter;
“My lady, in Antar I had to wipe blood from the faces of my comrades. This is but a trifle in comparison, and one that I will not allow to impede our conversation.”

She only stares at you, her mouth agape.

Somehow you realize only now that, perhaps, just perhaps, the ministrations you have afflicted upon the good lady were ever so slightly inappropriate at best, and at worst constituted a thoroughly grotesque intrusion upon her privacy and person. In spite of all this, possibly due to unconsciously adopting the role of an officer-at-war, your mind is reigned by perfect, focused calm.

You really are a rare sort of human – and, somehow, in the most inhuman manner possible.

Looking to see whether the chaperone has strong feelings on the matter (he obviously does,) you find him staring at you, with his blood-drained face in a state of second-hand petrification. You glare back at the annoying bastard until his attention retreats to his saints-buggered boots.

Ah yes, now this you have no trouble doing – it's all but bloody natural for you to commit rash and cretinous deeds, enabled by the maddest sort of certainty and a ruthless disregard for others, just as you so effortlessly evoke disappointment and fear in everyone around you, until they cannot help but look away, aghast...

Yet unlike her footman, Lady Alisanne does not appear to be bloodless with horror. In fact, as she quietly suggests that it is time to return from this excursion on account of cold weather, her cheeks could not possibly be redder...

And not from mere embarrassment, though such an observation is lost on your boyishly oblivious self.

---

As expected, you torture yourself with self-scrutinizing thoughts for the remainder of the evening and the whole of the next day, just as you deserve.

Yet you neither expected nor deserve the invitation that comes to you the subsequent morning – one from Lady Alisanne herself, towards the prospect of another walk together (in spite of conditions being even muddier and colder than previously.) It is unorthodox for her to take this initiative, or for her father to have let her do so; you would have found it slightly emasculating given any other circumstances, but now...

Now you stand before her sheepishly-smiling self, and in the presence of a female chaperone who, for whatever reason, seems to watch you from twice the distance as compared to the previous busybody.

You cannot even imagine what she might possibly say to you, or how she summoned enough bravery – or folly – to bear seeing you again.

"What else was it like, my lord?" the Lady dares ask you in a voice as clear as the spring breeze, if breathy with trepidation – her foolish bravery a reflection of your own;

“What was it like, the war in Antar?”

And you tell her.

Not everything, no, you only scratch the surface;

That is enough to keep you talking until you have to part.

Even so, it is but one more awkward meeting amid mud and wet remains of snow, barely resembling a conversation, let alone courtship...

Yet now there is less silence to overcome.~

 

[Lithium Flower]

but my laaawd

but my laaaydeh

but my laaaaawd

but my laaaaydeh

but my laaaaaaaaawd

but my laaaaaaaaydeh

Anyway, hopefully this inspires Paul to add the booger bandit branch to Wars of Infinity.

Oh yeah, update. Coming in a bit.

EDIT: got wiped out by writing so hopefully this count is correct #sesamestreetgang4lyfe #gottarepresent

math

by dude:

ENDEMIC

I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.

II-1) No changes.

III-2a) The house must be repaired, extensively.

ERYKFRAD

I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.

II-1) No changes.

III-3c) I'll not have my tenants living in such dilapidated cottages.

Kalarion

I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.

II-1) No changes.

III-3c) I'll not have my tenants living in such dilapidated cottages.

Kipeci
I-0)
II-1)
III-3f)
Optimist
I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.
II-2) (edited)
III-3e) A new market hall might bring in new business.

Storyfag

I-0)
II-2)
III-3e)


Orbit
I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.

II-1) No changes.

III-3c) I'll not have my tenants living in such dilapidated cottages.


Grimgravy


I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.

II-1) No changes.

III-2a) The house must be repaired, extensively.


----


By plan:

3 votes:
I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.
II-1) No changes.
III-3c) I'll not have my tenants living in such dilapidated cottages.

2 votes:
I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.
II-1) No changes.
III-2a) The house must be repaired, extensively.

2 votes:

I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.
II-2) (edited)
III-3e) A new market hall might bring in new business.

1 vote:

I-0)
II-1)
III-3f)
leading plan:

3 votes:
I-0) I will pay off no crowns of debt beyond my interest payment.
II-1) No changes.
III-3c) I'll not have my tenants living in such dilapidated cottages.

 

[Lithium Flower]

I'll not have my tenants living in such dilapidated cottages.

You make a note to set aside the appropriate funds, then draft a call for workmen to be posted in the village square.

By the time summer begins, you should have the materials and labour necessary to begin work in earnest. Until then, all you can do is wait.

---

You spend a good few days making arrangements for the next few months, but when the last papers are shuffled and the planting season comes to an end, you quickly find yourself falling into a now-familiar pattern of lethargy.

Before long, you begin to find the hot, languid emptiness of summer just as intolerable as the cramped, frigid emptiness of winter.

1. I ought to continue work on my memoirs.

2. I should like to get to know Lady Alisanne better.

3. I must endeavour to keep myself in fighting trim, mentally and physickally.
a) A programme of rigorous exercise will help me stay in physickal shape.
b) Involving myself more deeply in the management of my fief will exercise my mind.
c) I mean to find some way to maintain my social graces.

4. I'll find no excitement unless I go out looking for it.

[Another instance of imminent stat decline, another opportunity to potentially mitigate (some?) of it.
As a reminder, seeing Alisanne last time had the secondary effect of preventing both Intelligence and Charisma from declining, which probably makes both 3b and 3c strictly inferior options, although who knows whether it will do the same this second time (well, I do, but I ain't telling you nothin' mister)]

Personal Information

As of the Spring of the 614 of the Old Imperial Era:

Sir Alaric d'al Ortiga, Baron Ezinbrooke
Captain, Royal Dragoons (half-pay)
Age: 26

Current Funds: 1485 Crown
Debts: 10860 Crown

Bi-Annual Income (Personal): 135 Crown
Bi-Annual Estate Revenues: 290 Crown

Bi-Annual Estate Expenses: 350 Crown
Bi-Annual Interest Payments: 217 Crown

Total Net Income (Next Six Months): -142 Crown


Soldiering: 72%

Charisma: 43%

Intellect: 5%


Reputation: 41%

Health: 62%


Idealism: 66% ; Cynicism: 34%

Ruthlessness: 32% ; Mercy: 68%

You are a Knight of the Red, having the right to wear Bane-hardened armour and wield a Bane-runed sword.

Friends and Enemies

Friends and Associates

Javier Campos: Colour Sergeant, the Royal Dragoons.
(Born 583 OIE)

Victor d'al Reyes: Eldest son of Baron Reyes. Major, the 8th Regiment of Foot. Formerly Commander, the Experimental Corps of Riflemen. ~Lost arm at Blogia~
(Born: 583 OIE)

James d'al Sandoral: Captain (half-pay), the Royal Dragoons.
(Born 592 OIE)

Efraim Saundersley: Solicitor-on-Retainer to the House of Ortiga.
(Born 570 OIE)

Octave d'al Touravon: Baron Touravon, Father of Alisanne d'al Touravon.
(Born 556 OIE)

Enemies

Hiir Cassius vam Holt: Takaran Ambassador to Tierra. Eldest son to Richsgraav vam Holt.
(Born 527 OIE)

Eleanora d'al Welles: Countess Welles. Proponent of Military Reform. Friend to Isobel, the Princess-Royal. ~Died at Blogia~
(Born 587 OIE)

Barony Overview

Ezinbrooke, a barony within the Duchy of Cunaris, possessed of 145 rent-paying households.

Respectability: 28%

Prosperity: 34%

Contentment: 55%

Manor...

…Being a country house of middling size in very poor condition. encompassed by a low stone fence in a state of much disrepair. Outbuildings include stables, coach house, and guard house, all in exceptionally poor condition.

Interior consists of eighteen rooms, including six bedrooms, a kitchen, a library, a small ballroom, a dovecote and a gun room.

Estate and Grounds...

…Being a barony of middling size, composed of a manor house, market village, and surrounding fields and hinterlands. It is located a week's ride west from the city of Fernandescourt, a journey rendered easier by the fine state of local roads.

The village of Ezinbrooke is a small hamlet, possessed of a traveller's inn, a publick house, a somewhat worn shrine to the major Saints, and an open market square. The surrounding cottages are few in number and in very poor condition, having been in a state of disrepair for some time. A number of fields lie adjacent to the village, but much arable land is wasted for want of proper clearance.

Bi-Annual Estate Revenues
Rents: 290 Crown

Bi-Annual Expenditures
Estate Wages: 150 Crown
Food and Necessities: 75 Crown
Luxuries and Allowances: 75 Crown
Groundskeeping and Maintenance: 50 Crown
Other Expenses: 0 Crown

Total Balance: -60 Crown

 

[ERYFKRAD]

4. Maybe we get into a scrap or two and show some looters what for.

 

[Kalarion]

For now, 2. I should like to get to know Lady Alisanne better.

What exactly does "go out looking for excitement" entail? If it's actually in the vein of "let's go find some banditos to slaughter!", I'm all for it. If it's "let's go find a tavern to get drunk to make our own excitement!", GTFO.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Its not mount & blade or red dead redemption or whatever so there are no convenient looter gangs positioned every x meters to kill (not to say that there aren't any highwaymen, but its not like they are an omnipresent threat, and you don't know whether there is a significant concentration of them in the barony anyway.) You are going to be riding around in the vicinity of your estate, waiting for something interesting to happen to you. I think mechanically it draws a random event or something, not sure, haven't looked that far ahead into the #code. Perhaps you will find some aliens?

 

[Kalarion]

Flop to 4!

 

[Kipeci]

I can’t decide whether to execute Xeno scum or pick her boogers out… what should I do bros?

 

[Lithium Flower]

I may have lied about there being aliens

 

[Lithium Flower]

I can’t decide whether to execute Xeno scum or pick her boogers out… what should I do bros?

Here, I'll give you some minimally-spoilery mechanicool reasons for picking each one, if that helps:

Looking for excitement: quite a few of the events have to do with hunting, giving us the rare opportunities to exercise our soldiering. The random events may also foreshadow upcoming threats. Quite a few also depend on, and reflect, the various estate upgrades that we have. Its also possible to both lose and gain personal and estate stats, but I have no idea how the likelihood of such things is weighted (nor would I want to spoil that anyway, of course.) But in general, there will almost certainly be at least a minor mechanical effect, whether positive or negative.

Seeing Alisanne: she is still not on Alaric's friends & acquaintances section, meaning that in spite of Alaric's visit to her earlier, they don't know each other too well (as I roughly tried to reflect in my vignette.) However, you are probably closer to the threshold of friendship than you are to being strangers. However, as you might imagine at some point it may be possible to miss the opportunity to improve the relationship with her further and get locked into less than warm relationship with the future wife. (I actually have no idea whether its possible to fuck things up enough that the engagement is broken off, although I don't think we are close to that point regardless.)

 

[Endemic]

4. I'll find no excitement unless I go out looking for it.

Maybe the RNG will have something good for us.

 

[Optimist]

2. Feels bad to only prop up stats we don't really care about, but those are the things men do for (arranged) love.