Lithium Flower
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2016
- Messages
- 1,832
[INFINITE TIES FOREVER AND EVER
TIES OF INFINITY AM I RIGHT
AAAAA
Anyway option 1 wins the tie.]
I must purchase weapons and ammunition to properly equip my Houseguard.
If there is any egregious shortage facing your improvised militia, it is that of proper weaponry and the ammunition with which to load it. Few of your recruits have brought real weapons. Most are still armed with farm implements and improvised spears. Even with the contents of your gun room distributed to your makeshift force, barely half of your men are in possession of working firelocks, and few of them have more than half a dozen cartridges to shoot with. In truth, you wouldn't have been particularly happy to lead so poorly armed a party to hunt fowl, let alone a pack of violent brigands.
If you are to face the roadsmen on anywhere near equal terms, then you shall have to secure additional firearms and enough powder and shot to allow your men to practise with them until they become proficient in their use.
There are additional guns and ammunition to be had within your fief, of course. It is not so rare for the residents of a country barony to keep a musket or a fowling piece for hunting, or a pistol for disquietous times like these. But you cannot simply walk into their cottages and take them; they are the private possessions of your tenants, and for all that they live within your power, you would be well outside your rights to rob them.
Instead, you must acquire the needed arms by less forceful means. You make the announcement that you're willing to pay good coin to any tenant willing to sell their firearm and ammunition to you.
It works, after a fashion. Within a day, your tenants begin bringing their firelocks to your house. With Saundersley at your side, you look over each submitted piece and negotiate what you believe to be a fair price. By the end of the week, you've acquired nearly two dozen muskets, fowling pieces, pistols, and carbines, along with over two hundred cartridges and enough powder and shot to make up two hundred more.
Unfortunately, very few of your newly purchased arms are in any state to be used. Some are the victims of years, if not decades of neglect, their barrels rust-pitted, their flint-screws missing, their springs and hinges sometimes entirely rusted shut. Most will require long hours of hard work to get them in any shape fit to be fired, and a few have to simply be discarded as beyond help.
Yet even so, after a week of scrubbing, polishing, filing, and hammering, you have enough firelocks available at last to fully equip your entire Houseguard. At least when it comes to equipment, your men will be equal to your enemies.
Now, you can only do your best to ensure that they will be equal in discipline and mettle, as well.
---
Then, one morning, you awake to fresh and terrible news.
No longer content to simply prey upon travellers coming in and out of your fief, the roadsmen have blocked all three roads out entirely. Barricades of stout logs cut off two of the roads, a third is less a blockade and more a fortified camp, with walls of timber, an abatis of branches, and even the sight of cookfires and tends beyond.
It you were under a figurative state of siege before, you're under a literal one now.
Your tenants are far from pleased, of course, but they almost seem to take their newly worsened situation in stride. Long months of living under a declared state of emergency seem to have worked to prepare them for the shock of seeing the roads blocked off by armed men, both mentally and physickally. Your tenants have been readying themselves for this eventuality for the whole of the summer. Now that it has arrived, business almost goes on as usual.
But you can only wonder whether it is all not so much a matter of mental fortitude as it is one of denial. These people have known peace all their lives; to imagine the possibility of a violent death so imminent must be as foreign to them as the bottom of the sea. Perhaps that makes it easier to pretend that the danger simply doesn't exist—a façade of normalcy over the roiling mass of fear.
You, on the other hand, find yourself in incomprehensibly high spirits. Instead of weighing upon your mind, the ongoing crisis has sharpened it. The constant threat of armed foes in the forest less than an hour's ride from your bed has filled you with a nervous energy. The burden of being responsible for the lives and deaths of those who have entrusted their lives and fortunes to your care brings you back to a state of familiar, almost natural focus.
Why, it is almost as if you were once again at war.
1a) Danger has become my natural habitat; what can I do but embrace it?
1b) This is part of who I am. I may not like it, but I'll not deny it either.
1c) No, this is wrong. I am not that man anymore.
---
Had the roadsmen contented themselves to merely preying upon the occasional traveller, then their depredations might have been endured, at least for the season. But by cutting off your fief from the outside world entirely, they have placed you and your tenants in an untenable situation. With the harvest only a few weeks away, you'll need to clear the roads so that your tenants may take their produce to market. Otherwise, the people of your fief will have little means to earn the money with which to pay you their rents, or purchase the tools, seed, and other necessities they'll need for the next year.
In short, if the roadsmen are not driven out of your barony, your fief may face a complete economic collapse. It has become a clear-cut question of you or them.
Your options are all profoundly imperfect ones.
First of all, there's the choice of simply staying put and awaiting aid from the Intendancy, an unlikely prospect, given that you have neither appraised them of your situation nor given them any warning whatsoever regarding your circumstances. For all that you know, the Royal Intendancy office in Fernandiscourt may not even be aware that your fief is dealing with roadsmen at all.
Alternatively, you have more direct options. You have made some effort in keeping your martial skills in fettle these past two years. Now might be a chance to use them.
Now that the roadsmen have shown themselves in the open, you could confront them directly with your Houseguard. They've come a long way since you first embodied them. Though they're far below the standard of any professional soldiers worthy of the name, they're at least well-armed enough and perhaps even well-trained enough to drive off your foes. Whether they would be able to do so without taking heavy, bloody losses is another question entirely.
Lastly, there is perhaps the riskiest option of all. You could approach the roadsmen and ask to negotiate.
There's no doubt that some of your tenants would see it as an act of surrender, and any talks resulting as the mere discussion regarding terms thereof. However, it is also the only way you might extricate you and your fief out of your current situation without either dependency on some outside source of aid or some great effusion of blood. Of course, you have little idea as to how the brigands themselves might react. They might be quite willing to discuss matters, or they might simply shoot you down as you approach. After all, you've done nothing to demonstrate good faith or a desire to negotiate over the past few months. They might just as easily see your sudden change of heart as a delaying tactic, or even a trap.
No course of action is without its risks, none of your potential choices are without disadvantages. Yet with so much at stake, all you can do is pick the one least likely to fail.
2a) I must wait for assistance, it is the best option I have.
2b) Deploy the Houseguard! Let us finish this with fire and steel!
2c) I must negotiate before it's too late.
[Please give one vote for set 1 and one vote for set 2. These will be counted individually - you know, just in case you need to agonize over the second set of choices for a few hours or something.]
TIES OF INFINITY AM I RIGHT
AAAAA
Anyway option 1 wins the tie.]
I must purchase weapons and ammunition to properly equip my Houseguard.
If there is any egregious shortage facing your improvised militia, it is that of proper weaponry and the ammunition with which to load it. Few of your recruits have brought real weapons. Most are still armed with farm implements and improvised spears. Even with the contents of your gun room distributed to your makeshift force, barely half of your men are in possession of working firelocks, and few of them have more than half a dozen cartridges to shoot with. In truth, you wouldn't have been particularly happy to lead so poorly armed a party to hunt fowl, let alone a pack of violent brigands.
If you are to face the roadsmen on anywhere near equal terms, then you shall have to secure additional firearms and enough powder and shot to allow your men to practise with them until they become proficient in their use.
There are additional guns and ammunition to be had within your fief, of course. It is not so rare for the residents of a country barony to keep a musket or a fowling piece for hunting, or a pistol for disquietous times like these. But you cannot simply walk into their cottages and take them; they are the private possessions of your tenants, and for all that they live within your power, you would be well outside your rights to rob them.
Instead, you must acquire the needed arms by less forceful means. You make the announcement that you're willing to pay good coin to any tenant willing to sell their firearm and ammunition to you.
It works, after a fashion. Within a day, your tenants begin bringing their firelocks to your house. With Saundersley at your side, you look over each submitted piece and negotiate what you believe to be a fair price. By the end of the week, you've acquired nearly two dozen muskets, fowling pieces, pistols, and carbines, along with over two hundred cartridges and enough powder and shot to make up two hundred more.
Unfortunately, very few of your newly purchased arms are in any state to be used. Some are the victims of years, if not decades of neglect, their barrels rust-pitted, their flint-screws missing, their springs and hinges sometimes entirely rusted shut. Most will require long hours of hard work to get them in any shape fit to be fired, and a few have to simply be discarded as beyond help.
Yet even so, after a week of scrubbing, polishing, filing, and hammering, you have enough firelocks available at last to fully equip your entire Houseguard. At least when it comes to equipment, your men will be equal to your enemies.
Now, you can only do your best to ensure that they will be equal in discipline and mettle, as well.
---
Then, one morning, you awake to fresh and terrible news.
No longer content to simply prey upon travellers coming in and out of your fief, the roadsmen have blocked all three roads out entirely. Barricades of stout logs cut off two of the roads, a third is less a blockade and more a fortified camp, with walls of timber, an abatis of branches, and even the sight of cookfires and tends beyond.
It you were under a figurative state of siege before, you're under a literal one now.
Your tenants are far from pleased, of course, but they almost seem to take their newly worsened situation in stride. Long months of living under a declared state of emergency seem to have worked to prepare them for the shock of seeing the roads blocked off by armed men, both mentally and physickally. Your tenants have been readying themselves for this eventuality for the whole of the summer. Now that it has arrived, business almost goes on as usual.
But you can only wonder whether it is all not so much a matter of mental fortitude as it is one of denial. These people have known peace all their lives; to imagine the possibility of a violent death so imminent must be as foreign to them as the bottom of the sea. Perhaps that makes it easier to pretend that the danger simply doesn't exist—a façade of normalcy over the roiling mass of fear.
You, on the other hand, find yourself in incomprehensibly high spirits. Instead of weighing upon your mind, the ongoing crisis has sharpened it. The constant threat of armed foes in the forest less than an hour's ride from your bed has filled you with a nervous energy. The burden of being responsible for the lives and deaths of those who have entrusted their lives and fortunes to your care brings you back to a state of familiar, almost natural focus.
Why, it is almost as if you were once again at war.
1a) Danger has become my natural habitat; what can I do but embrace it?
1b) This is part of who I am. I may not like it, but I'll not deny it either.
1c) No, this is wrong. I am not that man anymore.
---
Had the roadsmen contented themselves to merely preying upon the occasional traveller, then their depredations might have been endured, at least for the season. But by cutting off your fief from the outside world entirely, they have placed you and your tenants in an untenable situation. With the harvest only a few weeks away, you'll need to clear the roads so that your tenants may take their produce to market. Otherwise, the people of your fief will have little means to earn the money with which to pay you their rents, or purchase the tools, seed, and other necessities they'll need for the next year.
In short, if the roadsmen are not driven out of your barony, your fief may face a complete economic collapse. It has become a clear-cut question of you or them.
Your options are all profoundly imperfect ones.
First of all, there's the choice of simply staying put and awaiting aid from the Intendancy, an unlikely prospect, given that you have neither appraised them of your situation nor given them any warning whatsoever regarding your circumstances. For all that you know, the Royal Intendancy office in Fernandiscourt may not even be aware that your fief is dealing with roadsmen at all.
Alternatively, you have more direct options. You have made some effort in keeping your martial skills in fettle these past two years. Now might be a chance to use them.
Now that the roadsmen have shown themselves in the open, you could confront them directly with your Houseguard. They've come a long way since you first embodied them. Though they're far below the standard of any professional soldiers worthy of the name, they're at least well-armed enough and perhaps even well-trained enough to drive off your foes. Whether they would be able to do so without taking heavy, bloody losses is another question entirely.
Lastly, there is perhaps the riskiest option of all. You could approach the roadsmen and ask to negotiate.
There's no doubt that some of your tenants would see it as an act of surrender, and any talks resulting as the mere discussion regarding terms thereof. However, it is also the only way you might extricate you and your fief out of your current situation without either dependency on some outside source of aid or some great effusion of blood. Of course, you have little idea as to how the brigands themselves might react. They might be quite willing to discuss matters, or they might simply shoot you down as you approach. After all, you've done nothing to demonstrate good faith or a desire to negotiate over the past few months. They might just as easily see your sudden change of heart as a delaying tactic, or even a trap.
No course of action is without its risks, none of your potential choices are without disadvantages. Yet with so much at stake, all you can do is pick the one least likely to fail.
2a) I must wait for assistance, it is the best option I have.
2b) Deploy the Houseguard! Let us finish this with fire and steel!
2c) I must negotiate before it's too late.
[Please give one vote for set 1 and one vote for set 2. These will be counted individually - you know, just in case you need to agonize over the second set of choices for a few hours or something.]
As of the Summer of the 615 of the Old Imperial Era:
Sir Alaric d'al Ortiga, Baron Ezinbrooke
Captain, Royal Dragoons (half-pay)
Age: 27
Current Funds: 51 Crown
Debts: 10660 Crown
Bi-Annual Income (Personal): 135 Crown
Bi-Annual Estate Revenues: 266 Crown
Bi-Annual Estate Expenses: 350 Crown
Bi-Annual Interest Payments: 107 Crown
Total Net Income (Next Six Months): -56 Crown
Soldiering: 70%
Charisma: 41%
Intellect: 9%
Reputation: 37%
Health: 62%
Idealism: 60% ; Cynicism: 40%
Ruthlessness: 42% ; Mercy: 58%
You are a Knight of the Red, having the right to wear Bane-hardened armour and wield a Bane-runed sword.
Sir Alaric d'al Ortiga, Baron Ezinbrooke
Captain, Royal Dragoons (half-pay)
Age: 27
Current Funds: 51 Crown
Debts: 10660 Crown
Bi-Annual Income (Personal): 135 Crown
Bi-Annual Estate Revenues: 266 Crown
Bi-Annual Estate Expenses: 350 Crown
Bi-Annual Interest Payments: 107 Crown
Total Net Income (Next Six Months): -56 Crown
Soldiering: 70%
Charisma: 41%
Intellect: 9%
Reputation: 37%
Health: 62%
Idealism: 60% ; Cynicism: 40%
Ruthlessness: 42% ; Mercy: 58%
You are a Knight of the Red, having the right to wear Bane-hardened armour and wield a Bane-runed sword.
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)
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)
Ezinbrooke, a barony within the Duchy of Cunaris, possessed of 133 rent-paying households.
Respectability: 29%
Prosperity: 43%
Contentment: 34%
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 but of excellent condition, having recently been repaired and refurbished. Fields bound the village on all sides, and all available land is under cultivation.
Bi-Annual Estate Revenues
Rents: 266 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: -84 Crown
Respectability: 29%
Prosperity: 43%
Contentment: 34%
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 but of excellent condition, having recently been repaired and refurbished. Fields bound the village on all sides, and all available land is under cultivation.
Bi-Annual Estate Revenues
Rents: 266 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: -84 Crown