>>24747103
Let's not take the direct approach. I think coming up on a beach would be a smarter idea down the coast. Once we get on dry land we can have our little entourage ask around where things are within the city. And by entourage I mean Mari and Leson, of course. Lark might scare people off.

>>24747245

Is Leson with you? I'd kind of assumed you'd just leave him with Clarbel/Greatoak/Whatever Village.

>>24747389
I assumed he came with us since we didn't explicitly discuss dropping him off at Clarbel or wherever, and Mari went through a lot of trouble to bring him. Also, Olberek might wonder why we just ditched the freaky-ass mortal in Lent/Lannis Village after going through so much trouble to get him out.

On the other hand I don't want that little fucker with us. Looking after one mortal will be enough of a problem.

>>24747389
Well if we had the option the yes, we left Leson behind. The less babysitting the better. I just thought Mari wouldn't leave without him.

>>24747424
Which is to say, if we had the option of leaving him safely with Greatbel/Claroak without Mari getting mad, then fuck yes we did that.

>>24747432
>>24747424
>>24747439

Yeah, Mari wants Leson someplace safe and comfortable. A warzone is even worse than Deepwell in that regard.

>>24747245

I guess we're cool with this approach, though?

>>24747594
yeah, supporting the "land on a beach or shore outside the city" thing. We can unnoticed Lark and ourselves if someone comes to investigate.

>>24747439
Biggest issue seemed to be whether Clarbel wants him, but they dont seem to be worried about curses at all.

Also, on phone ane only partially participating tonight, so Im relying on you guys to do most of the work.

>>24747625
Likewise supporting this.

>>24747625
>>24747674

You land on a secluded beach a few miles up, near the road leading towards the city (though it'll be a few hours hike getting there). What exactly do you plan on having Mari look for in town (besides a picturesque rhino statue that glares menacingly at anyone who gets too close)?

>>24747765
How about where the leadership of the city is holed up, and perhaps the merchant quarter. I imagine she brought some of the gold she plundered off the survivors of Golroute, and we might be able to buy some useful supplies in a proper city. An inn on the outskirts of town might be a good idea too.

More than anything check to see if it looks like Golgoth has any influence here.

>>24747833

Mari sets off for the port of Arn. It's close to nightfall when she returns to your camp on the beach. What she's discovered is:

-Quantum Girdin has collapsed into regular Girdin again. He's waiting in the town square, still as a statue. Mari didn't approach because she was worried about looking suspicious when he doesn't threaten her. She didn't want to draw attention to herself. If Girdin noticed her in the crowd, he didn't say anything.
-There are Golgothan merchants in the port, so they're clearly not at war with Golgoth. There is some kind of war ongoing on the mainland, though. No sign of Golgothan military presence in the town.
-A mysterious creature matching Ivan's appearance was spotted in town a while ago, but stories that are not clearly fabricated are all several weeks ago. Looks like he's left the area.
-There's a temple to the Red Queen in the city, but the temple to a sea god named Koril is much bigger and seems to be the dominant religion. Mari thinks it's probably backed by a daemon. You can confirm that Koril is a daemon peer in the Red Queen's posse. Mari was kind of hoping this one might be on our side.

>now what?

>>24748217
Well that's both good and bad, I suppose. Let's tell Mari to camp outside town with Lark and chat him up or something. Also taking her aside and telling her not to reveal she knows Fleshshaping to Lark, ever. It wasn't ideal that Olberek found out, but having an ally is something important.

We'll head into the city during the night, make a stop by Girdin and confirm we're camped outside the city if he wants to move out. We'd also like to hear what he's heard if anything about this Koril fellow.

Lastly, let's infiltrate the temple of the sea god using our Shade.

>>24748312

You head into the city. A merchant just pulling in from frigid Arkas wipes his brow against the summer heat, and begins heading towards the shade of Girdin, grumbling about how hot things get outside the mountains. Girdin lets out a low, stony growl as he approaches. The merchant freezes, places his hands up defensively, and then slowly backs away. Girdin returns to his usual "deep in thought" pose. When you arrive and tell him where the camp is, he immediately nods his head and begins trundling out of the city. The townspeople clear out of the way, some shouting in alarm, but Girdin's pace is slow and ponderous (as usual when he isn't charging something), leaving them plenty of time to get out of the way. Being nighttime, things are near deserted anyway.

Koril's temple is built in the local style, which means there's no Blood Guards standing watch to murder everyone who's not supposed to be here. The temple *does* have some guards, but they're just the same hired muscle everyone else pays to chase off thieves. The temple itself has a statue of Koril's fishman visage, the black marble doing a decent job of capturing his unblinking, glossy eyes. The webbed hands and feet don't look quite right, though.

Nothing particularly special about the temple, however. It's deserted except for a single priest and the guards right now, what with it being the dead of night and all. You can see ashes from burnt offerings in a number of bronze sacrificial bowls before the statue.

>wat do?

>>24748312
Might not be possible to keep the secret if we also want to make use of it. If we're keeping him aeound for long, we may have to let him in on it.

>>24748764
My idea was that we would reveal it as a "development" in her powers before too terribly long. It wouldn't be far fetched, and we wouldn't be lying.

>>24748735
Well, we can investigate this fellow later. Let's keep slinking around the town and find the proper local government to do some espionage and see how everything is organized using our Shade and ourselves.

Also keep a mental map of the city in mind so we can orient ourselves in the future.

>>24748779
Thats still lying but okay. In either case, should our focus not be the acquisition of a ship? What else are you hoping to accomplish?

>>24749016
I think that this Peer who runs trade throughout the archipelago here might be a good target for us in the long run regarding Margell. Not only does he present a tempting target for a power boost, but he is in the Red Queen's pocket.

It MIGHT be possible to convince some of the daemons under him that overthrowing him would be a good idea, and make them operate autonomously to their pleasure. All the while possibly buying us favors. It's just an abstract thought rather than a definitive plan, but I pondered over the idea.

>>24749071
This does however bank on some of his underlings being dissatisfied with how he manages their affairs though, and some other assumptions. Just something to consider while we're here.

>>24749098
If we can find these underlings they'll be unhappy for sure. But how powerful is this guy, how powerful are his underlings, and are either of them in the area or even this world?

>>24749187

You know from past experience that Koril is a powerful daemon peer. His underlings are presumably a number of common and hedge daemons. As for where he is, you have no idea. He's probably still in this world since the Red Queen and Razag aren't finished with it yet, but you don't know about details.

>>24748988

Oh, yes, this. I had forgotten about this. Sorry.

---

Slinking around the city at night isn't really a super efficient way to get basic political information, but eventually you're able to glean that the city, and its fellow port Vin to the south, are run by merchant lords, extremely wealthy men who've been granted a sort of honorary nobility. They represent the cities and pay taxes to the crown as though the city as a whole were a noble, and in exchange the merchant lords collectively run the city as though they owned the land. These islands are apparently packed with almost nothing but yeomen, which is apparently really weird and serfdom is way more common on the mainland. The councils select their own members and typically select people who are very wealthy, both because they're a rich man's club and because including everyone powerful in the club by default means you don't have to worry about a hostile takeover.

Also there are apparently three different people claiming to be the king of Margell right now, since the death of the last king. And apparently Margell wasn't even a united land before then. Or it was three hundred years ago, but then the original king died and his sons went to pieces over the land and it's been warring states ever since. Well, calling these feudal fuckups "states" is kind of a reach. You get the point. Brief period of unity has dissolved back into chaos.

>wat do?

>>24749512
Hm, well that's solid information at least. Let's follow the other anon's idea now and snoop about to the port looking for potential vessels we may be able to procure.

>>24749630

Ever since Westercoast burned, Arn has been doing trade primarily between Vin and Shorefall City, and with Dorrik cut out of that trade loop the number of ships has gone down a bit. Fortunately there's still plenty of long range vessels, several of them heading towards Margell proper already. Getting yourself on board them won't be hard, it's only a two-day trip or so and you could just hide in a shadow the whole time. Boring, but effective. Mari and Lark will draw a bit more attention, though.

>>24749926
Let's head back to the others for the night and discuss what we've learned, gather some opinions from Lark and Girdin.

Maybe we should also bring up the tentative idea of winning over Koril's underlings as a way of garnering a bit of power before we head to the mainland Margell and being able to call in some favors. I'm sure Girdin might have some sagely advice after thinking about it for some time.

>>24750222

Girdin soaks up the information and begins pondering.

Lark's response is more immediate. "So they've set up a few temples. Big-name daemons usually get worshipers all over the place, they've probably got one like this in every port from here to Golgoth. Religions can spread farther than a daemon's actual reach. They can make a pretty good beachhead, in fact, gives you a bunch of mortal minions in your enemy's territory. Anyway, Koril probably isn't even here, and nothing else interesting is either. I say we focus on figuring out what's up with these kings. Which of them are fighting Golgoth? Are any of them on Golgoth's side? Why? Since when? Any of them show a strong affection for the religions of Razag or the Red Queen? Are we looking at puppet kings for Dominion, in other words, or are these guys just a bunch of dumb mortals who don't have the faintest clue what's really going on? Anyway, probably the only thing we'll get out of this rock is a boat to someplace better."

"Not so fast," Girdin says, "Koril may be here...He may not...Let's think it through before we leave...Else we may have to come back."

"Every second we spend thinking is a second that Dominion is advancing their agenda on the mainland and we aren't," Lark says, "I say we get to where the action is and we get there fast."

>wat do?

>>24750575
"You do have a fair argument Lark, for that I thank you. I've found an appreciation for taking time to gather proper intel on our enemies before charging blindly into potential enemy territory though, and I think letting Girdin have his fair say is important."

"In the meantime, I've located a fair number of vessels suitable for transport to the mainland. I'm sure we'll be able to procure one for our trip in a timely manner when the time comes. I would like to spend the next day spying on the business affairs of the island, and backing up the intel we already have."

"If you have any ideas of how you might be able to assist, you're welcome to try. Feel free to enlist Mari's help if you need a less conspicuous touch."

We'll wait till morning and head back to the city with or without Mari in tow depending on if Lark can drum up any ideas of his own, heading to where it seems the Trade Guild is set up and getting the scoop on the actual daytime affairs. Our shade can double our perception.

>>24750731
I agree that the businesses here may prove interesting. Disrupting the flow of trqde here could have great consequences elsewhere and the economies that fuel a war crawhing could knock out an opponent entirely.

>>24750731

The merchants conduct trade during the day. There's not a ton more to it than that, really. They import a lot of finished goods, export a lot of food and ore, and some of them run what is essentially a protection racket, skimming money off of every trade in exchange for a guarantee that your warehouse won't be plundered in the night (by the service providers own goons). The bazaar hustles and bustles, trade houses are filled with a constant and deafening racket as people haggle, swear at each other, make an agreement, and are suddenly the best of friends again.

You do pick up on rumors of something going down in Vin City. Imperial ships have been pulling in, those owned by the actual Emperor of Golgoth (not that he's there personally, but they're not merchant ships who happen to be from the region; they're actual Golgothan government ships). Rumors abound about the presence of something called the Caelum in the area.

>wat do?

>>24751336
Caelum doesn't sound very good, let's try and catch some more rumors about who or what this is, and see if there's any ships bound for Vin that would be easy to hitch a ride on within the next day or two.

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>>24751402

Well, you can tell they're special somehow, but unfortunately it seems like all the locals already know what the Caelum are and thus none of them are stopping to explain it to one another. So eavesdropping probably isn't going to answer that question. You might try going corporeal, pretending to be a mortal kid, and asking around until someone tells you.

As for Vin, it's part of the Arn-Vin-Shorefall trifecta that now sustains the trade in this area, so you can get there as easily as you can the mainland. Also, Vin is the southern island. In fact, let's go ahead and upload a new and improved map.

Map Key

1: Estercoast Village
2: Elmwood Village
3: Greatoak Village
4: Deepwell Village
5: Guille Fortress
6: Summerbridge Village
7: Golroute Village
8: Norfin Village
9: Clarbel Village
10: Deeprock Village
11: Westercoast City
12: Arn City
13: Vin City
14: Shorefall City

As for the rest, you don't really know.

>wat do?

>>24751336
Food and ore exports could still be interesting if theres a city somewhere depending on it.
>>24751402

Sounds like something that could be related to Sky, but that's just wild speculation. Learning more is good.

>>24751566
Then we'll do exactly that. Go corporeal and try asking around for who the Caelum are, using coercive delusions like "telling this girl everything you know about the Caelum will improve your fortunes in the future".

By the time we're done with that check what time it is and we'll decide on if we want to head back to the others.

>>24751663

You go corporeal someplace secluded and begin asking around town what the Caelum are. Every question ends with "telling me will bring you fortune." And soon you have more information than you know what to do with.

The Caelum are a few elect Golgothans. Or maybe they're actually angels called down from the heavens. Either way they've got a Hell of a height requirement, each one is at least six and a half feet tall and many of them close to seven. Some say they have wings. There's been many who say they've seen them in person and they don't have wings. The consensus is either that they can hide their wings somehow, or that some are winged and some are not. Either way, the Caelum report directly to Emperor Kalen (some say their name is derived from his). And then someone says that Emperor Kalen's actually been dead a long time, and it's just the new emperor keeps using the old name to keep the myth alive. And then there's a big, long, and uninteresting argument about the "Westerling Sorcerer."

Anyways, the Caelum appear on the surface to just be prime physical specimens but not overtly magical. There are stories of the Caelum being sorcerers or invulnerable or gods in disguise, but it's impossible to verify any of them.

>wat do?

>>24752037
Well that was certainly informative. Lets try the same tactic and ask if anyone knew where Ivan waw headed, even if we have to be a little risky at port. Then after that we head to camp and share the wealth of info we've found.

>>24752217

Well, what you discover is that there's been no sighting of anything bizarre besides Girdin. What has been sighted, however, are four Blood Guards coming from Westercoast in the immediate aftermath of its destruction (although on one knew it had been destroyed at the time). They stopped in, bought some supplies for their ship (and did so while using as few words as possible, which was absolutely infuriating), and then immediately left in the direction of the mainland.

Also, something that was supposed to be an hour from now is suddenly twenty minutes from now. I need to go take care of that, will be back later.

I still wuggest we look into just where goods are being imported from and exported to. The Margell campaign is likely to involve us picking one of these kings as our own and if these kings rely on trade with this region, stopping or redirecting the flow of trade could be a way to ensure dominance for our favorite. And without having to crawl through more damn trenches ourselves.

>>24753002
That's a good idea, but don't forget unifying the warring kingdoms by making Golgoth seem like the much bigger threat is also on the table.

Before we get to that though, I suggest we retreat to camp and relay the new information regarding the Caelum to Girdin and see what he's put together in his thinking trance.

>>24753067
I think theyre already being invaded by Golgoth. If theyre still fighting it probably wont end until someone wins.

Also do mind that you dont rely too much on Girdin or he may just lose what respect he has for us. Trickery is OUR specialty after all.

>>24753250
Oh well I dont plan to use him as a be-all-end-all by any means, but always doing stuff without considering his thoughts might seem rude to him. Just giving him a shot at coming up with a plan worth contemplating.

Also I already knew Golgoth is invading Margell proper, its just the definitive edge on driving them out may lie in unifying the kingdoms.

>>24753383
It would be great if we could avoid trashing the room completely this time, but I do doubt there will be a way to make these three stop fighting for thw trash throne. Unification will likely mean putting one of them on that throne. The trick then will be doing it with as little damage to the place as possible.

>>24753569
That's probably the most efficient way of doing things, so yeah that should be the long term goal if the situation is what we think when we make it to the mainland.

>>24753610
Plus, for a while we did dream of a unified Dorriki nation to stand up to Golgoth before getting tired of them. Perhaps this time we'll actuallt stick to it and fight our enemies in their own game.

>>24753875
Fuck I suck at typing on a phone. Should also get some sleep, so try to not burn the entire region meanwhile, anon.

>>24753919
I'll make sure we get a leash for Lark before he SETS THINGS FIRE.

If we're looking into unifying the kingdoms then we'll need to work out who is candidate for king, and what their main dispute is. If it's just "I get to be king." "No me." "No, me!" then it's simply a case of two candidates rapidly becoming less alive. There's probably more to it than that, however, focusing on political differences. In which case we should actually try to hear them out, and work out which one best matches our sentiments and dislikes Golgoth.

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So uh, TM we still going tonight or what?

>>24757070

Well, that took much longer than expected. Posting to bump so hopefully we can have this thread still tomorrow. I will be late, though.

>>24758207
Aww and here I was hoping to have plenty to read when I woke up. Well, at least I should be able to be more active tonight so anon wont be too lonely.
>>24754067
If the original conflict was three sons quarrelling, by this time it should be more like three families with plenty of heirs, possibly also infighting.

sage because nobody is here anyway

Impolite bump.

Last bump for OP since he said he'd be continuing with this thread. I would assume within the next hour or two counting as a "late start".

>>24766536

I have returned! I apologize, a friend needed help with something and it took much longer than either of us expected. It turned out pretty okay, though.

Girdin shares his thoughts with you. He's considered a lot of possibilities and isn't really sure about anything, so the process takes like half an hour, rather than him being able to deliver a single definitive conclusion. It doesn't help that he talks so slow. He's had a couple of neat-sounding ideas, though. Could you persuade these merchants to take advantage of the war to strike out on their own and avoid those irritating taxes? What will Dominion do when some of their pawns turn on the others? Koril doesn't want merchants crushed, but Razag and the Red Queen and whatever daemon of Golgoth who's no doubt spawned in the wake of their conquests, all of them are most certainly not going to want to let the merchants just strike out on their own. Most of the villages on Dorrik were approaching the size where they could spawn a daemon of their own. Where were those guys? How do they feel now that half of them have been reduced to daemonlings by the destruction of their respective villages? Could they be convinced to jump ship to another Court with a promise of protection and reconstruction and being allowed to actually camp on their concept to guard it like civilized daemons?

Girdin also agrees that you all need to find out who these three kings are, what they're fighting over, and how they feel about Golgoth. Are they enemies? Allies? Neutral? If allies, an alliance of convenience that could be disrupted, or something deeper that would be harder to shake?

Girdin also wonders when mortal politics got to be as complicated as the daemon version. He liked these guys better when they lived in caves. Oh, well. Stone will endure.

>>24768031

The news about Caelum sends him back into ponder mode. Lark can tell you a bit about them, though. These new ones sound different from the kind he was familiar with 200 years ago, but they were the Red Queen's pet Fleshshaping project. She was big into precision Fleshshaping, making creatures the same but more rather than twisting them into horrific mockeries of their former selves. She hadn't been having much luck when last he heard, but these new ones sound a lot better. Maybe she finally got it right, or maybe she gave up and has daemons with Glamour follow them around everywhere making them look pretty.

>wat do?

>>24768086
woah, daemons can switch courts? That sounds like something we could be especially good at promoting, if we so wished. Girdin's idea of pushing the merchant cities into rebelling is also viable, though just who are they even loyal to in the first place? Was this ever mentioned? We need to know.

Ultimately, the strategy that can rally the greatest numbers, daemon or mortal, must be the best, and further knowledge of the mainland is required before we can actually choose the best approach.

>>24768719

Yes. Courts aren't metaphysical, they're just political affiliations. As a general rule if you're a daemon of a river, then daemons of a lake and an ocean will have priorities in common with you (i.e. more water is good, less water is bad), so you all band together into the Court of Water. But there's nothing saying that every river daemon MUST be in the Court of Water.

>>24768719
We should also mention that we did in fact run into blood guards in Summerbridge who were unnaturally large for humans. The blood guards in that village also seemed to have turned against their more regular Golgothan kin and was slowly picking them off one by one, torturing them to death. They may or may not have been these Caelum, but it seems this experimentation isn't too uncommon. And that it also may result in a few critical bolts being unscrewed.

>>24768813
That's certainly interesting. Would have to consider just who we'd even try to convert them to. I mean, Fortune is probably not a very easy sell and our friends in Nature are pretty much anti-civilization. To our knowledge this isn't a war like Sun vs Sky and our allies basically consist of other people who are quite annoyed with Dominion, not entire courts.

>>24768813
Well let's see. Thank Girdin for his insight and Lark for the information, then think about our priorities. I believe our aim should be to unify the island of Arn and turn them against Golgoth. If possible, we'll try to convert enemy daemons either to our court or an allied court (an allied court is likely to be more appealing, given Fortune's no-fucks-given attitude in general). If not, we'll quicken them and drive them out. We'll try establish some trade with what's left of Dorrik as well. Dorrik is a shithole of a nation we have an interest in keeping Leson alive and it might be best to reinforce Dorrik's position in case Golgoth wants to make a return trip.

First on the agenda is finding out the three kings, and any political affiliation. Stance on taxes and war, in particular. Use our shade for recon in wealthy-looking places and see if we can put Mari and ourself with delusions to work on earning ourselves some mortal money. While as daemons we wouldn't typically need it, having some currency to offer if we ever get down to negotiations with the merchants and kings would go a long way to appealing to their base desires.

>>24768998
Our only known allies are Olberek, who we can probably write off as unlikely to be interested in allowing Dominion daemons into his court, and Thin Jack who was vaguely mentioned as a Spirit of Night who seems to love fucking with mortals for the fun of it. Even if he's amicable to Dominion, it's likely any daemon from Dominion would rather seal or quicken him than work with him.

>>24769087
Arn may not be large enough to even be worth the effort. We'll need to know the scale of this conflict to make an evaluation on that point. Independence may also not be the best course to point them in, that depends on the political landscape in the rest of Margell. We still only have so little of the picture, and trying to gather any information of the geographic, economic, and political layout of the entire region should be our first goal, since Arn at least lacks an immediate threat to us. If we can't get the info here, we should move on to where we can get it.

On the point of Dorrik: Dorrik as it is has minimal usefulness to us. Even if we can send some trade their way, the whole place is severely underpopulated, and what population there is consists mainly of savages who barely traded in the first place. They also are unlikely to be able to send any more fighting men even if we did secure some sort of loyalty to whatever our pet project here will be. In the very long term, it could become relevant again, but right now it's just a hole. This city alone probably outnumbers Dorrik.

>>24769087

Arn is already united. They're an island vassal of...Some king or another. One of the three kings in Margell. You still aren't sure which.

>>24768998

Since you're in an area which the powers-that-be generally consider already lost to Dominion, the alliances of Sun and Sky are mostly staying out and preparing for the next confrontation somewhere else entirely. But they still might be willing to accept defecting daemons from Dominion, because Sun and Sky are at war with Dominion. Though sometimes it's more of a cold war.

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>>24769314
Also, what happened to Deeprock? Did we do anything to it?

>>24769324
I confused Arn with Margell. We want to unify the kings of Margell against Golgoth.

>>24769328
Also I appreciate you including the map key on the image this time.

>>24769324
Aww, that means all these Nature daemons have just been left to die by Sun. Poor things.

If Arn is already a vassal of one of these kings, then it seems likely the other two merchant cities be vassals of these kings as well. Possibly the same, possibly others but maintaining trade anyway because profit fuck yeah.

>>24769379
That's better. And pretty much our established final objective.

>>24769426
Would have made this image the moment OP updated the map, but I was away from home and lacked access to mspaint.

>>24769328

Deeprock got hit in the face by a starving army of Fleshshaped zombies.

>>24769589
Oh. That seems like the kind of thing that could go on to hit other villages as well, possibly rampaging through the entirety of Dorrik.

Oh well.

>>24769628
If they were starving when they made it to Deeprock then they might not make it much further. Not really our problem at the moment though.

For now, we should do some reconnaissance and locate the city's merchant lords. Find our where they are and how many, what sort of things they trade in, and who they pay taxes to. From there we can decide how useful staying on Arn is and if we want to play Spice & Wolf or not.

>>24769628

Well, we call them "zombies" because they lurch around and are all misshapen, but they're actually just horribly deformed people deprived of sentience who can only eat meat and are now desperately hungry. So while the massive size of the horde is worth noting, not to mention their acidic and diseased blood, they're still just a giant pack of starving animals that can't possibly hope to find enough food in this ecosystem to sustain themselves and have no method of reproduction.

>>24769750

A bit more investigation turns up some information on the current status of Margell in general. There are three kings. In the north, Arn, Vin, and Shorefall City all answer to the king of the coasts, whose stretch extends along the western coast as well. To the south, the mountain passes are ruled by the mountain king. The eastern coast and densely populated southeastern plains are ruled by the third king.

That third king was by far the most powerful of the three and looked as though he might reunite Margell eventually. When Golgoth attacked, however, they attacked him first, enlisting the aid of the other two. They eagerly gobble up as much land while they can, but everyone knows that Golgoth won't be happy with overthrowing just one of the kings. The only question is whether they'll turn on their current allies immediately after the fall of their common enemy, or wait and consolidate first.

>>24770085
Well that just seems shortsighted, even if these kings ARE fuckups. Can we acquire any information on what towns and cities are on the mainland, or at least the capitals?

>>24770320

Okay, let's fill in the blanks on our map here.

Shorefall City is the capital of the northern kingdom of Kestis. The 15 on the western coast there is Kestis City, on Kestis Coast, for which the kingdom of Kestis is named. And yet Shorefall is the capital.

16 and 17 are Sholta City and Whisper City, respectively. Sholta's a city on the edge of the forest that still answers to the old king. As in, the one who's been dead for like fifty years. They're effectively independent, though Kestis Kingdom is always trying to woo them over. Whisper City no one's heard from in decades but it used to be part of the plains kingdom of Ommos.

The 19 is Ommos City, which is the actual capital of Ommos. 18 is a city in the foothills also answering to Ommos, called Vigoth.

20 is also a mountain city, and partially underground, called Untos, and 21 is the fortress city of Menteraki. Untos is the capital of Gigan Kingdom, Menteraki answers to them. Menteraki is also the only pass through the mountain range that leads to the peninsula, barring the extremely poorly maintained roads along the coast.

>>24770644
Let's nose around Arn City a bit more, look for any businesses that are doing well, and ones that could use a little more fortune.

>>24770644
Whisper City sounds particularly interesting. Once we hit the mainland, we should definitely send our shade straight there.

For now, the only thing left to do here aside from getting a ship already is to search for and investigate the leading merchant "nobles" so we can try to find out how likely they'd be to turn on Kestis and what it'd take.

We also haven't seen any signs of a resident daemon, despite the size of this city. I suppose it's possible there simply isn't one and this place really is outside the influence of our enemies, even if their "religion" has spread.

>>24770906

Well, there's almost always someone who's down on their luck. A merchant who relied on trade with Dorrik and who lost half his fleet to Ivan's bonfire. A blacksmith who an existing guild lord has decided isn't allowed to succeed for fear of losing a monopoly. A man who loses his profits as fast as he finds them on poor investments.

>>24771125

The local merchant lords maintain monopolies on various industries. Blacksmiths under the thumb of one, shipwrights under the thumb of another, and the carpenters answering to a third, and one who runs plantations outside the city, a few others here and there. As far as whether they'd turn on Kestis...Well, officially, no, of course not. Finding out what's up off the record is going to depend how you ask.

>wat do?

>>24771530
> A merchant who relied on trade with Dorrik and who lost half his fleet to Ivan's bonfire.
>A blacksmith who an existing guild lord has decided isn't allowed to succeed for fear of losing a monopoly.
>A man who loses his profits as fast as he finds them on poor investments.

We can try offering help to one of these three in exchange for favours as we need 'em. The blacksmith would be best; the Dorrik trader isn't something we can do much about, the investor is obviously a risky, uh, investment. We'd have an easier time manipulating the guild into backing down, and it may well draw the attention of their patron daemon.

>>24771729
Oh, to expand on "favours as we need 'em" the main purpose would be to earn ourselves some economic clout to use when dealing with Margell's kings. Being able to offer good trade connections or a stockpile of supplies would go a long way in cutting deals.

>>24771729
>>24771752

So. What are you actually going to do?